Hello, everybody and welcome to The Great America Show.

It's great to have you with us on this beautiful day in America.

An interesting morning, start to the morning, I should say, for Pete Higgseth and President Trump.

Pete Higsteth gathered some of the top members of the U.S. military to the Marine Base in Quantico, Virginia, joined by President Trump, where he

addressed the new vision going forward for the U.S. military and all of the top-ranking officials,

and boy, was it a barn burner.

Speech. Today is about people, and it's about culture. The topic today is about the nature of ourselves.

Because no plan, no program, no reform, no formation will ultimately succeed

unless we have the right people and the right culture at the War Department.

If I've learned one core lesson in my eight months in this job,

it's that personnel is policy.

Personnel is policy.

The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders

committed to the warfighting culture of the department.

Not perfect leaders, good leaders, competent, qualified, professional,

agile, aggressive, innovative, risk-taking, apolitical, faithful to their oath and to the

Constitution. Eugene Sledge in his World War II memoir wrote, quote, War is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste.

Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it.

The only redeeming factors are my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.

In combat, there are thousands of variables, as I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan,

and as so many of you did in so many more places. Leaders can only control about three of them. You control how

well you're trained, mostly how well you're equipped, and the last variable is how well you lead.

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