[inaudible conversations] good evening everyone. So excited to see a full house i want to give a few housekeeping items we are more than happy to take photos from your seats but please turn off the flash and put all of the cell phones on silent that would be wonderful please post on social medias we can see your stuff and repost it possibly i and the Events Manager at politics and prose thank you for coming out on a friday night for tonights event tonight is a joint union and we are all pleased to be in conversation with david brooks i want to tell you of other Exciting Events so on seph with Malcolm Gladwell that is part of a live recording and on septembe september 12th we have Samantha Power with james comey and on september 24 for the year the year of the monkey we hope to see you this month secretary mattis is a native who has served more than four decades as marine infantry officer. Following two years as secretary of defense returned to the northwestan and is a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University the storied career from wide ranging leadership role to commanding a quarter of a million troops across the middle east along the way we count is foundationall experiences with the nation nature of war fighting the importance of allies and the strategic dilemma facing the nation. He makes it clear why america must return to a strategic foodie one footing but fighting wars he divides the book into three parts of direct leadership in executive leadership and strategic leadership record the first part is early experience when he knew his troops as well and in the second part he explores what it means to adapt leadership style to make sure the intent is understood by the junior troops so they can form their own mission and the third part to describe the challenges and techniques leadership at the strategic level with those human aspirations for complexity rains and callsign chaos is a memoir of Lifelong Learning and war fighting following along from Marine Recruit to fourstar general journey of learning to lead and a story of how he threw constant study and action develops unique leadership philosophy making them into the man he is today he will be in conversation tonight with davidso burke a commentator writing for the New York Times and currently a commentator on pbs news hour and meet the press. The author of the new upper class and on Paradise Drive in s rch 2011 coming out for his book that was the number one New York Times bestseller and the Second Mountain will not stop flying off the shelves since published in april. Please help me welcome to the stage secretary brooks in general mattis. [applause]. This is the first time ive ever seen an author work the crowd before the event so the campaign has begun. [laughter] there are many surprises but b the first was you were hitchhiking around the west at age 13. Give us the emotional tone was it military . I was not brought up in a military family at all my family would go camping on weekends my mother and father traveled the world my mother was in the army and went off to south africa working there in a consulate they didnt know i was hitchhiking at first and it was a more trusting time you could hitchhike around america be picked up by a Cross Country truck driver not knowing where you would stop that night or a night nurse coming off duty and it was a great education. You were not the most devoted student but perhaps one of the hardest working people i have ever met. I never thought of what i had done is a lot of work but just the enjoyment to be around the people that i wanted to explore the world and i love boats but i dont think i was much of a student because everyone has a different way of learning but everybody has to read certain books when they joined the marines. There is a reading list and then there is a whole other with sergeant here is another. When generals make generals they give you a new reading list. Go back to work they are interested in your midlife crisis they were very adamant so little by little frankly i didnt like a lot of the jobs that those that would do the dirtiest jobs and i learned to hate minefields by the age of 21 my love to be around Young Marines who would crawl into the mine fieldov probing and looking for something they didnt want to find because if they misted their buddy could be killed. And i stuck around that outfit for 45 years. I love to be around the young sailors andar marines who made at the infantry. This is almost a love letter to the marine corps. So it takes young men and women and then it turns them into something different. First of all they are all volunteers and for whatever damage is done to our country i came in a time i probably would not have joined the marines had it not been for the draft you had to go thats all there was to it you could duck out that at a young age you are not fully man so i went off to canada and that we would never be allowed to come home for our Parents University so you went off to do the patriotic duty and while there we found the marines valued excellence as i was running the Obstacle Course to see who could get through the fastest i would realize i would beat him easily so i did not give it everything i needed and you get to the end and climb the rope the sergeant lit into me and said you are not giving 100 percent i am fed up with you. He accused me of being a communist. [laughter] and said let me make it clear when yo give 100 percent i will be 100 percent satisfied. When somebody that big is inyourface you start learning about what the word commitment means so wherever you go that stays with you it is a very formative experience. So to say that is a compromisedie so now when i read thatd in most workplaces personal sensitivities it is a high priority. Its a good point but on the battlefield there is no trophy for second place much less nigh night. C were brought up with a grim set of skills by people who have been there and who have done it and not interested in reasons that it cannot happen but pretty soon you know everybody beside you will also be there when trouble looms so its now energizing your bigger than something of yourself and that is what expands you it does not shrink you. So then you are writing recruitment in your home area and you are working 80 hour weeks and an officer didnt want to do that and challenge you and you busted him and ended his career. What about a Work Life Balance quick. There is but everybody does everything they can you dont do more work on somebody else prickle i have made it clear that you can be a marine or a quitter but you cant be both. I will not care more about your career than you do if you want to be a marine i will coach you and be with you all the way through. He decided to test it. But you always want to help people but i wont even waste my time. Thats what i did 95 percent of the time i was a coach. Its worthless you might as well give it up. If they are not humble enough to recognize they need coaching if im not that humble then you are not a leader because a rank on your caller or a title on the Business Card they will vote if you are a leader in the battlefield at the 28 yearold captain doesnt know what hes doing. So just remember at times even jesus of nazareth. You have to maintain a firing squad. [laughter] i miss that part of the gospel. [laughter] rise or fall. And then the last officer in the chain of command you must represent all the orders that come down to those that are in our line of work. And the platoon sergeant for the british indies and the caribbean Corporal Johnson and only 21 years old. With a name like Wayne Johnson they call him john wayne. And what an officer doesnt do. And the also corporal and with the 1973 timeframe. And so he was stern so to get down there to show a marine was having trouble and in a few sharp words get some attention. And then with the Staff Sergeant 15 years in the marine corps he is from a quebec immigrant so i was learning about the immigrant role from the us military and it was broadening because somehow growing up in my hometown and then to be native born. Because the military and then those comments all shapes and sizes in all parts of the world. And the affection for the marines. So you have to be unpopular. Were you always closer with her always distance they come as close to the line that separates them from their troops as they can. And be themselves without giving up 1 ounce of their authority because there will come a time when the chips are down and everything will sell them dont get up and you will need that authority. And it took me 25 years to learn the word affection. If you dont have that as a leader but i knew that the troops respected their leaders that why were they as good as 150 men Infantry Company . So me as a two star with 29 sailors and marines in four months and those were killed or injured. And then al Anbar Province in the sunni triangle. Day in and day out. So wet held them together was the affection for each other that no matter what happened that we keep fighting and fighting. The affection is the opposite. That is why you will see the military so anti anything inside combat assault units so you can read in some old textbooks when favoritism brings them from right out underneath so the point is it does not rest on any sort of favoritism if you go around to make people get up and move if you tell people the first thing you have to do is jump into a mud puddle you dont want them to be reluctant to hit the deck or when they are shot at they also find if youve been honest with your troops and they will stick with you for example deep inside the city halfway through the enemy is on the run then we are told to pull out and in the Television Camera than the machine gunner stays and then to say this is terrible you must feel terrible. Now you are told to pull back you must feel terrible. Then to look at the camera and says it doesnt matter we would go somewhere else and kill them. It shows the spirit of the xiong folks who sign up and then to protect this experiment we call america. So if we had not been honest then to say yes its terrible then morale goes down you know right away you will lose more people. So on the grand study in 1940 and following them for life and that social economic status and those that received from their moms they knew how to give in command. And then filled with unpleasant moments and as i remember then you started so how do you take them to that type of operation we were in al anbar the enemy was rising up with that sunni uprising against us and had plenty of help it turns out we were outnumbered so we could even bring additional troops so after we took over the district from the 82nd Airborne Division they wander into the battlefield to be very upset about this sort of stuff into the town of falluja they got killed and burned in their bodies hung up and people were very angry. It was tribal town and then we found those who had done it and we got the bodies back and find the people who had do it done and then we would kill them. I didnt want to charge into a city of 350,000 people after a couple days of arguing i received the order you will go and say in the fight so i knew my boss and the boss above him agreed with me and they fought the good fight with washington and thats why its called orders. It is not called likes. You dont have to like it but you have to do it. [laughter] and say i will do it as well as if i thought about it and embrace it because if you go into Something Like that halfway then people will suffer so we had as many evacuated as we could and then we went in swinging i would just tell you the one qualification is okay im going but dont stop me deep inside the city the enemy has Information Warfare with that artillery rounds and then to fire the artillery but it was if we were doing that with other networks here in this town and footage and those that bring stuff into them. And then to be stopped deep inside the city and we were losing people and then we got orders to pull back. You just have to do the best you can because sometimes life doesnt go the way you wanted to go so you give it 100 percent. So if they bust through walls how do you command quick. First of all you have to make sure you lay out very clearly what you want. The commanders intent is what it is called so my aim is to destroy the terrorist foothold inside falluja with least cost innocent as possible and i will bring in more battalions as soon as possible but you must move fast enough. And then what you do you go around and talk to the units and then you fold them together and then ask questions and then go back and forth and then what is the concern to have a unit ready to go. And those assault units you can take your hands off the steering wheel. If you trust your young officers they keep those social energy going that young ncos are doing their jobs so they dont have to go in that way they know what theyre doing we dont call that command or control. The marines believe in command and feedback. We have done i use in the front lines listening on what happened from 100 Different Directions to take your hands off the wheel and do what needs to be done. And those that were so terrified you could hear each others teeth chattering. Have you felt that fear with the course of your career on the battlefield or somewhere else crack. Absolutely. You are trained to overcome it. There are things you could do to overcome it. But there is nothing strange about fear. It will be there as part of every fight. The first time i got shot at i couldnt taste for three days. It scared the hell out of me. [laughter] that you are well enough trained of what guides you forward is you will be very very tired. I cannot even explain to you how tired you get in combat. Some of you know what im referring to. Referring to. Anything anyone can get tired enough that it just does not work. What keeps you going is the affection and love for one another that i dont care what happens i will not leave him uncovered. And they are good at socializing people to that commitment when they come in. You go to fight with a lot of confidence. I was her tears and you went there and he wrote a book. What was it like, this was a revolutionary document, what was it like writing a book back home while the marines were fighting in iraq, is that part of the rotation and what was a process line because they did revolutionize doctrines. It took advantage of the lessons learned, but this is the normal behavior of a learning organization. If the organization is learning you bring your people back, dave and i were old friends and we serve together as colonels and now as to stars and next to three stars he was at Fort Leavenworth and i was at quantico. We had to write something and we said okay lets map out the chapters, our staff did it and we said okay the army is going to take these chapters in marines these chapters and we meet just like the senate at the house of representatives. [laughter] that works so well. [laughter] we could give them a lesson. We turned out the book very quickly and the most important thing was something called design, go back to einstein when confronting how to save the earth, how would he compose his thinking and he said i would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and save the world in five minutes. So the murphree Hunter Marines got to define the problem, the champagne design chapter, as you go into these issues whether incorporations or School Districts in your local communities, wherever you are at, take the time to define the problem for level of satisfaction. Do not go charging into a war and then pull a statue down in the capital and say what we do now. Thats not a good idea. We put the book out and we think we learned a lot while we were there, and we put it out and change the training, doctrine, weapons, uniforms and mostly the cultural aspects of the Services Going in and once we got enough people we were able to turn it around. One of my favorite sections was when you were told youre going to invade iraq. In my favorite passage of the book is when you say if you havent read hundreds of books are functionally illiterate. Thats good for politics and prose. [laughter] but you found time to read at every smal spot and every day or career. The marine corps expected it. They dont mind if you make mistakes, i made a lot of mistakes, i got chewed out, they do not look out for your ego when they go after you. But they also promoted me every time i made a mistake and i think the marine corps made it clear that they expected me too study but they did not expect me not to make mistakes. And for all of you because you all be leaders of something if you want to be, that is your choice, thats opportunity you will have in theirs leaders at all ranks in society and the jobs and families, make sure you know the difference between a mistake and the lack of discipline. In the naval service, the marines we used to say if you run the ship you will get hammered, youre going down and if youre senior youre probably gonna go out, if youre young you get a second chance. But a mistake, human beings make mistakes, i have made a lot of mistakes. Let me tell you my mistakes, in the middle of the open desert i commend 1250 sailors, marines and air a arab were going to a minefield in the middle of an open desert i get surrounded. That is almost impossible. I was at the top of my game but the wrong game. [laughter] and as i went into this, you know when you guys are shooting this way and for shooting that way, you are not really okay. Later on the marines got mad about mess too. And i said you are just checking asked us if we still had it, but no i got messed up. I got called over because we had to break through that night because the iraqi army was retreating in front of us. They said you have to get there and have to stop them. It was getting late and it was going to be difficult. He called us together and when we got done and w we were going back and getting