Commandant's Column

Keeping the Big Picture in Mind

By Commandant of Cadets Maj. Gen. Randal D. Fullhart, U.S. Air Force (retired)

With my announced retirement next July, this and the next magazine will be my last two opportunities to offer some thoughts in this forum.

This is the season of gratitude and reflection. We have much to be grateful for as a Corps: great staff, great cadets, great alumni, great facilities. But we also need to reflect on things more broadly. We also must think about all those who are serving our country, whether in uniform or not, who are on the front lines of a troubled world.

I won’t get into specifics, but we know we have alumni who are near where headlines are being made daily. Others are in places where their presence is designed to prevent new, troubling headlines in the future.

We must keep them in our hearts, along with their families who are thinking of them daily.

For many years I have spoken to cadets, families, and friends of the Corps to remind them that the need for ethical leaders, who understand the global nature of our country’s responsibilities and influence, are why this Corps exists. Current events highlight why we say this is important…now, more than ever.

Each day, I encounter cadets and staff passing through the atrium of the new Corps Leadership and Military Science Building. What we have collectively created here is a place that messages our mission to all who come here. The museum celebrates our past. The classrooms are the incubators of our future. The staff are the ones that bring it all to life.

Some years ago, I read a book called “The School of Sun Tzu: Winning Empires Without War.” The author’s controversial assertion was that Sun Tzu was not actually a single person as many translations suggest. Instead, Sun Tzu was the product of a school in its time that created leaders of influence sent all over China to subtly influence the course of history that yielded victory to the school’s overseer, a provincial leader who then became China’s first emperor, all without ever having to resort to conflict.

I always remembered the quote from the original translated text: “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” In modern terms, that might be the definition of deterrence or at least using one’s forces in ways that preclude battle because opponents find themselves in a position where the easier path is one that is peaceable.

Success or failure in achieving this kind of leadership provides the framework for all human history and will determine the history we have yet to write. What a privilege, and responsibility, we have to be the modern school that creates these kinds of leaders. Yes, it is a time of gratitude and reflection.