Stanley McChrystal: belief

Transcript context

…Now, if drones have become so much more important — we mentioned cyberattacks before — great risks, right? What does this mean for who the military has to recruit? It seems like a very different recruiting problem than what we used to have, and maybe a harder problem because people who can work with cyberattacks — they can earn a lot more money in the private sector than, say, a guy who’s 6 foot 3 with big muscles. How are we going to deal with this? Well, that’s a cultural shift that has to occur in the military, but it has to occur, and has to occur soon. I think we’re going to have to start recruiting people with the talent for that or the ability to be taught that. They may not have the skills walking in. The military — as it did in the aerospace age — needs to become the training ground for people, to teach them high-tech skills. Right now, the commercial world is ahead of the military on things like cyber, in terms of training basic skills and digitization. The military’s relied on trying to bring people in who are pretty good already, and then focus them on certain tasks. The military’s got to think about creating an education system for talented people so that becomes a recruiting tool. If you come in and work in the military, you get access to technology and training that is hard to get on the outside. You get people for a number of years, and then they graduate on to whatever tech firm. That means we’ve got to reverse. We got to get the engine on the train right now because it’s not there. To close, two questions about you. You’re famous for eating only one meal a day. Do you still do that?…

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