a very important part of it. and that clearly wasn't on the agenda here. and it does give you the sense that this was sort of a box checking exercise in many ways for ot president. it was a serendipitous timing because it clearly was planned before everything that's happened. and you know, yesterday was kind of an or ji of self-pity and rage on twitter from are the white house. so it changed the subject. it put him in a much better position and coming with all the turmoil and defense in the defense department, it's a valuable thing. but peculiar in many other ways. >> general hertling, so we have the optics there, the concerning comments, political with the troops. let's get to the bigger picture. the president made a substantive decision last week to pull u.s. troops out of syria, which set the troops on the ground spinning a bit. we heard that from reporters traveling with commanders who