On War

As soon as the Eighth Army was adequately trained and supplied, Auchinleck and Cunningham would launch their first offensive against Rommel, codenamed Operation Crusader.

As a young officer, I read this book, On War, by Carl von Clausewitz.

Although it was written 135 years before the Second World War, It might well have been written with Rommel, Cunningham and Auchinlecht in mind.

And the book he says, a conquering army is like the light of a lamp.

Mark did come home, and he went on to serve 38 years in the Army, including as an assistant division commander in Baghdad, and later commander of the First Armored Division in Iraq during the 2007-2008 surge, before finishing his career as a commander of U.S. Army Europe.

Decades later, that wartime journal became the basis for his new book, If I Don't Return.

Today on the show, retired three-star general Mark Hertling and I talk about the reflections it contains on making every day count, planning for friction, marriage and friendship, handwritten notes, casual profanity, the moral weight of war, and what it means to build a man.

After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is/return.

Thank you.

It's great to be with you.

So you got a book out called If I Don't Return, and this book is based on a journal that you started while you were a major in the Army Cavalry during Operation Desert Storm, and it was a journal for your sons.

So why did you start this journal during Operation Desert Storm for your, your boys?

The Route to Unhappiness, The Way to Unhappiness by Orrin Hubbard.

She had to read Clausewitz's On War, beginning to end.

Why? Nobody will ever.

And she said that she woke up with her, she was standing up with her head pressed against the wall.