5 American Heroes Everyone Should Know | Ty Seidule

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily Stoic | 5 American Heroes Everyone Should Know | Ty Seidule (August 1, 2026)

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Overview

In this episode, Ryan Holiday (host of The Daily Stoic) sits down with Brigadier General (Ret.) Ty Seidule—renowned military historian, former head of West Point’s History Department, and author—to discuss the process and significance of renaming U.S. military bases previously honoring Confederate officers. Together, they highlight five remarkable American heroes whose lives exemplify courage, service, and leadership, and who now have military posts named after them. Along the way, Seidule and Holiday examine how collective memory, heritage, and heroism shape national identity, as well as the ongoing debates about history and education in the military.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Heroism—and Who We Commemorate—Matters

• Ryan Holiday sets the episode’s tone by noting a cultural vacuum of widely agreed-upon heroes, and the societal need to celebrate genuinely admirable individuals rather than Confederate figures:

  • "We probably shouldn't celebrate murderers and rapists and slave owners if we can help it." (02:04)
  • The lack of replacement for removed monuments is a missed opportunity—“When historians do nothing but tear down instead of replacing, they're doing us all a disservice.” (03:37)

• General Ty Seidule frames the renaming of military bases as long-overdue corrections, grounded in justice and representative heroism: “Congress did it because they saw it was wrong to do this.” (16:55)

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The Five American Heroes

1. Van Barfoot (Fort Barfoot)

• Background: Choctaw Indian, family remained in Mississippi during Trail of Tears; enlisted before WWII.
• Heroism: In WWII Italy, took out two tanks, saved his platoon, awarded Medal of Honor (“Medal of Honor...is Lady Liberty smiting the foul spirit of secession…an anti-Confederate monument.” [05:13])
• Post-War Service: Fought in Vietnam, honored in the Virginia National Guard; stood up to HOA over American flag in his 90s.
• Quote: “Despite what happened…[he] serves in multiple wars, receiving the Medal of Honor, and stays there in Virginia the whole time.” (04:34–06:24)

2. Michael Novosel (Fort Novosel)

• Background: WWII B-29 pilot, later Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam after taking a demotion.
• Heroism: Flew ~3,000 combat hours rescuing wounded, received Medal of Honor. Famously saved his own son—and was later saved by him—on notorious rescue flights.
• Quote: “Didn’t know how to do [fly helicopters]…rescues South Vietnamese, goes back eight different times, landing in this tiny patch.” (08:51)
• Legacy: “Retires outside Fort Rucker…teaches helicopter training till he dies in 2008. And they loved him.” (09:19)

3. Arthur Gregg (Fort Gregg-Adams)

• Background: First Army post named after a living person; joined as a Black man in segregated Army (1946).
• Obstacle: Trained as a phlebotomist but couldn't serve because "blood is segregated in this era...white blood and black blood." (10:04).
• Leadership: Excelled in logistics, mentored countless soldiers. Overcame segregation, rose through the ranks.
• Quote: “He is the one that we named this post after because it is something that is the mission that they do.” (11:26)
• Notable Moment: At the naming ceremony, thanked his 1946 drill sergeant, which turned a military function into a “block party.” (11:29)

4. Charity Adams Earley (Fort Gregg-Adams, “Adams” portion)

• Background: WWII’s highest-ranking Black woman; led the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in Europe (all Black women).
• Heroism: Ensured mail delivery to millions of troops—“Mail is a huge, huge deal.” (11:46)
• After the War: Became a civil rights leader and educator, “mentor to Black women throughout.”
• Quote: “She got the mail right…continues to serve and to lead for the rest of her life.” (12:46–12:59)

5. Richard “Dick” Cavazos (Fort Cavazos)

• Background: Seventh-generation Texan, Mexican-American; born on the King Ranch.
• Heroism: Led Puerto Rican troops in Korea (trained and redeemed a previously disgraced unit), received Medal of Honor; served as a senior commander in Vietnam and mentored top future generals.
• Quote: “No one has more better Texas bona fides than Dick Cavazos.” (17:17)
• Reflection: Contrasts Cavazos' distinguished service with the mediocrity of many Confederate namesakes he replaced.

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On Changing Names & History (Heritage vs. Truth)

• Many original base names (e.g., Fort Pickett, Fort Rucker, Fort Hood, Fort Lee, Fort Benning) were chosen in the Jim Crow era, mainly as political concessions to the South—“named in an era of lynching… the Black soldiers…had no political voice.” (15:36)
• Quote (Ryan Holiday): “If you’re putting up public works…and you’re taking money from all the people to do that, but you’re only considering the opinions of a small percentage…that’s criminal.” (16:01)
• Seidule: Law now forbids naming military property after Confederates: “There’s a law that says you can’t name anything after a Confederate.” (19:16)

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Additional Heroes & Notable Renamings

Hal & Julie Moore (Fort Moore)

• Hal Moore: Decorated commander (notably in Vietnam’s battle depicted in “We Were Soldiers”)—West Point grad.
• Julie Moore: Initiated Army’s family casualty notification reform after experiencing the trauma of Vietnam-era notification system.
• Significance: First time a post is named after a family; honors both military service and family sacrifice.
• Quote: “The Moores are the representative of everything that the army family is.” (23:26)

Robert Smalls (USS Robert Smalls, formerly USS Chancellorsville)

• Background: Born enslaved, commandeered a Confederate boat to freedom, became a Navy captain and later a U.S. Congressman.
• Quote: “He steals his boat, this Confederate boat, gets all these enslaved people on it, takes it to friendly US Navy lines, and then eventually commands the boat himself…There’s your hero.” (24:49–25:11)

Mary Walker

• Role: Only woman at the time employed as a U.S. Army surgeon in the Civil War; only female Medal of Honor recipient.
• Quote: “Keeps going down, says, you need to use me…famous…the rest of her life for wearing pants…arrested multiple times for wearing pants.” (25:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• General Seidule (on Confederate generals): “Robert E. Lee killed more U.S. army soldiers than any other enemy general in our history.” (15:22)
• Holiday on critique of DEI attacks: “The DEI candidates are the sort of mediocre southern generals who were celebrating for the lost cause… I'd rather actually have a mediocre person that we're celebrating than have to concede that there was a super talented person of this minority.” (17:40)

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Athens vs. Sparta: Military Education Debate [29:57–39:56]

• Seidule outlines the debate over military academies' purpose: “This Athens versus Sparta debate is as old as the academies…should a warrior or soldier or sailor be the mind…or a society created only for war?” (29:57)

• Historically, army education has swung between academic/intellectual (Athens) and training/discipline-focused (Sparta) models:

  • “Of late, Sparta's been winning.” (31:44)
  • Seidule argues for the necessity of broad academic education for future military leaders.

• Memorable Quote (Seidule): “The most important six inches on the battlefield isn’t around the waist. It’s between the ears.” (36:03)

• Examples of well-rounded leaders: Eisenhower received a “Spartan” education, but his later learning and broad reading made him a grand strategist. Patton deeply read (and annotated) the classics, despite public misconception.

  • “Patton’s library…his copy of Clausewitz is underlined in three different colors of pencils.” (40:37)
  • On Eisenhower and Patton: “They became great friends…Patton reads everything.”

• Discussion on historical education as essential for leadership: “Wisdom through history. It doesn't teach you lessons, but it does give you wisdom over the longer stretch.” (36:16)

• General Mattis Quote via Holiday: “It's sort of morally unconscionable to learn by experience what others have already learned by experience.” (36:59)

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Conclusion: The Power of Better Heroes

• Learning about true American heroes helps unify and inspire:
  • “It’s sad that people don’t know who these people are because they would give us something to celebrate and to come together in sort of common cause.” (19:44)
• Emphasizing honest history inspires identification with the good in America, not guilt: “When I study history and these complicated periods, I go, oh, there were good guys…that’s instinctively who I identify with.” (23:26)
• “There’s so many [heroes] in American history. I love this country…I served in uniform for 36 years. We have plenty of people that we could and should honor.” (26:44–26:48)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:37 – The problem with removing monuments but not replacing them
• 04:34 – Van Barfoot’s story and the Medal of Honor’s origins
• 08:01 – Michael Novosel’s bravery and the Fort Novosel renaming
• 09:36 – Arthur Gregg’s journey through Army segregation
• 11:46 – Charity Adams Earley’s WWII leadership and legacy
• 13:01 – Dick Cavazos, from King Ranch to Medal of Honor
• 15:36 – Confederate base names and the politics of history
• 19:16 – Legal ban on Confederate names and the process of change
• 20:30 – Hal & Julie Moore reformed family notification & led with service
• 24:49 – Robert Smalls’ escape and heroism
• 25:30 – Mary Walker, the Army’s first female surgeon and Medal of Honor recipient
• 29:57 – Athens vs. Sparta in military education
• 36:03 – The six inches between the ears—why intellect matters
• 40:37 – Patton, Eisenhower, and leadership through learning

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If you want to understand why heroes matter, why history gets written and rewritten, and how better stories can unite, this episode is essential listening.

Transcript

[Ryan Holiday]

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[General Ty Sedgely]

Barfoot. So Van Barfoot, Choctaw Indian from Mississippi, and his family stayed in Mississippi rather than go on the Trail of Tears. So they're there and stay in Mississippi. And he joins early about 1940, before the war really starts. So he's a little bit senior a sergeant, eventually goes to Italy and takes out two tanks, kills, I don't know, double digit Germans, saves his platoon and then receives the Medal of Honor for this. I mean, Medal of Honor is one little thing about the Medal of Honor many people don't realize is that it's created during the Civil War. And what is in the interior of that Medal of Honor, when it's created, it's still the one in the Navy and the Marine Corps. It's Lady Liberty smiting the foul spirit of secession. So it's an anti Confederate monument is what the Medal of Honor is. So love it. So Van Barfoot is this Choctaw Indian. After the war, he then goes and fights in Vietnam for a while before they realize, oh, my gosh, this hero, we bring him back the end of his life. What I love about him is he's in Virginia. He's Virginia National Guard. And the reason why we name that is the Virginians who were at their National Guard wanted this guy because he reflected the citizen soldier. Someone who fought, then came back, got out, and then when the nation needed him again at another war, came back again in his 90s. He's living in a retirement community and puts up a flag, the flagpole. And the HOA. The homeowners association comes up and says, Mr. Barfoot, you are not allowed to put that flag up. And he goes, you know, in his late 80s and 90s. Listen, you go to hell, man. I'm gonna keep this thing up. And so it becomes like a national story. And eventually guess who wins that one. But it's this guy who loves his country despite what happened to him earlier, and then serves it in multiple wars, receiving the Medal of Hon. And stays there in Virginia the whole time.

[Ryan Holiday]

And what gets named after him?

[General Ty Sedgely]

So Fort Barfoot. I've got my list here. Fort Barfoot is named for Pickett. George Pickett, famous for Pickett's Charge. And Pickett. That was the most disastrous charge. We make it sound like romantic. It's not romantic. It was stupid. Stupid and disaster.

[Ryan Holiday]

Same with the Charge of the Light Brigade.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Absolutely.

[Ryan Holiday]

It shouldn't have happened.

[General Ty Sedgely]

And don't romanticize it, you know? And Pickett, a year later, summarily executes 22 U.S. army soldiers. And it starts. What could be a tit for tat thing that the US Stops and doesn't do it. And Pickett then skedaddles to Canada when the war ends because he thinks he's gonna be hanged as a war criminal,

[Ryan Holiday]

which it sounds like he was.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Which he totally was. And comes back. And so it is named around in the World War II era. It's named for Pickett after George Pickett.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay. And let's do Michael Novosel.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Yeah, Novosell. So that's what was Fort Rucker. And Rucker, named for Edmund Rucker, a no name guy who's from lower Alabama, the southern part of Al. The only picture we have of Rucker, he's wearing a medal that says, I rode with Forrest. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. The founder of the Klan.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Founder of the Klan. The last person to bring enslaved Africans to their. To the US and also massacred black soldiers at Fort Pillow.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. I think Forrest is a racist. He's also a psychopath. Like, he is like just an unhinged psychopath. Just like the kind of person that today there's all sorts of psychological screenings to keep them away from guns and leadership. Because doesn't he kill one of his own men in like a knife duel? It's just a psychopath.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Psychopath. And we did have a Fort Forest, by the way, a camp forest during World War II.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Shut down in the late 40s. So Novosel is in Alabama is where they train helicopter pilots. So we go down to each one of these places and we talk to the community and they want somebody who's a helicopter pilot. So Mike Novosel flew B29s in World War II as an officer like he was then. To be a lieutenant colonel by the end of the war. And then when the war ends, he sort of gets out, becomes a reservist, stays in the Air Force. Vietnam comes around. He's still a reservist in the Air Force and says, man, I want to come fight. I want to fight in Vietnam. I want to be there for my country. And we have no post name for anybody from Vietnam at this time. So the Air Force says, no, we don't want you. So guess what? The army says, we'll take you to fly helicopters. So he takes a demotion to warrant officer, which is a lower rank, and goes and flies to learn how to

[Ryan Holiday]

do something he didn't know how to do.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Didn't know how to do. And by the way, flying a helicopter is really, it's really hard. You know, you got both hands, both feet working at the same time. Especially back then. Especially back then. And by the way, you're a treetop level. You're not fast moving way up here. So he flies, I don't know, close to 3,000 hours of combat missions there. As a rescue Medicavac pilot, he receives a medal of Honor for rescuing South Vietnamese.

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Goes back in eight different times, landing in this tiny little patch. He eventually saves his son, who's also a helicopter pilot there.

[Ryan Holiday]

Wow.

[General Ty Sedgely]

And then later on in that tour, his son saves him. Oh, he retires outside Fort Rucker. Teaches helicopter training till he dies in 2008. And they loved him. And so Fort Novosel is named after Mike Novosel. Medal of Honor recipient, helicopter pilot.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay. Arthur Gregg.

[General Ty Sedgely]

So Arthur Gregg is the first person in memory that we've named a post after who was living at the time. Oh, Arthur Gregg joined the Army 1946 as a black man, as a private in a segregated Army. And he joined to be a medical technician, a phlebotomist, to take blood out. So they trained him up to do that. Send him to Germany. They won't let him do it because blood is segregated in this era. So there's white.

[Ryan Holiday]

The absurdity of it is the absurdity.

[General Ty Sedgely]

The white blood and black blood, all through World War II, this is the case. Segregated blood. And in some Southern states, this continues into the early 70s. So he's not allowed to do that. So what does he do? Send me anywhere? So he goes to a segregated quartermaster unit, where he's so smart, they make him the supply sergeant. He becomes the first black military policeman when they need military police, because those were segregated as well. During this time. Everything is completely segregated. He says, I want to make this a career. He goes to Officer Candidate School, one of two black soldiers in Officer Candidate School. Then goes to Fort Lee as a logistician, where he's not allowed to go to the officer's club. Everything's still segregated there. Eventually, he commands the largest battalion in Vietnam. He's a logistician, somebody who is responsible for beans, bullets, and that which is what this Fort Fort Lee is named for. And he's named for that. And he is the one that we named this post after because it is something that is the mission that they do. And he is mentored. He's famous for mentoring other logistics officers at Fort Lee. Named after Robert E. Lee. Sure, sure. And it's in an area that is primarily a majority African American town. And he was there at the ceremony. So here's this 94 year old. He's tall, he must be six three. And he gets us with this baritone voice and he thanks Corporal Mayberry. Like, who is that? That was his sergeant, his drill sergeant in basic training in 1946 who taught him the way to be a soldier. Yeah, it was amazing. This started out as a church service and it ended as a block party. It's the first time we'd ever named something after a black soldier.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Just amazing.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay. Charity Adams, early.

[General Ty Sedgely]

So you may have heard about the Netflix movie 6888. She was the highest ranking black Woman in World War commanded a postal directory battalion of all black women that went to Europe and unscrewed the mail. If you're a soldier, mail is a huge, huge deal. My favorite one of those is the movie Battle of the Bulge. And Robert Shaw plays the Nazi commander Piper. And they've just gone through and attacked an American unit. And they pick up this package and it's got a fresh cake in it from Boston.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, the logistic miracle of that.

[General Ty Sedgely]

And he looks at it and goes, how can we win this war if they can afford to send fresh birthday cakes from Boston? And this is what she did is she took for millions of troops over there and got the mail. Right. The highest ranking black woman during that, she did civil rights activity after she gets out of the army and at this ceremony, her two children were there along with all the descendants of the 6 Triple 8 Battalion were at the ceremony. And so we've now named that for Greg Adams.

[Ryan Holiday]

What did she do after the war?

[General Ty Sedgely]

So after the war, she becomes an educator, she becomes a civil rights icon and a mentor to black women throughout there. So she gets out of the army, but she continues to serve and to lead for the rest of her life.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay, and then Cavazos, who you're talking about?

[General Ty Sedgely]

Yeah, so Dick Cavazos, this is named after Fort Hood. And Hood was a guy who said he would rather have pestilence than have freedom for African Americans. So he was a Civil War general from Kentucky who was sad that Kentucky didn't go secede early enough. Went and fought for in a Texas brigade, so they named it after him. So Cavasso's born on the King ranch. So the King Ranch here in Texas. You know, he was a seventh generation Texan born in the 1920s. And in fact, his great grandmother was the angel of Goad. Now do you know that you know the angel of Goad story. So his great grandmother was the angel of Goad. So this huge family going back for generations of Mexican American families, he then joins the army after World War II and goes and fights in Korea and is in charge of the Puerto Rican soldiers there. Cause he speaks Spanish. They had been relieved because they had ran in the face of the enemy, because for a bunch of different reasons, not their fault. And he retrains them, takes them back, and eventually has an engagement where he receives a medal of Honor. Then he is in Vietnam as a battalion commander and there receives a Distinguished Service Cross as the finest officer of his generation. I already told you, Powell mentored Schwarzkopf. Both of men Mention him as their finest leader they'd ever met in their memoirs.

[Ryan Holiday]

What's so interesting to me about these people who. For people to know you've subsequently renamed bases in their honor. They strike me as just incredibly incredible figures. Inarguably great. And then what's so interesting, in many cases, the names of the people that they replaced were not that impressive. Like, I gave a talk at JSOC maybe two years ago, and I was talking about. Because all this stuff was still then going on, the renaming, and they just renamed Fort Bragg. I was joking that it's not just named after a trader, it was named after a pretty mediocre trader too. And actually someone stormed out of the talk, but.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Oh, I love that.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, me too. But like the heritage element, like this is our heritage. You're replacing our heritage. In many cases, it's not the Robert E. Lee's that these places are named after. Not that he's. He's a complicated figure, but indisputably good at what he did. Right. A bad person. Good. Professional. These people were good and great.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Yeah, yeah, these people are good. And importantly, they fought for the United States of America and they did not kill U.S. army soldiers. And, you know, I think it's important to remember that Robert E. Lee killed more U.S. army soldiers than any other enemy general in our history.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure.

[General Ty Sedgely]

And so the idea that we. And when did we name these? In World War I and World War II, when we were a segregated army and the south was a Jim Crow society, you know, in the ones that were named in World War I, this is an era of lynching. So the black soldiers that were serving you couldn't name it because they had no political voice because Jim Crow meant they had no vote. Even though when we went to World War I, South Carolina and Mississippi are majority black.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, I mean, we can get into that. But I've always found it like, it seems like an under explored argument is when we talk about these statues or these things, it's like the basis of America is that taxation without representation is theft. Right. And so if you're putting up public works or naming, you know, public institutions after people and you're taking money from all of the people to do that, but you're only, you're only considering the opinions of a small percentage of those people. That's criminal. There's something profoundly wrong about taking taxes from everyone to raise up a statue of a person who persecuted some of those people.

[General Ty Sedgely]

We're in violent agreement on that. Violent agreement on that one. And I think but it is important to know that all the names that we put here, they've all been changed.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, back.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Well, back, but not to the Confederate.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[General Ty Sedgely]

I think it's important to know in Texas. Cavazos. We went and talked to the community in Texas every time we went. So I was a vice chair of this naming commission created by Congress. It wasn't Ty that did this, it was Congress that did it. And Congress did it because they saw it was wrong to do this. And by the way, Trump vetoed it because he loves Robert E. Lee. And Congress overrode that veto with a supermajority when it's a Republican led Senate.

[Ryan Holiday]

Never happens.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Never happens. Never happens. It's the only thing that over only veto that was overridden by him. So here in Texas, they name, they, they, they have a Texan now named for Fort Hood, someone who commanded that post as a three star. There is no one has more better Texas bona fides than Dick Cavazos.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[General Ty Sedgely]

And they replace him with a guy who had never been in Texas in his life.

[Ryan Holiday]

What's interesting, both the before and the after, your stuff being in the middle. You know, there's this slur now that is sort of not popular but used in our culture. We would call someone like a DEI candidate, which is to say that they're unqualified, that they're only there for special circumstances. They're trying to be politically correct. The DEI candidates are the sort of mediocre southern generals who were celebrating for the lost cause or the, or the reactionary people that we're putting in after. Cause we can't ever concede that Dick Cavazos represents the best of us or whatever. Right. There's this weird, like I'd rather actually have a mediocre person that we're celebrating than have to concede that there was a super talented person of this minority, that minority that in order to recognize their story. I have to acknowledge that some of the sins of the past in order to specify what made them great.

[General Ty Sedgely]

I mean, this is so true. The idea that somebody who is, who served the nation under the harshest circumstances, who was black, you can't honor him now. I mean, we can't honor him now. Even though Congress told this is a law. I mean, it's not as though we just made it up. This is the will of the American people through their, American, through their elected representatives. And that just didn't mean anything.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right. So it's a. Yeah. Who's actually having the change rammed down the street.

[Ad Read Host]

Right.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Who's having the change rammed, which is again. And doing this in a way that doesn't involve the local communities either. So it is damnable in so many different ways and what they want. And Trump said it. He thought he was going back to Lee.

[Ryan Holiday]

He really.

[General Ty Sedgely]

He said that.

[Ryan Holiday]

He said that that legally can't.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Or what legally can't. There's a law that says you can't name anything after a Confederate knew. And then they worried about that. Now, since that time, they have returned the statues and paintings of Robert E. Lee in Confederate uniform at West Point that our commission took away. They have returned that, including a large portrait of Lee in Confederate way with an enslaved servant in the background.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure. Servant. Servant, yeah.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Enslaved. You know, he's a enslaved man. I mean, he's dressed in rags.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. When you studied these figures, there are these people that people don't know about, but that they in many ways represent the absolute best of America. The ideals of the military, the ideas of public service. It's sad that people don't know who these people are because they would give us something to celebrate and to come together in sort of common cause and say, like, this is what we want our kids to be. This is what we want our society to be. People like this.

[General Ty Sedgely]

So true. Because my last book was writing about traitors for slavery. And this book I got to write about people that I just enjoyed being with. And let me give you one example of that. So Hal and Julie Moore. So Fort Benning was named after Henry Benning, who never served a day in the U.S. army.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay.

[General Ty Sedgely]

So we've named. This is the most prestigious post for the training of infantry and armor and cavalry. And Benning was a leading secessionist fire eater, someone who tried to break apart the United States starting in the late 1840s and told the Virginia Secession convention that he would rather have famine and pestilence than see the end of slavery. I mean, this is a terrible guy. So we named him after. In World War I, we chose Hal and Julie Moore. It's the first time that anything's ever been named after a family. So we named after Hal Moore, who's a West Point graduate who serves brilliantly in Korea, is the person who commands a battalion in Vietnam, which is. We were soldiers once and young. This is the mel gibson movie 2000, 2001 we were soldiers movie. And he's incredibly heroic in that and takes on this huge number of North Vietnamese. So now, again, we're naming things after the Vietnam War people heroes of the Vietnam War. But if it was just him. We wouldn't have done it. His wife Julie saw her father go to war, her husband go to war, her sons go to war. And she was, while in Vietnam, she was a battalion commander wife. And the way they treated families then was that she was living in this 3,500 square foot home on Fort Benning. Beautiful white stucco, pecan trees all around. And she had 30 days when he left for Vietnam to move out of that house and go find other housing. You weren't allowed, if your husband was deployed, you weren't allowed to stay on post.

[Ryan Holiday]

Wow. Horrible.

[General Ty Sedgely]

So she goes from 3,500 square feet to a thousand square feet with five kids.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure. And they're being punished. Being punished for serving her country.

[General Ty Sedgely]

For serving her country. So she realized now the casualties are starting to come in, and she notices that. How are those casualties done? Well, she finds out a cab driver comes up, stops outside her house. She goes down to her knees because what does that mean? A yellow Western Union telegram. Something has happened to your spouse. She gets up, shaking, goes up, opens the screen door, and the guy's just asking for directions. And she just breaks down and crying and she says, oh, my God, these other women are going through this. So she starts following the cab drivers to each one of these houses to find out, to provide comfort for them. And she's so angered by this, she writes to Washington and gets the army to do a casualty notification program, which sends a chaplain, another officer, and then a follow on to help this family. So she changes the way they're doing it. They're both buried there on what was then Fort Benning. And we went to this ceremony as well. And all the troopers from the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry are there, all the family members are there. Amazing. To recognize women and to recognize family members. And that's who we named it after. They changed it to Fred Benning, who served in World War I, who'd never been in the state of Georgia.

[Ryan Holiday]

Oh, yeah. The little trick of, like, how do we keep the name but pick a different person?

[General Ty Sedgely]

Pick a different person. But the Moores are the representative of everything that the army family is.

[Ryan Holiday]

Don't you think that's something about history? Like, you know, history can be depressing, history can be uncomfortable. But one of the things I find, and this is why I hate this argument, that like, if we, we tell all this stuff, our kids are going to hate themselves. When I study history and these complicated periods, I go, oh, there were good guys, right? There were good guys. And the idea that, I mean, that's instinctively who I identify with. Right. I don't. I don't. I don't go, oh, that. That shitty person looks. So I suck. I don't think about what they look like or where they're from. As far as my identification, I identify with the people that I aspire to be like. And there's an unlimited amount of those.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Unlimited. Two examples. The first is that's why I don't say the Union army in the Civil War. I say the U.S. army.

[Ryan Holiday]

I noticed you did that earlier blue

[General Ty Sedgely]

uniform that I do. I love that idea. The other one is one of the things that changed was the USS Chancellorsville. And that was a guided missile cruiser that was named after Chancellorsville. And it had pictures of Lee and Jackson, who were the heroes of that, for the Confederate army in the wardroom. And they had gray in their thing. So we said, you should change it. The Secretary of the Navy at the time, Carlos Totoro, changed it to Robert Smalls.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay.

[General Ty Sedgely]

I don't know if, you know, Robert Smalls is a guy. Is an enslaved.

[Ryan Holiday]

See the guy that steals the boat.

[Ad Read Host]

Yes.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay. Yes.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Yes.

[Ryan Holiday]

I love this story.

[General Ty Sedgely]

He steals his boat, this Confederate boat gets all these enslaved people on it, takes it to friendly US Navy lines, and then eventually commands the boat himself as a Navy captain. Captain later serves five terms as a South Carolina congressman. And so now it is the USS Robert Smalls.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[General Ty Sedgely]

There's your hero.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[General Ty Sedgely]

See what we have heroes.

[Ryan Holiday]

That's America right there.

[General Ty Sedgely]

That's America right there. And every time you think that that's. Why don't look for Confederate heroes. You look for people. Like another one that we named after Mary Walker, who was the only surgeon employed by the US army during the Civil War.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Only she's a woman. The second woman to graduate from medical school at Syracuse. And she just keeps going down, says, you need to use me. You need to use me. Eventually goes into the Tennessee campaign. Is a contract surgeon. Eventually is captured behind enemy lines where she was. Not only was she doing surgery stuff, which she totally was doing. Little light spying on the side, too. Sent to a prison in Richmond. Eventually she's paroled from there and is famous the rest of her life for putting on pants. Like, I'm telling you, I'm gonna we pants. And she is arrested multiple times for wearing pants. But she then receives from Sherman and Grant and Thomas the Medal of Honor. She's the only woman to have ever received the Medal of Honor, and it was taken away from her right at the end of her life and then given back to it posthumously. So we named a post after Mary Walker because here's someone again, a hero. There's so many in American history. I love this country. I love my country. I was serving in uniform for 36 years and we have plenty of people that we could and should honor. It doesn't mean we can't do both of these. I'm comfortable saying slavery bad. And yes, we should know what that caused and the Jim Crow that came with it and the lynching and other things, redlining. But we also have these great heroes.

[Ryan Holiday]

We just got back from this trip to Europe and it was so ungodly hot there. It was the hottest it's ever been, which exacerbated another experience. If you've ever been to Europe, just how bad the mattresses are there. So I was excited to be home because we've been gone for a while, but I was really excited to be home and sleep on my 8 sleep pod. I missed it every night I was gone. It cools the mattress. Cools my wife's side differently than my side. Doesn't matter how hot the room is, the bed is just perfect. Monitors your sleep rate. I was putting my son to bed last night, reading to him, and then I get a little alert on my phone that it was almost time for me to go to bed, that the eight sleep was doing its thing. Then I woke up this morning. It showed me my sleep score. Monitors your heart rate, your respiratory rate. You can see the difference that having a pod on your mattress makes. And their autopilot feature even learns your sleep patterns. It adjusts the temperatures, the elevation, the wake up time. Pod users up to 32% improvement in sleep quality and up to 34% more deep sleep. You can use my code dailystoicadesleep.com stoic for up to $350 off and you get 30 days to try it at home and return it. If you don't love it. Today's executives are more threatened, more exposed, and more vulnerable than ever before. Corporations spend billions on workplace security. But what happens when a threat finds your executives outside the office? Here's why that matters. 70% of attacks on executives happen at home or away from the office, and Ironwall understands that terrifying reality. If someone has a grievance against your company, the first place they're going to turn is Google. It can take about five minutes to find one of your executive's home addresses online. If that personal information is sitting on the open web, they are too easy to find. And they are unprotected. The team at Ironwall knows this better than anyone. They've protected some of the most targeted executives and individuals on the planet for almost two decades. And as a white glove enterprise security service, they protect your people with continuous personal data removal, proactive prevention tools, and emergency support. So when someone goes looking for your executives, Ironwall ensures that they hit a dead end. So here's what to do. Go to ironwall.com daily stoic fill out the form, request a free risk assessment, and their team will show you just how exposed your executives are, how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door. That's Ironwall.com Dailystoic Stop Online threats before they become real world attacks. And there's a link in the show notes. Okay, so there is this debate going on right now about the sort of the naval academies and also how you instruct what we would call warriors. And this sort of split, this is where maybe our work intersects with each other. This split between like, are we trying to create Athens or are we trying to create Sparta or the Athens Sparta map. Tell me about the those differences. And then where you think about it as a sort of a professor and a military thinker.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Yeah, this is in fact, we call it the Athens versus Sparta debate. And it is as old as the academies. It's as old as Athens and Sparta as Athens and Sparta, which is what should a warrior or a soldier or a sailor be? And this is tension between Athens, which is the mind, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and war, and Sparta, this society created only for war. And the tension there is when you get to west is, well, you have the military and you have the academic and which is gonna be more powerful. And at West Point for years and years, starting with Sylvanius Thayer, who was the father of the military academy, and he comes in and says it's going to be about academics. And he creates this modern sense which do away with the classics. Now it's math and science and natural philosophy, which is physics.

[Ryan Holiday]

Those are basically engineering schools.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Well, initially it's more about the sciences. And then the army comes and says, we want you to do engine there says, okay, now we'll do engineering as well. So then it becomes a great engineering school. In fact, before the Civil War, it's the only engineering school in the country. And so all those, those engineers, that's the top branch to do, go to do this. But then there's war that comes in. It says how much should we train them to be trained versus educate? And that every time there's a war, then that comes up. So World War I comes, guess what? They go down to one year. It almost becomes a finishing school for war. But then, then World War I ends quickly and they bring second lieutenants back to. So then the same thing happens in the World War II, goes down to three year program. But you know, it doesn't have to be a four year school. Sandhurst, the British equivalent is a one year finishing school. So what do you do with this? So this Athens versus Sparta debate. And of late Sparta's been winning.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[General Ty Sedgely]

And I, you know, I'm on the Athens side. I'm a history professor. So I think you can get that training elsewhere. In fact, training is better done elsewhere, but the focus tends to be more and more. And what happens is what, what loses in that. This is sleep. And if there's anything that this human being needs and every human being needs that you can't train your way out of is sleep.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I just think it's interesting because Eisenhower gets basically the Sparta model at West Point. Actually, he's an interesting example because he goes to a school that thinks it's academically based. It's pretending to be Athens, but it actually isn't. It's just cramming him full of facts and figures and getting them to memorize mathematical formulas. And then it's not until much later that the deficiencies of that education become clear and he's sort of tutored in the actual Athens model. And then I think it's so interesting because one of the greatest generals ever is actually not. Is. Is an Athenian in the sense that he understands history, psychology, human beings, relationships. He is a, a light touch, not a heavy hand. He's not Patton, although Patton's also very extremely educated. But he's not your stereotype of a warrior. And that's what allows him to operate as a grand strategist, which is how the war is won.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Totally agree. I mean, the more time you spend with Ike. You like Ike? I like Ike, yes. And the more time you spend with him. And listen, he's got his issues. It's not as though he doesn't. But the more time you spend with him, the more you realize his capacity, his intellect, his ability. One of the things I love about him is his ability to create teams and his ability to. Ability to create this grand alliance, which has never been done before. That has never been done. It wasn't done in World War I. And that's what's different about what he does in World War II. And he does this understanding World War I, because he's read about it deeply, the problems of World War I. And he understands these great. The great generals as well. He understands Grant, he understands Washington. And he lives up to that. I mean, that's the other thing is that he does that, and he knows what people can do. He understands what Patton's capacity is. He understands what Montgomery is. And, you know, a few of them he doesn't get. And he also has a great mentor as well, and George Marshall, who is a VMI graduate. But I think you are so right that this education at West Point, provided at that time, was memorized. Memorize, memorized. And we know that's just junk.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, in this Athens and Sparta debate, it's like, what's the goal? Right? It seems like there is this obsession, I think, politically right now with raising. It's like it's training to be, I don't want to say a middle manager, but it's not training to produce the Eisenhowers that you would need. Or the Stockdale I'm writing about is so surprising to people when I tell them that the Navy sends him to Stanford to get a degree in the humanities and he almost stays to get a PhD that seems frivolous or pointless. But actually, this is a really important part of the educational process because you don't want a warrior making decisions at the Pentagon or advising the president or serving as an ambassador to some country. You actually need this broad set of skills and understanding.

[General Ty Sedgely]

One of the ways that we describe that in the past is when you get to war, everything you do before you get to war, to war, you're building your bank. You're depositing intellect and energy into that bank, and you use it during war or in these really tough assignments. And that's what going to grad school is. So many of our finest leaders have all done that. They've all gone to grad school. I spent years in grad school because it then teaches you in this complex thing of war, allies, how to be a better leader on this grand scale. And remember, you know, where is America gonna fight Next? Well, for 50 years, we have gotten it. We have had the same thing. We've always gotten it wrong. We have never predicted where we're going to fight next. We have no idea. If you had told me, Pristina, Mogadishu, Talofer, Dammam, all these places where we went, I would never have been able to see them on a map. So you need somebody that can really think through these problems, and that's what the problem with our current administration is they're saying, listen, we want you to be fit. But the most important six inches on the battlefield isn't around the waist. It's between the ears.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Yeah. And this breadth of historical knowledge and insights and understanding into why humans do what they do is ultimately what leadership is about.

[General Ty Sedgely]

It is because war or peace either is a human activity undertaken by humans under the most complex and dangerous circumstances. And you've got to understand that. And the thing is, whether it's reading, and reading is the vicarious way of getting that to understand what others have done. The motto of the Department of History at West Point is wisdom through history. It doesn't teach you lessons, but it does give you wisdom over the longer stretch of doing it. Because the other thing about it is there's a million independent variables. When you go to war, it's not going to be just like this. And that's the thing about it. You just can't read the last war and think it's going to be that way again. But history informs and provides wisdom for that, for the next one.

[Ryan Holiday]

General Mattis has talked about this, that it's sort of morally unconscionable to learn by experience what others have already learned by experience. That to go, hey, I'm going to like, actually, the best place to learn this is on the battlefield. That may be so. But it's very expensive.

[General Ty Sedgely]

It is very expensive. And by the way, in that next way, your next war you're going to fight is guaranteed not to be like the last one. And that's the other thing. And the way you train is guaranteed not to be the next one. So you have to develop a flexibility of mind that comes with the broad reading of history and other disciplines as well. And that's the other thing about the military is we don't just send people to get degrees in history. It's in every single discipline. And this is what we decided to do after World War II, when we knew we were going to be a world power now. And what are you going to do? You're going to send your officers to get regular education throughout their career. So I did a year's worth of more training after I came in the Army. Then I did another training, my fourth year of service, another year. Then I start education at my eighth to ninth year, and then War College at your 20th year. And then in between there, many of us do grad school. So there is this punctuated education system throughout the military that military officers get. And we think and we know that it's better than just being in the dust at Fort Irwin or 29th Palms.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Just being a badass. If you think they should all just be badasses. There's almost a lack of curiosity about all the important positions all over the world that military officers and former military officers go on to hold. Whether they're an ambassador to a country or an advisor to a country, or they run for office or they serve in the Pentagon or they handle something in logistics like the, you're, you're training future leaders. Like I think maybe the Athens and Sparta debate is. And this is true, I think not just in the military, but you're, you're not just training to be soldiers, you're training leaders generally. And you want that education to be as far reaching as possible.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Right. And remember that the Department of Defense isn't a trillion dollar company. It spends a trillion dollars a year. Yeah, I mean it spends a trillion dollars a year and it is in almost every country in the world and it is preparing for war everywhere. Cause again, we have no idea what's gonna come next. So the level of complexity for that organization means you need people who are not, but who are bright and who have spent years dedicating their lives to becoming better and having more knowledge about this really complex subject.

[Ryan Holiday]

Does Patton sort of embody then the fusing of the Athens and the Sparta stuff? Because he is your sort of image of your soldier's soldier, but I don't think people understand how versed he was in the classics.

[General Ty Sedgely]

You're exactly right. I mean he goes to Fort Leavenworth is the Command General Staff College which is this year long education for captains majors, about your 10th year of service. He goes and he gets like number two or three in the class. By the way, he and Eisenhower were best buddies starting in like 1918. They were stationed together, they both wrote about tank warfare and then were told not to ever do it again because the conservatives in the organization said don't do it. So they became great friends and Patton gave his notes to Eisenhower. Eisenhower becomes number one in his class and as you said, Patton was reads everything. So I used to take my cadets at West Point to the West Point library and Patton's library is there.

[Ad Read Host 2]

Oh.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Oh my gosh, Ryan, it's so cool. So you go up there and his copy of Clausewitz is underlined in three different colors of pencils. And if you look at the outside spine, there's an R on the books, meaning red. Yes, yes, R on there. So I would take them in There, show them his copy of Clausewitz and say, here's what a professional is doing. He is really trying to figure this out. And. Right. He does the classic. So all those books are on them.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And you know the famous thing about Patton, how he thinks he's the reincarnated spirit of all these warriors. And the famous scene, it's in the movie where they're in Italy and he tells the story of this Roman battle, and he said, I was here as a boy. That actually did happen. Not he was there in Italy, but there's a scene where he's at one of the sites at the Battle of Wilderness, and he's describing it to this tour guide, and they get in a disagreement and then some man, like some old man intervenes and like, no, no, I was here. This is right. You could believe whatever you want. But I suspect that's just. He'd read so deeply. And what's interesting about Patton is he was dyslexic as a kid, and so most of these things were read to him first. So he kind of existed in this oral tradition almost like the ancients did. And that, I think it just became history, became real to him in a way that it was decidedly not even for Eisenhower, who had come to resent how rote and boring it was. Like to Patton, these myths and ideas were like part of his shared consciousness.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Yeah. Amazing. These generals are time. I think the other thing that's interesting about the movie is who is the person that is in the 1970 movie is the expert is Bradley. And Bradley, his star, has continued to decline over time. Patton's keeps going up, but so Bradley's. That movie makes Patton look a little crazier than he really is. To make Bradley, I think, look a little bit better. And Patton fired very few people. He was really great at managing humans as well. Fired very few people. He really had a great team, and people loved working for him. Bradley make one mistake and he fires you over and over again. So it was, like, scary to work for Bradley because he was always looking for somebody to blame. And Patton always made all those people under him look better.

[Ad Read Host 2]

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[General Ty Sedgely]

That would be crazy, Tammy. But you got surprisingly affordable renters insurance through geico, so it could be covered, giving you peace of mind.

[Ad Read Host 2]

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[Ad Read Host]

I love a story that ends well.

[General Ty Sedgely]

Next up, love stories. Are they all they're cracked up to be?

[Ad Read Host]

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