Army’s top general explains why soldiers are willing to pay ultimate sacrifice for freedom

The top general in the U.S. Army stood in front of a large crowd of mostly civilian business and civic leaders Tuesday morning and talked about leadership.

But Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Army’s 39th chief of staff, put the context of leadership into a powerful history lesson. Milley set the stage by saying that under his personal command, 242 soldiers have died since Sept. 11, 2001.

“Many of them within arm’s distance of me,” he said.

With that kind of human sacrifice, a leader has to be committed to the cause and purpose of an organization, Milley said.

“For us in the Army, what does that mean?’ he asked the more than 1,100 people attending the Jim Blanchard Forum at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center. “In our business — or in the Navy, Air Force, Marines, etc. — we are potentially giving up our lives, literally, the last full measure of devotion or, we are asking our subordinates to give up their lives.”

Milley said he has often asked himself why this is so.

“For me, it goes back to our oath,” he said. “We in the military take an oath of allegiance. Same oath that the president, Supreme Court, Congress and many other officials take. We are the only military in the world — and there are about 190 or so countries in the world — that does not take an oath to a king, a queen, a dictator, a president. We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe or a piece of dirt. The very core essence of the Army is that we are committed to you, the citizens. We are willing to die, to give our life, for an idea.”

It’s a powerful idea, Milley said.

“It’s an idea that’s embedded in a document in Washington, D.C., the Constitution,” he said. “That’s an incredible thought when you think about it — that we are willing to die for an idea. And it’s a very, very powerful idea. It’s an idea we are hated for, we Americans. The Nazis hated us. The Soviet Communists hated us. Al-Qaida, ISIS. The Taliban. They hate us, not necessarily for who you are, but what you stand for — this idea.”

And that idea has brought down tyrannies, dictatorships and has been emulated around the world, Milley said.

“It was an idea that was long in coming,” he said. “It first came to my knowledge somewhere around 1215 in a little field outside of London. The nobles were a little mad at King John and they wanted a say in their government. They were so keen on being told what to do by the king, so they sort of rebelled. But it took from 1215 all the way to 1776 with a lot of writing and philosophy in between before this idea became operationalized in the country we call the United States. ”

What is this imperfect idea that is so powerful that men and women like Milley are willing to die for, Milley asked?

“No matter who you are, whether you are male or a female, whether you are gay or straight, black or white, or Asian or Indian, no matter what the color of your skin is, it doesn’t matter,” Milley said. “It doesn’t matter if you are Catholic or Protestant or you are Jew or Muslim or chose not to believe. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or you are poor. It doesn’t matter if you are famous or common. None of that matters in this country — none of it.”

It comes down to one idea, Milley said.

“What matters in this country is you are going to succeed or fail based on your merit,” he said. “You are going succeed or fail based on your knowledge, skills, you attributes, your hard work and your labor. And you are going to be judged by the content of your character. You will succeed on competence, and you will be judged on character. And that is the very essence of this country we call the United States. And that is what every thing in that document called the Constitution is all about.”

The freedom to rise and fall on one’s own merits is what people in the Armed Forces are willing to fight and die for, Milley said.

“That is what America is all about and that is what those of us in uniform are committed to serve, and if necessary die, in order to protect for you the 99 percent,” Milley said, “so that this Republic never, fails and never, ever is removed from the face of this earth, regardless of any enemy.”