Your cell phones on silent. If you want to post anything on social media please tag politics prose and gw events. I am the partner manager at politics and prose and want to thank all of you for coming out on a vent we are out with George WashingtonUniversity Joint venture also to bring jim mattis in conversation tonight. First a few other Exciting Events coming up in partnership with gw september 11 we have an event with Malcolm Gladwell it is a live recording of a podcast on npr on september 12 and james comey on september 16 septembe september 24 we will discuss the year of the marquis. We hope to see you at some of them this month. Secretary jim mattis a Pacific Northwest nave it is serving for decades at the marine infantry officer following two years of secretary of defense he returned to the northwest and is now distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at stanford. Callsign chaos is the account of his career through wide ranging leadership roles in three worst ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the middle east. Along the way he recounts the foundational experiences as a leader exacting the lessons he has learned about the nature of war fighting and peacemaking and allies and the strategic dilemmas now facing our nation. He makes it clear why america must return to a strategic footing not just to continue to win battles but fight wars. Mattis divides his book into three parts of direct leadership executive leadership and strategic leadership in the first part he recalls his Early Experiences leading marines into battle when he knew his troops as brothers in the second part he knows what it means to commit thousands of troops to ensure the intent is understood by the most junior troops so they can form their own mission. In the third part he describes the challenges and techniques of leadership at the strategic level where millet terry leaders reconcile wars with the grim reality of the human aspirations the complexity rains and the consequences are severe or catastrophic. Callsign chaos is a memoir of a life of war fighting and Lifelong Learning as he rises from recruit to fourstar general a journey about learning to lead and a story how he threw constant study and action developed a unique leadership philosophy making him into the man he is today. General mattis will be in conversation tonight with david brooks political and cultural commentator and currently a commentator on cbs news hour and all Things Considered and meet the press the author of on paradise drive. March 2011 he came out with his third book social animal. Which was number one New York Times bestseller and the latest will not stop flying off the shelves published in april. Please help me to welcome to the to the stage. [applause]. The first time i have ever seen an author work the crowd before the event. [laughter] that the campaign has begun. [laughter] there are many surprises i loved reading your book. And there are many bet the first was that you are hitchhiking around the west at age 13. Give us the basic facts about your family but give us the emotional tone. What kind of house did you grow up in quebecs military quick. No. I was not brought up in a military family at all. We liked being outdoors we would go camping on weekends. My mother and father traveled the world as young people my father was a merchant marine for 15 years my mother was in the army g2 cryptoclerk in south africa working there at the consulate so the world was a place to be explored they didnt know i was hitchhiking. But it was a more trusting time you could be picked up by the crosscountry truck driver in the afternoon not knowing where you would stop that night or those coming off duty they would drive you to the next town it was a great education. You are not the most devoted student in high school or college but you are one of the hardest working people i have ever met but when did that kick in quick. I never thought of what i have done was work but just enjoyment of being around the people but i wanted to be outdoors and explore the world. But i dont think i was much of a student because it seemed to structure to me and everybody has a different way of learning. When you join the marines everybody has to read certain books. There is a reading list when you make corporal there is a new reading list and with sergeant guess what heres another progressive a matter of fact when generals make general there is a new reading list to go back to work. They werent interested in your midlife crisis when you dont have time to do the reading. They were adamant so little by little i didnt like a lot of the jobs in the marines but i loved being around the young infantrymen who would do the dirtiest jobs in the most dangerous i learned to hate minefields at age 21 but i loved being around Young Marines who would crawl there to bite their lip still in their teens probing for something they did not want to find because if they misted their buddy would get killed. The only way i stuck around that lowpaying outfit is i like those young see others in marines who made up the units. This book is almost a love letter to the marine corps when you are in with the troops especially infantry you can feel your happiness. Hanging around 7111 day and then it turns into something different. First of all we are all volunteers so i came in at a time i probably would not have joined. I cant say that for sure but i probably would not have if not for the draft. You had to go. That was all there was to it. You could duck out but you dont want to look like youre not a man. s white will some went off to canada so we thought we would never be allowed to come home for parents anniversary or our brothers wedding. So you signed up to go do your duty and while there thats where i found the marines value valued. I ran an Obstacle Course once and another platoon ran through the fastest i realized i was going to be this guy easily because physical things came easy didnt give it everything i needed and i still beat him and then you climb the rope and touch the top. The Gunnery Sergeant laid into me you were giving it 100 percent. I am fed up with you he accused me of being a communist sent to destroy the marine corps. [laughter] let me make it clear young man. When you give 100 percent i will be 100 percent satisfied 90 percent 100 percent dissatisfied when somebody that big is inyourface you get the idea so you start learning about the word commitment and apply it whether your family or community or wherever you go that stays with you. Its a formative experience. Theres one passage in here where commitment to excellence is uncompromised and personal things are irrelevant. When i read that sentence i thought the last 60 years of American Culture just crumbled because personal sensitivity isnt making you feel bad is a high priority. Thats a good point. On the battlefield there is no secondplace much last night. You have got to win so you are brought up with a very grim set of skills by people who have been there and done it and are not really interested on why it cannot happen simply you have to carry through but pretty soon what carries you along you know everybody beside you will also be there when trouble looms they will come even at the risk of their life. It is humbling but is energizing your now part of something bigger than yourself and that is what expands you. It does not shrink you it expands you to have that. Earlier in your career you are running recruitment in your own area it sounds like you are working 80 hour weeks and an officer didnt want to do that and you bus to him and ended his career. What about Work Life Balance quick. There isnt but everybody does everything they can so you dont dump more of the work on someone else. And in this case i made it clear to the young man you can be a marine or a quitter but you cant be both i will not care more about your career then you do so tell me what you want to be. 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 remember especially with the number of students who are here tonight you always want to help people but i wont waste my time and thats what i did 95 percent of my time in the marines i was a coach but i will not waste my time coaching someone who is not humble it is worthless just give it up. If they are not humble enough to recognize they need coaching if im not sure youre not then really you cant help them and any organization to become a leader you dont get to be a leader because you have a rank on your caller or a title on your Business Card your juniors determine if you are a leader and on the battlefield they will follow the 19 yearold if the 28 yearold doesnt know what they are doing. Just remember even jesus of nazareth had one out of 12 turned to crap on him. [laughter] i missed that part of the gospel. [laughter] did you have somebody who really coached you quick. I had to think about who are my mentors because now on the tour you look back the whole point of what worked for me not to follow blindly but to say does this make sense. When you are in the infantry you rise and fall on your nco with your sailors and marines hear the last officer in the chain of command to represent all the orders that have come down from those who are in our line of work to go into the killing zone. My first platoon sergeant was from the british indies and the caribbean. His name was Corporal Wayne Johnson he was only 21 years old and i was 21 at the same time. Of course with a name like Wayne Johnson everybody called him john wayne he was overseas for a long time he told me what not to do leave that alone let other people starting to handle it then i started to learn delegating and decisionmaking and responsibility. My second sergeant was also a corporal in the 1973 timeframe he was an immigrant from mexico in the same way, stern but yet who can get down to show a marine who was having trouble how to do something right i use to admire the way in a few sharp words could give someone to tension and turn them in the right direction, mostly spiritually and the physical and mental followed. Then a Staff Sergeant 15 years in the marine corps so i was also learning about the immigrant role in the us military and how they were overrepresented and it was broadening experience because somehow from my hometown 99 percent of the people were native born the military by its very nature will expand you in a way no other organization will in terms of diversity. Mentors come in all shapes and sizes and from all parts of the world. One thing that comes through the book is your affection for the marines i assume leading any size unit you have to be unpopular so you Close Friends with those around you or was there some distance between you and your command quick. I was taught that officers should come as close to the line that separates them and their troops as they can to be themselves without giving up 1 ounce of authority because there will come a time when the chips are down and you will have to point to someone and the enemy and tell them to go. And at that point everything in that young mans body will say dont get up. And you will need that authority. But you used a very critical word because it took me the word trust and respect if you dont have that as a leader that probably wont accomplish much. I knew the troops respected their leaders between 40 and 60 percent of those who tried to become officers but why were some units so good some 40 man platoons as good as 150 man infantry . It took me a long time to figure out the other word was affection in four months around it to start had 29 sailors and marines and informants all of them were killed or injured or wounded around me when you get around 50 percent in the sunni triangle is very tough fighting day in and day out. But what held them together wasnt affection for each other they would keep fighting the matter what happened affection is different the popularity. That brings favoritism thats why you see the military so anti anything to bring other impulses to inside combat assault units. Because to send them forward reading very old textbooks about one favoritism rotted a unit right out from underneath. So affection does not rest it is not about being popular making people get up and move when they dont want to telling them the first thing we have to do with a clean uniform is to jump in the mud puddle you want them to be reluctant to hit the deck youre not doing things that make you popular but that youve been honest with your troops and if they trust you they will stick with you for example deep inside city be watched boys taken half way through and the enemy is on the run and were told to pull out and then the Television Camera is put into someones face the reporter says this is terrible you must feel terrible you lost your buddies it is terrible now youre told to feel that he was a slow talking kid he just looked at the camera doesnt matter, go somewhere else and kill him. It shows the spirit of these young folks, young men and women who sign a blank check payable to all of you in this room who protect this experiment we call america but i would also tell you if we hadnt been honest, havent kept him informed, if he didnt trust us he could have said it is terrible. When morale goes down in a combat unit you know right away you will lose more people. It builds on the trust and respect that is not popularity. The study of men who graduated in college in 1940, what correlates with success . It wasnt socioeconomic status, it was relationship with mother and the men who knew how to give it to their men, we are a deep emotional reservoir. Was the first battle of falluja. In a war filled with a lot of unpleasant moments, we were given orders to take a town and as i remember you didnt like being told to take it, how do you march yourself personally through an operation you think is a mistake . Explaining a little background, the enemy was rising up the sunni uprising against us, a guy named zarqawi had plenty of help and we were outnumbered, in Southern California to come in, to take over the district from the second airborne division, in the battlefield, have to be upset about this sort of stuff, wandered into a town called falluja, they were burnt and their bodies hung up, people very angry in this town. If we knew we would get a hold of the tribal elements, the people who had done it and we get the bodies back. We want to do it with rage into homes, and tied into a city of 50,000 people but after a couple days of arguing about this you received the order, move the guns to falluja and stay in the fight. I knew my boss and the boss above him agreed with me, they fought the good fight with washington. Lets do it. I am going to do this as well is if i thought of the plan, you have to embrace it because you go into Something Like that halfway people are going to suffer. I only have two assault battalions, innocent people evacuated, we went in swinging, the qualification we put on it, dont start me. The enemy is in very effective information warfare. Utility rounds crashing into falluja. We never fired one artillery round in the first battle of falluja. The helicopter gunships gave us what we needed. If we were doing that on bbc, footage that they call trailers or something, with hand grenade range apart, ordered to pull back. Sometimes life doesnt go the way you want it to go. You give it 100 . They are busting through walls. How do you command . You laid out clearly what you want. The commanders intent is what it is called, at the least cost to the innocent as possible and i want to move quickly with the two assault battalions and bring in more as soon as possible. We knew they hadnt gotten ready, a value of doing it this way. Then you go around and talk to the assault units. You would literally pull them together in small groups and explain it. Then go back and forth and if you could draw out of them what would concern them you would have a unit ready to go and that is the leaders job. Once you made that clear, if you are welltrained, then you take the hands off the steering wheel, take it off and give the initiative, trust your young mcos, young officers keep social energy going, calling for the support, the young in seos doing their job, blow holes in the sides of buildings, so they dont have to go anyway that is boobytrapped. In the marines, command and control. On the front lines going to talk to wounded marines, how did it happen, get feedback from 100 different directions, take your hands off the wheel after you state what needs to be done. The men were huddled in these fields, and hear each others teeth chattering. Have you felt that fear on the course of your career in the battlefield. Absolutely. You feel it. There are things we can do to overcome it. We will slow some things down, nothing strange about fear, it is part of every fight. They are well enough trained, what drives you forward, you are going to be very tired, cant even explain to you some of you in here know what i am referring to. The fear is going to be there coupled with the fatigue that goes beyond words. There is going to be a sense at times of doom and acceleration going back and forth moment by moment and adrenaline is pumping pretty soon. You are pretty tired out. It doesnt work. What keeps you going really is that affection, that love for one another that i dont care what happens, i am not going to leave him uncovered so you are back on your knee as he goes forward and the muscle memory kicks in. That level of commitment when they come in, you going to fight with a lot of confidence. After the battle of falluja you were ordered back to the states or just your time in iraq came up . So you wrote a book. This was an intellectually revolutionary document, what was it like writing a book when the marines were fighting, it was part of the rotation but what was the process behind that . Revolutionized doctors. Guest it took advantage of Lessons Learned that this is the normal behavior of a learning organization. Of the organizations learning you bring your people back, and brigadier generals in two stars and next is three stars. We had to write something. The staff did it and we said okay, and the house of representatives. That works so well. We turned up the book very quickly and the most important thing in it to me was something called design. Go back to einstein when confronting how to save