The longlist will be announced in November. That happens through very difficult training and appropriate preparation. In furtherance of its mission, the Naval Order presents annual awards. McRaven’s reputation had spread beyond the Navy and throughout the special operations community. In the first months of 2011, CIA Director Leon Panetta summoned McRaven to a meeting at CIA headquarters to describe the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan that Panetta believed might be harboring Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader who orchestrated the attacks on New York and Washington. So again, you have to understand where your talents are, where your expertise is, and within that framework be as creative as you can possibly be. I watched every John Wayne film and every James Bond film. You gain surprise through things like, again, gliders or mini-subs or ships that look like different ships, as the British did during the raid on St. Nazaire. You have to be creative. William McRaven: I did, but probably for not the right reasons. I started off in pre-med, did not do so well in pre-med. I just kind of went — my event horizon was, “What am I going to do today? So in my discussion with the senior leaders on the university system, I think they understood, and that’s why they hired me was to, again, make sure the University was moving in the right direction. William McRaven: This is kind of what we did in Afghanistan. So it broke my pelvis, it broke my back, it ripped a lot of muscles out. The young lieutenant was given a squad to command, but soon ran afoul of the team’s controversial commander, Richard Marcinko. William McRaven: I was a brand new Navy lieutenant, and I went to the premier SEAL team of its time. These individuals were acknowledged for their demonstrated and unyielding commitment to seek justice for all those involved in interpersonal abuse and violence – survivors and offenders – with care, compassion, and an understanding of the complexity of these issues. There was one point in your military career that didn’t go so well. In May of that year he delivered a commencement address at his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. That’s how kids my age grew up, particularly in Texas. William McRaven: You do. When we look at a problem, the reason people call special operations forces in is because they looked at it initially as a conventional problem and they said, “Well, you know what, an infantry battalion can’t go do this, or an air strike can’t go do this.” So they have eliminated a conventional approach and now they have come to us. There is this perception that — it’s not to say we in the special operations community don’t have a swagger. Again, I think you are right. There is this perception that — it’s not to say we in the special operations community don’t have a swagger. I have listened to a lot of the speakers here at the Academy this weekend. Talk to somebody. He grad­u­ated in 1977 with a bach­e­lor's de­gree in jour­nal­ism. Most of them were still alive. But it’s true of a lot of military training, whether you’re an Army Ranger — Ranger training is very similar — Special Forces, Green Beret training is very similar, Air Force Special Tactics training is very similar. But I was young, and he was trying to shape SEAL Team Six at the time. Former Navy SEAL commander William McRaven says US under attack from Trump In an op-ed, he said the 'fate of our Republic' depends on a new … And that one decision by that officer or that enlisted man all of a sudden just changed the lives, not just of the ten people or the 12 people, but of their children and their children’s children and their children’s children. But at the time my mother was trying to get me a Navy ROTC scholarship. But she was just a fabulous mother. And that is a Christmas classic that I grew up with long before DVDs. She taught me poetry and taught me my love of reading and writing. What I have said before is the credit really belongs to the CIA, who in fact located Bin Laden, and the President and his National Security team, who made the decision; the President, who made the decision to go after Bin Laden when our intelligence really at best had us at about 50/50.  So the President made a decision to risk American lives and frankly to risk his political fortune, I think, to do the right thing for America. William McRaven: Absolutely. So I pulled my ripcord knowing that I was getting to the altitude where you needed to pull it. How am I going to do that as well as I can? William McRaven: No, I was actually born — my father was stationed at Pope Air Force Base and I was born in North Carolina. The William H. McRaven Guardian Angel Award is named for Chancellor Bill McRaven (retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral) for his extraordinary leadership as the Chancellor of The University of Texas System and his tireless efforts to end campus sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and all forms of interpersonal violence, especially on college campuses. So I was watching this guy over here, and before I knew it this guy here slid underneath me, so he was probably about 500, 600 feet below me and he opened his parachute. McRaven holds a master’s degree from th… And, as always, make your bed. William McRaven: Absolutely. One had limited chances of success, the other ran the risk of damaging neighboring houses and injuring the occupants. And there was an attractiveness to that aspect of it. And you have no idea sometimes how that pat on the back to that soldier or that sailor is going to change their life, and then change their kid’s life and their children’s life. McRaven at­tended the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin on a track schol­ar­ship, and was a mem­ber of the Naval Re­serve Of­fi­cers Train­ing Corps. You come in probably a little bit overconfident, but you also come in physically strong. William Harry McRaven (born November 6, 1955) is a retired United States Navy admiral who last served as the ninth commander of the United States Special Operations Command from August 8, 2011, to August 28, 2014. While freefalling, the man ahead of him deployed his parachute too soon, and McRaven collided with the chute as it opened. Once I got into journalism, I actually did pretty well. And that is not what you want. But frankly, back in the ’70s when I came in, and then as we went through the ’80s, we had learned a lot. But in the course of my questioning for him, he said, “Well, you are developing a theory here, yes?” And at the time I was actually just trying to cull out the principles of special operations, much like the broader principles of war. Because it is a very difficult thing, and I have been married for 36 years, and I think my wife would echo this, and we haven’t had to deal with it near as much as these young kids have. I wanted to make sure in my own mind and in my own heart that I was capable of doing what needed to get done. It’s about doing things differently and creatively, but within the rules. And I looked at being creative in a number of different fashions, and I won’t go into detail on those, but suffice to say I looked at a lot of ways to get to the target. A failed mission would not only permit America’s most wanted enemy to escape but ran the risk of antagonizing an essential ally. Actually, my mother kind of moved me towards the military. But once you get close to the ship, the ship blocks out all the light, and the target for a ship is the keel, the center line of the ship. The couple married shortly after graduation and have raised three children. All of his friends were all World War II veterans. The CIA — the best intelligence organization in the world — along with the National Security Agency, which was part of their ability to figure out where Bin Laden was, those were the real stars of this mission. So every time they would go on deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, their wife or their husband had to say, “What if they don’t come home? Isn’t there also an aspect of overcoming your fears? I was not stable as I was tumbling because I am not a great freefaller. The university system — it’s not just about Austin, it’s about the larger university system — was moving in the right direction. The families are a big piece of this. It worked out good in some respects and not so good in others. But I said that the things that you do control are the little acts of kindness, the little acts of compassion, the little acts of courage that you can do every day. Unfortunately, a year or so later he had a stroke and was never the same again, but it was a terrific moment for both of us. And I think she would have appreciated it if I would have stayed in special services rather than special operations. To see the people of New York, in particular, as I watched them deal with this incredible tragedy and hold their heads high and do the right thing. As commander of Naval Special Warfare Group One, Captain McRaven was leading a 1,000-foot freefall exercise in the summer of 2001, when an accident occurred that could easily have cost him his life. So you think about these young soldiers that came in right after 9/11 in the special operations community, and they have been fighting continuously since 9/11. © 1996 - 2020 American Academy of Achievement. We started an initiative called the Preservation of the Force and Family Task Force, the POTFF as we used to refer to it. So as I began to think about that. He says, “But you don’t understand, George. I think what I find interesting about the American Dream is, to quote Bubba Watson, “My dreams didn’t go this far.” I never dreamed of being a four-star admiral in charge of U.S. Special Operations Command, because we didn’t have it. The insignia are the same, they are eagles, so my father was able to pin his eagles on my collar. I wouldn’t compare what we do to Mozart and Beethoven, but the point is well taken.Â. Well, that’s not the way it works. The public perception of special operations may be that it’s full of mavericks and is the Wild West of the military. So anybody’s belief that you can go do a complicated special operation in a cavalier manner has never been in the business. It is easy to think that where you were raised, how your parents treated you, or what school you went to is all that determines your future. The Admiral George Dewey Award to one eminently outstanding senior civilian. A lot of guys could do the physical part, but when they got to this part that — while it was still physical — it was much more mental. Although we do not offer direct services, there are many resources available on campus, in the Austin area, and nationally. So in my last three years, having worked on Capitol Hill and working with the White House and working with the State Department, I understand how to build this coalition of the willing within the stakeholders and get them to move in the right direction. What is the creative solution to this problem, and how can I apply what skill set we have differently than the infantry battalion or the air strike?” So you absolutely have to be creative, but I think you have to be creative within a framework. We normally had anywhere from ten to 15 missions a night in Afghanistan where you had Army Rangers or Navy SEALs or other Army Special Operations forces out conducting raids on Taliban targets with the same approach.  Helicopters going from a forward operating base to an objective, taking care of business on the target, getting back on the helicopters and coming back. And then finally the family piece of this. It’s great to take care of the soldiers, but we need to put a lot of effort, and I think a lot of money, into making sure that the wives and the kids are well taken care of. William McRaven: Yeah, a little bit. He is the son of the late Col. Claude "Mac"McRaven, World War II pilot who played briefly in the NFL. It was nothing compared to what these young kids are having to encounter or sustain today. And in fact, when I became a Navy captain, which was equivalent to an Air Force colonel, which he had been, we did the promotion ceremony down in Tampa, Florida, and my father was able to come down. You’re being tested across the full range of your emotions and your fears. William McRaven: Just like every other American, I was stunned, watching the people of New York and later the Pentagon. He was the principal author of the government’s 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. William McRaven: Well, recognizing that I grew up in the ’60s. And it requires decisive action, it requires early action. I don’t have the educational pedigree that a lot of the great chancellors and the presidents have.” But they were looking for the kind of leadership skills that I think I have learned over the last 37 years. Chancellor McRaven expanded on the themes of his celebrated commencement address in his 2017 book, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life… and Maybe the World. And you also know that under a ship there are suctions which could, in fact, pull your facemask off or do some things. The university system — it’s not just about Austin, it’s about the larger university system — was moving in the right direction. Part of my concern as a Navy SEAL and a military officer was I’m not going to be in a position to help the nation because I’m pretty banged up. You led a jump exercise that did not go as planned. The purpose of the training is to weed out those both weak-minded and weak physically before you really even begin the hard SEAL training. The remaining ten years of his military career would focus almost entirely on counterterrorism operations and strategy. I said, “Well, I’m jumping out of airplanes, and I’m diving underwater, and I’m blowing things up. What does being a Texan mean to you? And then after that I went back to an operational unit and kept moving. … There’s a lot about your career we can’t talk about, but I wanted to jump to a few months before 9/11. He last served as the commander of the United States Special Operations Command (2011 – 2014), a position he got after serving for three years as the Commander of Joint Special Operations Command (2008 – 2011). So you come into a situation like that and there is — and of course when you’re young you’re a little bit cocky. William McRaven: We had moved a hospital bed into my house in base quarters in San Diego. McRaven is a powerful advocate for American values. So I was literally lying in a hospital bed in my living room when 9/11 happened, and I was watching it on TV just as everybody else was. He flew actually Spitfires — which was a British plane — flew Spitfires in supporting the bombers as they did the cross-channel operations. So when we would go out on operations, your weapon — and in the case when I first started, we carried an M-16 — and you would go out and you would be on an operation all night long. Once I got through with basic SEAL training — we call it BUDST, Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training — I walked away with a belief that there wasn’t anything else that I was going to encounter in life that was going to be any harder than the last six months. So in my discussion with the senior leaders on the university system, I think they understood, and that’s why they hired me was to, again, make sure the University was moving in the right direction. Ad­di­tion­ally, McRaven holds a mas­ter's de­gree from the Naval Post­grad­u­ate School, where he helped … They used gliders because they were quiet and they knew that the Belgians wouldn’t hear them coming. You have to do the detail rehearsals. It has been fascinating. So it absolutely followed the model, and I made sure that I went back and looked at my own research. William McRaven: What I’m always happy to tell folks is the phenomenal work of the CIA. They take great pride in big ideas. McRaven earned his master’s degree at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. But what’s important is you have to stop and clean your weapon first. Someone or something that moved them in a different direction. In the meantime, have you read last year's winners yet? But you have to get there, because if the enemy spots you two minutes away, or three minutes away, their ability to engage you — and you not being able to get to target — changes the whole dynamics of the mission. And some people say, “Well, we can’t be the policemen of the world.” I am not sure at this point in time we have a choice. I was watching the towers fall on TV, and trying to go through, in my mind, what the people of New York were thinking. We had no admirals. I was born in 1955, but my really formative years were in the ’60s. Read 38 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. I love Thunderball because I actually wanted to be a marine biologist initially, but I think Thunderball got me a little bit off track because I liked the action scenes in Thunderball. The British went after a ship in Norway during World War II and they used actual small dry submarines. Looking at some of the tenets you outlined in your book The Theory of Special Operations, a lot of it applies to Operation Neptune Spear, as the Bin Laden operation was called. This year, 2018, he will be receiving the Judge William H. Webster Distinguished Service Award for a lifetime of service to the nation. As I mentioned in the commencement speech, I use the bed as an analogy, but it was a little bit of everything. Young Bill McRaven was drawn to the sea at an early age and began scuba diving when he was 13. The physical aspect of this, we find, and the research is very strong, that if a guy is physically healthy, if he works out every day, if his nutrition is good, if he is getting enough sleep at night, he is less likely to have domestic abuse issues, alcohol problems, he is less likely to commit suicide or she is less likely to commit suicide. I enjoyed writing. Admiral William H. McRaven addresses the 2013 Grateful Nation Award honorees at JINSA's Annual Awards dinner on December 2 in Washington, DC. I was raised in a great household with two wonderful parents and two great sisters. I don’t know that you control the sweeping hands of destiny. William McRaven: I absolutely think they do. The University came to me and frankly, that was one of the first questions I asked is, “Why are you interested in me? ADM William H. McRaven, USN (Ret.) So when I talk about, in the thesis, this point of vulnerability, when you look at an operation, you want to bring that point of vulnerability — the point where the enemy knows where you are and the enemy can stop you from getting to the target — you want to bring that as close to mission success as you can, as close to the target as you can. Of course James Bond came into vogue in the early ’60s so I saw every James Bond movie. I believed in kind of the basic tenets of good order and discipline because I had learned that — growing up in the earlier part of my SEAL team — good order and discipline made a difference. It was, “Okay, he is some diver or something in the military.” But in 1986 when she passed away, nobody had heard of Navy SEALs. Talk out your problems and then we’re going to make sure we have the people that can help you deal with those problems. William Harry McRaven was born on November 6, 1955. he is a former United States Navy officer. She was looking for a way to get me through college. If you try to be too creative, the laws of war –the frictions of war — will bring you down just like they will in an infantry battalion. William McRaven’s “The Hero Code: Lessons Learned from Lives Well Lived” is scheduled for April. Need Help? Now we may not have been, but the potential for the Pakistanis to identify us hours away from the target was there. This was probably — I want to say either the early ’70s or the late ’60s, ’69 or maybe ’70. So tell me what it would take to get to them affecting 800 million people. And you would spend hours every night polishing that brass buckle, and then, immediately after the inspection, they would have you go jump in the surf zone and now your buckle would be corroded. So we had, in my class I had a lot of swimmers and rugby players and water polo players and football players. The finish line is another couple hundred yards down the beach.” And there were a lot of guys who went, “Come on, I was just coming to the finish line.” “No, the finish line is further on.” So you learned that maybe there is no finish line, and you learned how to deal with failure, and you learned kind of what is really inside you, because you were tested physically every day. Frankly, the smart thing to do would probably have been to wait and get stable again. I was in high school, I really wasn’t thinking about the next step. The North Texas A Conversation With a Living Legend ® raised $1 million this week in a virtual version of the signature fundraising event benefiting The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.The 31st annual event honored Admiral William H. McRaven, U.S. Navy, Retired, in an interview Nov. 16 with CBS News’ Bob Schieffer. They were in their 70s — early 70s to early 80s — and the folks I interviewed were still very sharp and remembered the missions they went on as though they were yesterday. And that doesn’t happen by accident. William McRaven: He did. I don’t know his name, but he was dating my sister at the time. Stunned, he opened his own chute as well, but the lines wrapped his legs separately, wrenching his legs in opposite directions. Be calm, take care of business and then get out and then keep moving on.” So a lot of guys struggled with that and didn’t make it through that part of the training. But my sister was getting ready, the doorbell rang and I think I was 16 or 17 years old I guess at the time, and he came to the door and he was wearing his Class As with his green beret. We didn’t have video games, so every day you were out doing something. When I look at the injuries that the young kids are sustaining today, mine was like a scratch. William McRaven: We had, again, done the planning. During the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, McRaven served as a task unit commander in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. You need to know also we’re going to take care of you and your husband or you and your wife.” So this has been an important part of this effort for my time in Special Operations Command. To this task, Admiral McRaven brought three decades of experience in special operations. But again, he was the commanding officer. We know there are many things you can’t tell us about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, but maybe you can give us the big picture of your thoughts about it. So anybody’s belief that you can go do a complicated special operation in a cavalier manner has never been in the business. His father, a career Air Force officer, was stationed at Pope Air Force Base, now known as Pope Field, part of Fort Bragg. I am the best at what I’m doing.” So you challenge yourself, and I think it’s true of any endeavor. You have taken on a pretty big job, now that you’ve left the Navy, as Chancellor of the University of Texas, your alma mater. It’s about working with all the stakeholders — so the president, the faculty, the students, the Texas legislature, the Board of Regents, the “Texas Exes” — all these various folks. So now we are working to help the families and to make them resilient, to talk to the wives and the husbands and say, “You need to exercise as well. So for example, when I did the theory and the thesis, the Germans for example used gliders to get into Eben-Emael. When I look back, I think we did a lot of good things in my tenure as the four-star at Special Operations Command, but that’s the one I take the greatest pride in is knowing that we are taking care of the soldiers and their families. What’s going to happen?” And that stress and that strain was incredible. Some services, assistance programs, and hotlines are listed on this Read more, This statewide quantitative report provides descriptive findings on sexual assault prevalence, including the victims’ relationship Read more, 1925 San Jacinto Blvd. He took tremendous risk. So you think about these young soldiers that came in right after 9/11 in the special operations community, and they have been fighting continuously since 9/11. William McRaven: Oh, absolutely. Not just the American public and the enemy. He graduated in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. So you were laid up for a while. Frankly, most of the public had never heard of Navy SEALs. Even though intuitively we knew these guys had been at war at that point in time for ten, 11 years and the strain on the families and the soldiers was huge. And that really requires leadership and management, and I have had an opportunity to do that quite a bit over the last couple of years. So you want to close that gap. I’m very proud of what my guys did, but that’s the sort of things we do pretty much every day. The success, that night in 2011, of the raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden without a single American casualty was due, in no small part, to the unique expertise of the man who organized and executed the plan, Admiral William McRaven. Watch his inspiring remarks in the clip above. William McRaven: Thunderball! It’s about working with all the stakeholders — so the president, the faculty, the students, the Texas legislature, the Board of Regents, the “Texas Exes” — all these various folks. And it requires decisive action, it requires early action. When myself and my command sergeant major — the senior enlisted man that is with me in the command — when we went out and we began to talk to the families, we realized that there were a lot of problems out there and problems that I don’t think we fully appreciated. For a young officer, that’s an important part of your career building and that platoon went very well. Even though you know you’re going to be miserable during the rehearsal. But the point they were trying to teach you, much like the bed, is the little details matter. So I have been very fortunate. In my remarks earlier this week at the Academy I talked about the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. That really was kind of the pinnacle of your SEAL career at the time, because after that you kind of became a staff officer. When I look back, I think we did a lot of good things in my tenure as the four-star at Special Operations Command, but that’s the one I take the greatest pride in is knowing that we are taking care of the soldiers and their families. He is the current Commissioner of the military forces of the USAR. If you don’t find that out before the real mission, then that part of the mission is probably going to fail, which it did in that case. Could you tell us about your experience of losing a command in the early ’80s? We’ve got 8,000 people graduating tonight. I didn’t really start writing the speech in its final form until about two days before I gave the commencement address. In fact, I would tell you that it was — I mean, it had a political aspect of it and an angst aspect of it that was higher than the rest of the missions we do — but from a standpoint of a pure military operation it was pretty straightforward. It was post-Vietnam, so there was this belief that maybe we didn’t need special operations anymore, so the amount of funding and available training opportunities for the SEALs went down dramatically until about the mid-1980s. And almost every one of the stories they talk about, you know, “I was planning on doing this and then all of a sudden I went off and did this.” And to me there’s a little bit of destiny in that. But when he touched on the idea that you were developing a theory, I thought, “I think he is on to something.” So I went back and really spent about another six to eight months to figure out how do I take the principles and turn them into a real theory about why special operations succeed. We are the country that can best deal with this, although we certainly need to build a coalition where we have willing and capable partners to go do it, I’m all about that. Actually more so going down, because you have to be able to instill a little bit of leadership in the troops, and you do that by conveying your ideas clearly and concisely so they understand what we call “commander’s intent.”. It’s extraordinary to have the presence of mind to pull the ripcord when all hell is breaking loose. This officer has described himself as something of a loose cannon. And then I went to accounting, did even worse in accounting. I really believe that. 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