General Stanley McChrystal
speaker
36 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 16 Feb
General Stanley McChrystal’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Very much so. Of course, I canceled my Rolling Stone subscription right after that. But the reality, yeah. Don't worry. Everyone else did, too. Don't even worry about it. It's funny now because, you know, we've got a little time and space. But, no, we had an article that came out that I didn't think was accurate, but I accepted responsibility for it.
And the reality was, in that moment, I had been born in an army hospital. I'd lived in an army family. I'd gone to West Point at age 17. I was now 55, almost 56. And suddenly, in an instant, when I offered my resignation to President Obama, I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm not a commander. I'm not a soldier. What am I? You could say, I'm a failure. I go home. Is that how you felt?
I felt exactly that way. I felt as though a bolt of lightning had... I'd always thought I could be fired for incompetence or killed in combat. I never thought I'd be accused of something like that. And so I offer my resignation to President Obama, who was very gracious, but he accepted it. I had flown home all night from Afghanistan for this meeting.
I drive across the city to where my wife was living in a set of military quarters. And I tell Annie, it's over. Because she and I had been married for 34 years. And I said, our career's over. I'm out. And she looked at me and she said, good. Good. We've always been happy, and we'll always be happy.
And in that moment, what she communicated to me without being straight, she said, kind of face forward. And I always describe Annie as driving or living life like she drives with no use for the rearview mirror. And...
It's going to be a long night. Oh, you're not kidding. Who's driving home? But we've been married 48 years. And if you think about it. You commit to something. And I had committed to the military. I had committed to my marriage. And I'm committed to my country now. And so when I ask you to help lead a national conversation on character, you have the stature. You have the reach.
If people are thirsty for something different from what they see, let's encourage them. Not that we're going to provide it from the outside, but we're going to have them provide it to themselves. This needs to start with young people.
Yeah, I certainly think you got to value loyalty. I can't put myself in his position. I can put myself in the position of an American. I can put myself in the position of someone who has both launched and been on those missions. And if someone had been using an unsecure mode to communicate about him, I'd have been upset about it. Yeah. I could see that. Yeah.
I think for the people I worked with, that had gotten your ass kicked. Right. But the reality is, the thing that upset me most about that was not the mistake. People make mistakes, and we'll make them forever. It was after the fact when people went on public news and they said the information wasn't classified. Of course it was. Right.
And I don't like the idea that they would look and say something that... I know is not true and I think they know is not true.
Yeah, it makes it particularly hard, because if we start to have a conversation on character now, a certain group is always going to feel defensive, because they think that you are leveraging the word character against them. Right. In fact, it can go both ways. People on both ends of the spectrum can feel that. But we've still got to have it.
And that's why this has got to be a conversation that begins in the center. I think at pretty low levels that starts with saying, we're not going to vote for you. We're not going to buy your products. We're not going to like you on social media. We're not going to do all of those things you want us to do unless we see some level of character, not perfect character. We're never going to see that.
Right. But what we're going to see is a set of norms that say, We respect the requirement that there is character. If you make a mistake, admit it. What can our kids learn from watching us if they are absolutely disappointed every time they see, or if they just assume that's the way it is, that'll be even worse.
I think it's absolutely right. I think it could start with character, but it really has got to emanate out from there. We have to have a different definition of what we think it means to be an American citizen. Right. Because right now, many American citizens think that if you pay your taxes and you vote and only about 65 percent of us vote, that you've done your job.
In fact, the responsibilities are much broader than that. It is to every other American because a nation is only a covenant between citizens. God did not create the United States.
You're blowing it. It's an agreement.
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