This is about an hour. Admiral, great to see you again. We are two days after veterans day and that was the occasion for this event. Publicre plenty of issues right now that i want to ask you about, but i want to defer that for a moment and talk about service itself. With how yourt came by service. You came by it naturally, you grew up in a family of service. Tell me about your dad, who was an interesting person. Thank you forn the invitation to join you today, this is terrific. I enjoy spending time with you and your students. I came by it naturally, my ii fireas a world war pilot and fighter flew spitfires, a british plane. We entered the war, we did not have planes so the british loaned us spitfires. My grandfather also served in world war i and in world war ii, he was an army surgeon. My dad, later in life as i was getting ready to join the service, he said i remember what got me in the service. When i was a young boy, i saw the soldiers heading off to france in world war i, board the trains in his small town. He said there was such a sense of pride and duty and patriotism that it was infectious. In addition to obviously watching his father, that really spurred him to join the military and i grew up as an air force brat and loved my time in the military families, and just seeing the remarkable dedication of not only military members but their families. Bratw does an air force end up in the navy seals . Adm. Mcraven good question. I have thought about filing flying and my dad was a Fighter Pilot and was nudging me in that direction. I think itly enough, was close to my senior year in high school, my sister was Army Green Beret and this was after the army with john wayne had come out. I had a fascination with green berets. This young army captain came to pick her up for a date and she was, as usual, kind of late, so i was entertaining the young captain and he said what are you getting ready to do . I said i think of going to join the navy, i have a scholarship. He said, you better become a navy seal. In 1973, ive never heard of the navy seals, nobody had heard of the navy seals at that time. Blueyou have an army green green beret telling me to be a navy seal. 37 years in the seals. You can explain the bullfrog title. Became moreations and more significant. Literally wrote the book on that. Why has special operations become such an important part of defense . Look overen when you the history, the modernday history of special operations, we had a heyday in world war ii, you saw these remarkable operations by all of the services, including u. S. Forces, the oss, predecessor to the cia, and we had navy frogman in world war ii and special operations. Ater world war ii, it waned little bit, picked up a little bit in korea, but the vietnam and the navy seals came about and they were born from the underwater demolition teams and they earned a reputation fighting the insurgency in vietnam. Toer vietnam, and this tends happen after wars, the reliance or expectations we will need special operations declines, which it did. Atn we had the disaster desert one, the company did an assessment, do we need special operations . Of course we did, we need to professionalize them. Congress put in place the professional Operations Command and we began to institutionalize or professionalize special operations. Came along, we1 were a barn on the finest special Operations Force in the world. The question becomes, why do you need them . Im always quick to point out, special operations have unique niche. They are not going to be able to keep the strait of hormuz open, theyre not going to be able to stop the chinese from invading we have to continue to make sure we are promoting the right people. You see the air force now. Question asked this about the first africanamerican chief of staff of the air force, i tell people very quickly, if you think he was chosen because he was africanamerican, you dont know him. He was chosen because he was the best person for the job. He happens to be africanamerican and he will be a great role model for the kids in the air force, army, navy and marine corps. But he was chosen because he is the best person for the job and we need to continue that march forward. Mr. Axelrod you do have this disparate, at the rankandfile level, large minority representation. Relates to a it i alwaysint, which is felt like service during world war ii created a kind of commonality among americans of different backgrounds. I am sure you found that you served with people of different backgrounds and it broadened you. This aspect of service and the value of service, how do we recapture that . Because we live in such a polarized time between rural and urban in different communities in our country. How do we through Service Attack that . Point, youn to your see the young men and women coming into the service and you make it a white kid from the south and a black kid from chicago, and once they find themselves in the same squad, in the same company, the same platoon, all of a sudden those differences begin to fall away and they realize they have a lot more in common than they do apart, and the differences dont matter when they are focused on a or objective. Thats the great thing about the service, that has always been a great thing about the service. You are right, what we tend to find it today is the demographics of the Service Continue to be more in the south than the north. They seem to be more middleclass than upperclass. But i think this serves us well when you find these young kids that come in. They serve their time of the military and a lot of them get out and become great citizens of the United States. You see many of them today serving in congress. Weve got to continue to encourage men and women to join the service. I would like to see a National Service program whereby it is not just about the service in the military, but how do we create Something Like a National Service academy where men and women must like much like the naval economy and west point, they are selected by congressmen, they come to a Service Academy for four years and they join a Service Corps and have a career in this. The difference is the focus is domestically. Were going to teach people to be civil engineers, to be teachers, we are going to teach them skills that help the country and we assign them places like in flint, michigan, can they improve the Water Quality . I think National Service is important but until that happens, we need to encourage young men and women to join. I think that will absolutely help the polarization you see today. At least that is my hope. Mr. Axelrod another question that came my way that i felt was really good, what is the one thing that admiral mcraven wishes his younger self would have known before going into this field . Adm. Mcraven yeah, i think the answer is, everything is going to be ok. I know that sounds simple, but when you are a young incident ensign and trying to do the best job you can and challenges get in your way, all of a sudden they become the most important thing in your life and you are worried about them constantly, when in fact they may not be that critical. You just do the best job you can. When i look back on 37 years and i think about the times i sweated things, i think that is , you have to take your obligation seriously, but i wish i would have been a little more relaxed and realized you work hard, you work through things, your friends and colleagues will help you through tough times, and you will be all right. Mr. Axelrod when you think back on those 37 years, i am sure you were inspired by people who served under you, people who lead you. Is there one person you think back on and say this person embodied what i think is best about service . Adm. Mcraven i had an awful lot of them, as you said. The one thing that people in leadership positions, at least and i know ryan would say the same thing what inspires you every day are the men and women who work for you. The fact of the matter is, and particularly after 9 11, the young men and women i saw who raised their hand after 9 11 and said im going to volunteer to go to war. They all knew what they were signing up for. Those of us who came in before 9 11, it was a continuation. But that generation who raised their hand and the thing i enjoyed the most was spending time with these young men and women, you hear their story. Some of them are married with a couple of kids at home, they are small salary and you see their sacrifice and sense of commitment, and im telling you, that inspires the leaders to do the right thing. I have been fortunate in my career, i have worked for remarkable men and women. We talked about colin powell, condoleezza rice, i have worked for both president s, george w. Bush and barack obama. But i think back on the senior enlisted i had a chance to spend time with. Major, ad sergeant great Army Green Beret and special operations noncommissioned officer, one of the smartest guys i ever spent time with. He was my righthand man. I did not make any difficult decisions without conferring with my sergeant major. When i was in the navy, i had a great master chief named Steve Chamberlain in the same old, disciplinedibly enlisted men. Mr. Axelrod what was the hardest day you ever had in your 37 years . Adm. Mcraven i dont know if i could single out a day because you have a lot of tough days. Particularly in combat. Unfortunate, after 9 11, in the course of my six years in and out of iraq and afghanistan, i lost a lot of great men and women. That is always hard. It is hard because you know they were very young, they were very committed to what they were doing. You grieve for their families and frankly, it is a burden that i am not sure you ever completely get over, nor should you get over it. Those were a lot of hard days. I dont know that they ever get easier. As i said, they probably shouldnt. Mr. Axelrod what about the proudest day . The day you look back at and say wow, that was it . That was really extorted to be really extraordinary to be part of . Adm. Mcraven a lot of people would probably say i would jump , bute bin laden raid thats not my first thought. I was incredibly proud of the men who went on that mission to get bin laden, they were risking their lives and it was a remarkable mission and it brought justice to bin laden. But when i think back on the number of missions, and we did thousands of missions from the time it was the Deputy Commander soc and commander, we did thousands. The ones i was most proud of was when we could rescue an american, we did a lot of hostage rescues. We were not rescuing prominent people, we were rescuing contractors, we were rescuing journalists, we were rescuing, you know, people we knew we had an obligation as american soldiers to rescue americans. And when you save someones life and you realize you have children,hem, their their childrens children, because they are alive today because of what you in your amended, that is pretty your men dead, that is pretty rewarding. Mr. Axelrod you call on others to you have called on others to take life. There has to be some psychic cost of that, there has to be some impact of that. You have been close on a lot of action in the course of those 37 years. How do you process that . Adm. Mcraven yeah, first you have to recognize your obligation as a commander. ,our obligation as a commander first and foremost, is the protection of the men and women under your command. That from atand rules of engagement standpoint, the law of armed conflict, you have the authority to protect yourself and you have the obligation to protect others. Whenever we were doing a mission that required striking a target, killing the enemy, you really do have to go through your mind and you have to say because you have to live with it, and if you make the mistake, you will live with the civilians you inadvertently killed you say, am i doing this to protect american soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, civilians . If you can in your own mind make that argument and you know your decision is moral, legal and ethical, you can do that. Now, i was not always right. We made mistakes. Innocent men and women died. It is the horror of war. And once again, you have to live with that burden. Let me tell you, there are times at night when those dark memories come up and you say what could i have done better . What mistakes did i make and how could i have corrected them . And then you have to press on. One thing i used to tell young officers is you are going to make bad decisions periodically, but you cant be afraid to make the next tough decision. Because if you are afraid to make the next tough decision, you are not the leader the men and women need you to be. Every leader is going to make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes, be prepared to make the next tough decision because it could save more men and women. Mr. Axelrod you are in the nsa during that critical period in washington, at the beginning of the war in iraq and after 9 11. A lot has been written and a lot has been discussed about the impact of that decision, to go to iraq. We still have troops there, we have troops in afghanistan. What has the impact been on the prolonged the struggle, for which there really isnt a parallel . Vietnam went on for quite a almost twoe are decades in now. Adm. Mcraven great question. In 2010, maybe september of 2010, i was in baghdad and a decision had been made to pull u. S. Forces out of iraq i think at the beginning of 2011. I was down talking to a squadron of seals, and the chief petty officer was a little upset. At one point he said, hey , we are going out on missions every night risking our lives and we are pulling out in four months, why are we continuing to go on these missions . At the time they were to stop a network of suicide bombers baghdad, hit the markets and those sort of things. It was a great question. Theonly answer i could give senior chief was we came here, we have a responsibility. And let me tell you something, you have no idea about how your missions can change the outcome of war history. If you stop a suicide bomber from blowing up a market in baghdad today, will there have been a young man or woman in the market who was going to find a cure for cancer, who was going to be the Prime Minister of iraq in 20 years and do some thing great . You just dont know, so you have to do your job. From the military standpoint, we have to do our job. That is not to say you dont sit around saying what if, why are we doing this . Thats not to say you cant in your own mind question the policy, and you should, and the senior officer had an obligation to raise issues with the secretary of defense, but more often than not, you have to be satisfied with doing your job. Let me make it a little broader. I was with president bush last year or so, year and a half ago, and some of the asked him a question about his legacy and in particular, iraq. He said something i thought was very thoughtful. He said they are still writing books about george washington, not making the implication he was george washington, but he said people will assess my legacy for millennia to come. He said it is a little hard at this point in time, not very far removed from iraq to say it was the right or wrong decision. And i had to think about that. Questioned my mind whether it was the right decision, but i realized as a leader i had to get out and leap my troops to do americas business. But i realized history will tell whether or not taking down saddam hussein, trying to institute some form of democracy blood andas worth the treasure that we and the iraqis gave. I think the jury may still be out on that. Mr. Axelrod you mentioned him and the other president s you worked for. Talk to me about the leadership lessons you learned from each of them. Adm. Mcraven it is interesting, and you will know, having been in there many times, but when you sit in the situation room and you have an opportunity to observe up close how the president of the United States deals with his senior staff, what i was surprised by were the similarities between george w. Bush and barack obama in terms of how they dealt with their staff. What i found with both bush and obama was they listened. They would listen to their staff, they were happy to have members of their staff disagree. And then they would take that input, though often make a decision. And make aff decision. I thought that was important. Even though their personalities are different, president obama much more subdued, although you know better than most, he has a great sense of humor and a great personality. Sometimes it did not come forward publicly, and of course president bush, much more outgoing from a public standpoint. But also very thoughtful behind the scenes. What both of these leaders understood was listen. Listen to the subject matter experts, taken the information and then make the best decision, the best judgment you can. That is the fundamentals of leadership i think in any role that any leader would have. Mr. Axelrod i was going to ask you about some of the current events. Approached you about coming and speaking, you were reluctant because you did not want to get drawn you have criticized President Trump and you didnt want to get drawn into that. It is unusual for military and retired military to be as outspoken as you have been. Was that a hard decision for you and what kind of feedback did you get from peers . Adm. Mcraven [laughs] it was actually not a hard decision. I thought about it but it was not hard decision and i will walk you through the timeline. One of the things ive told ,olks is when i am criticized as a Senior Leader having spoken out against the president , i always tell people, that is fair criticism. We have this unwritten rule that as a retired senior officer you are not supposed to speak badly about the president , and in general i think that is a good rule. But i also realized that for myself, i needed to look myself in the mirror and say am i doing what i think is right . Wasof this started when i at the university of texas and the president came out and said the press was the enemy of the American People. I said i have fought the enemy of the American People and it is not the press. I have been raked over the coals by the press and i understand how challenging it can be, but at the end of the day, to me, the press, the first amendment, is maybe the single most important thing we have as part of our constitution. And for the president of the <