Veterans Day Speech on the Need for Good Leadership

By | November 11, 2016

[November 11, 2016]  Speeches sometimes have good information in them, sometimes the speaker is actually good, and sometimes both come together for remarkable experience.  I don’t personally believe that I’ve reached that pinnacle but nothing will stop me from trying.  For Veterans Day my speech at an upstate New York college is presented here in full.

The speech is about the need for good leadership and its connection to the military and the nation’s citizens.  Nothing could be more important to a military professional.  The speech is designed to last about 10 minutes so reading should take less time.  It’s given as an Army-centric speech, but the words are for all of us … any military service, veteran or not.  If you can spare a few minutes, please read it in its entirety.

Happy Veterans Day!

Today, I want to say a few words about LEADERSHIP and the connection of the SOLDIER, SAILOR, AIRMAN, MARINE, and COASTGUARD to our CITIZENS. 

Soldiers in our history have been asked to fight our enemies, typified in close violent battle – where fear and the fog of war are elements we try to eliminate but, of course, never will.   Today’s Soldiers are being asked to do more … more than fight and win in classic fights on the battlefield and in the streets.   The Army is enduring and changing.   We recognize now, that the actions of a single Platoon Leader can have strategic consequences.  That means, not only can the actions of an individual Soldier determine the outcome of a battle but could feasibly determine the stability of a government.  Under those conditions, I offer to you, that “Leadership” has been and will remain the key to our successes. 

So … what fundamentally defines Leadership in you, the Soldier of the future?   What we think and what we do is the core to understanding of Leadership.  Yet what you think, what you believe in, is no real different than any citizen.  And what are some of these?   I cannot list them all, but I will propose three for your consideration.

FIRST, hard work and passion, to get things done, doing our duty.  Not blind faith or robotic non-thinking … but deliberate, thoughtful, educated performance.  I submit to your critical thinking ladies and gentlemen, that a person trained in right and wrong, given the right tools, supervision and support, that anyone here can do the same.  Soldiers have the supervision and support provided by trained and battle-tested leaders who are clearly delineated in what we call the “chain of command.”  Hard work and passion defines the most effective leader among us.  And “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” – Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch  

SECOND, honesty, being truthful, having the integrity to not only do the right thing, but to admit mistakes when we are wrong, and take action to fix it.   We do have the skills and openness to overcome problems like suicides in the U.S. Army …  And after 11 years of war there are those who say the U.S. Army is tired & worn-out.  Some of us old Soldiers are a bit worn, but truthfully, the United States Army is the best, most powerful force it has ever been in its history and so remains.  Honesty is contagious, and so is the lack of honesty.  Honesty is at the core of a Soldier’s Leadership, at the core of our Army.

THIRD, courage, having both the moral and physical courage to stand up for what is right & moral, for what brings us together, for God & Country, for the weak & the innocent, for those unable to protect themselves from tyrants and from the tyranny of the immoral.  Moral courage, ladies and gentlemen, is most difficult and will challenge you and put fear into your heart, in unimaginable & insidious ways.  And, of course we must possess the physical courage to stand against enemies of America both from external and internal threats to our peoples.  Focus on these things important, for courage is in short supply.  It is courage that bounds together the best of leaders to our society, to our Country, & to our faith.

So, what about the leadership in our military forces?

Why do we do the things we do?  Why do we do those things, the most difficult of things, like close with and destroy the enemy, in combat in a far away country or at home, to fight, to risk our lives in the most extreme environments, hot, dirty, little sleep, with 100 pounds of armor, weapons and ammunition, away from our families – all the while danger lurks?  Why do we do the things that need to be done?  Well, I’m going to answer that.

Soldiers, you’ve seen them in your travels …  typically wearing their utility uniforms or dressed up in what we call our Class As, … whatever may be the case, we are out and about in civil society.  How many of you in the process of your travels have ever seen a Soldier stopped and thanked just for their affiliation with our institutions?

This, ladies and gentlemen, speaks volumes.  Here we are, out and about, and here is a mother and father who carries the hand of their child and that child is fixated on that Soldier.  And at one point that child locks eyes with a Soldier, and the little he or she 4 or 5 year old and that child is simply mesmerized by the fact that a “Rock Star” is in front of him.   And you know it because as you walk by the child, he or she is doing the turnabout looking at the Soldier and following him with their eyes.  Have you ever seen that happen?   

I would contend ladies and gentlemen, that we have a fundamental, a philosophical, and a moral obligation to always acknowledge that we must live up to the perceptions of our society at large.  Why?  Because we have been afforded a great gift… and as much is given to us by our peoples; much is expected and much is required of us in return.

Isn’t it ironic that we do get thanked as we go about the breadth and depth while in the airports across the World, as all of us as we reach the rank of sergeant or lieutenant … that we quickly realize that we should be thanking our people, our society at large because we realize that as we have committed ourselves to this journey that we are in fact living our dream in the high calling of protecting our country.     

And we realize that when we get to this station in life, that we must also acknowledged, that we enter into another arrangement and that is to enter combat and to enter it, with passion, with honesty, and with courage.  And therein is what must fundamentally, at its core, must compel us to go out and do the bidding that we talk about all day … to prepare ourselves and our Soldiers who are about to be engaged at the “tip of the spear” and to prepare those who will take our place. 

Why would we not foster into our ranks the capacity, the individualism, the collectivism, to set the conditions, the conditions wherein if I were to die in battle or decide to retire tomorrow morning, the very next morning, someone will stand in my place and the Army will be just fine.   Because the wonderful thing is, so long as there is still value in the Soldier … no matter the capacity of the civilian leadership we are subordinate to or the position of the United States in world affairs …  we’re still going to have our profession of Soldiering and our Leadership.  And I think that’s really really cool. 

At its most fundamental, leaders in the military make things happen; often under the most volatile, complex and difficult of circumstances. And it’s really just that simple.  While we immerse ourselves in those things that we leaders do, we must think at all times how this will impact the men and women who work for us.  One of the things we emphasize is physical fitness because it makes us stronger on the battlefield.  And as we embrace this, we realize as a learning institution that being a good Soldier or Officer is physical but also mental, spiritual, and it does have a familial connotation to it.   For without the family and faith we are not strong, we are weak, we have a kink in our mental armor.  And that is what  helps make us …  “Army Strong”.

Contrary to what you hear in the news, the vast majority of us returning from combat are, simply put, better people than when we departed.  And to be the stalwart leader of so many of our young Soldiers who are 18, 19 and 20 years old, who have deployed not just 1 or 2 times, but 5 or 6 times to combat and it makes me proud.  And it is so important to be resolute, to set the example as leaders do.  To be deliberate in the manner we do the bidding of our peoples and our senior leaders today.  

I submit to you ladies and gentlemen that the United States Army is a finer institution than that which I dedicated myself over 30 years ago.  It has developed a wider breadth and depth especially in the last 11 years than I’ve ever been witness to.        

We sometimes fail to acknowledge that there is a historical precedent that will serve us and can serve us well to put things in perspective.  For we are not alone.  I find it comforting now that we have so very much in common with our Korean War and Vietnam Veterans … they have been wanting to help us since the decades that have elapsed between their wars and this one we are engaged in today.

Due to the operational tempo of our war, we have seen a reduction in the teaching and mentoring from our leaders. We must embrace this fundamental reality, that there is no private, no Soldier, no person that doesn’t need leadership.  … and being a leader and a Soldier keeps us busy just for that reason alone.     

But just because we are busy in combat is no reason to let our standards fall. We need to hold our men and women accountable to the standard.  And, what we have not done well, is to teach, coach, & mentor our youngest men and women in what is really the most important, so we can do those things that are necessary to be a darn good Soldier.

A few words about trust.  Do we trust men and women who lack the fundamental attribute called character?  I believe your answer, ladies and gentlemen, would be “no”.  But how many of you have ever worked for someone who was never satisfied with what you were, or what they were, but always excited you or instilled in you the desire to better yourself.  And that they are working to better themselves.  Aren’t these the folks we tend to gravitate to?  To those we will trust with our lives.  To those who have “character”.  

I come to find that the greatest reward that I have had in the course of my decades of military service in this noble institution, is being in the proximity of some of the greatest Soldiers and leaders that our nation have ever given us.  Those of character, those we trust … hard working, honest, courageous.  We are blessed with the good fortune to have them on our team.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Leadership is all about.  And that is the real story of our military men and women; currently serving across the globe.

Let me leave you with one thought…

Our Soldiers come in all sizes and shapes, and they’re different ages, and they’re different races and ethnic groups, and religious faiths, and you cannot help when you work with them, but come away feeling that that is really a special thing that our country has in them.

It is indeed an honor to be here and to meet so many new, young Officers.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. 

God Bless.

 

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Author: Douglas R. Satterfield

Hello. I provide one article every day. My writings are influenced by great thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Jung, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jean Piaget, Erich Neumann, and Jordan Peterson, whose insight and brilliance have gotten millions worldwide to think about improving ourselves. Thank you for reading my blog.

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