EPILOGUE 
EPILOGUE On a trip to Iraq several years ago, I ran into a young naval officer on an individual augmentee assignment. He was working logistics in Baghdad; he seemed pretty good at it.
He could trace the best routes for ground movement on a map, could tell me how long it would take and how much it would cost to move a tanker of fuel to each forward base, and he could quote Army doctrine for keeping the lines of communication open and where reality conflicted with it. I asked where he came from and heard, to my surprise, that he was a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, with no experience in logistics, let alone logistics on land. He had volunteered to go to war. He did not care in what capacity. He did not care for how long. He did not care where they put him. He cared about contributing.
“Sir,” he said, “I’m doing valuable work here, and I'm learning a lot. I’ll be a better officer for all of this.” I had no doubt that he was becoming a better officer. And I was confident then that he would take the lessons he had learned back to the fleet and to his command, making everyone around him better too.
Tens of thousands of other Navy and Marine officers have likewise deployed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan these last ten years, including many graduates from the Naval Academy Class of 2002. Many deployed in classic roles: Marine ground combat, naval aviation missions, explosive ordnance disposal, and SEAL operations. Others served in more unconventional roles, like my logistician, or highly technical counter-IED work, economic development, rule of law, and good governance. All of them proved vital to the overall effort. Like that young man, they too had to learn new skills, often at the hands of extraordinary noncommissioned officers, adapt their own preconceived notions of what combat really means, what jointness means, and learn to lead America’s sons and daughters in the chaos and fear—and unique challenges—of war.
You have heard it firsthand in these pages. You have read their stories, shared in their fears, celebrated their achievements. You have come to know about them what I have long understood: this is a new generation of great leaders, volunteers all, grateful for the chance to serve their country, stretched by the challenges they faced, and tempered by war. I believe they are positioned, because of their diverse experiences, to lead both in and out of uniform in the years to come.
It is through experience that one develops wisdom, and America will need their leadership through the challenges of tomorrow. Many have seen the worst of it, exposing themselves to danger and bringing back home with them memories and burdens they may find difficult to share with anyone. Some gave their limbs. Others gave their lives, leaving families behind to cope and mourn and move on as best they can. America is indebted to Matt Freeman, Rich Andersen, Joe Houston, and the other thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice. All of them—at sea and ashore—made an enormous difference.
Iraq is now a democracy, still struggling to come to grips with all that entails, but a democracy nonetheless. The Iraqi people have an opportunity now, one they never enjoyed under Saddam Hussein, to decide for themselves how to govern, how to prosper, how to defend themselves. These men and women helped bring about that opportunity. In Afghanistan, war still rages, but the hard and painstaking experience of counterinsurgency warfare wrought on the streets of Iraq are paying dividends in places like Helmand and Kandahar and Ghazni.
No one is underestimating the scope of the challenges that remain. Endemic and pervasive corruption still robs the Afghan people of their rights. Poor governance still denies them the rule of law. Safe havens in Pakistan still offer the enemy aid and comfort. All of this makes the task more difficult and dangerous, but no one can deny that—once again—this new generation of leaders has stepped up to provide a foreign government, this one in Kabul, the opportunity to be more responsive to its people.
They have done this by working with and through their civilian counterparts in the State Department and in other federal agencies, as well as with partners and allies from other nations. They have learned to be statesmen as well as soldiers, diplomats as well as warriors. Indeed, they have learned that in these new “savage wars of peace” the skills required of military leaders are often the same ones required of any good community leader: patience, understanding, decisiveness, and yes, to a degree, restraint. They have taken to heart the counsel given in the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual that “U.S. military leaders require a strong cultural and political awareness of [host nation] and other multinational military partners.” As Gen. Dave Petraeus put it, “Spend time, listen, consult, and drink lots of tea.”
Yet these young men and women have never feared to fight. They helped kill Osama bin Laden and continue to decimate the ranks of al-Qaeda’s senior leaders. They have defended vital sea lanes of ocean commerce, explored and discovered ways to protect the vast and as-yet-untamed wilderness of cyberspace, and they have kept sharp and sure the instruments by which U.S. national security is preserved.
In other words, this new generation of officers has had to do it all over the past ten years. The devastating attacks of 9/11 ushered in a new era of fighting, a new American way of war, without erasing the old. Even as the military continues to fight modern war, it must also contend with and plan to defeat traditional threats from regional powers who possess robust conventional and, in some cases, nuclear capabilities. The freedom to conduct naval operations in support of joint, allied, and coalition efforts—ensuring access and projecting persistent combat power—can only be preserved through enduring war fighting competencies.
Today’s naval officers must therefore stay ready for wars big and small, for challenges global and local, for capabilities conventional and unconventional. Even a cursory glance through the pages of In the Shadow of Greatness should give any reader confidence that these leaders are battle hardened and ready and that they will remain ready for diverse challenges over the course of their careers.
When I graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968, the fighting in Vietnam loomed large in our minds. My first deployment was aboard the destroyer USS Collett (DD 730) to the waters off the coast of Vietnam, where we supported forces ashore with round-the-clock gunfire. In addition, the Cold War was very hot, indeed. We trained hard against the ever-present threat of the Soviets’ navy, working doggedly to understand every tactic they employed, every weapon system they designed. One became good at being a naval officer in those days in large part by being successful in predicting the actions of the Soviets.
The young men and women coming out of Annapolis in 2002—my oldest son, John, among them—and succeeding classes did not have just a single foe, and neither will their juniors. Their world is a lot less predictable. In 2011 alone, economic and political dynamics were dramatically affected by natural disasters, energy competition, piracy, and the continuing development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. We have seen the power and speed with which actions, images, and ideas impact military operations, and we have seen the raw power that values-driven political protest can have in literally reshaping the map of the Middle East. This pace of change continually redefines the security environment in which we operate. It will also thus continue to redefine the type of officer we must field to lead it.
To the Class of 2002, I thank you for sharing your stories and opening America’s eyes to the challenges faced by your generation, which in my view really is the next “greatest generation.” For those in harm’s way today, I commend you for the courage you are demonstrating and for the leadership you are developing.
My advice to you is simple: Continue to listen, learn, and lead in the decades ahead. Your families and your fellow citizens are counting on you. The nation looks to you, and the world needs you.