How to Prevent an American Decline

By Bing West

Sunday, April 14, 2024

 

The following is adapted from Bing West’s remarks in the annual Greater Issues address to the South Carolina Corps of Cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C., on March 28.

 

General Walters, distinguished guests, and Corps of Cadets:

 

I am honored to be at the Citadel to give the annual “greater issues” address. Permit me to discuss three such issues.

 

First: Your success. Let’s start by quoting how Google describes your college: “The Citadel is a hard school. It’s one of the most challenging places. If you want to make something of yourself and actually learn something come to the Citadel, but to excel takes a thick skin.”

 

A “thick skin”? Whoa, wait: You’re Gen Z. AI ChatGPT says: “Generation Z faces unique mental health challenges, including high rates of anxiety, depression, and stress.” With a tough skin, you’re not holding up the image of Gen Z; in fact, you’re the antithesis. You worked hard to be admitted to the top public university in the South. You’re in good physical shape, self-disciplined, and serious about learning. All 2,400 of you get up at five every morning and make your bed with tight corners. You rarely turn on your iPhones, and you ignore social-media apps. You’ve failed at some tasks and done well at others. You know how to lead and how to follow.

 

You study, strive, and compete within an atmosphere of integrity. I saw a small sign in one classroom: I will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do. You do not see that pledge in most colleges, including the declining Ivies. You’ve absorbed into your bloodstream, into your DNA, the ingredients for success. You benefit from the reputation of the Citadel, forged by the generations who went before. The result is that you’re set up to do well in life, a theme I will return to.

 

Issue Two. How do you view life? On dozens of battlefields over three wars, I shared meals, laughed, and patrolled with more than 30 grunts who were killed close to me. In one battle in the paddies in 1966, we slugged it out all day with the North Vietnamese. Replacements were flown in at dusk, and battle raged on through a dark, chaotic night. The next morning, four Marines were carrying a body in a poncho to a chopper. “Who is he?” I asked. They read from his dog tag a name I had never heard of. The unknown Marine had come straight from the States, joined us at dark, and was dead before dawn. Five minutes after the chopper flew out with his body, we were again on the move. We accepted death as part of the daily mission.

 

It’s part of your mission too. Look around. Before you are 40, some of your comrades sitting here today will die in combat or in a combat-related accident. Poof — no longer on this earth. So don’t leave here unprepared for the loss of a colleague in Yemen or Mongolia or Timbuktu. Reflect on why you do — or do not — believe in God and a life on the other side. Prepare to cope with death. I’ve seen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan too shocked to process death. Then it becomes a crutch for not doing much later. That’s a bad attitude.

 

Spend time now getting straight with mortality. Think about what makes you who you are. Sometime in the next ten to 20 years, you’ll be knocked flat on your butt. No one — no one — gets through this life without being knocked down hard. The reason may be a divorce, being fired, or passed over. Whatever. You will be stunned, and probably won’t know what to do.

 

Let me give you an example. I’ve worked for several secretaries of defense. The finest was Jim Schlesinger, who also served as director of the CIA. I was his special assistant as Vietnam was falling in 1975. Congress had turned against the war, but Jim kept requesting aid for the South Vietnamese to defend themselves. His persistence irritated President Ford, who was running for election. The president abruptly fired his secretary of defense, who had scant savings and eight young children. A few days later, I looked out my Pentagon window to see him sitting on a park bench next to the secretary of Army. After a few minutes, they parted ways.

 

Fast-forward ten years to 1984. Without a real plan, I had left my job as the assistant secretary of defense. That former secretary of the Army, now a partner in a white-shoe law firm, sat me down on a park bench. Where are you going with your life? he asked. I babbled about maybe joining an oil corporation or a lobbying firm. He shook his head and took out a plain envelope. He said, “I gave this to Jim Schlesinger a decade ago. Now it’s your turn. Here. You have 20 seconds to write on the back of this envelope what you really want to do. Don’t think. Just write it down.”

 

Jim Schlesinger, he continued, scribbled one word: “Banker.” Banker! Where did that come from? None of us expected that calling. Yet for the next 30 years, Jim enjoyed working in international finances, and five presidents sought his advice.

 

 You can guess what I wrote: “Writer.” So I returned to combat to tell the stories of our warriors.

 

Come that day when you are knocked flat on your butt, take out an envelope and write down what burns in your soul. It might be family, job, or career. Whatever it is, follow your faith in yourself, because you have grit. If you didn’t have grit, you wouldn’t be at the Citadel today. The second issue, then, is how you view life.

 

The third issue is your role in safeguarding our beloved nation. America is a declining power, with an electorate bitterly divided. We are placating our enemies in order to rationalize reducing our military. The chaotic bug-out from Kabul was shameful. The Houthis, a ninth-century tribe, blockade the Red Sea. The administration impedes our production of energy and authorizes billions for Iran, our implacable enemy. As China ratchets up pressure against Taiwan, our Navy is cut. Congress struggles to provide aid to Ukraine, while the administration champions a wide-open southern border.

 

For you, worse is still to come. My generation of selfish politicians is cavalierly loading a staggering debt onto your backs. “Great civilizations are not murdered,” Toynbee wrote. “They commit suicide.” He meant that countries once colossi eventually lose their dynamism and run up bills they cannot pay. Seventeenth-century Spain, 18th-century France, and 20th-century Britain — all collapsed as global powers. Even more apposite of our condition is fourth-century Rome. Its end came when the ruling class overindulged itself, while dispensing bread and colosseum spectaculars to keep favor with the people. The Roman senate ran out of money to pay the legions. The soldiers walked off the job, and the Goths sacked Rome.

 

Now look at us today. Since World War II, America has reigned as the fair-minded global power. The past seven decades have witnessed unequaled prosperity, freedom, and security for America and for dozens of nations protected by our power. We remain the world’s great civilization. Yet year after year we complacently reduce the funds for our military. Beset by adversaries, how do we expect to avoid the fate of Rome?

 

Every nation has a mysterious, collective spirit manifested by the toils and behavior of tens of thousands, who in turn through their influence lead tens of millions of others. That collective dynamic is why we refer not to one leader but to our Founding Fathers (plural). The Declaration of Independence had 56 signatories, not one or two. Most suffered grievously for their beliefs; yet most of their names remain relatively obscure to this very day. They, not one man, led our nation.

 

In your careers and communities, each of you will interact with thousands of others. An astonishing percentage of your generation are ignorant of our history and embrace wokeism, a socialist ideology demanding ever-increasing benefits without increasing productivity. Government spending of your money to achieve that nirvana is unsustainable. Within 15 years, the debt incurred by today’s politicians will degrade your standard of living as individuals and imperil America as a great civilization.

 

We don’t want our economic stability, our international credibility, and our domestic cohesion to degenerate to that of Brazil or Argentina. We don’t want our defense to crumble, as happened to the Roman empire. We don’t want to be replaced on the world stage by the despot of China. Yet that is where we are lurching, through domestic profligacy and foreign-policy weakness.

 

To arrest that sharp decline, in your careers and in your communities you must make a compelling case for fiscal solvency at home and steadfast strength abroad. Others will listen to you. It is the 5 percent that lead the 95 percent. By your example, you will influence the direction of America.

 

In summary, I have addressed three issues. First, you’re set up to succeed in your careers, because of the academic and personal discipline you are exhibiting at the Citadel today.

 

Second, think through what you believe about death and about being here on earth. Take the envelope test. Figure out who you are before you are knocked to your knees by life’s tragedies.

 

And third, the greatest issue: Speak up for your beliefs. You are leaders. As you succeed in life, you owe it to speak out on behalf of common sense, solvency, and security for our beloved country.

 

Thank you very much, and God bless you.