George Bush's National Guard Interview

Zachary  Northup

As a veteran of the Air National Guard, and former Governor of Texas, George W. Bush had a unique appreciation for the National Guard. In December 1998, National Guard Review sat down with him to explore his views on leadership and the future of the National Guard.

NGR: During one of your speeches in 1996, when speaking about American society, you were quoted as saying:

“Across the board, [in the 1960s] we went from a culture of sacrifice and saving to a culture obsessed with `grabbing all the gusto’. We went from accepting responsibility to assigning blame. As government did more and more, individuals were required to do less and less, and they responded with a vengeance. Dependency and laziness are easy when someone else is responsible and someone else is to blame. We became a nation of victims. Blame it on the Prozac, the parenting, or the bosa nova take your pick.”

When many of these cultural trends were beginning to develop in American society, you were a member of the Air National Guard. From a personal perspective, did your time in the service help to instill an appreciation for the values that you champion today?

Bush: The way I summarize today’s culture is if it feels good, do it and if you’ve got a problem blame somebody else. My awareness of what the current culture has done to our society is really rather new relative to thirty years ago when I was in the Guard. The warning signs of the cultural shift are more evident today. Such as, in our state, thirty percent of babies are born out of wedlock. This is very troublesome to me. If this were to happen for several generations it would lead to disparity of incomes and a lot of strain on young moms who are forced to raise a child without the support of a dad. This would be a very difficult environment for values, good values, honorable values to be passed on from one generation to the next. So I speak a lot about the cultural situation we find ourselves in. I also speak to people and tell them how optimistic I am about how cultures can change. Since I have seen it change once in my lifetime I know it can change again to what I would call the responsibility era.

     Among other things, the military excels at focusing on individual achievement and the promotion of teamwork and responsibility. I can remember walking up to my F-102 fighter and seeing the mechanics there. I was on the same team as them, and I relied on them to make sure that I wasn’t jumping out of an airplane. There was a sense of shared responsibility in that case. The responsibility to get the airplane down. The responsibility to show up and do your job. There are a lot of lessons learned in the Guard for current Guardsmen and some of us old Guardsmen.

NGR: Do you think today’s youth can benefit from joining the National Guard, participating in that type of structured environment?

Bush: I think that many of today’s youth need to be in a structured, disciplined environment, one in which there is a sense of sacrifice in order to get ahead, one where you know you are a sum of a greater whole. I think that the Guard and the Army do a very good job at this. By the way, they also do a great job at addressing social issues, such as affirmative action; the Army model, and the Guard model, and the Air Force Model, of promotion from within, of allowing soldiers, regardless of their gender and/or ethnicity, to seek a level of competence. The Army and the Guard do a good job of what I call affirmative access, which is to educate, encourage, lift up soldiers of all walks of life – giving them a chance to realize their potential – which is a direct contrast with much of what else goes on in society. The military is not only a great place for discipline, and structure and sacrifice, but it is also a wonderful place for advancement and opportunity.

NGR: Could you sum up in a simple phrase what your time in the Guard did for you?

Bush: Well I kept a level head in a time that was pretty chaotic. For me it was much more practical. I am not very good at psychoanalyzing myself, but I learned to fly. I learned to fly jets. General James perhaps had the same experience. I remember telling people everywhere I went that it didn’t matter where you’ve been, where you were going or what you were doing, when you put a burner on you are focused on the moment.

NGR: Did your experience in the Guard give you any leadership skills that you might not have realized otherwise?

Bush: I don’t know. That is a good question. I’m not really sure because as a pilot we didn’t have men to command, at least I didn’t. I was too junior in rank. I was never really giving orders; I was always taking orders. But I did learn lessons. You know I saw good leaders and bad leaders. I think at my age, then in my 20’s, I learned more not by leading myself, but by observing who was effective and who was not effective. You know if you’re a person taking orders it is pretty easy to think back about whose orders you liked to follow and why. I think that is one way to learn about leadership. I really didn’t get in the position to lead until I was an older fellow. But I can remember ineffective colonels and effective colonels. I can remember people saying `attention’ and we would all slouch. But there were others that would say it and we would all be ramrod straight. Two critical lessons on leadership that I did learn, however, were that you never ask your people to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. And secondly, you need to set clear, understandable goals. Everybody needs to know with absolute clarity what the mission is and why.

NGR: Would you say that those two traits define your leadership style today?

Bush: Yes, I would hope so. Here are the traits that I think define my leadership style: First of all, knowing where I am going to lead. I can’t lead if I don’t know where we are going. And secondly, once we know where we are going, defining it in clear terms so that everybody understands, because if I can see the goal but can’t convey what the goal is to others then we aren’t going anywhere. Thirdly, surrounding myself with smart people and motivating them to do their mission. That applies to the Guard leadership as well as any leadership. So surround yourself with people that are well motivated and concerned, and keep them motivated in the line of authority and responsibility. One of the failed areas of leadership is when people are given the responsibility to do something but not the authority because some central figure refuses to give power, power in politics, power in military tearms. Power can be very corruptive. If used properly goals are met. If used improperly reputations can get ruined.

NGR: Do you think that the leaders of the next century are going to need any special characteristics that today’s leaders don’t have?

Bush: I think that in order for leaders to function in the military, the United States had better have a Commander in Chief that clearly defines the mission. And the mission is to fight and win wars. That is the primary mission. There is a little different mission for the Guard. It is to fight and win wars if called upon and to handle emergency situations if called upon. I am concerned about missions. The military is not a social organization. Therefore, to answer your question, if that is the mission then those who can lead will be those who can best fulfill the mission. Somehow we have a mixed message in today’s military. The key to a successful military is high morale, a sense of purpose, sense of mission, sense of accomplishment, and I suspect a sense of national pride. It is very difficult to have a sense of moral if there is a mixed message coming from the top.

from;
http://www.northupinfo.com/ngdr/archive_details.asp?id=180