Top 66 Stanley A. McChrystal Quotes

We are a nation of innovators and problem-solvers who sparked revolutions in democratic government, civil rights, communications, flight, rural electrification and technology. We are a country defined by ideals now in need of rescue.

One of the big takeaways from Iraq was that you have to not lose confidence in what you are doing. We were able to go to the edge of the abyss without losing hope.

Public broadcasting makes our nation smarter, stronger and, yes, safer.

I think life is hard at the combat outposts, and anything that distracts us from supporting them, in my mind, is something that we shouldn’t do.

When I arrived in the summer of 2009 to command the war in Afghanistan, I entered an effort that was failing. Many Afghans, some ISAF coalition members, and much of the American public had lost confidence in both the trajectory of the war and our ability to correct it.

With my resignation, I… left unfulfilled commitments I made to many comrades in the fight, commitments I hold sacred. My service did not end as I would have wished.

We want to make the insurgents come to us. Make them be the aggressors. What I want to do is get on the inside looking out – instead of being on the outside looking in.

Public television works hard to engage young learners and build the skills needed for a jump-start on life. We need our youngest to be curious, resilient and empathetic, and prepared for the jobs of the future.

When I was a lieutenant in Special Forces many many years ago, I thought I was getting fat. And I started running, and I started running distance, which I enjoyed.

In our society, I see public media as a lever. It pushes people by elevating them and their sights. It brings them into more thinking and understanding, and it brings us together.

We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people and groups is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided.

By nature, I tended to trust people and was typically open and transparent… But such transparency would go astray when others saw us out of context or when I gave trust to those few who were unworthy of it.

The eight years of war since 9/11 had meant several Christmases away from home for most of these men. For soldiers at war, there’s comforting continuity in the traditions and inevitability of Christmas.

I’m a believer in the Afghan people, so I support an increase in forces there.

Our bureaucracy had excelled at compartmentalizing intelligence – we had a ‘need to know’ system – but by 2004, it was impossible to foresee what elements of our organization would and would not need to know a given piece of information.

What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world. The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes… is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who’ve never seen one or seen the effects of one.

Over my career, I’d watched senior leader visits have unintended negative consequences. Typically, schedules were unrealistically overloaded and were modified during the visit to cancel parts of the plan.

I had known Colonel Charlie Flynn since he was a lieutenant 23 years earlier, and I remembered how his first child, Molly, had been born while Charlie was deployed to the first Gulf War.

In my life as a soldier and citizen, I have seen time and time again that inaction has dire consequences.

Caution and cynicism are safe, but soldiers don’t want to follow cautious cynics.

A year of service has the power to bring young people together from different races, ethnicities, incomes, faiths, and political backgrounds to work on pressing problems facing U.S. society today.

We need to defend against weaknesses within and enemies without, using the tools of civil society and hard power. We don’t have to pick one over the other.

America needs a big idea that plays to its strength. It should look to national service.

I think my biggest achievement was being part of a team of outstanding, entrepreneurial military leaders and civilians who helped change the way in which America fights by transforming a global special operations task force – Task Force 714 – that I commanded.

I resolved to try to steer clear of politics. That wasn’t easy.

Americans enjoy the exciting, cinematic vision of a squad of muscle-bound Goliath boasting Olympian speed, strength, and precision – a group whose collective success is the inevitable consequence of the individual strengths of its members and the masterful planning of a visionary commander.

Tensions and violence in cities across America are reminders of how quickly communities can erupt with an absence of social trust.

What I’m trying to do is teach people how to actually get individuals in organizations to do the kinds of things to make a difference. It starts with not just studying the mechanics but really understanding how people operate.

I think, at the end of the day, you do better when you tend toward being transparent, even though there’s some risk.

Wars often begin with enthusiastic vigor but typically settle into costly, dirty business characterized for soldiers by fear, frustration, and loneliness.

I find that if the day is terrible but I worked out, at the end of the day I can go, ‘Well, I had a good workout’. Almost no matter what happens.

There is no avoiding the realities of the information age. Its effects manifest differently in different sectors, but the drivers of speed and interdependence will impact us all. Organizations that continue to use 20th-century tools in today’s complex environment do so at their own peril.

Strength is leading when you just don’t want to lead.

The military does very well taking average people and making them very good leaders.

My dad was always the soldier I wanted to be.

Trust is an amazing commodity. The Afghan people often talk to me about having to develop trust in America, because they believe that we deserted them in 1990 and 1991.

One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts.

I think with the beginning of any political administration, you have to build trust, and it takes time.

To this day, I am saddened by Ranger Tillman’s death, as I am for the loss of every service member I served with, and for the pain such losses cause each family.

Many leaders are tempted to lead like a chess master, striving to control every move, when they should be leading like gardeners, creating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates.

We are alarmed that a known or suspected terrorist can go to a federally licensed firearms dealer where background checks are conducted, pass that background check, legally purchase a firearm, and walk out the door.

How we present ourselves matters a lot, and that’s every American, not just at the senior levels.

We could do good things in Afghanistan for the next 100 years and fail.

In every relationship, there are two perspectives to it.

We should get to the business of providing at least one million opportunities each year for young Americans to spend a service year with peers who are different from them – by race, ethnicity, income, politics and religious belief.

I spent a career carrying typically either an M16 or an M4 Carbine. An M4 Carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 mm at about 3000 feet per second.

I can’t sculpt. But if I were a sculptor, as you start to get something that actually looks like what you want, then it starts to be fun. That’s the way I find writing.

Any war or conflict you enter where you are likely to lose more Americans and expend more treasure is something worthy of very detailed debate. There ought to be a lot of skepticism. There ought to be a lot of discussion.

The challenge that we faced with the arrival of the Obama administration is, they didn’t really have time to build trust before they had to make big, difficult decisions.

If every soldier is authorized to make one mistake, then we lose the war.

You’re going to find out who your friends are. Anything that happens in your life is one of those challenges. It may not be at the level of celebrity, but everybody’s going to travel that road.

Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity.

What I really want are students who want to partner with other people, to be part of an organization and to influence people so that they can accomplish things that the organization would not have accomplished otherwise.

My very identity as a soldier came to an abrupt end. I’d been soldiering as long as I’d been shaving. Suddenly I’d been told I could no longer soldier, and it felt as though no one really cared if I ever shaved again.

When I became commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, I was leading thousands of individuals, from Special Forces to the broader interagency effort. I quickly realized that while we had the most best and most effective operators and small teams in the world, we were unable to scale.

You can get knocked down, and it hurts and it leaves scars. But if you’re a leader, the people you’ve counted on will help you up. And if you’re a leader, the people who count on you need you on your feet.

As our leaders in Washington confront tough decisions about our budget priorities, I urge them to continue federal funding for public broadcasting.

In combat operations in places like Afghanistan, we often confronted the specter of dangerous people with powerful weapons who were a threat to their community and to our soldiers. Our aim was to quickly determine who in that community was a legitimate actor who could be trusted with a firearm and who was not.

Empowering, cultivating, and ultimately serving those who follow you will unlock massive potential within your organization, allowing you to solve for problems in real time.

Public, noncommercial broadcasting is also giving kids social-emotional skills like persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military, the institution where I spent most of my career.

A fundamental principle that I learned in my career, and a principle that my consulting company McChrystal Group helps American civilian companies to adopt, is that winning units and organizations ensure that the time they actually spend – daily, weekly, and yearly – must hew closely to their priorities.

I go back and think of President Kennedy, who had a military service background, but he comes into the presidency, and he’s faced with a decision on the Bay of Pigs, with the C.I.A. and the military giving him data, and it turns out very badly.

If who you were was entirely based upon the position you were in or the headlines you got in the newspaper, or you had essentially subcontracted out your self-worth to the judgments of others, then you’re going to be like tumbleweed. You’re going to be blown.

Military leaders, many of whom were students of counterinsurgency, recognized the dangers of an incremental escalation and the historical lesson that ‘trailing’ an insurgency typically condemned counterinsurgents to failure.

Defeat the Taliban. Secure the population.

I came to believe that a leader isn’t good because they’re right; they’re good because they’re willing to learn and to trust.