April 8, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of STARRS & Stripes, host CDR Al Palmer, USN ret, interviews retired Brigadier General Christopher Petty who draws from his distinguished 31-year Army career as a West Point graduate, combat helicopter pilot, and battalion commander in Iraq to discuss how CRT/DEI ideology has affected military readiness and what must be done to restore a warfighting focus.
Among the topics he discusses:
- West Point graduate who chose aviation after seeing helicopter pilots during Ranger School
- Discusses how DEI policies introduced under Obama's 2011 Executive Order have undermined military unit cohesion
- Explains how prioritizing demographic quotas has resulted in lowered standards and damaged the meritocracy
- Identifies China's superior industrial production capacity as America's greatest strategic vulnerability
- Argues that senior military leadership failed to show moral courage in pushing back against harmful ideological policies
- Believes the military must return to valuing warfighters who can win conflicts
- Created Battle Digest to help today's military leaders learn from historical battles
Gen. Petty is the author of "12 Battles Every American Should Know" and the creator of Battle Digest (battledigest.com) —described as "Reader's Digest for Warfare"—to explore military history in an accessible format designed for today's officers and military enthusiasts.
Subscribe to STARRS & Stripes for more critical conversations about America's military readiness and the challenges facing our armed forces in an increasingly complex global landscape.
_______________________________________
For more information about STARRS, go to our website: https://starrs.us which works to eliminate the divisive Marxist-based CRT/DEI/Woke agenda in the Department of Defense and to promote the return to a warfighter ethos of meritocracy, lethality, readiness, accountability, standards and excellence in the military.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Al Palmer (00:11):
Well, hello America, and to you, our valued listeners
and viewers of STARRS andStripes, I'm your host Commander
Al Palmer, United States Navy,retired.
Al Palmer, United States Navyretired.
And I do this show becausewe're interested in making sure
that our military is up to itsability to fight and win wars.
It's all about war fighting andall about service to our nation
(00:34):
.
So today, to talk a little bitmore about how that happens, I'm
really honored to have with ustonight as our guest one of our
favorite people here at STARRS.
He's one of our Board ofAdvisors, Brigadier General
Chris Petty.
Chris Petty is a 1987 graduateof West Point.
(00:58):
He's an aviator, he's ahelicopter pilot.
He's commanded aviation unitsfrom battalion strength down and
most notably in Iraq.
He was a commander of abattalion that was involved in
some very special night andaerial assault attack operations
.
He went on to command NATOheadquarters in Bosnia.
(01:21):
He became a deputy director ofour Northern Command as a deputy
in charge of ballistic missiledefenses and ISR intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance.
He's also an author and he'sdone a tremendous amount of work
on focusing the Army effortsand past efforts in battle to
(01:44):
point forward to leadership andthe way things probably ought to
work in the Army.
So, general, it's a greatpleasure, sir, having you with
us today.
Thanks for joining us on STARRSand Stripes.
Chris Petty (01:55):
Thanks, al, pleasure to be with you.
Al Palmer (01:59):
So you've got quite a diverse background and as a
fellow aviator, I'm very proudof what you're able to do with
helicopters, which I usually tryto stay away from because I
heard they had to kind of beattheir way into the air instead
of flying.
But having that difference, I'mglad to see that you had such a
distinguished career.
(02:19):
What got you into the Navy?
How did you, I'm sorry?
What got you into the Navy?
How did you I'm sorry into theArmy?
How did you arrive there?
Chris Petty (02:27):
Well, I was a young , idealistic high school
sophomore I think, at the time,and I happened to pick up my
father's West Point yearbookcalled the Howitzer one of the
finest yearbooks in the country,actually, they get awards for
it all the time and I just wasleafing through this thing and I
(02:47):
live again.
I'm a high school sophomore andI'm like, wow, this is like
Camelot.
I feel like I should be aknight in this, uh, order of
Camelot.
You know, it was just one ofthose things.
And, uh, even though my fathersaid, are you sure?
I mean, I mean, it's a big,it's a big, it's a, it's a
difficult road, I said, yeah,I'm going to go.
(03:08):
So I pointed all my energy anddirection into getting into West
Point.
Just from looking at theyearbook and being just amazed
by the images and that culture,it was just fascinating for me.
So so I went to West Point, yes, and did the whole cadet
experience for four years.
And interesting little footnotethey sent me to ranger school
(03:30):
as a cadet, which they hadn'tdone for like a decade.
So it was quite an extensiveweeding out process.
And the funny thing is theysent me to ranger school and
(03:51):
during ranger school I'm onpatrol and you know, or you get
one meal a day and you're tiredand you're going for five, six
days and these helicopters wouldpick us up and deliver us, like
you know, 12 kilometers.
It took us, you know, all nightto walk 12 kilometers through
the woods and ravines and I'mthinking, wow, these guys smell
like soap and they look well fed.
Al Palmer (04:07):
I think I'm gonna go with aviation instead of yeah,
that's a great show, isn't ityeah?
Chris Petty (04:12):
yeah, so I was like , okay, and that actually
changed my mind, no kidding.
So I became so I branchedaviation instead of infantry
because they sent me to rangerschool.
Al Palmer (04:21):
It's a funny little figuring, probably figuring like
me.
Chris Petty (04:24):
You'd get shot at less that way yeah, it's kind of
figured that turns out.
It's not always the case thatway, did it?
Yeah?
So that that's my little storyand uh, from that on it was just
an interesting career.
If you want to talk aboutanything, let me know well so?
Al Palmer (04:41):
so, going back to your years at West Point and I
think this is true of mostmilitary academy cadets it
probably changed your lifedramatically from when you got
in.
Yeah, how did life lookdifferently after four years at
West Point than it did as youwere going in in.
Chris Petty (05:07):
Well, you do tend to.
After four years of thatcrucible of leadership and you
know pretty intense academicenvironment and you're
surrounded by the concept ofduty honor country.
I mean it does change you at avery impressionable time, so
it's really positive change.
So, yeah, you come out of thatplace.
I mean you come out of thatplace really well prepared to
lead a platoon at whateverbranch you choose.
(05:31):
You know whether you're aninfantryman or an aviator and so
very well prepared and veryeager to take on the role of a
platoon leader at some unitsomewhere.
But I will say there's a littledownside which you probably are
familiar with is because you'vebeen trapped in this prison for
four years, you do tend to havea little bit of a wild streak
(05:56):
and you want to experience likethe year of college.
You never had but young 20 yearold or 21 year old kid going
out and partying and drivingdown to you know what was it?
The beach down in the panhandleof Florida where I went to from
Fort Rucker, alabama.
But you know you're stillgetting that out of your system
too.
But yeah, it's a, it's a good,it's a good transition.
(06:18):
You're ready and you're eagerto take on that role.
Al Palmer (06:24):
And about that point in your life there is an issue
of commitment.
Isn't there, you know?
All of a sudden, this isn'tjust a job, or just a way to get
something on your resume.
All of a sudden, you're kind ofcommitted to doing this, or
you're not.
Chris Petty (06:37):
Yeah, you really are, but you've thought about it
for four years, so it's not asurprise to you.
I mean, yeah, I forget what it,what it is now, but I think
after your sophomore year inWest Point, you're a yearling.
You know it's called yearling.
After that you take theofficial oath of service, like
(06:57):
if you quit now you're going tojoin here, you're going to be
sent to the army as this youknow an E4, or you know you're
in.
So yeah, you're, you're goingto be sent to the army as this
you know an E4, you know you'rein.
So yeah, you're.
You're thinking about it thewhole time.
It's exciting.
Al Palmer (07:09):
It is, and I think that's kind of typical.
Those of us who come througheither that route or just coming
from a military family.
We have a little bit more of aview of that that's inside than
it is outside, particularly by,I could say, by the time you
finish a couple years oftraining and then figuring out
what's happening around you.
Chris Petty (07:30):
Yeah.
Al Palmer (07:33):
So, as you got out as a new brown bar in the Army,
what was your first experience?
Did you learn a lot that firstyear or so?
Chris Petty (07:44):
Yeah, After you got into training training, I
learned a ton after flightschool, which is still obviously
the training environment, andyou know, army flight school at
that point lasted almost a year.
But after flight school I wentto my first assignment, which
was Fort Irwin, california, thenational training center.
So for a young aviator I meanit was ideal at At the time I
(08:05):
didn't think so because I wasstranded in the middle of the
Mojave Desert and I'm thinkingto myself, oh God, who did I?
Did I anger you in such amanner that I will never find a
wife here in the desert?
You know that kind of thing.
But it worked out beautifullybecause not only did I find a
wife who was a schoolteachernearby, but I was flying my butt
(08:27):
off and as a young aviatorreally developing the stick and
rudder skills that I had no ideaat the time would be, you know,
so foundational to my role,even as a battalion commander in
Iraq.
I mean brownout landings in thedesert in QH1s transferred
directly to Black Hawk brownoutlandings in Iraq, and just
(08:52):
developing that technical andtactical expertise as a young
lieutenant flying 50 hours amonth was just amazing.
Al Palmer (09:02):
Yeah, well, that, and as we know that flying time is
important in your developmentand all that, and I kind of
sometimes worry that that's nowbeen reduced a lot.
Of course we've got simulatorsand all which are supposed to
augment that, but I still likeyou go back to thinking about
the basic skills that you have.
You just got to keep repeating.
(09:23):
Yeah, so anyway, so, so that wasvery valuable yeah, well, let
me talk to you though today,going fast forward here to
today's recent environment.
You've written prettyintensively about the effects on
the Army with things likediversity, equity, inclusion,
(09:44):
critical race theory wokeness isthe popular term likes to call
it.
Tell me a little bit about howthat affected you, to the point
where you were ready to writeabout it and talk about it.
Chris Petty (09:58):
Well, as your listeners know, it's just, it's
a poisonous ideology that maybesome had good intentions with
introducing it.
But once it was injected andI'm talking about the entire
diversity, equity, inclusionworldview I'm not just talking
(10:18):
about DEI as a program, I'mtalking about this worked
worldview that says now we mustdiscriminate and separate by
race and gender, to create, tomake up for all the past sins of
Western civilization, andsomehow that's going to create
(10:38):
greater unity and cohesion inmilitary units.
I mean, it's absolutelyantithetical to creating any
kind of cohesion and unity, soit's actually one of the worst
things you could do for anorganization that needs to be
unified.
So I saw it right away.
And the funny thing is, youknow, this all happened after I
(11:01):
was, you know, in the.
I was a general officer doingmy last couple assignments.
This didn't really show itsface in the military until
Obama's executive order in 2011.
I think it was 2011, august of2011.
(11:21):
11 where, yeah, that's, that'sthat's where it started
officially in the military,because his executive order was
broad enough that all federaldepartments would incorporate,
you know, diversity, equity,inclusion concepts, equity
across the federal government.
So from that moment on, thecamel's nose was under the tent
(11:44):
and it just grew and grewbecause, you know, I saw the top
of the Army, I saw the top ofthe joint staff.
Civilian political appointeesare holding the general's feet
(12:04):
to the fire on.
You know, how are you measuringhow many of this uh skin color
person is in this program andhow many are?
How are you measuring, you know, your, your uh improvement in?
You know, women joining theinfantry, your women in the
marine corps?
(12:24):
You know all this kind of stuff.
The generals respond to thatand if they don't, they're
basically going to be pushed outor they're not going to get
promoted.
And I know generals always liketo find that next star in their
future.
It's a big deal, don't kidyourself, don't kid yourself.
And so the generals kind of puttheir heads down collectively
(12:46):
and said, well, this won't dotoo much damage, we can mitigate
this, even though we're notreally happy with this because
we know it's not a good thing.
But yeah, I mean, they'reholding our feet to the fire.
The civilians truly are incharge, as it should be
constitutionally.
(13:06):
But the generals react to that.
So they kind of they play thegame, they measure things, they
try to increase the no one likesto call them quotas, but
they're everywhere becauseeverything's being measured and
people are being heldaccountable and you have to, all
of a sudden, you have to briefthe you know, the assistant
secretary of the army on howmany women are attending ranger
(13:29):
school.
You know, it's things like thatthat make change happen, and
this change, in a bad way, iswhat I'm saying.
So you know I understood thatdynamic.
You know people are shakingtheir heads saying why is this
happening?
Well, I know why it's happeningbecause the civilians are
making it happen and thegenerals are not showing the
(13:51):
moral courage to stop it.
So I saw the damage.
It's clear to most logicalpeople that this is a damaging
ideology, that it really has noscience or anything behind it.
It's just an ideology.
Science or anything behind it,it's just an ideology.
And it affected everything.
We saw it.
We saw the numbers drop inrecruiting.
(14:15):
We saw soldiers leaving theservice because they were
frustrated.
I had a good friend who was aNavy SEAL actually best friend
of my son, who's a Coast GuardAcademy graduate and you know he
basically got out.
After all the training NavySEAL training, all the stuff he
went through he got out as a,you know, an 03 because he was
(14:35):
just so frustrated with allthese requirements, dei stuff,
so he left a lot of service.
He's just one of thousands thatjust said I'm not.
I'm not doing this anymore.
You know it's divisive, it'stearing apart the team.
I don't feel the cohesion.
It's not fun anymore.
We turn off war fighters.
Al Palmer (14:56):
But, chris, isn't that the reflection of the fact
that there were real problemsthat probably the civilians in
the Pentagon didn't understandbecause they had not been
operators, they weren't in themilitary for most cases, I think
?
Do you think maybe they justmissed that and said, well,
maybe it won't do too muchdamage, I'll go along with it
for a while, see what happens?
Chris Petty (15:18):
Well, I don't know that.
The civilians.
If your question is did thecivilians miss that?
I think the answer is no.
I think I think Obama appointedideologues as his political
appointees and they were intenton moving the agenda forward on
these crazy leftist propagandaprograms that really objectively
(15:41):
don't work.
So that's really what I thinkwas going on, that really
objectively don't work.
So that's really what I thinkwas going on.
And then you know, trump didn'thave time in his first term to
really get into the weeds andclean the stuff out.
And so by the time Obama comesaround I mean Biden comes around
now you're populating DOD withmore of these people and this
stuff happens.
So I mean, I see it, I seeclearly how it happened.
Al Palmer (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, we all do , don't we?
So as time went on, though,what happened was standards were
lowered and changed.
Promotions were changed.
Advancement didn't necessarilymean you were having to do it on
the basis of merit.
Often it was because of whatyou look like or other external
(16:25):
factors, and then the reallyprecipitous problems were things
like retention and readinessthat started to drop.
So certainly the leadership onthe military side must have been
seeing that happen and did theyjust take a pass on it?
Chris Petty (16:43):
you think, well, bit I mean it goes back to what
I said is, you know, it'samazing, it's amazing when you
take a step back al that, uh,you know, um, how people can
rationalize in in their, intheir self-interest and I do
think there was a lot ofrationalizing at the senior
levels in their self-interest.
(17:05):
So they didn't stand up and say, you know, we had no four-star.
Stand up and say, mr President,this is tearing apart our
military.
I can't stand by and watch thishappen.
Here's some facts, facts, facts, facts, facts.
I am submitting my resignation,resignation.
We didn't have that moralcourage emerge any time and that
(17:27):
was disappointing.
But rationalization is a reallypowerful human thing.
It's everywhere, so I can yeahyeah so they thought they could.
A lot of them drank the kool-aidanyway, because you know, I
mean, what 20% of population isgonna drink this Kool-Aid anyway
.
So yeah, it was a combinationof those two things.
Al Palmer (17:48):
It just let it fester and grow and the tumor just
kept growing until really untilTrump's new executive order,
which changed everything,changed the entire landscape so
there was that there was aperiod there where the SecDef
and chairman of the Joint Chiefsgot together and said look, you
(18:11):
know, there's a problem here.
We got to solve this.
They did the shutdown of allthe services for what a day or
two and they talked about thingslike nationalism and white
supremacy and gender identityand all that Trying to find
people who were extremists.
And, as I recall, out of thecouple of million folks in
(18:33):
uniform, they only found like100 people who actually did have
some issue with that.
But that's a pretty dramaticthing to do to an entire force
to shut things down.
Chris Petty (18:47):
Looking that kind of a problem, isn't it?
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
And the numbers, as you saidit's, it's ridiculous.
Let's stand down the entireforce from training to look for
a you know something.
That's a less than one percentproblem.
I mean it's ridiculous.
So yeah it Al.
I mean, you and I both know itwas an ideology, ideologically
(19:08):
driven program and I'm notsaying there's some puppet
master pulling the strings, butthere is part of our society
that is ideologically driven tothis stuff, this destructive,
de-unifying stuff.
They'll always be with us, butthey got into the military,
(19:30):
finally with Obama and doubleddown with Biden, and now we're
turning it around.
So it's encouraging.
Al Palmer (19:39):
So we're seeing that in places, like you say, we
didn't think we would see it,and particularly places that it
should never have been like inthe military academies, west
Point in particular and yet itgot in there somewhere.
So the question that we've hada lot on this podcast in future
episodes is where did that comefrom?
(20:00):
And then how did we allow it toget in?
A lot of that discussioncentered around the advent of
more outside professors beingput into the academies than used
to be there.
Say, a couple of decades ago,when I was a young guy, when I
went to the officer trainingschool, there were no civilians
(20:21):
at all, and I think that was thesame way back in the old days
in West Point and Annapolis andeven Air Force Academy.
When they started it was allmilitary professors for the most
part, maybe a couple ofadvisors or something from
outside.
Now those figures are prettyhigh.
With the military academy WestPoint I think the last time I
(20:45):
checked was close to 26 or 27%of outside professors from
mostly East Coast universitiesand PhDs, which is great, and
they know what they're talkingabout.
But the problem comes up isyou're still teaching people who
are going to be leaders asofficers.
They need to know how that iscontextualized within the
(21:06):
military, not just because it'sphysics or English or German or
whatever you're teaching themfrom the outside.
That would be useful in themilitary too.
A lot of that has to have thecontext of being a military
leader and how you're going touse that information that you're
learning.
So that's been a big issue.
(21:26):
I noticed Secretary Hegsethjust took that on like last week
or so.
He said we're going to try toget rid of that, and I think
that's actually started tohappen at the Air Force Academy,
where the superintendent sayshe's going to cut that by maybe
10% or something.
So what do you think about that?
Is that something they ought tobe doing in all the academies?
Chris Petty (21:48):
I think it's a contributing factor but, going
back to my earlier point, it'snot the sole factor, of course.
If you think about that's athree-star superintendent.
He's in that rarefied air ofthe senior leadership in the
military and the differentservices and those three stars
(22:10):
are being held to account by thefour stars that are now having
to brief the civilian ideologueabout what are you doing to
increase the number ofminorities in this sector?
What are you doing to increaseI notice your numbers here
aren't very strong on LGBTQadmissions to West Point.
(22:32):
There, Mr Three Star, what'syour plan to address that?
You understand what I'm sayingnow.
That's how it works.
Al Palmer (22:40):
I do yeah.
Chris Petty (22:41):
Yeah, it's not just civilian professors.
I mean, I'm all for somecivilian professors.
As you said, some of these PhDsin you know engineering or you
know the STEM fields are verybeneficial to the cadets.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know thatwe need a lot of civilian
professors in the sociology, youknow humanities areas, because
(23:05):
they're all pretty.
You know pretty far leftideologues.
But it's also a big part ofwhat I said at first.
It's that three star is beingheld to account, being measured
on all these crazy metrics, andguess what?
What gets measured gets done.
(23:25):
And you know that's what thecivilian leaders in the Pentagon
care about.
They don't care about warfighting, they care about
ideology.
And so if you want to ever findthat fourth star, you better
care about our ideology.
You know the message is clearto these folks and you may think
(23:48):
I'm simplifying it, but this ishuman nature and you see it.
Al Palmer (23:53):
So but isn't that kind of where the bridge was
broken between war fighting andideology, and ideology and under
the premise that diversity,equity and inclusion, and
particularly the diversity partof that, would increase the
lethality, increase the abilityof the military to do its job?
That claim was made on multipleoccasions, Some of that right
(24:16):
in the yeah you're right, al.
Chris Petty (24:17):
The claim was made, but it's a baseless claim, as
you and I know Exactly.
It's a baseless claim.
As you and I know it's abaseless claim.
In fact, it's an inverse.
There's an inverse relationshipand we all know it.
We've experienced it.
You know, when you and I werein the service I know you're a
few years older than I, but thefact is these things weren't an
issue.
I had black soldiers, hispanicsoldiers, female soldiers I
(24:40):
worked for a female general itwas just never an issue.
Everything seemed fine.
I did 31 years of this stuff.
Now, all of a sudden,everything it was looked at
through the lens of gender andrace and everything changes when
everything is looked at throughthat lens.
We never had that lens andeverything was unifying.
(25:05):
Everything was unifying towardsthe mission and the team, and
that all gets changed when yourlens is gender and race.
Al Palmer (25:15):
And so the result of that is because that's going to
result in lower standards inorder to accept those people,
promote them and keep them inthe force.
So all of a sudden, now you'vegot different standards for
different people.
Chris Petty (25:31):
Yeah, yeah, and people know it.
Even though everyone likes toignore it and people don't
really like to shout out thefact that standards are lowered
for certain groups because wewant more representation from
those groups, everybody knowsit's happening and you can see
it in your unit, yourorganization.
I mean soldiers aren't stupid,they see this.
(25:53):
In fact there's, you knowthere's plum assignments that
I'm sure some of the regular,you know, conservative, white,
christian officersian officerssaid well, I can't even compete
for this because there's nochance I'll get it because I
don't check any of the blocks.
I mean you know that went onthousands and thousands of times
across our military by peoplelike you and I that just said,
(26:16):
well, there's no chance I'mgoing to get this assignment or
promotion, I don't check any ofthose gender or racial blocks.
So yeah, I mean it really hasan effect.
Al Palmer (26:30):
Well, just like in our line of work in aviation,
you know the meritocracy ispretty high there.
If you don't do well, sometimespeople get hurt and often they
die hurt and often they die.
So so what you do in your jobis far more important than any
other factor that might enterinto it at the end.
(26:50):
Um, and in my sticky on aflying off an aircraft carrier,
you are graded on your landingsevery time you did it.
Uh, depending on which wire youcaught on the aircraft carrier,
if your, if your grade went toofar, you got some time with the
commander right away and youprobably didn't get from, you
probably didn't even stay in theservice.
So but it seems that thosestandards somewhat got
(27:13):
discharged over time, orlessened, if you will, and I
kind of worry sometimes thatwhen we do that we take away the
performance that goes with it,which is the meritocracy.
Chris Petty (27:25):
Well, of course, and not only do you take away
the performance, but you takeaway the incentive structure for
performance.
So people basically are likewhy should I go to that extra
school?
Or why should I take that hardjob as the brigade S3, you know,
and grind it out for threeyears, you know, not coming home
to my family until 10 o'clockat night.
(27:47):
Why should I do that job?
You know you, you start tochange the whole incentive
structure for people.
Let me tell you a quick storyout, if you got a minute,
because I didn't even.
I believe in affirmative action.
The last thing I want to createis this impression that you,
you know, here we are two whiteguys going.
Hey, you know we don't careabout this.
We do care about this stuff.
(28:08):
We've always cared about thisstuff and the military has been
the best integrator of racialand gender equality in the world
I mean organization in theworld and I'm very proud of that
.
I'll tell you a personal storythat, okay, this is years and
years ago.
I'm a battalion commander.
I get to hold flight boards toselect soldiers to compete to
(28:33):
actually get a slot at flightschool.
So I remember distinctly oneboard that I held and you know,
typically a board will have Idon, I don't know, in this
battalion we had five or sixcandidates that were e5
sergeants, maybe in e6.
They want to compete for thisvaluable slot to go to flight
school.
(28:53):
You know we might get one ortwo a year and these people
would have to become warrantofficers and go through the
whole process if for RuckerAlabama.
So this is a regular occurringevent.
I remember one board I haveeight candidates, all sharp, the
best of our battalion, and itcame down to a black guy and a
(29:13):
white guy.
At the end you do all theevaluation of schools and
performance and evaluationreports, blah, blah, blah and it
came down to a black guy and awhite guy and you know they were
basically equally qualified andthe board basically agreed
these two are equally qualified.
(29:33):
Well, guess who got the slot?
The black guy, because theywere equal.
They were equal.
So we said you know this isthis guy, you know he deserves
it.
He probably had a little bit ofa harder time with some of
these things with familystructure, whatever.
The tie went to the black guy.
(29:55):
I'm fully supportive of stufflike that and I did it
personally.
I mean that's why I like thisstory.
I I mean it's real, it's a realstory.
So I mean it's kind of anaffirmative action approach to
things like this.
But it wouldn't have been givento that young man if he wasn't
as good as the white guy.
You know what I mean.
Al Palmer (30:16):
Like flipping a coin.
Chris Petty (30:18):
Yeah, this stuff, you know, tie goes to the runner
in baseball, whatever.
But those things are positive,those things are good, we can do
those things.
But we can't lower thestandards to create these
artificial quotas that oh, justbecause 14% of the US population
is black, then therefore 14% ofthe 06s in the Army are
(30:45):
supposed to be black all of asudden.
I mean you just don't do thatstuff.
But, that's where they weregoing in everything.
That's where they were going ineverything, in every area where
they were going in everythingin every area.
Al Palmer (31:08):
And so too, I think again the downturn in retention
and recruiting may have led tosome of that in changing
standards, because now you'repressed to hold on to the people
that you can get right andmaybe lower the standards a
little bit just to make surethey stay in.
I was reading something notlong ago about army doctrine and
war fighting and how they train, and part of the things I was
(31:31):
reading were they were changingsome of that over time to make
the stress a little less, evento the point where they weren't
doing large-scale operationsthat were at a higher echelon,
because it was taking peopleaway from families for weekends.
Well, weekends don't count whenyou're at war and when you're
(31:54):
operating a large force,particularly under a field
exercise, it seems the lastplace when you want to stop for
a while, take a weekend off andthen come back.
I don't think that works wellin the army is, does it?
Chris Petty (32:06):
no, I'm not.
I'm not familiar with yourstory, but but let me just say
in general, I'm surprised tohear that because if you're if
you're on a major field exercise, I've I've never heard of uh
taking a taking a break to gowith families.
I mean, one thing I will sayabout the military in general
(32:26):
and across all the services,because I do know this is
they're pretty good about longweekends and making sure that
you get home to the family, youcan go to that kid's baseball
game, et cetera.
I think the military does anexceptionally good job these
days about trying to make suresoldiers spend time with their
(32:46):
families.
So that story is one I'm notfamiliar with.
I'd be surprised if you're on abig field problem and you just
take a break for a weekend inthe middle of it.
That just sounds odd.
Al Palmer (32:59):
Well, I think that was written by an Army colonel,
an infantry officer, but I thinkmaybe what he was trying to say
was a lot kind of a war ratherthan a skirmish.
When they were doing that, theywere taken away from some of
(33:28):
the traditions that they'd hadin the past.
Uh, well, like I will say.
Chris Petty (33:32):
I will say, though, with a small army which you
know we still have, kind of asmall army, if you look at the
requirements across the world,there is an uptempo.
You know the operational tempo.
There is a challenge across theentire force about, you know,
how many months can I stay homeversus how many months am I
(33:52):
actually literally gone, like,out of the state, out of the
country.
That is a challenge when youand this is something we
wrestled with at the Pentagon,you know, even in the army,
staff is, you know, how do you,how do you address all of your
requirements around the worldwith a limited supply of force
structure?
That's a, you know, demandoutstrips supply in our military
(34:16):
.
And you know, I think that's oneof Trump's, I think that's one
of the things Trump's trying toget a handle on, because
everyone talks about it, but wehaven't really done much about
redistribution, reallocation offorces across the globe.
You know, we only have so manybrigades in the army and the
requirements are really high,really high.
(34:44):
So, yes, you know we are takinga toll on families and
relationships and continuityjust by putting these guys into
Europe and putting them into thePacific and rotating them into
the Philippines and you know,and National Training Center to
build that, that larger scalecompetency across a brigade.
I mean, that's all time awayfrom the family.
So yeah, that's a, it's achallenge.
Al Palmer (35:03):
I mean that's all time away from the family.
So yeah, it's a challenge.
I think that was the focus wasbattalion larger restaurant
level versus the smaller unitswithin an operating base?
But the other services have thesame kind of problems, don't
they?
I mean, the Navy is runningshort on ships.
They're also running short onpeople to man the ships.
It's the same problem.
I think the Army has.
(35:23):
The Air Force isn't a whole lotdifferent either.
Chris Petty (35:26):
Right, I agree.
Al Palmer (35:28):
There's only so many problems, and the only guys that
probably have it sort ofstraight seem to be the Marines
these days.
Chris Petty (35:34):
Yeah, and because they've always been, they've
always specialized in more of aniche and that's worked to their
advantage.
So, yeah, I think the Marinesare on top of it, is specialized
in more of a niche and that'sbeen that's worked to their
advantage.
So, yeah, I think the marinesare.
I think the marines are on topof it, although they've had a
lot of uh, you know,consternation about their
development of their new warfighting strategy and lightning,
lightning the force and allthat stuff.
(35:55):
But that's a whole, nothertangent, but yeah too much, too
much demand, not enough supply.
That's going to be a problemuntil it's not a problem.
Al Palmer (36:04):
Oh yeah, and maybe that's improving a little bit
with the changes in things likegetting rid of the Mickey Mouse
stuff that go with wokeism andall.
Hopefully that will help alittle.
Yeah, what about the otherproblems, though, that I know
the other services have an issuethese days with the defense
industrial base being able toprovide things like munitions,
(36:25):
equipment, aircraft, ships,tanks, striker vehicles, things
like that.
How is the Army positioned inthat now, do you think?
Chris Petty (36:34):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, al, because
actually strategically, I thinkthat's our biggest problem.
You know well, we won world warii on the backs of industry.
It was the production ofamerica that won that war.
I mean you, we were producinghundreds of ships a year,
(36:58):
thousands and thousands of tanksa year.
I mean you couldn't even matchthat.
So I know things have changed,but you still have a relative
calculation there.
You know, china can producelots of things very quickly and
they're actually decent things.
They're not like in the olddays where they were not very
good things.
So China can outproduce us.
(37:19):
And if China can outproduce us,whether it's ships, planes or
tanks, if they're outproducingus five to one, six to one, ten
to one, we are in a strategicmismatch.
That's what scares me more thananything actually.
So I'm glad you brought that up.
Al Palmer (37:35):
It's a problem is how do you get what we have to
their theater of operations,either in the South China Sea?
If you're the Navy and Marinesor the Air Force working out of
places like Guam or Japan orOkinawa, and the Army forward
based out in Hawaii andPhilippines, wherever, how do
(37:57):
you get those forces intotheater with a smaller number?
Right, you're outnumberedalready and you're going into
their backyard.
Chris Petty (38:05):
Yeah, that's a challenge, but I will say you
bring up Al, you bring up one ofour strategic advantages,
though that offsets the otherone I talked about.
Nobody projects power like theAmericans.
Nobody, nobody is even closeMoving, you know, whether it's
bombers or brigades or ships ortanks, or, uh, ships or tanks.
(38:25):
I mean nobody does it like theU?
S.
So we have a significantadvantage in that actually.
I know, eventually it comes downto ship tonnage and you know
how many flag carriers do youhave and all that stuff.
But the U?
S really has an advantage thereand that's.
That offsets some of what Italked about as a disadvantage
earlier.
Al Palmer (38:45):
Maybe that's what's keeping the Chinese at bay for a
short while, otherwise theycould have taken over.
Chris Petty (38:51):
Yeah, it could, we do move force pretty well.
Al Palmer (38:56):
And I know that there's been an emphasis on
Pacific operations, particularlyin all the services in recent
years, which I think is a reallygood thing.
And then the joint serviceexercises that we still do out
there in that part of the worldseem to be working too.
Chris Petty (39:12):
Yeah, yeah, I can't fault the strategy and the
approach of the.
You know the Indo-Pacificcommand and all that stuff
that's going on out there.
I don't think they're doinganything wrong.
But we do have to build up ourindustrial capability.
We do have to get more ships,more transport ships, but
(39:33):
they're experimenting.
You know they're experimentingout in the Pacific and I think
it's positive.
You know smaller nodes ofcombat instead of bigger
formations and you know rapidlydisplaceable forces and all
those things.
I think it's smart.
I think what they're doingsmart, it's going to be a
missile drone war and you got tobe able to move quickly.
(39:53):
So I think, I think they'reheading in the right direction,
but the but the sheer productionin the right direction, but the
but the sheer production.
Al Palmer (40:03):
Every war becomes a world of attrition in some, in
some aspect, every single warbecomes a war of attrition, so
that one does scare me.
Well, that is the problem.
I mean, if you don't haveenough tanks and other armored
vehicles and artillery orwhatever else you need, uh how
do you, how do you fight aprotracted war that way?
(40:24):
I mean, look, ukraine is havingtrouble keeping up with a huge
supply of our munitions thatthey never had.
If they hadn't had us, they'dhave been toast by now, I'm sure
yeah, that's a great example.
Chris Petty (40:38):
Ukraine is showing once again that every war
becomes an attrition war and youbetter have the capabilities to
produce and outproduce yourenemy.
And right now we don't havethat capability with China.
We have we have some realadvantages against China, but
China seems to have theadvantage in out producing us
(40:59):
and, and that really bothers me.
Al Palmer (41:05):
I don't know how their Army structure is, but
within their Navy they now havemore ships than we do, I know,
but they do.
And now the challenge is, likeeverything else, how do we match
that quality versus quantityand do it in the right way,
(41:26):
which gives us still a winningadvantage wherever we go?
Well, listen, let me ask thisquestion.
So we talked a little bit aboutthe good things that are going
on, and I'm happy to hear moreof that's happening in all of
our services, but there arestill some issues left that we
need to get to, do we not?
In the wake of the problemsthat we just started to solve,
(41:49):
can you talk a little bit aboutyour concerns with that?
Chris Petty (41:53):
You're talking about the DEI and all that stuff
.
Al Palmer (41:56):
Post-DEI, post-wokeness is that now a dead
duck, or is there somethingunderneath that that's still
resonating somewhere, Is it?
Chris Petty (42:06):
flying under the radar.
Well, there's a couple ofthings that come to mind.
Number one is you have to makethese changes permanent.
So they have to be more thanexecutive orders in the end, as
Congress has the constitutionalauthority to essentially
regulate the military for lackof a better word they need to
(42:27):
put these things into law andthey need to make sure that the
appropriations and theauthorization bills codify these
things.
So it's more than executiveorder, because this could be
reversed.
So that's number one.
And number two the militaryneeds to, as I think Hegseth is
(42:50):
doing.
I mean, hegseth may have hisshortcomings, but one thing I
think he's very serious about isa war fighting focus.
So everything will besubordinate to how do we improve
our lethality, mobility,lethality on the battlefield.
That's what it's all about.
Nobody created the Departmentof Defense to be a jobs program.
(43:13):
It has one purpose and that isto win wars.
And if you can win wars, youwill deter wars, and that's the
whole point.
So HEXAT's right about that.
I'll tell you that.
But you know, trump's only gotfour years and the clock is
ticking.
So we'll see how much of thisstuff can permanently change the
(43:35):
structure and the culture ofDOD in four short years in four
short years.
Al Palmer (43:42):
So the civilian force , that works really pretty hard,
I think, for the services andalways had.
But, as you pointed out earlier, there are still some folks in
higher levels that may not quiteget what they need to do
because they again lackexperience or they lack the
knowledge that they may need.
They're somewhere.
How do we change that?
(44:03):
Do we go after a different kindof people that we need to bring
in?
Chris Petty (44:07):
to be their advisors, yeah, but that's too
difficult of a problem becauseevery president is going to be
able to appoint a whole slew ofcivilian appointees across the
DOD structure and there's a lotof them.
So I would attack the problemdifferently.
I would.
The Pentagon and the civilianstaff at the Pentagon is right
(44:32):
for cutting Nothing against them.
This is not a judgment issue,but it's just.
There's so much of it you couldget rid of it.
For instance, low-hanging fruitfor me after working there for
a couple years is the entirecivilian secretariats of the
services are almost unnecessarybecause you have civilian
(44:57):
control of the military throughthe Secretary of Defense.
So you've met theconstitutional requirement right
there.
You don't need a civiliansecretary of the army and an
entire large staff.
Then all they do is talk to thechief of staff of the army's
large staff to coordinate armystuff.
(45:19):
Right now do that across fourservices.
You know, maybe, assume, maybesoon five with Space Force
You're going to build anotherarchitecture like this.
You could get rid of so manyredundant civilian positions in
the Pentagon that that wouldsolve a lot of this problem by
itself.
Al Palmer (45:36):
Well, like you say, some of them is at the highest
levels of those services, I'dpoint to the Army Secretary, who
had never spent a day in themilitary or around the military.
Chris Petty (45:47):
So what is the value added of an entire
civilian staff in the ArmySecretariat for a civilian that
really just works with the Chiefof Staff, of the Army's giant
staff to work on Army issues?
What's the point?
Al Palmer (46:05):
and has no direct experience with what they're
doing right it's.
Chris Petty (46:09):
It's kind of silly actually, and you're talking
thousands of civilian positionsacross the services.
I mean that right there wouldsolve a lot of our problem that
that may be where Hegseth isgoing with some of this.
Al Palmer (46:23):
I don't know, but I've heard some rumors to that
effect that in key leadershipjobs there may be a few changes
here and there.
Chris Petty (46:33):
No, absolutely, but it would be good at least if.
Al Palmer (46:36):
But it would be good at least if somebody had some
actual relevance, andparticularly if you could find
someone who had combatexperience.
Wouldn't that be a great changeand at least understanding how
the troops work and how life isin the military?
I don't know how you can makedecisions, particularly
(46:56):
personnel decisions, if youdon't know that.
Chris Petty (47:00):
Yeah, it's a tough question because you're not
always going to have thatperfect slate and I would say
you could do it.
But you've got to have theright mindset.
If you've never had a combatexperience, you could still be a
great Secretary of Defense ifyou listen to the people who
have the experience and theknowledge.
But you have the right visionfor warfighting, focus could you
(47:23):
could pull it off, you know Imean, yeah, yeah, if we've seen
that.
Al Palmer (47:29):
Yeah, one of the other thoughts on on what's
happening in today's army didyou want to share with us?
Chris Petty (47:36):
well, I think overall, like you I'm I'm happy
that we're reversing course onthe indoctrination and the
poison ideology.
I think there's a collectivesigh of relief throughout the
force and you know this stuffwas never polluting the
companies and the battalions toobadly.
(47:56):
It was there but it was all thehigher level echelon stuff and
the schools and all the trainingcenters and all that stuff.
So the Army I still have greatconfidence in the Army and the
services, the joint force ingeneral.
Obviously I know the Armybetter, but I've worked with all
my brothers and sisters in theother services and they're all
(48:17):
excellent.
So I've worked with all mybrothers and sisters in the
other services and they're allexcellent.
So this is a great military thatwe have and I'm glad we pulled
it back from the ledge ofdestruction, internal
destruction, from this poisonideology.
But it's gotta be codified, ithas to be permanent.
Al Palmer (48:37):
And that is quite a great description.
I think exactly what happenedand for folks like you on our
STARS board, you can take a lotof pride in the fact that we
stood up when others weren'twilling to, and I think that we
were very influential in havinga lot of that change.
Maybe we got a little bit ofwind in our back these days, but
(48:58):
STARS is still doing a greatjob and I hope that we'll
continue to do that goingforward.
Chris Petty (49:02):
Yeah, I'm confident we will.
I know the mission will evolveand we'll see how it evolves
appropriately.
Al Palmer (49:10):
But yeah, STARS was a part of that and of course I'm
proud to have been a very smallpart of that.
I would say bigger than small.
Chris Petty (49:21):
No, what do you do?
You know you can write somearticles, you can talk to people
, but, yes, it all matters, itall matters.
Al Palmer (49:27):
Yeah, you shine a light on it and I would let our
audience know too that you alsogot your own operation going on
that regard called Battle Digest, and tune into that and see
more about what you're writingabout and how to subscribe, and
you've also written a prettygood book about battles in the
(49:49):
past to serve as great examples12 battles every American should
know about.
I had a little bit of part insome of that with my museum I
built at Pearl Harbor, and folkslearn a lot when they go
through.
The amazing thing is, chris,when you see people really
understand what's happened withreal people and real events,
(50:13):
they're stunned.
I mean, they really are.
I've seen people just doamazing things as a result of
that.
Chris Petty (50:21):
Yeah, that's nice.
I appreciate Cindy putting up afew graphics.
The quick story, al, is I wasone of those officers that
actually believed in training mysubordinates on some military
history, because it's sorelevant, the patterns are so
repetitive in history.
(50:41):
There's a reason why.
You know, 100 years ago all thegreat military captains knew
exactly what alexander did andnapoleon did, and you know
george washington did.
They knew all that stuff.
Well, guess what, al?
they don't know it anymore andnot only does it not only does
it break my heart, it's going tocost us some lives.
(51:03):
So what I did is I said tomyself after 30 years, I'm going
.
Why doesn't the army havesomething simple that soldiers
can just pick up and say, oh, Iwant to learn about the battle
of frasier?
Because, oh, by the way, notonly should I know this stuff
because I'm a professional, butI can see the lessons learned
(51:27):
that are every bit as relevanttoday as they were when, you
know, um, good old generalburnside.
General Burnside committed hisinfamous slaughter at
Fredericksburg, and so I wantedto make it easy.
I even put discussion questionson the back of these things
(51:48):
because I wanted commanders togo.
All I got to do is read thisfor 30 minutes and have my
soldiers and subordinateofficers read this, and we're
going to have a great discussionabout Fredericksburg and why it
matters today and how it'srelevant in today's operating
environment.
Al Palmer (52:04):
So that's what I did with panel digest.
That's all it is.
You'd be like good for, like acommander's call or something
you know exactly that.
Chris Petty (52:13):
That's why I created it now, lo and behold,
the people that buy my productare mostly civilians that love
history and and they love it,but I built it for the military
honestly, have any of them beenhistorians at the military
academy?
I don't know of anyspecifically that have purchased
my product saying I was ahistorian at the military
(52:35):
academy.
It's funny when I went to WestPoint to try to, to try to get
him to sign up because it's aperfect match.
You know, a lot of these biginstitutions are like well, you
know, we already have all your.
I looked at all your footnotes.
You know they're all on ourbookshelves, kind of like yeah
you know you're.
You're kind of missing thepoint here.
You know, yeah, how are yougoing to get that?
Al Palmer (52:58):
to go off to the library to find that book among
the thousands that are thereright exactly.
Chris Petty (53:04):
You know what he can learn everything.
He can learn everything hewants in 30 minutes you know,
well it's.
Al Palmer (53:09):
It's it's attention and access right and and we try
to do that around here on ourpodcast too to highlight the
things that we think areimportant, because our website's
got thousands of articles andthings on it.
And this is our way ofsometimes trying to focus with,
with important people who havesomething to say about it,
especially folks like you,General.
Chris Petty (53:32):
Well, let me focus your listeners, or your audience
, on one thing.
If they want to check this out,just remember Reader's Digest
for Warfare Battle Digest.
That's it, and it's a greatproduct.
You'll love it, actually.
So check it out.
Al Palmer (53:50):
I like your thought about our past military leaders.
The other name that comes tomind is George Patton, who used
to read a lot about the Greeksand the Romans, past battles,
wisdom on the battlefield andothers who you know followed the
art of war and all that theChinese talked about a lot.
You read those things andthere's a common sense approach
(54:15):
to how to fight and win and howto work people so they can do
that too.
Chris Petty (54:21):
And it's more than common sense, it's actually
pattern recognition.
It's like becoming a good chessplayer.
These patterns repeatthemselves in warfare.
So Patton, because he was sowell-read, I mean, he could see
like, ah, I've been here before.
Well, he wasn't there before,but his mind was there before.
(54:41):
He recognized something fromhistory and it was almost like
he had the experience of thathistory.
You know, if people that haveserved their entire lives in the
military, like you and me I gotto fight in one war, I'm not
going to build enough experiencein one war to learn all of the
(55:04):
lessons that I can get fromthese guys that have fought wars
and wars and wars and wars.
And these patterns reallyrepeat themselves.
Al Palmer (55:12):
So, trying to put that together so that these
young officers can get theseadvantages without having to
read 300-page books all the time, and the other part of that is
that even though those peoplewere well-read, well-educated,
they still had to do it and inPatton's case he almost
(55:34):
single-handedly won the EuropeanWar.
World War II won the.
European war, World War II andyet at the same time was the
target of all kinds of ridiculeand opposition from the media
and other people back home inpolitics.
Chris Petty (55:50):
Yeah, well, patton was an interesting character,
but he was a warfighter, sothat's the kind of person you
need, and we need a culture thattolerates warfighters again,
which is part of this whole DEIthing.
We need to celebratewarfighters and realize in some
cases they're slightly differentpeople and you better value
(56:11):
that skill set because they winwars, and so that's part of this
equation we're talking about.
You got to change a cultureagain away from DEI into
warfighting, and that's that'spart of this equation we're
talking about.
You've got to change a cultureagain away from DEI into war
fighting, and that's part of it.
You know, guys like Pattoncan't be kicked out in
tomorrow's Army.
Al Palmer (56:30):
I think we're on to it and, with your help and the
rest of the stars here, we hopeto get there.
Thanks for what you're doing,general, and thank you so much
for being on our podcast today.
Chris Petty (56:43):
And for our viewers check out Battle Digest.
Al Palmer (56:47):
It's something very worthwhile.
Chris Petty (56:49):
Yeah, thanks, al, pleasure to be with you.
Al Palmer (56:52):
Good to have you, sir , and to our audience.
Stay tuned.
Next week we'll be back withanother exciting episode of
Stars and Stripes.
And for now, we'll be back withanother exciting episode of
stars and stripes.
And for now we'll sign off andsalute you for watching us.
Thank you very much.
Well, hello America, and to you, our valued listeners
and viewers of STARRS andStripes, I'm your host Commander
Al Palmer, United States Navy,retired.
Al Palmer, United States Navyretired.
And I do this show becausewe're interested in making sure
that our military is up to itsability to fight and win wars.
It's all about war fighting andall about service to our nation
(00:34):
.
So today, to talk a little bitmore about how that happens, I'm
really honored to have with ustonight as our guest one of our
favorite people here at STARRS.
He's one of our Board ofAdvisors, Brigadier General
Chris Petty.
Chris Petty is a 1987 graduateof West Point.
(00:58):
He's an aviator, he's ahelicopter pilot.
He's commanded aviation unitsfrom battalion strength down and
most notably in Iraq.
He was a commander of abattalion that was involved in
some very special night andaerial assault attack operations
.
He went on to command NATOheadquarters in Bosnia.
(01:21):
He became a deputy director ofour Northern Command as a deputy
in charge of ballistic missiledefenses and ISR intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance.
He's also an author and he'sdone a tremendous amount of work
on focusing the Army effortsand past efforts in battle to
(01:44):
point forward to leadership andthe way things probably ought to
work in the Army.
So, general, it's a greatpleasure, sir, having you with
us today.
Thanks for joining us on STARRSand Stripes.
Chris Petty (01:55):
Thanks, al, pleasure to be with you.
Al Palmer (01:59):
So you've got quite a diverse background and as a
fellow aviator, I'm very proudof what you're able to do with
helicopters, which I usually tryto stay away from because I
heard they had to kind of beattheir way into the air instead
of flying.
But having that difference, I'mglad to see that you had such a
distinguished career.
(02:19):
What got you into the Navy?
How did you, I'm sorry?
What got you into the Navy?
How did you I'm sorry into theArmy?
How did you arrive there?
Chris Petty (02:27):
Well, I was a young , idealistic high school
sophomore I think, at the time,and I happened to pick up my
father's West Point yearbookcalled the Howitzer one of the
finest yearbooks in the country,actually, they get awards for
it all the time and I just wasleafing through this thing and I
(02:47):
live again.
I'm a high school sophomore andI'm like, wow, this is like
Camelot.
I feel like I should be aknight in this, uh, order of
Camelot.
You know, it was just one ofthose things.
And, uh, even though my fathersaid, are you sure?
I mean, I mean, it's a big,it's a big, it's a, it's a
difficult road, I said, yeah,I'm going to go.
(03:08):
So I pointed all my energy anddirection into getting into West
Point.
Just from looking at theyearbook and being just amazed
by the images and that culture,it was just fascinating for me.
So so I went to West Point, yes, and did the whole cadet
experience for four years.
And interesting little footnotethey sent me to ranger school
(03:30):
as a cadet, which they hadn'tdone for like a decade.
So it was quite an extensiveweeding out process.
And the funny thing is theysent me to ranger school and
(03:51):
during ranger school I'm onpatrol and you know, or you get
one meal a day and you're tiredand you're going for five, six
days and these helicopters wouldpick us up and deliver us, like
you know, 12 kilometers.
It took us, you know, all nightto walk 12 kilometers through
the woods and ravines and I'mthinking, wow, these guys smell
like soap and they look well fed.
Al Palmer (04:07):
I think I'm gonna go with aviation instead of yeah,
that's a great show, isn't ityeah?
Chris Petty (04:12):
yeah, so I was like , okay, and that actually
changed my mind, no kidding.
So I became so I branchedaviation instead of infantry
because they sent me to rangerschool.
Al Palmer (04:21):
It's a funny little figuring, probably figuring like
me.
Chris Petty (04:24):
You'd get shot at less that way yeah, it's kind of
figured that turns out.
It's not always the case thatway, did it?
Yeah?
So that that's my little storyand uh, from that on it was just
an interesting career.
If you want to talk aboutanything, let me know well so?
Al Palmer (04:41):
so, going back to your years at West Point and I
think this is true of mostmilitary academy cadets it
probably changed your lifedramatically from when you got
in.
Yeah, how did life lookdifferently after four years at
West Point than it did as youwere going in in.
Chris Petty (05:07):
Well, you do tend to.
After four years of thatcrucible of leadership and you
know pretty intense academicenvironment and you're
surrounded by the concept ofduty honor country.
I mean it does change you at avery impressionable time, so
it's really positive change.
So, yeah, you come out of thatplace.
I mean you come out of thatplace really well prepared to
lead a platoon at whateverbranch you choose.
(05:31):
You know whether you're aninfantryman or an aviator and so
very well prepared and veryeager to take on the role of a
platoon leader at some unitsomewhere.
But I will say there's a littledownside which you probably are
familiar with is because you'vebeen trapped in this prison for
four years, you do tend to havea little bit of a wild streak
(05:56):
and you want to experience likethe year of college.
You never had but young 20 yearold or 21 year old kid going
out and partying and drivingdown to you know what was it?
The beach down in the panhandleof Florida where I went to from
Fort Rucker, alabama.
But you know you're stillgetting that out of your system
too.
But yeah, it's a, it's a good,it's a good transition.
(06:18):
You're ready and you're eagerto take on that role.
Al Palmer (06:24):
And about that point in your life there is an issue
of commitment.
Isn't there, you know?
All of a sudden, this isn'tjust a job, or just a way to get
something on your resume.
All of a sudden, you're kind ofcommitted to doing this, or
you're not.
Chris Petty (06:37):
Yeah, you really are, but you've thought about it
for four years, so it's not asurprise to you.
I mean, yeah, I forget what it,what it is now, but I think
after your sophomore year inWest Point, you're a yearling.
You know it's called yearling.
After that you take theofficial oath of service, like
(06:57):
if you quit now you're going tojoin here, you're going to be
sent to the army as this youknow an E4, or you know you're
in.
So yeah, you're, you're goingto be sent to the army as this
you know an E4, you know you'rein.
So yeah, you're.
You're thinking about it thewhole time.
It's exciting.
Al Palmer (07:09):
It is, and I think that's kind of typical.
Those of us who come througheither that route or just coming
from a military family.
We have a little bit more of aview of that that's inside than
it is outside, particularly by,I could say, by the time you
finish a couple years oftraining and then figuring out
what's happening around you.
Chris Petty (07:30):
Yeah.
Al Palmer (07:33):
So, as you got out as a new brown bar in the Army,
what was your first experience?
Did you learn a lot that firstyear or so?
Chris Petty (07:44):
Yeah, After you got into training training, I
learned a ton after flightschool, which is still obviously
the training environment, andyou know, army flight school at
that point lasted almost a year.
But after flight school I wentto my first assignment, which
was Fort Irwin, california, thenational training center.
So for a young aviator I meanit was ideal at At the time I
(08:05):
didn't think so because I wasstranded in the middle of the
Mojave Desert and I'm thinkingto myself, oh God, who did I?
Did I anger you in such amanner that I will never find a
wife here in the desert?
You know that kind of thing.
But it worked out beautifullybecause not only did I find a
wife who was a schoolteachernearby, but I was flying my butt
(08:27):
off and as a young aviatorreally developing the stick and
rudder skills that I had no ideaat the time would be, you know,
so foundational to my role,even as a battalion commander in
Iraq.
I mean brownout landings in thedesert in QH1s transferred
directly to Black Hawk brownoutlandings in Iraq, and just
(08:52):
developing that technical andtactical expertise as a young
lieutenant flying 50 hours amonth was just amazing.
Al Palmer (09:02):
Yeah, well, that, and as we know that flying time is
important in your developmentand all that, and I kind of
sometimes worry that that's nowbeen reduced a lot.
Of course we've got simulatorsand all which are supposed to
augment that, but I still likeyou go back to thinking about
the basic skills that you have.
You just got to keep repeating.
(09:23):
Yeah, so anyway, so, so that wasvery valuable yeah, well, let
me talk to you though today,going fast forward here to
today's recent environment.
You've written prettyintensively about the effects on
the Army with things likediversity, equity, inclusion,
(09:44):
critical race theory wokeness isthe popular term likes to call
it.
Tell me a little bit about howthat affected you, to the point
where you were ready to writeabout it and talk about it.
Chris Petty (09:58):
Well, as your listeners know, it's just, it's
a poisonous ideology that maybesome had good intentions with
introducing it.
But once it was injected andI'm talking about the entire
diversity, equity, inclusionworldview I'm not just talking
(10:18):
about DEI as a program, I'mtalking about this worked
worldview that says now we mustdiscriminate and separate by
race and gender, to create, tomake up for all the past sins of
Western civilization, andsomehow that's going to create
(10:38):
greater unity and cohesion inmilitary units.
I mean, it's absolutelyantithetical to creating any
kind of cohesion and unity, soit's actually one of the worst
things you could do for anorganization that needs to be
unified.
So I saw it right away.
And the funny thing is, youknow, this all happened after I
(11:01):
was, you know, in the.
I was a general officer doingmy last couple assignments.
This didn't really show itsface in the military until
Obama's executive order in 2011.
I think it was 2011, august of2011.
(11:21):
11 where, yeah, that's, that'sthat's where it started
officially in the military,because his executive order was
broad enough that all federaldepartments would incorporate,
you know, diversity, equity,inclusion concepts, equity
across the federal government.
So from that moment on, thecamel's nose was under the tent
(11:44):
and it just grew and grewbecause, you know, I saw the top
of the Army, I saw the top ofthe joint staff.
Civilian political appointeesare holding the general's feet
(12:04):
to the fire on.
You know, how are you measuringhow many of this uh skin color
person is in this program andhow many are?
How are you measuring, you know, your, your uh improvement in?
You know, women joining theinfantry, your women in the
marine corps?
(12:24):
You know all this kind of stuff.
The generals respond to thatand if they don't, they're
basically going to be pushed outor they're not going to get
promoted.
And I know generals always liketo find that next star in their
future.
It's a big deal, don't kidyourself, don't kid yourself.
And so the generals kind of puttheir heads down collectively
(12:46):
and said, well, this won't dotoo much damage, we can mitigate
this, even though we're notreally happy with this because
we know it's not a good thing.
But yeah, I mean, they'reholding our feet to the fire.
The civilians truly are incharge, as it should be
constitutionally.
(13:06):
But the generals react to that.
So they kind of they play thegame, they measure things, they
try to increase the no one likesto call them quotas, but
they're everywhere becauseeverything's being measured and
people are being heldaccountable and you have to, all
of a sudden, you have to briefthe you know, the assistant
secretary of the army on howmany women are attending ranger
(13:29):
school.
You know, it's things like thatthat make change happen, and
this change, in a bad way, iswhat I'm saying.
So you know I understood thatdynamic.
You know people are shakingtheir heads saying why is this
happening?
Well, I know why it's happeningbecause the civilians are
making it happen and thegenerals are not showing the
(13:51):
moral courage to stop it.
So I saw the damage.
It's clear to most logicalpeople that this is a damaging
ideology, that it really has noscience or anything behind it.
It's just an ideology.
Science or anything behind it,it's just an ideology.
And it affected everything.
We saw it.
We saw the numbers drop inrecruiting.
(14:15):
We saw soldiers leaving theservice because they were
frustrated.
I had a good friend who was aNavy SEAL actually best friend
of my son, who's a Coast GuardAcademy graduate and you know he
basically got out.
After all the training NavySEAL training, all the stuff he
went through he got out as a,you know, an 03 because he was
(14:35):
just so frustrated with allthese requirements, dei stuff,
so he left a lot of service.
He's just one of thousands thatjust said I'm not.
I'm not doing this anymore.
You know it's divisive, it'stearing apart the team.
I don't feel the cohesion.
It's not fun anymore.
We turn off war fighters.
Al Palmer (14:56):
But, chris, isn't that the reflection of the fact
that there were real problemsthat probably the civilians in
the Pentagon didn't understandbecause they had not been
operators, they weren't in themilitary for most cases, I think
?
Do you think maybe they justmissed that and said, well,
maybe it won't do too muchdamage, I'll go along with it
for a while, see what happens?
Chris Petty (15:18):
Well, I don't know that.
The civilians.
If your question is did thecivilians miss that?
I think the answer is no.
I think I think Obama appointedideologues as his political
appointees and they were intenton moving the agenda forward on
these crazy leftist propagandaprograms that really objectively
(15:41):
don't work.
So that's really what I thinkwas going on, that really
objectively don't work.
So that's really what I thinkwas going on.
And then you know, trump didn'thave time in his first term to
really get into the weeds andclean the stuff out.
And so by the time Obama comesaround I mean Biden comes around
now you're populating DOD withmore of these people and this
stuff happens.
So I mean, I see it, I seeclearly how it happened.
Al Palmer (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, we all do , don't we?
So as time went on, though,what happened was standards were
lowered and changed.
Promotions were changed.
Advancement didn't necessarilymean you were having to do it on
the basis of merit.
Often it was because of whatyou look like or other external
(16:25):
factors, and then the reallyprecipitous problems were things
like retention and readinessthat started to drop.
So certainly the leadership onthe military side must have been
seeing that happen and did theyjust take a pass on it?
Chris Petty (16:43):
you think, well, bit I mean it goes back to what
I said is, you know, it'samazing, it's amazing when you
take a step back al that, uh,you know, um, how people can
rationalize in in their, intheir self-interest and I do
think there was a lot ofrationalizing at the senior
levels in their self-interest.
(17:05):
So they didn't stand up and say, you know, we had no four-star.
Stand up and say, mr President,this is tearing apart our
military.
I can't stand by and watch thishappen.
Here's some facts, facts, facts, facts, facts.
I am submitting my resignation,resignation.
We didn't have that moralcourage emerge any time and that
(17:27):
was disappointing.
But rationalization is a reallypowerful human thing.
It's everywhere, so I can yeahyeah so they thought they could.
A lot of them drank the kool-aidanyway, because you know, I
mean, what 20% of population isgonna drink this Kool-Aid anyway
.
So yeah, it was a combinationof those two things.
Al Palmer (17:48):
It just let it fester and grow and the tumor just
kept growing until really untilTrump's new executive order,
which changed everything,changed the entire landscape so
there was that there was aperiod there where the SecDef
and chairman of the Joint Chiefsgot together and said look, you
(18:11):
know, there's a problem here.
We got to solve this.
They did the shutdown of allthe services for what a day or
two and they talked about thingslike nationalism and white
supremacy and gender identityand all that Trying to find
people who were extremists.
And, as I recall, out of thecouple of million folks in
(18:33):
uniform, they only found like100 people who actually did have
some issue with that.
But that's a pretty dramaticthing to do to an entire force
to shut things down.
Chris Petty (18:47):
Looking that kind of a problem, isn't it?
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
And the numbers, as you saidit's, it's ridiculous.
Let's stand down the entireforce from training to look for
a you know something.
That's a less than one percentproblem.
I mean it's ridiculous.
So yeah it Al.
I mean, you and I both know itwas an ideology, ideologically
(19:08):
driven program and I'm notsaying there's some puppet
master pulling the strings, butthere is part of our society
that is ideologically driven tothis stuff, this destructive,
de-unifying stuff.
They'll always be with us, butthey got into the military,
(19:30):
finally with Obama and doubleddown with Biden, and now we're
turning it around.
So it's encouraging.
Al Palmer (19:39):
So we're seeing that in places, like you say, we
didn't think we would see it,and particularly places that it
should never have been like inthe military academies, west
Point in particular and yet itgot in there somewhere.
So the question that we've hada lot on this podcast in future
episodes is where did that comefrom?
(20:00):
And then how did we allow it toget in?
A lot of that discussioncentered around the advent of
more outside professors beingput into the academies than used
to be there.
Say, a couple of decades ago,when I was a young guy, when I
went to the officer trainingschool, there were no civilians
(20:21):
at all, and I think that was thesame way back in the old days
in West Point and Annapolis andeven Air Force Academy.
When they started it was allmilitary professors for the most
part, maybe a couple ofadvisors or something from
outside.
Now those figures are prettyhigh.
With the military academy WestPoint I think the last time I
(20:45):
checked was close to 26 or 27%of outside professors from
mostly East Coast universitiesand PhDs, which is great, and
they know what they're talkingabout.
But the problem comes up isyou're still teaching people who
are going to be leaders asofficers.
They need to know how that iscontextualized within the
(21:06):
military, not just because it'sphysics or English or German or
whatever you're teaching themfrom the outside.
That would be useful in themilitary too.
A lot of that has to have thecontext of being a military
leader and how you're going touse that information that you're
learning.
So that's been a big issue.
(21:26):
I noticed Secretary Hegsethjust took that on like last week
or so.
He said we're going to try toget rid of that, and I think
that's actually started tohappen at the Air Force Academy,
where the superintendent sayshe's going to cut that by maybe
10% or something.
So what do you think about that?
Is that something they ought tobe doing in all the academies?
Chris Petty (21:48):
I think it's a contributing factor but, going
back to my earlier point, it'snot the sole factor, of course.
If you think about that's athree-star superintendent.
He's in that rarefied air ofthe senior leadership in the
military and the differentservices and those three stars
(22:10):
are being held to account by thefour stars that are now having
to brief the civilian ideologueabout what are you doing to
increase the number ofminorities in this sector?
What are you doing to increaseI notice your numbers here
aren't very strong on LGBTQadmissions to West Point.
(22:32):
There, Mr Three Star, what'syour plan to address that?
You understand what I'm sayingnow.
That's how it works.
Al Palmer (22:40):
I do yeah.
Chris Petty (22:41):
Yeah, it's not just civilian professors.
I mean, I'm all for somecivilian professors.
As you said, some of these PhDsin you know engineering or you
know the STEM fields are verybeneficial to the cadets.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know thatwe need a lot of civilian
professors in the sociology, youknow humanities areas, because
(23:05):
they're all pretty.
You know pretty far leftideologues.
But it's also a big part ofwhat I said at first.
It's that three star is beingheld to account, being measured
on all these crazy metrics, andguess what?
What gets measured gets done.
(23:25):
And you know that's what thecivilian leaders in the Pentagon
care about.
They don't care about warfighting, they care about
ideology.
And so if you want to ever findthat fourth star, you better
care about our ideology.
You know the message is clearto these folks and you may think
(23:48):
I'm simplifying it, but this ishuman nature and you see it.
Al Palmer (23:53):
So but isn't that kind of where the bridge was
broken between war fighting andideology, and ideology and under
the premise that diversity,equity and inclusion, and
particularly the diversity partof that, would increase the
lethality, increase the abilityof the military to do its job?
That claim was made on multipleoccasions, Some of that right
(24:16):
in the yeah you're right, al.
Chris Petty (24:17):
The claim was made, but it's a baseless claim, as
you and I know Exactly.
It's a baseless claim.
As you and I know it's abaseless claim.
In fact, it's an inverse.
There's an inverse relationshipand we all know it.
We've experienced it.
You know, when you and I werein the service I know you're a
few years older than I, but thefact is these things weren't an
issue.
I had black soldiers, hispanicsoldiers, female soldiers I
(24:40):
worked for a female general itwas just never an issue.
Everything seemed fine.
I did 31 years of this stuff.
Now, all of a sudden,everything it was looked at
through the lens of gender andrace and everything changes when
everything is looked at throughthat lens.
We never had that lens andeverything was unifying.
(25:05):
Everything was unifying towardsthe mission and the team, and
that all gets changed when yourlens is gender and race.
Al Palmer (25:15):
And so the result of that is because that's going to
result in lower standards inorder to accept those people,
promote them and keep them inthe force.
So all of a sudden, now you'vegot different standards for
different people.
Chris Petty (25:31):
Yeah, yeah, and people know it.
Even though everyone likes toignore it and people don't
really like to shout out thefact that standards are lowered
for certain groups because wewant more representation from
those groups, everybody knowsit's happening and you can see
it in your unit, yourorganization.
I mean soldiers aren't stupid,they see this.
(25:53):
In fact there's, you knowthere's plum assignments that
I'm sure some of the regular,you know, conservative, white,
christian officersian officerssaid well, I can't even compete
for this because there's nochance I'll get it because I
don't check any of the blocks.
I mean you know that went onthousands and thousands of times
across our military by peoplelike you and I that just said,
(26:16):
well, there's no chance I'mgoing to get this assignment or
promotion, I don't check any ofthose gender or racial blocks.
So yeah, I mean it really hasan effect.
Al Palmer (26:30):
Well, just like in our line of work in aviation,
you know the meritocracy ispretty high there.
If you don't do well, sometimespeople get hurt and often they
die hurt and often they die.
So so what you do in your jobis far more important than any
other factor that might enterinto it at the end.
(26:50):
Um, and in my sticky on aflying off an aircraft carrier,
you are graded on your landingsevery time you did it.
Uh, depending on which wire youcaught on the aircraft carrier,
if your, if your grade went toofar, you got some time with the
commander right away and youprobably didn't get from, you
probably didn't even stay in theservice.
So but it seems that thosestandards somewhat got
(27:13):
discharged over time, orlessened, if you will, and I
kind of worry sometimes thatwhen we do that we take away the
performance that goes with it,which is the meritocracy.
Chris Petty (27:25):
Well, of course, and not only do you take away
the performance, but you takeaway the incentive structure for
performance.
So people basically are likewhy should I go to that extra
school?
Or why should I take that hardjob as the brigade S3, you know,
and grind it out for threeyears, you know, not coming home
to my family until 10 o'clockat night.
(27:47):
Why should I do that job?
You know you, you start tochange the whole incentive
structure for people.
Let me tell you a quick storyout, if you got a minute,
because I didn't even.
I believe in affirmative action.
The last thing I want to createis this impression that you,
you know, here we are two whiteguys going.
Hey, you know we don't careabout this.
We do care about this stuff.
(28:08):
We've always cared about thisstuff and the military has been
the best integrator of racialand gender equality in the world
I mean organization in theworld and I'm very proud of that
.
I'll tell you a personal storythat, okay, this is years and
years ago.
I'm a battalion commander.
I get to hold flight boards toselect soldiers to compete to
(28:33):
actually get a slot at flightschool.
So I remember distinctly oneboard that I held and you know,
typically a board will have Idon, I don't know, in this
battalion we had five or sixcandidates that were e5
sergeants, maybe in e6.
They want to compete for thisvaluable slot to go to flight
school.
(28:53):
You know we might get one ortwo a year and these people
would have to become warrantofficers and go through the
whole process if for RuckerAlabama.
So this is a regular occurringevent.
I remember one board I haveeight candidates, all sharp, the
best of our battalion, and itcame down to a black guy and a
(29:13):
white guy.
At the end you do all theevaluation of schools and
performance and evaluationreports, blah, blah, blah and it
came down to a black guy and awhite guy and you know they were
basically equally qualified andthe board basically agreed
these two are equally qualified.
(29:33):
Well, guess who got the slot?
The black guy, because theywere equal.
They were equal.
So we said you know this isthis guy, you know he deserves
it.
He probably had a little bit ofa harder time with some of
these things with familystructure, whatever.
The tie went to the black guy.
(29:55):
I'm fully supportive of stufflike that and I did it
personally.
I mean that's why I like thisstory.
I I mean it's real, it's a realstory.
So I mean it's kind of anaffirmative action approach to
things like this.
But it wouldn't have been givento that young man if he wasn't
as good as the white guy.
You know what I mean.
Al Palmer (30:16):
Like flipping a coin.
Chris Petty (30:18):
Yeah, this stuff, you know, tie goes to the runner
in baseball, whatever.
But those things are positive,those things are good, we can do
those things.
But we can't lower thestandards to create these
artificial quotas that oh, justbecause 14% of the US population
is black, then therefore 14% ofthe 06s in the Army are
(30:45):
supposed to be black all of asudden.
I mean you just don't do thatstuff.
But, that's where they weregoing in everything.
That's where they were going ineverything, in every area where
they were going in everythingin every area.
Al Palmer (31:08):
And so too, I think again the downturn in retention
and recruiting may have led tosome of that in changing
standards, because now you'repressed to hold on to the people
that you can get right andmaybe lower the standards a
little bit just to make surethey stay in.
I was reading something notlong ago about army doctrine and
war fighting and how they train, and part of the things I was
(31:31):
reading were they were changingsome of that over time to make
the stress a little less, evento the point where they weren't
doing large-scale operationsthat were at a higher echelon,
because it was taking peopleaway from families for weekends.
Well, weekends don't count whenyou're at war and when you're
(31:54):
operating a large force,particularly under a field
exercise, it seems the lastplace when you want to stop for
a while, take a weekend off andthen come back.
I don't think that works wellin the army is, does it?
Chris Petty (32:06):
no, I'm not.
I'm not familiar with yourstory, but but let me just say
in general, I'm surprised tohear that because if you're if
you're on a major field exercise, I've I've never heard of uh
taking a taking a break to gowith families.
I mean, one thing I will sayabout the military in general
(32:26):
and across all the services,because I do know this is
they're pretty good about longweekends and making sure that
you get home to the family, youcan go to that kid's baseball
game, et cetera.
I think the military does anexceptionally good job these
days about trying to make suresoldiers spend time with their
(32:46):
families.
So that story is one I'm notfamiliar with.
I'd be surprised if you're on abig field problem and you just
take a break for a weekend inthe middle of it.
That just sounds odd.
Al Palmer (32:59):
Well, I think that was written by an Army colonel,
an infantry officer, but I thinkmaybe what he was trying to say
was a lot kind of a war ratherthan a skirmish.
When they were doing that, theywere taken away from some of
(33:28):
the traditions that they'd hadin the past.
Uh, well, like I will say.
Chris Petty (33:32):
I will say, though, with a small army which you
know we still have, kind of asmall army, if you look at the
requirements across the world,there is an uptempo.
You know the operational tempo.
There is a challenge across theentire force about, you know,
how many months can I stay homeversus how many months am I
(33:52):
actually literally gone, like,out of the state, out of the
country.
That is a challenge when youand this is something we
wrestled with at the Pentagon,you know, even in the army,
staff is, you know, how do you,how do you address all of your
requirements around the worldwith a limited supply of force
structure?
That's a, you know, demandoutstrips supply in our military
(34:16):
.
And you know, I think that's oneof Trump's, I think that's one
of the things Trump's trying toget a handle on, because
everyone talks about it, but wehaven't really done much about
redistribution, reallocation offorces across the globe.
You know, we only have so manybrigades in the army and the
requirements are really high,really high.
(34:44):
So, yes, you know we are takinga toll on families and
relationships and continuityjust by putting these guys into
Europe and putting them into thePacific and rotating them into
the Philippines and you know,and National Training Center to
build that, that larger scalecompetency across a brigade.
I mean, that's all time awayfrom the family.
So yeah, that's a, it's achallenge.
Al Palmer (35:03):
I mean that's all time away from the family.
So yeah, it's a challenge.
I think that was the focus wasbattalion larger restaurant
level versus the smaller unitswithin an operating base?
But the other services have thesame kind of problems, don't
they?
I mean, the Navy is runningshort on ships.
They're also running short onpeople to man the ships.
It's the same problem.
I think the Army has.
(35:23):
The Air Force isn't a whole lotdifferent either.
Chris Petty (35:26):
Right, I agree.
Al Palmer (35:28):
There's only so many problems, and the only guys that
probably have it sort ofstraight seem to be the Marines
these days.
Chris Petty (35:34):
Yeah, and because they've always been, they've
always specialized in more of aniche and that's worked to their
advantage.
So, yeah, I think the Marinesare on top of it, is specialized
in more of a niche and that'sbeen that's worked to their
advantage.
So, yeah, I think the marinesare.
I think the marines are on topof it, although they've had a
lot of uh, you know,consternation about their
development of their new warfighting strategy and lightning,
lightning the force and allthat stuff.
(35:55):
But that's a whole, nothertangent, but yeah too much, too
much demand, not enough supply.
That's going to be a problemuntil it's not a problem.
Al Palmer (36:04):
Oh yeah, and maybe that's improving a little bit
with the changes in things likegetting rid of the Mickey Mouse
stuff that go with wokeism andall.
Hopefully that will help alittle.
Yeah, what about the otherproblems, though, that I know
the other services have an issuethese days with the defense
industrial base being able toprovide things like munitions,
(36:25):
equipment, aircraft, ships,tanks, striker vehicles, things
like that.
How is the Army positioned inthat now, do you think?
Chris Petty (36:34):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, al, because
actually strategically, I thinkthat's our biggest problem.
You know well, we won world warii on the backs of industry.
It was the production ofamerica that won that war.
I mean you, we were producinghundreds of ships a year,
(36:58):
thousands and thousands of tanksa year.
I mean you couldn't even matchthat.
So I know things have changed,but you still have a relative
calculation there.
You know, china can producelots of things very quickly and
they're actually decent things.
They're not like in the olddays where they were not very
good things.
So China can outproduce us.
(37:19):
And if China can outproduce us,whether it's ships, planes or
tanks, if they're outproducingus five to one, six to one, ten
to one, we are in a strategicmismatch.
That's what scares me more thananything actually.
So I'm glad you brought that up.
Al Palmer (37:35):
It's a problem is how do you get what we have to
their theater of operations,either in the South China Sea?
If you're the Navy and Marinesor the Air Force working out of
places like Guam or Japan orOkinawa, and the Army forward
based out in Hawaii andPhilippines, wherever, how do
(37:57):
you get those forces intotheater with a smaller number?
Right, you're outnumberedalready and you're going into
their backyard.
Chris Petty (38:05):
Yeah, that's a challenge, but I will say you
bring up Al, you bring up one ofour strategic advantages,
though that offsets the otherone I talked about.
Nobody projects power like theAmericans.
Nobody, nobody is even closeMoving, you know, whether it's
bombers or brigades or ships ortanks, or, uh, ships or tanks.
(38:25):
I mean nobody does it like theU?
S.
So we have a significantadvantage in that actually.
I know, eventually it comes downto ship tonnage and you know
how many flag carriers do youhave and all that stuff.
But the U?
S really has an advantage thereand that's.
That offsets some of what Italked about as a disadvantage
earlier.
Al Palmer (38:45):
Maybe that's what's keeping the Chinese at bay for a
short while, otherwise theycould have taken over.
Chris Petty (38:51):
Yeah, it could, we do move force pretty well.
Al Palmer (38:56):
And I know that there's been an emphasis on
Pacific operations, particularlyin all the services in recent
years, which I think is a reallygood thing.
And then the joint serviceexercises that we still do out
there in that part of the worldseem to be working too.
Chris Petty (39:12):
Yeah, yeah, I can't fault the strategy and the
approach of the.
You know the Indo-Pacificcommand and all that stuff
that's going on out there.
I don't think they're doinganything wrong.
But we do have to build up ourindustrial capability.
We do have to get more ships,more transport ships, but
(39:33):
they're experimenting.
You know they're experimentingout in the Pacific and I think
it's positive.
You know smaller nodes ofcombat instead of bigger
formations and you know rapidlydisplaceable forces and all
those things.
I think it's smart.
I think what they're doingsmart, it's going to be a
missile drone war and you got tobe able to move quickly.
(39:53):
So I think, I think they'reheading in the right direction,
but the but the sheer productionin the right direction, but the
but the sheer production.
Al Palmer (40:03):
Every war becomes a world of attrition in some, in
some aspect, every single warbecomes a war of attrition, so
that one does scare me.
Well, that is the problem.
I mean, if you don't haveenough tanks and other armored
vehicles and artillery orwhatever else you need, uh how
do you, how do you fight aprotracted war that way?
(40:24):
I mean, look, ukraine is havingtrouble keeping up with a huge
supply of our munitions thatthey never had.
If they hadn't had us, they'dhave been toast by now, I'm sure
yeah, that's a great example.
Chris Petty (40:38):
Ukraine is showing once again that every war
becomes an attrition war and youbetter have the capabilities to
produce and outproduce yourenemy.
And right now we don't havethat capability with China.
We have we have some realadvantages against China, but
China seems to have theadvantage in out producing us
(40:59):
and, and that really bothers me.
Al Palmer (41:05):
I don't know how their Army structure is, but
within their Navy they now havemore ships than we do, I know,
but they do.
And now the challenge is, likeeverything else, how do we match
that quality versus quantityand do it in the right way,
(41:26):
which gives us still a winningadvantage wherever we go?
Well, listen, let me ask thisquestion.
So we talked a little bit aboutthe good things that are going
on, and I'm happy to hear moreof that's happening in all of
our services, but there arestill some issues left that we
need to get to, do we not?
In the wake of the problemsthat we just started to solve,
(41:49):
can you talk a little bit aboutyour concerns with that?
Chris Petty (41:53):
You're talking about the DEI and all that stuff
.
Al Palmer (41:56):
Post-DEI, post-wokeness is that now a dead
duck, or is there somethingunderneath that that's still
resonating somewhere, Is it?
Chris Petty (42:06):
flying under the radar.
Well, there's a couple ofthings that come to mind.
Number one is you have to makethese changes permanent.
So they have to be more thanexecutive orders in the end, as
Congress has the constitutionalauthority to essentially
regulate the military for lackof a better word they need to
(42:27):
put these things into law andthey need to make sure that the
appropriations and theauthorization bills codify these
things.
So it's more than executiveorder, because this could be
reversed.
So that's number one.
And number two the militaryneeds to, as I think Hegseth is
(42:50):
doing.
I mean, hegseth may have hisshortcomings, but one thing I
think he's very serious about isa war fighting focus.
So everything will besubordinate to how do we improve
our lethality, mobility,lethality on the battlefield.
That's what it's all about.
Nobody created the Departmentof Defense to be a jobs program.
(43:13):
It has one purpose and that isto win wars.
And if you can win wars, youwill deter wars, and that's the
whole point.
So HEXAT's right about that.
I'll tell you that.
But you know, trump's only gotfour years and the clock is
ticking.
So we'll see how much of thisstuff can permanently change the
(43:35):
structure and the culture ofDOD in four short years in four
short years.
Al Palmer (43:42):
So the civilian force , that works really pretty hard,
I think, for the services andalways had.
But, as you pointed out earlier, there are still some folks in
higher levels that may not quiteget what they need to do
because they again lackexperience or they lack the
knowledge that they may need.
They're somewhere.
How do we change that?
(44:03):
Do we go after a different kindof people that we need to bring
in?
Chris Petty (44:07):
to be their advisors, yeah, but that's too
difficult of a problem becauseevery president is going to be
able to appoint a whole slew ofcivilian appointees across the
DOD structure and there's a lotof them.
So I would attack the problemdifferently.
I would.
The Pentagon and the civilianstaff at the Pentagon is right
(44:32):
for cutting Nothing against them.
This is not a judgment issue,but it's just.
There's so much of it you couldget rid of it.
For instance, low-hanging fruitfor me after working there for
a couple years is the entirecivilian secretariats of the
services are almost unnecessarybecause you have civilian
(44:57):
control of the military throughthe Secretary of Defense.
So you've met theconstitutional requirement right
there.
You don't need a civiliansecretary of the army and an
entire large staff.
Then all they do is talk to thechief of staff of the army's
large staff to coordinate armystuff.
(45:19):
Right now do that across fourservices.
You know, maybe, assume, maybesoon five with Space Force
You're going to build anotherarchitecture like this.
You could get rid of so manyredundant civilian positions in
the Pentagon that that wouldsolve a lot of this problem by
itself.
Al Palmer (45:36):
Well, like you say, some of them is at the highest
levels of those services, I'dpoint to the Army Secretary, who
had never spent a day in themilitary or around the military.
Chris Petty (45:47):
So what is the value added of an entire
civilian staff in the ArmySecretariat for a civilian that
really just works with the Chiefof Staff, of the Army's giant
staff to work on Army issues?
What's the point?
Al Palmer (46:05):
and has no direct experience with what they're
doing right it's.
Chris Petty (46:09):
It's kind of silly actually, and you're talking
thousands of civilian positionsacross the services.
I mean that right there wouldsolve a lot of our problem that
that may be where Hegseth isgoing with some of this.
Al Palmer (46:23):
I don't know, but I've heard some rumors to that
effect that in key leadershipjobs there may be a few changes
here and there.
Chris Petty (46:33):
No, absolutely, but it would be good at least if.
Al Palmer (46:36):
But it would be good at least if somebody had some
actual relevance, andparticularly if you could find
someone who had combatexperience.
Wouldn't that be a great changeand at least understanding how
the troops work and how life isin the military?
I don't know how you can makedecisions, particularly
(46:56):
personnel decisions, if youdon't know that.
Chris Petty (47:00):
Yeah, it's a tough question because you're not
always going to have thatperfect slate and I would say
you could do it.
But you've got to have theright mindset.
If you've never had a combatexperience, you could still be a
great Secretary of Defense ifyou listen to the people who
have the experience and theknowledge.
But you have the right visionfor warfighting, focus could you
(47:23):
could pull it off, you know Imean, yeah, yeah, if we've seen
that.
Al Palmer (47:29):
Yeah, one of the other thoughts on on what's
happening in today's army didyou want to share with us?
Chris Petty (47:36):
well, I think overall, like you I'm I'm happy
that we're reversing course onthe indoctrination and the
poison ideology.
I think there's a collectivesigh of relief throughout the
force and you know this stuffwas never polluting the
companies and the battalions toobadly.
(47:56):
It was there but it was all thehigher level echelon stuff and
the schools and all the trainingcenters and all that stuff.
So the Army I still have greatconfidence in the Army and the
services, the joint force ingeneral.
Obviously I know the Armybetter, but I've worked with all
my brothers and sisters in theother services and they're all
(48:17):
excellent.
So I've worked with all mybrothers and sisters in the
other services and they're allexcellent.
So this is a great military thatwe have and I'm glad we pulled
it back from the ledge ofdestruction, internal
destruction, from this poisonideology.
But it's gotta be codified, ithas to be permanent.
Al Palmer (48:37):
And that is quite a great description.
I think exactly what happenedand for folks like you on our
STARS board, you can take a lotof pride in the fact that we
stood up when others weren'twilling to, and I think that we
were very influential in havinga lot of that change.
Maybe we got a little bit ofwind in our back these days, but
(48:58):
STARS is still doing a greatjob and I hope that we'll
continue to do that goingforward.
Chris Petty (49:02):
Yeah, I'm confident we will.
I know the mission will evolveand we'll see how it evolves
appropriately.
Al Palmer (49:10):
But yeah, STARS was a part of that and of course I'm
proud to have been a very smallpart of that.
I would say bigger than small.
Chris Petty (49:21):
No, what do you do?
You know you can write somearticles, you can talk to people
, but, yes, it all matters, itall matters.
Al Palmer (49:27):
Yeah, you shine a light on it and I would let our
audience know too that you alsogot your own operation going on
that regard called Battle Digest, and tune into that and see
more about what you're writingabout and how to subscribe, and
you've also written a prettygood book about battles in the
(49:49):
past to serve as great examples12 battles every American should
know about.
I had a little bit of part insome of that with my museum I
built at Pearl Harbor, and folkslearn a lot when they go
through.
The amazing thing is, chris,when you see people really
understand what's happened withreal people and real events,
(50:13):
they're stunned.
I mean, they really are.
I've seen people just doamazing things as a result of
that.
Chris Petty (50:21):
Yeah, that's nice.
I appreciate Cindy putting up afew graphics.
The quick story, al, is I wasone of those officers that
actually believed in training mysubordinates on some military
history, because it's sorelevant, the patterns are so
repetitive in history.
(50:41):
There's a reason why.
You know, 100 years ago all thegreat military captains knew
exactly what alexander did andnapoleon did, and you know
george washington did.
They knew all that stuff.
Well, guess what, al?
they don't know it anymore andnot only does it not only does
it break my heart, it's going tocost us some lives.
(51:03):
So what I did is I said tomyself after 30 years, I'm going
.
Why doesn't the army havesomething simple that soldiers
can just pick up and say, oh, Iwant to learn about the battle
of frasier?
Because, oh, by the way, notonly should I know this stuff
because I'm a professional, butI can see the lessons learned
(51:27):
that are every bit as relevanttoday as they were when, you
know, um, good old generalburnside.
General Burnside committed hisinfamous slaughter at
Fredericksburg, and so I wantedto make it easy.
I even put discussion questionson the back of these things
(51:48):
because I wanted commanders togo.
All I got to do is read thisfor 30 minutes and have my
soldiers and subordinateofficers read this, and we're
going to have a great discussionabout Fredericksburg and why it
matters today and how it'srelevant in today's operating
environment.
Al Palmer (52:04):
So that's what I did with panel digest.
That's all it is.
You'd be like good for, like acommander's call or something
you know exactly that.
Chris Petty (52:13):
That's why I created it now, lo and behold,
the people that buy my productare mostly civilians that love
history and and they love it,but I built it for the military
honestly, have any of them beenhistorians at the military
academy?
I don't know of anyspecifically that have purchased
my product saying I was ahistorian at the military
(52:35):
academy.
It's funny when I went to WestPoint to try to, to try to get
him to sign up because it's aperfect match.
You know, a lot of these biginstitutions are like well, you
know, we already have all your.
I looked at all your footnotes.
You know they're all on ourbookshelves, kind of like yeah
you know you're.
You're kind of missing thepoint here.
You know, yeah, how are yougoing to get that?
Al Palmer (52:58):
to go off to the library to find that book among
the thousands that are thereright exactly.
Chris Petty (53:04):
You know what he can learn everything.
He can learn everything hewants in 30 minutes you know,
well it's.
Al Palmer (53:09):
It's it's attention and access right and and we try
to do that around here on ourpodcast too to highlight the
things that we think areimportant, because our website's
got thousands of articles andthings on it.
And this is our way ofsometimes trying to focus with,
with important people who havesomething to say about it,
especially folks like you,General.
Chris Petty (53:32):
Well, let me focus your listeners, or your audience
, on one thing.
If they want to check this out,just remember Reader's Digest
for Warfare Battle Digest.
That's it, and it's a greatproduct.
You'll love it, actually.
So check it out.
Al Palmer (53:50):
I like your thought about our past military leaders.
The other name that comes tomind is George Patton, who used
to read a lot about the Greeksand the Romans, past battles,
wisdom on the battlefield andothers who you know followed the
art of war and all that theChinese talked about a lot.
You read those things andthere's a common sense approach
(54:15):
to how to fight and win and howto work people so they can do
that too.
Chris Petty (54:21):
And it's more than common sense, it's actually
pattern recognition.
It's like becoming a good chessplayer.
These patterns repeatthemselves in warfare.
So Patton, because he was sowell-read, I mean, he could see
like, ah, I've been here before.
Well, he wasn't there before,but his mind was there before.
(54:41):
He recognized something fromhistory and it was almost like
he had the experience of thathistory.
You know, if people that haveserved their entire lives in the
military, like you and me I gotto fight in one war, I'm not
going to build enough experiencein one war to learn all of the
(55:04):
lessons that I can get fromthese guys that have fought wars
and wars and wars and wars.
And these patterns reallyrepeat themselves.
Al Palmer (55:12):
So, trying to put that together so that these
young officers can get theseadvantages without having to
read 300-page books all the time, and the other part of that is
that even though those peoplewere well-read, well-educated,
they still had to do it and inPatton's case he almost
(55:34):
single-handedly won the EuropeanWar.
World War II won the.
European war, World War II andyet at the same time was the
target of all kinds of ridiculeand opposition from the media
and other people back home inpolitics.
Chris Petty (55:50):
Yeah, well, patton was an interesting character,
but he was a warfighter, sothat's the kind of person you
need, and we need a culture thattolerates warfighters again,
which is part of this whole DEIthing.
We need to celebratewarfighters and realize in some
cases they're slightly differentpeople and you better value
(56:11):
that skill set because they winwars, and so that's part of this
equation we're talking about.
You got to change a cultureagain away from DEI into
warfighting, and that's that'spart of this equation we're
talking about.
You've got to change a cultureagain away from DEI into war
fighting, and that's part of it.
You know, guys like Pattoncan't be kicked out in
tomorrow's Army.
Al Palmer (56:30):
I think we're on to it and, with your help and the
rest of the stars here, we hopeto get there.
Thanks for what you're doing,general, and thank you so much
for being on our podcast today.
Chris Petty (56:43):
And for our viewers check out Battle Digest.
Al Palmer (56:47):
It's something very worthwhile.
Chris Petty (56:49):
Yeah, thanks, al, pleasure to be with you.
Al Palmer (56:52):
Good to have you, sir , and to our audience.
Stay tuned.
Next week we'll be back withanother exciting episode of
Stars and Stripes.
And for now, we'll be back withanother exciting episode of
stars and stripes.
And for now we'll sign off andsalute you for watching us.
Thank you very much.
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