Book Spectrum is extremely honored to have Gen. John G. Kulhavi on with us to talk about his life and the biography written about hin titled: NO SOLDIER LEFT BEHIND
The phrase “No soldier left behind” has been repeated by many and practiced by true leaders. Author Don Steele offers the reader a look into the life of one of those great leaders: Army Brigadier General John G. Kulhavi in his book titled “NO SOLDIER LEFT BEHIND.”
Often, we hear from military leaders who are now regular pundits on television. General Kulhavi stepped away from a potentially waiting spotlight after serving in Vietnam and rising through the Army ranks to take a quieter path as a financial advisor. There, he altered the history of the financial industry – quietly and humbly – by convincing fellow military man, Morgan Stanley CEO Donald Regan, to go with his idea to employ investment teams rather than individuals to make important decisions for their clients. Through Don Steele, we learn what makes a truly brave, yet humble hero as the author takes the reader back to the General’s influences during his younger days, including from his mother who owned a store in a small Michigan town where they moved. He learned to virtue of selflessness and “no man left behind” from his mother and perhaps from after his dad left the family ,
The biographer keeps sure to describe Gen. Kulhavi’s early life and his having to help lead his family at a young age as important in shaping his leadership and life principles. In the book, we not only learn of the General’s leadership and personal virtues which shaped him, but how he treated opportunities. Steele describes how Gen. Kuhlavi found a life-changing opportunity to join the ROTC while in college, leading to an officer’s commission, his battles, hardships and recovery from his plane being shot down during the Vietnam War and his innovative thought while working within the private sector. Having been close with the General (they were college roommates), Steele brings us not simply a great man and his exploits, but a real look at what made him not only accomplished and a great leader, but also what out of his personal life and experience built his attitude, drive, leadership acumen and humility.
Those who delve into the General’s life in the book will find there is more to a man than his deeds (whether they are life-changing ones or perhaps small victories) while younger people reading will learn what true leadership is about and perhaps offer someone to whom they can look up and aspire toward.
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The phrase “No soldier left behind” has been repeated by many and practiced by true leaders. Author Don Steele offers the reader a look into the life of one of those great leaders: Army Brigadier General John G. Kulhavi in his book titled “NO SOLDIER LEFT BEHIND.”
Often, we hear from military leaders who are now regular pundits on television. General Kulhavi stepped away from a potentially waiting spotlight after serving in Vietnam and rising through the Army ranks to take a quieter path as a financial advisor. There, he altered the history of the financial industry – quietly and humbly – by convincing fellow military man, Morgan Stanley CEO Donald Regan, to go with his idea to employ investment teams rather than individuals to make important decisions for their clients. Through Don Steele, we learn what makes a truly brave, yet humble hero as the author takes the reader back to the General’s influences during his younger days, including from his mother who owned a store in a small Michigan town where they moved. He learned to virtue of selflessness and “no man left behind” from his mother and perhaps from after his dad left the family ,
The biographer keeps sure to describe Gen. Kulhavi’s early life and his having to help lead his family at a young age as important in shaping his leadership and life principles. In the book, we not only learn of the General’s leadership and personal virtues which shaped him, but how he treated opportunities. Steele describes how Gen. Kuhlavi found a life-changing opportunity to join the ROTC while in college, leading to an officer’s commission, his battles, hardships and recovery from his plane being shot down during the Vietnam War and his innovative thought while working within the private sector. Having been close with the General (they were college roommates), Steele brings us not simply a great man and his exploits, but a real look at what made him not only accomplished and a great leader, but also what out of his personal life and experience built his attitude, drive, leadership acumen and humility.
Those who delve into the General’s life in the book will find there is more to a man than his deeds (whether they are life-changing ones or perhaps small victories) while younger people reading will learn what true leadership is about and perhaps offer someone to whom they can look up and aspire toward.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Book Spantrum. I'm Chris Gordana, your host. This
is where we don't just talk to seasoned authors and
people who write for a living. We talked to writers
books who put something together from around the spectrum. Yes,
the spanctrum. You see what I did there again, I'm
Chris Gordana, your host. The phrase no soldier left behind
(00:26):
or no man left behind has been repeated by many,
practiced by true leaders. Author Don Steele offers the reader
a look into the life of one of those great leaders,
Army Brigadier General John G. Coohave. It's a book titled
No Soldier Left Behind. They both wrote it together and
with me is General John Cohave. Thank you for joining
(00:47):
me here.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
General, thank you for having me. It's an honor.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
There are a lot of generals out there that are
on television, that are talking heads, that are pundits. We
see them all the time. I've interviewed several of them.
I love them. All are great. I've interviewed many people
who have who have who have enjoyed offering their opinion.
You're you're one of the guys who likes to stay
a bit quiet. You could have been a pundit. You
could have been somebody who would be out there and
(01:12):
telling everybody your thoughts on things, but you chose to
be more humble about your your your career in the
army and Vietnam and everything else. So I want to
get into that first. The title of the book is
the off off use phrase no soldier left behind. But
I want to ask what is that. We know what
it means on the surface, but to you general, what
(01:34):
does that really mean?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Just what it says you never leave anyone behind. We
would go to extremes to retrieve soldiers that were captive.
For a believer in that, how could you direct soldiers
to go out of patrol or go out of combat
mission knowing that they were captured. No attempt would be
made to retrieve them. So we made every attempt. We
(01:59):
never anyone behind. I could tell you many stories about that,
but that was the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's very, very important, And a lot of this you
learned from your childhood. It's usually what shapes a man.
But there are a lot of times your family had
some rough times and really had to stick together. And
I'll put it this way, not leave each other behind.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Correct, That's true. I was the oldest of four children.
My father left when I was fifteen. He was my
mother and four kids living in a one room cabin.
I was the man of the family and I did
what I could to provide food.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
With me as General John G. Cohave, he is the
co author and his biography is really in this book
No Soldier Left Behind. We're talking to him right now
on book spentrum. I want to get into that as well.
Your mother really touched you a lot about selflesness, selflessness,
and much of that from when I was reading in
the book, stem from when your family owned a store,
(02:55):
and your mom would know that your whole town, the
small town you and your family moved to at the time,
they a lot of them had a rough time. A
lot of them had some rough govid it's in some areas.
The idea is you seem to learn that your mother
even didn't leave her customers, or her fellow towns, or
(03:16):
her fellow neighbors behind. Here.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
My mother was the most generous person I had ever known,
and I think I followed her footsteps to the best
of buyability.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Talk about that. Talk about your mom and how she
would it would she would do her best to help
her neighbors and again, not leave them behind if you will.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
She would give that food on credit.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Twice she had to borrow buddy to restock the store
because she virtually gave most of it away. And then
she finally was forced to sell it because there was
no money left. And I don't think she received enough
on the sale to pay the debt that she had.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And you had to go to work as well. You
had to make sure you help take care of your
your family when your father left. What attracted you to
a life of service as in obviously in the military,
but from there on forward.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I grew up in the World War two era. I
was born in nineteen forty two. The war started in
nineteen forty one, while the United States got involved in
forty one after the attack at Pearl Harbor, and the
military fascinated me.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I grew up watching.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Warboys to Hall It Back, Flying Leather next, and I
always had a very state interest in serving in the military,
and I was fortunate enough to be able to accomplish that.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
General you again reading your book, No Soldier Left behind You?
Of course you're former roommate. Doctor Don Steele got a
lot of writing on this here his perspective was you
your life might have been a bit different if you
didn't join ROTC in college. You see to be attracted
to that. I believe before you installed graduation a little
(04:59):
bit just to get and earned your officers commission. How
do you think your life would have been different if
you didn't join our OTC.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I think it would have been much different. I've always
said I had five years of college. I graduated with
two degrees a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army.
But the time I spent an active duty was the
most valuable learning experience in my entire life. It benefited
being not just in the army, but also in my
civilian career with Merrill Lynch. And I say that because
(05:30):
I learned three things that I don't think I would
have learned anywhere else. At a very young age, I
was trusted and trusted with a lot of responsibility. At
age twenty four, I was in charge of five six
one tanks and all the crews. The next year, I
was the flight leader for the twenty fifth Infantry Division
(05:51):
in Kuchi, Vietnam. I was responsible for selecting ten crews
every day virtually to fly combat missions. So I had
at the responsibility for billions of dollars of equipment in
a lot of lives.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
The second thing you learned to make decisions. They had
to be made very quickly.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
It had to be the right ones or somebody would
be assured or possibly not survived. And the third thing
I learned how people reacted under tremendous stress. And that
was probably one of the more interesting aspects of it.
I found no correlation between courage and physical stature. Some
(06:29):
of the biggest, toughest beest guys totally fell apart with
the bullets star flying and the ninety pounds weeklies rose.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
To the occasion.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
It was a great experience for me all the way around,
and I think it benefited me throughout my life.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Do you think that kind of a treat that what
you were talking about? The ideas acting under stress or decisiveness?
Do you think they can be learned or is it
something that becomes natural or maybe kind of instinctually gained
in sight and someone by osmosis. I think experience.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I say a little bit of both. Some people I
think are bored with that trait, and but I also
think it can be learned from experience. But you're in
a situation where you have to be decisive. You have
to you have to move forward. You don't take the
time to learn that. You have to know how to
react right now.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Well, let's talk about that. You brought a lot of
that into the military. And Don Steele describes a lot
of your accomplishments inside the book. And part of this
is because you don't really talk about yourself that much.
You didn't make this happen. You didn't go to the news,
and you didn't offer yourself up as a talking head
or a pundit, so people can look back at what
(07:44):
you did.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So you wrote.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So from what I'm understanding is you had this book
put together so your family can learn more about you.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
My grandchildren in particular, between my wife and I, we
have fourteen grandchildren.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well that's interesting, and it's only it's nice to leave
a legacy, but again, they probably want to know what
what our grandfather a great grandfather has done over the years.
It's nice to leave something behind. But again they they
they really didn't know much about you. And I think
a lot of that has to do with and I
believe doctor Steele puts that together very well when he
(08:18):
writes about you your choice to do everything humbly. You
didn't after Vietnam. Let's put it this way. After Vietnam
there was a waiting spotlight for you, your your your high
ranking guy. You could have done anything you wanted as
far as in the public eye. It chose not to
do that. You also chose to work behind behind the scenes,
or work as a work in Merrill Lynch with a
(08:41):
bigger corporation. I guess the idea, I guess what I'm
getting to you is was this something did you did
you never like the spotlight or or was it something
you avoided or is it something you just was never
or was it just never important to you when you
were younger.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It was better that of Bardon.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I've gotten a lot of attention, especially with my career
at Merrill Ledge. I'm not sure how it happened. It happened,
but my business grow tremendously and I was very proud
of what I accomplished. By the time I retired, I
had spent forty eight years in the business. I still
(09:20):
have the opportunity to talk to young people from time
to time, and I tell them, if everybody you wake
up and look at me, or ask yourself the follow question,
if today were the last day of my life, when
I do what I'm about to do, when the answer
comes up, though too many times, make a change. I
don't believe you can excel at anything unless you truly
love what you're doing. I tell them, you're young, you
(09:40):
have opportunities in front of you. Keep trying something until
you find something you truly love.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And I was very blessed.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I love being in the military and I love being
a financial advisor of Maryland. So I had the best
of both worlds. I had two great careers, and I'm very,
very grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I want to get into the military career. But also
just a side note for those of you who will
be reading the book or may have read it already,
General Colavi with General John G. Colavi here on book Spectrum.
The book is called No Soldier Left Behind You. You
thought of something that became very innovative in the financial industry.
(10:18):
The idea was I believe it was the mid seventies
and this kind of thing was virtually unheard of. You
actually got a meeting with your CEO, convinced him. Good
thing is he's a fellow military man. But he convinced
Donald Reagan. So take a look at the idea that
instead of having one person make financial decisions or investment decisions,
putting a team together.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
There was nineteen seventy one, right.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
It was early seventies. There was obviously my mistake there,
but there we go.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Had gone to Merrileedge directly from active duty. I'd left
active duty. I joined Merrilynch. Two weeks later I bet hired,
started their training program, which lasted roughly a year. And
I kept going to my manager and I said, the
ray of products we have was so extensive, I don't
believe anyone could master all of them. And I really
believe not only would we service better, but we certainly
(11:08):
provide better performance if we operated as teams of specialists
rather than general practitioners. In the military, everything was a team.
When I flew by Hewey, I was relying on the pilot.
I was the aircraft commander. I was relying on the
crew chief to maintain the aircraft, ensure that it was
flyable and safe. I was relying on my gunner to
(11:29):
make sure the weapons systerms were all functioning.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Property. We relied on each other.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Every man was equally as important, and they relied on
me to fly the aircraft. And I thought the same
thing would be true with the broker's business. And after
bringing it to my manager's attention for many many times
over course of a year a year and a half,
he called me his office one day handed me a
ticket to tomorrow. You're flying to New York City. You
(11:55):
have a one hour meeting with Don Reagan. Don Reagan
was chairman of board and CEO Merrill Lynch. He later
became Secretary of Treasury and then Chief of Staff to
President Ronald Reagan. He was an ex marine in combat
World War Two. I was Vietnam. We had something in comment.
He asked a lot of questions, He took the full hour,
he took a lot of notes. At the end of
(12:17):
the already said I like your idea. Do it, picked
up the phone, called on managers and let a former team.
To the best of our knowledge, that was the first
team in brokerage history. Today, about eighty percent of advisor
on teams. They see the wisdom and the effectiveness of it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And they want everyone to be on a team.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
And it's a great idea that that's a great idea
today it still works.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It makes a lot of sense. I mean, all things considered.
They take that back to your military years, and you
were just explaining that it is teams rely on each other.
Teams can bring different experiences and expertise together where you
can actually make a more effective investment, well in a
ray of investment products, if you will, And I see
that a lot. In fact, I've seen teams put together
(13:02):
some great investments out of the blue. I've worked with
investment companies as well as a as a radio producer,
but I've seen this happen. So let's talk about some
of the and I know you don't brag about these things,
but some of the more interesting military accomplishments you you
you made during the war that shaped your future life
(13:24):
in the in the private sector, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Well, the most important event I believe I had was
what I led a flight of five flights of ted Hughes,
each with six or seven infortriven on each into Cambodia
to retrieve five American POWs, which we accomplished. That was
probably my proudest. Second would be becoming a general. I
(13:52):
never anticipated that fewer than one half of one percent
of career officers become flag officers as general for d Rolls,
and I was very proud to have accomplished that. Those
are my two proudests accomplished with how you tell you
a lot of war stories, But that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I'm here with General John Kilhove. He is the He
is the subject and co author of the book No
Soldier Left Behind. It's a biography written with his roommate
Don Steele. Well, Don and you were roommates, and of
course you got together to bring this, bring this out
to your friends and everything. What what lessons do you
(14:31):
want Younger people who might want might pick up this
book and find they have similar experiences to you when
you were younger, or maybe even look to a career
in service. What advice might you have for somebody who
is thinking about that sort of thing, maybe getting into
the military these days, or maybe getting into a life
of service in a different way.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Being in the military today, unfortunately is not popular with
young people. But I think it's the greatest experience I had,
and I would encourage others to follow.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
In my footsteps.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
The lessons you learned, as I enubrated out a while ago,
are very very important. The responsibility, the decisiveness, learning how
people react in different situations. I think it benefits all
of us and I would encourage them to do it.
It's unfortunately, you know, the military is a dire straits
(15:22):
right now. The Army short over twenty five thousand men.
Every breath of the service is short of people. But
I saw some statistics. I had to give a speech
to thirteen hundred disabled soldiers about a year and a
half ago. Something like eight percent of the population are
eligible to servant of military age of seventeen to twenty four.
(15:44):
Of that eight percent, eighty percent of those are ineligible
because of drug usage, criminal record, or obesity. So the
pool to draw it is very, very small. And unless
we start getting more applicants and more people join the military,
I hate to say it, but at some point they
may have to reinstate the draft. I would hate to
(16:05):
see that because the thief you all volunteer military has
been far more effective than forty people that come that
don't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
There's something that's been flooted around, And since you mentioned it,
I'm going to ask you, as a long time military
man in general, if the draft is reinstated or at
least selective service. Here's now talk about having women sign
up for that thoughts. What are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I think women are just as effective have been in
certain situations. I mean, if you're an infantry, I don't
think it would be suitable to have women, mainly because
if a soldier were injured or wounded, I don't believe
they would have the physical ability to carry them off
or to assist them. But a most jobs, I mean,
we have women helicopter pilots that are just as good
(16:49):
as it depends on the job. I guess that's the
bottom line. But yeah, I think women are very very effective.
I'm glad they're in the military.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Well, that least me to the next question, and you
did bring this up as well. Younger people are see
they seem to be thanks to peer pressure what they
see in the media or or or where they when
they talk amongst their friends, they seem to be discouraged
from joining the military or doing something like that, or
doing something in that kind of service. What would it
take or how would you suggest that the military branches
(17:21):
might better approach the idea of encouraging younger people to join.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think they've done what they can.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
But you know, if somebody wants to totally avoid combat,
join the Coast Guard, Join the Merchant Marie. Uh, I
have a sudden lot to the coast Guard. He loves that, uh,
and he looks forward to his weekends on duty and
it's two weeks in the summertime.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Join the Navy.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You could be at combat, but it is certainly not
going to be hand in the hand combat. And think
about where are the nable at Coast Guard Station's base.
They're all on the water. I mean they're great assignments.
I mean posts were built where we fought the Indians.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Are in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Coast Guard, Navy, I mean there are branches you go
to where you're not going to risk life and limb
at least, not that they said that you would. In
the Army, the Marines, or maybe even the Air Force.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
That's fair and you're still protecting I mean definitely yeah.
I mean there's there's rescue missions and of course you
have the drug cartels seeking in so there's a lot
of good heroic things you can do in the in
any branch of the military. And again I'm going to
circle back to the title No Soldier left Behind. We
talked about that on the military end, but talk about
(18:39):
it on the life end, the non military end, and
your opinion.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
It's being true to your You know, they say soldiers
fight for God country. I don't believe that's true. God
country is certainly important, but I firmly believe soldiers fight
for each other. You look out for the guy next
to you, the guy across from you.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
We go to streams to protect each other.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I saw no sign of any kind of racism and
of military I didn't care if the guy was black, white, hispanic,
what he was. He was my fellow soldier. They looked
out for me. I looked out for them, And I
think a civilian life, it's the same thing. Are you
true to your word to me? If your word's no good,
you're no good. If you make a commitment, live up
to it.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And once again, the book is called No Soldier Left
Behind the Life and Times of Brigadier General John G. Coohave,
who is here with me on book Spectrum, United States
Army retired. Of course, I want to thank you for
coming out with us. General. First question, last question here
where can people find out more about you? And where
they can get the.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Book, probably just go online. I don't know how.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I'm not a computer guy, so I don't know how
it gets there. But there's a lot of things under
my name, John G. Coohave you want to learn more,
I guess I just say google my name the book.
I believe it's going to be for sale on Amazon
within the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Excellent. Well, thank you very much, General, and we appreciate
having you come on and thank you very much for
your service.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, if I could, I'd like to tell you one
quick story.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Don't I'm not. I don't tell a lot of war stories.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
I don't know why, I just don't, but I'd like
to talk with the hubre stories. We were authorized fifty
two pilots. We never had more than forty six. We
were always short of pilots. But when we weren't flying,
it was like being in a fraternity. A bunch of
young hotshots are all trying to do things exciting, and
we did some interesting things. We were Our base gap
(20:34):
was called Kouchie Capital Cu Capital Chi. It was right
outside of the village of Kouchi. We fly missions three
four nights a week. Sometimes you fly all night. Different
types of missions. But most nights we come in, they
shootored us through the village. We see the trations coming
up the ships. We were not allowed to return fire
because they had a passification program going on in the
(20:57):
village to convince the people to be out the side
of the government, not the bad guys. And we kept
these somehow we got to get back at these guys. Well,
I wish it would have been my idea. It wasn't,
so I won't take credit. But one of the guys
are you had got a monkey. He put a collar
out of the log rope and he taught it with
a stick. He made that monkey so mean. Everybody walked
by the monkey want to jump out of you and
(21:17):
butte you.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I keep him.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
One night, two thirty three o'clock in the morning, carrying
my year, you never turned out of the light for
fear a sniper take a shout of you. That monkey
jumped on my back from the roof, for which I
thought I was going to have a heart attack. But
well we got this funky good mean what are our
missions was to drop parachute flarees to elluminate the battlefield.
That night we took the parachute off one of the
flares rigged up. It easy to get out of the hardest.
(21:41):
We dropped the monkey over the village. We're going to
get back at the bad guys. Now that monkey is
very inquisitive. He got halfway down. Decide you want a
better view, so we climbed the lander. That's the ropes
that connect the hardest of the parachute. Got on top
of the parachute. Need the same parachute collapse. He was
out like a bag of concrete. I had a second bunky.
That one was even beater than the first one. But
(22:04):
we thought he was ready. We pushed him out over
the village. Every couple of weeks of seventy or the
twenty fifth division, we published a newsletter talking about the
different operations going on within the division because we covered
a large area. And in that newsletter front page said
rabbit bunky bye, six villagers. Yay, we got back at
those sobs.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
That's the kind of stuff we did for I want
to share that with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
That's a good one. Thank you very much General Kofi
for coming on with us, and I want to thank
you all for listening. This is book Spectrum. I'm Chris
Cordani and keep turning those pages.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Thank you for having me, Chris, I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Thank you, Thank you General
Welcome to Book Spantrum. I'm Chris Gordana, your host. This
is where we don't just talk to seasoned authors and
people who write for a living. We talked to writers
books who put something together from around the spectrum. Yes,
the spanctrum. You see what I did there again, I'm
Chris Gordana, your host. The phrase no soldier left behind
(00:26):
or no man left behind has been repeated by many,
practiced by true leaders. Author Don Steele offers the reader
a look into the life of one of those great leaders,
Army Brigadier General John G. Coohave. It's a book titled
No Soldier Left Behind. They both wrote it together and
with me is General John Cohave. Thank you for joining
(00:47):
me here.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
General, thank you for having me. It's an honor.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
There are a lot of generals out there that are
on television, that are talking heads, that are pundits. We
see them all the time. I've interviewed several of them.
I love them. All are great. I've interviewed many people
who have who have who have enjoyed offering their opinion.
You're you're one of the guys who likes to stay
a bit quiet. You could have been a pundit. You
could have been somebody who would be out there and
(01:12):
telling everybody your thoughts on things, but you chose to
be more humble about your your your career in the
army and Vietnam and everything else. So I want to
get into that first. The title of the book is
the off off use phrase no soldier left behind. But
I want to ask what is that. We know what
it means on the surface, but to you general, what
(01:34):
does that really mean?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Just what it says you never leave anyone behind. We
would go to extremes to retrieve soldiers that were captive.
For a believer in that, how could you direct soldiers
to go out of patrol or go out of combat
mission knowing that they were captured. No attempt would be
made to retrieve them. So we made every attempt. We
(01:59):
never anyone behind. I could tell you many stories about that,
but that was the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's very, very important, And a lot of this you
learned from your childhood. It's usually what shapes a man.
But there are a lot of times your family had
some rough times and really had to stick together. And
I'll put it this way, not leave each other behind.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Correct, That's true. I was the oldest of four children.
My father left when I was fifteen. He was my
mother and four kids living in a one room cabin.
I was the man of the family and I did
what I could to provide food.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
With me as General John G. Cohave, he is the
co author and his biography is really in this book
No Soldier Left Behind. We're talking to him right now
on book spentrum. I want to get into that as well.
Your mother really touched you a lot about selflesness, selflessness,
and much of that from when I was reading in
the book, stem from when your family owned a store,
(02:55):
and your mom would know that your whole town, the
small town you and your family moved to at the time,
they a lot of them had a rough time. A
lot of them had some rough govid it's in some areas.
The idea is you seem to learn that your mother
even didn't leave her customers, or her fellow towns, or
(03:16):
her fellow neighbors behind. Here.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
My mother was the most generous person I had ever known,
and I think I followed her footsteps to the best
of buyability.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Talk about that. Talk about your mom and how she
would it would she would do her best to help
her neighbors and again, not leave them behind if you will.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
She would give that food on credit.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Twice she had to borrow buddy to restock the store
because she virtually gave most of it away. And then
she finally was forced to sell it because there was
no money left. And I don't think she received enough
on the sale to pay the debt that she had.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And you had to go to work as well. You
had to make sure you help take care of your
your family when your father left. What attracted you to
a life of service as in obviously in the military,
but from there on forward.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I grew up in the World War two era. I
was born in nineteen forty two. The war started in
nineteen forty one, while the United States got involved in
forty one after the attack at Pearl Harbor, and the
military fascinated me.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I grew up watching.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Warboys to Hall It Back, Flying Leather next, and I
always had a very state interest in serving in the military,
and I was fortunate enough to be able to accomplish that.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
General you again reading your book, No Soldier Left behind You?
Of course you're former roommate. Doctor Don Steele got a
lot of writing on this here his perspective was you
your life might have been a bit different if you
didn't join ROTC in college. You see to be attracted
to that. I believe before you installed graduation a little
(04:59):
bit just to get and earned your officers commission. How
do you think your life would have been different if
you didn't join our OTC.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I think it would have been much different. I've always
said I had five years of college. I graduated with
two degrees a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army.
But the time I spent an active duty was the
most valuable learning experience in my entire life. It benefited
being not just in the army, but also in my
civilian career with Merrill Lynch. And I say that because
(05:30):
I learned three things that I don't think I would
have learned anywhere else. At a very young age, I
was trusted and trusted with a lot of responsibility. At
age twenty four, I was in charge of five six
one tanks and all the crews. The next year, I
was the flight leader for the twenty fifth Infantry Division
(05:51):
in Kuchi, Vietnam. I was responsible for selecting ten crews
every day virtually to fly combat missions. So I had
at the responsibility for billions of dollars of equipment in
a lot of lives.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
The second thing you learned to make decisions. They had
to be made very quickly.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
It had to be the right ones or somebody would
be assured or possibly not survived. And the third thing
I learned how people reacted under tremendous stress. And that
was probably one of the more interesting aspects of it.
I found no correlation between courage and physical stature. Some
(06:29):
of the biggest, toughest beest guys totally fell apart with
the bullets star flying and the ninety pounds weeklies rose.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
To the occasion.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
It was a great experience for me all the way around,
and I think it benefited me throughout my life.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Do you think that kind of a treat that what
you were talking about? The ideas acting under stress or decisiveness?
Do you think they can be learned or is it
something that becomes natural or maybe kind of instinctually gained
in sight and someone by osmosis. I think experience.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I say a little bit of both. Some people I
think are bored with that trait, and but I also
think it can be learned from experience. But you're in
a situation where you have to be decisive. You have
to you have to move forward. You don't take the
time to learn that. You have to know how to
react right now.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Well, let's talk about that. You brought a lot of
that into the military. And Don Steele describes a lot
of your accomplishments inside the book. And part of this
is because you don't really talk about yourself that much.
You didn't make this happen. You didn't go to the news,
and you didn't offer yourself up as a talking head
or a pundit, so people can look back at what
(07:44):
you did.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So you wrote.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So from what I'm understanding is you had this book
put together so your family can learn more about you.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
My grandchildren in particular, between my wife and I, we
have fourteen grandchildren.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well that's interesting, and it's only it's nice to leave
a legacy, but again, they probably want to know what
what our grandfather a great grandfather has done over the years.
It's nice to leave something behind. But again they they
they really didn't know much about you. And I think
a lot of that has to do with and I
believe doctor Steele puts that together very well when he
(08:18):
writes about you your choice to do everything humbly. You
didn't after Vietnam. Let's put it this way. After Vietnam
there was a waiting spotlight for you, your your your high
ranking guy. You could have done anything you wanted as
far as in the public eye. It chose not to
do that. You also chose to work behind behind the scenes,
or work as a work in Merrill Lynch with a
(08:41):
bigger corporation. I guess the idea, I guess what I'm
getting to you is was this something did you did
you never like the spotlight or or was it something
you avoided or is it something you just was never
or was it just never important to you when you
were younger.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It was better that of Bardon.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I've gotten a lot of attention, especially with my career
at Merrill Ledge. I'm not sure how it happened. It happened,
but my business grow tremendously and I was very proud
of what I accomplished. By the time I retired, I
had spent forty eight years in the business. I still
(09:20):
have the opportunity to talk to young people from time
to time, and I tell them, if everybody you wake
up and look at me, or ask yourself the follow question,
if today were the last day of my life, when
I do what I'm about to do, when the answer
comes up, though too many times, make a change. I
don't believe you can excel at anything unless you truly
love what you're doing. I tell them, you're young, you
(09:40):
have opportunities in front of you. Keep trying something until
you find something you truly love.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And I was very blessed.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I love being in the military and I love being
a financial advisor of Maryland. So I had the best
of both worlds. I had two great careers, and I'm very,
very grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I want to get into the military career. But also
just a side note for those of you who will
be reading the book or may have read it already,
General Colavi with General John G. Colavi here on book Spectrum.
The book is called No Soldier Left Behind You. You
thought of something that became very innovative in the financial industry.
(10:18):
The idea was I believe it was the mid seventies
and this kind of thing was virtually unheard of. You
actually got a meeting with your CEO, convinced him. Good
thing is he's a fellow military man. But he convinced
Donald Reagan. So take a look at the idea that
instead of having one person make financial decisions or investment decisions,
putting a team together.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
There was nineteen seventy one, right.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
It was early seventies. There was obviously my mistake there,
but there we go.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Had gone to Merrileedge directly from active duty. I'd left
active duty. I joined Merrilynch. Two weeks later I bet hired,
started their training program, which lasted roughly a year. And
I kept going to my manager and I said, the
ray of products we have was so extensive, I don't
believe anyone could master all of them. And I really
believe not only would we service better, but we certainly
(11:08):
provide better performance if we operated as teams of specialists
rather than general practitioners. In the military, everything was a team.
When I flew by Hewey, I was relying on the pilot.
I was the aircraft commander. I was relying on the
crew chief to maintain the aircraft, ensure that it was
flyable and safe. I was relying on my gunner to
(11:29):
make sure the weapons systerms were all functioning.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Property. We relied on each other.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Every man was equally as important, and they relied on
me to fly the aircraft. And I thought the same
thing would be true with the broker's business. And after
bringing it to my manager's attention for many many times
over course of a year a year and a half,
he called me his office one day handed me a
ticket to tomorrow. You're flying to New York City. You
(11:55):
have a one hour meeting with Don Reagan. Don Reagan
was chairman of board and CEO Merrill Lynch. He later
became Secretary of Treasury and then Chief of Staff to
President Ronald Reagan. He was an ex marine in combat
World War Two. I was Vietnam. We had something in comment.
He asked a lot of questions, He took the full hour,
he took a lot of notes. At the end of
(12:17):
the already said I like your idea. Do it, picked
up the phone, called on managers and let a former team.
To the best of our knowledge, that was the first
team in brokerage history. Today, about eighty percent of advisor
on teams. They see the wisdom and the effectiveness of it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And they want everyone to be on a team.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
And it's a great idea that that's a great idea
today it still works.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It makes a lot of sense. I mean, all things considered.
They take that back to your military years, and you
were just explaining that it is teams rely on each other.
Teams can bring different experiences and expertise together where you
can actually make a more effective investment, well in a
ray of investment products, if you will, And I see
that a lot. In fact, I've seen teams put together
(13:02):
some great investments out of the blue. I've worked with
investment companies as well as a as a radio producer,
but I've seen this happen. So let's talk about some
of the and I know you don't brag about these things,
but some of the more interesting military accomplishments you you
you made during the war that shaped your future life
(13:24):
in the in the private sector, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Well, the most important event I believe I had was
what I led a flight of five flights of ted Hughes,
each with six or seven infortriven on each into Cambodia
to retrieve five American POWs, which we accomplished. That was
probably my proudest. Second would be becoming a general. I
(13:52):
never anticipated that fewer than one half of one percent
of career officers become flag officers as general for d Rolls,
and I was very proud to have accomplished that. Those
are my two proudests accomplished with how you tell you
a lot of war stories, But that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I'm here with General John Kilhove. He is the He
is the subject and co author of the book No
Soldier Left Behind. It's a biography written with his roommate
Don Steele. Well, Don and you were roommates, and of
course you got together to bring this, bring this out
to your friends and everything. What what lessons do you
(14:31):
want Younger people who might want might pick up this
book and find they have similar experiences to you when
you were younger, or maybe even look to a career
in service. What advice might you have for somebody who
is thinking about that sort of thing, maybe getting into
the military these days, or maybe getting into a life
of service in a different way.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Being in the military today, unfortunately is not popular with
young people. But I think it's the greatest experience I had,
and I would encourage others to follow.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
In my footsteps.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
The lessons you learned, as I enubrated out a while ago,
are very very important. The responsibility, the decisiveness, learning how
people react in different situations. I think it benefits all
of us and I would encourage them to do it.
It's unfortunately, you know, the military is a dire straits
(15:22):
right now. The Army short over twenty five thousand men.
Every breath of the service is short of people. But
I saw some statistics. I had to give a speech
to thirteen hundred disabled soldiers about a year and a
half ago. Something like eight percent of the population are
eligible to servant of military age of seventeen to twenty four.
(15:44):
Of that eight percent, eighty percent of those are ineligible
because of drug usage, criminal record, or obesity. So the
pool to draw it is very, very small. And unless
we start getting more applicants and more people join the military,
I hate to say it, but at some point they
may have to reinstate the draft. I would hate to
(16:05):
see that because the thief you all volunteer military has
been far more effective than forty people that come that
don't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
There's something that's been flooted around, And since you mentioned it,
I'm going to ask you, as a long time military
man in general, if the draft is reinstated or at
least selective service. Here's now talk about having women sign
up for that thoughts. What are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I think women are just as effective have been in
certain situations. I mean, if you're an infantry, I don't
think it would be suitable to have women, mainly because
if a soldier were injured or wounded, I don't believe
they would have the physical ability to carry them off
or to assist them. But a most jobs, I mean,
we have women helicopter pilots that are just as good
(16:49):
as it depends on the job. I guess that's the
bottom line. But yeah, I think women are very very effective.
I'm glad they're in the military.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Well, that least me to the next question, and you
did bring this up as well. Younger people are see
they seem to be thanks to peer pressure what they
see in the media or or or where they when
they talk amongst their friends, they seem to be discouraged
from joining the military or doing something like that, or
doing something in that kind of service. What would it
take or how would you suggest that the military branches
(17:21):
might better approach the idea of encouraging younger people to join.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think they've done what they can.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
But you know, if somebody wants to totally avoid combat,
join the Coast Guard, Join the Merchant Marie. Uh, I
have a sudden lot to the coast Guard. He loves that, uh,
and he looks forward to his weekends on duty and
it's two weeks in the summertime.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Join the Navy.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You could be at combat, but it is certainly not
going to be hand in the hand combat. And think
about where are the nable at Coast Guard Station's base.
They're all on the water. I mean they're great assignments.
I mean posts were built where we fought the Indians.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Are in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Coast Guard, Navy, I mean there are branches you go
to where you're not going to risk life and limb
at least, not that they said that you would. In
the Army, the Marines, or maybe even the Air Force.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
That's fair and you're still protecting I mean definitely yeah.
I mean there's there's rescue missions and of course you
have the drug cartels seeking in so there's a lot
of good heroic things you can do in the in
any branch of the military. And again I'm going to
circle back to the title No Soldier left Behind. We
talked about that on the military end, but talk about
(18:39):
it on the life end, the non military end, and
your opinion.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
It's being true to your You know, they say soldiers
fight for God country. I don't believe that's true. God
country is certainly important, but I firmly believe soldiers fight
for each other. You look out for the guy next
to you, the guy across from you.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
We go to streams to protect each other.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I saw no sign of any kind of racism and
of military I didn't care if the guy was black, white, hispanic,
what he was. He was my fellow soldier. They looked
out for me. I looked out for them, And I
think a civilian life, it's the same thing. Are you
true to your word to me? If your word's no good,
you're no good. If you make a commitment, live up
to it.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And once again, the book is called No Soldier Left
Behind the Life and Times of Brigadier General John G. Coohave,
who is here with me on book Spectrum, United States
Army retired. Of course, I want to thank you for
coming out with us. General. First question, last question here
where can people find out more about you? And where
they can get the.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Book, probably just go online. I don't know how.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I'm not a computer guy, so I don't know how
it gets there. But there's a lot of things under
my name, John G. Coohave you want to learn more,
I guess I just say google my name the book.
I believe it's going to be for sale on Amazon
within the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Excellent. Well, thank you very much, General, and we appreciate
having you come on and thank you very much for
your service.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, if I could, I'd like to tell you one
quick story.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Don't I'm not. I don't tell a lot of war stories.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
I don't know why, I just don't, but I'd like
to talk with the hubre stories. We were authorized fifty
two pilots. We never had more than forty six. We
were always short of pilots. But when we weren't flying,
it was like being in a fraternity. A bunch of
young hotshots are all trying to do things exciting, and
we did some interesting things. We were Our base gap
(20:34):
was called Kouchie Capital Cu Capital Chi. It was right
outside of the village of Kouchi. We fly missions three
four nights a week. Sometimes you fly all night. Different
types of missions. But most nights we come in, they
shootored us through the village. We see the trations coming
up the ships. We were not allowed to return fire
because they had a passification program going on in the
(20:57):
village to convince the people to be out the side
of the government, not the bad guys. And we kept
these somehow we got to get back at these guys. Well,
I wish it would have been my idea. It wasn't,
so I won't take credit. But one of the guys
are you had got a monkey. He put a collar
out of the log rope and he taught it with
a stick. He made that monkey so mean. Everybody walked
by the monkey want to jump out of you and
(21:17):
butte you.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I keep him.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
One night, two thirty three o'clock in the morning, carrying
my year, you never turned out of the light for
fear a sniper take a shout of you. That monkey
jumped on my back from the roof, for which I
thought I was going to have a heart attack. But
well we got this funky good mean what are our
missions was to drop parachute flarees to elluminate the battlefield.
That night we took the parachute off one of the
flares rigged up. It easy to get out of the hardest.
(21:41):
We dropped the monkey over the village. We're going to
get back at the bad guys. Now that monkey is
very inquisitive. He got halfway down. Decide you want a
better view, so we climbed the lander. That's the ropes
that connect the hardest of the parachute. Got on top
of the parachute. Need the same parachute collapse. He was
out like a bag of concrete. I had a second bunky.
That one was even beater than the first one. But
(22:04):
we thought he was ready. We pushed him out over
the village. Every couple of weeks of seventy or the
twenty fifth division, we published a newsletter talking about the
different operations going on within the division because we covered
a large area. And in that newsletter front page said
rabbit bunky bye, six villagers. Yay, we got back at
those sobs.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
That's the kind of stuff we did for I want
to share that with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
That's a good one. Thank you very much General Kofi
for coming on with us, and I want to thank
you all for listening. This is book Spectrum. I'm Chris
Cordani and keep turning those pages.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Thank you for having me, Chris, I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Thank you, Thank you General
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