the original thoughts of the young father

who was going to war

not sure that he was going to come back

and then you have the grizzled veteran

right with

with 25 or 30 years behind him being able to reflect

here was the original journal

with all my writings inside

yeah and it was just a daily uh

Journal entry on something

I mean I

I would wake up in the morning

as I explained in the book

and just think what do I know

what do I want Scott and Todd to know about their dad

if I don't return

welcome back to raising men

today on the Raising Men podcast

we are joined by somebody who spent nearly four decades

leading soldiers

in some of the most demanding environments

on earth lieutenant general Mark Hertling

commanded the US Army in Europe

LED the legendary 1st Armor Division in combat

and spent years shaping how the army trains

and develops young leaders

but behind the rank and responsibility is also a father

who wrote letters to his sons while deployed to war

letters about courage about character

about fear

and the kind of men he hoped they would become

if he didn't make it home

these are all detailed in his new book

if I don't return a Father's Wartime Journal

in this conversation

we're going to explore what military leadership

can teach us about raising boys

the difference between toughness and resilience

and the values fathers must

model if we want to raise strong

thoughtful men General Hurtling

thank you so much and welcome to raising men

Sean it is great to be with you

I've heard about this podcast uh

and I just think it's a wonderful opportunity for

young parents to understand

some things they might want to do uh

versus just buying a dog and trying it out on the dog

like a lot of parents do

right you know

I remember I I remember walking into the hospital

while my wife was in labor

and realizing

oh wait a minute

my life is about to be so unbelievably different

in a way that I did not prepare for

yeah and I thought I had prepared

I you know

had done the work and we went to the classes

and we did all of that stuff

and then when the reality finally hit

it was it was a sea change for me

you mean when you have that little human being

that you're carrying and saying

oh my gosh my life is so much different today

than it was yesterday yeah

and you don't get sleep that night and

or any other night

for the next 40 years too

you know

the problems just get bigger sometimes right

definitely so

let me ask you this tough question

right out of the gate how do you define masculinity

oh gosh

um it's it's gonna be based

it's not a trick question

cause I've thought about it a lot

it's based first of all on your character

I agree

it's based on who you are and how other people see you

it's not based on biology or physiology

it's based on the heart it's the ability to

understand your strengths and weaknesses

it's your understanding of how you influence others

and care and respect for others uh

of both sexes it's based on how you present yourself

uh you know

the business world calls

calls that sometimes executive presence

which I think is kind of a goofy word

and I teach MBA students and

and we have debates about what executive presence

truly is it isn't your charisma or your communications

it's who you are across the board

it's what you leave in a room uh

versus how you appear when you enter a room

so all those things I think contribute uh

and everything the character

the values the intellect

the ability to shape others

the ability to influence others to do the right thing

the the portraying of an example uh

that you hope others latch onto uh

those are all the things that

I think contribute to masculinity

and it's not limited to masculinity

cause all those things contribute to femininity too

yeah there's

there's probably a a

a way to you know

it's unfortunate that those

that those words are so a

tied to a particular gender because yeah

you know there are

there are a lot of ways in which men um

need to exude feminine energy

and women exude masculine energy

and that's totally appropriate and good and

and you know the kind of diversity of

of of all of that is it makes us really really powerful

yeah it

it is and I

I think when we talk about the strength of men

it can be exhibited in either sex

when you talk about the nurturing of women

that also can be exhibited in either sex it

you know certainly

I've tried to nurture our children

and the soldiers I've LED

by finding ways that they can

press beyond what they think are their limits

and that has to do with not only strength

but also nurturing them to understand that they're

they're each within

each one of them is a diamond that has to be polished

and and that's what we're looking at not just for

in my business soldiers

but also our children that we want them to become

well I'm gonna use an Army

Army marketing term now

we used to have this very famous marketing campaign of

be all you can be yeah

and and I would change that a little bit to be all

be more than you appear to be

and really reach those outer limits

wow that I'm

I'm really struck by that be

be more than you appear to be is that's a

there's a lot there's a lot to unpack there because it

it implies a capability um

that surpasses your bravado

yeah well exactly

you don't have to be loud to be a great leader

yeah you don't have to be loud to teach your children

yeah uh sometimes

sometimes if you do being loud can detract from it

exactly exactly

um and I think

there are some that see those as male traits

and male characteristics um

but really the book is a reflection of all those things

what what

really is the approach you should take

in terms of inspiring and influencing

and persuading others

and persuading yourself to do the right thing

helping others develop while you're self developing too

yeah I

I I

I wrote down a quote from the book and you said

a real man proves his masculinity by being considerate

protective

concerned and confident and by demonstrating it

and I think that is so perfectly put

well thank you for that

that's good I

a couple things came through

as I was reflecting on the various journal entries

truthfully that

you know I would

I would come in here and and begin

you know in each journal entry from 1991

I would do a a

a much longer reflection right

and so there's no

there was no research involved in this

it was just kind of off the top of your head

yeah and

and my wife kids me

because every once in a while she would come

she would come in and uh

you know

to just say hi or bring me a glass of tea or something

and she would say you know

most times I was in here sobbing and I think it was

I think it was because I had so many epiphanies

in just sitting back

and reflecting on things that I had done

and had said and had accomplished and had failed at

that in reflecting on all those things

you really kind of put together your life story and

you know the

the comments about leadership and

and male characteristics and character

and what we do and how we choose our values

and how we exhibit those values uh

all became much more important to me

as I had a chance to reflect on this journal

I can imagine yeah

the the reflections are like are

are three or four times as long as the entries

themselves and they are where the real it is

it's really kind of

an amazing format that seems to have come together

accidentally because you have

the original thoughts of the young father

who was going to war

not sure that he was gonna come back

and then you have the grizzled veteran

right with

with 25 or 30 years behind him

being able to reflect on that that

that that

that young man and yeah man

what a what a

what a great what a valuable thing to be able to

to look over your shoulder on I

it's you're

you've done a real service um

especially for those of us

just starting out on our fatherhood journey

my kids are 7 and 7 and 3 um

it it's

it's a real service to us

well what I

what I'll tell you is there was

I had an internal debate on how I was gonna do this

after our son presented us

presented me with the journal

yeah that he had typed up

he had taken my handwritten document in a book

and here is just for you it's on the desk

here was the original journal

with all my writings inside

yeah and it was just a daily uh

Journal entry on something

I mean I

I would wake up in the morning

as I explained in the book

and just think what do I know

what do I want Scott and Todd to know about their dad

if I don't return

and I'd pick a subject

some are very sublime and some are very ridiculous uh

you know it goes all the way from values and friendship

and love of your wife to MRI's and

you know you know

those kinds of things I mean

it was a hodgepodge of stuff

so when after he asked me to expand on it

with the rest of my life stories

I delayed a month or two because I was thinking okay

how how do I

how am I gonna do this are we gonna put the

the journal entries first and then just write

you know stuff about my life afterwards

yeah and

and then one day I just woke up

and this is when I really started diving in and

and got excited about it I thought

I'll just take each one of the journal entries

which are as you know

are about a page yeah

and just reflect on that same topic

so it it gave me an automatic outline to follow

and it was so incredibly easy

Shawn to

to write this uh

but it it

you know each day I

I would try and do one uh

reflection on a journal entry

and I just had so much fun doing it my

my wife said she'd never seen me so happy in

in my life you know

when I was going into the cave here

and thinking about life's lessons

you know I love that

that is a that's

that's such a beautiful let's

so let's talk about how the book came about

and so I I want to start on December 20th, 1990

so given how the first Gulf War played out

it's easy to be surprised that before that happened

we were worried about major American casualties

you write that you were worried that

that there's a really good

a coin flip

chance that you weren't going to be coming home

well I wasn't worried about it

we were told that yeah

and you know we

to set the stage it was in November of 1990

we were in Germany with two little boys

eight and 10 year I'm sorry

seven and 10 years old and

and we were told

well there

there were a couple of units in Kuwait

or in Saudi Arabia at the time

defending against another attack by Saddam Hussein

in Saudi Arabia he had already conquered uh

Kuwait right

and uh

but it was you know

the 82nd Airborne is sometimes called a speed bump

because there they have no tanks

they have no heavy artillery and

and at the time the Iraqi army was the fourth

the fourth largest in the world

well uh

Saddam Hussein had just finished an 8

year war with Iran which was catastrophic

um

he had used nerve gas against his fellow citizens

and the Kurds in a place called Halabja

so this was not a guy to be trifled with

excuse me I'm sorry

so we were told to watch TV in early December

because there was gonna be an announcement

the announcement came over our Armed Forces Network

television in Germany at the time

from CNN that was relatively new at the time and uh

it said it was Secretary Cheney

Secretary of Defense Cheney saying

we're gonna send the 7th Corps from Germany to uh Iraq

now the 7th Corps is a organization that consisted

at the time of about 140,000 soldiers

our division was one of those

First Army division was one of those

so this was the first anybody had heard about it

in Germany there was no advance notice

I think maybe two or three people

knew this announcement was gonna come

so for the next several hours

uh I was exchanging

information with different people in our cavalry

squadron a reconnaissance squadron

that we knew would be out in front of the division

when we eventually conducted operations and uh

not the next day but I think it was the day after that

we went into an intelligence briefing

and our intelligence officer in the division said

the first cat the 1 1 Cav 1st Squadron

1st Cavalry is likely to suffer up to 50% casualties

and my mind immediately went to

holy smokes I've got a coin flip of coming home yeah

and I've got a wife that I love

and two children that I love

and they're young and I'm gonna widow her

and the two boys aren't gonna have a father

so I started thinking about how I could prevent that uh

and and mitigate it

and I came with the idea of writing a journal

on different subjects so I went into

we went into that war in 1991

went into combat suffered some casualties in our unit

I was one of them when we had 33 soldiers injured

from an artillery attack and

when I came back home

here's the spoiler alert that I tell everybody

I did survive as so did the rest of our squad

so came back home and uh

you know the boys were at that point 8 and 11

cause they had both had birthdays while I was away

and

they didn't want anything to do with my reflections

of this journal so I threw it in a foot locker

wow when they became older and they went to war

I got it out and showed it to them

and they both have had multiple tours in Iraq now

since the wars of the 20th

21st century

and one day about three years ago

uh they looked at the journal

gave it back to me

and I threw it back in the foot Locker

yeah one day about three years ago

our youngest son Scott asked my wife

where's that journal the dad had

and what he did was um

take it and type it up

and he inserted pictures in a word document

and in Christmas Christmas morning of 2024

we were all here at the house

and the kids had just opened all their packages

and we were

we were suffering from those four cups of coffee

with Kahlua inside of it

that you always have on Christmas morning right

and the kids were making their Lego

and doing their things

and Scott came up to me with a box

handed me the word document

and I opened it up and suddenly

all the smells and sights

and sounds of the desert from 35 years ago

came to mind

but then he said something that was really important

he said dad

you know my

brother and I read this journal

and we knew what you were doing

you were trying to prepare us if you didn't come home

he says but you've since had 35 years of experience

you've gone to war multiple more times

you've had new friends

and you've moved all over the world

he said this was once a gift to my brother and me

he says now

you gotta make it a gift

and something for your entire family

cause now you have 5 grandsons and 2 new granddaughters

step step granddaughters

and he says make it a gift for them

I think and I've told this to other people

I don't think

he believed I would ever do anything with it

cause I'm very much of a procrastinator

but once I got my head into it

it became really a gift of love back to him

and uh

it took me

probably about six or seven months to write the

the rest of the book yeah

and I sent it off to him as kind of a surprise and

and uh

he was somewhat shocked saying hey

you really did something with it

and he loved it and I read it immediately

and we both talked about potentially publishing it

so that's what we've done for other people too

so that's the story we're all fortunate that

that he did that and I mean

I could just picture that um

that scene on Christmas morning with the kids playing

with all the toys and yep

and the and the

the warm mugs of of Kahlua and just him

him breaking out that typewritten

um that typewritten book

it's it's a beautiful scene

it was and it

and it also showed I mean

I think just the closeness that we've had as a family

because when you are in the military and you move in

you know I spent 38 years in the military

and we moved 23 times during that period

um one time I was out by you

we were assigned to the National Training Center in

in uh California

yeah it's just

just down the road from San Diego

uh huh and uh

you know when you move your kids that many time

and they go through six or seven different schools

and you find yourself

and they left friends and left sports teams

and those kind of things and had to start over

what we tried to teach our kids were hey

there's gonna be a lot of requirements to adapt in life

but the one thing you can always come back to is family

and so they are best of friends

and I think we're a very close knit family

because we did have those kinds of

new environments that were constantly pressuring us

and new requirements to get on a new sports team

or make your name in a classroom

as they have done so

that's part of leadership and family and raising kids

too

you know the

the the last entry

uh in the book you

you have a prayer

uh by General Douglas MacArthur written when he was um

uh the Allied Supreme Commander in the Pacific

I understand right

and uh I

I had never seen that before before uh

reading that part of the book and

and um

it was moving enough to me that

that it it made it onto my wall

good that's great

I OK

you can't read it from there but uh

and I'll probably post it

put it other places in my house too

I I want to be able to share this with my boy

um but I'd love to go over this in detail

if you're up for it I am up for it and

and what I'll I'll share with you if I can

yeah but if I only

it all started when our first son Todd

was born

because this was a prayer that I had seen

when I was a cadet at West Point

along with the cadet prayer

which is important to me and I mentioned in the book

as well as the honor code and all the other things

and

the values that they teach you at the military academy

but I saw this MacArthur prayer and I remembered it

and so when we had our first son

I showed it to my wife when he was still an infant

and we both teared up

because it is exactly what you want for your kids

yep and we kept it on our wall

much like you have it on your wall

but then when our sons got married

and they had their own sons

uh

my wife arranged to have it calligraphied

and they're

they both have it in prominent spots in their home

so it's a constant reminder to them

and I'm sure their boys are gonna see it

as they grow up too

so let's dig into it let's dig into it

so it starts um

he says build me a son

oh Lord

who will be strong enough to know when he's weak

and brave enough to face himself when he's afraid

yeah um

go ahead it I

I mean I

when you know that it's coming from Douglas MacArthur

yeah and truthfully

I'm not a fan of his

I think he had a little bit too much ego

but he was a great military commander sure

um

but when you know it's coming from him

you can also translate those words into what he's seen

in in two wars

World War 1 and World War 2 right

um and it wasn't just for his son

but he's seen it as being reflected

in other men that had served their country

so he was I think

compiling not only his biological heirs

his sons but he was talking about all the soldiers who

truthfully as a commander

they were my sons and daughters too

yeah they were part of a professional family

so those are the things you look for in people

who will do what the country asked them to do

so face himself when he's afraid

uh brave enough to do that is somewhat important

you know because you're all

everyone who goes to combat is afraid

yeah you know I

I I worry

I I mean

I think that true healthy

excellent masculinity

means

that you're strong enough to know when you're weak

and you admit that and yeah

and I think I worry that our modern

modern culture

and this is part of the crisis of masculinity

that motivated me to even start this entire endeavor

and I worry that our

modern culture is cultivating the opposite of that

that it's turning us into this performative culture

where

the appearance of strength is held in higher regard

than actual strength what

what do you think about that as a sentiment

what do you think we can do about it

or what do we do about it from a tactical standpoint

with our own sons I

I actually think that's a great observation that

that swagger

in our society has become a term that people aspire to

they want to show performatively

using your word which I think is a good one

that

they are

they are more than they appear to be

but they do it in performative ways

as opposed to looking inward

yeah and saying how

how can I be better how can I there's

there's another there's a story somewhere in the book

I don't know if if you saw this one yet

and I know you just started reading it

about a guy I met on a plane who was a uh

jeweler and he

he bent my ear for an entire overseas flight about

and all I all I wanted to do was sleep right

I've been there but

but it was such a fascinating story about

diamond polishers and what they do to bring out the

the the value of a diamond

yeah and how it's intense work

it's hard work cause they're small uh

you have to know the tools of the trade

you can't cut the diamond in a certain way

or it will break it and to devalue it and and

and I use that as a metaphor for growing other people

true that

you have to polish the diamond in people that you meet

but you first have to polish it in yourself

and let other people help you polish your own diamond

you have to listen and be more receptive to uh

critiques or counselings

or finding your own way of admitting

of admitting when you're wrong

and it takes kind of a brave guy to do that

a brave person to do that uh

that's all you know

that first line in that prayer says so many things yeah

about brave

what true bravery is and being able to face yourself

and that's a good segue to the next line

he says

one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat

and humble and gentle in victory

and it talks to your you know

strength isn't swagger and bravado isn't courage right

and you you write that elsewhere in the book

and those you know

strength and courage

are something different than they appear

on the outside yeah

right

we we've seen that uh

just recently in the Olympics

I was thinking about that line in the Olympics because

yeah the

the athletes that I valued um and

and some by the way

in our society would call them losers

uh but

you know the

the thing that continuously amazed me this year

in the Olympics yeah

was the the minuscule difference

between first place and last place right

I mean we were talking about hundreds of a second

in some cases there were ties after a

you know a long downhill slalom run

there was a tie for a for a silver medal

that's unimaginable to me

unimaginable having been an athlete

you know and and

and I've lost a couple of swimming races by a hundredth

or a tenth of a second yeah

and and you

you know you say

oh man

you know that's what

what could I have done better

and the

the attempts at becoming perfect for the athlete

yeah is something that's just amazing

but what's fascinating is the true

the ones with true character

that I watched during the Olympics

were the ones who understood that today was not my day

I got second place instead of first by one

one thousands of a second

a nanosecond right

um

and yet they were unbending in that defeat

and the ones that won

I thought that the ones you could tell

who had a lot of character

and who had been in the sport for years

and even some I won't name names

but who had won every single event in their life

right and suddenly didn't win in the Olympics were

you know they understood why it was just that day

and a snowflake hit him in the face

while they were going down

and it caused him to be one

one

one millionth of a second off the first place platform

you know right

yeah it

it's it's always amazing to me when

you know a bunch of people sitting on our couches are

are watching that thousands of miles away

and somehow

we feel like the people that we're watching are losers

I mean there are no losers in the Olympics man right

it is exactly really hard to get there right

right and the

I mean the fact that you're even in a position

to qualify for the Olympics

it means you're in the top 1% of well and

and think of that even more

they've spent an entire life preparing for this right

and because of that conditioning and all

of that it's yeah

it is it it

it the the

the stars have to align in a particular way for you

even to be able to go to the Olympics

because it's every four years

yeah but if they

if they win yeah

they're they're humble about it

right and because they know how tough it is

and if they lose they also are unbending

which I think is

a pretty important indicator of a person's character

yeah I agree

the next line says and this one hits me really hard

it says build me a son

whose wishes will not take the place of deeds

and then you wrote

words are wind while deeds endure

how do you instill that

or how did you instill that in your boys

or how do we instill that in our boys

um

yeah that

that that one is really tough and it talks about

instead of being a commentator

being an action figure that

you know it gets to uh the

the the so called man in the arena

the one that suffers the slings and arrows

the one that is fighting for what's right

as opposed to just wishing it would happen

uh you know

in this in this age that we're in right now Sean

I can't tell you how many people uh

put on my social media page or write directly to me

because they've somehow find a get

found how to get my address

uh why aren't the generals

doing something about what's going on in our country

and first of all it's

a lack of understanding of what a democratic

society is but secondly

it's a wish for other people to save you

yeah um

and the question that I always like to give back

but I don't is what are you doing Ryan

what are you doing what

what did you vote because

you know

30% of our people voting is not really all that good

yeah

so how are you helping change things that you don't

like

run for Congress run for something

you know get on a school board

and I think all of those things

and you ask how do you

excuse me

how do you instill that kind of things in your child

yeah my

my wife when we were first married uh

she she was a

this was 50 over 50 years ago now

she had a what they call like a thing that you knit a

a

what's it called the

a stitchery I guess it's called sure

yeah that

that was always hanging in our house

that said our children are watching us

what we do speaks much greater than what we say

yeah so

the exhibiting of an example

is one way of getting your kids to act

as opposed to wish um

yeah that's my answer to that question

I had a situation this past Monday my

my son 7 year old son

he does basketball

on Monday nights and he loves being good at things

he hates being bad at things and he

he loves to talk about how he's

you know the best basketball player meanwhile

he's never really played basketball

he hasn't he hasn't practiced

he hasn't yeah

he hasn't he's not good at basketball

and I really struggle with this thing

because I do not want to dampen his enthusiasm

about playing basketball but I also don't want him

I want to convey this lesson about

about words being wind and deeds enduring

and and the fact is

that we kind of get a dopamine hit

when we brag about how we're gonna do something

even if we haven't done it yet

and it's not it's not the full dopamine hit

we would get from accomplishing the thing

but it's it's not insignificant either

and you can sort of

get hooked on that dopamine hit about

you know talking about what you're gonna do

and it's a really really negative cycle

if you end up getting

sort of addicted to talking about stuff

instead of addicted to actually accomplishing things

yeah one of

one of the things that is just coming to my mind is

there's a great quote from Michael Jordan

and he's probably been replaced as the head

basketball model for most of the generation

of your kids maybe yeah

yeah but

Michael Jordan was probably one of the best

basketball players that ever lived

yeah and I remember a lot of kids saying

or I remember hearing a coach saying

you wanna be like Michael Jordan

yeah yeah I wanna be be just like him coach okay

guess what there's a quote that Jordan once said

that if he missed one day of practice

he noticed it if he missed 2 days of practice

his coach noticed it if he missed 3 days of practice

the fans noticed it so

it was important to practice the sport

every single day wow

and that's that's being an action figure

as opposed to being a wisher

I I wanna be like Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan is my son's favorite basketball player

well then there you go

born in Chicago and

and he's the most famous Chicago ball

and so I uh I will tell him that quote and that

that's gonna give me a good

tactical way to deal with exactly this issue well

you just don't become Michael Jordan

because you wanna be right

you gotta put some work effort into it right

you know yeah

Michael Jordan

didn't become Michael Jordan because he wanted to be

right

there's a lot of people that wanna be Michael Jordan

and there's only one of him

and he did it because of that 1

2 3 day thing yep

I love that um

the next line is a son who will know thee

talking about the Lord and that to know himself

is the foundation stone of knowledge

now elsewhere in the book you write um

you you have a quote by Marcus Aurelius

and that quote is that

the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts

now and there is so much

I think

we're living in an age where there's just a ton

of sloppy thinking right

and just you know

people believe things are true that can't be true

and things like that how

how do we cultivate epistemological hygiene in our boys

or you know

heck man how do we

how do we do it in ourselves

how do we make sure that what we

that

that our convictions are actually bounded in reality

yeah I think it's

it's driven by a continuous self assessment

um and it's

this is something I I mentioned to you before I

I teach an MBA a group of MBA students and the

and I teach them strategic leadership

and the foundations of leadership

and the first couple lessons are really focused on

self analysis who they are

what they know who

who who they wanna be

who are their who are the people that light their fires

and what do they represent

in fact they do two papers

the first is a a snap quiz in class

I give them 20 minutes to

to do it and it's a write down who am I

and I don't want your accomplishments

I don't want your your CV or your biography

I want to know who you are as a person

and then later on in the in the course

I ask another I do another drill like that where I say

who lit your fire who's the one

you know I ask them all to close their eyes and say

think about who's the one person in their life that

really lit their fire yeah

and I give them about two seconds and then I say okay

open your eyes

and what I found is everybody in the class has someone

yeah there's an immediate thought on somebody

often it's two or three people who lit your fire ants

uncles mothers fathers

teachers coaches those kind of things

and and I asked them a question of

what do you think they did that lit your fire

and and they all talk about they were honest

they had integrity they spoke the truth

they developed me they made my life a little harder

but they saw my potential and they held me to standards

those are the kind of recurring themes that come about

and I think in the last quote

you just mentioned on MacArthur

it's all about continuously doing a self assessment

yeah how did I do that

how did I handle that situation

what did I do and then not only that

but the other thing I teach these MBA students

I give them an exercise a homework assignment

where they have to go back to their teams

and ask their teams

what do I do that makes it hard for you to work with me

wow what a great exercise

you know and and most of them come back and say well

my teammates didn't want to tell me that

my boss didn't want to tell you're doing great

you're doing fine you're awesome

but everybody has something that they can improve upon

so there's a constant requirement to say

going back to the polishing the diamond

how do I better polish my diamond

and what input do I get to improve myself

on a daily basis

a key essence of leadership is learning

and growing every day

and developing trust with other people

so those are the things I think in order to get that

to meet that demand in that line of MacArthur's prayer

there's got to be a continuous self assessment

and self analysis of who you are

on on YouTube

there's a there's a debrief of uh

some blue a Blue Angels flight team and yeah

I saw that okay

yeah and I

you watch these guys and and the the

the memory that comes out to me is

they were talking about

this high speed pass that they do where

where the two f a eights line up belly to belly

and they fly I mean

it looks from the ground they're

they're 50 feet above the ground

and from the ground

it looks like they're two feet apart

it's just nuts and they're and they're

and they're approaching at 400 knots

so the the total close rate is 800 knots and

and it's just unbelievable

it is such a great demonstration of precision

and excellence in piloting

and you watch that part of the debrief and the um

the there's no there's

there's a lead pilot that

it sort of

establishes the altitude that you're going to do

the fly by

by and then

and then the other guy just keys off of

of that guy and so the lead pilot was talking about

he says yeah

you know when I

when I approached the the

the knife edge high speed pass

and I was about

I was about 15 feet low on the beginning of the

of the of the knife edge

and I was just sort of blown away by two things

first of all the amount of precision

like the fact that I fly airplanes

I don't notice if I'm 15 feet low doing anything and

and that's just absolutely amazing

but the fact that this is

you're getting so finely ground into the

into the details to to expand on your diamond analogy

you're using such fine grit at this point

to polish that diamond it's

that's where excellence is

you're still this guy is still

coping to the fact that he was 15 feet low

in spite of the fact that

that he's that excellent at what he does

and that's what it takes yeah

we in

in the early 1980s the US Army established our

National Training Center in California

near you and part of the

the dynamic of that

is a continuous assessment of what units were doing

based on doctrine

first time that's ever been done in terms of a

what we now call an AAR an after action review

so every mission was filmed

radio devices were recorded

we saw maps we saw where people were because of

you know tracking on the ground

and you could literally break down an operation

and detect every single problem

it's it's a bigger part of what you were talking about

with the Blue Angels yeah

because after every battle

we would pull everybody together

show them the films do this

do that and that's what the Air Force does it

or at the Navy does it at uh

Top Gun yeah

and you saw okay

here's the mistake I made

I can't do that anymore it's not right

you know it's gonna cause problems

and it's not as effective as it should be

those are the kind of things

we've got to instill into our personal lives

as well of taking a reflection

you know when you have a fight with your wife

you know both of you go to your

your your separate corners and think about okay

how did I handle that poorly

and what should I have done differently

and and

you know again

this is an old guy talking

but I've Learned a lot of lessons about how to speak

better with my wife sure uh

to try and understand her a little bit better

as well as making my own argument a little bit better

the the next line is lead him

I pray not in the path of ease and comfort

but under the stress

and spur of difficulties and challenge

you know our role as

as fathers of boys

is really to provide those difficulties and challenge

don't you think absolutely

and I think I say in my reflection on that line is

as a father or as a parent

you wanna make it easy on your kids yeah

you wanna help them grow not fall off the bike

do thing you know

and and sometimes

you know hate to say this as an old grandfather

but sometimes you gotta let them get hurt yeah

you know so they learn the lesson

it's the the hot stove technique okay

you gotta let him touch it sometimes yeah

as long as there's no permanent damage I

I I'm happy to let my kid hurt well

and that's that's the risk mitigation

isn't it yeah

you know if they can learn from it

that's good if they hurt themselves

that's not so good but

you know if you just keep saying hey

get away from the stove they'll never learn uh

and and that's a

probably a very poor example

but it's interesting that there were times

my wife and I have talked a lot about this

there were times in each of our son's life

where we purposely did not intervene

yeah um

in terms of decision making

uh we talked about that before we had the show about

you know

the issues of relationships and things like that

yeah but

you know sometimes you just gotta learn and

and suffer through things

so you can make it better

and realize how much you're made of

and that's what that

that part of the prayer is all about

and the next line says here

let him learn to stand up in the storm

let him learn compassion for those who fail

and to me that

might be the purest distillation of healthy masculinity

I've ever seen a man stand up in a storm

and he has compassion for those who fail

right yeah

it's it's a great line

yeah and it

it happened to fit because we were in Desert Storm yeah

um and compassion to ones who fail were

in the case of 1991 were the ones that were

took their fear beyond fear

and put it into the cowardice category

and you can understand why they were doing it

um but that comes back later in life

when you realize that sometimes

people aren't just built to meet your standard

so sometimes you've got really got to help them do that

uh through a variety of techniques

so that again

polishing the diamond helping them grow

helping them be the best they can be

um yeah

that's a great line too in it

you tell a number of stories in the book about the

the way that you I don't know

interact maybe is I don't know the right way to put it

but with your enemies so that

that compassion to those who fail

extends to your enemies

and you have this

it it seems like

you have this respect for the fact that

the guy on the other side of the rifle

is is also a human

yeah and

and he believes in

as strongly in his viewpoint as you believe in yours

and

and you know

if he if he falls

he's failed and

you know you don't vilify him

you don't

there is

you need to have your own

you need to bring your own humanity to the engagement

and and yeah

um I had a

I had a conversation with my boy yesterday

he had a really tough day yesterday

and the nature of the tough day is

there's a guy in school that is

he's a little bit of a bully to my son

and my son is so this guy's older and he's bigger than

than my son my son is very big

he's uh

he's only in um

you know he's seven years old

but he he looks like he's about 10 or 11 really

okay and so the

the rest of kind of society sees this ten year old kid

and they're like man

why is he acting like a seven year old

and the fact is he's seven

and that translates into he gets picked on by

by older kids and then

so there's a kid in the school that is just sort of

relentlessly picking on my boy

a little bit and it's not

it's not so bad that you can go to the school

but it's not nothing either

and so my son has to deal with this and um

we talked about a specific event that happened

something specific this boy said

I said listen man

you know

you have to recognize um

that this boy has a tough life

and he takes it out on you

because he thinks that you have an easy life

you don't any more than anybody else does

um but you've got parents that absolutely love you

and you've got you know

you've got you've got a good life

and I don't think this kid does

and I know that it stinks to have to deal with this

but you should keep that in mind

boy what great advice from a father that

that is awesome

um and it

it will build character in multiple ways

uh I

I would think that

it would build character from the standpoint of him

trying to get an understanding of another person

which we need more of yeah

in today's world yeah

but it will also that character will be um

that it will reappear in later life

he will remember the kid that picked on him

yeah and how he stood up to it

yeah I mean

it will come back over and over again

my my wife has a story about

she was she's very short

she's 4 foot 11

and she was a cheerleader in high school and

and she continuously tells a story about other girls

picking on her making fun of her

yeah and it's interesting that

my wife is all kinds of accomplished

and she's a beautiful woman inside and out

but she keeps going back to that story

so it was a part of her character and how she built it

and it's now reflected

in how well she treats other people

cause

she Learned lessons that she didn't want to repeat

from that woman that

or the girl that was picking on her

and that's something that your son can probably

but it it's tough

you know it's tough when they're seven years old to say

hey son

you're building character

in 30 years you're gonna be really happy this happened

yeah yeah

I remember my dad saying that to me

and it it fell on deaf ears

but he was right yeah

he was cause it is part of who your character is

getting cut from a team

or winning the state championship

that's right

all inserts things into your character that

that come back over and over again in good and bad ways

that's right yeah

the next line is

build me a son whose heart will be clear

whose goal will be high a son who will master himself

before he seeks to master other men

one who will reach into the future net

yet never forget the past

I I

of that entire line

the one that I'm most enamored with is

master himself before he seeks to master other men

yeah um

and again

it goes back to what we've already been talking about

self analysis

requesting critique

but the looking into the future is also important um

you know we were just talking about your son

not wanting to go 30 years in the future

to understand how he's building character today

as a seven year old right

but you know

it is that here's why we're doing some things sometimes

and as a parent

boy isn't that the truth too

I mean you have to make some hard calls with your kids

and as long as you have an understanding of what

why you're doing it and what you're doing

the plan for the future

of what you're trying to establish in your children

becomes critical important

critically important yeah

you know you

you write um

in that part of the book you write

you have you have a lovely quote that is

integrity provides clarity

vision gives direction

and self discipline grants authority

and memory teaches humility

and I just love this role of integrity

of vision self discipline and memory

as you know the building blocks upon which you can

you know really build a great life yeah

I think you know

you just remind me I I don't know if I use this or not

but it's a quote that I always come back to uh

a yogism where he once said if

if you don't know where you're going

any roads gonna take you there yeah

that guy uh

and and that's the vision piece

what are we trying to achieve

yeah with our life and our children's lives

uh what kind of lessons are we trying to teach them

yeah uh

responsibility uh

accountability integrity

not lying um

the kinds of values that

that most people respect in others right

those are how how do you

those things just don't happen

they occur you can't wish them to be um

you know that's why I think

getting a dog and allowing your kid to take care of it

is probably one of the better lessons Learned because

sure they take responsibility for things of a living

human thing you know yeah

not human but a living thing yeah

and it goes on to say

and after all these things are his add

I pray enough of a sense of humor

so that he may always be serious

yet never take himself so seriously

isn't that a great vision for when you think of a

when you think of a great man

you think of Winston Churchill

for example

that's that's masculinity

isn't it yeah

not taking yourself seriously

and having a sense of humor yeah

I mean I don't wanna be around people that don't laugh

I like people that smile yeah

and it and it's especially useful in crisis situations

oh yeah um

you know if

if you can say oh man we're

we're in it now uh

you know but boy

we're gonna come out of it

it's it's a approach of positivity that I think uh

we can instill in our children yeah

of looking forward to doing something

even though it's hard and having a good time doing it

uh making the memories that

that you can always rely on

where there's lessons involved

and hey

remember when we did this and here's what came of it

you know those kind

and then laughing about it and having a good time

so yeah that

that is a great that

that is a great way to end this prayer

don't you think I think so too

um he goes on to say

there's two lines left and

and he goes on to say give him humility

so that he may always remember the simplicity

of true greatness the open mind of true wisdom

and the weakness of true strength

yeah the

a guy gave me a book about 2 years ago

that he had written

he asked me to review it and I was hesitant

I I don't know where he came up with my name

he was some university

professor at the university of Puget Sound

so he says hey John

could you review this book for me

I said okay

what's the name of and he says uh

he says well

I'm a history professor

but I put this great research together

the name of the book is generals and Admirals

Criminals and crooks and I thought wow

did I do something right I don't know

what does it mean

that I'm being asked to review this book

yeah so he said no

no no

he says it's not a slight against you

he says

I just think you would be great in assessing this

so I read this book and

there were seven stories of different generals

and admirals through history

who have really who had really failed

and it was all because of their egos

yeah they believe their own press reports

they thought they could get away with things

that they shouldn't even try

similar things like that or they

they didn't hold to their professional values right

and it was fascinating each one of the stories

I thought link back to an overgrown ego

yeah which usually comes with rank and position

sure and

and what I found is

some of the greatest leaders I've worked for

in the military

were not the ones that puffed up their chest

but they were the ones that

you know listened and heard

you know use their eyes and their ears

uh in ratio to their mouth yeah

at 4 to 1 yeah

in terms of listening and hearing

or seeing and hearing and speaking in that ratio

and it just shows that you should be

forcing yourself to learn from others

on a daily basis and be humble about who you are uh

so McArthur did not

truthfully exhibit some of those traits haha uh

but he certainly wanted to have

and perhaps that was a deflection hey

I'm gonna grow my kids to be something that I

that I perhaps had a a human foible about yeah yeah

which that's all we can ever hope for right

yeah yeah

I I feel like um

like sort of the performative aspects

the aggression the dominance

those sorts of things are

are kind of the Dunning Kruger peak of strength right

and real strength is wrapped in humility

if you if you

you ever meet someone who's really

really strong

they don't need to tell you how strong they are

they don't need to brag about

you know be more than you appear to be right

yeah yeah

the last line is so powerful and

and he says he says

then I his father

will dare to whisper I have not lived in vain

and that line man

that line in the prayer is so heavy and it just

it hits you it kind of

it places this unbelievable weight of meaning

on the father's life on the character of his son

and when when you look back

and you look at the men that

that your own sons have become

was there a moment where you get to whisper your

those words

when when do we get to do it

um you

you get to do it throughout their

their life hmm

um you know every

you can see a reflection and that's

truthfully

why I get emotional talking about this stuff

yeah because you can see it when they're 10 years old

and they win a prize in school

when they're 16 and they're on a sports team

when they go off and do something great in their 20s

um and and

and when they come to you

uh when they're 40 and 45

like our two sons are now 42 and 45

yeah and they still ask you questions

hey dad

how would you handle this right

hey dad what

what do you think about this

hey dad

I want I want to buy a new house

is it the right time um

it was

it was interesting

a couple years ago when our youngest son

Scott was uh

he had his two new sons they were toddlers

one was three and the other one had just been born

and the three year old was going crazy in the house and

you know doing what three year olds do

and he he turned to my wife and I and he goes

hey daddy says this is kind of a catch all

but I just want to let you know

that I apologize for everything

that I ever did to the both of you

ha ha ha cause

cause

cause he was experiencing that moment with his kid

yeah and

and we laughed about it at the time

but boy isn't that a

a a father's understanding of how to raise children

yeah yeah

um there was

you know it's

it's just

there's a I think it's Mark Twain

who said he couldn't believe how dumb his fuck

when he was sixteen

he couldn't believe how dumb his father was yeah

and by the time he was 21

he couldn't

he couldn't realize how fast his father had Learned

all sorts of things so

so it was basically you know the

the difference of a 16 year old giving you a hard time

cause you're a boomer

and you don't know what you're talking about

to suddenly they're asking your advice yeah

so that that I have not lived in vain

occurs all throughout your life

it's not just at the end yeah

it's the the men that we build

it's how we contribute to our society

with great men and great women too

yeah I'll expand your show a little bit right yeah

yeah well

and and one of

one of the key

lessons that I've had from this whole project

has been that

I mean I care very deeply about raising great men

and I've been real public about the

reasons I care about that

um primarily due to the masculinity crisis and

but in order to raise great men

you have to be a great person yourself

and that and that

that is they need

they need people to look up to

and you know

that that applies whether you're their father

or their mother or their aunt or their uncle

or just somebody they meet on the street

and and so

yeah I mean

that the the audience of

of of this project is

is not just men it is

there is a uh

I I wanna comment on what you just said cause it's

it's wonderful and it's a term that I use a lot

there was a there is a book called once an Eagle

that most soldiers read

and it's a story of a guy named Sam Damon

who is a soldier he joins the army during World War 1

and they follow him through

and he has a best friend in World War 2

who is killed in action his best friend

and he repeatedly

goes back to his friendship with this guy

well this guy has a son

and his son also joins the army

and now at the end of the book

Sam is an old retired general

and the son is a brand new lieutenant colonel

fighting in Vietnam and they have a conversation

and his son's friend is talking about nothing

but his career and he was all caught up in careerism

and making the next promotion

and doing the advancement and selling out other people

I mean he was implying that

and Sam says to him he pulls him aside and he says Sam

uh Sam says to Joey

he says Joey

think about this he says

in life

if it comes down to being a great and honored soldier

with a lot of rank or being a good human being

he said choose to be a good human being

because that is what will make you a great soldier

yeah and that sums it up yeah

yeah you get both things that way right

right

so when you look back on a life

dedicated to military service

your your yourself

your sons um

you know your spouses that's

it's not it's not just you that

that has to be dedicated um

it's everybody it's the whole family

the children everybody

there's so many sacrifices and there's benefits

right

in balance

do you think it was worth it and

and why I was afraid you were gonna ask that question

somebody asked me the other day um

that he's I can't remember how the question was phrased

but it was along the lines of

you've had an interesting life from I

I think it was

you had an interesting life from a soldier

uh a leader and a family perspective

and they said which one was the hardest

and I said being a father

I they didn't say family perspective

they said father's perspective

yeah and I said being a father

yeah and it

it kind of surprised me they said

why do you say that you seem like a good father

and the reason I say that is because I see our two sons

who are great fathers I mean

they are absolutely off the chart kind of fathers

yeah and I look back at my life um

and say I didn't

I had a whole lot of foibles

I had a lot

a whole lot of character flaws as I was younger

and the balance that you just talked about

was not there

uh it was

you know the profession normally came first

yep and then the family

and it's a mistake that I made

and I think that a lot of people make too

and it's just because of all the things

we just finished talking about

in terms of how how

how you think other people see you

what value do they put on you and uh what's

what's the thing that you should focus

most of your attention on

my wife got it right she's

she's the anchor of the family

yeah um

and it's because uh

she also has a quote that she always uses

that

the greatest work that you'll ever do in your own home

is the raising of your family

yeah uh

and I often failed in that

I can look back and be reflective

and write a journal about it

but I admit as

you know in the book

a couple of times that

I didn't quite

live up to some of the things I was saying

and I think we all have to face ourselves in that

if we really want to raise great kids

yeah um

and raise men like you're saying

you know as

as the son of a father who was like that too

my dad

um

his career was everything

um to him it

it it felt even that it was more important to him than

than we were yeah

and I think that you know

I mean he was of a similar generation to you and

you know part that

like our culture was really about okay

you know as a man

you're a provider and that's really all you are

that's the worth that you bring to the world

and he did that I mean he he crushed it in spades

but there's one other thing that he did that you did

too which is he married an amazing woman

and she

my mom

she pulled way more than her weight in that respect

and that

that was the biggest favor

and the biggest service my dad did to me

yeah and sounds like you did that to your sons too

I the same thing

exactly the same and

and I'm seeing their the sons do the same thing

that they've married good woman and

and the thing that we've seen in terms of relationship

and the best kids that can be raised are when you're of

like mind uh

of with these kind of things

and I'm not sure how much my wife and I talked about

how we were gonna raise the kids

but for some reason I think we saw

see things the same way

I was a little bit harsher than she was uh

but that's okay too I mean

you gotta go to mom when Dad's being mean to you

yeah um

but but we were on the same page

yeah and I

I think that's an important aspect of raising Men

as your podcast is named

when the parents really have the common vision uh

like from from that old movie drumline of one band

one sound right

yeah

even though you might play the instrument differently

well I always like to finish up uh

these conversations by asking everyone

pretty much the same question and uh

and that one is if you could give us just one principle

um

about how to raise excellent men in our modern culture

what would that principle be

love just love and develop trust

um treat them

even though they may be 3 years old or 20 years old

treat them as fellow human beings

and understand that all the things that

that we do in our society to treat others

should be applied to our children

as well teach them on a daily basis

teach them something new and uh

make sure that they install that in their

in their brain bank uh

through a variety of ways

and the last thing in that long list of one

things that you ask is yeah

have have fun while you do it

laugh at yourself yeah

uh when things are failing

go in some special room with your wife and say

oh my gosh did that just happen

our son if I can

I can if I can give this tip

our son I don't have my phone nearby

but our son keeps a journal on his notes

on his note page on his phone

and he's

and we're part of the stream that he sends it to

and it's it's his two boys

and what they're saying on a daily basis

I did the same thing and it's hilarious

yeah and

and you can tell the frustration of the parents

but as grandparents many of the time we're laughing

it's glorious until we cry

it's glorious yeah

so yeah

rebel in who they are and who they're becoming yeah

those are some of my one things that is perfectly

perfectly stated you know

general hurling I

I

you could be forgiven for just resting on your laurels

and sitting on a beach somewhere and

you know staying out of the fray

and just enjoying a glorious retirement

you had an amazing career

you uh

um and yet you're doing all this other stuff

and I just you know

I want to let you know that um

I appreciate it

thank you so much for your decades of leadership

and for sharing the lessons that you've Learned

thank you for the book it is

it is a really really great um

I wish there were more people who would um

share with you know

their lives with the kind of honesty that um

that you have in this uh

in this book and so uh

thank you thanks so much for uh

for taking it on well

I appreciate it Sean

and again I'm gonna say it one more time

it was so good to be with you

this was

one of the best conversations I've had in months

so I appreciate your very insightful questions

and just your opportunity to

to have a conversation with me

um it was fun

so thank you and thanks for what you're doing

thanks for what you're doing too

thank you so much and if you want to learn more uh

from Mark Hurtley please grab a copy of his book

it's called if I don't return

a Father's Wartime Journal

and you can also follow his leadership uh

insights and commentary online

he's a contributor to the Bullwork

he's on uh

on Twitter and X on LinkedIn

and uh

and you'll find all of

the links to all of those things in the show notes

thank you for listening to the Raising Men podcast

until next time you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino