LTG Mark Hertling: Ukraine’s Path to Victory

Ken Harbaugh:

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Mark Hertling:

When I was the assistant division commander for support for the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004, it was unbelievable how much a broken supply chain can affect a combat operation. Well, in Ukraine, you're talking seven months.

So, not only did they stop the momentum that Ukraine had, but man, oh man, it's going to take a while for them to get that momentum flowing again, and it's going to be pretty tough to do.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions. My guest today is Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, commanding officer of forces in Europe, commanded over 60,000 men there, served in the army for 38 years.

I wanted to talk to Mark today about the developing situation in Ukraine and the impact of the American Aid package.

Mark, thank you so much for joining us on Burn the Boats.

Mark Hertling:

It's good to be with you Ken. Thanks so much for asking me.

Ken Harbaugh:

Absolutely. Before we dive into it, can you give us a 30,000-foot view of the situation on the ground right now in Ukraine?

Mark Hertling:

I'd say when you take a look at what's happening, it's pretty tense right now. The Russians are continuing to attempt to do small unit level offensive operations. The Ukrainians have been preventing that for the most part, although they've given up some ground and it's just the very fact that they're flat out of ammunition.

They've got some supplies flowing, but it isn't enough to really conduct a true defensive operation or even a hasty defense.

The other thing we always have to consider, and I think when a lot of us military guys start talking about this, we always forget this part and that's the dynamics of the Russian attack against Ukrainian civilians.

That's always been part of the Russian game plan to attempt to affect the will of not only Ukraine's government but their civilians. And they are doing that pretty successfully right now because of the fact that Ukraine doesn't have enough air defense ammunition.

Again, some of their systems have been failing, breaking down basically because they have been in so much tough use. So, you're talking about a frontline that right now is not stable, it's not secure, Ukraine is not continuing to defend the way they were because of interruptions of supply lines.

And you have the inability to protect all of the civilian base because what Russia is attempting to do with bombs and rockets and missiles is go after multiple targets all over the country. A country that's the size of Texas, I remind everybody.

So, when you're talking from an air defense standpoint, you can't defend everywhere. And what Russia is doing is just testing that ability for Ukraine to defend critical infrastructure and they're having a tough time doing it right now. So, that's kind of the state of the conflict.

The last thing I'll say, Ken, is what I've been watching very closely is Ukraine's ability to resupply. They have not been great at that from the beginning of the war. They have not had a very good resupply system. It's more of a pull versus a push supply system.

President Zelenskyy, just a few months ago, or a few weeks ago, I guess it was appointed a commander of logistics, which is the first time in a two-year war he's had that.

And instead of having commanders at different parts of the front line who are in the favor of the commanding general or people back in the supply depot saying, “Send me this, send me that,” and getting it because of that personality relationship, we really got to get helping them to get a true supply system that gets the kind of stuff, what they need, where they need it on the right timelines. And that's going to be tough over the next couple months.

Ken Harbaugh:

Surely, the delay in aid from the U.S. had a devastating impact on that supply chain. I mean, some of it I'm sure is endemic to the Ukrainian military, but it could not have helped that their biggest ally dithered while Ukrainians died.

Mark Hertling:

Absolutely. It was horrible what our Congress did in terms of waiting seven months. And one of the stories I tell Ken, I haven't been able to tell this on CNN all that much because they're not interested in it.

But when I was the assistant division commander for support for the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004, toward the end of our tour, the Sadr uprising happened, and the Mahdi Army was kind of attacking in a bunch of different directions.

We were in Baghdad and the supply lines from the ports in Kuwait up that long highway in southern Iraq were interdicted for about a week. And as the assistant division commander for support, in just one week of not getting supplies, the effects on our operations were catastrophic.

I mean, we really had to shut down quite a few things and it was unbelievable how much a broken supply chain can affect a combat operation. Well, in Ukraine, you're talking seven months. So, not only did they stop the momentum that Ukraine had in terms of their defensive operations, but man, oh man, it's going to take a while for them to get that momentum flowing again and it's going to be pretty tough to do.

Ken Harbaugh:

And in the case of Ukraine, we're talking about a broken supply chain, not because of enemy action but because of political infighting, because of disinformation frankly. In the U.S., you experienced that on a smaller scale as a commander in contact with the enemy. Can you talk about the demoralizing effect of waiting for resupply while politicians argued?

Mark Hertling:

Well, one of the other things I think we ought to add to this to make it even more complex than what you just stated, is the delivery of weapon systems to Ukraine. When you're talking about the organizational chart of the Ukrainian military, they not only … I mean they're getting stuff equipment from everybody, which only complicates the supply chain even more.

Because the part for a BMP does not fit the part for a Bradley or a Stryker or a … or whatever happened to be your piece of equipment. The last time I counted, they had over a dozen different types of artillery pieces that they're using.

And each one of them, while they fire the same NATO standard ammunition, they don't have the same parts systems. And with the amount of artillery that Ukraine is firing as well as Russia, you're talking about burning out tubes, burning out bearings, all that kind of stuff. So, that plays a part.

Going back to your question about the morale factor. I mean, if you're a soldier on the front line with high morale wanting to fight, and you don't have the equipment or the ammunition to do it, it's just a killer.

And when you're talking about Ukraine front lines, anyone who's seen the pictures of the trenches that they're fighting in and the kind of combat conditions they're facing, it's horrible conditions and you're fighting without weapons or arms that just demoralizes you even more.

And of course, in the age of the internet, most of the Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline are seeing what's happened in the West, and they're seeing the U.S. Congress dither about this. So, that's got to be a critical morale detriment as well.

Ken Harbaugh:

You just referred to the trenches on the front lines in Ukraine. In your 38 years in uniform in the U.S. Army, did you ever envision a modern battlefield that hearkens back to World War I trench warfare?

Mark Hertling:

No, I mean, not even in the wildest imaginations. I was lucky enough to go on a couple of staff … when I was in Europe, we used to do staff rides a lot. Go to the different battlefield, mostly of World War II. But on one occasion I went to the Verdun Battlefield and the Marne Battlefield, the trenches are still there, and the CPs, the command post of the generals that were there are still there.

Now they're overgrown with grass and trees and all that other stuff, but you can see where the trench lines were and most of the forests in those areas are relatively young forests. You talk to some of the farmers in those areas, they still — and in fact, one farmer in Belgium, we saw on the side of his field, he had literally a pile of artillery shells that every time he went out and ploughed his field, he hit another artillery shell, a dud or something like that.

Now that's a hundred years ago, and they're still picking them up. When you're talking about the amount of artillery that's been fired in Ukraine by Russia and Ukraine, those battlefields are going to be devastated for probably decades to come.

Ken Harbaugh:

But it's a hybridized kind of warfare. We're oversimplifying when we compare it directly to Verdun or Marne the sum, because we have drones, and we have long range attacks. We have this new mode of warfare with the threat of it going nuclear, overshadowing all of it. How do we process that?

Mark Hertling:

Well, it's kind of interesting and I'm glad people like you do these kind of shows because it's not as easy as many people on the internet think it is. Especially some of the NAFO brothers who say, “Why don't we just give them all the equipment and do all this?”

And warfare is complicated. It's very complex, it's hard. And when you're adding old styles of artillery duals with new technology like drones and integrated air defense and those kind of things, we as Americans haven't seen anything like this in the last 40, 50 years.

Especially we haven't seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan when we were fighting insurgent groups, we weren't seeing this kind of technologies and this kind of conventional mass. So, it's just hard to imagine how challenging and difficult it is and how much that weighs on the commanders and the young soldiers in Ukraine.

Ken Harbaugh:

The other addition to the hybridized warfare nature of the battle in Ukraine and the complexity that introduces is just the shockingly different mindset between the Russian military and the Ukrainian military.

And even the Ukrainians admit that they did not anticipate just how tolerant of casualties the Russians would be. I would imagine you've been caught by surprise by that as well, just how willing to send young men into the meat grinder the Russian military is.

Mark Hertling:

Yeah, at the level they're doing it. I mean, these are mass waves of attack. I had the chance Ken, when I was still commanding in Europe to visit Russia twice. And on one of those visits, I went to a basic training site, and I was seeing, I don't know how to put it other than to say cruelty by those in charge against new recruits.

I mean, not just the harassment or the drill sergeant in your face kind of things, but the beatings, the punching and they were pretty open about it.

I mean, here's an American general standing in the middle of their barracks and I see a lieutenant because their sergeants were worthless, a lieutenant just beating the crap out of a soldier with a baton. And you say how does a society produce an army when they're using that kind of treatment against those who serve?

And the fact of the matter is, in Russia, they don't produce a very good army. They can march and they can do a mayday parade, and they're pretty, but you get them on the battlefield and there's no intimate connection between the leader and the led and the government and the soldiers that you need in any kind of professional force.

Ken Harbaugh:

And yet there seems to be, if the polls are to be believed, and I'm always skeptical, there still seems to be broad public support within Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. How long can that be maintained given the casualty rate, given the fact that lies eventually are exposed, do we have a model for predicting how this ends up?

Mark Hertling:

I don't think we do, but just considering the amount of casualties that Russia has suffered and the amount of equipment loss they have sustained. You say to yourself, “Well, they can't go on,” but the Russian government has gone to a war footing. They're fighting through sanctions.

A lot of people I talk to say, “Oh, sanctions don't make a difference.” I think they do personally, and I think I can give you proof of that, but a lot of the national security folks say, “Oh, you can't give sanctions and expect it to turn the tide.”

We're seeing some of that, it just takes a long time. But what we may see gradually is the combination of the losses, the economic defeat of Russia, the hardships that the population is suffering and everything else that is just, it's going to collapse the society.

I personally thought it would've happened long before now, it's just not happening. They must be either dumber or tougher than we ever imagined to continue to execute this campaign.

Ken Harbaugh:

Reading between the lines and some of the decisions made by the Biden Administration, it seems to be that they're afraid of the collapse of Russian society. Every time the Ukrainians ask for the kind of decisive weapon system that would shift the tempo on the battlefield, they say that's too provocative or too escalatory and eventually they give in.

The only explanation can be they are afraid of Russia losing too badly. How else do you explain the Biden administration's reluctance?

Mark Hertling:

Well, I think the long-range weapon systems are a result of a couple things. And I'm not here to make excuses for the Biden Administration but from a soldier's perspective, I think that there are reasons, the delay in ATACMS had reasons connected to other contingency plans that were using those ATACMS.

Now Ukraine is starting to get ATACMS and some say, “Oh, it was because we delayed, and we piddled around and all that other stuff.” And what I'd respond with is, no, those ATACMS have been replaced with other ammunitions that are brand new off the assembly line and those are called the Precision Strike Missiles or the PrSMs.

When you say, or when anyone says we were afraid of potential nuclear escalation, I'd say, “Yeah, we were.” Because they have said that, and I've been on exercises with Russian military forces where their end game for any defensive operation in an exercise, their index concludes with a nuclear stripe. So, they are trained in that, it's their doctrine.

And the third piece is, I think the Biden Administration knows that they would be playing in the hands of the Russians if long range strike munitions were used against Russian territory, and for whatever reason you say it hits an apartment building and kills 200 Russians, then the Russians can use that to prove their point that the West is always trying to destroy Russia.

So, those are some of the calculations. And again, I'm putting up a little bit of a political approach to this, and I shouldn't, because I'm a soldier, I should say, “Yeah, give them all the weapons they need and strike any target they can get and all that other stuff.”

But there are complications when you're dealing with a nation that's 11 times zones wide and has a whole lot of people of different perspectives that are under the influence, if you will, of and I hope I don't piss anybody off on this, but under the influence of a Fox News on steroids, kind of social media within their country, and Putin has total control.

So, those are all the considerations that smarter people than me put into the factors that we're talking about.

Ken Harbaugh:

How does public pressure or public sentiment ever change in a country like Russia that lives under that, not just dictatorial regime, but information monopoly that Putin has created? I was speaking just this morning to a woman in Ukraine who works in PR. Her mother still lives in Crimea and believes everything that the Russians are saying about the invasion.

I mean, she is within spitting distance of the front and doesn't believe her own eyes about the reality of the war. That's to say nothing of the 11 time zones worth of Russians that are being lied to and for now seem to support Putin.

Mark Hertling:

Yeah. And it's a factor of any kind of dictatorial regime or authoritarian regime that controls the airways. That's the most important thing they do, is control the narrative. And when they're blasting RT or any other of the Russian channels into Crimea, that's all they see so that's all they know, unless you're on the frontlines fighting.

And it gets back to your earlier point, what will it take? It will take a lot more dead bodies going home. And mothers like the revolt in Chechnya back at the start of the century where mothers started revolting back home to try and prove to Putin and others within the Russian hierarchy, that they were doing the wrong things. But if you're asking me, what is it going to take, man, I don't know.

You talk about Stalingrad or Leningrad during World War II, there were literally tens of millions of citizens killed in those two cities and the Russian culture is to just drive on and continue to fight. When you've got that as part of your culture and you don't have the influence of casualty rates to say, “Is this war worth it?” You can continue to fight and throw meat at the front lines.

Ken Harbaugh:

Our democracies, constitutionally and I mean that with the little c, unsuited for this type of warfare because we have those feedback loops, because public pressure can be brought to bear on government decisions are drawn out, casualty heavy wars not something that democracies can wage successfully.

Mark Hertling:

Boy, that's a great question and I think you've got a really interesting point there. Other than the fact that Ukraine is fighting literally for its survival, and they have experienced, as well as some of the other east bloc countries of Europe have experienced being under the thumb of Russia and they know what it's like, so they refuse to give into it.

It's a different question when you're talking about the United States because we have not suffered the kind of existential threat that countries in Europe and in other places in the world have suffered because of dictatorial regimes. Would we be willing to continue a fight much like Ukraine has under these same circumstances? And that's a good question.

I mean, I don't mean to get philosophical on you here, but when you're talking about the clause with C and trilogy of a combination of a good army, a government that's supportive of what you're trying to do and a people that supports the fight, right now we are somewhat broken in two of those three areas, and it seems to me Ukraine is not.

I mean, they've got a people that support the government, they've got a government that supports the army and they've got an army that's holding up pretty well against a really tough enemy.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, this is evocative of I think the observation by your colleague Mark Milley who says that armies don't go to war, nations go to war. Am I attributing that correctly?

Mark Hertling:

You are. And it was for those of us who went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's been much said about President Bush's desire to have the population continue to go to the shopping malls and all that and it took a toll on the military.

And you talked earlier about the morale of the front lines, there are different kinds of morale. A couple years into the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know there were a lot of soldiers questioning, “What are we doing here?” Because no one's paying attention to it back home, that's for sure.

Ken Harbaugh:

What should we be doing to convey to the American people the stakes in Ukraine? Certainly, Ukrainian lives are on the line. You talked about the civilian casualties, they are being intentionally targeted by the Russian military.

But I think you and I would both agree that democracy itself is on the line and potentially the NATO alliance should this war spill over, it could lead to the kind of nuclear exchange that the Biden administration is most worried about if a NATO ally is attacked, and Article 5 is invoked.

Mark Hertling:

If I can do a segue a little bit and say, at the beginning of this war, I was sitting in CNN headquarters up in New York getting ready to go on, and I said, “Hey, if I'm going to talk about this military operation, I better determine what the political objectives are because the military fights for political means.”

And what I determined Mr. Putin was going after was, number one, a destruction of Ukrainian government, a subjugation of the people, a destruction of the Ukrainian army, a landmass grab, and the last thing was a continued divisiveness of both NATO and the United States. I thought those were his five political objectives.

He has not been able to reach four of those five because Ukraine has held strong, but NATO has become stronger than they were at the start of the war, that's for sure. Having spent a lot of time in Europe, they are stronger now than they've ever been but we are still divided.

So, when you're talking about something like that, that gets to the point of how do you fight an enemy like this, you can't be divided. And going back to your question of, “What's that mean for Europe?” Most Americans don't understand Europe.

I once heard somebody say that Europe is … when people think of Europe, they think all of Germany, that Europe is Germany or Europe is Italy and they don't realize that there's 49 different countries in Europe and each one of them has their own culture and history.

And about a third of them have a culture in history that have been under the thumb of Russia for the last 70 years, 80 years. They know what it's like and Putin has told everybody what he wants to do. So, I don't think it's any big surprise, but it's a lack of ability to connect with that information that I think is troubling to me on the part of America.

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Are you surprised at how successful Russian disinformation has been in creating this narrative in the U.S. that Russia is actually on the side of freedom?

I'll just pick one example. You have prominent Republican politicians saying that Ukraine is persecuting Christians and that Putin is actually the defender of Christianity that played into the delays in the aid package. I just find it shocking that that kind of lie has traction here.

Mark Hertling:

It's beyond shocking, it's just flat out insane for any person with an intellect who can look at what is happening. And you just have to shake your head when you hear that. But as you just said, there are a lot of people saying those kind of things.

Am I surprised that social media and Russian attempts at miss and diss and malformation are working? I'm not. Because unfortunately, I'm going to say this, we have too many of our fellow citizens who are not part of an informed electorate. They don't understand.

Let me share with you an anecdote. When I was commander in Europe, I had to come back too many times to brief members of Congress about the size of our force in Europe. And one of the times I had a hearing, one of my staffers came up to me and said, “Hey boss, I got a little fun fact for you.”

I said, “Yeah, what you got?” And he goes, “Well, you're talking to 10 congressmen tomorrow.” I said, “Yeah, I got it.” And he said, “We did a survey of these 10 congressmen, seven of them do not have U.S. passports.

And I said, “What?” And he goes, “Yeah.” He says that means seven of them have no clue as to what's going on in Europe or what Europe's all about or other cultures because they refuse to leave the country or not refuse, but they haven't had the opportunity to leave the country.

Well, that puts you at a disadvantage if you've never eaten Schnitzel in Germany or drunk wine in Italy or been on the Adriatic coast somewhere and understand what the people are all about, you can't understand the kind of fights that we're having right now.

Ken Harbaugh:

I heard you say in an interview once that the first time you left Missouri was to go to West Point, your world obviously opened up enormously after that. But your anecdote makes me think that you're basically trying to make the case to your high school self about geopolitical stakes.

Mark Hertling:

Yeah, no, you're exactly right and you got the anecdote right. I did say my very first plane flight and my very first trip outside the city of St. Louis because I grew up kind of a poor family was getting on a plane by myself on the 30th of June to go to … reception day in West Point.

And when I first landed in New York at LaGuardia, first of all, the plane flight was cool, landing in LaGuardia, looking at all the tall buildings, it's like, “Holy smokes, this is a whole different world than Missouri,” and that was where it all started.

And there's a lot of people in America, especially in the heartland that had that same kind of approach and experience.

Ken Harbaugh:

How much credit do you give Speaker Johnson for getting this aid package passed? I'll just put my biases on the table here. I think that seventh month delay was unforgivable. And the analogy I would draw is if my neighbor's house is on fire and I wait seven months to bring him a bucket, I'm not the hero.

Mark Hertling:

Yeah, I'm kind of your vein. I feel the same way. I mean, everybody who is now making him out as a guy that came around because he saw some intelligence and really got a dip, was dipped into what's going on in Ukraine makes me want to say to myself, “Seriously? I mean, he's a congressman and he didn't want to understand that?”

There is a Congressional Ukraine caucus, which I've spoken to a couple of times, you would think that if you're a congressman providing oversight, you better be well versed in a lot of things. And for him to say, “Hey, it took me getting a skiff briefing, my question is why didn't you ask for it before when you were saying no to the funding?”

So, yeah, I mean, I'm glad he came around, I don't consider him a hero for coming around. He showed courage in terms of pushing back against some of his fellow Congress people who still are against it but that's about the most I'm going to give him.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, he showed courage, if the definition of courage is wanting to keep your job, the natural comparison of course, is with those Ukrainians in the trenches who are exhibiting the kind of courage that Mike Johnson could only imagine if he watched a movie about it.

And frankly, I can't really believe that skiff story. I mean, he's third in line to the presidency. He has access to a skiff within … I mean, they can create a skiff wherever they have to, to brief the person two heartbeats away from the presidency. I think it was political machinations. It can't have been an intel driven delay.

Mark Hertling:

I would agree with you, it was political mechanizations, but I'd also say we've got some people who are sitting on the House Armed Services Committee who are spouting crazy things. And there are those who make fools of themselves by saying things that are just radically out of touch with reality that it just makes you wonder what are they doing besides going to hearings and wanting to spout off in front of a c-span camera. It doesn't make sense. It’s certainly not looking out for the American people.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, one of those is my senator J.D. Vance, who literally said, “I couldn't care less what happens in Ukraine.” We've touched on this, but can you talk about what happens if Putin prevails in Ukraine? It doesn't stop there.

Mark Hertling:

No, it absolutely doesn't. In Europe, it certainly doesn't stop. And what I'll tell you is a couple of things will happen. Number one, it will be devastating to many countries in Europe and the ones that will react most adamantly in their first order effects and then it will spin off second and third order effects.

If I can name them will be Poland, Romania, Moldova, and the Baltics, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, they will be next on the chopping block. When we use the name of the state or the nation of Moldova, people say, “Okay, well it's just a little country along the border of Ukraine.” It also has a little boundary line called Transnistria.

Russia has forces there. They will connect with those forces and overcome the government. Then you've got the second order effects of what will Hungary and Turkey do and what will happen in other parts of Europe that happen to be connected to NATO. That's just the European piece.

Then there will be the dynamic of what will the U.S. do to support those next level countries that aren't part of Ukraine but are part of NATO? Will we go to war for that? Because that's the dynamic We say we will under Article 5 if it's called, but will we?

Then there is the dynamic of what will other parts of the world see in terms of the U.S. failure or others failures to support a democratically elected government that wants its sovereignty, which is Ukraine.

What will happen in, I mean the big one is Taiwan, but we could probably name three or four others that would say, “The U.S. isn't going to help us anymore.” So, all of those things will disrupt the rule of law and the world order as we know it in terms of international norms, and it isn't just about Ukraine.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, let's take the optimistic viewpoint, the alternative view, or the alternative future, what would victory for Ukraine look like at this point with the U.S. delays factored in, with the Russian solidification of their defensive lines, how much can you Ukraine hope for at this point?

Mark Hertling:

Well, President Zelenskyy has defined victory as regaining all sovereign territory to include Crimea. He has talked about the reconstruction of all the damaged cities and towns that Russia has created and one of the big ones is he wants to see Putin at the Hague.

Now, I'd personally agree with all three of those strategic objectives, and he's got, I think he has a list of 17 or so that he says, “Here are things that we want to see after this war is terminated.” The Putin to the Hague would be a big deal because that gets to your comments earlier, “Will Russia implode, and will there be a new government?”

And in the history of Russian, I'm not a huge historian of Russian history or a follower of Russian history but I do know that every time they've had a revolt or a rebellion or a change of government, it hasn't been good for the rest of the world. So, we have to worry about that.

Plus, having been a war planner in the Pentagon for my only joint tour and Pentagon tour, I know that humanitarian crises and collapses of government are some of the hardest contingencies to address.

So, when you're talking about a government that implodes and their leader goes away or is put in jail or whatever, it will take a while to revamp the Russian Federation to be sure.

Ken Harbaugh:

And we didn't do a great job last time the Russian economy and the whole of Russian society imploded in many ways some of the decisions we made, led us to where we are today. We actually had Alexander Vindman on the show, and that was one of his biggest worries.

Even as a Ukrainian, he was thinking about the future of Russia and how the U.S. needs to think ahead to manage an inevitable Russian collapse.

Mark Hertling:

Well, I don't know what Alex said when he was on the show, but one of the thoughts I've given to is, okay, say Ukraine does regain sovereign territory and Russia takes a pass and withdraws and goes back into Russia, you still have a 1600-mile border between Russia and Ukraine.

Is it time for then Russia, if Putin does not go away and he maintains his leadership or they maintain their same kind of government culture, do they come again 10 years from now?

So, you now have a boundary that is going to be much like the Cold War boundary between east and west Germany, except larger with more powerful and lethal weapons to fight over it. So, yeah, the next 10 years are going to sure be interesting either if they win or they lose.

Ken Harbaugh:

This is a little outside of your area of expertise, I'm going to get political for the last few questions.

Mark Hertling:

No, I'm not going to talk about that then. Okay, go ahead.

Ken Harbaugh:

We’ll muddle through. The latest poll suggests that the Republicans who voted for the aid package in defiance of their extremist fringe in defiance of the party's leader are not suffering nearly the political price that people had feared.

I imagine that if true gives you hope, do you see a future in which the Republican party might be able to rediscover its roots as a party that's strong on defense?

Mark Hertling:

Absolutely, I do. Absolutely. And what I believe, if you want to get political, what I believe is our nation will function best if you have a competitive two-party system. And I don't like the fact that a lot of people are saying that Democrats need to take the house, the Ssenate and the presidency all at once because that leads a little bit to hubris and excesses.

I think there's got to be a control between the parties, who's ever in charge and I'm sure just like you, I voted for both sides of the aisle through my military career as an independent, where I was looking for just the best candidate and the person who would be the best leader. We need that in our country.

Unfortunately, what we've seen in the divisiveness we've all experienced is, in my view, one of the parties has gone sort of, at least parts of them have gone down the route of the mad hatter. And until that gets squared away, I don't want to see an equal two-party system. We got to get rid of the crazies.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm with you a hundred percent. Political competition is a good thing for this country when it's conducted in good faith. And I just don't think one side is operating in good faith, especially when it comes to the Ukraine question.

And you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene spouting and amplifying this lie that Ukraine is persecuting Christians and Russia is defending them.

Last question, what are the stakes for Ukraine and beyond should the next commander-in-chief be someone who wants to pull out of NATO, who says he'll abandon our allies if they don't pay their bills, which is a species premise to begin with. What are the stakes should Donald Trump win the ‘24 election?

Mark Hertling:

From an international affairs perspective and having still a lot of contacts in Europe, it will first of all really negatively affect the view of the United States. And I'm going to say at least on the European scene because that's the one I know. I suspect it will cause the same kind of chaos in other parts of the globe.

It will cause at least in international affairs, and I'm sure probably more than that chaotic dysfunction. Because the NATO treaty is a congressional treaty, it's not something the president can just overthrow.

So, if there's going to be that tension of what a president versus what Congress wants, when you're talking about signed treaties and what other people can depend upon us to do that is then going to reflect itself in American society as well.

So, I don't think we can separate international affairs or national security outside the border with what's happening inside the border. Knowing the direction that that administration wanted to take, especially toward the end of their time in office with regard to allies, military affairs, treaties and partners beyond allies, it gives me a great deal of concern. That's all I'll say and try not to be political.

It's very concerning to me because this dumb kid from Missouri has seen how the rest of the world works and we just can't dictate what they should do by saying we're going to do these kind of things.

Ken Harbaugh:

This last question may force you to get political. One of the most popular movies in the country right now is about an American civil war. Why do you think we have this sudden fascination with that?

You have certain elements of that audience, the audience being the American people that almost fetishizes the idea of civil war. You have the cosplay militia members who throw on body armor, I guess to make themselves feel tough. Why is there this fascination with the idea of America tearing itself apart?

Mark Hertling:

I think part of it, and some of your listeners are probably going to slap me upside the head because of this. I think part of it is the militarization of America by non-military people. I mean, I had the great opportunity to command basic training, and I know that when you put a soldier or a sailor or a marine or an airman or a space guardian into basic training, that they learn more than shooting and saluting.

They learn how to be a professional force. And when you have guys just strapping on the uniform or the AR 15 because it's cool and they've never experienced the terrors and the fears associated with real life combat or the requirement to live by a code and a sense of values, national values, it's easy to put on the uniform and carry a rifle. It's a whole lot harder to usurp the word and I think this is a holy word of soldier.

Because I've seen soldiers not only go in the battle, but also provide humanitarian aid and great care to the people, even their former enemies. So, that takes a whole lot more than just strapping up and racking in a magazine full of rounds.

I think we have made the military, “we” those of us who have served, have made the military such a source of admiration that other people want to do it, but in a fake far way where all they have to do is put on the uniform, carry the weapon, and go home and not follow any orders or not understand the values associated with soldiering.

That's a long and convoluted answer to your very tough question, but I get to go to the battlefield at Gettysburg every once in a while with some doctors. And when you really understand what the implications of a civil war are, you don't want one, you certainly don't want another one brother against brother.

I mean, interesting, I think all of us are parts of families where one side is considered liberal, and the other side is considered conservative. And we have fights over Thanksgiving dinner, but it's nothing like shooting at each other on an open field and literally watching arms and limbs explode, that's the difference.

Ken Harbaugh:

I read about one of those recent trips you took to Gettysburg. If memory serves you serve on the American Battlefield Monuments Commission is-

Mark Hertling:

I used to, I'm no longer on the ABMC, the American Battle Monuments Commission, but that's for all the cemeteries outside of the United States. The ones inside the United States are all controlled and run by the Veterans Administration.

But outside in 26 different cemeteries in 16 different countries are tributes to those who fought overseas. And there are beautiful places and they evoke a lot of emotion and memories. And they also evoke the fact that you shouldn't have civil wars or any kind of wars if you can avoid them.

Ken Harbaugh:

One of my enduring memories of my grandfather, who was the toughest man I ever knew, he taught me to hunt. He was a B-17 pilot and in World War II, took a 20-millimeter round through his thigh and put his own tourniquet on, was watching him weep at the sound of Taps at the American Cemetery in Luxembourg where George Patton is buried.

Mark Hertling:

Yeah, the Ham’s Cemetery. It's a beautiful place.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah, it is.

Mark Hertling:

What I'll tell you too is, and this is again talking about the American psyche, my favorite cemetery, I mean, everyone knows Normandy that's where most visitors go, but much like Ham, there's another cemetery down the road at a place called Margraten, the Netherlands American Cemetery.

And my wife and I happened to be there because of another thing on Christmas Eve in 2012, I'm sorry, 2011. And on Christmas Eve on a terribly cold, rainy, nasty day, there were literally thousands of Dutch citizens going in and taking care of the 8,000 graves that are in that cemetery.

And when we found out about it, this was before I was part of the ABMC, we found that every single one of those graves is adopted by a Dutch citizen and their family, and they pass it down generation to generation.

And even though they don't have to, they come in and place flowers at the grave and clean the tombstones. And when we ask one of the families there why they did that, they said, “Well, because, and they pointed to their soldier, they said he gave us liberty and we can't forget that.”

Ken Harbaugh:

I think that is the note I want to end on, and it's such a reminder of our place in the world and our responsibility to freedom around the globe.

Mark, thank you so much for your service and your continued service telling the truth to Americans and appreciate your time today.

Mark Hertling:

Hey, thanks Ken. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Thanks so much.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected], we're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more follow us on Twitter at Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia and David Moss. I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

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