Hertling’s Dedication to Planning

Review by Bill Doughty

Most career Sailors and military veterans know this phrase: “Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance.” The “seven Ps” is a distant cousin of “measure twice and cut once.”

And ongoing planning is more important than just having a plan.

That’s the perspective of Lt. General Mark Hertling, U.S. Army (Retired), author of “If I Don’t Return: A Father’s Wartime Journal” (Ballast Books, 2026).

In planning to deal with his own angst about heading into combat in 1990, Hertling started a journal to his sons, writings he hoped would help them know him even if he were no longer in their lives. In his journal he shares observations, beliefs, lessons, and hopes for his young sons.

“Like so many soldiers, I once hoped I was fighting so that my sons would never have to.”

 He expresses that sentiment in the journal several times.

“That hope, noble as it was back then, proved naive. My sons did go to war. Multiple times. Always in Iraq, save two of those tours for our oldest son, Todd. So did one of our daughters-in-law. And for all practical purposes, while they didn't deploy, my wife and the spouse of our other son went to war too. All of them did so with honor, courage, humility, selfless service, and empathy for both their own soldiers and their enemies. Even knowing that, I offer this same hope once again—this time so that our grandchildren, and others who read this book, find that same grace with this wish:

“May you never face combat. But if you do, or if life ever tests you — whether in war, in family, in leadership, or in moments when character, integrity, values, and personal courage matter most — I hope you'll find strength in these pages. Strength in values. In character. In purpose. In love. In the stories and thoughts of this old soldier who wrote some random thoughts down for his family –– now also for you.”

Throughout this memoir/journal he praises his family, friends, and selfless soldiers he’s known throughout an illustrious career. He has special praise for key senior leaders he worked for as well as command sergeants major who worked for him, SNCO leaders “whose wisdom, loyalty, and fierce dedication helped shape my view of true leadership. They weren't just senior enlisted advisors. They were battle buddies, they were partners in command –– they were friends I could count on, without question,” Hertling writes.

“Many of these military friendships were forged in combat. And that matters. War, in all its chaos and clarity, forces you to strip away the unimportant and rely on the person beside you. You see people not for their rank but for their soul. That crucible of shared danger and absolute dependence creates a bond that outlasts distance, time, and even silence. These are life-bonds-brotherhoods and sisterhoods born of trust under fire. They are evergreen. 

But most people, thankfully, won't need war to discover those kinds of relationships. They find true and trusted friends in the combat of daily life. The crucible doesn't have to be courage shown in combat. 

Sometimes it's just the courage to give of yourself to others-truthfully and with candor-trusting someone else with your thoughts, sharing the parts of your heart that you can only share with a friend.”

He offers gifts of advice throughout the book.

For example…

• It’s OK to cry. “Here’s the deal: Emotion is the full spectrum of what it means to be alive –– and to love others more than yourself.”
• “Self-awareness and empathy aren’t soft skills, they’re core skills.”
• “Be a friend to all by being yourself –– no false airs.”
• “Leadership, like war, is a cumulative endeavor. You don't arrive on the battlefield—or at any new job—with a blank slate. You bring everything with you—the training, the scars, the questions you asked and the ones you were too afraid to. And if you're lucky, you bring the wisdom earned through experience and some of the scar tissue you've endured.”
• Hertling asserts, “Leadership is love in public. It is the steady choice to put people and purpose ahead of ego. It is the discipline of humility and the courage of beliefs. It is the willingness to widen the circle of responsibility until it includes not only ‘your’ people but the ones you once called ‘other.’”
• On what it means to be a man, Hertling writes, “A real man proves his masculinity by being considerate, protective, concerned, and confident –– and by demonstrating it.” [Core values > Testosterone tests.]
• A military career usually affords many moves, including often to foreign cultures, which is a gift in itself: an opportunity to experience diversity in life. “Differences are not threats to be judged –– they are windows into the should of different and unique people.”
• Hertling observes, “Humans are astonishingly diverse yet fundamentally similar.” He notes that Shalom and Salaam mean the same thing: “Peace be unto you.”
• He quotes Mark Twain with this advice: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Travel, Hertling says helps you “begin to appreciate, nuance, complexity, and the truth that your way is not the only way.”

Hertling says self-reflection is the key to personal development. He reflects further on life lessons and the importance of military families’ dedication:

“Looking back across the arc of my tours, as well as the continuous wars we fought at the beginning of the twenty-first century, I'm struck by how much changed—in me, in our army, and in our families. And how much good leadership and caring for each other mattered. Desert Storm taught me how to fight. The time in Baghdad taught me how much I didn't know. The surge taught me how to lead through complexity—how to integrate force with purpose, how to trust partners, how to adapt daily to the terrain of war and the human terrain of recovery. Those conflicts also taught military families a lot. It was the most challenging thing in my life and in the lives of most of the soldiers and family members I know. And it remains the most defining for all of us. All this taught me something about trust about purpose and about the quiet burden of leadership. But I also learned a lot about resilience and the power of families.”

Good leaders never dismiss the concerns of military families for their service members.

Hertling riffs briefly on President George Washington’s “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,” seeing the same humor along with some still-timely truths in George’s advice just as we saw in an earlier Navy Reads post.

Included in his sometimes random thoughts are extended discourses on MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and music appreciation: He loves the Eagles but New Kids on the Block … not so much.

On the serious side, he reflects on the importance of ongoing planning instead of relying just on a plan [some advice that seems very pertinent to whatever “planning” went into the Iran War.]

“What I've learned, and what I hope shows in this reflection, is something even more profound: Sometimes the plans don't matter— but the planning always does. 

There's a story I like that captures this lesson. In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy suspected the Soviets were preparing some type of provocation in Berlin. Concerned but unsure of what was coming, he asked the Pentagon to develop a series of potential responses, what the military calls an action-reaction-counteraction series of drills. 

When those potential action-reaction-counteraction plans were complete and briefed to the President, Kennedy—aware of his own limitations as a junior naval officer during WWII –– asked the planners to brief someone with deeper experience in strategic decision-making: former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

So, the planners went to Gettysburg. 

In Ike's quiet farmhouse near a battlefield where another kind of crisis had once played out during the Civil War, these senior officers briefed Eisenhower on their assumptions and options. They laid out potential Soviet scenarios: an armored push through the Fulda Gap, economic pressure, nuclear signaling, political propaganda campaigns. 

At the end of the briefing, one of the officers asked, ‘Mr. President, based on what we've told you, what do you think the Soviets are going to do?’ Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander who’d planned D-Day and led Allied forces in WWII, and who had been the president for eight years, paused. Then, he reportedly replied succinctly, ‘I don't really know what they're going to do. But remember—your plans mean nothing, but your planning means everything.’ 

One of the plans the Pentagon officers hadn't considered was that the Soviets would build a wall around Berlin.”

EiOn the need for planning instead of reliance on intelligence and plans, Hertling writes, “(Clausewitz) said that the smart Soldier does not put any faith in the intelligence by staff officers about the progress of the battle because most times it’s just flat wrong!”

Yesterday, Hertling wrote for the Bulwark in response to President Trump’s threat expressed to a FOX News reporter, “If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them,” Trump said. 

Hertling’s essay of August 18, 2026 is titled, “Who Would Want to Be Friends with America Now,” written in the wake of Trump’s threat to Oman, his directive to cancel Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises with South Korea, his embrace of North Korea’s dictator, and his tariffs against key allies (not to mention his threats to invade Greenland, take over Canada and make the Strait of Hormuz "new American territory").

In part, Hertling writes this about Trump’s vulgar threat to Oman: "The president is threatening to bomb a country that for nearly half a century has quietly provided the United States with military access, logistical support, diplomatic assistance, and something increasingly rare in the Middle East: the ability to communicate with friends as well as enemies. For decades, Oman hasn’t been in the way, it has often been the way.

Hertling warns about a president’s power to destroy alliances. “That destruction rarely occurs with a formal announcement. More often, trust corrodes incrementally. An exercise is canceled. An ally is publicly berated. An adversary is praised. A partner wonders whether Washington will respond to help during a crisis. Another begins looking elsewhere for security or diplomatic support. And America loses a partner, an ally, or a friend.”

Questions:

• Will Congress or the 25th Amendment stop Trump from losing allies and friends?
• Why did Donald Trump say recently that families are not concerned about their Sailors welfare?
• Why did he say the USS Lincoln’s Carrier Strike Group 3 (CSG-3) deployment was “not nearly long enough”?
• Why does Secretary Pete Hegseth say the Navy can remain near the Hormuz Strait “indefinitely”?
• Did Trump and Hegseth plan for destruction of logistics basing in the region?
• Why is Trump praising North Korea’s leader –– a dictator who is helping Russia against Ukraine, who supports Iran, and who once called Trump a “dotard”?

Most importantly, What trust is there in the quality of Trump’s “proper prior planning”?

Black-and-white photo above: Former President Dwight Eisenhower (right) meets with Republican leaders at his farm at Gettysburg. Future president Gerald Ford (a Navy World War II Veteran), who was then the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, sits far left. (Eisenhower National Historic Site)

Hertling on Trust: ‘If I Don’t Return’

Review by Bill Doughty––

Hertling

Hertling’s book “If I Don’t Return” is much more than its meaningful subtitle: “A Father’s Wartime Journal.” The war journal is a vital part, but this book is also about history, philosophy,  self-reflection, self-help, and –– most especially –– leadership. It’s also about building character based on trust.

His book for everyone, because nearly everyone understands and values the importance of trust. Hertling shares many personal lessons and beliefs, including this gem:

“…Over the years, I've come to believe one thing. That life and leadership are forged by one's character. And character is molded by experiences but defined by integrity, shared trust, enumerated values, honest humility, and different kinds of love.” Shared trust!

“Trust,” along with the other qualities he lists, is a foundation of core values and good leadership. Hertling saw the value of trust in 1990/1991 during the First Gulf War, when he helped kick Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait.

Trust in Unity

George H. W. Bush

“Looking back now at Desert Storm, I see how trust was the thread running through it all. At the unit level, trust was instinctive and immediate. We built it in our squadron, and President George H.W. Bush [Navy World War II Veteran, left*] generated it in our citizens. Chairman Powell and Secretary of Defense Cheney reinforced it in their conversations with politicians and the American people. We often didn't have the same in our later conflicts.

In combat, you cannot hedge or calculate trust—it must be whole. 

On a Bradley or Abrams tank crew, drivers trust commanders to navigate through the night; gunners trust leaders to identify targets; wingmen trust each other to cover their flanks. Once proven, that trust became indestructible. That was what carried us through exhaustion, confusion, and chaos. Desert Storm also enjoyed broad trust at home: 

Its objectives were clear, the coalition strong, the war short. That was due, at least in part, to the fact that Desert Storm was a quick war, and Americans like quick wars, with a lot of explosions shown on TV. 

By contrast, trust would not be as stable during our later counterinsurgency and counterterrorism wars. Soldiers in combat zones continued to trust what they could see: their buddies beside them, their leaders in the field, their sense of mission, and their practiced competency. But they couldn’t personally affect the shifting political calculations in Washington, the support of the citizenry of the country, or the intelligence that shaped actions. The disadvantages of long wars — counterinsurgencies and counterterrorism fights that took much longer to generate success-and the fleeting attention span of our citizenry caused a loss of interest in what the professional military force (less than 1 percent of our nation) was accomplishing. And the results of Operation Iraqi Freedom (and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan) stretched that trust thin, often to the breaking point. The false intelligence about chemical weapons, the changing conditions and mission creep, and the president's advice to citizens to keep going to the malls contributed to that deterioration of interest and trust.”

Trust in Your Eyes and Ears

When a reporter told President Trump (left) the other day that Navy families are concerned about their Sailors because of deteriorating conditions aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), he replied, “No they’re not.” When the reporter asked if the carrier was deployed too long, he replied, “No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed gratitude to the Sailors aboard the carrier, but claimed news reports detailing poor living conditions and mental health struggles on the carrier were false or distorted and “completely misrepresented.”

But after a visit to USS Abraham Lincoln, Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander, U.S. Central Command, who is the top U.S. commander in the war with Iran, said, “I applaud Lincoln’s leadership –– the senior enlisted leaders in the Chief Petty Officers Mess in particular –– for stepping up and making mental health and crew resilience a leadership priority.”

In the face of rising prices and Americans’ concerns about the economy, Trump –– who along with his family is making billions of dollars while in office –– said several weeks ago, “I don't think about Americans' financial situation, I don't think about anybody.”

Opinion polls show most Americans hear that lack of care and so have a lack of trust.

Trust in ‘Johari’

In “If I Don’t Return,” Hertling refers to more than a dozen other thinkers and authors. One of those authors is emergency medicine physician Dr. Omayra Mansfield, who wrote "The Trust Transformation."

"In her book, Dr. Mansfield relayed a core message that is simple but profound: Before you can build trust in others  –– your patients, their families, your colleagues and leaders — you must first trust yourself. Leadership requires clarity of individual values, consistency of action, and authenticity of presence. She knows this is true in an emergency room, and I know it is true in a combat zone. It is something that must also remain true for citizens and policymakers. When trust is absent –– when leaders are inconsistent, opaque, or self-deceiving, and when employees or citizens don't feel a part of the team — trust quickly collapses. 

Many of those who study trust often revert to a model called the ‘Johari Window.’ It's a rhetorical tool used to explain self-awareness and trust between individuals. In combat, soldiers operate almost entirely in the ‘open quadrant’ of that theoretical window — we depend on what we know about each other, gained from close connection, shared hardship, and repetitive experiences that all lead toward trust. There are no illusions about fear, courage, or capabilities. But in other groups— larger teams in different situations — the Johari Window posits that participants often exist in the ‘hidden’ or ‘blind’ quadrants. Some individuals often withhold their full motives (hidden), fail to see their own limitations (blind), or are misled by information that is just not true. 

The result is a breakdown in trust … I’m convinced that trust is the building block of relationships, leadership ... and life. Trust is gained in myriad ways, and, as I once heard someone say, trust is earned in drops but lost in buckets. Trust is relatively easy to build in small teams, if one knows what it takes to build it. But it is much harder to sustain when hidden motives, blind spots, egos, and personal agendas that are often present in larger teams enter the equation. 

Interestingly, military theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz described something similar in broader terms for warfare. He wrote of war as a paradoxical ‘trinity’ — a  balance of passion, chance, and reason — that found its practical expression in the relationship between the government, its army, and its people. Each had to trust the other. Citizens had to believe their government's cause was just. Armies had to believe their political leaders would use their sacrifices wisely. And governments had to trust their soldiers to execute with discipline and competence. If one leg of that triangle fails or is even oft kilter, if confidence collapses, the nation that goes to war will suffer significant consequences. Ukraine's resistance to Russias invasion in 2022 illustrated this perfectly: Ukraine's people trusted their government, its army trusted both the people and their leaders, and the government trusted the army enough to unleash it with broad support. That synergy sustained Ukraine when the odds seemed impossible. Trust, in that sense, is not just personal — it is strategic. 

As a nation — as a government, as citizens, and as an army — we were successful in building the trust needed to execute Desert Storm inside our units, between the government and the people, and between the people and the army. But during later wars, we found ourselves in a place where no military leader, and certainly no government, wants to be. Despite tough fighting by courageous soldiers, competent diplomacy of the State Department, and the desire of governmental officials to achieve stated goals, three of the other wars — Vietnam, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom — were failures. In my view, a big part of the reason boiled down to an unbalanced Clausewitzian triangle. A lack of trust. 

To me, the lesson is simple. Trust is critical between people, between the citizenry of a nation and its government, and between governmental officials and their army. Find ways to build trust — improve communication, eliminate misinformation, define the mission, maintain humility, ensure competency and integrity, create understanding — and it will bring you closer to success. All seemingly easy, but to paraphrase Clausewitz, the simplest things are often the most difficult.”

Trust in Truth

Hertling writes, “What I learned from both Iraq and Ukraine is that opportunism thrives in the vacuum left by failed institutions. People who have no faith that their government will provide food, water, fuel, or security will take matters into their own hands.”

In the United States, great social change has been brought about both violently (the Civil War) and nonviolently (FDR’s New Deal after the Great Depression). MLK’s Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s achieved integration and LBJ’s Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act through a non-violent strategy but with violent repercussions

Hertling warns:

“In America, we've seen moments when institutions faltered and riots turned cities into places of fear and lawlessness. In those moments, ordinary people are swept up in mob behavior that tears at the fabric of community and civility.

The lesson is stark: Without trusted institutions, the human condition bends toward chaos. Leaders — whether military or civilian — must not only prepare to confront that chaos but also work tirelessly to prevent it by ensuring their people are cared for, protected, and respected. A government that cares for its people will always be more resilient than one that leaves them desperate.”

On a hopeful note, he writes, “… Chaos, if left unchecked, will consume everything. But with strong leadership, institutions built on trust, and the kind of professionalism modeled by leaders like Henadii Vorobiov in Ukraine, and later Barham Salih in Iraq, societies can resist the pull of opportunism and corruption and instead move toward stability and hope for the future.”

Trust in Communication

Hertling’s life’s path has led him into public affairs and journalism as a national security analyst. Again, “trust” is at the ore of communication with the public.

While serving in Iraq again in 2003 as an assistant division commander in the 1st Armored Division, his commanding general, Marty Dempsey, directed him to communicate with three distinct audiences in three very different ways. Above all, to do so with honesty and integrity, especially when communicating with the American people. Hertling received this directive: “Expand information operations, public affairs, and command information.”

“At the time, those three terms had distinct doctrinal meanings. Information operations referred to the full spectrum of activities designed to influence our enemies and protect our own decision-making. IO consisted of psychological operations, electronic warfare, deception, and information security. Public affairs was the communication of facts to the public, usually through the media, and it focused on telling the army's story truthfully and effectively. We were not allowed to use information operations against journalists. Finally, command information referred to internal communication within the force: that is, messaging that kept soldiers, families, and the army community informed so rumors didn't fill gaps.

Dempsey understood something few others did: In modern conflict, these three were interconnected. If we wanted to stabilize Iraq, we couldn't just fight insurgents; we had to protect information from the enemy, but we also had to win narratives, build trust, and tell the truth.”

Telling the truth is the foundation of building trust. And trust is, again, “earned in drops but lost in buckets.” The three pillars of communication may be interconnected, but they must be distinct to their audience. That’s why public affairs interaction to the public or internal communication with troops must never include lies or disinformation of “information operations,” strictly used against bonafide enemies. And the media are not "enemies of the people."

In 2026, we are right to demand leaders of good character who tell the truth and build trust.

[This is the second in a three-part series of reviews of this important book.]

*Former President George H.W. Bush departs the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., Jan. 8, 2009.  (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Joel S. Kolodziejczak)

Tank photo: BAGHDAD, Iraq An M1 Abrams Tank from B Company 1st Battalion 37th Infantry, attached to 1st Battalion,, 36th Infantry, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division as part of Task Force 1/36 maintains perimeter security inside a traffic circle in the Rusafa district of Baghdad, April 2004. (Cpl. Benjamin Cossel)