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" Political campaigns offer Americans an opportunity to adjust direction, reaffirm values, and recommit to the covenant that binds them together. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

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" If you talk to a British officer or NCO about the strategic objectives of the end state, you'll often get a spirited discussion that's very well informed. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" There's an art to asking questions. Briefings are valuable but normally communicate primarily what the subordinate leader wants you to know, and often the picture they provide is incomplete. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" The reality is when you make 'America First' a bumper sticker and pump it overseas, what you're telling them is 'America Only'. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" A fundamental principle that I learned in my career, and a principle that my consulting company McChrystal Group helps American civilian companies to adopt, is that winning units and organizations ensure that the time they actually spend - daily, weekly, and yearly - must hew closely to their priorities. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" If you sit down with British officers or British senior NCOs, they understand the sweep of history. They know the history of British forces not just in Afghanistan but the history of British successful counter-insurgencies - Northern Ireland, Malaysia. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" I knew from history that war comes with frightening regularity, often fought over the same ground and similar causes as previous conflicts. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Mike Hall was my old friend and, more important, the finest soldier I'd ever known. After over 30 years of service and then 18 months at a good civilian job, a phone call had brought the retired command sergeant major back on active duty to become the senior enlisted adviser of all international forces in Afghanistan. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" I want the American people to understand, we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Christmases with Polish and Romanian troops, including religious ceremonies in crude bunkers and huts, were deeply spiritual experiences. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" By nature, I tended to trust people and was typically open and transparent... But such transparency would go astray when others saw us out of context or when I gave trust to those few who were unworthy of it. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" I think life is hard at the combat outposts, and anything that distracts us from supporting them, in my mind, is something that we shouldn't do. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" In my life as a soldier and citizen, I have seen time and time again that inaction has dire consequences. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" As combat infantrymen and special operators, we received thousands of hours of firearms training. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Over my career, I'd watched senior leader visits have unintended negative consequences. Typically, schedules were unrealistically overloaded and were modified during the visit to cancel parts of the plan. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Americans enjoy the exciting, cinematic vision of a squad of muscle-bound Goliath boasting Olympian speed, strength, and precision - a group whose collective success is the inevitable consequence of the individual strengths of its members and the masterful planning of a visionary commander. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Our bureaucracy had excelled at compartmentalizing intelligence - we had a 'need to know' system - but by 2004, it was impossible to foresee what elements of our organization would and would not need to know a given piece of information. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" I go back and think of President Kennedy, who had a military service background, but he comes into the presidency, and he's faced with a decision on the Bay of Pigs, with the C.I.A. and the military giving him data, and it turns out very badly. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" You're going to find out who your friends are. Anything that happens in your life is one of those challenges. It may not be at the level of celebrity, but everybody's going to travel that road. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Throughout history, the organizational evolution of the military has been inextricably linked with that of the business world. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Public, noncommercial broadcasting is also giving kids social-emotional skills like persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military, the institution where I spent most of my career. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Anyone in a position of power is either corrupt or assumed to be corrupt, and the assumption of corruption is as bad as the reality of it. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" We are alarmed that a known or suspected terrorist can go to a federally licensed firearms dealer where background checks are conducted, pass that background check, legally purchase a firearm, and walk out the door. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Soldiers fighting a daily battle under frightening conditions can feel their leaders are far removed from their reality. There's no magic cure for this challenge, and soothing words that aren't backed up by action encourage cynicism. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" Defeat the Taliban. Secure the population. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" We could do good things in Afghanistan for the next 100 years and fail. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" In our society, I see public media as a lever. It pushes people by elevating them and their sights. It brings them into more thinking and understanding, and it brings us together. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" If who you were was entirely based upon the position you were in or the headlines you got in the newspaper, or you had essentially subcontracted out your self-worth to the judgments of others, then you're going to be like tumbleweed. You're going to be blown. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" What I really want are students who want to partner with other people, to be part of an organization and to influence people so that they can accomplish things that the organization would not have accomplished otherwise. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

" If we want to be members of the world community, we need to think that way. "

Stanley A. McChrystal