YouSaid · the spoken record

Mark Milley

lines on the record: 27
first: 2021-11-15
most recent: 2021-11-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I'll opt out of that one, David. That's like asking me to say, who do you love more, your son or your daughter? So I think leaders come in all kinds of forms. And oh, by the way, they don't even have to wear a uniform. I think you get great leaders in all walks of life and that serve this country in many, many different ways, whether they're nurses and doctors, a cops and firemen, no matter who they are, whether they're like yourself as a financier and a philanthropist. There's leaders that come in all shapes and sizes and stripes throughout the country. And many of those are in uniform, and I'm very, very proud of the generals and admirals that are currently serving.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anything like that? I have no idea. I haven't given it an ounce of thought to tell you the truth. I've got a full-time 24-7 job and busy as a bee every single day. So I actually haven't given an ounce of thought.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say that we are the world's number one Capability in cyberspace. But I would also tell you that China and Russia are very, very good, as well as many other countries. In terms of defense, when the Internet and the cyber world first developed, people weren't thinking of it as a domain of war. They weren't thinking of it in terms of setting up architectures that were robust and resilient for defense. Those days are gone now, so years ago we started working on that, and we have a long ways to go. But we need to make our critical infrastructure, our financial systems, for example, our electrical systems and many, many other pieces of our national economy, much more resilient to cyber tech because our adversaries are very aggressive in cyberspace.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“North Korea, we're always paying attention to North Korea because that's a country that's extraordinarily well armed. They've got 70% of their military is arrayed within striking range of the demilitarized zone. Seoul itself is only 27 miles from the demilitarized zone. It's under the missile envelope of North Korea. And the regime of North Korea is a brutal, vicious, tough regime, very aggressive, and it's led by an individual, it's very difficult to figure out. They're always doing provocations over the course of time, whether it's missiles or other things. So North Korea is something that we always are watching very closely. Our intent in North Korea or China or Russia, we want to maintain a military capability and a diplomatic level of effort to deter war. We don't want any conflict. We want to deter war, but if deterrence fails, we're determined to fulfill in the case of South Korea, our treaty obligations with South Korea.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are clearly experimenting and testing and developing technologies to include hypersonics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and a whole wide range. Now, if you take a step back, what we're in history-wise, is we're in one of the most significant changes in what I call the character of war. But today with the introduction of precision munitions, the ability to see all over the world, artificial intelligence, robotics, hypersonics, all of these things together, this is an enormous change in the character of war, and we're going to have to adjust our military going forward.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What you saw, and I don't want to get too much into the classification of what we saw, but what we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning. I think I saw in some of the newspapers they used the term Sputnik moment. I don't know if it's quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it's very close to that. So it's a very significant technological event that occurred or test that occurred by the Chinese. And it has all of our attention. And that's just one other. That's just one weapon system. The Chinese military capabilities are much greater than that. They're expanding rapidly in space, in cyber, and then in the traditional domains of land, sea, and air. And they have gone from a peasant-based infantry army that was very, very large in 1979 to a very capable military that covers all”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very significant military capabilities. North Korea, RAN is still there. Terrorists are going to be around for quite a while. But I think China is clearly the most significant geostrategic threat we face.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's China. And I've said that publicly many times. I think as we look to the future, and I think we are living in a historical epoch, actually, where we're seeing the rise of a country that is unlike something we've seen probably ever before. And it's one of the great historical pivot points, I think, that we've ever witnessed, which is the rise of China. From the reforms of 1979 in Deng Xiaoping up till today, which is, I guess that's what, 41, 42 years or so, four decades, they've had an incredible economic run. And with that, they've developed a military that's really significant. As we go forward over the next 10, 20, 25 years, there's no question in my mind that the biggest geostrategic challenge to the United States is going to be China. I have no doubt at all. Russia is important, not unimportant at all. Russia has...”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, my mother passed away in the 90s, so I would have been a major, I guess, at the time. My father did. My father lived to see me be a general. And my father was always proud of our service, or my service. And he talked to me about his experiences many, many times. But look, he was a kid. He was 18, 19, 20, 21 when the war ended, hit the beach, best friends killed, just saw some unbelievably intense battles. And he and I talked about his experiences and my experiences frequently later in his life. But he was always very proud. He loved America, loved the country, and loved those in uniform.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My father actually was pretty upset. My mother, very religious, she accepted things and sort of the Lord will be with you sort of attitude. But my dad, who had seen a lot of combat in World War II, certainly wasn't keen on his son being in combat.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First combat was Panama for me in 1989, but you can lose your life in a lot of ways in the military. The military is a very dangerous occupation, even when you're not in combat. So whether it's in training or in combat, our soldiers and our sailors, air, marines, they're sacrificing a lot every single day, day in and day out, 24-7, to keep this country safe. So losing your life is something that I think everyone wearing a uniform has to come to grips with. It's not just combat, but for me the first time in combat was Panama in 1989.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I decided to take it in small chunks. I really enjoyed the military. I was in the infantry and in special forces, and I wanted to stay through company command, and that's captain level and see how that worked out. And then once I was a captain and stayed through major, it was just taking small chunks. I never had a long-range plan whatsoever, actually, for my personal career in the military, got married along the way, had children, but I've never looked back, never had a regret because I've loved the military, mostly about the people that I've served with.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, for sure. So I grew up in a neighborhood that emphasized patriotism and the opportunity that this country was an amazing country that you have opportunities that are not available elsewhere. So I was early on, I decided that I did want to serve. I wanted to be in the NHL, but I wanted to serve my country as well. So when I went to school, There was an opportunity to join ROTC. And I did that. So I played hockey, joined ROTC, and tried to study once in a while. And in the ROTC program, I was attracted to it. Again, I thought, I never thought I'd make a career in the military. I thought I'd come in and do my four years. I had a scholarship, do my four years, and then get out and move on, as you say.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Broke my jar in three different places, lost four teeth, and probably got more than 100 stitches in my face. I have a face for radio,”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought starting out I could go to the NHL and I quickly learned that the competitiveness of college hockey was probably not, the NHL probably wasn't in my feature, but I was okay. I was a steady player and I was decent, but certainly not a star”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not at all. No, neither one of my parents went to college and we grew up in a very working class neighborhood. And my dad never made much money at all. My mother worked steadily the entire time, which was very rare in those days. And they emphasized sports and education. And I was very fortunate, went to a Catholic grammar school, which emphasized some really good education, had some decent grades, and had an opportunity to go to the school called Belmont Hill, which had a great hockey program, and I played for a great coach, and I got recruited by that and played for that high school. Real great opportunity.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, my dad and mother were both in the Navy actually. My dad was a Navy corpsman. And then when he finished the corpsman training, he went into the, he was assigned to the 4th Marine Division. So he was a Navy Corpsman, 4th Marine Division, did the assault landings that Kualjalina Toll, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima Sard, an awful lot of combat grew up, Somerville, Massachusetts, graduated Somerville High School, and then from high school right into the Navy to be a corpsman. And my mother, she graduated from St. Mary's High School in Winchester, Massachusetts, and she went right into the Navy as well, also into the medical corps, and she served out at a hospital in Seattle taking care of the wounded coming back from the Pacific. Very proud of their service. Both of them have passed on, but that generation was very special.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Airplanes massing on the airfield. Some of them were in the wheel wells. It was very tragic. And then at the tail end, we had an incident where a suicide bomber went up to a patrol or a perimeter manned by Marines and killed 13 of our 11 Marines and a soldier and a Navy corpsman. And that was a tactical event that happened that has strategic consequences.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All that went relatively smoothly without many hiccups. And that was going on really for quite a while, probably the better part of a year. And that was going pretty well. So the NEO is the piece that you're talking about, the non-combatant evacuation. That is an operation where we ran 6,000 troops, some of which were prepositioned in the Middle East in the event of that contingency, some of which came from continental United States. And we deployed them very, very rapidly, took control of an airfield, the Kabul International Airfield, in a hostile environment. And we did that eight and a half time zones away. We set up 27 intermediate staging bases around the world. And in a very short period of time, less than three weeks, we were evacuating 124,000 people. The first two days, first 48 hours of that, was very dramatic. People were hanging off.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a few things that could have been done better. One is the intelligence piece You know, an army that was on paper, 350,000, it maybe it came in at 250, no one's actually 100% sure of the number, I suppose. But an army and a police force that size and a government that collapses, literally collapses in 11 days, that was a surprise. So that's something that we need to figure out. We need to figure out how and why that happened. It almost sounds like a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point study, but it's something that we need to sort out. And why is it we didn't see that? I think that's really important. Another one I think is the timing of our response. So we had collapsed most of our military and most of the NATO allies by the middle of July.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll let the January 6th Commission and all the various investigations do all the postmortems on it. It's obvious to me that the Capitol was breached. It was a very significant event. One of the most significant events in recent history. But I'll let the historians and the commissions and the investigators all sort through all that.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely. I found out very, very quickly as I looked forward and I saw the press being set up. I realized it was a political event and I got out of the way. And I regret that then and I made comments about it. Some people think that that's an okay thing to be walking with the president sort of thing. I don't. Walking with the president is fine. But if it's a strictly political event and that was, and it's not the president, it's me. The uniform shouldn't be there. We have a long tradition going way, way back of an apolitical military. And we in uniform must make every effort to remain apolitical, not be involved in the actual domestic politics of the United States. And that was a moment where I realized what was happening and I broke away. And it's important that I broke away. And it's important that I apologize publicly for it so that those in uniform know the standard.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, in fact, I'm very lucky to have met my wife. And we were married 1985, and she's been with me through thick and thin the entire time. She's an incredible woman. She's a nurse, still practices as a nurse. She keeps me grounded in both my son and daughter keep me grounded”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I knew when I went over there that I was interviewing to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and SACUR and any other position that the president deemed necessary. The first question President Trump said to me or the first comment he said was you're here to interview to be the chairman of the Joint Chief Staff. It was myself and then White House Chief of Staff Kelly and the president. We had about an hour-long conversation and at the end of it he said thank you very much and the following day he called me and made the offer to have me be his chairman. And all of us serve at the pleasure of the president. So every year asked for any duty position as a soldier you execute the will of the president.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, typically they don't, but I would say that I am one of the advisors. The chairman's job is to be the chairman of a body, a group called the Joint Chiefs of Staff, consisting of the chiefs of each of the services, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, and the National Guard as well. And so the Joint Chiefs as a body, what I do is I represent their views to include dissenting opinions. But at any time, any one of those joint chiefs, every one of them by law is considered an independent advisor to the president. Any one of them can invoke their right to go talk to the president about a certain topic. In addition to that, the combatant commanders, the field commanders, if you will, they also provide their advice, their best military advice, or what some would call considered military advice to the president, and they should and can and do all the time. So I am one of several advisors. I'm in the law, it's called the principal military advisor, but not”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By law, the chairman of the Joint Chief Staff is an advisor, an advisor to the President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, and what used to be called the Homeland Security Council. And it's strictly an advisory role. You're not in the chain of command, the chain of command is the president to the Secretary of Defense, to the combatant commanders, and or the secretaries of the military departments. So the job is strictly advisory, but at the same time, you're not in the chain of command. You are in the chain of communication. So routine communications between the President, Secretary of Defense, and the combatant commanders typically goes through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. So you're very much involved, but you have no decision authority. You don't make decisions per se. You advise the President, Sec.Def, and the others on their decisions that they will make.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For us, and I would argue that for all of us in uniform, you know, we swear an oath, and that oath is to the Constitution, and we're sworn to protect and support and defend it against our enemies foreign and domestic. We don't take an oath to an individual, a king, a queen, a tribe, a religion or any of that. We take an oath to an idea, the idea that's America, and that idea is expressed in the documents that you see here, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And that's a solemn oath. And I and those that came before me and those that will come after me, we swear that oath that we're willing to sacrifice everything to protect and defend that document, the idea that's America.”
2021-11-15 · The David Rubenstein Show · Gen. Mark Milley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source