September 26, 2024 • 52 mins
Sam Alaimo has the opportunity to interview Bruce Gudmundsson, an author, veteran, and military historian who previously taught at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia.
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Sam Alaimo (00:03):
This is the No Bell podcast where we talk about how
to optimize your technology,life, and mind. We're joined by
special operations veterans,entrepreneurs, investors, and
others who have overcomedifficulty to make it to the top
of their craft by staying in thefight. I'm Sam Alimo. Welcome to
(00:24):
the No Bell podcast. I haveBruce Goodminson with me,
military veteran, Marine Corpsveteran, military historian.
You've authored many books,Stormtroop Tactics, On Infantry,
On Artillery, The British Armyon the Western Front, and many
others. Very excited to haveyou, thank you for coming.
Bruce Gudmundsson (00:40):
Well, thank you. I'm honored to be here.
Sam Alaimo (00:42):
Well let's start from the very beginning. Where
did you grow up?
Bruce Gudmundsson (00:45):
This may take up the entire podcast. I had a
very interesting childhood, alovely childhood, a very fine
childhood. So my parents met atthe UN, at the United Nations,
in in the nineteen fifties whenit was a very different place
than it is now. A much happierplace, I'm sorry to say. My
mother came from the smallesttown in the Canadian province of
(01:08):
Manitoba, Waskata, Manitoba,about three miles from the North
Dakota border.
Very small town. Many people?Her father was wheat farmer. And
my father came from Iceland. Hecame from downtown Reykjavik
where his father worked on thedocks in the harbor in
Reykjavik.
And in those days, he was bornin 1912. Reykjavik was little
(01:29):
more than the harbor. It wasbasically a fishing village. It
wasn't the the refuge for thetragically hit. It is now.
It has since become very verydifferent world. So I was born
in Copenhagen in the hospitalwhere Kierkegaard died, if you
like philosophy. And then myfirst memories actually come
from Pakistan. So when I was twoand a half, my family moved to
(01:53):
Pakistan to Karachi. This isbefore Islamabad had been built.
Islamabad was being built at thetime, this early sixties. And
that was a wonderful experiencein many many respects. It gave
me a sense for the much widerworld. It gave me a sense of my
good fortune, how lucky I was.Regular encounters with lepers
(02:16):
will do that to you.
It was very much almost athousand and one Arabian Nights
experience with snake charmersand camels and horse racing on
the beach, and actually goingdown to the beach on a rope to
get to the beach and seeingwomen walking with water jugs on
(02:37):
their heads. A very wonderfuleducation, I think, for a small
child. Gave me a taste forKipling. Gave me an ear. I don't
speak Hindustani or Urdu orHindi, but it gave me an ear for
the language so that I couldwatch a Bollywood movie and
figure out what's going onbetween the song and dance
numbers.
That's a useful skill. And thenmoved back to Copenhagen. And
(03:01):
that was also an education goingfrom the third world to the
first. Much more Scandinavianplace than it is now.
Scandinavia was much lessEnglish or Americanized than it
is now.
But it it was a childhood fullof full of Lego. My father spoke
the Danish language very, verywell. He had a wonderful job,
(03:21):
perhaps the easiest job in theworld, selling the UN to
Scandinavians. Right? He was apublic affairs officer.
Both my parents were in thepublic affairs business. And
then at the age of eight, wemoved to moved to Yonkers,
Yonkers, New York in the HudsonValley. My dad worked at the UN
headquarters. That was not ahappy time for him because the
(03:42):
UN had already become well, Iwon't mince word. He had become
corrupt.
And that broke his heart. Thatwas very hard for him. But he
soldiered through, mostly atthat point to get the pension,
take care of the family. In1967, we drove up the Hudson
Valley, through through theAdirondacks, up to Montreal for
(04:02):
Expo sixty seven. And that was awonderful education because it
gave me my passion for for theWar of Independence, for the
French and Indian Wars, forAmerican history, for the
eighteenth century.
So so that really shaped me in abig way. Actually, an experience
very similar to I think MarkMcGrath's experience. You know,
(04:24):
Moose is a friend of mine, andthe I really enjoyed your review
of of him on this podcast. Andso it was an Italian
neighborhood next to a Polishneighborhood next to a Russian
neighborhood. But I went to aLutheran parochial school, which
was run by the people I I sayvulifection were refugees from a
garrison keeler monologue.
(04:45):
Right? So it was like a littlebit of the Midwest, 18 miles
from Times Square. And thecontrast between that and my
previous experiences and alsobeing in the orbit of New York
City created I think a greatdeal of creative tension for
which I'm very grateful. So Ispent summers in Iceland, some
(05:06):
summers, every second summer inIceland, working on the language
which I've yet to master. Againgave me a taste for the variety
of the wider world.
I worked at a farm. I know oneof your guests talked about
shoveling manure. I cleaned outthis very large manure pit
(05:28):
underneath a stable for someprized bulls. It was a very very
good experience, painted a lotof farm machinery, raked a lot
of hay, this is actually aninteresting farm. It was, if
you've ever read Journey to theCenter of the Earth.
Sam Alaimo (05:44):
Yeah. Yeah,
Bruce Gudmundsson (05:45):
Jules. The farm was in the shadow of that
mountain where they startedtheir journey. I spent a summer
in the Icelandic coast guard,which was interesting. Not
really a military experience.For one thing, we were
unionized.
So the bosun of the ship wasalso the shop steward. The
enlistments were for two weeksat a time. Mostly I swapped
(06:08):
decks, but that was also a verygood experience. When I speak
Icelandic, I can discuss farmmatters and nautical matters,
but not much else. Though one ofthe many gifts my father gave me
was the gift of Icelandicpoetry.
So we were both early risers,and before the rest of family
(06:30):
awoke, we would have breakfasttogether and recite Viking
poetry. So, That's a tenthcentury poem.
Sam Alaimo (06:42):
What what is that in English?
Bruce Gudmundsson (06:44):
That's my mother told me that there should
be bought for me a ship withbeautiful oars.
Sam Alaimo (06:52):
There we go. Good Viking. Nice.
Bruce Gudmundsson (06:54):
Right. Right. Actually, that poem has been
turned into song by a number ofpeople on YouTube, and I think
featured I haven't seen theHistory Channel Vikings show,
but I think it features there.It's actually a 12 year old boy
trying to encapsulate the Vikingspirit. The last line is, Sail
(07:16):
into harbors.
Hew men, as in hew as in hewingwith an axe, you know, and
others. Right? So so it's it's
Sam Alaimo (07:24):
It gets me amped up in a good way. I like it.
Bruce Gudmundsson (07:26):
Yeah. So, yeah. That was a big part of my
my education. And then I joinedthe Marine Corps. I actually I
joined the Marine Corps reserve.
Sam Alaimo (07:33):
What was the what was the earliest memory you have
of the Marine Corps? Was itPakistan? Was it Copenhagen? Was
it Yonkers? Or was it
Bruce Gudmundsson (07:40):
Yeah. Okay. So so in in Pakistan, we had in
our household a a bearer. Andagain, you go back to Kit Point,
in the days of the Raj in India,the British rule in India, which
was then only barely over, thiswas in the early sixties, so
that ends in 1947. So still theshadow that world was I went
(08:04):
into the shadow.
Was still very much part of ourreality. So the bearer in our
household was a patan, as theysaid, a pushtun. He was
secundered, you know, from thehills in this great big henid
mustache. And he had been asergeant in the old Indian Army,
the pre-forty '7 Indian Army. Ilater learned that he joined the
(08:24):
army because he was fleeing froma blood feud, which you know,
common thing in the mountains.
He went down to the plains andtook service with the king
emperor. And he would drill meand my older brother who also
became a Marine before ourporridge in the morning. So
that's certainly part of theexperience, being a little close
order drill at the age of fouror five or six. And all with
(08:48):
wonderful tenderness and careand all appropriate to
childhood. Then in Copenhagen wehad royal guards, you know, the
ones who marched through TivoliGarden.
That was I think an example of adifferent kind of military
experience. We always enjoyedthat. And then coming to The US
(09:12):
really in the middle of theVietnam War, and seeing I was, I
mean, greatly distressed by whathappened in the Vietnam War. I
was ashamed of the older boyswho would spend a lot of time
planning their ways to avoidservice. I read a great deal
(09:33):
about the war.
I became convinced that it was anoble war. That our loss of that
war set all sorts of bad thingsin motion. Of course, the people
who suffered the most from itwere the Vietnamese people. That
had a huge effect on me. And Iwas convinced that there were a
couple of I saw a couple of bigproblems.
(09:54):
One was that our militaryleadership was not doing what it
should have done. It was a badlyhandled war from a military
point of view. And the other onewas that the whole question of
how do we how do we get peopleinvolved with the armed forces
in a healthy way. Was convincedthat I was an American. Right?
I'd lived in America for tenyears and saw myself as really
(10:16):
an entirely American. And morethan everyone else saw me as
American. Funny incident when Iwas going to the courthouse to
get my final citizenship, mysponsor was an American of
Japanese descent. And everyonethought that I was the sponsor
and he was the fledglingcitizen.
Sam Alaimo (10:35):
That's America.
Bruce Gudmundsson (10:37):
Yeah. So doing the most American thing I
could think of, joining theMarine Corps, was part of it. I
joined the reserve rather thanthe active force largely because
it was very important to myfather that I go to university.
And I was the first person in myfamily, my line, to go to
university since the, as far aswe can tell, the thirteenth
century.
Sam Alaimo (10:57):
Well done.
Bruce Gudmundsson (10:58):
Yeah, there was a fellow back in the
thirteenth century who went tothe Sorbonne according to the
legend.
Sam Alaimo (11:03):
What year did you enlist?
Bruce Gudmundsson (11:05):
Enlisted in '77.
Sam Alaimo (11:07):
So just after the war. Okay. After You were gonna
be sent over.
Bruce Gudmundsson (11:11):
Yeah. So again, joined the Marine Corps
Reserve, went through basictraining, was a wonderful
experience. That had beensquared away by then. Very, very
encouraging experience. Feltthat I was in the right place.
Going back to the thirteen weekrecruit training, which I think
is a very good thing. And atweek 11 or so, there is a sense
(11:34):
of cohesion in the platoon,almost supernatural, that sense
of connection.
Sam Alaimo (11:39):
So 1977, was there any sort of aspersion cast on
you for wanting to join themilitary, and not of the
military, the Marine Corps,given the nature of the protests
at the time against the war,there was a lot of backlash
against the military, whichhistorically everyone knows is
kind of injust. Was there anyaspersion cast in you for doing
that?
Bruce Gudmundsson (11:58):
I think I think my my high school teachers
thought I was nuts, or worse. Myfather didn't understand it. He
had no military tradition in thefamilies. I mean, again, for
five hundred years. My motherunderstood it.
And she was, again, from WesternCanada, which if you look at the
history of the world wars, Ithink sent a higher proportion
(12:19):
of this young man into battlethan any part of the British
Empire except for Rhodesia.
Sam Alaimo (12:24):
I didn't know that. That's awesome.
Bruce Gudmundsson (12:25):
Yeah. Yeah. And you have to look carefully
at the numbers because of courseCanada is big place. But But
Western Canada in particular,she was of Scots Irish
ethnicity. And if you've lookedinto that, if you've read what
was the book?
Born Fighting. A book worthlooking into. Their book called
People Without a Name. But ifyou look into the history of the
(12:47):
Scots Irish, particularly inAmerica, you'll see a certain
bellicosity there. So she was Iknow this is strange.
Usually it's the dad who's moresupportive than the mom. And
then again, my mother had threesons, all three became marines.
And I mean, to her dying daywore the Eagle Globe and anchor
on a chain. So very very proudof that. Then after basic
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training, went to Camp Lejeune,was Camp Lejeune in 1977 was a
very depressing place.
And I think we were stillgetting rid of all the wrong
people we had brought in theseventies. And so that was a
very depressing experience andit made me commit really myself
(13:32):
to military reform to findingbetter ways of doing things.
Sam Alaimo (13:39):
So you saw a military that was wracked from a
long war, very high death count,very even higher wounded count,
who drafted people who in no wayshape or form wanted to be
there, and that's when youshowed up. You showed up to an
institution that was likehurting from the inside out. I
guess you said that's sort ofyour idea, your passion for
military reform. How did thatshape, I guess, the rest of your
(14:01):
twenty year career?
Bruce Gudmundsson (14:02):
I'll go back a little bit. I think in 1977,
the problem was less Vietnam perse than the first four years of
the all volunteer force. Infact, I mean, the Vietnam Vets,
like my senior drill instructor,Staff Sergeant Beck, still
remember him fondly. Anddistinctly, he was a Vietnam
(14:23):
Veteran. The other three droneinstructors weren't because the
Marine Corps really leavesVietnam in 1970 in a big way.
I mean, there are other thingsgoing on, but bulk of the Marine
Corps leaves in 1970. We were,you know, seven years away from
the Vietnam War, four years awayfrom the draft. So the real
problem was the personnelpolicy. It's just the lack of
(14:44):
quality control. My subsequentcommitment and I didn't really
have, I mean, on paper, a twentyyear reserve career.
But I was in and out severaltimes. So I had that initial
period of active duty, went tocollege, then after college went
to OCS, served for four years asan officer in the fleet in the
(15:04):
logistics field. They found outin in college I'd worked as a
forklift operator in a in awarehouse in New York, and that
was a great experience too. Andthen I I left. And then in '89,
I went back on active duty.
And then I'd spent some time inin the twenty fifth Marines in
the reserve battalion in NewEngland. But I went back on
(15:25):
active duty and and got thewonderful job of designing what
I call the gifted and talentedprogram for the Staff College.
This was the school of advancedwarfighting. And the idea this
is very much part of the Al Graymaneuver warfare movement. And I
I was part of that and hadwritten a book that had just
come out before then and thatGeneral Gray apparently read the
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book and said, you know, I wantthat boy running one of my
schools.
So at the age of 29 with abachelor's degree I got to
design a graduate school. And Ihad a blank piece. It was an
incredible opportunity. A blanksheet of paper. I designed that,
taught there for a couple ofyears.
When General Gray left, therewas a backlash against the
(16:11):
warfare movement againstanything that had been touched
by General Gray. I left activeduty. It was actually my last
active duty, which ended in '92,but continued to live in
Quantico, continued to do a lotof work for the Marine Corps.
And again, sort of living on themargins between the Marine Corps
(16:33):
and the world of militaryhistory and of writing for
publication.
Sam Alaimo (16:41):
So if you look back twenty years, eight active, 12
reserve, what what on the onehand would be the best aspects
of the military, and then theother hand the worst aspects you
came across?
Bruce Gudmundsson (16:51):
The people and the people. I've just met
some remarkable people,remarkable in all sorts of ways.
It really is people from allsorts of all walks of life, very
often very interesting peoplewith interests, of all sorts of
interests. I know in twentyfifth Marines, my platoon
sergeant was a surrealistartist, and he was a painter. If
(17:15):
Dave Kennedy, if you're outthere, I'd love to hear from
you.
And at the same time, there weresome real bozos. You know, real
I mean, people I would nowagain, I'm not that kind of
doctor, but classify asnarcissist. And this I think is
one of the problems with aninherent problem with the way we
reward people in the service andthe way we ask people to manage
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their own careers is that it'ssomething that's very well
suited to a narcissist.
Sam Alaimo (17:46):
You dig in on that one please? Define what you mean
narcissist in this case.
Bruce Gudmundsson (17:51):
I'm gonna
Sam Alaimo (17:51):
give you some concrete examples. I'm very
sure.
Bruce Gudmundsson (17:53):
Yeah. Yeah. So a narcissist is a person who
constantly needs to be remindedthat he's not just okay, but
better than okay. Right? So heneeds this thing that the
psychologist called narcissisticsupply.
And anytime that sense isthreatened, he will lash out and
punish people. And his mainmotivation in life is getting
(18:16):
that narcissistic supply. So Iknow of one case. This a
commanding officer, what wasthen called a landing support
battalion, which is almost likethe old World War II pioneer
units. And the idea is thatdon't land with the first wave,
but you land with second waveand set up the beach.
And also do a lot of work withhelicopter support teams and
(18:38):
running ports and things likethat. And this is actually a
very easy battalion to runbecause it basically is a home
for detachments. We just sendout detachments and come back
sober. And this one battalioncommander was constantly in need
(18:59):
of praise, reassurance. Hiswelcome aboard speech was a two
hour account of how wonderful hewas.
I was hoping to find out, tellme about this battalion, this
mission, where we are, what arewe trying to what our challenges
are. But it was all about him.And that made life very very
(19:23):
difficult because I basicallyspent my time trying to reduce
the damage doing damage control.Know, reduce the damage he was
doing. That was a veryunpleasant experience.
And I've seen that not soclosely, but you see that often
with general officers inparticular. It's clear they're
(19:47):
in it for this supply, this kindof reassurance. And that of
course makes it very hard to getanything useful done. It
paralyzes them in terms of doingthe right things, but it means
their subordinates, in order toget anything done, have to
master the art of sycophancy.They have to learn how to be
(20:09):
courtiers.
And that's something I alsoobserved. I think this is, know,
as a brand new lieutenant, I hada little bit of experience. You
know, I had four years in theReserve, but still very young
and seeing all these captainsand majors spending their time
polishing apples.
Sam Alaimo (20:29):
What about best and worst day in the military?
Bruce Gudmundsson (20:31):
So many good days. So many good days.
Actually I remember an exerciseup in Pickle Meadows, the
Mountain Warfare TrainingCenter. I was the executive
officer of the weapons companyof the twenty fifth Marines. And
the commanding officer laterbecame a congressman.
I say that without admiration.We'd been hiking up a mountain,
(20:53):
and halfway up through the hike,somebody slipped, and he said,
oh, I need to take care of myMarine. Jumped on the truck and
disappeared. Right? And so I wasin command.
And I had to organize a raid.And I pulled something out of
the First World War, adapted it,you know, gave the order right
there, and we had our raid. Andwe had a journalist there from
(21:17):
the Sacramento Bee who was ableto record that. And the troops
had a great experience. And Idid too because enjoying the
thrill of improvising on thespot, but at the same time being
able to put my historical workto use.
It was, you know, verypractical. I don't know if this
(21:38):
would've worked in practice, butat least I had the plan in my
mind that it could adapt it tothe terrain and explain it.
Sam Alaimo (21:47):
Let's roll then into some of your professional work,
I think that's a great pivot.Some of the work you've done, I
forget which piece it was, butyou talked about the strike of
the eye and supposing, I thinkit was the education of the
enlightened soldier.
Bruce Gudmundsson (21:58):
Yes. Yeah.
Sam Alaimo (21:58):
And that's pretty much what you're talking about.
It sounds like your mind waschurning in real time, observing
the environment, strike of theeye, and then supposing what
would happen if if x occurred,or y occurred, or z occurred.
And in in in the military, wastaught three questions. What's
the condition of my weapon? Whatwould I do if I were contacted
right now?
How can I best support my buddy?That, when I when I when I
(22:21):
thought about it, that's more oflike a ground pounder. I'm on
the ground pulling a rifle, myjob is to execute. What you're
talking about seems to be moreelevated, more of an officer
position. Can you talk about thestrike of the eye and the
supposing, the theory behind itand how it applies?
Bruce Gudmundsson (22:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This this is something
that comes, that develops in theeighteenth century, the theory
of it. Because this eighteenthcentury, the the the word is
French.
Right? Literally strike of theeye, being hit by the eye. And
it's interesting that we thinkof eyes as being passive rather
than active. But clearly it'sthe eye that's doing the
(22:56):
punching, right? The same wordas punch in French.
So initially it was used byengineers, military engineers,
who were trying to make sense ofa piece of terrain. How do we
defend it? How can we attack it?How can we fortify it? So it
starts off being slow, and thensomebody in the eighteenth
(23:16):
century may have been Fred ofthe Great, but he may have got
it from somebody else.
I haven't traced it all the wayback, said, no, no. We're doing
this quickly. This isn't aboutthe engineer with his paper and
his pencil drawing, you know,the perfect plan. This is about
somebody looking at the terrainand making an instant evaluation
(23:38):
of it. What's really importanthere.
And Napoleon makes a big bigdeal of this. And of course his
great stock and trade was speed.And you can only march so fast,
you can only ride so fast, butyou can think quickly. And that
was what he was doing. And thenthe folks who organized
(24:00):
themselves to fight against himsaid, We can't make one
Napoleon, we can make lots oflittle Napoleons.
Lots of guys who are doing this.One of them is Scharnhorst, the
Enlightened Soldier. And there'sa biography in progress, first
volume is out, by Charles EdwardWhite. He rewrote a book years
(24:21):
ago called The EnlightenedSoldier. That was a big
inspiration for the maneuverwarfare movement in the late
eighties and early nineties.
That was really just a smallchunk of his life. He's now
working on a big biography, AndI was happy to contribute to
that with that little articlecalled The Education of the
Enlightened Soldier.
Sam Alaimo (24:40):
Oh, that's great. And then do they talk about how
to actually apply that? How tolearn it? How to apply it? How
to make it habitual?
Did they have recommendations ordo they kind of stop, hey,
here's the theory, here's how ittransitions into reality, or did
they give recommendations forthe the young officer, the young
leader to actually execute it?
Bruce Gudmundsson (24:59):
The story about the, when Scharnhorst
moves from being an engineer andartillery officer, finds himself
in the cavalry, and the colonelwill take him out for a ride,
say, okay, see that village.Imagine that it is occupied by
so many troops. You have thesereports. What do you do? And
he'd say, Oh, Colonel, happy totell you I'll get back to you in
(25:21):
a week.
I'll sit down with a paper and apen and I'll make you a plan.
And the colonel says, Oh, no,no. Tell me now. And there's
this letter he writes back tohis uncle in saying, you know,
this is something that I triedto use the methods I was taught
at this engineering school. It'sa remarkable school by the way,
(25:43):
I imagine it as a militaryHogwarts.
So he had been taught to thinkslowly and think deliberately
and had this brilliant educationin that. And then now he's told,
okay, do it much more quickly.And he develops this method
which we now call the TDG, thetactical decision game, where
(26:05):
you set up a situation and yousay, okay, what's going on here?
And what do you do? What areyour orders?
You've got five minutes. So thetime pressure that makes the
difference. You know, it'sinteresting when he is in a
position to mentor young Carlvon Klauswitz, he says I want
(26:25):
you to teach two things. I wantyou to teach artillery and
gunnery with mathematics and allthat deliberate, slow thinking
stuff. And I also want you toteach small wars.
I want you to teach guerrillawarfare. So Plasbids is there
pulling these examples veryoften out of the American War of
Independence. He was a greatstudent of the American War of
(26:47):
Independence. You know, talkingabout ambushes and the defense
of forward positions and thesesmall scale engagements. There's
again where you don't have weeksto plan the defense.
So Sharnhorst uses that tensionas the basis for not just his
(27:12):
own work, but also the way hetrains his subordinates, the
most famous of whom is CrawfordKlasmis.
Sam Alaimo (27:19):
You're talking about the execution, but then going, I
guess, upstream back in time,there's the book study, there's
the general education. Hownecessary is that book study,
general education, tobattlefield mastery? Given the
historical record that used tobe a major aspect, I guess it
still is at the academies, butany elaboration on that? Any
(27:40):
unique insights?
Bruce Gudmundsson (27:41):
Yes. I think that you need a lot of military
history, both so you can imaginethe range of possibilities, the
first thing. The second thing isto I think realize just how
peculiar each situation is sothat you don't end up with
(28:03):
trying to apply one theory overand over again. History is also
about people. Right?
And leadership is about people.You learn all sorts of
personalities. Again, I don'tthink book learning alone will
serve you. But it isinteresting. And this is
(28:25):
something that's a big shock tothe armed forces or the the
armies in particular of theworld in the mid nineteenth
century where the Prussians, andthese are the people who are the
linear descendants ofScharnhorst and Clausewitz, have
a very academic approach to thestudy of war.
And they're beating opponentswith a lot more experience. So
(28:47):
they beat the Austrians in 1866,and they beat the French in
1870. And that is the I'll use aboomer analogy here. That's the
'69 Metz. Right?
That's the absolute upstart.That is the the big surprise
that this this nation of ofphilosophers defeats the the
(29:10):
descendants of Napoleon. And andand just, you know, how think
about how influential the Frenchwere at that time. Right? I
mean, we fight our own civil warwith French uniforms, French
weapons, French tactics.
You know, if you read thewritings, you know, the orders
(29:32):
very often of people, certainlyat the start of the civil war,
they're half in French. It wasan incredible upset. And that is
what really sparks a great dealof interest in, I wouldn't say
the academic study of militarymatters, but the bookish study.
(29:53):
Really, study of militaryhistory.
Sam Alaimo (29:56):
So probably an impossible task, but one or two
books that someone listeningmight wanna read if they wanna
do their own general educationto, I guess you'd recommend for
someone trying to do thatbattlefield mastery, whether it
translates to actual warfare orthe business environment. What
are one or two good books thatwould help people zoom out and
get that education?
Bruce Gudmundsson (30:16):
Yeah. I would start with Aristotle's Politics.
Sam Alaimo (30:19):
Nice.
Bruce Gudmundsson (30:20):
Yeah. Alright. So and I read that when
I was 15. Was working at thefarm in Iceland and you know,
looking at that dead volcano inall its beauty. And the thing I
pulled from Aristotle's politicsis the ability to think on two
tracks.
So Aristotle is saying, okay,given human nature, this is the
(30:40):
best constitution. But we'reliving in Athens. Okay. And
Athens has these peculiarities.So given the situation of
Athens, what's the best we canhope for here in Athens?
So it's that ability to think onthe two tracks, that the ideal
and the applied at the sametime. It's not airy fairy. You
(31:03):
know, he's not up into the skylike Plato often was. But at the
same time, it's also notcynical. It's that constant
tension.
And as you can see, the nextbook I recommend also is based
upon attention. It's by FrancisTuker. It was called The Pattern
of War. And there he's talkingabout the two very different
(31:25):
kinds of war that he experiencedin the world wars. The position
warfare or trench warfare, andthen the mobile warfare.
And he was very much involved inthe mobile warfare in North
Africa in in World War two. Sogetting a sense of these these
tensions, it's not an either or.There's a lot more and than than
(31:47):
either or.
Sam Alaimo (31:48):
I did not expect you to say Aristotle politics. The
Greeks called it mende on theone hand on the other. I'm still
trying to get that inside of mybrain to think that way and not
just make the immediatedecision, but think about both
sides of that coin and notcynically, which is one of my
favorite aspects of Aristotle.You mentioned earlier slow
thinking. So can you talk aboutthe difference between slow
thinking and fast thinking?
(32:09):
Obviously, it pertains tocombat, but also let's try to
pivot it to like a businessenvironment. How do those two
aspects apply?
Bruce Gudmundsson (32:15):
Yeah. Well, first of all, they are
complementary. Right? You don'twant someone to say, well, I'm
always flying by the seat of mypants. Or I need a week to think
things through.
Sometimes you have a week,sometimes you don't. So the
first, I think, first bit ofadvice I'd give really to
anybody that's doing anything inlife is that you have to do
(32:37):
both. You can't be a one trickpony. You have to be able to do
both. And they complement eachother.
And very often you will make adecision in the heat of the
moment. It will not be the bestdecision. Guarantee you that. It
will not be optimum. But if itworks, it works.
If it doesn't work, you thinkagain and do something else. And
then you reflect upon that. Youreflect upon your quick
(33:01):
decisions and do that slowly.But then you also do all the
things that build up your mentalarsenal. And a big part of that
is accumulating models.
And you get that from readinghistory. And again, seeing all
of these different examples,none of which will fit perfectly
(33:24):
the situation you're in. But itis remarkable how some of the
old stories prove practical. Forexample, buying a car. There's a
story from ancient Rome aboutthe Cumaean Sibyl.
And this is early in the historyof ancient Rome when they still
(33:45):
had the Etruscan caves. In fact,the story of I think this was
the last Etruscan king. Tarquinthe Proud. Not Tarquin the wise,
not Tarquin the thoughtful, butTarquin the Proud. And there's
this Sibyl, this prophetess wholives by the Tiber River.
And she sits down and she writesdown the future history of Raab
(34:07):
on some wooden tablets. And shetakes it to the king and says,
I've got these 12 tablets withthe future history of your city,
and I'll sell them to you forthis outrageous price. And the
king says, crazy lady, go away.And she goes away and burns
three of the tablets. Next day,she comes by, comes back with
nine tablets and offers them forthe same price.
(34:29):
And that process continues untilshe's got three tablets left and
the king pays the full price fora quarter of the prophecies.
Now, what does that have to tellyou about buying a car? Well,
wanted to buy a used car, and Isaw one advertised. And I said,
okay, I'm gonna go. I'm going ona Wednesday morning because no
(34:51):
one buys a car on a Wednesdaymorning.
There'll be a salesman to beeager for a sale. And I saw the
list price and I got a certifiedcheck for about $2,000 less than
the list price. And I said, I'dlike to buy this card, please.
Here's the check. And they said,Oh, but the price is this.
I'd like to buy the card. Here'sthe check. And they said, Oh
(35:12):
yeah. But do you want financing?He said, No, no, no.
Here's this certified check.Finally, I had to do a lot of
convincing because they had acertain way of doing things, but
I ended up getting the car forthe price I wanted, and the car
served me for a good decade. Andagain, the the I had taken this
story from the classical worldand applied it to some some very
(35:36):
very pedestrian business.
Sam Alaimo (35:38):
You made a caveat when you were talking about that
transition from fast thinking toslow thinking, where you kind of
have to make a decision and thenthink about it afterwards, and
over time iterate, becomebetter. The expression I heard
in the military was decisionanalysis paralysis, where if you
had too much education withoutenough application, you'd be
stuck in that rut, unsure whatto do and never actually make a
(35:58):
decision. Do you have anyrecommendations on how to how to
make that iterating cycle fasterfrom fast thinking, making a
decision, knowing full well itmight not be the best decision,
reflecting on it, and then beingfaster and more accurate next
time. Do have anyrecommendations?
Bruce Gudmundsson (36:13):
Practice with speed. Mhmm. Like I said, like,
any sort of any sort of drill,you just do it quickly. You get
you become comfortable withdoing things quickly. You become
comfortable with suboptimization.
You know? And, again, this isvery different from, on the eve
of the Vietnam War, we had theMcNamara era. And the idea was
that some clever people, oftenwith the aid of computers, would
(36:38):
be able to come up with optimalsolutions. And then, you know,
we had all these militaryofficers, rather than studying
military history, going to getdegrees in operations analysis
to again make these perfectdecisions in an air conditioned
room, in an actually very coldair conditioned room because the
computers generated a lot ofheat in those days. And that I
(37:00):
think is a big part of our ourdefeat in Vietnam.
In fact, it's remarkable howlittle military history was
studied in the fifties andsixties. There was the sense
that we'd seen the end ofhistory, that we're in the age
of push button warfare. In fact,it wasn't I think until the late
seventies, maybe even theeighties, that history, military
(37:22):
history was taught at WestPoint. That it was taken out of
the curriculum sometime in the,I think, the late forties or
early fifties, and didn't comeback until I'm thinking either
very late seventies or earlyeighties by a guy named Bob
Doty, who's by the way aterrific scholar of the French
army. And a big part of thisreform movement was the revival
(37:44):
of military history, which has anumber of contributors.
One of which was thebicentennial, which I think a
very a very healthy thing forAmerica, and really brought a
lot of got a lot of peopleinterested in in writing
military history.
Sam Alaimo (38:01):
I'm gonna write on my whiteboard when we're done
the quote comfortable with suboptimization, because I think
that is the cure to the thisthere's a there's a movement. I
mean, there always has been inAmerica, guess, this desire to
be as optimized and as perfectas possible to gain that extra
point 1% in performance, andthat is enough to cripple people
to not even try in the firstplace. So to be able to be
(38:22):
comfortable with suboptimization, get out there and
take a risk and iterate andbecome better, that is just
gold. Let's talk about, a lot ofour audience is in the business
world, so they're very familiarwith case studies, but probably
not so much with decision games,and probably not decision
forcing cases, especially whenyou add that Socratic element to
it. So can you talk about theDFCs?
Bruce Gudmundsson (38:42):
Yeah. So the DFCs inspired by a number of
things, one of which is the waythey they teach case studies at
the Harvard Business School. AndI spent two and a half years at
the Kennedy School right acrossthe river from from the business
school. And I got that jobactually through the Marine
Corps Reserve. Was hired by mymy my commanding officer in in
the twenty fifth Marines.
(39:03):
He was working at Harvard at theKennedy School. At that time,
the Kennedy School was trying toadopt the case method, so I
spent a lot of time talking toprofessors at the business
school and and what have you.And so I was struck by the
degree to which they askstudents to do the same thing,
to make a decision and defendit, fully realizing that they
(39:25):
don't have weeks and weeks toprepare. Now, they do spend a
lot of time with thespreadsheets. You know, when
they prepare when they come toclass, they often have a great
deal of information.
Sort of information militaryfolks are not gonna have. And
they're all very often able toreduce them to a bottom line
because there's no militaryequivalent of cash. Right? So
(39:45):
many things you can't quantifyin military matters. You're
trying to do so many things atonce.
That's one of the inspirations.And again, the way they do it is
by saying, okay, you you are theCEO of Coca Cola Company. Pepsi
has introduced this you know, isbeating you with the Pepsi
channel. This is 1986. Right?
(40:06):
What do you do? And then Cokeends up with the new Coke, turns
out to be a complete disaster.The question is why. So a lot of
business schools will make themistake of using the case study
as a springboard for theprofessor's ideas. So the
students read the case study,the professor says, okay, let me
(40:26):
explain this to you.
The good professors at Harvard,and I'm a little worried that
they're slipping on this. Theyjust celebrated their hundredth
anniversary of the case methodat Harvard Business School.
People at Darden at Virginia arevery good at this. The
professor's not gonna give youhis opinion. May he may give you
some some ideas at the end, buthe'll basically say, okay,
(40:49):
you're the boss.
You're the decision maker. Whatdo you do? It's really that
simple. Sir, are your orders?And when you say, let me think
about it, the teacher, whoeverhe is, says, no, please tell me
now or tell me in five minutes.
Maybe consult with yourcolleagues, but tell me very,
(41:10):
very soon. And it's really thatsimple. It's not it's just very
different from the way so manyother things work in life,
particularly the way a schoolworks for many people.
Sam Alaimo (41:22):
I think you teach a course. If it's not a course,
it's a book, I can't rememberwhat case is, but Klauswitz. Do
you have do you have one or twoor three, like, major takeaways
that that you could share herefrom that course?
Bruce Gudmundsson (41:34):
Some of the cases were were drawn from the
War of Independence, from theAmerican War of Independence,
where and and the the textbookthat Klauswitz used, there's a
book by Johann Ewald calledTreatise and Partisanal Warfare.
You can get it for free onarchive.org. And these are
situations, encounter battles,ambushes, things like that. So
(41:57):
that was one part of it. And theother part is in a much higher
level, Napoleon's eighteenfourteen campaign, where with
inferior forces he reallymanages to keep three very large
armies away from Paris forseveral months.
And it's really a brilliantcampaign. He's dealing with very
little in the way of resourcesand dealing with a number of
(42:20):
actually very different enemies.So he's got Field Marshal
Blucher who is absolute madman,very aggressive. And he's got
Field Marshal Schwarzenberg whois in charge of leading the Army
of Bohemia. You can imagine theArmy of Bohemia there.
He's an Austrian. He's actuallyworking for Napoleon's
father-in-law, and he's planningon making a deal. So he's
(42:43):
marching slowly, deliberately,not taking any risks. So the
problem for Napoleon is, okay,how do I deal with these two
very different opponents? I'vegot this madman who takes risks
and then I have the army ofBohemia where they're listening
to progressive jazz and drinkingespresso.
How do you do that? So that wasthe case from Klausmitz. So I
(43:05):
took these episodes from thewritings of Klauswitz or from
his the the cases he was usingto teach, and then turned them
into into decision forcingcases.
Sam Alaimo (43:16):
Let's do kind of a lightning round. I'm gonna go
through some questions. We'llanswer quick. What are a few
things you do to prime yourselffor the day? And I ask because
you're you're in a heavilyintellectual endeavor.
You probably have to do a lot ofdeep thought. It takes a while
to get in there and then stay inthere. How do you prime
yourself?
Bruce Gudmundsson (43:30):
I prime myself before I go to sleep. So
I I think about what I'm gonnawrite the next day. I get up
very early. Again, I'm in mysixties, so it's easy to get up
early. The young people like tosleep in.
Young people are nocturnal. I'mup with chickens. I'm up well
before the chickens. And then Iwrite for three or four hours in
the morning. And that's those mymy most productive hours of the
(43:54):
day.
So and and I do it, you know, nobreakfast, no coffee, just
making use of of the energy Iaccumulated while asleep. And I
have a gift for sleep by sleep.There's another thing about
having spent a little time inthe service is that you get good
at sleeping. You sleep wheneveryou can. And I think that my
(44:14):
subconscious mind works on theproblem.
It doesn't always work that way,but the the words will flow like
like Honey in August.
Sam Alaimo (44:23):
I've talked to a lot of writers, and a lot of them
say the same thing. They'llthink about it before they go to
bed, wake up, put pen to paperor fingers to to keypad, and
just get after it. I've neverbeen able to do it. So when
you're visualizing at night, doyou set a problem and then fall
asleep on the problem? Or howdoes that work?
Bruce Gudmundsson (44:40):
Yeah. Usually, I because I'm I'm so
history based, right, that thatthat I I rely on sources, I will
assemble the sources, put themtogether in a folder on the
computer. Very often I'll dodiagrams. I'll often draw before
I write. So when, you know, inthe afternoon, in the evening,
(45:03):
where I'm not really a %, I do alot of graphics work.
Very often when I'm writing, I'mdescribing the picture.
Sam Alaimo (45:12):
Awesome. What about at the end of the day, pivoting
away from work? Do you have anyroutines you abide by?
Bruce Gudmundsson (45:18):
Not really, no, no. I I You know, my kids
are grown up. My wife likes toread, so we have our dates in
the morning, sort of after I'vedone most of my writing, before
she goes to work. And it'slonger on weekends, but we sit
around and have a little coffee.So that's my personal time.
But I love what I do. As I saidbefore, my father was an
(45:41):
Icelander and the dream of everyIcelander is to make your living
with your pen. So I count myselfvery very fortunate. So I'm
basically writing all the time.If I'm not writing, I'm
preparing to write.
Sam Alaimo (45:54):
How do you get your best work done? How do you get
in the deepest mode of focus andstay there?
Bruce Gudmundsson (45:59):
Yeah. Again, it's the morning. It's the
morning. It does not always workthat way. So for example, when I
do a long drive, I'll stop afteran hour and find a place where
I'll set up and write for anhour.
Sam Alaimo (46:12):
Oh, that's great. That's great.
Bruce Gudmundsson (46:13):
So the two different kinds of activities
complement each other. And Ithink I'm thinking about what
I'm gonna write when I'm drivingUnless I'm listening to a
podcast, and I love podcasts.I'm a huge fan of podcasts.
Sam Alaimo (46:29):
I don't usually ask this question, but like what are
what are one or two podcasts doyou recommend?
Bruce Gudmundsson (46:32):
Oh, I I like history podcasts, so I like
David Crowder's History ofEngland podcast. I think he's at
episode 400 or something. Andhe's only reached I think he's
up to about sixteen sixty. He'sdoing a deep dive. The History
of the Germans, which is stillin the Middle Ages, it's a
(46:54):
little newer podcast.
There is a great podcast calledThugs and Miracles about the
very early kings of France. I'mtalking about before
Charlemagne. If you like DanCarlin, this is very very much
sort of like Dan Carlin light.There's one called Pax
Britannica which is also Britishhistory but with a very broad
(47:19):
view. So he's doing like thedeep background of India before
he gets to the British in India.
So he's doing something, a smallseries in the Mughal Empire, and
does some good things aboutBritish colonies in America.
History of Italy, that's a lotof fun. And again, a lot of
people are doing these, I callthem soup to nuts type podcasts
(47:42):
that give you the full historyof a place. And they're they're
they're moving very very slowly,which is just fine by me.
Sam Alaimo (47:52):
Movies. Couple movies that you changed your
life.
Bruce Gudmundsson (47:55):
Yeah. Cromwell, nineteen seventy.
Richard Harris as Cromwell. Youknow, and I was too young to
realize the irony of an Irishactor playing Cromwell.
Brilliant, brilliant movie.
Sometimes takes a few libertieswith the facts.
Sam Alaimo (48:10):
And what about books? We've talked a lot about
books, but what are the booksthat have changed their life the
There
Bruce Gudmundsson (48:14):
was a book that came out shortly after the
Vietnam War called SelfDestruction. It was written
under a pseudonym, the pseudonymbeing Cincinnatus. And if you
want a sense of what happenedthere, I would recommend that
book. Had a profound effect onme. It helped me make sense of
(48:34):
the whole what I was seeing thetime of the Vietnam War.
The other thing, another one isthe Gulag Archipelago. It's a
great big book by Balslotovnitz.And I still can't spell
Sultanitz. I have to look it upevery time I write it. But that
was a powerful, powerful book.
The third is actually this ispretty obscure. This by an
(48:57):
Israeli general named YehudaWallach. Wallach like like the
actor Eli Wallach, w a l l a ch. Yehuda Wallach. Yehuda with a
j.
It's interesting that he spellsit the German way because he's
basically a German who was sortof kicked off the team in the
thirties for reasons we all knowabout. Went to Israel, and it's
(49:22):
a critique of the Israeliembrace of the German methods,
of the Blitzkrieg method. Sothis is one of the great ironies
of history is that the biggestdisciples of the Germans of the
40s, 30s and 40s, were theIsraelis of the late 40s, 50s,
(49:44):
and 60s. So the spiritualdescendant of Rommel was Moshe
Dayan. It's called the Dogma ofthe Battle of Annihilation.
And it's it's much more clearlywritten than the name suggests.
Right?
Sam Alaimo (49:56):
That is an epic name.
Bruce Gudmundsson (49:58):
Yes. Yeah. Yehuda Volok, remarkable
remarkable writer. It's again acritique of two things. One, how
the Germans got a lot of thingsright but a lot of things wrong
too.
And how basically warning to theIsraelis, Let's not fall into
the same trap. Let's imitate thevirtues but not the vices. But
(50:23):
because he was a German, aGerman speaker, in fact most of
his publications are in German.This book he wrote in English,
you can get it in German, butthat is a translation from the
English. It was a very goodcounterpart to a lot of
literature that a lot of people,including myself, put out about
(50:43):
the German methods and the veryvery adulatory literature.
This will make you reflect abit, make you think about it,
realize that there are shadowsas well sunshine.
Sam Alaimo (50:56):
How can people follow you and your work?
Bruce Gudmundsson (50:59):
Yeah. I've got a couple of substats. One's
called the Tactical Notebook,which you'd imagine is military
stuff. The other one's calledExtramuros, from the Latin for
outside the walls. And it'sabout ways people from all walks
of life can get the benefits ofliberal education.
So I believe very strongly that,and I'm quoting actually
(51:21):
Ferdinand Fosch here, there areno educated men, there are only
men who educate themselves.Every educated person is self
educated. I don't care whereyou've been. I worked at
Harvard, was an undergraduate atYale, got my PhD from Oxford. So
I've been very fortunate.
I've been to all these namebrand schools, been around them.
(51:43):
But that experience hasconvinced me that it's all self
education. And by all, I mean a%.
Sam Alaimo (51:51):
That's a good way to finish it. I never realized I
tried to boil a lifetime ofthinking down to sixty minutes,
but genuinely appreciate it.Couldn't be more stoked to have
you on.
Bruce Gudmundsson (51:59):
Well, you so much. This is a this is an
honor.
Sam Alaimo (52:02):
I appreciate it. That's it for this episode. If
you wanna check out more fromthe podcast, head to
0Eyes.com/NoBell, where you cansee show notes, read more about
our guests, and suggest guestsor topics of your own. Until
next time, stay in the fight.Don't ring the bell.
This is the No Bell podcast where we talk about how
to optimize your technology,life, and mind. We're joined by
special operations veterans,entrepreneurs, investors, and
others who have overcomedifficulty to make it to the top
of their craft by staying in thefight. I'm Sam Alimo. Welcome to
(00:24):
the No Bell podcast. I haveBruce Goodminson with me,
military veteran, Marine Corpsveteran, military historian.
You've authored many books,Stormtroop Tactics, On Infantry,
On Artillery, The British Armyon the Western Front, and many
others. Very excited to haveyou, thank you for coming.
Bruce Gudmundsson (00:40):
Well, thank you. I'm honored to be here.
Sam Alaimo (00:42):
Well let's start from the very beginning. Where
did you grow up?
Bruce Gudmundsson (00:45):
This may take up the entire podcast. I had a
very interesting childhood, alovely childhood, a very fine
childhood. So my parents met atthe UN, at the United Nations,
in in the nineteen fifties whenit was a very different place
than it is now. A much happierplace, I'm sorry to say. My
mother came from the smallesttown in the Canadian province of
(01:08):
Manitoba, Waskata, Manitoba,about three miles from the North
Dakota border.
Very small town. Many people?Her father was wheat farmer. And
my father came from Iceland. Hecame from downtown Reykjavik
where his father worked on thedocks in the harbor in
Reykjavik.
And in those days, he was bornin 1912. Reykjavik was little
(01:29):
more than the harbor. It wasbasically a fishing village. It
wasn't the the refuge for thetragically hit. It is now.
It has since become very verydifferent world. So I was born
in Copenhagen in the hospitalwhere Kierkegaard died, if you
like philosophy. And then myfirst memories actually come
from Pakistan. So when I was twoand a half, my family moved to
(01:53):
Pakistan to Karachi. This isbefore Islamabad had been built.
Islamabad was being built at thetime, this early sixties. And
that was a wonderful experiencein many many respects. It gave
me a sense for the much widerworld. It gave me a sense of my
good fortune, how lucky I was.Regular encounters with lepers
(02:16):
will do that to you.
It was very much almost athousand and one Arabian Nights
experience with snake charmersand camels and horse racing on
the beach, and actually goingdown to the beach on a rope to
get to the beach and seeingwomen walking with water jugs on
(02:37):
their heads. A very wonderfuleducation, I think, for a small
child. Gave me a taste forKipling. Gave me an ear. I don't
speak Hindustani or Urdu orHindi, but it gave me an ear for
the language so that I couldwatch a Bollywood movie and
figure out what's going onbetween the song and dance
numbers.
That's a useful skill. And thenmoved back to Copenhagen. And
(03:01):
that was also an education goingfrom the third world to the
first. Much more Scandinavianplace than it is now.
Scandinavia was much lessEnglish or Americanized than it
is now.
But it it was a childhood fullof full of Lego. My father spoke
the Danish language very, verywell. He had a wonderful job,
(03:21):
perhaps the easiest job in theworld, selling the UN to
Scandinavians. Right? He was apublic affairs officer.
Both my parents were in thepublic affairs business. And
then at the age of eight, wemoved to moved to Yonkers,
Yonkers, New York in the HudsonValley. My dad worked at the UN
headquarters. That was not ahappy time for him because the
(03:42):
UN had already become well, Iwon't mince word. He had become
corrupt.
And that broke his heart. Thatwas very hard for him. But he
soldiered through, mostly atthat point to get the pension,
take care of the family. In1967, we drove up the Hudson
Valley, through through theAdirondacks, up to Montreal for
(04:02):
Expo sixty seven. And that was awonderful education because it
gave me my passion for for theWar of Independence, for the
French and Indian Wars, forAmerican history, for the
eighteenth century.
So so that really shaped me in abig way. Actually, an experience
very similar to I think MarkMcGrath's experience. You know,
(04:24):
Moose is a friend of mine, andthe I really enjoyed your review
of of him on this podcast. Andso it was an Italian
neighborhood next to a Polishneighborhood next to a Russian
neighborhood. But I went to aLutheran parochial school, which
was run by the people I I sayvulifection were refugees from a
garrison keeler monologue.
(04:45):
Right? So it was like a littlebit of the Midwest, 18 miles
from Times Square. And thecontrast between that and my
previous experiences and alsobeing in the orbit of New York
City created I think a greatdeal of creative tension for
which I'm very grateful. So Ispent summers in Iceland, some
(05:06):
summers, every second summer inIceland, working on the language
which I've yet to master. Againgave me a taste for the variety
of the wider world.
I worked at a farm. I know oneof your guests talked about
shoveling manure. I cleaned outthis very large manure pit
(05:28):
underneath a stable for someprized bulls. It was a very very
good experience, painted a lotof farm machinery, raked a lot
of hay, this is actually aninteresting farm. It was, if
you've ever read Journey to theCenter of the Earth.
Sam Alaimo (05:44):
Yeah. Yeah,
Bruce Gudmundsson (05:45):
Jules. The farm was in the shadow of that
mountain where they startedtheir journey. I spent a summer
in the Icelandic coast guard,which was interesting. Not
really a military experience.For one thing, we were
unionized.
So the bosun of the ship wasalso the shop steward. The
enlistments were for two weeksat a time. Mostly I swapped
(06:08):
decks, but that was also a verygood experience. When I speak
Icelandic, I can discuss farmmatters and nautical matters,
but not much else. Though one ofthe many gifts my father gave me
was the gift of Icelandicpoetry.
So we were both early risers,and before the rest of family
(06:30):
awoke, we would have breakfasttogether and recite Viking
poetry. So, That's a tenthcentury poem.
Sam Alaimo (06:42):
What what is that in English?
Bruce Gudmundsson (06:44):
That's my mother told me that there should
be bought for me a ship withbeautiful oars.
Sam Alaimo (06:52):
There we go. Good Viking. Nice.
Bruce Gudmundsson (06:54):
Right. Right. Actually, that poem has been
turned into song by a number ofpeople on YouTube, and I think
featured I haven't seen theHistory Channel Vikings show,
but I think it features there.It's actually a 12 year old boy
trying to encapsulate the Vikingspirit. The last line is, Sail
(07:16):
into harbors.
Hew men, as in hew as in hewingwith an axe, you know, and
others. Right? So so it's it's
Sam Alaimo (07:24):
It gets me amped up in a good way. I like it.
Bruce Gudmundsson (07:26):
Yeah. So, yeah. That was a big part of my
my education. And then I joinedthe Marine Corps. I actually I
joined the Marine Corps reserve.
Sam Alaimo (07:33):
What was the what was the earliest memory you have
of the Marine Corps? Was itPakistan? Was it Copenhagen? Was
it Yonkers? Or was it
Bruce Gudmundsson (07:40):
Yeah. Okay. So so in in Pakistan, we had in
our household a a bearer. Andagain, you go back to Kit Point,
in the days of the Raj in India,the British rule in India, which
was then only barely over, thiswas in the early sixties, so
that ends in 1947. So still theshadow that world was I went
(08:04):
into the shadow.
Was still very much part of ourreality. So the bearer in our
household was a patan, as theysaid, a pushtun. He was
secundered, you know, from thehills in this great big henid
mustache. And he had been asergeant in the old Indian Army,
the pre-forty '7 Indian Army. Ilater learned that he joined the
(08:24):
army because he was fleeing froma blood feud, which you know,
common thing in the mountains.
He went down to the plains andtook service with the king
emperor. And he would drill meand my older brother who also
became a Marine before ourporridge in the morning. So
that's certainly part of theexperience, being a little close
order drill at the age of fouror five or six. And all with
(08:48):
wonderful tenderness and careand all appropriate to
childhood. Then in Copenhagen wehad royal guards, you know, the
ones who marched through TivoliGarden.
That was I think an example of adifferent kind of military
experience. We always enjoyedthat. And then coming to The US
(09:12):
really in the middle of theVietnam War, and seeing I was, I
mean, greatly distressed by whathappened in the Vietnam War. I
was ashamed of the older boyswho would spend a lot of time
planning their ways to avoidservice. I read a great deal
(09:33):
about the war.
I became convinced that it was anoble war. That our loss of that
war set all sorts of bad thingsin motion. Of course, the people
who suffered the most from itwere the Vietnamese people. That
had a huge effect on me. And Iwas convinced that there were a
couple of I saw a couple of bigproblems.
(09:54):
One was that our militaryleadership was not doing what it
should have done. It was a badlyhandled war from a military
point of view. And the other onewas that the whole question of
how do we how do we get peopleinvolved with the armed forces
in a healthy way. Was convincedthat I was an American. Right?
I'd lived in America for tenyears and saw myself as really
(10:16):
an entirely American. And morethan everyone else saw me as
American. Funny incident when Iwas going to the courthouse to
get my final citizenship, mysponsor was an American of
Japanese descent. And everyonethought that I was the sponsor
and he was the fledglingcitizen.
Sam Alaimo (10:35):
That's America.
Bruce Gudmundsson (10:37):
Yeah. So doing the most American thing I
could think of, joining theMarine Corps, was part of it. I
joined the reserve rather thanthe active force largely because
it was very important to myfather that I go to university.
And I was the first person in myfamily, my line, to go to
university since the, as far aswe can tell, the thirteenth
century.
Sam Alaimo (10:57):
Well done.
Bruce Gudmundsson (10:58):
Yeah, there was a fellow back in the
thirteenth century who went tothe Sorbonne according to the
legend.
Sam Alaimo (11:03):
What year did you enlist?
Bruce Gudmundsson (11:05):
Enlisted in '77.
Sam Alaimo (11:07):
So just after the war. Okay. After You were gonna
be sent over.
Bruce Gudmundsson (11:11):
Yeah. So again, joined the Marine Corps
Reserve, went through basictraining, was a wonderful
experience. That had beensquared away by then. Very, very
encouraging experience. Feltthat I was in the right place.
Going back to the thirteen weekrecruit training, which I think
is a very good thing. And atweek 11 or so, there is a sense
(11:34):
of cohesion in the platoon,almost supernatural, that sense
of connection.
Sam Alaimo (11:39):
So 1977, was there any sort of aspersion cast on
you for wanting to join themilitary, and not of the
military, the Marine Corps,given the nature of the protests
at the time against the war,there was a lot of backlash
against the military, whichhistorically everyone knows is
kind of injust. Was there anyaspersion cast in you for doing
that?
Bruce Gudmundsson (11:58):
I think I think my my high school teachers
thought I was nuts, or worse. Myfather didn't understand it. He
had no military tradition in thefamilies. I mean, again, for
five hundred years. My motherunderstood it.
And she was, again, from WesternCanada, which if you look at the
history of the world wars, Ithink sent a higher proportion
(12:19):
of this young man into battlethan any part of the British
Empire except for Rhodesia.
Sam Alaimo (12:24):
I didn't know that. That's awesome.
Bruce Gudmundsson (12:25):
Yeah. Yeah. And you have to look carefully
at the numbers because of courseCanada is big place. But But
Western Canada in particular,she was of Scots Irish
ethnicity. And if you've lookedinto that, if you've read what
was the book?
Born Fighting. A book worthlooking into. Their book called
People Without a Name. But ifyou look into the history of the
(12:47):
Scots Irish, particularly inAmerica, you'll see a certain
bellicosity there. So she was Iknow this is strange.
Usually it's the dad who's moresupportive than the mom. And
then again, my mother had threesons, all three became marines.
And I mean, to her dying daywore the Eagle Globe and anchor
on a chain. So very very proudof that. Then after basic
(13:10):
training, went to Camp Lejeune,was Camp Lejeune in 1977 was a
very depressing place.
And I think we were stillgetting rid of all the wrong
people we had brought in theseventies. And so that was a
very depressing experience andit made me commit really myself
(13:32):
to military reform to findingbetter ways of doing things.
Sam Alaimo (13:39):
So you saw a military that was wracked from a
long war, very high death count,very even higher wounded count,
who drafted people who in no wayshape or form wanted to be
there, and that's when youshowed up. You showed up to an
institution that was likehurting from the inside out. I
guess you said that's sort ofyour idea, your passion for
military reform. How did thatshape, I guess, the rest of your
(14:01):
twenty year career?
Bruce Gudmundsson (14:02):
I'll go back a little bit. I think in 1977,
the problem was less Vietnam perse than the first four years of
the all volunteer force. Infact, I mean, the Vietnam Vets,
like my senior drill instructor,Staff Sergeant Beck, still
remember him fondly. Anddistinctly, he was a Vietnam
(14:23):
Veteran. The other three droneinstructors weren't because the
Marine Corps really leavesVietnam in 1970 in a big way.
I mean, there are other thingsgoing on, but bulk of the Marine
Corps leaves in 1970. We were,you know, seven years away from
the Vietnam War, four years awayfrom the draft. So the real
problem was the personnelpolicy. It's just the lack of
(14:44):
quality control. My subsequentcommitment and I didn't really
have, I mean, on paper, a twentyyear reserve career.
But I was in and out severaltimes. So I had that initial
period of active duty, went tocollege, then after college went
to OCS, served for four years asan officer in the fleet in the
(15:04):
logistics field. They found outin in college I'd worked as a
forklift operator in a in awarehouse in New York, and that
was a great experience too. Andthen I I left. And then in '89,
I went back on active duty.
And then I'd spent some time inin the twenty fifth Marines in
the reserve battalion in NewEngland. But I went back on
(15:25):
active duty and and got thewonderful job of designing what
I call the gifted and talentedprogram for the Staff College.
This was the school of advancedwarfighting. And the idea this
is very much part of the Al Graymaneuver warfare movement. And I
I was part of that and hadwritten a book that had just
come out before then and thatGeneral Gray apparently read the
(15:48):
book and said, you know, I wantthat boy running one of my
schools.
So at the age of 29 with abachelor's degree I got to
design a graduate school. And Ihad a blank piece. It was an
incredible opportunity. A blanksheet of paper. I designed that,
taught there for a couple ofyears.
When General Gray left, therewas a backlash against the
(16:11):
warfare movement againstanything that had been touched
by General Gray. I left activeduty. It was actually my last
active duty, which ended in '92,but continued to live in
Quantico, continued to do a lotof work for the Marine Corps.
And again, sort of living on themargins between the Marine Corps
(16:33):
and the world of militaryhistory and of writing for
publication.
Sam Alaimo (16:41):
So if you look back twenty years, eight active, 12
reserve, what what on the onehand would be the best aspects
of the military, and then theother hand the worst aspects you
came across?
Bruce Gudmundsson (16:51):
The people and the people. I've just met
some remarkable people,remarkable in all sorts of ways.
It really is people from allsorts of all walks of life, very
often very interesting peoplewith interests, of all sorts of
interests. I know in twentyfifth Marines, my platoon
sergeant was a surrealistartist, and he was a painter. If
(17:15):
Dave Kennedy, if you're outthere, I'd love to hear from
you.
And at the same time, there weresome real bozos. You know, real
I mean, people I would nowagain, I'm not that kind of
doctor, but classify asnarcissist. And this I think is
one of the problems with aninherent problem with the way we
reward people in the service andthe way we ask people to manage
(17:38):
their own careers is that it'ssomething that's very well
suited to a narcissist.
Sam Alaimo (17:46):
You dig in on that one please? Define what you mean
narcissist in this case.
Bruce Gudmundsson (17:51):
I'm gonna
Sam Alaimo (17:51):
give you some concrete examples. I'm very
sure.
Bruce Gudmundsson (17:53):
Yeah. Yeah. So a narcissist is a person who
constantly needs to be remindedthat he's not just okay, but
better than okay. Right? So heneeds this thing that the
psychologist called narcissisticsupply.
And anytime that sense isthreatened, he will lash out and
punish people. And his mainmotivation in life is getting
(18:16):
that narcissistic supply. So Iknow of one case. This a
commanding officer, what wasthen called a landing support
battalion, which is almost likethe old World War II pioneer
units. And the idea is thatdon't land with the first wave,
but you land with second waveand set up the beach.
And also do a lot of work withhelicopter support teams and
(18:38):
running ports and things likethat. And this is actually a
very easy battalion to runbecause it basically is a home
for detachments. We just sendout detachments and come back
sober. And this one battalioncommander was constantly in need
(18:59):
of praise, reassurance. Hiswelcome aboard speech was a two
hour account of how wonderful hewas.
I was hoping to find out, tellme about this battalion, this
mission, where we are, what arewe trying to what our challenges
are. But it was all about him.And that made life very very
(19:23):
difficult because I basicallyspent my time trying to reduce
the damage doing damage control.Know, reduce the damage he was
doing. That was a veryunpleasant experience.
And I've seen that not soclosely, but you see that often
with general officers inparticular. It's clear they're
(19:47):
in it for this supply, this kindof reassurance. And that of
course makes it very hard to getanything useful done. It
paralyzes them in terms of doingthe right things, but it means
their subordinates, in order toget anything done, have to
master the art of sycophancy.They have to learn how to be
(20:09):
courtiers.
And that's something I alsoobserved. I think this is, know,
as a brand new lieutenant, I hada little bit of experience. You
know, I had four years in theReserve, but still very young
and seeing all these captainsand majors spending their time
polishing apples.
Sam Alaimo (20:29):
What about best and worst day in the military?
Bruce Gudmundsson (20:31):
So many good days. So many good days.
Actually I remember an exerciseup in Pickle Meadows, the
Mountain Warfare TrainingCenter. I was the executive
officer of the weapons companyof the twenty fifth Marines. And
the commanding officer laterbecame a congressman.
I say that without admiration.We'd been hiking up a mountain,
(20:53):
and halfway up through the hike,somebody slipped, and he said,
oh, I need to take care of myMarine. Jumped on the truck and
disappeared. Right? And so I wasin command.
And I had to organize a raid.And I pulled something out of
the First World War, adapted it,you know, gave the order right
there, and we had our raid. Andwe had a journalist there from
(21:17):
the Sacramento Bee who was ableto record that. And the troops
had a great experience. And Idid too because enjoying the
thrill of improvising on thespot, but at the same time being
able to put my historical workto use.
It was, you know, verypractical. I don't know if this
(21:38):
would've worked in practice, butat least I had the plan in my
mind that it could adapt it tothe terrain and explain it.
Sam Alaimo (21:47):
Let's roll then into some of your professional work,
I think that's a great pivot.Some of the work you've done, I
forget which piece it was, butyou talked about the strike of
the eye and supposing, I thinkit was the education of the
enlightened soldier.
Bruce Gudmundsson (21:58):
Yes. Yeah.
Sam Alaimo (21:58):
And that's pretty much what you're talking about.
It sounds like your mind waschurning in real time, observing
the environment, strike of theeye, and then supposing what
would happen if if x occurred,or y occurred, or z occurred.
And in in in the military, wastaught three questions. What's
the condition of my weapon? Whatwould I do if I were contacted
right now?
How can I best support my buddy?That, when I when I when I
(22:21):
thought about it, that's more oflike a ground pounder. I'm on
the ground pulling a rifle, myjob is to execute. What you're
talking about seems to be moreelevated, more of an officer
position. Can you talk about thestrike of the eye and the
supposing, the theory behind itand how it applies?
Bruce Gudmundsson (22:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This this is something
that comes, that develops in theeighteenth century, the theory
of it. Because this eighteenthcentury, the the the word is
French.
Right? Literally strike of theeye, being hit by the eye. And
it's interesting that we thinkof eyes as being passive rather
than active. But clearly it'sthe eye that's doing the
(22:56):
punching, right? The same wordas punch in French.
So initially it was used byengineers, military engineers,
who were trying to make sense ofa piece of terrain. How do we
defend it? How can we attack it?How can we fortify it? So it
starts off being slow, and thensomebody in the eighteenth
(23:16):
century may have been Fred ofthe Great, but he may have got
it from somebody else.
I haven't traced it all the wayback, said, no, no. We're doing
this quickly. This isn't aboutthe engineer with his paper and
his pencil drawing, you know,the perfect plan. This is about
somebody looking at the terrainand making an instant evaluation
(23:38):
of it. What's really importanthere.
And Napoleon makes a big bigdeal of this. And of course his
great stock and trade was speed.And you can only march so fast,
you can only ride so fast, butyou can think quickly. And that
was what he was doing. And thenthe folks who organized
(24:00):
themselves to fight against himsaid, We can't make one
Napoleon, we can make lots oflittle Napoleons.
Lots of guys who are doing this.One of them is Scharnhorst, the
Enlightened Soldier. And there'sa biography in progress, first
volume is out, by Charles EdwardWhite. He rewrote a book years
(24:21):
ago called The EnlightenedSoldier. That was a big
inspiration for the maneuverwarfare movement in the late
eighties and early nineties.
That was really just a smallchunk of his life. He's now
working on a big biography, AndI was happy to contribute to
that with that little articlecalled The Education of the
Enlightened Soldier.
Sam Alaimo (24:40):
Oh, that's great. And then do they talk about how
to actually apply that? How tolearn it? How to apply it? How
to make it habitual?
Did they have recommendations ordo they kind of stop, hey,
here's the theory, here's how ittransitions into reality, or did
they give recommendations forthe the young officer, the young
leader to actually execute it?
Bruce Gudmundsson (24:59):
The story about the, when Scharnhorst
moves from being an engineer andartillery officer, finds himself
in the cavalry, and the colonelwill take him out for a ride,
say, okay, see that village.Imagine that it is occupied by
so many troops. You have thesereports. What do you do? And
he'd say, Oh, Colonel, happy totell you I'll get back to you in
(25:21):
a week.
I'll sit down with a paper and apen and I'll make you a plan.
And the colonel says, Oh, no,no. Tell me now. And there's
this letter he writes back tohis uncle in saying, you know,
this is something that I triedto use the methods I was taught
at this engineering school. It'sa remarkable school by the way,
(25:43):
I imagine it as a militaryHogwarts.
So he had been taught to thinkslowly and think deliberately
and had this brilliant educationin that. And then now he's told,
okay, do it much more quickly.And he develops this method
which we now call the TDG, thetactical decision game, where
(26:05):
you set up a situation and yousay, okay, what's going on here?
And what do you do? What areyour orders?
You've got five minutes. So thetime pressure that makes the
difference. You know, it'sinteresting when he is in a
position to mentor young Carlvon Klauswitz, he says I want
(26:25):
you to teach two things. I wantyou to teach artillery and
gunnery with mathematics and allthat deliberate, slow thinking
stuff. And I also want you toteach small wars.
I want you to teach guerrillawarfare. So Plasbids is there
pulling these examples veryoften out of the American War of
Independence. He was a greatstudent of the American War of
(26:47):
Independence. You know, talkingabout ambushes and the defense
of forward positions and thesesmall scale engagements. There's
again where you don't have weeksto plan the defense.
So Sharnhorst uses that tensionas the basis for not just his
(27:12):
own work, but also the way hetrains his subordinates, the
most famous of whom is CrawfordKlasmis.
Sam Alaimo (27:19):
You're talking about the execution, but then going, I
guess, upstream back in time,there's the book study, there's
the general education. Hownecessary is that book study,
general education, tobattlefield mastery? Given the
historical record that used tobe a major aspect, I guess it
still is at the academies, butany elaboration on that? Any
(27:40):
unique insights?
Bruce Gudmundsson (27:41):
Yes. I think that you need a lot of military
history, both so you can imaginethe range of possibilities, the
first thing. The second thing isto I think realize just how
peculiar each situation is sothat you don't end up with
(28:03):
trying to apply one theory overand over again. History is also
about people. Right?
And leadership is about people.You learn all sorts of
personalities. Again, I don'tthink book learning alone will
serve you. But it isinteresting. And this is
(28:25):
something that's a big shock tothe armed forces or the the
armies in particular of theworld in the mid nineteenth
century where the Prussians, andthese are the people who are the
linear descendants ofScharnhorst and Clausewitz, have
a very academic approach to thestudy of war.
And they're beating opponentswith a lot more experience. So
(28:47):
they beat the Austrians in 1866,and they beat the French in
1870. And that is the I'll use aboomer analogy here. That's the
'69 Metz. Right?
That's the absolute upstart.That is the the big surprise
that this this nation of ofphilosophers defeats the the
(29:10):
descendants of Napoleon. And andand just, you know, how think
about how influential the Frenchwere at that time. Right? I
mean, we fight our own civil warwith French uniforms, French
weapons, French tactics.
You know, if you read thewritings, you know, the orders
(29:32):
very often of people, certainlyat the start of the civil war,
they're half in French. It wasan incredible upset. And that is
what really sparks a great dealof interest in, I wouldn't say
the academic study of militarymatters, but the bookish study.
(29:53):
Really, study of militaryhistory.
Sam Alaimo (29:56):
So probably an impossible task, but one or two
books that someone listeningmight wanna read if they wanna
do their own general educationto, I guess you'd recommend for
someone trying to do thatbattlefield mastery, whether it
translates to actual warfare orthe business environment. What
are one or two good books thatwould help people zoom out and
get that education?
Bruce Gudmundsson (30:16):
Yeah. I would start with Aristotle's Politics.
Sam Alaimo (30:19):
Nice.
Bruce Gudmundsson (30:20):
Yeah. Alright. So and I read that when
I was 15. Was working at thefarm in Iceland and you know,
looking at that dead volcano inall its beauty. And the thing I
pulled from Aristotle's politicsis the ability to think on two
tracks.
So Aristotle is saying, okay,given human nature, this is the
(30:40):
best constitution. But we'reliving in Athens. Okay. And
Athens has these peculiarities.So given the situation of
Athens, what's the best we canhope for here in Athens?
So it's that ability to think onthe two tracks, that the ideal
and the applied at the sametime. It's not airy fairy. You
(31:03):
know, he's not up into the skylike Plato often was. But at the
same time, it's also notcynical. It's that constant
tension.
And as you can see, the nextbook I recommend also is based
upon attention. It's by FrancisTuker. It was called The Pattern
of War. And there he's talkingabout the two very different
(31:25):
kinds of war that he experiencedin the world wars. The position
warfare or trench warfare, andthen the mobile warfare.
And he was very much involved inthe mobile warfare in North
Africa in in World War two. Sogetting a sense of these these
tensions, it's not an either or.There's a lot more and than than
(31:47):
either or.
Sam Alaimo (31:48):
I did not expect you to say Aristotle politics. The
Greeks called it mende on theone hand on the other. I'm still
trying to get that inside of mybrain to think that way and not
just make the immediatedecision, but think about both
sides of that coin and notcynically, which is one of my
favorite aspects of Aristotle.You mentioned earlier slow
thinking. So can you talk aboutthe difference between slow
thinking and fast thinking?
(32:09):
Obviously, it pertains tocombat, but also let's try to
pivot it to like a businessenvironment. How do those two
aspects apply?
Bruce Gudmundsson (32:15):
Yeah. Well, first of all, they are
complementary. Right? You don'twant someone to say, well, I'm
always flying by the seat of mypants. Or I need a week to think
things through.
Sometimes you have a week,sometimes you don't. So the
first, I think, first bit ofadvice I'd give really to
anybody that's doing anything inlife is that you have to do
(32:37):
both. You can't be a one trickpony. You have to be able to do
both. And they complement eachother.
And very often you will make adecision in the heat of the
moment. It will not be the bestdecision. Guarantee you that. It
will not be optimum. But if itworks, it works.
If it doesn't work, you thinkagain and do something else. And
then you reflect upon that. Youreflect upon your quick
(33:01):
decisions and do that slowly.But then you also do all the
things that build up your mentalarsenal. And a big part of that
is accumulating models.
And you get that from readinghistory. And again, seeing all
of these different examples,none of which will fit perfectly
(33:24):
the situation you're in. But itis remarkable how some of the
old stories prove practical. Forexample, buying a car. There's a
story from ancient Rome aboutthe Cumaean Sibyl.
And this is early in the historyof ancient Rome when they still
(33:45):
had the Etruscan caves. In fact,the story of I think this was
the last Etruscan king. Tarquinthe Proud. Not Tarquin the wise,
not Tarquin the thoughtful, butTarquin the Proud. And there's
this Sibyl, this prophetess wholives by the Tiber River.
And she sits down and she writesdown the future history of Raab
(34:07):
on some wooden tablets. And shetakes it to the king and says,
I've got these 12 tablets withthe future history of your city,
and I'll sell them to you forthis outrageous price. And the
king says, crazy lady, go away.And she goes away and burns
three of the tablets. Next day,she comes by, comes back with
nine tablets and offers them forthe same price.
(34:29):
And that process continues untilshe's got three tablets left and
the king pays the full price fora quarter of the prophecies.
Now, what does that have to tellyou about buying a car? Well,
wanted to buy a used car, and Isaw one advertised. And I said,
okay, I'm gonna go. I'm going ona Wednesday morning because no
(34:51):
one buys a car on a Wednesdaymorning.
There'll be a salesman to beeager for a sale. And I saw the
list price and I got a certifiedcheck for about $2,000 less than
the list price. And I said, I'dlike to buy this card, please.
Here's the check. And they said,Oh, but the price is this.
I'd like to buy the card. Here'sthe check. And they said, Oh
(35:12):
yeah. But do you want financing?He said, No, no, no.
Here's this certified check.Finally, I had to do a lot of
convincing because they had acertain way of doing things, but
I ended up getting the car forthe price I wanted, and the car
served me for a good decade. Andagain, the the I had taken this
story from the classical worldand applied it to some some very
(35:36):
very pedestrian business.
Sam Alaimo (35:38):
You made a caveat when you were talking about that
transition from fast thinking toslow thinking, where you kind of
have to make a decision and thenthink about it afterwards, and
over time iterate, becomebetter. The expression I heard
in the military was decisionanalysis paralysis, where if you
had too much education withoutenough application, you'd be
stuck in that rut, unsure whatto do and never actually make a
(35:58):
decision. Do you have anyrecommendations on how to how to
make that iterating cycle fasterfrom fast thinking, making a
decision, knowing full well itmight not be the best decision,
reflecting on it, and then beingfaster and more accurate next
time. Do have anyrecommendations?
Bruce Gudmundsson (36:13):
Practice with speed. Mhmm. Like I said, like,
any sort of any sort of drill,you just do it quickly. You get
you become comfortable withdoing things quickly. You become
comfortable with suboptimization.
You know? And, again, this isvery different from, on the eve
of the Vietnam War, we had theMcNamara era. And the idea was
that some clever people, oftenwith the aid of computers, would
(36:38):
be able to come up with optimalsolutions. And then, you know,
we had all these militaryofficers, rather than studying
military history, going to getdegrees in operations analysis
to again make these perfectdecisions in an air conditioned
room, in an actually very coldair conditioned room because the
computers generated a lot ofheat in those days. And that I
(37:00):
think is a big part of our ourdefeat in Vietnam.
In fact, it's remarkable howlittle military history was
studied in the fifties andsixties. There was the sense
that we'd seen the end ofhistory, that we're in the age
of push button warfare. In fact,it wasn't I think until the late
seventies, maybe even theeighties, that history, military
(37:22):
history was taught at WestPoint. That it was taken out of
the curriculum sometime in the,I think, the late forties or
early fifties, and didn't comeback until I'm thinking either
very late seventies or earlyeighties by a guy named Bob
Doty, who's by the way aterrific scholar of the French
army. And a big part of thisreform movement was the revival
(37:44):
of military history, which has anumber of contributors.
One of which was thebicentennial, which I think a
very a very healthy thing forAmerica, and really brought a
lot of got a lot of peopleinterested in in writing
military history.
Sam Alaimo (38:01):
I'm gonna write on my whiteboard when we're done
the quote comfortable with suboptimization, because I think
that is the cure to the thisthere's a there's a movement. I
mean, there always has been inAmerica, guess, this desire to
be as optimized and as perfectas possible to gain that extra
point 1% in performance, andthat is enough to cripple people
to not even try in the firstplace. So to be able to be
(38:22):
comfortable with suboptimization, get out there and
take a risk and iterate andbecome better, that is just
gold. Let's talk about, a lot ofour audience is in the business
world, so they're very familiarwith case studies, but probably
not so much with decision games,and probably not decision
forcing cases, especially whenyou add that Socratic element to
it. So can you talk about theDFCs?
Bruce Gudmundsson (38:42):
Yeah. So the DFCs inspired by a number of
things, one of which is the waythey they teach case studies at
the Harvard Business School. AndI spent two and a half years at
the Kennedy School right acrossthe river from from the business
school. And I got that jobactually through the Marine
Corps Reserve. Was hired by mymy my commanding officer in in
the twenty fifth Marines.
(39:03):
He was working at Harvard at theKennedy School. At that time,
the Kennedy School was trying toadopt the case method, so I
spent a lot of time talking toprofessors at the business
school and and what have you.And so I was struck by the
degree to which they askstudents to do the same thing,
to make a decision and defendit, fully realizing that they
(39:25):
don't have weeks and weeks toprepare. Now, they do spend a
lot of time with thespreadsheets. You know, when
they prepare when they come toclass, they often have a great
deal of information.
Sort of information militaryfolks are not gonna have. And
they're all very often able toreduce them to a bottom line
because there's no militaryequivalent of cash. Right? So
(39:45):
many things you can't quantifyin military matters. You're
trying to do so many things atonce.
That's one of the inspirations.And again, the way they do it is
by saying, okay, you you are theCEO of Coca Cola Company. Pepsi
has introduced this you know, isbeating you with the Pepsi
channel. This is 1986. Right?
(40:06):
What do you do? And then Cokeends up with the new Coke, turns
out to be a complete disaster.The question is why. So a lot of
business schools will make themistake of using the case study
as a springboard for theprofessor's ideas. So the
students read the case study,the professor says, okay, let me
(40:26):
explain this to you.
The good professors at Harvard,and I'm a little worried that
they're slipping on this. Theyjust celebrated their hundredth
anniversary of the case methodat Harvard Business School.
People at Darden at Virginia arevery good at this. The
professor's not gonna give youhis opinion. May he may give you
some some ideas at the end, buthe'll basically say, okay,
(40:49):
you're the boss.
You're the decision maker. Whatdo you do? It's really that
simple. Sir, are your orders?And when you say, let me think
about it, the teacher, whoeverhe is, says, no, please tell me
now or tell me in five minutes.
Maybe consult with yourcolleagues, but tell me very,
(41:10):
very soon. And it's really thatsimple. It's not it's just very
different from the way so manyother things work in life,
particularly the way a schoolworks for many people.
Sam Alaimo (41:22):
I think you teach a course. If it's not a course,
it's a book, I can't rememberwhat case is, but Klauswitz. Do
you have do you have one or twoor three, like, major takeaways
that that you could share herefrom that course?
Bruce Gudmundsson (41:34):
Some of the cases were were drawn from the
War of Independence, from theAmerican War of Independence,
where and and the the textbookthat Klauswitz used, there's a
book by Johann Ewald calledTreatise and Partisanal Warfare.
You can get it for free onarchive.org. And these are
situations, encounter battles,ambushes, things like that. So
(41:57):
that was one part of it. And theother part is in a much higher
level, Napoleon's eighteenfourteen campaign, where with
inferior forces he reallymanages to keep three very large
armies away from Paris forseveral months.
And it's really a brilliantcampaign. He's dealing with very
little in the way of resourcesand dealing with a number of
(42:20):
actually very different enemies.So he's got Field Marshal
Blucher who is absolute madman,very aggressive. And he's got
Field Marshal Schwarzenberg whois in charge of leading the Army
of Bohemia. You can imagine theArmy of Bohemia there.
He's an Austrian. He's actuallyworking for Napoleon's
father-in-law, and he's planningon making a deal. So he's
(42:43):
marching slowly, deliberately,not taking any risks. So the
problem for Napoleon is, okay,how do I deal with these two
very different opponents? I'vegot this madman who takes risks
and then I have the army ofBohemia where they're listening
to progressive jazz and drinkingespresso.
How do you do that? So that wasthe case from Klausmitz. So I
(43:05):
took these episodes from thewritings of Klauswitz or from
his the the cases he was usingto teach, and then turned them
into into decision forcingcases.
Sam Alaimo (43:16):
Let's do kind of a lightning round. I'm gonna go
through some questions. We'llanswer quick. What are a few
things you do to prime yourselffor the day? And I ask because
you're you're in a heavilyintellectual endeavor.
You probably have to do a lot ofdeep thought. It takes a while
to get in there and then stay inthere. How do you prime
yourself?
Bruce Gudmundsson (43:30):
I prime myself before I go to sleep. So
I I think about what I'm gonnawrite the next day. I get up
very early. Again, I'm in mysixties, so it's easy to get up
early. The young people like tosleep in.
Young people are nocturnal. I'mup with chickens. I'm up well
before the chickens. And then Iwrite for three or four hours in
the morning. And that's those mymy most productive hours of the
(43:54):
day.
So and and I do it, you know, nobreakfast, no coffee, just
making use of of the energy Iaccumulated while asleep. And I
have a gift for sleep by sleep.There's another thing about
having spent a little time inthe service is that you get good
at sleeping. You sleep wheneveryou can. And I think that my
(44:14):
subconscious mind works on theproblem.
It doesn't always work that way,but the the words will flow like
like Honey in August.
Sam Alaimo (44:23):
I've talked to a lot of writers, and a lot of them
say the same thing. They'llthink about it before they go to
bed, wake up, put pen to paperor fingers to to keypad, and
just get after it. I've neverbeen able to do it. So when
you're visualizing at night, doyou set a problem and then fall
asleep on the problem? Or howdoes that work?
Bruce Gudmundsson (44:40):
Yeah. Usually, I because I'm I'm so
history based, right, that thatthat I I rely on sources, I will
assemble the sources, put themtogether in a folder on the
computer. Very often I'll dodiagrams. I'll often draw before
I write. So when, you know, inthe afternoon, in the evening,
(45:03):
where I'm not really a %, I do alot of graphics work.
Very often when I'm writing, I'mdescribing the picture.
Sam Alaimo (45:12):
Awesome. What about at the end of the day, pivoting
away from work? Do you have anyroutines you abide by?
Bruce Gudmundsson (45:18):
Not really, no, no. I I You know, my kids
are grown up. My wife likes toread, so we have our dates in
the morning, sort of after I'vedone most of my writing, before
she goes to work. And it'slonger on weekends, but we sit
around and have a little coffee.So that's my personal time.
But I love what I do. As I saidbefore, my father was an
(45:41):
Icelander and the dream of everyIcelander is to make your living
with your pen. So I count myselfvery very fortunate. So I'm
basically writing all the time.If I'm not writing, I'm
preparing to write.
Sam Alaimo (45:54):
How do you get your best work done? How do you get
in the deepest mode of focus andstay there?
Bruce Gudmundsson (45:59):
Yeah. Again, it's the morning. It's the
morning. It does not always workthat way. So for example, when I
do a long drive, I'll stop afteran hour and find a place where
I'll set up and write for anhour.
Sam Alaimo (46:12):
Oh, that's great. That's great.
Bruce Gudmundsson (46:13):
So the two different kinds of activities
complement each other. And Ithink I'm thinking about what
I'm gonna write when I'm drivingUnless I'm listening to a
podcast, and I love podcasts.I'm a huge fan of podcasts.
Sam Alaimo (46:29):
I don't usually ask this question, but like what are
what are one or two podcasts doyou recommend?
Bruce Gudmundsson (46:32):
Oh, I I like history podcasts, so I like
David Crowder's History ofEngland podcast. I think he's at
episode 400 or something. Andhe's only reached I think he's
up to about sixteen sixty. He'sdoing a deep dive. The History
of the Germans, which is stillin the Middle Ages, it's a
(46:54):
little newer podcast.
There is a great podcast calledThugs and Miracles about the
very early kings of France. I'mtalking about before
Charlemagne. If you like DanCarlin, this is very very much
sort of like Dan Carlin light.There's one called Pax
Britannica which is also Britishhistory but with a very broad
(47:19):
view. So he's doing like thedeep background of India before
he gets to the British in India.
So he's doing something, a smallseries in the Mughal Empire, and
does some good things aboutBritish colonies in America.
History of Italy, that's a lotof fun. And again, a lot of
people are doing these, I callthem soup to nuts type podcasts
(47:42):
that give you the full historyof a place. And they're they're
they're moving very very slowly,which is just fine by me.
Sam Alaimo (47:52):
Movies. Couple movies that you changed your
life.
Bruce Gudmundsson (47:55):
Yeah. Cromwell, nineteen seventy.
Richard Harris as Cromwell. Youknow, and I was too young to
realize the irony of an Irishactor playing Cromwell.
Brilliant, brilliant movie.
Sometimes takes a few libertieswith the facts.
Sam Alaimo (48:10):
And what about books? We've talked a lot about
books, but what are the booksthat have changed their life the
There
Bruce Gudmundsson (48:14):
was a book that came out shortly after the
Vietnam War called SelfDestruction. It was written
under a pseudonym, the pseudonymbeing Cincinnatus. And if you
want a sense of what happenedthere, I would recommend that
book. Had a profound effect onme. It helped me make sense of
(48:34):
the whole what I was seeing thetime of the Vietnam War.
The other thing, another one isthe Gulag Archipelago. It's a
great big book by Balslotovnitz.And I still can't spell
Sultanitz. I have to look it upevery time I write it. But that
was a powerful, powerful book.
The third is actually this ispretty obscure. This by an
(48:57):
Israeli general named YehudaWallach. Wallach like like the
actor Eli Wallach, w a l l a ch. Yehuda Wallach. Yehuda with a
j.
It's interesting that he spellsit the German way because he's
basically a German who was sortof kicked off the team in the
thirties for reasons we all knowabout. Went to Israel, and it's
(49:22):
a critique of the Israeliembrace of the German methods,
of the Blitzkrieg method. Sothis is one of the great ironies
of history is that the biggestdisciples of the Germans of the
40s, 30s and 40s, were theIsraelis of the late 40s, 50s,
(49:44):
and 60s. So the spiritualdescendant of Rommel was Moshe
Dayan. It's called the Dogma ofthe Battle of Annihilation.
And it's it's much more clearlywritten than the name suggests.
Right?
Sam Alaimo (49:56):
That is an epic name.
Bruce Gudmundsson (49:58):
Yes. Yeah. Yehuda Volok, remarkable
remarkable writer. It's again acritique of two things. One, how
the Germans got a lot of thingsright but a lot of things wrong
too.
And how basically warning to theIsraelis, Let's not fall into
the same trap. Let's imitate thevirtues but not the vices. But
(50:23):
because he was a German, aGerman speaker, in fact most of
his publications are in German.This book he wrote in English,
you can get it in German, butthat is a translation from the
English. It was a very goodcounterpart to a lot of
literature that a lot of people,including myself, put out about
(50:43):
the German methods and the veryvery adulatory literature.
This will make you reflect abit, make you think about it,
realize that there are shadowsas well sunshine.
Sam Alaimo (50:56):
How can people follow you and your work?
Bruce Gudmundsson (50:59):
Yeah. I've got a couple of substats. One's
called the Tactical Notebook,which you'd imagine is military
stuff. The other one's calledExtramuros, from the Latin for
outside the walls. And it'sabout ways people from all walks
of life can get the benefits ofliberal education.
So I believe very strongly that,and I'm quoting actually
(51:21):
Ferdinand Fosch here, there areno educated men, there are only
men who educate themselves.Every educated person is self
educated. I don't care whereyou've been. I worked at
Harvard, was an undergraduate atYale, got my PhD from Oxford. So
I've been very fortunate.
I've been to all these namebrand schools, been around them.
(51:43):
But that experience hasconvinced me that it's all self
education. And by all, I mean a%.
Sam Alaimo (51:51):
That's a good way to finish it. I never realized I
tried to boil a lifetime ofthinking down to sixty minutes,
but genuinely appreciate it.Couldn't be more stoked to have
you on.
Bruce Gudmundsson (51:59):
Well, you so much. This is a this is an
honor.
Sam Alaimo (52:02):
I appreciate it. That's it for this episode. If
you wanna check out more fromthe podcast, head to
0Eyes.com/NoBell, where you cansee show notes, read more about
our guests, and suggest guestsor topics of your own. Until
next time, stay in the fight.Don't ring the bell.
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