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- [00:01]
A
Hey, everybody, this is Sonny Bunch. I just wanted to let everybody know in case you subscribe to the Takes feed or other you and you're not just getting the Bullware Goes to Hollywood feed. This is a rerun of an episode I did earlier in the week with General Mark Kirtling about the 10 best war movies from his perspective, particularly with a focus on leadership. I wanted to make sure I got into this feed so y' all could hear it. And I also wanted to give you a heads up that I'm doing an episode on the movie A Man for All Seasons with Mona Charon for her podcast, which will be up on Saturday. You can watch the movie for free on YouTube. You can stream it for free there with ads, or you can rent it for three or four dollars, or you can pay $26 to get it on Blu Ray, which is what I did because I've got a sickness in my head. I need to buy Blu Rays. Anyway. We're going to be talking to Man For All Seasons. It's going to be pretty fun. We've already, we've already taped it. Spoiler and it was pretty fun. And I think you'll really enjoy it. But I want to make sure that you're aware of that. Look for that on Saturday. It's going to be great. We'll be back with a regularly scheduled Bulwark Goes to Hollywood episode next week. But I just wanted to make sure everybody heard this Mark Hertling episode and is aware of the Mona Chairway. It's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun. I hope you check it out. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Bulwark Takes. I am Sonny Bunch. I'm culture editor at the Bulwark. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Mark Hertling because we are going to be talking about a subject that's near and dear to my heart. War movies. But a subject that Mark has a lot of experience with, obviously, a lot of. I'm not even. I'm not going to. Everybody knows your CV here, so I'm not going to waste their time and bore them with that. But I'm really excited to talk about this because a, I wanted to pick your brain on this topic for a while. This is, this is going to be a fun episode for me, but also because I feel like there are some lessons here that we can learn in the culture more broadly. But also, you know, maybe, maybe the folks in the White House, if they stumble across this video, if it shows up in there, YouTube algorithm they could, they could take away a few things too. We'll see. I don't know. Mark, thanks for talking to me today.
- [02:07]
B
Hey, this is great, sonny. And thanks for opening it up with culture. I'll insert one thing that was you just brought up. You know, in the military they tell us that we have to learn leadership through a. Through a three legged stool. The one leg is what you learn in the schoolhouse. The next leg is what you learn through experiences in your operational assignment. And the third leg is what you learn from self study. And I consider watching war movies and reading books a self study. I kind of put together a list and we'll see what you think about it.
- [02:37]
A
I refuse to judge your list. I won't do it. But I am excited to see it. We've got a top 10. Technically it's a top 12. And I can, maybe we could discuss, you know, titling conventions here, you know, new numbering conventions here with these ties. But that's okay. That's 12 is. 12 is good. So starting. We're going to start at 10 and work our way down to one. Number 10 on your list because you always start at the 10. You go down to the one and is Gettysburg. Gettysburg, which is a classic Civil War film.
- [03:04]
B
It is. Ted Turner did this film, you know, wanted to give an homage to the battle of Gettysburg. It has a great historical fiction based on the book by Michael Shara, Killer Angels. And it's an excellent portrayal of the effects of personalities in war. How dynamic personalities interact, how they can cause great friction, or how they can either win a battle or lose a battle, depending on which side you're on. So it's really, it has some great lessons about how personalities interact. Even though it's based on a historical fiction by Michael Sharra.
- [03:41]
A
Let's get more specific here. So when we're talking about the personalities that helped win or lose a war, what's something in the film that folks should focus on if they're watching it, say like, oh, this is a good example of how Lee kind of collapsed on the battlefield.
- [03:56]
B
Well, the Gettysburg campaign was an invasion of the North. Lee persuaded Jefferson Davis that he could do it and it would take the war to the north and cause them a great deal of pain. And part of that was due to cognitive dissonance. He really thought the will of his army could overcome the material of the Union army and put them in disfavor while at the same time taking resources away from the North. The food, the cattle, the horses, the cannons that he was going to abscond with when he went into Pennsylvania. So on the other side you had a brand new commander, a guy who had replaced the former general of the Union Army, a guy named Mead. And he was just starting to get his act together. The resources were good on the north, much greater than they were in the south. But the personalities were coming together. There were some personality disconnects, some toxic leaders, some communication problems on both sides. But because of Lee being as adamant as he was and changing what he was doing constantly in the battle on the campaign plan, it caused disaster for the south and it started, you know, the road to ruin for the Southern armies.
- [05:11]
A
Next up, tied for ninth, you've got Patton and A Bridge Too Far. Patton is one of my favorite war films written by Francis Ford Coppola. Of course, it stars George C. Scott as General Patton himself. Why do you have this one on the list?
- [05:26]
B
Well, the two of them talk about campaign planning, which is what? Something the military does. You know, the military doesn't determine strategy. They take the strategy and then turn it into operational and tactical plans. So. So in both of these movies there's some interesting dynamics. In Patton, the lesson is all about the presence and influence of a commanding general and how he was overcome to a degree and sometimes during a career that caused great problems by his super sized ego. You know, Patton had the ego the size of the state of Texas and sometimes that got him in trouble. And he was always too demanding. He didn't quite understand his troops, although he's seen as a guy that was a terrific commander. But if you look deeper into Patton's history, not just these battles in North Africa and Europe, but going back to the time when he was a colonel and a lieutenant colonel, Patton was not a very nice guy. I mean, he led the attack on the bonus marchers in Lafayette park and on the mall and in D.C. in the 1930s and just basically beat the guys. His cavalry unit, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, beat the guys on the National Mall who were just there trying to get pay from their service in World War I. So anybody that watches the movie Patton has to go beyond that personality to understand who Patton truly was. The movie that was tied for ninth, in my view, was a terrific movie called A Bridge Too Far. And it was all about Operation Market Garden. Also in World War II, Montgomery's plan to go north and seize some of the bridges and ports in the low countries of Holland, there was an over optimism on planning. The campaign plan was extremely optimistic. It didn't mitigate the risk in terms of getting people to different locations. And. And because of that, there was strategic failure. So, you know, this movie talks about tactical sacrifices of units versus questionable strategic outcomes. So you can have a great army doing wonderful things under great tactical and operational leadership, but if the strategic plan is not nailed down and if you haven't kind of mitigated the risk, you're placing a whole lot of burden on those who serve for an end state that doesn't come about.
- [08:00]
A
Yeah, A Bridge Too Far is an interesting one. So this comes out in 1977. It's written by William Goldman, who of course wrote Marathon man, the Princess Bridal. He's written a number of classic movies, et cetera, et cetera. But it's interesting. Again, comes out in 1977. So it's a few years after Vietnam. There's this kind of downer sense. It definitely, it definitely hits this mood of like, maybe we can't do everything. Maybe, maybe we actually can't do everything we want to do out there. Which is, which is unusual for a big war movie like this. They usually have slightly, slightly happier outcomes.
- [08:40]
B
You put your finger on something really interesting because it was, it did come out right after the, the Vietnam. After we ended the war in Vietnam. It also pointed to sometimes you don't listen to the senior generals, sometimes the politicians should question them. And in this case it was Churchill and Eisenhower who really allowed this operation to take place. And it was flawed primarily because they wanted to assuage Montgomery and his plan for going into the Low Countries. So again, the leadership aspect of this is fascinating in a very complex environment that requires a lot of the. Both the airborne and the tank troops that were trying to seize these bridges and get up to where the ports were.
- [09:28]
A
Number eight on your list is Restrepo, which is a documentary about the war in Afghanistan. This came out in, I believe, 2010. It was CO directed by Sebastian Younger, who's an American journalist with a British photojournalist by the name of Tim Heather Heatherington. Why is Restrepo on the list and what should we take away from it?
- [09:50]
B
It was a war of my generation and I knew a lot of people that were fighting there. So in watching Restrepo in 2010, I was anticipating that it was not going to be realistic. In fact, it was exceedingly realistic from just the raw humanity of what the soldiers do, the trust they build within their small unit teams, small unit adaptation to a mission that's really tough in a very difficult, complex environment. Peer leadership, the ability of young soldiers to step up at the tactical realm and Also their ability to share hardship in really tough conditions. But in this particular movie, they showed the soldiers of this unit having constant contact. They were always in combat, they were always in battle. There was clear mastery of the tactics by this unit, but again, there was an unclear strategic purpose. So if you talk about the heroism of young soldiers and military personnel doing their job, Restrepo is a perfect example. But then you also get to the point of so what if the strategy is bad, if they've been put in a context where it's very difficult for their tactical actions to control the battlefield, then you're going to have failure. And in fact, that's what happened at the end state of the movie. Because while the trust at the squad level is the foundation for tough fights, those squad level personnel depend on the higher ups the, to make sure that they're doing the right thing.
- [11:34]
A
We're going to have another war on terror error film here in one second, the next one as a matter of fact. But I'm just curious what your take on, what your take of. Generally speaking, the films that have come out of these conflicts have been like. Have the films been true, true to life, accurate or what have they been lacking?
- [11:54]
B
I'd say a percentage of the ones that have come out of Iraq and Afghanistan have, have been true to life. They've represented the soldiers well. They've done a very good job of showing capabilities and the leadership at the small unit level as being excellent, much like I would say of most of the movies about Vietnam. But it also paints the picture that you can win every battle, but if you don't have a strategic vision and a strategic objective from the political side and, and the grand strategy from the senior officers within a military, you're gonna have problems and you're not going to win a war. And that's one of the things that I think was most interesting about Restreco. And it was also, like you said, Sebastian Younger was the one that put this together based on his writings and he saw the dedication and the sacrifice of the young soldiers. And yet he still questioned the, the overall objective of the war in Afghanistan after certain time frames were passed and what the senior generals were saying about what they could and could not do.
- [13:06]
A
So let's go to, to the next entry on your list here, which is Zero Dark Thirty at number seven. Now, Zero Dark Thirty is a little bit unusual compared to some of the other films in this list because technically it's about a CIA agent and the, the efforts of the intelligence apparatus here, but it highlights something Very key about the role intelligence assimilation plays for the modern military. Right?
- [13:34]
B
Yeah. And that's why I picked it. Sonny. This particular movie is one of my favorites. It's not truly a war movie, if you put it that way, but it's actually a film that really shows how the US military today is. Uses intel based operation to conduct their campaigns and their battles. And in this case, it's the story of Maya who has a CIA agent who has just relentless focus on driving the objective of finding Bin Laden. And she makes a lot of mistakes. The CIA makes a lot of mistakes. They're learning about the culture of Afghanistan, the culture of Al Qaeda as they were fighting them. But you know, the biggest thing I see in this is how long it took them to collect the intelligence for this one critically important target that so many operations were basing their action on. And it really gets to the point of how institutional endurance, sometime in combat and sometimes not even tactical success will bring completion to an operation. So this, this is my homage to the intel community, having seen them in combat and used them in combat so many times in Iraq, understanding how much they play a part in the kind of daily operations we do anytime we send men and women to war.
- [15:08]
A
It's a fascinating movie. It's one of my favorite films. Just Generally speaking of the 2010s, I think Director Catherine Bigel and screenwriter Mark Ball do a great job of depicting a long, drawn out conflict that is kind of open ended. And it was actually, it's funny, they. When they started shooting the movie, the script ended before, before Osama bin Laden was killed in that, in the raid. Because they, they. That's just. They. The script was done. They started shooting it. He hadn't been, he hadn't been killed yet. So they, they ended up having to kind of reshoot the end afterward, which that, it, it, it's something to think about because that is a very different movie. If it ends without the, the, the objective being accomplished, it comes almost a little more nihilistic.
- [15:58]
B
Yeah. You know, and the other thing that I think was interesting in this because I know some of the people that were portrayed in this movie, especially Admiral Bill McRaven as the head of the Special Operations Command as he retired. But he was relentless, as was Stan McChrystal in terms of finding ways to get after the terrorist cells, especially Bin Laden. The thing that I found interesting and what I experienced in combat was the extremely close relationship between the intelligence agencies and the military forces. You know, when I was in Iraq, both Stan McChrystal and Bill McRaven were there as the JSOC commanders and we worked very closely together in multinational division north in the northern part of Iraq during the surge, where they would put together the intelligence that they would fuse from captured prisoners, from things on the street, from reflections through satellites and overhead imagery, through signals intelligence. And they use the intelligence agencies as well as their own military intelligence, the DIA and also intel troops on the ground to really drive to the point where they were breaking up networks and cells. And that's something we haven't seen in previous wars. There's always been an intelligence community and a military community, but I think both Bill McRaven and Stan McChrystal fused those together in this very unique kind of conflict.
- [17:33]
A
We're going to go to an earlier conflict now with Courage Under Fire coming in at number six on your list. Courage Under Fire directed by Ed Zwick, who is kind of known for making really good, high quality message movies, which kind of ties into what we're, we're talking about here. When you're, when you're watching Courage Under Fire, what is your takeaway of the, the difficulties that come with, for lack of a better word, friendly fire? You know, things that happen, accidental deaths of your. Of your own men by your own hand in a conflict.
- [18:12]
B
And Sonny, that's why I chose this movie. This, this one haunts me, to be honest with you. It. Most people won't choose this as one of the better war movies of its time, but it was written after Desert Storm and there were several instances of fratricide, green on green, blue on green, implications there. But I really drove it home because as a cavalry guy myself, as a, as a tanker, I understand the implications of being inside of that tank, much like Denzel Washington portrayed and how your visibility and your situational awareness is really tough. And the training of tankers and armored crewmen is just, it's excellent. But even with that, when you're inside that 70 ton M1A1 and you have those very small vision blocks that you're looking out of and trying to engage the enemy while you have this armor protection around you, it's always difficult. That's the first thing. The second thing in my view was just the different views of the battlefield and how war stories are told. This is a movie truly where you have three different characters. Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan and. And a third character that was an observer watching action from different perspectives with all of their own egos being applied. And they all saw the action differently. Having had when I was last In Iraq in 2007, we actually had a fratricide incident where an American soldier shot another American soldier because of a loss of situational awareness. And I had to talk to that soldier's father and tell them the one that was killed and tell him why he was killed and how. It was extremely unfortunate. But things like this happen in war. And the combination of confusion, fratricide events, and moral injuries in one battle that is portrayed time and time again through different perspectives and lenses in Courage Under Fire, I thought was just a fascinating approach to a war movie.
- [20:31]
A
That is. That's fascinating. And that must have been gut wrenching for. I can't even imagine. Can't. Can't even imagine. You know, I deal with hanging. Hanging commas and the such that. That's the hardest thing in my job is just a. What a nightmare. The. The other. The other thing that's interesting about Courage Under Fire is that there, There. There's almost a fourth perspective here, which is the perspective of the folks in the White House who just want this to go away, that. Who just want this to, like, end and be over, which is another thing that, you know, winds up playing into some of these stories and these narratives. Right?
- [21:10]
B
Yeah, it sure does. And, you know, we can point to real life events across the board. I happen to be. My one tour in the Pentagon was during the time when Pat Tillman was killed. And I watched from close in how that was addressed by senior military and civilian leadership. And it was not comforting the way some of the civilian leaders wanted to portray that. When we had senior military leaders saying, no, no, we can't use this soldier's death in a fratricide for these kinds of purposes. So, again, this is the dynamic of conflict when you're in a democratic society and you have both civilian and military leaders looking at things from very different lenses.
- [21:55]
A
All right, moving. Moving on. We have another tie on the list here at number five. Black Hawk Down. And We Were Soldiers. Black Hawk down, of course, directed by Ridley Scott. One of the great. One of my top films. Not military, not, you know, war films. Films of the 2000s. Just an amazing and occasionally infuriating film. And We Were Soldiers starring Mel Gibson, set in. That was Vietnam. Right? That's. That's Vietnam. I got. I haven't seen We Were Soldiers in forever. I need to. I need to rewatch that one. Why are these on the list?
- [22:33]
B
The reason I combine them because they have the same kind of lessons. Black Hawk down, obviously, in Mogadishu was a rural environment, one of the first times that soldiers en masse were placed in a situation. A group of Rangers and some aviators that were unfortunately brought into a situation where one of their helicopters was set down and shot down and there was a rescue mission. And we were Soldiers Once came from the book by Hal Moore. We were Soldiers Once in Young talking about the first real battle of the Vietnam War, the Adrang campaign, where a mass of cavalry troopers were inserted by air assault into what they thought was a safe landing zone. Turned out to be right in the middle of a large Viet Cong Vietnamese area, basically that was all underground. And in both of these situations, what you have is a plan for a tactical execution of an operation which comes unglued because of degraded condition. You have massive direct and unexpected fire from multiple directions on the soldiers that are on the ground after having been inserted by helicopter helicopters. You see just unbelievable courage and commitment, you know, based on the. The medevac helicopters that were coming in in both instances in Yadrang and also in Mogadishu to try and rescue those who had been downed on the ground and couldn't get out. You have, in. In Black Hawk down, you have urban chaos. You're right in the middle of a very large city where you don't know where the enemy is. In We Were Soldiers. You have Viet Cong literally pouring out of underground tunnels from a mountain attacking these soldiers who had just been inserted. And you know what, what my lesson is from this is that in both situations, both in, in Mogadishu and in the Adrang, you had highly competent, well trained soldiers being put into a chaotic situation. And in both cases, the leaders, the tactical leaders pulled them through. It is a. When you take a look at the ends, ways and means of combat, let's in this case eliminate the ends and just talk about the ways you maneuver and the means you have to bring fire upon an enemy when you're in a chaotic environment. It's just masterful the way the unit leadership in both these cases adapted to the situation and pulled their forces out of a crisis event.
- [25:29]
A
Black Hawk down, one of my. One of my absolute favorites. And it's a great. I don't know what your home video setup is like at your house, Mark, but if you have a 4K Blu Ray player, the Black Hawk down is a. Is a reference grade 4K disk. It's a must own just for the image quality and sound quality alone, let alone the story, which again, I think is great.
- [25:53]
B
And the cinematography is magnificent in both of those movies, actually.
- [25:57]
A
Yeah, I just want to Highlight one quick thing, which is the sense of brotherhood and esprit de corzin. And just the way these guys fight for each other more than any, you know, mission objective or whatever. The. There's. There's just a great quote from Hoot that he's played by Eric Bana in the film that. That lives in my head. When I go home, people will ask me, hey, Hoot, why do you do it, man? What are you, some kind of war junkie? You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you. And that's it. That's all it is. That is not a unique sentiment to this film, but it is shown in every frame of the movie. Every frame of the movie is about that idea.
- [26:43]
B
Yeah. Hey, can I say one more thing? You know, since you mentioned that about Black Hawk Down, I'll say one more thing about We Were Soldiers. That's one of the great movies in terms of showing the home front too, that while the battle was ongoing, Hal Moore's wife, Hal Moore being a battalion commander, lieutenant colonel, he. His wife was back at Fort Benning, or. Yeah, Fort Benning, I think it was going. Or at least it was filmed at Fort Benning, going around to the different houses telling soldiers, family members who were killed that their soldier had been downed. And that also rings true with me from different standpoints of my career, watching spouses of soldiers who were deployed making sure they're taking care of the family members who lose their soldier in battle too. And that's really an emotional moment for me as well when I watch that film.
- [27:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's tough. That is tough. We're on to number four on your list. And this is the only movie that you sent over that I have actually not seen. It's 1949's 12 O' Clock High, starring Gregory Peck. It is in the National Film Registry. This is. It was selected there in 1998, I believe, directed by Henry King. Won a couple of Oscars. You highlighted this because of what it can teach folks about leadership, which I think is a great under underrated lesson that more people could use in their daily lives. Why did you pick 12 o' clock high?
- [28:17]
B
It is a classic in terms of being the gold standard for leadership teaching. I've used it in teaching MBA students. I've used scenes from it because Gregory Peck comes in as a very hard nosed commander because he has a unit that's a little bit out of control, a little bit undisciplined. So it's a transition from understanding or trying to understand the people in the unit which really makes up any successful unit. How the people are cared for, to a discipline, to rebuilding a broken unit and having them combat effective. And it's just a fascinating story because you see the dynamics that, you know, when you're appointed to a job as a commander or a leader of an organization, you know, everyone tells you you have to care for your soldiers. And the first implication of caring is that you're taking care of them and you're hugging them and making sure that they have good food and good clothing and a good place to sleep. But sometimes the most intense method of caring is to treat them rough, to make sure that they're abiding by standards, that the standards have been instilled, that they're training hard. And the reason you're doing that is for the long term. You want your soldiers to survive on the battlefield. In this case, it's about an Army Air Corps unit going into battle in Europe. But, you know, the commander in this unit actually comes across as a prick early on, and everybody hates him, but they begin to see how his standards and his driven training will turn them into a unit and save their lives in the long run. So that's why I like this movie. It's just a great example of what good leadership entails. And it's not just the easy stuff, it's the hard stuff and the decisions that commanders make on the battlefield. Yeah.
- [30:18]
A
Yeah. All right, we are going to move on to number three on your list. It was. This is a. An a&e TV movie. I think it came out in 2004, early 2000s. The. Starring Tom Selleck, Ike Countdown to D Day. Now, this is. This is what I was. I was a little bit surprised it was this high on your list. But that, that said Tom Selleck, excellent. Dwight D. Eisenhower, that's a great role. Great performance. Why is this on your list?
- [30:48]
B
Yeah, but tell me, Sonny, admit it. You would never expect Tom Selleck to be playing Dwight Eisenhower, would you?
- [30:54]
A
No. That's why it's so good. You couldn't believe it.
- [30:59]
B
And I think Tom Selleck deserved an Academy Award for this or whatever awards they give out for made for TV movies. But he plays a perfect, calm, understanding, strategic level. Eisenhower, who has been given the job by both General Marshall and President Roosevelt to pull a coalition together. And for the first time in American history, this is A guy that's pulling together not just a political military leader in Montgomery, but also a political leader in Winston Churchill. He's pulling together the Poles and a very divided French army between the Free French and the ones that he's got to rely on once he gets into the territory. But it just shows the requirement of senior generals to conduct strategic influence campaigns, sometimes to accept the things that they don't want to accept, make tough decisions that help allies contribute in the best means possible. But it also shows how Eisenhower, even while doing all those things, contributed to the building of the D Day force and the decisions he had to make in terms of building the organization. This is another example I use in my MBA classes to talk about switching strategic leadership. Because if you say strategic leadership is a combination of ends, ways and means. When Eisenhower got his message from General Marshall, that was transmitted from fdr, his mission statement was a simple one. It said, enter to the continent of Europe and defeat the Nazi war machine. And he had to figure everything else out. How many troops he needed, where he was going to attack, what kind of logistics was he going to require, what kind of training, how. How could he pull those multinational forces together? Where was he going to land, how he was going to do it. And every single decision he had to make as a strategic leader was questioned by a member of the alliance. So he had to really fuse all of that decision making into a perfect plan. And then even when he had the perfect plan come down, where he had a joint force of the British Navy and the airborne troopers who were going in and the Army Air Corps that was conducting bombing campaigns and the Marines that were attacking the Rangers on D Day, he had to pull all of that together in a massive plan that I can't even imagine and at the same time make everybody happy. And even then, there were risk. You know, just a few days before D Daily, he got a bad weather report and had to make a call. Do we want to keep those forces off the coast of France, potentially give ourselves away, ruin our deception effort, and maybe have them capsized in a major storm that's coming through? Or should I delay a day and see what the weather is going to look like tomorrow? I can't imagine the kinds of decision making that that required from one person. And they were all waiting for him to give the go. And it all rested on his shoulders. Then I'd add one more thing, Sonny, and I think this is the most important thing. As the D Day landing was about to begin, he wrote two letters. One which was basically a congratulatory letter. And the other one was taking the fault if everything failed. So he was ready to say, hey, I made some bad calls. It's all my fault. That's something that really takes a dedicated, selfless leader to do. And I think Eisenhower is a true profile in courageous actions for what he did on D Day, notwithstanding what he did during the rest of the war.
- [35:05]
A
Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the weather conundrum because there's a movie coming out at the end of this month, actually the end of May, called Pressure, which is about that very three day stretch where they were trying to figure out, well, is this storm going to hold off? I believe it's told mostly from the perspective of the meteorologist James Stagg, but Brendan Fraser plays Dwight D. Eisenhower. I'm excited for that one. I've heard very good things. All right, so number two, we have another TV thing, Band of Brothers. This is the archetypal dad TV show. This is what you sit down and you watch it over Memorial Day weekend. This is the thing, Band of Brothers. And of course this is, you know, another movie about esprit de corps and, you know, pulling together and, you know, fighting for the man next to you. But it is also just every episode, endless lessons about leadership. Right.
- [35:59]
B
That. That's what makes it so important and why it's number two on my list because it is a series. And, and throughout this series of Band of Brothers, you can determine every single leadership lesson that you need to teach. And what I'd suggest is I'll tell you openly that most of these movies that I chose were because of their leadership focus. And this is one of the best because you can point to any one of the episodes and draw some type of leadership from communication issues, to treatment of soldiers, to toxic leadership, to training, to standards, to discipline, to caring, to the emotions of fear and anxiety in combat, to doing the wrong things, doing the right things. I mean, it's countless the number of lessons you can learn from this small box set of various adventures of these troopers from the 101st Airborne Division. And what's interesting to me too, again, I'll draw a personal reference to this. I had the great honor of commanding a brigade of the 101st, this brigade, this same brigade that is portrayed in Band of Brothers during my last tour in Iraq in 2007. And so they certainly are proud of that history. They're proud of the individuals that were of, part, part of the Band of Brothers. And I will tell you that even some of those individuals from World War II, visited them after they came home from Iraq and shared their lessons from, you know, 60, 70 years ago to these young troopers who had just come out of combat in Iraq.
- [37:47]
A
Again, just one of, one of the best. I don't, I, you don't need, frankly, you don't need either of us to tell you how good Band of Brothers is. Probably it is, but if you haven't watched it, please do. It's, it's. I'm sure you can find it streaming on HBO Max or pick up one of those box sets. The Blu Ray set always looked really good. And number one, another World War II picture from a similar creative team. Steven Spielberg produced both, Tom Hanks produced both, but Steven Spielberg directed and Tom Hanks starred in number one here, Saving Private Ryan, which you cannot say enough about that opening sequence, right? That's the combat sequence in a war movie. It is the definition defining one. But it's so much more than that. I mean that, that's, that's the first 20 of the minutes of the movie. There's another two hours plus after that, which really gets into some of the very hard, the very hard decisions and choices and the chaos of combat. Why, why did you pick this as number one on your list of war movies?
- [38:49]
B
Just because it is so well made. And, and as you just said, the first 22 minutes are the best representation on film of any combat sequence I've seen. I've watched a lot of war movies and it was just so incredibly realistic and the kind of experiences those young men had on d Day in 1944, it gives you a feel for the battlefield. If you're not a soldier and you're not wincing through that first 22 minutes, if you are a soldier, you're probably shielding your eyes because you've experienced it at one time in your life or another. The first 22 minutes are just an understanding of what we ask young men and now women to do. But secondly, as the movie goes on, you see every aspect of young soldiers lives when they're in a combat situation. You see the smart ass guy from the Bronx you seen, you see the guy who's the sniper who thinks he can end the war just by getting within range of Adolf Hitler. You see the medic who basically sacrifices his life to try and defend a little girl. You see the arguments between the captain and the smart ass guy from the Bronx about what to do with a prisoner of war, the moral requirements of how to treat prisoners properly because that is who we are and what we do you see the stoic face of the platoon sergeant always backing up his leader in Tom Hanks. And you see the real calm, cool, collected, centered captain of Rangers that's portrayed by Tom Hanks, the Captain Miller, which I think is one of the best portrayals I've ever seen of true leadership in a small unit organization. And here's the fun fact for you, Sonny, you're going to like this. Right down the street from my house about three or four miles is a retirement community, a high rise apartment building. And a couple of years ago I was asked to go to a 100th birthday party of a retired two star general by the name of John Rain. R A A E N. General Rain is now 104 years old and he was Captain Miller on D day. He was a ranger in the 75th Ranger Regiment at Pointe Du Hoc and got onto Dog beach by mistake just like Captain Miller's team did. And luckily for me, Major General Rain, West Point graduate, class of 1942 is still alive. He's as verbal as you can imagine with all of his capacities and mind. He's in a wheelchair, he doesn't move all that well, but boy, he can tell stories of what it was like. And I asked him if he had seen Saving Private Ryan and he said, he kind of shrugged and he said of course I have. He said, all of us have. And then he said, I asked him, I said how realistic was it? And he kind of shook his head no and I said what do you mean? And he said it was worse than what they portrayed in the film. So that gives you an idea of even as bad as those first 22 minutes were and the patrolling across Europe that that Ranger squad did, how bad it really was in terms of what the greatest generation gave during World War II.
- [42:32]
A
I mean, that's intense. That's a great story too, man. 104. That's great that he's still with us. That's our top 10. I defy anyone to come up with a better top 10. If you have suggestions, leave them in the comments. Hit like and subscribe on all that. But really chime in, let us know what you think. But there is another reason we are here, which is again, let's synthesize some of the lessons from these movies to come up with a plan for folks like if you want to learn how to be a better, a better military leader, yes, but just a better incorporate how to incorporate these rules and suggestions and themes into your life. Generally speaking, what can we take away from these to Learn how to be better leaders in our lives.
- [43:21]
B
Well, it's interesting to me, Sonny, that all leaders face chaos. They face crisis in their organizations. We saw that in the medical community during COVID We see it in the economic community when there's a market crash. But when you see it in combat, we're talking about life and death and on a large scale. So how do you deal with crises? How do you control chaos? How, as a leader, do you remain calm in situations where your inner being is screaming out, saying, I can't handle this anymore? How do you deal with those things?
- [44:00]
A
And.
- [44:00]
B
And how do you prepare to be resilient when you're faced with that kind of challenge, with that kind of demand? So that's one lesson. And you learn that by just placing yourself in situations where you step outside your bank of courage. You try and take things on that you might not otherwise take, that you find ways to push yourself forward beyond the fear that you might have. Whether it's speaking in front of a crowd or controlling a squad in combat, they both have elements of fear in them. And normal human beings want to shy away from fear, fight or flight. But some human beings say, let's take it on and let's try and manage it and control the chaos. That's number one. Number two, the big lessons that I learn from these various movies is how many facets of leadership are out there, how you communicate, what are your attributes, what kind of character do you have? What values do you adhere to? What is your presence? What's your personal presence? Not just the way you appear, but the way you center yourself? How do you learn and grow every day to increase your intellectual capacity? How do you communicate and understand that communication is not only how you speak, but how you listen and how your body language and tone of voice and facial expression and your techniques of delivering that communication become so very important when you're trying to be precise. How do you steward your organization and how do you build teams? And then the last thing is, how do leaders claim authority and take responsibility for their actions? These are the kinds of things I judge myself on and I judge other leaders on. How do they do these various elements of leadership in both their attributes and their competencies? And then using all of those things, how do they influence teams to do the right things, to have a moral center and to raise up and be above the common level of life? So every one of these movies has elements of that that I like to pick out and say, see that? See what they're doing? That's leadership. Then there's the lesson truly, of, from a military and political perspective, the difference between small unit tactics, what those young soldiers or sailors or airmen or Marines or coast guardsmen are doing when they're facing the threat to what are the political leaders and the senior generals asking them to do? And do they understand really what's happening at the lower level? And are those senior people really telling the American public what their soldiers are going through and how they're trying to protect them, given the best way they can do things? And then really, the final lesson, and I'll kind of end here, what drives a nation to send their military to war? What are the reasons we use? And they better be good ones. There better be true threats, and there better be an explanation to those in a democratic society, like the people who are our civilians and also our congressional base. Because if you're doing this willy nilly or you're doing this on a whim, it's not a good play when you're talking about putting lives at stake. You know, I often tell the story that I've got a box on my desk. I can pull it over here, and it's got the pictures of 253 soldiers that I lost under my command in combat. You can see this. And every day on the top of the box, it has a phrase that says, make it matter. That was something General Dempsey said that make it matter is the equivalent of what Captain Miller said to Private Ryan at the end of Saving Private Ryan when he pulled him in close and he said, earn this. Earn this. And then you see, decades later, Private Ryan being an old man, walking up to Captain Miller's grave in Arlington National Cemetery, turning to his wife and saying, tell me I'm a good man. Tell me I've earned this. That's really something that should come through in every war movie we watch. It's an understanding of how hard it is to put your life on the line when you raise your hand and say you're going to support and defend the Constitution. And it gives you an indicator of the challenges that those people who wear the cloth of the country take when they do it. It's not a game. It's not something that should be driven for only personal reasons. It's to maintain the security of our country. And in each one of these war movies, to a certain degree, we see elements of that. So that's my preaching for today, Sonny.
- [49:28]
A
No, that was I look again, this is a lesson that everyone in government, in our personal lives should think about when we are discussing The. I don't know. Whatever military actions are happening on any given day, Lord only knows where we'll be next. This was amazing. Thank you so much for the time, Mark. I really appreciate it.
- [49:53]
B
Appreciate it. Sonny, thanks for doing this. You and Sam and Tim, who and Sarah, who all thought this up. It's going to be fun to see what the reaction is to it.
- [50:02]
A
Yeah. And again, if you have ideas, leave them in the comments. Make sure. By the way, I didn't even mention this at the top of the episode, but make sure if you enjoyed this, if you took something away from it, and I hope you did, make sure you pick up Mark's book, if I Don't Return A Father's Wartime Journal, which is like my own father served in the Air Force. He served in combat. And it's a bracing thing. People should read the thoughts that go through the heads of those who are serving and the hearts of those who are serving. It's important. And if you enjoy these bulwark, these fun bulwark talks that we do, make sure that you get tickets to our live shows out in California. Right. We've got two tour stops coming up and Mark and I aren't going to be there, but Sarah, Tim, and Sam will be go to the bulwark.com events and I had a lot of fun here. Thanks again, Mark. Really appreciate it.
- [51:00]
B
You got it. Hey, Sonny, one thing, though. We're probably going to get a lot of mail saying we've missed one or two great movies, and I'm sure we have because there's too many out there.
- [51:08]
A
There is. No, this is. This is why I'm saying just put it in the comments. We can do a second episode on everything we missed in a couple of weeks. I think that would be. That would be very doable. But there are so many good ones. Would be happy to do a makeup episode. Sorry we missed your favorite episode. That'll be a fun one, too.