Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
speaker
460 appearances
6 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 7 Jul
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling’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 — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
in terms of just the capability of what our contingencies are, but you also have to do acquisition, personnel management, logistics around the world. I mean, Tim, right now, today, because I checked this morning, we've got 180,000 soldiers deployed outside the United States. There are over a hundred ships sailing at sea, and the US Air Force has conducted 5,000 sorties of different aircraft today.
You've got to manage all that. And that's just a daily thing. You're talking about an $800 billion budget. I mean, I consider myself a pretty smart guy and pretty savvy in terms of military operations. I would not want to be the Secretary of Defense. It would be too hard for most mere mortals. You know, you're doing acquisition defense spending.
I mean, I could name the tasks that fall under the secretary of defense and it would boggle most Americans minds. And to say, because a guy spent a couple of years in the military and then became a talk shows that he has. I mean, I don't know what it takes. I don't know what other kind of nominee the president could make. The president elect could make. but it better be a good one.
Cause like I said earlier, we're facing some of the biggest challenges I've ever seen in the international environment.
There's a thing called the executive presence problem. And put the character piece aside, you know, what you do and who you are. Don't even talk about that. But just from the standpoint of presence, someone with executive presence has gravitas. They know what they're doing. They have intellectual capability and emotional intelligence. They have a calmness about them.
They listen more than they speak. And they hear with empathy what's going on in the organization. That's kind of what I want in a guy with a whole lot of experience to be a different cabinet secretary for a nation that is facing a lot of global security threats.
Yeah, it's interesting, again, going back to personal experiences, because I've shared intelligence and been part of intelligence sharing organizations within the military and the government. And again, the first thing you have to generate is an element of trust.
that things are going to be kept secret, that when an intelligence service tells you something that's important and that they feel is critically related to something that might happen or that could cause problems, they're going to know you're going to keep it to yourself and you're not going to give them up, first of all. But secondly, they need to know you understand it.
And truthfully, I've talked to a bunch of former comrades who used to be senior ranking people in other governments. They're scared about the transfer of intelligence to our country in the future too, because they don't, they've seen what's happened in the past and they don't know what's going to happen in the future.
So to counter that, many of them are telling me there's going to be changes in our intelligence system in terms of what we're going to share. And when that happens, the world becomes more dangerous.
Israel, yeah.
Let's talk something good.
We beat Army this weekend, so I can't talk about that. Okay. Yeah. I know. We had a good Nuggets win last night. You know, I think there is the potential for a real fast learning curve to take place because there could be a lot of disasters in our future. We've seen that in the past. I mean, our country's been through tough times before, not just recently, but in our history.
And every time there's a correction to get back to some norms, the folks like you were naming a few of them, I don't know who you should name to be the cabinet secretaries.
But I know what the qualifications are and how you've got to have that, first of all, character, then that executive presence, and then at least a modicum of intelligence to understand where you fit in in the state of affairs of a country as powerful as ours. And if it's just going in to turn tables upside down and throw things against the wall, that's not a good approach for government.
There is certainly some potential for changing things. for making things better, but it doesn't begin with just a complete destruction of our norms and our institutions. That's what concerns me the most.
Now, that's a great question. Maybe that is the positive, because truthfully, Jim, whenever I need a shot in the arm, I go up there. All right. I go out and be with young people because my perception is they are not wrapped up in culture war. First of all, they're just they're just looking to graduate. They're trying to get the hell out of there and go on to their first assignment as lieutenants.
But secondly, they raise their hand to serve the country. They want to be soldiers, as all soldiers do. So this gets back to your wokeness and your DEI. You go to most units, they're not talking about this kind of stuff. They're talking about, you know, their next training event or their next deployment or how do I take care of the kids?
You know, they're looking at serving in uniform and being proud of it. And that's what I really like about the military is it was a family event. Adhering to similar values and doing the things for others that you signed up to do while supporting and defending the Constitution.
And that's why I wrote that other article about values in terms of getting back to what do we believe as a nation as opposed to all this divisiveness.
Showing 421–440 of 460 · page 22 of 23
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