E-mail a friendMaj. Gen. John Hawkins
airdate February 27, 2007
Maj. Gen. John Hawkins is Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel for the U.S. Army Reserve. He has government relations experience in the military and civilian sectors, including 28 years with the Defense Department and stints in counter-intelligence and the Army Congressional Budget Liaison Office. After 9/11, Hawkins led an international team in Afghanistan and barely escaped from terrorists while leaving Kabul. His civilian positions include working for The PMA Group and as Senior Counsel with Cohn & Wolfe.
Maj. Gen. John Hawkins
Tavis: Maj. Gen. John Hawkins is the assistant deputy chief of staff of the U.S. Army Reserve. He has spent more than 30 years on active duty in the Army and the Reserve. Shortly after 9/11, he was asked to serve as the director of the coalition public affairs office in Pakistan, a post he held until 2002. General Hawkins, nice to have you here on the west coast.
Maj. Gen. John Hawkins: Sir, it's my pleasure.
Tavis: Good to see you.
Hawkins: Nice to see you.
Tavis: Let me start with a real to-the-point question, I hope, at least. Why would anybody want to sign up for duty right about now, when it's pretty likely that you're gonna, in fact, be called, you're gonna go someplace in the world where there's a war ongoing, and wherever you go, it ain't gonna be cute. You're putting your life on the line, and I should sign up for the duty, why (laugh)?
Hawkins: Well first of all, you're absolutely right. The question has to be asked, because it is a personal decision. There's no requirement that anyone serve anymore. However, some people, and African Americans particularly, throughout history have always felt that they're willing to defend that which they own. And if we own part of the American possibilities and opportunities and way of life, then I think it's probably fitting and proper that we be willing to serve to protect that.
Now, there are numerous opportunities that come with service. For instance, whatever I am these days I am because of the mentorship of many people in the military that served above me at the time that I served. And also, they paid for my ROTC scholarship, they paid for my Master's degree, they paid for my law degree, they paid for post-graduate work at Harvard. There are numerous opportunities that come through to fruition by serving.
Tavis: Those opportunities today, do you think they outweigh the risk one takes today?
Hawkins: Well, I think that they are something that should be considered as a way of life. Twice coming here in the last 24 hours, I had an airplane where the gear almost didn’t work. We were diverted and had to get rid of fuel, as a matter of fact, to make a safe landing. Very few minutes ago, there was a very close accident.
I have had high school principals tell me that they no longer talk too much about inherent dangers, because the most inherent dangers come with either driving a car on the highway or waking up in the morning and going out in the streets.
Tavis: Minister Farrakhan, Louis Farrakhan, that is, made some news over the weekend with what was billed as his last public speech by some. I saw that billing. I don't know if he said that, but it was certainly billed as his last public address at his annual Savior's Day. And in that speech, which again has made some news, given his health challenges of late, in the speech he said, and I paraphrase here, that joining the military is the worst thing that a brother, that an African American male can do.
Because you leave the country one way, and you come back another way. Now, that would be consistent with stories we've read over the years about people - not even just Black men, but about a number of individuals who've gone to certain parts of the world, had to fight in certain wars. It does, in fact, change you.
So specifically, since we happen to both be African American men, what's the case for an African American man doing something like this, like signing up for duty, if Farrakhan is right that you leave one way and you come back another way. I'm not suggesting he is; I'm just asking your point of view on it.
Hawkins: Well, I would say that when on takes on any new challenge in life, you probably go away one way and you come back another. It is important to understand that the trials and tribulations that one faces in war, the trials and tribulations that one faces in any sort of service that requires one to put something else, another patriot, another friend, another member of your organization, before yourself does change you somewhat.
There are some psychologists, I'm sure, that would agree that if the youth of today had a better feeling for what they should do for other folks, as opposed to simply what ingratiates them immediately, then maybe we would have a better society. So I would agree that yes, you will go away one way and come back another. But you may come back a more complete person.
You may come back one that is clearly focused on things other than just self. Now, having said that, if, in fact, an individual comes back with psychological or physical problems, then it is the absolute responsibility of that service to take care of not only that member but that member's family, and to take care of them with all due diligence.
Tavis: To your point now, I read stories from time to time, and I'm not gonna say I read more than I don't, but I read enough stories from time to time about veterans complaining about how they are treated these days. Your thoughts, if any, on how the military is doing on treating veterans of all wars, to say nothing of those who are coming home even as we speak.
Hawkins: Well, we're doing a job that we're trying to do better and better every day. We are taking care of soldiers; we're nowhere near the level where we absolutely want to be. I can tell you that as a general officer in the United States Army, working with civilian leadership from time to time as well, there's no one, absolutely no one, more concerned about the wellbeing of our soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen, and particularly those that are in the Reserve and the Guard, and their families.
And I say, particularly the Guard and Reserve folks, because not only are they making a voluntary decision to leave their families and go forward and serve their country, but they're also making a decision to leave positions. And sometimes, they're ordered to leave for these positions. And when they go, there are two things you really concern yourself with.
As a reservist - when I went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, I went as a reservist. And you worry about your family, and then you wanna make sure that your job is secure. So we always are soliciting the complete backing of the American public in total.
Tavis: To your point about going to Afghanistan and other places abroad, what's your sense of - and again, this is an impossible question on some level, but I'm asking you, I guess, for your own personal viewpoint of what the morale of the armed forces are these days. And I'm asking that question against the backdrop, again, of stories that we continue to read about the fact that there are so many men and women who want to come home.
They're in parts of the world where they are being extended on duty, or they get back home and have to go back again. But that the resources, we read, at least, are being spread so thin that even when you go someplace to do your patriotic duty, you end up being there a little bit longer than you want to be patriotic in that part of the world.
Hawkins: Well, I will tell you that having gone forward, you do wanna come home. And if you don't wanna come home, then that would be a very strange scenario (laugh). But having said that, yes, the Army and the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force, Coast Guard, but particularly the Army and the Marine Corps, we need more soldiers and Marines, and we need more equipment. We absolutely do.
That would probably slow what we call the operations tempo, which means the amount of time and the speed with which people have to spin, if you will, and go back into potential harm's way. Now, as to the esprit de corps, if you will, of those serving in harm's way, while you are there, you are concerned about getting your mission accomplished and the safety of yourself and your buddies. That's what you're concerned with.
Tavis: Let me ask you with about a minute to go here what it means, how difficult it is, what the challenges are - I'm trying to find the right way to phrase this - when the military for so many folk around the world is our ambassador? You see what I'm getting at here?
Hawkins: Yes.
Tavis: For so many people in the world, what they know of America is what they know of our military. How they are treated or maltreated, as it were, by our military. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Hawkins: Well, that's an interesting question, and let me attack it from two different ways, if I can. First of all, that is one reason why it's even more important, I think, for African American males and females to be willing to serve, particularly out of the reserve components like the Army Reserve. So that they can have an opportunity to show the world that citizen soldiers, people that live lives as teachers and contractors and construction workers and lawyers and doctors have at the bottom of their heart the willingness to protect the American way of life. And that a free and open and clear society is always something worth going forward for. And we've done that since the very beginning of this nation.
Tavis: Well, I'm glad to have you on the program, Maj. Gen. John Hawkins.
Hawkins: Thank you, sir.
Tavis: These conversations are always interesting, 'cause I know that there's only certain things that they can say with regard to politics. But I'm always interested to talk to those who are in service to the rest of us in this country, so it's nice to have you on.
Hawkins: Thank you, sir.
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