#21 LTC Paul Tanghe (Ret.)

Guest: Retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, former Professor of Military Science at Fordham University, member of the Board of Directors for the Explorers Club, and volunteer. 

General Norman Schwarzkopf Speech: https://youtu.be/8-aytw--YUY?si=1QymSex8JgCbF_fR

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This is episode 21 of Youthful Perspectives. I'm your host, Mason Bierbaum. My guest today is retired Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tangy. During his military service, Paul attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, was deployed to Iraq, South Korea, and Afghanistan, and served as professor of military science as Fordham University, among other distinguished ventures. Our conversation is centered around Paul's experience at West Point, the lessons he learned from being involved in volunteer organizations, and the importance of service both within and outside of the military. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I hope you do too. Here is Paul Tangy.

Upbringing and St. Thomas Academy

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Well, I usually like to start off by asking people just like a little overview of their upbringing. So could you tell me where you grew up and where you went to school? Aaron Ross Powell Sure.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I'm uh I grew born and raised in uh Twin Cities of Minnesota, uh Edina specifically. Um my parents moved to Edina in the early 70s when uh mom's born and raised in Richfield. My dad immigrated here from Belgium to work at the VA. And then after they got married, they did a stint in the Army, and when they came back, um they ended up uh moving out to Edyna where they both were my dad worked at Fort Fairview, Southell, and they raised my five brothers and I in Western Edina, going to Our Lady of Grace uh school, uh and then St. Thomas Academy.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. So because that's kind of how we first met was when I was talking to Tony about you guys going to St. Thomas Academy. How did that come about, you attending that school?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Aaron Ross Powell So I'm the youngest of six, and my oldest brother by the time I came along, I went where my older brothers went. I think it was probably more of a decision for my oldest brother, uh, but was influenced by uh the uh family had or my parents were friends with another Belgian family that had immigrated here, and their uh their son or their sons had gone to St. Thomas and they were an influence on my oldest brother going there.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Aaron Ross Powell Could you maybe give a summary for the audience on what St. Thomas Academy is for those who might be St.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Thomas Academy is uh an all-male military college prep Catholic school. Those are the kind of the four pillars of their identity. And you say military, it's not a military academy. They have they they come from a they were at one point a more traditional military academy. They still for sure have military aspects to the school, but it's not I say this from the perspective of a professional officer. There are like military academies, but St. Thomas is not one of them. It's a day school that uses the military traditions for their uniforms and for some of their student body organizations when you look at the history of Catholic high schools in the Twin Cities, um St. Thomas is one of those kind of original ones. It originally was part of the University of St. Thomas. Uh and then as uh a lot of the Catholic s high schools in the area kind of adapted to changing times by going coed, by dropping the military program, Cretan, for instance, uh I think Shaddock, uh maybe St. Thomas uh kept all of those things. And they've managed to adapt while holding on to some of those parts of their identity.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Aaron

Why Paul enrolled in West Point

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

And I'm assuming while you're at St. Thomas Academy, was this the the time you first considered joining the military, or was that even before then?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, I recognize the question. Uh not really. And that's why I stress that like it's it's not like a strict military academy. Uh I did not uh they do have a solid tradition of uh of pe of a handful of their graduates going into the academies, but I think that that tradition I I don't know. I have no idea what the specifics are, but I don't my sense is that it's not significantly different than any of the other uh prep schools in the area. Um I was torn at when I was time came to go to college. Growing up, I had always wanted to go to St. John's University, which is where two of my oldest brothers went. Uh and um but a friend was interested in West Point, and that kind of caught my attention. I I had also grown up as a big history buff, and so I was familiar with West Point from its place in military history. And I think if the chance to participate in something that you had grown up reading about, it was less that I wanted to be in the Army and more that I thought it was a neat opportunity to participate in something cool.

West Point History

SPEAKER_00 5:31

And actually my plan in going to West Point was the first two years at West Point, uh you can walk away with no questions asked. That's what I thought. I think in reality they will ask some questions. But you can walk away without owing any money for the first two years. Um my thought was that, oh, this is uh almost like a gap year. This is a way to go to college for a year for free and see something interesting, experience freshman year at West Point. Uh and then if it's not what I wanted, I can always come back home to Minnesota, which uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

And to enroll into West Point, you need some sort of an advocate. I don't know the technical term when it comes to that, but sometimes it's a a U.S. Senator, it's a represent- uh House rep.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. So the when West Point was formed in 1802. It's still very much if you've seen Hamilton animating some of the political discourse from early America, and you can imagine that you basically have two parties, you have the Federalists and the Antifederalists, and Federalists are calling for a stronger federal government, and the anti-federalists are opposed to that. And so you can see how creating a military academy to create professional officers, uh you'd assume that that was a Federalist project. Um, but in fact, it was Thomas Jefferson who created West Point. And so West Point comes out of this contested political time, and it comes from the recognition that during the Revolution and then in the ensuing security challenges of the first decade and a half of the country, there was a recognition that the U.S. military was dependent on foreign officers, on foreign professional officers, and particularly in the form of engineers, military engineering. And so just like today, talk about energy independence, et cetera, there was a concern about uh educational independence and not being reliant on foreign countries to send their officers to provide the technical expertise for the Army. So Thomas Jefferson creates West Point in 1802, but as with all political compromises, um where do you first where do you put it? They put it at West Point, New York, which was essentially an armory where they were or a depot where they were storing leftover equipment from the Revolution. And as a further check, because there is this fear that, well, if we create a body of professional officers, we don't want them all to come from one state. We don't want them all to be from Virginia, we don't want them all to be from New York. And so in order to ensure a representative distribution of the American military officers, the Army officers specifically, uh they set up a system whereby every member of Congress would be able to nominate a cadet. And then it was also there's probably a degree of political perk in that too. And that system continues to this day. Sometimes people hear it and they think that, well, you got to be like politically connected or know your congressman or anything like that. And that's not really true. It's more it's it's better to think of it, or it's more accurate to think of it as uh two parallel applications. You have to apply to the school, and then every member of Congress has their own application system. They all generally do similar things. And that what they usually actually do is they turn to they empower panels and boards uh from people in their district to interview people and then create a I mean and it's like two hoops. You got to get through both hoops in order to be offered an appointment. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And for

Jim Ramstad

SPEAKER_00 9:49

your hoops that you had to get through, who was your representative that Jim Ramstedt Jim Ramstead who uh the late Jim Ramsted and um he was longtime congressman from the area where I grew up. I had the good fortune to meet him when I was in high school once. He had done the American Legion Boys State program and then uh as well as Boys Nation, and uh which I also had was privileged to be able to do. And if there's a famous picture of JFK meeting or I'm sorry, Bill Clinton meeting JFK. Jim Rampstead is in that picture. Really? Jim Ramstead went to boy was in the same Boys Nation class as Bill Clinton. And uh when I went through that experience, uh Clinton hosted a reception for us at the White House, and Rampstead came to the reception as well. Uh and went to the reception uh and was with him, and he was uh explaining that uh Ramsted other people are about to meet uh JFK, and Bill Clinton kind of came in from the top rope and like jumped over the group to grab Bill uh JFK's hand, and that's how you have that famous picture. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

The good PR uh recognition right there on the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Ramstead pointed out if you look at the looks on the faces of everybody else, it's the looks it's the look of someone who was about to meet JFK, and then somebody comes through. I remember Ramstead telling Clinton the joke that if Clinton had had better manners in high school, that uh that they might be visiting Ramsstead at the White House. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's good. So you were at the White House in high school then, it sounds like just for that one uh event. It was cool. I think that's maybe part of what primed me to be interested in West Point was this awareness of these great American institutions that we all have the right to participate in, not necessarily the same opportunity, but the same right to participate in, and a desire to kind of see more of that. Aaron Ross Powell Jim Ramsted, too. It's too bad you can't interview him because he was you could often find him YZA's got this cool city-run uh cafe. It was called the Muni. I think it might have a different name, uh, but it's uh connected to the I think to their liquor store there. It's just like a basic burger diner place. But you could almost you could consistently find Jim Ramstead there on Saturday mornings having breakfast with his dad, I think. Um he would be a cool figure to look into if you're trying if you're interested in Minnesota politics and kind of what makes us uniquely Minnesotan politics.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Trevor Burrus Yeah, absolutely. I'm always down to further my nerdiness when it comes to Minnesota politics. I think it's uh it's cool to look into those figures that maybe aren't remembered household names, but back in their time they were uh important figures.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Aaron Ross Powell And Ramstead deserves to be remembered for a lot of his policy work, in particular with mental health advocacy.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Um kind of ahead of his time then, if that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Aaron Ross Powell You might say yeah. He was a Republican.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. Wow.

"R-Day"

SPEAKER_03 13:22

But so you get through those hoops when it comes to West Point. Can you walk me through your first experience showing up to West Point as a cadet? What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Aaron Ross Powell I don't remember it too much. It's uh they actually they just they call it our day, the reception day, and they're celebrate now. You watch the videos of old classes doing it. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. It's a very scripted uh what at the time it's designed to be a psychologically challenging event. Uh it's West Point's version of basic training. And uh the point of it is how do you take roughly a thousand people from across the country from a range of different experiences, and how do you um in inculcate, indoctrinate, et cetera, uh you know, new student orientation, but on turn to ten or turn to eleven. And uh by the end of that first day, uh you've been issued your dress uniforms and they they march everybody out and uh and you take the oath as a cadet or a member of the Corps of Cadets. Um it's a it's a striking transformation that happens just in that first 12 hours and then throughout that summer. Uh one of the funny things is you really do kind of forget about a lot of the details just because you are so stressed, this the the the stress of the overall experience. But you learn that there's 24 hours in a day, no one can physically hurt you. Right. As much as you might be fearful that somebody might physically hurt you, there's a rational part of you know that knows they actually can't.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Aaron Ross Powell Back in the day that wasn't the case.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

That's true. Yeah. Uh and uh and knowing that that uh that it's all just kind of a it's it's a game, it's an experience that you just you need to get through to the end of the day. And uh and you'll get through it. And over time, the you end up with forming You're doing it alongside your classmates. And planted in those early days are the seeds of lifelong friendships that like to this day it's twenty-six years later, and those are still some of my very closest friends in the world, are either in some cases classmates that I met on those first days and in those first weeks, or they're people that I shared that experience with. Not even people that are necessarily my classmates, but the the the consistency of that experience over time enables you to have to form friendships and connections with I think my oldest West Point friend is class of 58. Um you can talk about those shared experiences, and they are relatively relatively similar. It was probably harder when you did it.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine and you think uh 1958 try like 1858

Hazing's negative effect on leadership

SPEAKER_03 16:50

and uh the kind of the hazing culture that was unfortunately prevalent, it sounds like, at least from my understanding of the West Point past, that was a big part. Aaron Ross Powell It's so hazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

You know what do we mean by hazing? And the army defines hazing as uh as physical and psychological threats. Uh making people feel physically or psychologically threatened or unsafe based on their status in a c in an introductory class. I'm sure somebody's there's a a more concise definition, yeah. But it's basically whenever you when when you pick someone and as a basis of their association with a group that is entering an organization, when on the basis of that you make them feel physically or psychologically unsafe, that's hazing. And for a long time, hazing was how organizations brought people on board and integrated people in the team. But that theory of group integration is predicated on fear, on making people um relate to authority through a lens of fear. And we've learned as an army, I've learned my as an individual, that those types of uh onboarding processes lead to group dynamics that are and authority dynamics that are built around fear and control that are increasingly not appropriate for what we need military groups to be able to do. For sure they're not appropriate because they're in many cases against regulations and illegal, and that that's well that they should be, and it's good that our laws establish that people should be treated with dignity and respect at all times. Beyond that, I have also come to appreciate that in future conflict or even conflicts happening today, control is something that will be unreliable at best. And in order for our f military forces to continue to be the greatest forces in the world, I think it's important that they operate not through a theory of control, but rather through a theory of collaboration and mutual trust. And I realize that to some people those words sound like political correctness and like uh kind of loosey-goosey whatever. But it's one, I've seen the rationale for why mutual collaboration is better than control. But two, I've also experienced and I think most people with military experience would say that when units are at their best, they are operating from that place of collaboration rather than control.

West Point lessons

SPEAKER_03 20:30

And was this idea of collaboration something that was emphasized heavily at West Point? What were some of the valuable lessons that you learned at West Point during your time there? Because it was at 2000 to 2007.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Aaron Ross Powell I was thinking that from 2000 to 2004. Aaron Ross Powell Aaron Ross Powell So the Parts of that and that that idea about collaboration, it comes out in a theory that the Army formally embraced after that time, call it mission command, um, which to some degree there's some people who would say that we went too hard to it and we need to go back to more command and control. But what West Point does teach, I mean, one of the maxims of being a cadet is cooperate and graduate, and that uh it's less about your individual achievements and more about working together as a group. Um I think the biggest thing that West Point does give you is uh an ethical guide. The motto of West Point is duty, honor, country. And that sounds like you know, noble aspirational things, isn't it? Like, do people really believe it? Is it just a slogan? I remember watching a video of Schwartzkopf coming back from the first Golf War. And it's an inter you can probably find the video on YouTube. And there's a it's somewhat you can occasionally there's a few kind of articles written about how Schwartzkopf came to give this speech. But he talks about not knowing what to say to the cadets in his speech. And he's he's he's he's arrived, he's wearing his like desert uniform, it's right on the this great moment of kind of national celebration. They're celebrating at West Point, hit the victory of U.S. forces there. And he just feels like his speech isn't right, like it's just not connecting with what and shortly before he goes on stage, he just casts his speech aside and he just starts talking. And the speech that he gives, which is you know still resonant with me, um he talks about duty, honor, country, and he talks about believing it. And he emphatically says, believe it, believe it, believe it. And that is I think the biggest gift that West Point gives to people is to its graduates, not just to its graduates, to the country, is this idea that ethics can be truly lived and can truly guide your life choices. And not just in like an aspirational maybe, but when you walk around and when you see the buildings of West Point, when you feel the spirit of the place and you realize that for 200 years, this place has really it's a similar feeling to what you get at certain like religious sites of like oh people here really believe this. And this over 200 year old place exists and is the reality of what you see in front of you because for over two centuries people have truly believed this.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. I mean, I got goosebumps just thinking about that. And I haven't even been to West Point. I can only imagine how powerful that must be for you as someone who went through that program.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Aaron Powell Watch the Schwarzkopf video. It's good.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Aaron Ross Powell We'll have to put a link in the in the description of the video on or on the podcast on Spotify because yeah, that sounds like something worthy of viewing and gives some good perspective on top of that, too. Yeah. You

9/11

SPEAKER_03 24:53

said you were at West Point from 2000, 2004. Were you at West Point when 9-11 happened then?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Aaron Ross Powell I was. First hour. I just finished reading the book by Tom Clancy, Executive Decision, I think it was called. But in the book, there's a terrorist attack on the Capitol during State of the Union and the killer by flying airplanes into it. And I remember first hour I'd like to have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper. New York Times at the time I don't cadets are required to read the New York Times each day. So you go to the website, and I remember the headline being like something along the lines, a plane flies into World Trade Center, and trying to click on the headline, and there wasn't a hyperlink, it was just the words. And realizing that this was happening in real time, so we had an internal television network on our on our computers. It was related to usually at the time when you walked around West Point, this was like early adoption of technology, it had TVs everywhere with closed circuit TVs with uh like the color bars and the time down to the second. And all of West Point was synchronized to that clock that was displayed on there. And you know, if you're five seconds late or if you're on time, like those are meaningful distinctions in terms of like demerits and stuff. So you get really good at paying attention to the TV, which is usually on this, but we switch it over and start watching. I remember waking up my roommate was taking a post-breakfast nap and waking him up. And uh I was on the sailing team, and we had a we had a recent graduate. One of our cadets on the team had graduated, but for medical reasons was held back, uh was held back from going to the Army to finish some stuff at West Point. And he's a second lieutenant, like with without it without any training. So they assigned him to the you know, you just get odd jobs. But he was working in the Post Security Office. And I remember calling him and he w him saying over the phone, like, yeah, this is real, my boss is on the phone with the FBI, there's other planes that have been hijacked, they think West Point might be a threat. Uh then Thayer time, or that's what they call the time on the clock, Thayer time. The West Point academic system was founded by Sylvanus Thayer, and the main building is called Thayer Hall. And so Thayer time keeps ticking, and so it's time to go to class, so go to second-hour class. My second-hour class was American politics, and it was taught by Rob Gordon, who's an influential person on he had been as a first lieutenant, he had been Colin Powell's first aide-de-camp when Colin Powell was still a colonel, selected for promotion to general. And then Rob had been a White House fellow. He had worked on in the Clinton White House on the Committee for National Service, and was a played a key role in the creation of AmeriCorps. So he was just an amazing guy to learn American politics from, and really kind of could teach you the technical aspects of it without ever losing sight of the ideals for why the technic why the techniques matter. So had American politics class with him, and remember, he he just turned the TV on. He said, like the world's changing in front of us, and we're going to watch this. And lunch that day. So you go to lunch, and then there's this hour after lunch where you either will do military things or academic things. It switches off every every other day. And that day for my class, for the class 2004, was a dean that we call it it's either the Commandant's hour or the dean of academics hour. And it was a dean's hour. And it was the day when we were supposed to uh you don't pick your major until you don't start any of your electives at the time until junior year. So sophomore year is when you pick your major. And so it was the the dean's hour was all the departments had their open houses and you're supposed to walk around and figure out what you wanted to major in. But you start with this briefing in uh Robinson Auditorium, and the dean at the time was a brigadier general named Daniel Kaufman. Uh he was a veteran of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Actually, I'm wearing this shirt from them today. Unrelated to that. But he was a veteran of 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam, where he had been wounded. I believe he had lost part of his foot, and he still ran marathons. And at the time, in 2000, 2001, it was very rare to see someone in the army with a you wear your unit that you're assigned to on your left shoulder, and you wear the patch. If you served in a unit in combat, you can wear their patch on your right shoulder. But it was rare to see someone with a patch on the right shoulder because we hadn't been at war, with the exception of Desert Storm and Panama and some other small things. But Dan Kaufman had an 11th ACR patch from Vietnam that he wore on his right shoulder. And so he was this kind of like he stood out without saying anything because he he was this Vietnam veteran. And I remember him I remember his remarks, which were more or less verbatim. I remember him standing up and saying, ladies and gentlemen, your country's at war, and your job as cadets at West Point, your job during this war is the same as the cadets in 1991, and it's the same as the cadets in 1968, and it's the same as the cadets in 1950, and it's the same as the cadets in 1942, and it's the same as the cadets in 1918, it's the same as the cadets. And he goes all the way back to 1812, and he says, your job is to study and to prepare yourselves to lead men and women into combat, because you may well be asked to do that soon. And I remember you everyone's watching the news, watching the towers. I mean, we're 40 miles away from Ground Zero.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

And there are like armed guards on the the military police have come out and have they've locked the post down. There's there's all of this national crisis unfolding around you. And here's one of the most decorated warriors that you know standing in front of you saying, your job is to go to class. And I remember at the time, I mean, you did that, but thinking, like, ah, we're at West Point when all this stuff is happening. Uh and then realizing over time that like this wasn't going to end anytime soon and that we would all and the I remember the first times where cadets started to be killed in action after they graduated, and they would announce their names in the vessel. And the first time it happens, you hear it, you remember that. The first time it's a name of someone that you knew, you remember that.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

And then Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Yeah, I can imagine. I mean honestly, I can't imagine, because I've never been through something like that. But I would assume that's tough. Say let's put it lightly, when that experience happens for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

You realize that you're participating in I mean, my original motivation going to West Point was you wanted to participate in this great national institution. You realize that you're participating in it.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

And

First Deployment

SPEAKER_03 33:24

so after the days of early September 2001 come and go, you still have a couple more years left with your education there. Um was it where you got your first notice of deployment and that you realized you're going to be participating fully in that?

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Aaron Powell Sure. By the time I graduated in 2004, everybody was going. So you kind of assumed you know, like the sp I remember like spring break, you have like spring break Panama City t-shirts. Like t-shirts said like spring break at Baghdad or something like that. So by the time you graduated, and I don't think there was like a discrete thing. It's nothing like a draft notice. I think it's honestly more hearing the names of the graduates killed in action, and you in time realize that this is what we're all going to go and participate in this thing that's happening. So I graduate I graduated in 2004, became an armor officer. Uh just armor uh uh has kind of two distinct roles in the Army. We do reconnaissance and security operations, and then we also do uh tanks, armored vehicles. And uh my I wanted to go to Alaska for my first duty station. And you say like I want there's it's one of the few things where you have some agency over at West Point, of where it's like uh for the most part, you learn I mean everything is needs of the army. You can express your preferences, but at the end of the day, you the first word of the West Point motto is duty. Like it's we we're all here for service, and the needs of the army come first. And you learn that. And you genuinely learn that that when you think about these kind of life decisions, where I'm gonna live, what I'm gonna do, at the end of the day, it's the needs of the Army. The only time where like you get it your way on an Army post is at Burger King. And uh to a lesser extent, what job do you get to pick leaving West Point? And that's they build academic incentives into it by they take a list, they put you and your classmates on a list and they number you an order of merit list, and uh they start allocating those jobs from the top of the list. So if you're top list, you get more choice, if you're more towards the bottom, you get less choice. Good news is everybody gets to be an army officer, uh. regards where you're on the list. Um then they do once you're you get your specialty, like in my case, armor, then they take another list and then they go by where are the job openings and they they run through that as well. So I wanted to go to Alaska. Just seemed like a cool at the time they had kind of a new type of armored vehicle that was being introduced I thought would be cool to serve on. And uh at the same time, the army was transforming itself from a division - an army built around divisions, which are around 30,000 people, to an army that was built around brigades, which are around 5,000 people. And the main distinction in that is in an army that's built around divisions, if you want to move soldiers somewhere, you got to move them in 30,000 person blocks. And if you don't want all 30,000 to go, you can certainly just move 5,000 out of it, but you're now taking the full 30,000-person group offline in order to move that smaller group. So an army that was built around brigades would be more modular. You could do more things with it. But with that, there were capabilities like cavalry, what I did, reconnaissance and security forces that we used to keep at the division level and uh at that 30,000-person group that we now want to have those at the 5,000. So um so with that, as they're transforming the Army, which is while we are conducting these combat operations, you can imagine the organizational turmoil with this. And uh it was towards the tail end of my armor officer basic course, kind of like Flight School for Tanks. At the tail end of that course in Kentucky, so this is probably around November, December 2004, uh a number of my classmates and I got orders from the Army diverting us to other assignments in order to support modularity, and in particular trying to being diverted into light infantry units that were getting ready to go to Iraq. Um I would I actually got diversion orders to Fort Campbell, which is outside of Nashville. And I'm I'm more of a northerner than a southerner, like I like the winter. And I was sitting next to one of my classmates who was believed from Alabama, and he got diversion orders to Fort Drum, New York, right on the Canadian border. And he felt about as excited as going to a place with winter as I was going to a place with that kind of summer. And so we we traded. But that was like yeah, in hindsight, that was an early lesson in the needs of the army. And you can be upset about getting orders like that, but then like you can either be upset about it, you're going there regardless of whether you're happy or upset. And I'm grateful that they let me switch because I had a great time at Fort Drum.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

So that was the first time you get your deployment notice. I don't know what the technical term is for it, but we realized what was going to be coming down the pipe for informally we call it a patch chart.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Trevor Burrus. And it's showing when our units when were when are units slated to deploy. And so I got to Fort Drum in January 2005 and was told uh basically right away. We were told you're not going to Alaska, you're going to Fort Drum because they have an urgent shortage of lieutenants. And I got there and reported in to my first reported in to 10th Mountain Division, and they're like, what are you doing here? We're full. We don't need any more people. And so somewhere between and you realize just the scale of the Army. It's like somewhere around one and a half million people between active duty reserves and National Guard. Just the scale of the Army. You as an individual really don't matter that much. But uh reporting in and they're like the the the squadron I was assigned to, the squadron commander said, we're full. I don't need any more people. Uh and then his his name was Mark Meadows. And I remember him saying, we're full. There's no job here for you. Uh there were two other squadrons. One was from uh and he said that they're all full. We don't there's there's no vacancies anywhere. But what he did say was his squad or he said one squadron is just coming back from Iraq right now, so they're gonna be in the U.S. for about a year training, and then they'll go back. At the time, you generally came home for a year before going back for a year. A year over there, a year back. Then uh he said there was another squadron that was getting ready to go to Afghanistan in about six months, and that his squadron was going to Iraq in about six months. Uh and so he he actually, I think it was like on a Wednesday or something, and he was like, go take the rest of the week off. Think about what you want to do. Do you want to be here in New York for a year training before you go? Do you want to go to Afghanistan in about six months, or do you want to come with me to uh to Iraq in about six months? And why don't you go take the rest of the week off and think about it? And so then I went and I spent like a week, I mean, kind of with an existential question there of what do I want to do?

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Aaron Powell It's like ultimate crossroad of life right there.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Trevor Burrus Exactly. And uh he had a particular way of saying that question, and he just had this aura about how like this command presence. Uh and said, I don't I don't really know there's so much uncertainty in the situation right now, but I I had confidence in the way that that guy treated me. And and in hindsight, like in him walking me through that staffing decision uh and really empowering me, uh or at least making me feel empowered. And so I went back and said that I'd want to go to Iraq with him. So at the time we were doing I misspoke earlier when I said one year there, one year back. It was more like one year there, like six months

The family toll

SPEAKER_00 43:17

back, um which when you're 21, as I'm older now and I look back at that and appreciating the stresses that we put on families to do that. I was single in 22, so um sure you you want to enjoy life here, but not really appreciating what a toll that was putting on soldiers and on their family members in particular. For the soldiers, it's kind of, you know, you just have to go where you're told. It's the stress, the challenges that placed on families that were left behind with their loved ones being gone more than they were present.

unknown 43:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

And it wasn't like everyone was on board with Soldiers going to Iraq too. I mean, certainly as time's gone on, it's become a lot more divisive. But I I feel like back in World War II, it seems like there was probably more of uh more unity around, you know, that the that sort of thing happening. I'm sure the families were still supportive within the community, but it was probably even more complicated feelings coming about with the whole, you know, at the top level leadership, um, kind of the origins of that mission, you know how that was coming about.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Aaron Ross Powell It's an interesting point of you know, we didn't live through World War II. Hard to appreciate like what were the what were the good faith critical objections to U.S. military participation in World War II. Obviously, I mean my dad grew up in a German-occupied village. I'm glad that that happened. I will say that

Reconciling the justification for the Iraq War

SPEAKER_00 45:00

I 22-year-old me was a lot less skeptical about the claims of around why we were in Iraq, why we were in Afghanistan. And that was part of what part of the challenge of what I've grappled with as a veteran, speaking purely for myself, but grappling with looking back on the justifications that were given and the questions of should we have been there at all. And I think it seems pretty clear that I think Bush acted in good faith, but it seems pretty clear that we got we made those decisions wrongly, that we should not have been like that Iraq Iraqi freedom was a war that we should not have fought. And we did fight it. And I don't This is a hard thing to try to explain to others or to even to myself, but I don't regret serving in that conflict. I do regret that our country asked soldiers to serve in that conflict.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

Aaron Ross Powell Could you try unpacking that a little more? Because I've always been fascinated by that idea, especially with the Iraq war and veterans who have served in that and the fact that you sacrificed so much out in that conflict zone, and then you look back now, and it's a majority of Americans view it as uh as uh a war we shouldn't have fought, like you said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

You have to disentangle individual service with the war itself and with the national enterprise. Ulysses Grant was one of my heroes from growing up. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to go to West Point. And I think when you look at some of his writings about the Mexican-American War and where I mean he explicitly says that he believes that part of the American Civil War was moral retribution for the for the wrongness of the war in Mexico. That he didn't use the words karma, but he he he he uh so I think that there is this is actually probably part of appreciating the institution of the US military is that our soldiers uh separating, differentiating individual service with the national political decisions about where we fight. I think what's what can be worrisome is you hope that the leaders in Congress and in the executive branch who are making decisions around war appreciate that their service members are going to go regardless. They're going to go out of loyalty to the country and to not spend that loyalty lightly. And for sure, like you look at some I think some national leaders convey an appreciation for that more than others. And it's uh you know, an open question is less and less people serve in the military, which I think is a it's a good thing. We should be using the military less. There's other forms of public service that are equally valid. I listened to one of your I was preparing for this, and I listened to one of your previous interviews with the Henneback County Social Worker, the Andrea? The social worker at the library. And man, if we as a country devoted a tenth the amount of resources that we do, that we just blindly throw at the military, if we gave some of those resources to people like Andrea and to the social workers and to our libraries, I think unquestionably we would our communities would be better, America would be better, the world would probably be better. So I don't want to say that I think that I wish that we had more appreciation for more forms of public service than just the kind that happens in uniform with a gun. I also worry that as less and less people have that experience of serving in uniform with a gun, that our elected leaders become more and more cavalier about the costs of some of their national security decisions.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

Especially now when you've less and less of those leaders have served themselves. I feel like back in the day, that was one theory people have proposed on why there was so much bipartisan legislation in like the 1960s was because all those guys, I mean, mostly guys at the time served in World War II, maybe not necessarily together, but for a common cause. And so it was bigger than whether the you had a D next to your name or an R next to your name. And on the other side of that, like you're saying, when you don't have that experience, you don't realize the amount of pressure and strain that can put on the individual and their families, the ability to invoke that power, which I mean the United States military is one of the most powerful entities in the world. It's a lot easier to push that button to put that machine in gear.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah. In Jefferson Hall, the library at West Point, where there are no social workers. I just think about that, though. That's actually not really true, because a lot of what Andrea was describing she does as a social worker is very similar to what like a good sergeant does in the Army. In fact, my very last non-Christian officer in charge, the last sergeant that I was partnered with before I retired, he is himself retired and is using his GI Bill to get a master's in social work to be a social worker. So that's like an example of how there's an idea coming out of this podcast. We should be encouraging more vets to become social workers. Absolutely. My West Point class, there's I have three classmates who are working in Congress, two Republicans, one Democrat. At uh our reunion last year, I was at one point standing uh standing in line at the bar with some of them or with from both sides of the aisle. There is the opportunity. I think what's meaningful if there is more bipartisan cooperation among veterans, I would think that that comes from the shared experiences which you could get through other forms of service rather than just military service. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I would also say, though, that being a veteran is no guarantee that you're you know I won't say names, but I can think of veterans from post-9-11 who seem just as cavalier as anybody with the wielding of national power. But in that in the Jefferson Library, uh there is a quote from Thomas Jefferson as you're walking out about our national power, the paradox that national power is the less you use it, the greater it is.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

If a leader was yelling all the time, eventually the subordinates wouldn't pay attention to that yelling. But if they use that sparingly and they yell once, like in a very critical moment, man, you're gonna get everyone's attention right there. And hopefully that yelling's used for for good. But I can see where he's coming from, though. Yeah. And uh at the same time, too, when you use that ability that the U.S. has when it comes to its military, the more you use it, the more likely you are to misuse it, too. Aaron Ross Powell Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Yeah. And that's certainly and I mean the misuse of the U.S. military has also probably authentically been there from the beginning. I mean, you can read the American Revolution, dumb things that the Army did then. It's probably the nature of when you're asking people to do military conflict is inherently challenging. And when you ask human beings to do it, they're gonna do dumb things. Leaders are gonna make poor decisions. I mean, it's I mean, if they would be surprising if they didn't, right? If if good decisions were commonplace in military conflict, that would be unusual. So uh maybe that is something else that the military teaches veterans is to just tolerate a certain level of BS as part of the cost of the enterprise. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

I know I was listening to John Meachum, who's a famous author, American history author, uh he's giving a talk promoting his new book that he just released. Um he was saying how in a democracy, democratic republic that the United States is made up of humans that are fallible beings, it's within the nature of our government to make mistakes because we are made up of fallible beings. And like you're saying, it that's kind of how you expect us to not be perfect. I mean, that's the idea of the more perfect union, I feel like. It's uh you're striving for an unattainable goal. But in the act of striving for it, ideally you're improving the lot of everyone else involved. But he's like, if we can get 41 or 51 percent of the decisions you make are the right ones, that's pretty damn good if we can keep doing that. And I think throughout American history, that number has been 60 percent correct. Maybe it's been 30 percent correct. You know, I don't know what percent we're at right now. Obviously, you can't really empirically prove that, but

Listening in good faith

SPEAKER_03 56:30

I think that's a good idea to keep that in mind. Keeps you humbled at the same time when it comes to that. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

And I find myself spending a lot of my time with organizations that are not paying me. And uh but with volunteer organizations. So um I'm active with a with a community that I really treasure called the Explorers Club that promotes scientific investigation of land, sea, air, and space, and the conservation thereof. I'm active with my West Point class, with our volunteer or with our class association. We have a related charity. My West Point class has a charitable fund that I'm active with. I'm in an American Legion Post back in New York City at the New York Athletic Club, American Legion Post 754. Uh and one thing that I appreciate about these activities is they are arenas of participation. They're areas to participate with others who are your equals. Like we're all members. We're all and we are and we are sharing in the governance of this space that we share. This space where we're all equals. And that means that you have a voice, but it also means you have to listen to everyone else's voice. And when you particularly when you become not just a member, but take on leadership roles in there. And it this is certainly something that I learned from decision-making in the military of how to make decisions collaboratively, how to listen in good faith to what other people are saying, and then to kind of think about what is the decision at hand, and what decision should I make having listened in good faith to the others with whom I share this space with. And that's something that I don't I'm really grateful for seeing it in my life. I wish I wonder how much that happens at scale across America. Part of it, like you look at like Congress and you're like, why? Like do these people listen to each other? Are they listening in good faith? And they are our representatives. What are we doing about that? You know.

SPEAKER_03 59:41

Um I think I've talked to a state senator that I've had on the podcast before, but he said that when it comes to Minnesota politics, whatever mostly not mo not everything, but like a significant amount of what's set on the Minnesota Senate floor is just uh for campaign ads and you know donation contribution efforts. It's like if that's the case, it's like, well, what's the point then of even having the ability to speak on the out on the floor if you're just blowing, you know, you're just like hearing your own sound of your own voice, sort of deal. And it's unfortunate that I don't know if that's uh like an institutional problem, it probably is. Is that a cultural issue? Is that a personal issue for the specific representative? I don't know. But that act of listening in good faith, I I would hope that's something that is the stress in education, maybe indirectly, but man, if that was stressed directly in education growing up, that would probably certainly seem like it would do a lot more good than harm.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

One group that I'm in has kind of a or had has I remember a conversation among two colleagues in that group, and one of them was saying that we should have all the we should work all these conversations out offline, outside of the meeting, and that the meeting should we should we shouldn't be navigating conflict during the meeting. And then my other colleague was saying, like, we should no, we should be working this stuff out under the stadium lights of the meeting itself. And I was thinking about that, I appreciated that they both clearly stated like their different preferences here. Uh but I was thinking about what's really good for the organization. And for one, one challenge to volunteer participation is people have limited time. And whenever we are trying to get people to be involved and participate in our groups, you know, it's a crowded sector. There's this bagel shop around the corner for where I used to live that said, in a city of in when I live my when I was stationed in New York City, in a city of so many choices, thank you for choosing us. And for us, those of us who lead volunteer organizations, what are we doing to make people choose us to spend their time? And part of that is how do we kind of organize ourselves? And if you have this expectation that all conflict is going to get worked off offline, well, let's go back to Hamilton, like the room where it happens. People want to be in the room where it happens. And if we're going to have these unofficial rooms where it happens and then just bring the outcome to the public stage as a fay accompli, I don't know that that's really good for democracy or for people feeling involved. And so I think part of it is how do we structure the community associations that we're with so that we're not scared of conflict happening on the floor? Think if Congress actually had meaningful debates.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:13

Like a Stephen Douglas A. Blinken debate. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Right. Or where it's an interesting question to ask an American politics scholar, when did meaningful floor debate end, if it ever existed?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:30

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: That would be a good academic journal to read right there, paper to read.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Trevor Burrus Because do you remember when uh when they couldn't gavel in a speaker, when they couldn't elect a speaker at the beginning of this Congress?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:41

Aaron Ross Powell Was that when like McCarthy had gotten ousted and they they couldn't get it took them how many ever ballots or votes to Yeah Trevor Burrus But there was a suspension because there's no speaker, there's suspension of the rules.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

And so C-SPAN could film the floor, which they're normally not allowed to do. And C-SPAN viewership went went like up because they're showing more interest, they're showing what actually happens in the Congress.

Should politics be boring?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

But yeah, maybe that like it's less about making America great again and make Congress interesting again.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

Aaron Ross Powell Well then at the same time, it's almost like maybe you want to make politics boring again, too, though. Because when they make it interesting, you kind of get these cast of characters that like the limelight at the same time. Trevor Burrus Potentially.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

Although I think politics is I think I'm going to disagree with you on that one, Mason. Because I think that politics boring politics would reflect a boring life. And we do not we don't live in a boring world. We don't live in we don't have boring lives. I have a eight-year-old British niece. It's a hilarious British accent. And she was visiting recently and she said, I'm bored. And I said, only boring people are bored. And she said back to me in her little British voice, well, you're a boring person. We should try not to be boring people. We certainly don't live in a boring world, and our politics should not be boring either. But they should be interesting in all of the in legitimately interesting ways. And I think part of what I worry about is that we've so locked people out of meaningful participation in the politics that animate their lives that we've just we've we've dumbed it down to just circuses and sideshows. Whereas we should be it's probably going to sound like a political scientist living in another world, but we should be interested in budgets and we should be interested in Bills. And we should be interested in what our representatives are actually doing in the decisions that impact our lives. Those are not boring decisions. Those are not there should not be boring debate around it. And we should have government that enables us as citizens to meaningfully participate

Increasing civic engagement

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

in it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

How do we go about causing more people to become interested and engaged in this politics, too? I mean, you talk about you should be interested in bills. I think for two of us who have studied political science, it's easier said than done. How do we get the 18-year-old who is addicted to TikTok and doom scrolls for 10 hours a day? How do you get them interested in politics, you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

So there's I would say two things. Two things come to mind on that. One is we should stress and uh your interview with Steve Simon where he was talking about you know don't just vote because it's your duty to vote. Vote because you have an interest at stake. Let's move the conversation beyond voting to participate. Voting is a bare minimum. I actually like there was uh should voting be mandatory. It is in a lot of other democracies.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Australia, I think, might be one of the countries. I forget there are there are a few, though. There are a few.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

And there's there's interesting debate and discussions about mandatory voting, but l let's just look beyond voting to participation. There are a range - we all live in a web of community with and uh a key - an integral part of community is civic organizations, civic associations. We should be encouraging more people to participate in the associations around their lives, not just from a sense of duty, although I do think you have a duty, but also from a sense of interest that your neighborhood association, your volunteer associations or volunteer groups, um things that happen in your building. And I know that there's a lot of people who say, I don't want to get involved with things like this because I don't like the politics of it. That's why you should get involved. Like the politics are a feature and not a bug. And if the politics are noxious and you are a member of that organization, like that's on you. Fix it. Fix it or leave the organization. But participating, learning about Robert's rules, as like nerdy as this sounds, and I realize I'm probably losing half the audience, if not other one. Is it Robert Byrd, right? Uh is it like the Germaine or Robert's rules, Major General Henry Roberts wrote the definitive guide to parliamentary procedure that's followed in the United States. And uh he was a veteran of the American Civil War. And I think that's not a coincidence. There's a reason why someone who lived through the Civil War felt it was so important to try to establish a common framework of rules, of institutions for communities to follow, to govern themselves. And you learn by going through there to listen to others in good faith. Debate. Debate is not arguing and trying to score points. It's raising a question and then sharing. So the first thing I'd say is I'd encourage people to get involved. Find one part of your community that has some type of a governing board and get involved with that. It will teach you humility, it will give you voice over your life that people are influencing your lives, regardless of whether or not you participate. And I think it will open their eyes to that. But I also hope that it will help kind of like reclaim politics. Again, like politics in America is a feature and not a bug of being an American. And to the extent that we have normalized this idea that politics is dirty, uh the vice president last week saying that Watergate would have just been a 12-hour story.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:05

Absolutely not. Like Watergate was a crime. The difference between then and now was we had politicians with a sense of shame who had we had politicians who believe that politics should be good. Who didn't expect politics to be dirty. And I think in that comment that Watergate was an Watergate was fine, is a statement that politics is dirty and should be dirty, and we should accept that it's dirty. I reject that. And I think that if more Americans participated in local civic associations, be they that you know related to your the physical community you live in, uh maybe it's your church, maybe it's a volunteer group. But I think if more people participated in those things, they would realize that it doesn't have to be dirty.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:16

And in fact, we don't want it to

Lowering the age to vote

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

be I think uh an interesting idea when it comes to this. I'd like to propose this idea to you and see what your thoughts are. What if we had a constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age to 16? Therefore, most Americans, the first time they vote could be in high school, coinciding with their ideally their civics class that they're required to take. Do you think that could be another step in the right direction in enhancing civic engagement? And that first election sometimes can be the hardest to know what hoops you're going through and uh where your precinct is, where you're supposed to vote, you know, all the little minute rules that come with that. Do you think that could be a step in the right direction? What are your thoughts when it comes to that idea?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

Aaron Ross Powell It's an interesting idea. The voting age threshold is arbitrary, and different countries different systems have different ages for when you can vote. For sure, ours being 18. Um that that is tied to military service.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:36

Uh and I'll interject one thing, too, before you continue to answer. I know I don't know about you when you were growing up, but I had my first job when I was 15, so I was getting taxed, and technically I did not have the ability to the time old, the 250-year-old idea of taxation without representation.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

Aaron Ross Powell So I would say that it's a good it's a it's a it's a good question that what is the optimal voting age for a body? I think that what that voting age should be should be a function of the body that it's set for. So if the body we're talking about is the United States government, what should be the age to participate in voting? Um I think a constitutional amendment would be very tricky. Yeah. Which is why I would incline more to hard to change the Constitution, easy to get involved in volunteering, and in participating in a local association. That is something that I would guess most associations need more volunteers. I mentioned earlier in the interview my friend West Point class of 1958. I met him because I went to a West a the annual alumni dinner for the West Point Society of Washington Puget Sound, and I started talking with him. And after after that dinner, he was like, Do you want to join the board? We could use some young blood. I think that's generally true of most groups. We could use we could use some young blood. And you know if you're 16, you might not be old enough to vote. You're certainly old enough to participate. And I would encourage Yeah. If you're 16 or 17, and you're thinking, I wish I could vote, there's something you can do about that, and that's get involved right now. Get involved with the political campaign. I think I was 17 when I started volunteering for my first political campaign. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:55

As was I. Yeah. I couldn't even vote in the election, but certainly knocking doors for it nonetheless. Um

The US military's loyalty to the Constitution

SPEAKER_03 1:16:01

I see we got 10 minutes left on our time here, and obviously we weren't able to get to the whole military career that you have. I think we wouldn't have been able to do it justice anyways with the time restraints that we had. I was curious, though, on one question, and this is kind of a big question here. How much faith do you have in the institutional integrity of the U.S. military to remain loyal to the Constitution? What do you mean by that? I think with the current talk about the current political climate and uh the things that have gone up that have come up within the recent years of politics, you know, and the current way that the executive branch is acting, um the way that some rights have been trying kind of trampled on. You see what happened with Operation Metro Surge and everything. I know that's not the military, but I think institutional norms, it seems like, are in a fragile, maybe in some cases unprecedented place right now. Yeah. And I think one thing that is keeping the glue to the system is the institutional integrity of the U.S. military.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

Yeah. I mean with the Metro Surge stuff, that was partly what like every Minnesotan, I should say, like a lot of Minnesotans the horror that you felt at watching our tax dollars, our tax dollar-funded agents. Like ICE agents work for us. They work for you and me. We pay taxes. That is our money that is being used to terrorize our communities. And it's being done for transparently cruel reasons. And I felt an additional layer of professional disgust because ICE agents aren't supposed to be military. They're law enfor- They're not even law enforcement, they're civil enforcement. They present themselves as law enforcement and they present themselves as military. You take one of those ICE thugs and put him next to a soldier, and it's hard to tell them apart. But you c you can tell them apart if you put them next to the soldiers that I served in Iraq and Afghanistan with, you could tell us apart by how we treated people. You could tell us apart by how we wore our uniforms, little things like tucking in your boot laces, things that you learned freshman year at West Point. But more importantly, how you treat people. And I know that we're not always that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had their shameful moments, but by and large, American soldiers there acted with honor and with decency, unlike what we saw the federal agents of Metro Surge acting. So although they were trying to present themselves like soldiers, they weren't soldiers. They were thugs. And that angered me as a Minnesotan, that angered me as a taxpayer, that angered me as a professional officer. So it's not directly addressing a question. Will the U.S. military professionalism hold during this moment of this moment of pressing against the institutions of the government? For sure there have been steps taken by the administration to keep the military from holding, getting rid of judge advocate generals across the military, firing senior officers without cause, and in a way that appears to be targeted against certain social classes, targeting senior officers based on their previous working relationships with other officers that the administration deems to be bad. Like if you worked for General Milley, if you were a senior person working for General Millie, good luck. The professionalism of the U.S. military is being eroded from within. Will it hold, which is your question? I'm not sure that this is unprecedented. There has always I mean Meriwether Lewis got his job as an Army officer before leading Lewis and Clark through going back to that Federalist, anti-federalist time when West Point was created. Lewis was not a West Point graduate because he kind of predates West Point, but he was a political appointee. But something interesting happened in that moment around like the Lewis and Clark era, where the Adams administration would appoint Army officers, then the Jeff so the Federalists appointed Army officers, then Jefferson appoints, and they're both appointing friendly officers. Somehow during that, an independent professional military ethic emerges where officers look past the reason why they were appointed and focus themselves on duty, honor, country. So what do I think will happen? I hope that there will be enough officers for whom who believe in duty, honor, and country more than they believe in whatever political narrative they hear going. And more than they believe in loyalty to an individual politician.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:58

Who knows who comes down in the future. Hope that that constant stays a constant here on out.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:04

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. And I think that Yeah. I think what we can all because I you know as a veteran and as people who are not in the military, we can do if that question alarms you, and I think it should alarm a lot of people, what can you do about it? I go back to like participate. Don't just vote, participate.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:37

As Teddy Roosevelt said, get action.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:40

Yeah. And don't expect the military, don't make the military the defining the definition of national service. We should find ways to serve yourself, find ways that you yourself can serve your community by participating and value the forms of service that are tangibly making your community better, the social workers, the home health care aides, the school teachers the metro transit bus drivers. We live in a web of civic associations that are being led by people who should be leading those associations for us, and are being staffed by people who, yes, they're just like all of us trying to get through a day, but they're also working for the public. And I think I feel this particular like as July 4th rolls around. I feel it's around Veterans Day. It's nice that people appreciate my form of service. I wish they would appreciate the other forms of service, both in being grateful to our Peace Corps volunteers or social workers, the home health care aid that's working at minimum wage that our family members rely on for care. And by participating in forms of service

250th Anniversary

SPEAKER_00 1:25:25

yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:27

Yeah, I think that's a good thing to reflect on as we come around to the 250th anniversary of America is uh the past 250 years were not perfect, but man, compared to what came before that, it wasn't too bad. And hopefully the future 250 years that come in the future are even better.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

Yeah, the 250th is I have mixed feelings around the celebration. How are you celebrating it? It's in the in the deep south recently and giant pickup truck drives past me with a Trump paraphernalia on it and Confederate flag. I'm sure this guy's gonna celebrate 250. Freedom 250. I don't know what he's celebrating. I think if you want to celebrate 250th, if you want to celebrate 250 years of American independence, be independent. And independence was this idea that we govern ourselves. And that means that we participate in our governance and that we participate in the public service military service, sure, sometimes. Hopefully less and less. What about all the other forms of public service where we need good people to help govern ourselves?

Closing Remarks

SPEAKER_03 1:27:16

I think it's a good spot to leave it, leave it there. Paul, thank you for your time. Thank you for your service, but thank you for getting the message out to inspire other people that go pursue their own form of service themselves. I think that's uh that's a good message to leave with. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:31

Aaron Ross Powell Thanks for having me on. I appreciate what you are trying to do here, Mason. I appreciate the uh all the interviews that you've done up to this, the stories you're leading out of people, helping people connect with uh some of the things you're studying. Uh uh it's it's impressive. Thank you for doing this, and thanks for the opportunity to be here. Yeah, thank

Outro

SPEAKER_00 1:27:53

you.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:53

Thank you for listening to Youthful Perspectives. Though we weren't able to cover every topic we hoped to discuss, I still appreciated Paul's view on listening in good faith and the lessons it can serve us in the many facets of life. I also appreciated his belief that boring politics would reflect a boring democracy, and therefore, politics should be interesting and dynamic because humans are both. But what I appreciated most was Paul's insistence on becoming involved in your community through volunteering. The lessons that can be learned, achievements that can be obtained, and the perspectives that can be gained through volunteer work are something I've found unique and hope to further in my future. With Paul's advice in mind, I hope you do too. Until next time, this is Mason Bierbaum, signing off.