Wednesday, July 28, 2010

McChrystal - in his own words

From his farewell speech - which you can get here - a small quote to ponder.
It is tempting to protect yourself from the personal or professional costs of loss by limiting how much you commit, how much of belief and trust in people, and how deeply you care. Caution and cynicism are safe, but soldiers don't want to follow cautious cynics. They follow leaders who believe enough to risk failure or disappointment for a worthy cause.
If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted and I still trust. I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Winston Churchill said we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. To the young leaders of today and tomorrow, it's a great life.
Hat tip D.

9 comments:

Byron said...

1:10 AM? Phib is either burning the midnight oil or is on the Left Coast ;)

Horatio said...

Risk failure, trust, giving? Is he talking about the Tillman cover-up?

MR T's Haircut said...

Shh OPSEC!

Byron said...

Gosh, that smelled like troll bait...

Jasper said...

Troll bait, you mean a typical lying and deceptive political slant on imitating leadership?

Redeye80 said...

From his going away speech, I would have liked to work for the man.

Interesting though, he resigns and gets his parade with SecDef.  Shinseki get the parade with no SecDef.  Interesting, very interesting.

C-dore 14 said...

Redeye, Not when you consider the two SECDEFs involved.

JimmyMac said...

Speaks volumes about the kind of people President Bush had surrounding him... I really liked POTUS but Cheney, "Scooter", Addington, Rummy, Feith, Cambone, etc...were just evil.     

Redeye80 said...

Exactly!