YouSaid · the spoken record

Seth Moulton

lines on the record
82
first
2017-09-18
most recent
2017-09-18
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1
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  1. “An above ground cemetery by and large. I had some underground mausoleums, but many of the most of the graves are, you have to actually walk over them. So the walk five feet in any one direction, you're going up and down over these graves, sometimes falling into them. It was a very difficult place to be in combat, and it was brutal, very, very close range, throwing grenades back and forth. And it was tough and it was hard to keep the Marines alive. It was also extremely hot. About 130 degrees.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “But the Iraqi people loved it because they'd never seen this before. So it was this heady, optimistic time when we felt like we probably shouldn't have invaded. In fact, the lieutenants and I took bets before when we were down in Kuwait before we invaded and my money was on not invading because I said this is crazy. We're not Bush isn't actually going to do this. But he did it. We invaded. And then we just said look, Saddam has gone. Let's try to give the Iraqi people a choice. Let's try to give Iraqi people freedom and democracy like we have. So then I returned in 2004 and was shocked to see how bad things had gotten, how much the insurgency had taken over. And within the first few days, I found myself in far worse combat than I'd seen. in the cemetery in Najof.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And it was sort of like a news talk show. We were trying to teach the Iraqis freedom of the press and why freedom of the press in an independent press is important to a democracy. And so Mohammed and I would go around and do investigative journalism on things like the electricity situation, all the Iraqis were frustrated that they didn't have electricity. We tried to get to the bottom of it and said, you know, this may be what the government's telling you, but this is the truth. And we talked to the people who were at the power plants and at the distribution centers. And the Iraqi people love this. I mean, look, our production standards were pathetic. But the Iraqi, I didn't know how to host a TV show. I just copied what I saw back home.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I came back to Iraq in two thousand four, and when I had left things were actually going pretty well. In fact, the last thing that I did in Iraq in two thousand three after the invasion was co host a TV show. It was called Molton and Mohammed.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Are universal. And that's something that I won't forget. So I don't think we should go around the world imposing our system of government or risking American lives to change everything. But I do think that freedom, liberty, equality, these are universal human values. And just because someone grows up in Iraq doesn't mean that he or she doesn't want them to.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Well, in a sense, obviously so, because it hasn't worked. But let me answer your question. I think it is hubris to say that we're going to go impose our system of government on whoever we like, but it is not wrong to think that Iraqi people don't want freedom and liberty and self-determination as well. I think those are universal human values, and in some ways I appreciate them much more as an American having lived for years in a country where people don't have freedom, where they don't believe that they can influence their government. One of the strange things about Iraq in two thousand three is people just didn't believe that they could actually have a fair election and make a difference in their world because they were just so frightened by Saddam and his dictatorship. And when we gave them that taste of freedom, you saw that those values...”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yes, and it was disillusioning because you want to be able to trust your leaders. You want to be able to trust. Now, you might say, well, just it was wrong intelligence or whatever, but at the end of the day, you want to believe in your mission. You want to believe in what you're trying to do. And don't think the Marines weren't asking me. You know, even the more conservative guys and whatnot were saying, you know, What the hell are we doing here, sir? What's going on? And it's hard to be a leader in that position where you're not making the decision to invade, but you are asking young Americans to risk their lives.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “But it didn't take long to figure out for us on the ground that they needed jobs. It's like Bill Clinton. You know, it's the economy stupid. If you're just going to put hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men out of work, what are they going to do? And so for those of us who were really on the ground, who were talking to these soldiers, who were these guys who'd been fighting us a week before and now we're actually sharing stories about what our common military experience was, it became pretty obvious quite quickly that we ought to pay them. And it was these bureaucrats in Baghdad that President Bush had sent over with no qualifications whatsoever to run an occupation or a country who were screwing things up.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Well, I mean, it was one of many disastrous decisions. And, you know, one of my favorite quotes about that time in Iraq is from Ambassador Barbara Bodin, who's got this amazing history. She's a wonderful public servant. And she said, you know, we knew that there were 500 ways to do this wrong and one way to do it right, but we didn't expect to try all 500. And this was one of the major mistakes that was made. Now, let me tell you, let me be honest. 23, 24 something year old second lieutenant. I remember when they first told us that we ought to pay the Iraqi army and my initial reaction was, why the hell would we pay these guys? We just beat them. I mean, isn't that the way that this is supposed to work?”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “We were greeted as liberators. It's one of the very few things that the vice president Was write about. And that's one of the strange things that the invasion of Iraq was ill-conceived. It was mismanaged. I don't think anyone looks back on it now and says it was a good idea. But there was this moment in 2003 when we came in and liberated the Iraqi people from Saddam. Before everything went downhill, before we had no plan for the occupation, before we didn't do a good job of dealing with the insurgency, all these things we screwed up. There was this moment when the Iraqi people had a taste of freedom. And I have never seen a more hopeful, optimistic, and excited place on Earth than Iraq two thousand three, but we couldn't make it last.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “You wore chemical suits. We thought we were going to get gassed one of the first reports we had coming over the border was that a bunch of Marines had been killed by By nerve agent, obviously it proved a false report. But yes, I mean, all the intelligence that we were told that we were given, you know, this wasn't just some intelligence sham given to the American people and they told us the truth. No, I mean, All these things they told us were that we'd be hit with chemical weapons. We had to practice injecting ourselves with atropine to counter the nerve agent. I mean, it was a frightening situation.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I laid off that. A little bit into the invasion outside of Nazarea, we got into our first firefight. Know, and I guess they thought I did a good job. And that night, that very night, I overheard a Marine in my platoon talking to another Marine in the company, to a guy in another platoon. He said, you know, my platoon commander went to Harvard. Where did yours go? So in that instant he was proud of the fact that I'd worked hard and I'd gotten myself into a good school, but I had to prove myself first. I had to prove that I was someone that could be trusted. And you know what? It kind of brings me back to today when I think a lot of people in today's economy just feel like they're not respected for the jobs they do because they don't have a piece of paper that says Harvard or Yale or Princeton or whatever on their wall. I never asked a marina my platoon to do a job because of the degree he had.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “has no practical experience and might get us killed. I worked hard to earn their trust, but I don't think it really changed until our first firefighter.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well, gosh, I mean, there's so much to say about it. It was an extraordinary experience. I didn't expect to be invading a sovereign country as a 23-year-old, and I certainly didn't expect to have the responsibility of keeping 36 young Americans alive when an awful lot of people were trying to kill us. But I was proud to be there. I was uncertain about the war, the whole justification for it seemed pretty shaky at best, and a lot of the Marines were skeptical too, and sometimes they would say, you know, Jesus, what are we doing here? But how it always just gets back to the fact that we were there to serve the country, and we were there so that nobody had to go in our place. And we had to do a good job to keep each other alive. I think one of the interesting things about that experience was being someone who had gone to Harvard. People were skeptical of me. The Marines were skeptical. They weren't sure that they could trust me because they figured, oh, this is probably some book smart kid who...”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I was in the invasion. I was in the first company in Marines into Baghdad in two thousand three as a grunt, as the lowest officer, a second lieutenant, an infantry platoon commander, and I had a platoon of young Marines who were some of the best Americans I've ever met.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “You know, I think most people choose the Marines because they have an uncle who's a Marine or a father or something like that or other people have some special connection to the Army or the Navy. I really didn't have any of that. And so I talk to a lot of people and it was an army lieutenant colonel who'd done just about everything you could want to do in the Army. He was in the Rangers. He was in the special forces. He was in some of the conflicts in the 1980s, like down in Panama. And yet he said he just had such undying respect for the Marine Corps that I should sign up to be a Marine. So I took his advice.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And I think the point is that look, we were friends because we share a lot of values. And he ultimately decided to serve for the same reasons. But when you're in an environment where you just don't know anybody who makes this choice, it becomes a hard thing to do. And after he saw me start my time in the Marines and enjoy it and be proud of it, it made it a lot more accessible decision for him to serve in the Army.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “In fact, there was a friend, a really good friend in college who used to get breakfast with me almost every day, and we would have political debates. He was a little more conservative than I am. But the only time that he got angry at me, and I mean furious, I mean slammed his tray down and said, that is Stupid. He used a few more colorful terms and walked out He said, that's fucking stupid. And he was talking about my decision to serve in the Marines. He just thought I was wasting my life. And after September 11th, he signed up for the army.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I did, but I felt proud that I had made the decision to serve at a time when Americans were lining up outside of recruiting stations because the attacks had proven to them that serving in the military is a good thing. I was proud of the fact that I didn't need september eleventh to know that I should serve the country. And you know, I also had a lot of friends who went to New York after Harvard, people who went to work on Wall Street or for big firms. And they actually witnessed these attacks firsthand. I was up literally on a railroad track crew in the White Mountains of New Hampshire when the attack happened, about as far away from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan as you could get. And yet my friends were there witnessing it firsthand, but then couldn't do anything about it. I was the one person in a position to actually do something about it, to fight back. And some of my friends who didn't understand my decision to serve at all”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Right. In fact, I remember sitting down with Reverend Gomes in his office in the spring of 2001. And he said to me, you know, Seth, I don't love the fact that you've chosen the Marines as your way to serve, but I think you're making the decision for the right reasons. I had given him all my justifications for why this is what I wanted to do. And then he added at the end, he said, you know, I'm just glad there's not a war going on because you'd probably get yourself killed. In the next five years over the course of my four deployments were pretty tough for him because I think he remembered those words and of course a few months after that discussion we found ourselves in a war.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Well, I think it was both. I think every parent has a healthy concern if a son or daughter wants to go into the military, of course. This was before the war, though. No, I understand. I wanted to ask you about that”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “He was a big influence on my life, and he talked a lot about how you can go to Harvard and have all this opportunity, and you can believe in service. And in fact, you can even do things to support other people who serve, but you really ought to go out yourself and find a way to give back. And I looked at my life and I said, you know, I've really never done all that much to serve. I certainly never done anything to serve the country. And so I looked at different options. I looked at options that my parents would have preferred, like serving in the Peace Corps or teaching overseas. But at the end of the day, I had so much respect for these eighteen, nineteen-year-old kids who put their lives on the line for our country, that I decided you know what, if they're willing to do that, then I should do it too.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Having a little moral correction at the end of the week on Sunday morning was sometimes a good thing after a long Saturday night.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Listening to him made me a better person, and I think that it's good to have some moral guideposts when you're in college. God knows I wasn't the perfect college kid and sometimes got myself into trouble. I think you want to be the perfect kid.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Is that right? I did. And so I was just sort of involved in music at the church. And I went not out of a religious obligation to go to church every Sunday, but because I felt like listening to him”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “You know, my high school motto is non sibi, which is Latin for not for self. So it's a school that talks a lot about service. But it was at Harvard where I think I was really influenced by one person in particular, and that was the minister in the college church, the Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes, who was sort of a contradiction in terms. I mean, an American Baptist minister, an African-American, but also gay. He came out of the closet, and he was one of the most popular preachers in America, but also this real guidepost for the university, someone that people of all faiths would turn to during times of moral crisis. And he became a very close mentor to me.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “But no, I mean, that's the thing that I grew up in a generation where there are a lot of my parents, parents of our friends had been opposed to the Vietnam War, or some of them even served in the military but essentially did so to avoid having to go to Vietnam. Of course, there were some who were proud to serve there too, but there was this general perception, I think, growing up that the military. Not a place where you went to have a successful career, shall we say?”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Used to be. It used to be that, I mean, in World War I, they dug trench lines on the lawn at Andover. So the kids could practice trench warfare, and they sent a small detachment of Andover kids who were too young to be allowed to be soldiers, but they were ambulance drivers, and they went over to France with a faculty member, with a teacher. But they were working.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I'm a member of Congress still paying his college loans. So the bottom line is I got tremendous opportunities. And I'm, I think, a product of the American dream. I didn't grow up fabulously wealthy. I didn't have a trust fund or anything like that. I didn't have family connections to politics. I think the first congressman that my parents met is me. But I was able to run for office and earn people's votes, and now I'm a member of Congress in my thirties and trying to serve the country again.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “By many American standards. I mean, it was a small town. I was far from the richest kid, but I wasn't the poorest kid either.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “That's right. I mean, I think my mom would look at my dad and say he was a bit conservative for her, but they both went to Brown in the late 60s. I mean, they were adamantly against the Vietnam War, and they couldn't understand why I would have any interest in the military whatsoever when I said that I wanted to serve.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Well, I mean, I think like most American families, we have some different political perspectives around the dinner table.”

    2017-09-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 173 - Rep. Seth Moulton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source