Element Senior Quotes

Learning organic chemistry is not any more challenging than getting to know some new characters. The elements each have their own unique personalities. The more you understand those personalities, the more you will be able to read their situations and predict the outcomes of reactions.” —Kathleen Nolta, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer in Chemistry

Some powerful defining moments contain all four elements. Think of YES Prep’s Senior Signing Day: the ELEVATION of students having their moment onstage, the INSIGHT of a sixth grader thinking That could be me, the PRIDE of being accepted to college, and the CONNECTION of sharing the day with an arena full of thousands of supportive people. (See the footnote for a mnemonic to remember this framework for defining moments.)

There have been ample opportunities since 1945 to show that material superiority in war is not enough if the will to fight is lacking. In Algeria, Vietnam and Afghanistan the balance of economic and military strength lay overwhelmingly on the side of France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, but the will to win was slowly eroded. Troops became demoralised and brutalised. Even a political solution was abandoned. In all three cases the greater power withdrew. The Second World War was an altogether different conflict, but the will to win was every bit as important - indeed it was more so. The contest was popularly perceived to be about issues of life and death of whole communities rather than for their fighting forces alone. They were issues, wrote one American observer in 1939, 'worth dying for'. If, he continued, 'the will-to-destruction triumphs, our resolution to preserve civilisation must become more implacable...our courage must mount'. Words like 'will' and 'courage' are difficult for historians to use as instruments of cold analysis. They cannot be quantified; they are elusive of definition; they are products of a moral language that is regarded sceptically today, even tainted by its association with fascist rhetoric. German and Japanese leaders believed that the spiritual strength of their soldiers and workers in some indefinable way compensate for their technical inferiority. When asked after the war why Japan lost, one senior naval officer replied that the Japanese 'were short on spirit, the military spirit was weak...' and put this explanation ahead of any material cause. Within Germany, belief that spiritual strength or willpower was worth more than generous supplies of weapons was not confined to Hitler by any means, though it was certainly a central element in the way he looked at the world. The irony was that Hitler's ambition to impose his will on others did perhaps more than anything to ensure that his enemies' will to win burned brighter still. The Allies were united by nothing so much as a fundamental desire to smash Hitlerism and Japanese militarism and to use any weapon to achieve it. The primal drive for victory at all costs nourished Allied fighting power and assuaged the thirst for vengeance. They fought not only because the sum of their resources added up to victory, but because they wanted to win and were certain that their cause was just. The Allies won the Second World War because they turned their economic strength into effective fighting power, and turned the moral energies of their people into an effective will to win. The mobilisation of national resources in this broad sense never worked perfectly, but worked well enough to prevail. Materially rich, but divided, demoralised, and poorly led, the Allied coalition would have lost the war, however exaggerated Axis ambitions, however flawed their moral outlook. The war made exceptional demands on the Allied peoples. Half a century later the level of cruelty, destruction and sacrifice that it engendered is hard to comprehend, let alone recapture. Fifty years of security and prosperity have opened up a gulf between our own age and the age of crisis and violence that propelled the world into war. Though from today's perspective Allied victory might seem somehow inevitable, the conflict was poised on a knife-edge in the middle years of the war. This period must surely rank as the most significant turning point in the history of the modern age.

There’s also the small detail that . . . I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. Not a blink. And if past is prologue, there are going to be a lot of sleepless nights in my future. I’m a high school senior—I have exams to study for, projects to complete, extracurricular activities to activitize, lifelong memories to make—and now I have a business to run. Who the fuck has time for sleep? I jack up the volume on my phone and scoop a tablespoon of instant coffee grounds into my mouth—washing the bitter, spiky granules down with a gulp of black, cold coffee. We don’t serve instant for the coffee shop. Instant coffee is disgusting. But it serves a purpose. It’s effective—efficient. I love caffeine. Love it. The high, the rush, the feeling that I’m Wonder Woman’s long-lost cousin and there ain’t shit I can’t do. I would mainline it, if that were actually a thing. I would probably become a meth-head if it weren’t for the rotting-teeth, ruined-life, most-likely-dying-by-overdose elements of it all. I’m a high school senior, not an asshole.

For this boy destined to be the world’s greatest heir, money was so omnipresent as to be invisible—something “there, like air or food or any other element,” he later said—yet it was never easily attainable.11 As if he were a poor, rural boy, he earned pocket change by mending vases and broken fountain pens or by sharpening pencils. Aware of the rich children spoiled by their parents, Senior seized every opportunity to teach his son the value of money. Once, while Rockefeller was being shaved at Forest Hill, Junior entered with a plan to give away his Sunday-school money in one lump sum, for a fixed period, and be done with it. “Let’s figure it out first,” Rockefeller advised and made Junior run through calculations that showed he would lose eleven cents interest while the Sunday school gained nothing in return. Afterward, Rockefeller told his barber, “I don’t care about the boy giving his money in that way. I want him to give it. But I also want him to learn the lesson of being careful of the little things.

Also, there was a disciple of Plato who one time spoke to his Master, as the book by Senior Zadith will bear witness, and this was his demand, in all truthfulness: “Tell me the name of the Philosopher’s Stone.” And Plato answered unto him anon, “It is the stone that men call Titanos.” “What is that?” asked the disciple. “It is the same as Magnasia,” said Plato. “Yea, Sir, and is it thus?” said the disciple. “This is to explain one unknown by another unknown. What is Magnasia, good Sir? Pray tell me.” “It is a liquid that is made of four elements,” said Plato. “Tell me the source of that liquid, good Sir, if it be your will,” said the disciple. “Nay, nay,” said Plato, “that I certainly shall not.

On Saturday, 28 February 1953, Josef Stalin invited four of his senior associates to the Kremlin: Georgy Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, Nikita Khrushchev, and Nikolai Bulganin.1 During the final six months of his life, Stalin and these four men constituted what was known as the “ruling group” or simply the “Five.” They met regularly in Stalin’s home. The leader’s other old friends—Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, and Kliment Voroshilov—were in disgrace, and he did not wish to see them.2 Assembling a small group of supporters to act as his right hand in ruling the country was a key element of Stalin’s modus operandi. He liked to name these groups according to the number of members: the Five (Piaterka), the Six (Shesterka), the Seven (Semerka), the Eight (Vos’merka), the Nine (Deviatka).

Bigotry disturbs me, too," I said, "but prejudice and segregation alone do not constitute the root of all evil. There are many nonracial elements common to humanity as a whole that create problems from the cradle to the grave regardless of race, creed, color, or previous condition of servitude." "But when you add a black face to all that," said Simple, "you have problem's mammy. White folks may be unemployed in this American country, but they get the first chance at the first jobs that open up. Besides, they get seniority. Maybe some white folks cannot read or write, but if they want to go to Ole Miss to learn to read or write, they can go without the President calling up the United States Army to protect them. Sure, white folks gets sick, but they don't have to creep in the back door of the hospital down South for treatment like we does. And when they get old, white folks have got more well-off sons and daughters to take care of them than colored folks have. Most old white folks when they get sick can suffer in comfort, and when they die they can get buried without going in debt. Colored folks, most in generally, do not have it so easy. I know because I am one.

These include: the Bar Raiser hiring process that ensures that the company continues to acquire top talent; a bias for separable teams run by leaders with a singular focus that optimizes for speed of delivery and innovation; the use of written narratives instead of slide decks to ensure that deep understanding of complex issues drives well-informed decisions; a relentless focus on input metrics to ensure that teams work on activities that propel the business. And finally there is the product development process that gives this book its name: working backwards from the desired customer experience. Many of the business problems that Amazon faces are no different from those faced by every other company, small or large. The difference is how Amazon keeps coming up with uniquely Amazonian solutions to those problems. Taken together, these elements combine to form a way of thinking, managing, and working that we refer to as being Amazonian, a term that we coined for the purposes of this book. Both of us, Colin and Bill, were “in the room,” and—along with other senior leaders—we shaped and refined what it means to be Amazonian. We both worked extensively with Jeff and were actively involved in creating a number of Amazon’s most enduring successes (not to mention some of its notable flops) in what was the most invigorating professional experience of our lives.

How do you build peaks? You create a positive moment with elements of elevation, insight, pride, and/ or connection. We’ll explore those final three elements later, but for now, let’s focus on elevation. To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script. (Breaking the script means to violate expectations about an experience—the next chapter is devoted to the concept.) Moments of elevation need not have all three elements but most have at least two. Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality. Things look better or taste better or sound better or feel better than they usually do. Weddings have flowers and food and music and dancing. (And they need not be superexpensive—see the footnote for more.IV) The Popsicle Hotline offers sweet treats delivered on silver trays by white-gloved waiters. The Trial of Human Nature is conducted in a real courtroom. It’s amazing how many times people actually wear different clothes to peak events: graduation robes and wedding dresses and home-team colors. At Hillsdale High, the lawyers wore suits and the witnesses came in costume. A peak means something special is happening; it should look different. To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment. Consider the pregame jitters at a basketball game, or the sweaty-hands thrill of taking the stage at Signing Day, or the pressure of the oral defense at Hillsdale High’s Senior Exhibition. Remember how the teacher Susan Bedford said that, in designing the Trial, she and Greg Jouriles were deliberately trying to “up the ante” for their students. They made their students conduct the Trial in front of a jury that included the principal and varsity quarterback. That’s pressure. One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion. (Not counting the selfie addict, who thinks his face is a special occasion.) Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation.

During the nineteenth century, corps commander was the highest level of command to still require skills of an operator for success. A corps commander was still able to see a problem develop and to dispatch soldiers or artillery to solve it on the spot. But at the army level of command the dynamics were for the first time different. The army commander was much more distant from the battle and consequently had no ability to act immediately or to control soldiers he could not see. The distance of the army commander from the action slowed responses to orders and created friction such that the commander was obliged to make decisions before the enemy’s actions were observed. Civil War army commanders were now suddenly required to exhibit a different set of skills. For the first time, they had to think in time and to command the formation by inculcating their intent in the minds of subordinates with whom they could not communicate directly. Very few of the generals were able to make the transition from direct to indirect leadership, particularly in the heat of combat. Most were very talented men who simply were never given the opportunity to learn to lead indirectly. Some, like Generals Meade and Burnside, found themselves forced to make the transition in the midst of battle. General Lee succeeded in part because, as military advisor to Jefferson Davis, he had been able to watch the war firsthand and to form his leadership style before he took command. General Grant was particularly fortunate to have the luck of learning his craft in the Western theater, where the press and the politicians were more distant, and their absence allowed him more time to learn from his mistakes. From the battle of Shiloh to that of Vicksburg, Grant as largely left alone to learn the art of indirect leadership through trial and error and periodic failure without getting fired for his mistakes. The implications of this phase of military history for the future development of close-combat leaders are at once simple, and self-evident. As the battlefield of the future expands and the battle becomes more chaotic and complex, the line that divides the indirect leader from the direct leader will continue to shift lower down the levels of command. The circumstances of future wars will demand that much younger and less experienced officers be able to practice indirect command. The space that held two Civil War armies of 200,000 men in 1863 would have been controlled by fewer than 1,000 in Desert Storm, and it may well be only a company or platoon position occupied by fewer than 100 soldiers in a decade or two. This means younger commanders will have to command soldiers they cannot see and make decisions without the senior leader’s hand directly on their shoulders. Distance between all the elements that provide support, such as fires and logistics, will demand that young commanders develop the skill to anticipate and think in time. Tomorrow’s tacticians will have to think at the operational level of war. They will have to make the transition from “doers” to thinkers, from commanders who react to what they see to leaders who anticipate what they will see. To do all this to the exacting standard imposed by future wars, the new leaders must learn the art of commanding by intent very early in their stewardship. The concept of “intent” forms the very essence of decentralized command.

The Right Intake Protein, protein, protein. Is there any other food group that causes so much angst? Have too little and you may be in trouble, have too much and you may be in greater trouble. Proteins are the main building blocks of the body making muscles, organs, skin and also enzymes. Thus, a lack of protein in your diet affects not only your health (think muscle deficiency and immune deficiency) but also your looks (poor skin and hair). On the other hand, excess protein can be harmful. “High protein intake can lead to dehydration and also increase the risk of gout, kidney afflictions, osteoporosis as well as some forms of cancer,” says Taranjeet Kaur, metabolic balance coach and senior nutritionist at AktivOrtho. However, there are others who disagree with her. "In normal people a high-protein natural diet is not harmful. In people who are taking artificial protien supplements , the level of harm depends upon the kind of protein and other elements in the supplement (for example, caffiene, etc.) For people with a pre- existing, intestinal, kidney or liver disease, a high-protein diet can be harmful," says leading nutritionist Shikha Sharma, managing director of Nutri-Health.  However, since too much of anything can never be good, the trick is to have just the right amount of protein in your diet.  But how much is the right amount? As a ballpark figure, the US Institute of Medicine recommends 0.8 gm of protein per kilogram of body weight. This amounts to 56 gm per day for a 70 kg man and 48 gm per day for a 60 kg woman.  However, the ‘right’ amount of protein for you will depend upon many factors including your activity levels, age, muscle mass, physical goals and the current state of health. A teenager, for example, needs more protein than a middle-aged sedentary man. Similarly, if you work out five times a day for an hour or so, your protein requirement will go up to 1.2-1.5 gm per kg of body weight. So if you are a 70kg man who works out actively, you will need nearly 105 gm of protein daily.   Proteins are crucial, even when you are trying to lose weight. As you know, in order to lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than what you burn. Proteins do that in two ways. First, they curb your hunger and make you feel full. In fact, proteins have a greater and prolonged satiating effect as compared to carbohydrates and fats. “If you have proteins in each of your meals, you have lesser cravings for snacks and other such food items,” says Kaur. By dulling your hunger, proteins can help prevent obesity, diabetes and heart disease.   Second, eating proteins boosts your metabolism by up to 80-100 calories per day, helping you lose weight. In a study conducted in the US, women who increased protein intake to 30 per cent of calories, ended up eating 441 fewer calories per day, leading to weight loss. Kaur recommends having one type of protein per meal and three different types of proteins each day to comply with the varied amino acid requirements of the body. She suggests that proteins should be well distributed at each meal instead of concentrating on a high protein diet only at dinner or lunch. “Moreover, having one protein at a time helps the body absorb it better and it helps us decide which protein suits our system and how much of it is required by us individually. For example, milk may not be good for everyone; it may help one person but can produce digestive problems in the other,” explains Kaur. So what all should you eat to get your daily dose of protein? Generally speaking, animal protein provides all the essential amino acids in the right ratio for us to make full use of them. For instance, 100 gm of chicken has 30 gm of protein while 75gm of cottage cheese (paneer) has only 8 gm of proteins (see chart). But that doesn’t mean you need to convert to a non-vegetarian in order to eat more proteins, clarifies Sharma. There are plenty of vegetarian options such as soya, tofu, sprouts, pulses, cu

Kurt Campbell, the senior official responsible for US policy in East Asia in the State Department in Obama’s first term, went further: ‘We would not be a member of the East Asia Summit today if not for Kevin Rudd.’ Rudd influenced other elements of US policy, says Campbell, including America’s so-called Asia pivot. ‘The real person on the outside who influenced US policy in Asia is Kevin Rudd. I have no reason to exaggerate. That’s a fact. He was extraordinarily effective. No bullshit.

Paul underwent a radical change in values, self-definition, and commitments. “Where in the orthodoxy of the Torah was there room for a crucified Christ?” asks Meyer (1986:162), and he answers, “Nowhere.” Paul experienced a fundamental revision of his perception of Jesus of Nazareth and of the salvific value of the Law; and in spite of the many and important elements of his worldview that remained essentially unaltered (to which I shall return) it is preferable to use the term “conversion” (or, at least, “transformation”) for what happened to him, as Gaventa demonstrates in a very thorough analysis of the evidence (1986:17-51; cf Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:168). It was indeed a primordial experience and one that Paul understood to be paradigmatic of that of every Christian (Gaventa 1986:38). So even Peter, Paul, and John, who had lived as righteous Jews, had to experience something else in order to be members of the people of God; they had to have faith in Christ (Sanders 1983:172).

Hydraulic fracturing has been used safely in over a million wells, resulting in America’s rise as a global energy superpower, growth in energy investments, wages, and new jobs," added Mr. Milito in the statement. Environmental groups have countered that the isolated incidents of contamination confirm their fears about the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing. John Noël, of the group Clean Water Action, said in a statement that the report "smashes the myth that there can be oil and gas development without impacts to drinking water." Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the EPA study, "while limited, shows fracking can and has impacted drinking water sources in many different ways," according to the Beacon Journal. The EPA report acknowledges that the findings may be due to a lack of data collected, inaccessible information, a scarcity of long-term systematic and base-line studies, and other factors. Bloomberg reported that EPA couldn't come to terms with energy companies including Range Resources Corp. and Chesapeake Energy to conduct water tests near their wells before and after they were fracked, meaning if the agency did find instances of contamination, it was harder to prove that fracking was the cause. "These elements significantly limit EPA’s ability to determine the actual frequency of impacts," the agency said in a fact sheet released with the report.

The final element is action. This is the blasting cap. As James 2: 14 tells us, “Faith without works is dead.” If all we do is read the Bible and pray, we’ll be no more effective than Senior Chief Janeka standing there by the campfire clutching the C4. We might look pretty, with colorful flames billowing in the night, but when it comes to exploding the enemy’s strongholds, we’ll be utterly ineffective.

In 1954 both MI6 and the CIA began considering a plan to assassinate Nasser with Brotherhood assistance, with a CIA telegram to London stating that they had ‘been in contact with suitable elements in Egypt and in the rest of the Arab World’.92 The US ambassador in Cairo had also been holding secret meetings with the Brotherhood’s senior leadership, who had told him they would ‘be glad to see several of the Free Officers eliminated’.

Was it something I said?” Roth mused. “I was just pointing out the obvious.” Slowly, I lifted my head and looked at him. “What?” He grinned impishly. “Come on. You don’t look like the type of girl who watches football, hangs out with the cool crowd and ends up deflowered by the senior jock in the back of his daddy’s Beamer.” “Deflowered?” “Yeah, you know. Losing that pesky thing called virginity.” Fire swept over my skin. I pivoted around, heading toward the gym doors. Wasn’t like I didn’t know what deflowered meant. I just couldn’t believe he’d actually used that word in the twenty-first century. Or that I was even having a conversation about virginity with him. Roth caught my arm. “Hey. That’s a compliment. Trust me. He’s on the fast track to Hell anyway. Just like his daddy.” “Good to know,” I managed to respond coolly, “but would you please let go of my arm? I have to get to class.” “I’ve got a better idea.” Roth leaned in. Dark locks of hair fell into those golden eyes. “You and I are going to have some fun.” My teeth hurt from how hard I was grinding them. “Not in this lifetime, buddy.” He looked offended. “What do you think I’m suggesting? I wasn’t planning on getting you drunk and having my way with you in the back of a Beamer like Gareth is. Then again, I guess it could be worse. He could be planning it in the back of a Kia.” I blinked. “What?

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? During my second tour in Iraq, I was commander of SEAL Team Three, Task Unit Bruiser. We were deployed to the war-torn city of Ramadi, the epicenter of the insurgency at the time. Only a few weeks into the deployment, we conducted a large operation in conjunction with U.S. Army soldiers, U.S. Marines, and friendly Iraqi Army soldiers. There were multiple elements on the battlefield, all engaged in heavy enemy contact. In the fog of war, mistakes were made. Bad luck emerged. Things went wrong. There ended up being a vicious firefight between one of my SEAL elements and a friendly Iraqi unit. An Iraqi soldier was killed and several others were wounded, including one of my SEALs. It was a nightmare. While there was plenty of blame to go around, and plenty of people who had made mistakes, I realized there was only one person to blame: me. I was the commander. I was the senior man on the battlefield, and I was responsible for everything that happened. Everything. As a leader, there is no one else to blame. Don’t make excuses. If I don’t take ownership of problems, I can’t solve them. That’s what a leader has to do: take ownership of the problems, the mistakes, and the shortfalls, and take ownership of creating and implementing solutions to get those problems solved. Take ownership.

Sandworm was not some aberrant or rogue element in the Russian armed forces. It was a direct expression of the strategy of its most senior leaders.

Managing PCOS Naturally: 7 Lifestyle Changes Backed by Gynaecologists Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a complex hormonal disorder affecting women of childbearing age. According to Dr Shweta Wazir, MD, DGO, MBBS, Senior Consultant- Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the incidence of PCOS has greatly increased in the country owing to improper lifestyle and lack of awareness. The key elements of health including diet, exercise, and lifestyle are imbalanced in women suffering from PCOS.

But rather than deal with labels, I want to deal with substance. There are two prerequisites for peace. First, the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish state. They have to stop calling and educating their people for Israel’s destruction. Second, in any peace agreement Israel must retain the overriding security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River. If we don’t we’ll get another radical Islamic terrorist state in the Palestinian areas which will explode the peace and explode the Middle East. Unfortunately, the Palestinians vehemently reject both prerequisites for peace. They even deny, Mr. President, our historical connection to our homeland. Why are Jews called Jews? The Chinese are called Chinese because they come from China. The Japanese are called Japanese because they come from Japan. Well, Jews are called Jews because they come from Judea. This is our ancestral homeland. Jews are not foreign colonialists in Judea. LEAVING WASHINGTON, I realized I had a problem. The president of the United States opposed the Iran nuclear deal, as I did, but he had also become convinced that I was the obstacle to a Palestinian-Israeli peace that Mahmoud Abbas was ready for. I had to hand it to the Palestinians. They outflanked me by embracing a friend from whom I had grown apart, promising him that he would be the great peacemaker. Trump had known this person for many years and considered him a reliable source on the Middle East. How could I not see that coming? Admittedly, I wasn’t so much worried that Trump would cozy up to the Palestinians with the same vindictive zeal as Obama. Most of the senior officials in his administration did not buy the Palestinian line. Besides, I knew that Trump would come to appreciate the great support Israel and I had in the evangelical community, the most important element of his political base.

Organizations that create a climate such as that described in this chapter will naturally experience an acceleration of their OODA loops. So the question becomes how to install it. Boyd suggested, in his briefing “Organic Design for Command and Control,” that it will grow naturally if the senior management sets the proper conditions. He defines the two essential elements necessary for running any human organization along maneuver conflict—rapid OODA loop—lines as: •   Leadership—implies the art of inspiring people to enthusiastically take action towards uncommon goals. It must interact with the system to shape the character or nature of that system in order to realize what is to be done. •   Appreciation—refers to the recognition of worth or value, clear perception, understanding, comprehension, discernment, etc. It must not interact nor interfere with the system, but must discern (not shape) the character / nature of what is being done or about to be done.

Never forgetting the involvement of military officers in the 1953 attempt to force him from his throne, the Shah took great pains to keep the three services well apart so that they were incapable of mounting a coup or undermining his regime. There was no joint chiefs-of-staff organisation, nor were the three services linked in any way except through the Shah, who was the Commander-in-Chief. Every officer above the rank of colonel (or equivalent) was personally appointed by the Shah, and all flying cadets were vetted by him. Finally, he used four different intelligence services to maintain surveillance of the officer corps. These precautionary measures were mirrored on the Iraqi side. Keenly aware that in non-democratic societies force constituted the main agent of political change, Saddam spared no effort to ensure the loyalty of the military to his personal rule. Scores of party commissars had been deployed within the armed forces down to the battalion level. Organised political activity had been banned; ‘unreliable’ elements had been forced to retire, or else purged and often executed; senior officers had constantly been reshuffled to prevent the creation of power bases. The social composition of the Republican Guard, the regime’s praetorian guard, had been fundamentally transformed to draw heavily on conscripts from Saddam’s home town of Tikrit and the surrounding region.

Human beings are generally not capable of managing more than six to ten people, particularly when things go sideways and inevitable contingencies arise. No one senior leader can be expected to manage dozens of individuals, much less hundreds. Teams must be broken down into manageable elements of four to five operators, with a clearly designated leader. Those leaders must understand the overall mission, and the ultimate goal of that mission—the Commander’s Intent.

I stood before the group. “Whose fault was this?” I asked to the roomful of teammates. After a few moments of silence, the SEAL who had mistakenly engaged the Iraqi solider spoke up: “It was my fault. I should have positively identified my target.” “No,” I responded, “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked the group again. “It was my fault,” said the radioman from the sniper element. “I should have passed our position sooner.” “Wrong,” I responded. “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked again. “It was my fault,” said another SEAL, who was a combat advisor with the Iraqi Army clearance team. “I should have controlled the Iraqis and made sure they stayed in their sector.” “Negative,” I said. “You are not to blame.” More of my SEALs were ready to explain what they had done wrong and how it had contributed to the failure. But I had heard enough. “You know whose fault this is? You know who gets all the blame for this?” The entire group sat there in silence, including the CO, the CMC, and the investigating officer. No doubt they were wondering whom I would hold responsible. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.” It was a heavy burden to bear. But it was absolutely true. I was the leader. I was in charge and I was responsible. Thus, I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong. Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do. I apologized to the wounded SEAL, explaining that it was my fault he was wounded and that we were all lucky he wasn’t dead. We then proceeded to go through the entire operation, piece by piece, identifying everything that happened and what we could do going forward to prevent it from happening again.

Human beings are generally not capable of managing more than six to ten people, particularly when things go sideways and inevitable contingencies arise. No one senior leader can be expected to manage dozens of individuals, much less hundreds. Teams must be broken down into manageable elements of four to five operators, with a clearly designated leader. Those leaders must understand the overall mission, and the ultimate goal of that mission—the Commander’s Intent. Junior leaders must be empowered to make decisions on key tasks necessary to accomplish that mission in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Teams within teams are organized for maximum effectiveness for a particular mission, with leaders who have clearly delineated responsibilities. Every tactical-level team leader must understand not just what to do but why they are doing it. If frontline leaders do not understand why, they must ask their boss to clarify the why.