Host good evening, everyone. Im so excited to see such a full house here. And i know our authors are as well. Before i start we are more than happy to have youve taking photos from your seats but just turn the flash off so you dont blind our speakers. And if you will put all of your cellphones on silent that would be wonderful. And if you want to post anything on social media, we would love for you to tag, politicsprose and gwuevents and possibly repost it. So, my name is brittany and i am the partnered Events Manager at politics and prose and i want to thank you for cooking out coming out on a friday night. Tonight is a joint event with George Washington university and we are all so pleased to bring you jim mattis in conversation with david brooks tonight. Before we get to tonights program, i just want to tell you of a few other Exciting Events we have coming in in partnership with gw. On september 11th we have an event with Malcolm Gladwell with his book, talking with straineer, part of a live recording of sam sanders podcast on npr. On september 12th we have Samantha Power as well as Josh Campbell with james comey on september 16th. And on september 24th, patty smith will be at listener for her memoir, the year to the monkey. Ticks for those event are on sale now so i hope to see you at them this month. Now on to the event you are here for. Secretary jim mattis is a Pacific Northwest native who served more than four decades as marine infantry officer. Following two years as the secretary of defense he returned to the northwest now and a distinguish el the low at the Hoover Institution at stanford university. Call sign choose is the account of his career from leadership roles in three wars to ultimately commanding a quarter million troops in the middle east. Along the way he recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, exacting the lessons he has orlando but the nature of learned but the nature of war fighting and the importance of allies and to strategic del him mas facing our nation. Makes is clear why america bust return to a strategic footing so not just continue to win battles busts fighting wars. Mattis divide is has book into three parts, direct leadership, executive leadership, and strategic leadership. In the first part he recalls his Early Experiences leading marines into battle. When he enough his troops was ale with his own brothers. In the second part he explores what it means to command thousands of troops and how to adapt your leadership style to ensure your intent is understood by your most junior troops so that they can form their own mission. In the third part, mattis describes the challenges some techniques of leadership at the strategic level, where military leaders reconcile wars grim realities with political leaders human aspirations, where complex is reigns and the consequence of imprudence are severe, even catastrophic. Call sign choose is a moment hero of a life of warfighting and lifelong learning. Following along as he rises from Marine Recruit to four star general. A journey but learning to lead and a story how he, through con study and action, developed a unique leadership philosophy that made him into the man he is today. General mattis be in conversation with david brooks. Political and cultural commentator who writes for the New York Times and also currently a commentator on pbs news hour, nprs all Things Considered and nbcs meet the press. He the author of bo bos in paradise, the new upper schloss how the got there and on paradise drive, hoe we live now and always have in future tense in march 2011 he came out with his third become, the social animal, the hidden sources of love, market and achievement, and his latest, the second mountain, will not stop flying off the shelves at politics and prose since it was published in april. Help me back to the stage, david brooks and secretary jim mattis. [applause] this is first time ive seen an author work the crowd before the event. So obviously the campaign has begun. No. [laughter] there are many surprises. I loved reading the book. Had a chance to write a column and many surprises. The first surprise was you were hiphike arent the west at age 13. Uhhuh. Now, you give us the basic facts about your family but what kind of house did you grow up . Military, prepare you for marine corps or no. I was not brought up in a military family at all. We liked being outdoors. My family would go camping on weekend. My mother and father traveled the world as young people mitchell father in the merchant ma preen for 15 years, my hour marine for 15 years and my mother in the army g2 crypto clerk and went to south africa and worked in the consulate. The world was a place to be explored. They didnt know i was hitchhike at first and then the figured it out. It was more trust time. You could hitchhike around america and be picked nip crosscountry truck driver in the afternoon, not knowing where you would stop that night, or by the night nurse coming off duty at early in the morning who would pick you up and drive you to the next town it and was a great education. Now, you were not the most devoted student, or in high school or in the either in high school or what passed for college but you are perhaps one of hardest working people i have ever me. When did that kick to . I never thought of what ive done as a lot of work. Just enjoyment of being around the people, but it was the sort of thing where i wanted to be outdoors, wanted to explore the world and i loved books, but i dont think i was much of a student because it seemed too structured to me and everyone has different way of learning but one this when you join the marines everybody has to read certain books when they join the marines. Theres a reading list, and then when you make corporal theirs another whole new reading list and when you make sergeant, they say heres another reading list. Matter of fact when generals make general, yep, they get handed a new reading lives go back to work. And they werent really interested in your midlife crisis when you said i didnt have time do the reading. They were very adamant about it. And little by little i think frankly i didnt like a lot of the jobs in the marines but i loved being around young infantrymen who would do the dirtiest jobs, most dangerous jobs, for example i leonard hate mine fields at age 21. But i loved being around Young Marines who would crawl into minefields, biting their lip, still in their teens, probing and looking for something they didnt want to find, knowing if they missed it, their buddy could get killed, and the only around stuck around that lowpaying outfit for 40 odd years was i just loved being around young sailors and marines who made up thereunto and infantry. This book is almost a love letter to the marine corps and when youre in with the troops and especially infantry, you feel that your happiness in the prose and when youre off in brussel and nato, little less. The marine corp takes takes young men and women who are hanging around the 7eleven one day at high school or college, and doing other stuff, young men andwomen women do and turns into the something different. How does that happen . I income theyre all volunteers and for whatever damage that is down our country, i came in at a time when i probably wouldnt have joined the marines. I cant say that for sure but i doubt i would have joined the marines had it not been for the draft. You had to go. Thats all there was too it. You could try to duck out of it but you had your even at a young age you dont want to look like youre not boy or man. Some went off to canada. Itself was 1969, the vietnam war was going on. But we thought wed never bev allowed to come home for our brothers wed organize parents anniversary. Didnt think they would be brought home as heros a few years later, which they were. So you signed up and went off to do your duty and while there, thats when i found that the marines really valued excellence. It remember once i ran in the Obstacle Course and against another platoon, running through, seeing if question get through fastest and i realized would beat this guy easily. Physical things came easy to me so i didnt gift it everything i needed to. Still beat him and you get to the end, climb the rope and touch the top and drown down and feeling so proud, and this Gunnery Sergeant lit intomer and said you werent giving it 100 . He said im fed up with you. He accused me of actually being a communist, sent in to destroy the marine corps, and he went all over me, said let me make it clear thank youor, young man help said when you give 100 , ill be 100 satisfied you give 99 , ill be 100 dissatisfied and when someone that big is noor face you get the idea. So you start giving start learning what the word commitment means and apply it from then on whether it be to your new hampshirely, community, whenever you go, that stay is with you, formative experience. One passage where you say the commitment to excellence is uncompromised and permanent sensitivity are irrelevant. Wees. When theres a mistake. When i read that sentence i thought, the last 60 years of American Culture just crump belled crumbled because in most workplaces and rules personal exception different is not making people field bad. Is the marine corps its own place. Its a good point. The fact is that on the battlefield, there is no trophy for second place, much less ninth place so you have got win, brought up behave grim set of skills from people who have doesnt it and theyre not interested in reasons why it knock happen. You simply have to carry through. Pretty soon what carries you along is you know everybody beside you is also going to be there. When thank trouble looms theyl, even at their risk of their ownrich, hit humbling and energizing. Youre part of something bigger than yourself and expand you. It does not shrink you to be part of an organization. It expands you to have that sense. Now, early in your career you were running recruitment in your home area, and in the Pacific Northwest. Sound likely in were working 80 hour weeks or some long amount and there was a officer didnt want to do that. Who challenged you and said maybe at a family or something, and you busted him and ended his career. What but Work Life Balance . Well, there is a worklife balance but it has to be is everybody is doing everything they can so you dont dump more of the work on someone else. And in this case, i just made it clear to the young man that you could be a marine or be a quitter but you couldnt be both. So im not going care more about about your career than you care. Tell me which you want to be. Want to be a marine ill coach you, ill be with you all the way through and he decided to test and it the thing to remember is, social e especially with the number of young seeing how many students here today. We have the count back here. David and i before we walked out. And you always want to help people, but i wont even waste my time as a coach, and thats really what i did about 95 of my team any marines. Was a coach. But i will not waste my time coaching somebody who is not humble. Its worthless. You might as well just give it up. And so if theyre not humble enough to recognize they need coaching, if youre not, if im not that humble, then really you cant help them, and in any organization, as you become a leader, you dont get to be a leader because you have a rank on your collar or you have a title on your business card. Your juniors make you a leader, determine if youre a leader. Theyll vote whether or not youre a leader. On the battle field theyed there follow an 19yearold pfc is the 28 year captain doesnt know what hes doing. Just remember, too, that at times even jesus of nazareth had one out of 12 go to carp on him. And you have to maintain a firing squad. You have to. [laughter] i missed that part of the gospel. Lets go to the coaching. Dwight eisenhower has fox conor, his mentor, who formed him. Did you have something that was my coach, the guy who made me who i am. Ive had to think but the coaching, who are my mentors because on this tour now you look back on things, the whole point was to pass on lessons that i had learned, what worked for me, for you to consider. Not follow blindly but just say does this make sense to you . And my when youre in the infantry, your fortunes rise or fall on your nc os, youre living with 40 sailors and marines in the mud, you have no Better Living conditions, youre the last officer in the chain of command so you must represent all the orders that come down to those who are in our line of work going into the intimate killing zone, the close quarters battle, and my first platoon sergeant was an immigrant from the british indies in the caribbean, his name was is corporal wayne johnson, senior enlist its guy and only 21 years spoiled was 21 years old at the same time. And of course with a name like wayne johnson, everybody called him john wayne, absolutely, and then he had been overseas nor a long time, taught me not just what i did but he told me what not to do, what after officer doesnt do. Leave that alone, let other people handle certain things and im starting to learn right then but delegating Decision Making and responsibility. My second platoon sergeant, also a colonel, was manual riff remarks this its 1973 time frame. You werent er most of you in the audience. And he was an immigrant from mexico. And he was the same way. Stern, and yet he was a guy who could get down there and show a marine who was having trouble how to do something right. And i used to just admire the way he could in a few sharp words get someones attention and then just turn the person in the right direction, mostly spiritually, the physical, the mental followed. And then my third platoon sergeant, agot a Staff Sergeant with 15 years in the marine corporations, from quebec, immigrant, again, and learn budget in immigrant role in the u. S. Military and just how they were overrepresented it and was a broadening experience because somehow growing up in my home town, 99 people i was with were native born. Why die bring it up . Because the military by the very nature will expand you in a way that no other organization will. In sense of diversity. The mentors come in all shapes and sizes, and they come from all parts of the world. Now, when youre leading, one thing that comes through in the book is your affection for the marines. You had i assume times when youre leading any size unit, you have to be unpopular. Were you close friend with the people right around you or always some distance between you and those under your command . I used to encourage i was taught this and used to encourage that officers should come as close to the line that separates them from their troops as they can. And be themselves. But without giving up one ounce of their authority because there is going to come a time when the chips are down and youre going to have to point to someone and point toward the enemy and tell them to go. And at that point everything in that young mans body is going to tell him, dont get up, dont move against him. You know what can happen. And youre going to need that authority. But you use a very, very critical word because it took me 25 years to come to the word affection. You need trust and respect. Tryst u trust is a copy of the realm. Identify have that as lead are you arent going to accomplish much of anything. I knew that the troops respected their leaders. Marine corps screens out nerve from 40 to 60 of the already screened people who try to become officers. But why were some units so good . Why were some 40man platoons as good as 150 man infantry company, when they closed with the enemy . The 0 other word was affection. For example, in four months around me as a twostar i had 29 sailors and marines and in four months, 17 of the 29 were killed or injured around me and when casualties get around 50 , thats ha place called el Anbar Province and the sunni triangle. Very tough fighting, day in day out. But what held them together was an affection for each other that no matter what happened, they would keep fighting. They would keep fighting and fighting and fighting. And the affection is the opt in its own way of popularitiment popularity brings favoritism. One reason why you see the military so antianything that would bring other impulses inside combat assault units because when youre pointing at someone and sending them forward, you can read in some vary old textbooks about when favoritism rotted a unit right out from underneath, a king here, solomon, and others. So, the point is that affection is the sort of thing that does not rest on any sort of favoritism. Not about being popular. When youre going around making people get up and move, when they dont want to when you telling people that the first thing you have to do when they have clean uniform on is jump into a mud puddle because you dont want them to be reluctant to hit the deck in the mud. Youre not doing things that make you popular but you find if you lean been honest with your troops, if they trust you, theyll stick with you. For example, deep inside a city that we have lost boys taken halfway through it and we know we have the enemy on the run, and were halted and then told to pull out. And a Television Camera gets shoved in a young man light machine gunners face, blonde haired, filthy dirty marine who has his machine gun over his shoulder, and the reporter saying this is terrible. You mist feel terrible, its terrible you lost your buddies, its terrible. Now youre being told to pull back. Must feel terrible. And he is a slowtalking kid and looks over at the camera and said doesnt matter. Well hunt them down somewhere else and kill them. Now, it is shows the spirit of these young folks who sign up, young men and women who sign up, this blank check, patible the all of you in this room, to vote protect this experiment we call america and if we hadnt been honest with that young man all along, hadnt kennedy kept him firefighter. He could have said, its terrible and when morale goes down in a combat unit you know youre going to lose more people. Its affection i think that build is on the trust and respect but its not popularity. There was a thing called the grand study which tiedded men who granddaughter waited from college in 1940 and followed them through life. They got draftedded in world war ii, some rose to become colonels and marms, some stayed privates and they want to know what correlates with success in warfare it and wasnt iq or soor economic status,