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
Yeah, when you're part of any values-based organization, you're going to use those values to make decisions about things, about who you are and what you do. You're going to portray those seven values that you just named if you're a soldier, and you're going to make your decisions based on your loyalty, your duty, and your respect for others, as an example.
You're going to serve because of selflessness. You're going to serve with honor and integrity. And when it comes down to it, you're going to stand up and use personal courage to say the right things or do the right things, whether it's in peacetime or combat. And it struck me that those seven values kind of drove my decision making.
Whenever I had a thought where, what should I do in this situation? I would go back to those values and say, what do our values say we should do? And it got me thinking about our national values. You can go back through our documents and our speeches and find things that our founding documents and speeches by great Americans said when they reflected on who we were or who we are.
And if you're a values-based organization, and I truly believe that the United States is values-based, it was created out of a sense of values and ideas. You know, one of the things I'd like to talk about is, you know, soldiers or anybody in government, by the way, who raises their hand to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,
It's the only oath in the world that's given to a piece of paper. And that piece of paper reflects ideas and values and who we want to be and who we aspire to be. Other countries go motherland or fatherland or El Presidente. We do ideas and values. So that's kind of what I wanted to portray in that paper.
Well, that's where we get back to the good news story that you were asking about before. Because, yeah, I am concerned about that, that too many people are falling into that trap. But I believe that because we are a nation of values and ideas, that those drive policies and policies drive strategies, or at least they should.
And if you don't have the ideas and the values of our great nation, our policies and our strategies are going to be a mishmash of a bunch of different things. And that's truthfully what's trying to happen.
When people become windsocks on Capitol Hill, when you see different nominees going in and having said something for a very long time or the last couple of years, and then suddenly when they get in front of the committees and the senators, they say completely the opposite. That tells me they're not basing their answers or who they are on values. I think we're going to get back to that.
I truly believe that. I can't not believe that, Jim, because that's what, you know, I spent 40 years defending and I'm not ready to give it up.
We're seeing some of them like integrity and personal courage, standing up to people, respect for all others. That's true. I mean, not just people we like, but not just the 48% that voted for us, but the entire country you got to have respect for. Integrity in terms of what you say and what you do. And does the audio match the video? All of those things have application.
And I'm concerned if we lose them, that we could lose our country.
Yeah, I just had that question from the thing I was just on with a bunch of national security professionals, and that's why I'm wearing a tie today. And the same question came up about what will it mean to the alliance if the U.S. pulls out? And first of all, it's more than just a military alliance. I mean, the partnership and the trust and the alliance is just magical.
Yeah, there's a lot of problems with NATO. It's sometimes hard to get decisions when you're in Brussels. But boy, it's stuck around for 80 years doing some really good things in some really tough situations. Could the Europeans survive without the United States? Yeah, they could. but it wouldn't be the same alliance. I think they depend on us as much as we depend on them.
And plus, if we pull out of NATO, which some have suggested, I would think we'd lose the intelligence sharing. We're going to lose the trust and the connection to the continent. We're going to use an economic factor and a diplomatic factor that's part of national power.
So if you look at the four elements of national power, diplomacy, military, information, and economy, all of those will be decreased for us if we pull out of the alliance. And I don't think it's a very smart move.
I think they're degraded now, but hopefully, you know, for their sake, they would learn some lessons. And that's why I don't think we should, we, the United States or NATO should give them a break. We should not allow them to go to a peace talks because they're just going to pull back, take their chunk of land and then determine how they're going to move forward.
And three, four or five years from now, they're going to invade somebody else that's less well-equipped than Ukraine. All right. So you're a St.
Well, back in the day, SLU and CBC were like major rivals.
That is huge. I did not know that about you. I wish I had known that earlier. I would have given you a hard time a whole hour earlier.
Hey, thanks, Tim. Appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. Really appreciate it.
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