And also served as National Security adviser to president george w. Bush. David admiral, great to see you again. We are two days after veterans day and that was the occasion for this event. There are plenty of public issues right now that i want to ask you about, but i want to defer that for a moment and talk to you about service itself. And i want to start by talking about how you came by service, because you came by it naturally. You grew up in a family of service. Tell me about your dad, who was quite an interesting person. Adm. Mcraven first, thank you for the invitation to join you here today. This is terrific. I certainly enjoy spending time with you and the students of the iop. You are right, i kind of came by it naturally. My father was a world war ii fighter pilot. Flew spitfires, actually, which was a british airplane, because, at the time, when we entered the war, americans did not have planes to take on the german messersmith, so the british loaned us spitfires. But 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. It was 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, there was such a sense of duty and patriotism that was really infectious. That is in addition to, obviously, watching his father, that really spurred him to join the military. And then 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 the military members but their families. David how does an air force brat end up in the navy seals . [laughter] adm. Mcraven well, good question. So i had thought about flying. And my dad, having been a fighter pilot, was kind of nudging me in that direction. But, interestingly enough, i think it was close to my senior year in high school, my sister was dating an Army Green Beret. And of course, this was after the movie with john wayne had come out, the green berets. And i had this 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, well, i think i am going to join the navy. Ive got a scholarship, an rotc scholarship. He said, well then, you better become a navy seal. This was back in 1973. I had never heard of the navy seals. Frankly, nobody had heard of navy seals back at that point in time. But here, you had an Army Green Beret telling me to be a navy seal. And that really is what headed me in that trajectory. David and you spent 37 years in the seals. You can explain the bullfrog title. And special operations became more and more significant over time. You literally wrote the book on it. Why has special operations become such an important part of defense . Adm. Mcraven well, so, when you look back over the history, the modernday history of special operations, of course we had a little bit of a heyday during world war ii. You saw these remarkable operations done by all the services, including u. S. Forces, under both the oss, which was the predecessor to the cia, and then, of course, we had navy frogmen in world war ii and we had army special operations. And then after world war ii, it kind of waned a little bit, picked up a little bit in korea, but then in vietnam, the navy seals came about, and they were born from the underwater demolition teams. And they really earned this remarkable reputation fighting the insurgency in vietnam. But then again, after vietnam and this tends to happen after major wars the reliance or the expectation that we will need special operations again kind of declines, which it did. And then, when we had the disaster at desert one, the country did kind of a reassessment of, gee, do we need special operations . And the answer was of course we need them. Now, we need to professionalize them. Congress was the one that put in place the u. S. Special operations command, and then we really began to institutionalize or professionalize special operations. By the time 9 11 came along, frankly, we were, bar none, the finest special Operations Force in the world. The question becomes, why do you need them . Im always quick to point out to folks, look, special operations have a unique niche. They are not going to be able to stop the North Koreans from coming south. They are not going to be able to keep the straits of hormuz open. Theyre not going to be able to stop the chinese from invading taiwan. But the things we do we do exceedingly well. We are very surgical. We can get into a country, work with the allies in a way that sometimes larger battalions cant. And of course, you saw from 9 11, the hunt for terrorists, the insurgent fight in iraq and afghanistan, really, those were right in our wheelhouse. So the force has grown tremendously over the last 20 years and, i think, have done a remarkable job. David let me ask you about the military generally. We tend to draw from a rather small pool of americans right now. There is no draft. When your dad enlisted, all of america was in that war, mostly men who were fighting, and everyone else who was pitching in some other way. A student wrote to me, as i was preparing for this, and asked me to ask you about why isnt there more diversity in the upper echelons of the military, and does that have to do with disparities in the American Education system . That is one question. And another is, just generally, what does it mean for the country that such a small pool of people carry such a large burden . Adm. Mcraven there is a lot to unpack in that question, so let me kind of hit the diversity issue first. I think we are continuing to make progress in terms of diversity in the United States military. But, as you know, we were a segregated military until 1947, 1948, when truman initiated the integration. And then you began to see the rise of africanamericans in terms of being in more prominent positions, but you still had the challenges of the Civil Rights Era and jim crow. And when i came in, in 1977, there was a lot of racial tension in the military. And early on and i think it was about 1962 the actual term affirmativeaction came about, but i did not really see it until the 1980s sometimes. And you would sit on promotion boards. And the military understood we needed to increase our diversity. So we really had an aggressive affirmative action program. So when an officers record would come up, it would say minority or female. And we had a quota. At first, there was a bit of a reluctance to approach it this way. But what we found was it was not that we did not have great talent in the diverse pool, but we were not giving them the opportunity. So once we were able to kind of prime the pump by putting great people, talented people in positions of responsibility, then, after a while, we realized we no longer needed to single out the minorities, because we had built a deep bench, they were beginning to rise in prominence. We saw the talent in the minorities and female population. And in my career, of course, i have been blessed to work for colin powell and lloyd austin , and i worked for michelle howard, the first black female fourstar in the navy. So you are beginning to see a recognition, and i think you have seen it for a while, but it is improving. But we always have to make greater strides. We have to continue to make sure we are promoting the right people. You see c. Q. Brown running the air force now. When i am asked this question about c. Q. Brown, 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 c. Q. Brown. He was chosen because he was the best person for the job. He happens to be africanamerican, and he is going to be a great role model for the kids in both the air force, army, navy, and marine corps. But he was chosen because he is the best person for the job, and we just need to continue that march forward. David but you do have this disparate at the rankandfile level, youve got large minority representation. And, you know, it relates to a larger point, which is, i always felt like service, during world war ii, created a kind of commonality among americans of different backgrounds. And 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 . How do we because we live in such a polarized time between rural and urban and different communities in our country. How do we, through service, attack that . Adm. Mcraven well, to your point, david, you see the young men and women coming into the service, and, you know, you may get 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, in the same platoon, all of a sudden, those differences begin to kind of fall away, and they realize they have a lot more in common than they do apart, and that there differences their differences dont matter when they are focused on a particular mission or an objective. Thats the great thing about the service. That has always been the great thing about the service. You are right, what we tend to find today is the demographics of the Service Continue to be more in the south than the north. They seem to be more middleclass than they are upperclass. But i think that 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, of course, get out and become great citizens of the United States. And you see many of them today serving in congress. So 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, much like the Naval Academy or west point or the air force academy, they are selected by their congressmen, they come to a Service Academy for four years, and then they join a National Service corps and they have a career in this. The difference is the focus is domestically. So, we are going to teach people to be civil engineers, we are going to teach them to be teachers, we are going to teach them skills that are going to help the country, and then 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. David another question that came my way, which i thought was really good, was what is the one thing that admiral mcraven wishes his younger self would have known before going into this field . Adm. Mcraven yeah, you know, i think the answer is, everything is going to be ok. [laughter] i know that sounds simple, but when you are a young ensign and you are trying to do the best job you can, or when you are a young enlisted man or woman and you are 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 worry about them constantly, when, in fact, they may not be all that critical. And 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 thats good. You know, you have to take your obligations seriously. But i wish i would have been a little bit more relaxed and realized that you work hard, you work through things, your friends and your colleagues will help you through the tough times, and you are going to be all right. David when you think back on those 37 years, i am sure you were inspired by people who served under you, people who led you. But is there one person who you think back on and say, this person embodied what i think is best about service . Adm. Mcraven i will say, i have an awful lot of them, as you said. The one thing that people that are in leadership positions, at least and i know ryan would say the same thing what inspires you every day are the men and women that work for you. The fact of the matter is, and particularly during, after 9 11, the young men and women that 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 that came in before 9 11, it was just a continuation. But that generation that raised their hand and the thing i enjoyed the most was kind of 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 e5s making a small salary, and you see their sacrifice, you see their sense of commitment, and im telling you, that inspires the leaders to do the right thing. Now, i have been fortunate in my career. I have worked for just remarkable men and women. We talked about colin powell, i worked with condi rice. I have worked for both 43, george w. H bush, for barack obama. But i think back on the senior enlisted i had a chance to spend time with. My command sergeant, major Crystal Harris chris ferris, a 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 along the same mold, incredibly disciplined, remarkable enlisted men. So there is inspiration everywhere, and you dont have to look very hard to find it. David what was the hardest day you had in your 37 years . Adm. Mcraven i dont know if i can single out a day, because you have a lot of tough days. Particularly in combat. Unfortunately, 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. There were a lot of hard days. And i dont know that they ever get easier. As i said, they probably shouldnt. David what about the proudest day . What is the day that you look back at and say, wow, that was it, that was really extraordinary to be a part of . Adm. Mcraven a lot of people would probably say that i would jump to the bin laden raid, but that would not be my first thought. I was incredibly proud of the men that went on the mission to get bin laden. They were risking their lives. It was a remarkable mission, and it certainly brought justice to bin laden. But when i think back on the number of missions, and we did thousands of missions from the time i was the Deputy Commander of jsoc and the commander of jsoc, thousands of them. And the ones that i was always most proud of was when we could rescue an american. And we did a lot of hostage rescues. The thing about it was we were not rescuing prominent people. We were rescuing contractors, we were rescuing journalists, we were rescuing, you know, people that we knew we had an obligation, as american soldiers, to rescue americans. And when you save someones life and you realize that you have impacted them, their children, their childrens children, because they are alive today because of what you and your men did, that is pretty damn rewarding. David you have also been called upon and you have called on others to take life. And there has to be some psychic cost of that. There has to be some impact of that. And you have been close in on a lot of action over the course of those 37 years. How do you process that . Adm. Mcraven yeah, first, you have to recognize your obligation as a commander. So, your obligation as a commander, first and foremost, is the protection of the men and women under your command. So we understand that, from the rules of engagement standpoint, from the law of armed conflict, you have the authority to protect yourself and you have the obligation to protect others. So, 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 youve got 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 . And if you can, in your own mind, make that argument, and if you know that your decision is moral, legal, and ethical, then you can do that. Now, i was not always right. And we made mistakes. And innocent men and women died. It is the horror of war. And, once again, you have to live with that burden. And 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. I mean, the 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, then you are not the leader the men and women need you to be. Because every leader is going to make mistakes. You know, learn from your mistakes, be prepared to make the next tough decision, because that could save more men and women. David you are at the nsa during you were at nsa during that critical period in washington, during that critical period 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. You know, we still have troops there, we have troops in afghanistan. What has the impact been on the country of this prolonged struggle, for which there really isnt a parallel . I mean, vietnam went on for quite a while, but we are almost two decades in now. Adm. Mcraven yeah, great question. You know, when i was i think it was in 2010, maybe september of 2010, i was in baghdad, and the decision had been made to pull u. S. Forces out of iraq at the beginning, i think, of 2011. And i was down talking to a squadron of seals, and it was a seal senior chief petty officer who was a l