Christopher Nelson spoke with Guy “Bus” Snodgrass about his new book Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon With Secretary Mattis. Snodgrass was Secretary Mattis’s chief speechwriter and later communications director. In this detailed and extensive interview, Snodgrass explains why he doesn’t believe he betrayed Mattis’s trust, the mechanics of speechwriting for Department of Defense seniors, the creation of the National Defense Strategy, and his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities the Navy has with retention and talent management today.

Christopher Nelson: Guy, I want to understand why you wrote your book, Holding the Line. It will generate a few narratives. One is the political narrative. You discuss meetings with senior administration officials, senators, and so on. But that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m interested in a discussion about trust, about loyalty. There are more than a few folks that work in national security circles that are upset about you disclosing details of meetings you participated in with the Secretary behind closed doors.

So here’s the question: Did you betray Secretary Mattis’s trust?

Guy Snodgrass: Easy answer: no.

I thought it was important to write this book. Consistent with the oath I took, I saw it as providing a service to the American people and those who would follow in my footsteps. I was an eyewitness to an important, but under-documented, moment in American history, especially as related to America’s military. I want readers to be able to share in my personal experience. I feel it’s also important to underscore the role our military plays in today’s hyper-politicized national security environment.

There’s a difference between talking out of school while on your boss’s staff or while they’re still in office. It’s quite another to reflect on the experience once they’re out of office in order to share lessons that others may benefit from.

Ok, then how would you reply to his email today? The one in which he says he wouldn’t have had you on his team if he knew you’d embark on such a book. Why didn’t you tell him you’d consider writing about your experience?

I understand the frustration. Most senior leaders want to control their own narrative. But the truth is I didn’t have any idea that I was going to write a book or even discuss publicly my time working for Mattis and with the White House while I worked in Mattis’s front office. I certainly didn’t enter the job thinking this was a possibility.  It wasn’t until I left public service that I had time to reflect on all I had witnessed and the lessons I believe others could learn from, that I decided to share them in a book.

In your book you tell the reader about a Marine lieutenant colonel on the staff who upset you. This officer withheld information that would have enabled you to help the Secretary with the rollout strategy for a strategy. You went to this officer for any thoughts or previous work he accomplished. He demurred. You describe that he withheld information and then “came through” with his information when the Secretary’s senior military assistant demanded results and you had little to no time to work it.

So, in the book, I’m paraphrasing here, but you describe never being treated this way by another military member—ever. Have you ever considered that you are that character in Mattis’s eyes? That you are this lieutenant colonel who stabbed him in the back?

That’s an interesting point that up to now I hadn’t considered. This book was written with the best of intentions and was driven in large part by what I learned from and during my time with Mattis. I hope with a little time and once he has a chance to read it, he may see it differently.

How’s the support from senior military officials on your book? What can you tell us about senior officials who support your book but, for whatever reason, can’t do so publicly? What do you think that says about our military culture?

I received plenty of positive feedback from mentors and peers throughout this process. I engaged in discussions with dozens of general officers as I started writing the book to help ensure I pursued an approach that would stand the test of time. Their support, whether public or private, has been very helpful.

I get the reluctance to speak out in support of the book or my efforts to share this story. As an avid reader of history, especially memoirs, it’s apparent to me that there was a period of time not too long ago where more officers were willing to share their experiences with the public. My hope is that by writing this book, by taking the road less traveled and shining a light on the issues I cover in Holding the Line, others may feel they too can dare to read, think, write, and publish. There are plenty of lessons to learn from each other—we just have to be willing to share them so that others may benefit.

How did you get the job?

So many things come down to reputation and the network developed over the span of a career. In my case, in December 2016, I concluded command of a U.S. Navy fighter

squadron based in Japan. My family had just moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where I served as executive assistant to the Commander of U.S. Naval Air Forces Atlantic Fleet.

We were back in the U.S. for three months when a long-time mentor, retired Vice Admiral Daly, called. Daly knew Secretary Mattis and his staff were swamped and desperately needed to stand up a speechwriting team as soon as possible.

Daly said my name was on the radar as a good candidate for the speechwriter job and asked if I would be interested in supporting Mattis. Mattis has perhaps the best—or at least well-known—reputation of any uniformed leader of our generation. So, while I said I couldn’t commit, I’d be honored to be considered. A couple weeks later the Secretary’s team called and asked me to interview.

The interview with the staff went well. The deputy chief of staff wanted me to meet the chief of staff, retired Rear Admiral Kevin Sweeney. Tony walked out, returning a few minutes later with Sweeney. Sweeney didn’t say a word. He shook my hand, patted me on the shoulder, and then walked out. It was utterly bizarre. I think he just wanted to put eyes on me. He didn’t ask me a single question. The deputy chief of staff then turned to me and said, “That was great. He really liked you!”

A few days later, Tony called back to say they wanted me on the team and asked how soon I could get there. The family remained in Norfolk so our children could finish the semester, and I moved to D.C. as a geo-bachelor to start the job. 

Again, reputation and recommendations were paramount. I was told that Admiral Greenert, the 30th Chief of Naval Operations who I also wrote speeches for, contacted Mattis’s leadership team in the front office and said, “I heard you are considering Bus for speechwriter. He’s the right guy for the job...and he can’t be overtasked.” That must have carried the day. 

Do you remember your first interaction with Secretary Mattis?

Ironically, the first time I met Mattis was in 2012 while I was waiting to interview with Admiral Greenert for the CNO’s speechwriter position. Mattis was then the four star commander of U.S. Central Command. Mattis came out of Greenert’s office just as I was walking in, so we had a quick exchange.

The first time I met him after he was sworn in as Secretary was in the hallway of his front office suite in the Pentagon. I had just joined the team a few days prior. He needed some changes made to a speech he was in the middle of working on, so I reintroduced myself, and he handed the remarks off to me.

It’s interesting, though, throughout my year and a half of his staff, the Secretary never asked me anything about myself, my career, or my family. He was always focused on the task at hand. It was more of “I’ve heard good things about you...now, let’s get to work.”

Let’s turn to the mechanics of speechwriting. What did an average day look like as a speechwriter for the Secretary?

Most jobs on a personal staff are tied to your principal’s schedule. Mattis arrived at the Pentagon between 5:50 and 5:55 am every day like clockwork. When I first started as a speechwriter, I was afforded a little more flexibility. However, I was quickly elevated to Chief Speechwriter and Director of Communications, which drew me into daily leadership meetings.

For me, an average day was arriving at the Pentagon between 5:45am and 6:30am. The first part of the day consisted of synchronization meetings. The chief of staff, the senior military  assistant, and the deputy chief of staff met with the Secretary promptly at 6:30am in what was called the “DUMPEX.” By that point, the Secretary had a chance to read all the news clips and information that had come in overnight, so at 6:30, he talked to his Top Three for twenty or thirty minutes to provide direction, what he needed for that day, and what he wanted carried out.

We then turned around and went immediately into a 7:00 am meeting with a slightly larger group of the staff, which included the Senior Military Assistant, myself, the director of the Secretary’s Action Group, Mattis’s aide-de-camp, and the Special Assistant to the Secretary. It was still a small group—six to eight people in total. The Senior Military Assistant would take everything the Secretary shared with him and pass it along to us. We would divvy up the tasks between us as required.

At 7:30 am, the Secretary’s Senior Military Assistant held a meeting in the front office conference room with the military assistants from the other services and OSD components to give direction to Pentagon leadership. The military-centric aspect of this meeting caused a lot of heartache. The Secretary’s front office was mostly military—either active duty or retired. It was fascinating because then what you had is a room of military personnel that get their direction from an admiral—and those military assistants would go and give feedback and direction to the civilians appointed over them. It caused friction with the political appointees, as they felt it was a disservice to the long-held tradition of civilian control over the military.

At 8:00 am, we held our last routine meeting of the morning. On Tuesday and Thursday, it was the Large Group. Every other day, it was the Small Group. As the names imply, Large Group meetings included every undersecretary or special assistant, key players on Mattis’s and the Deputy Secretary’s staff, a Joint Staff representative (typically the J5), and a few others. We used the Secretary’s Conference Room in the E-ring of the Pentagon for Large Group.

Small Group included just the Secretary, Deputy Secretary Shanahan, a few key undersecretaries, and a few of us on Mattis’s front-office team. After that, it was highly variable. I was tied to Mattis’s schedule, especially for events involving remarks or planning for upcoming travel, speeches, or leadership interactions (Congress, White House, interagency, or international). Otherwise, I had autonomy during the day, so I was turned loose to work with senior representatives and prepare Mattis’s remarks, testimony, memorandums, letters, and other products.

Interesting. How did you capture the Secretary’s voice on the page? Did you read speeches from other great speechwriters to prepare?

Great question.

Let me tackle the latter part first. Yes, absolutely. As Chief Speechwriter, you have to capture your principal’s voice, so you read or watch everything that you can get your hands on regarding what they’ve already said—not just recently, but also for years before. All leaders settle into a comfort zone, and their language and themes begin to coalesce around core tenets that you must be aware of.

Mattis had a terrific collection of remarks and notes in his office closet that he offered me access to. He had kept years’ worth of his notes as a military officer in a long row of identical Moleskine notebooks. He also had numerous binders with most every speech he’d ever presented. I obviously couldn’t interrupt him in the middle of the day to reference this material, so one of my first tasks was to make an identical copy for the speechwriting team. Mattis is great in that he’s very consistent with his thought process and how he likes to deliver a set of remarks. He wants to use historical references as much as possible, so my team would conduct research to find those small nuggets that demonstrated either a depth of history or a mastery of the topic at hand. This especially paid off well when speaking with foreign leaders or dignitaries.

I also looked to other writers and speeches throughout history. This could be for context, rhetorical flourishes, or to demonstrate that there’s nothing new under the sun.

It was enjoyable to read the works of others for inspiration. For example, the budget situation facing the U.S. military in 2016 reflected issues Generals George Marshall and Douglas MacArthur had raised before Congress in the 1930s, so I worked those references into Mattis’s congressional testimony. Likewise, with referencing the Constitution, previous secretaries of defense, and U.S. presidents. We cast a wide net.

As a speechwriter, it’s important to channel your boss’s voice, not your own. I’ll never forget when I interviewed back in 2012 with Admiral Greenert. In preparation for the interview, a friend handed me a copy of Colin Powell’s autobiography. Powell mentioned he had had one speechwriter where it ended up going miserably because the speechwriter wanted to write the things he liked instead of writing in Powell’s voice. They realized quickly that wasn’t going to work out. So, one of the reasons I got the job with Admiral Greenert was by saying, “I get it. It’s about making you sound like yourself as much as I can—while ensuring it’s your best, most informed self.”

You quickly learn how speechwriting works once you’ve written for someone very senior, who has engagements with the White House, Congress, and international partners. It becomes a skill easily transferable to working with another principal. The core elements remain the same; you just invest the time to get to know your new principal’s voice. To the first part of your question, I would say this: Writing for Mattis was relatively easy. He had been in the public sphere for so long that he has an established voice. I could look at things he had written a decade earlier, like his ethics lecture to the Midshipmen at the Naval Academy, and see the consistency to how he speaks today. He really invested on forming his voice when he was a colonel through his promotion to two-star, because that voice remained consistent throughout the remainder of his career.

The thing I did that helped him was to always go back through and read the stuff he used during the past two decades to make sure his voice remained true. The fact that he had so much material to go through made the first two or three months of the job difficult. I had to immerse myself in what he’d done.

And then, after those first two or three months, it made writing for him incredibly easy. Because by that time, I read most everything he had written or said during his career. I also had two incredible speechwriters, Bill Rivers and Nicole Magney, working for me. They did phenomenal work, helping with much of the research and writing initial drafts. As with most successes in life, teamwork was paramount.

When you are a speechwriter, having a shared experience with your principal is a godsend.

Secretary Mattis and I shared a similar worldview because of our military service—a sense of duty and patriotism. We were both warfighters and combat veterans. We shared a dedication to an apolitical approach for the department. It made it easy for me to translate for him and to predict his needs.

Those of us in uniform could read him very well. I discovered that many civilians had trouble interpreting what Mattis wanted or what he meant. You quickly realized that there was a difference between the way some of them see the world and the way a guy who has spent four decades in uniform in the Marine Corps sees the world. I think that’s one of the reasons why the Secretary liked being surrounded by uniformed military in his front office.

Military members are expected to carry out his direction and overcome any obstacles to success. And frankly, military members are used to doing whatever it takes to get the job done, so we responded differently to his tasking. We’d stay in the office until we succeeded. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the times I pulled 17-hour workdays at the Pentagon.

Is there a speech you wrote that you were particularly proud of because you feel like you nailed it? That you felt like you got it right.

For Admiral Greenert, I always felt the proudest of the speech he delivered at the National Prayer breakfast. It’s special because it wasn’t about programmatic issues. I was given wide latitude to write the remarks from whole cloth, from my heart, and it was a true pleasure to watch him deliver it to the audience on live television.

It was somewhat different with Secretary Mattis. Some members of his front office staff were utility players, myself included, so I worked on tasks far beyond just remarks.

I’d say we nailed his May 2017 address to West Point. My predecessor, Justin Mikolay, held the pen for those remarks, but several of us had significant roles in shaping the speech. I was particularly influenced by General MacArthur’s farewell address to West Point, where he used the rhetorical device of repeating “Duty, Honor, Country” throughout the remarks. My greatest contribution to Mattis’s West Point speech was creating the tempo and underlying theme of “hold the line” that echoes throughout, a theme that felt particularly apropos because of both heightened political tensions throughout the country as well as the military threats facing America at that moment in time.

I’m also proud of the Congressional testimonies that I wrote. They not only served to influence a return to restored military budgets, but also heralded a recognition of the military’s current state of readiness—the need to rebuild readiness and capability as we consider renewed great power competition.

Finally, the greatest honor was authoring the unclassified version of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. I had the pleasure of working with a talented team who were working on the full, classified version. Both had to be aligned, and I knew the secretary’s voice. So, I wrote the unclassified one. Mattis reviewed and approved, then we drove that language back into the classified version so both would be consistent.

Writing the unclassified version of the 2018 National Defense Strategy that everyday Americans, our allies and partners, and even competitors read was easily the greatest singular difference I made in uniform. I was passionate that the strategy be something my mother could read, understand, and appreciate—not the jargon-laden documents that are usually produced. It was a difficult, time-consuming process that consumed my family’s Christmas vacation in 2017, but well worth it in the end.

Can you talk through how the process for the National Defense Strategy went? What did you see from your vantage point?

I sat in on most of the strategy sessions the Secretary had as we discussed the direction he wanted the military to go for the next 3-5 years. Bridge Colby, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, attended, as did some senior leaders from the Joint Staff. Bridge and his team were responsible for developing the classified strategy. You had different players step in and step out throughout the entire process. At times, we had Frank Hoffman contribute—Frank is a well-regarded National Defense University professor—as did Kori Shake, among others.

Secretary Mattis would provide general guidance and themes during each strategy session. The contentious discussions happened early on when we were just trying to figure out what kind of strategy we really wanted. Do you want a strategy that is going to be forward looking—far out from where we are today? Or do you want something that is going to restore the readiness and lethality of the military? What is the mix of capabilities and force structure that you want? Something that Secretary Mattis was very adamant about is that it is hard to come up with any kind of a strategy that can stand the test of time beyond three to five years. He wanted to create the impact needed for his tenure and through the tenure of the Secretary that followed him. The strategy had to provide the Department of Defense, America’s interagency departments, and our allies and partners enough to go on—enough substance—to understand our nation’s defense priorities and how we generally planned to achieve them.

Of course, other things that came out along the way were things like how hard we wanted to press the theme of great power competition. When the National Security Strategy came out, it presented a thematic approach with several layers: revisionist powers like China and Russia, rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea, and terrorism. The National Security Strategy covers other, broader, topics in the security realm as well.

We wanted to make sure we were aligned with the National Security Strategy—that was job number one. Bridge Colby’s team did a terrific job. They worked on the classified version, and we were bouncing drafts back and forth between his team and me. I was the secretary’s point person in the Pentagon to get us to success—and to get the document signed.

As the Secretary’s team crafted the National Defense Strategy, what, if anything, was debated during the process? Was there contention surrounding specific topics?

As with many projects at this level, any type of contention comes down to two main points. First, what’s the primary theme going to be? We wanted to highlight that we were transitioning away from terrorism and towards a resurgence in great power competition. This was certainly contentious at the time.

As you know, terrorism is the urgent fight—it’s the here and now. However, strategic competition, particularly with the nations previously listed that are in the Indo-Pacific, will have significant ramifications on America’s long-term security and prosperity. So, the real task became a discussion on the right way to communicate the need to change course.

The second realization was how personalities play into processes. It was fascinating to watch each of the meetings. For example, someone who may not have much substance to offer in the process but is well-liked by the Secretary might have a louder voice than someone who is really dialed in and is the expert but just didn’t seem to lash up with the Secretary. The psychology, social aspect, and relationships of the people who craft these documents is critically important to understanding how policy is made—and who wields influence.

This is a bigger question, I think, this idea of psychology and understanding how persuasion and influence works in large—and small—organizations. It’s something we don’t talk about much as military officers. Staff officers—and this of course applies to civilians as well—you simply pick up how persuasion and influence works in any organization. Either you get it or you don’t. What are your thoughts on this topic? What has your experience been like?

Great question. I really learned about this concept while working for CNO Greenert. Captain Dave Adams, a Navy surface warfare officer, taught me the importance—and necessity—of aligning with senior leadership.

I was talking with him about a difference of opinion I had with Admiral Greenert, and that it was affecting the quality of an upcoming speech. He had a terrific sound bite that I’ve always remembered and passed along to others, saying, “It sounds like there’s a personality conflict.” I replied, “Yeah—exactly!”

Then he told me, “No, you don’t understand—as CNO, he’s got the personality...which means you’ve got the conflict.” It was a terrific reminder that it was our responsibility to align with the boss, and certainly not the other way around. That’s the reality in the military, and frankly the reality in most organizations.

That being said, effective communication is a two-way street. It’s altogether too easy for senior leaders to become distant from the organizations they lead if they don’t actively listen. But might makes right— that’s the reality of serving in a highly structured, hierarchical organization. If you are the senior leader, you’re going to win that battle. As a subordinate, you have to get aligned really quick. You have to present ideas that are value-added, and find a way to provide them acceptable to those in charge. It’s that ability to influence that is critically important.

I read Power and Destiny by Jon Meacham just prior to showing up to work for Secretary Mattis, an excellent book about the life of President George H.W. Bush. It’s fascinating to read about how senior decisions were made at the National Security Council and in the White House. You realize quickly what worked and what didn’t work. More importantly, I learned from the book that if you always try to be right—if you care more about being right for the sake of being right—you will ultimately lose. No one is going to work with you and your voice will be diminished.

The best training that prepared me for this kind of situation was when I was an instructor at TOPGUN. The way TOPGUN works, which I don’t think most people know, is that TOPGUN is run by the Navy lieutenants who are the instructors. In reality, you have twenty or so junior officers who are setting all the aviation-related tactics and standardization used by the entire U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Heady stuff.

And, of that group, only the top ten aviators—the most senior—have the authority, by vote, to change to a new standard. You realize pretty quickly that if you want to change something, the time to do it is not in the spur-of-the-moment during a standardizations meeting. You have to establish your vision early, understand the history and background underpinning why we currently do what we do.

Then, if you still believe you have a compelling reason to change something, you begin working with the standardization board officers. I always started a few weeks in advance of any meeting, speaking with each one individually to discover what their concerns were, and then followed up to bridge any gaps in understanding and to answer their concerns. In this way, I was always able to get a significant majority of the standardization board officers on my side. Now, when you go in for the vote, you already know how it will come out. The vote becomes a known quantity, and surprises are minimal. You’ve won before you even walked into the room.

One last point before we move on.

Working in the Secretary's office highlighted for me—as a former commanding officer—the critical importance of fostering a culture of open discourse behind closed doors. As military members, we’re trained from a young age that we should be able to disagree in private, but once a leader has made a decision, then we go out and execute that decision. I absolutely believe in that approach.

The danger is that if you have a strong culture of personality as a senior leader, you’re less likely to receive the honest truth or the information you desperately need to make critical decisions. People then become reticent in group meetings, avoiding contrarian positions lest they be seen as “not on the team.”

Senior leaders must foster active debate behind closed doors. If you don’t truly welcome feedback, then you are only going to get the information people think you want you to hear.

Then, dangerously, you become beholden to the information your personal staff wants to pass along to you—not the information you should be hearing from those in the trenches. The hard truth is that this is only something that only the senior leader can foster. Only they can foster a culture where people feel comfortable speaking out. The junior person cannot create that relationship.

In 2014, you published a white paper titled “Keep a Weather Eye on the Horizon.” This was a piece on retention and talent management in the Navy. It went viral in Navy circles. You also touched on it in a piece for the online national security publication War on the Rocks. Is it still pertinent today?

I noticed plenty of areas where the Navy was doing great things while I was working for Admiral Greenert, but I also noticed areas where we were facing a lot of challenges—particularly with retention and talent management. For more than a year, I felt like we were really missing the mark on those two areas, and senior leaders were, frankly, white washing the health of the force to Congress and others.

Several years prior, I had plenty of friends go to Millington, Tennessee, where the majority of the Navy’s human resources structure is located. These friends were sounding the alarms, sharing with me that the Navy was facing a looming retention crisis, but that nobody wanted to fix these issues.

I was fascinated by manpower issues. The truth is that the military is run by the best of those who stick around, not necessarily the best overall. We were—and still are—losing some of our most talented military members to the private sector.

I was hoping to see something in D.C. that indicated the problems were being addressed. But I didn’t. So, when I left Admiral Greenert’s office, I conducted a deep-dive during my personal time: exit surveys, discussions with the Naval War College, discussions with people in the fleet, research conducted by think tanks and organizations focused on talent management, and historical perspectives. I worked to develop an understanding of what affects retention, and then considered factors that I felt would affect retention in the future. I paid to create a survey and website to collect input. After conducting the research, I ended up writing the paper on my own time while in flight training to return to Japan as an executive officer. I finished it and sent it to then-Vice Admiral Moran, who at the time was the Chief of Naval Personnel. He happened to be in Hawaii on vacation. He read it and said it was great. It thought that was as far as it would go.

Unbeknownst to me, the executive assistant to the admiral at Naval Air Forces Atlantic (Norfolk, VA) leaked the paper to some friends of his, who then circulated it with their friends, and in short order it started to go viral. My first indication was three days later. I was in the commissary parking lot, and a friend I hadn’t seen in years stopped his car, rolled down the window, and told me that he really liked my paper. Now, that was kind of funny.

Some senior leaders were supportive of the paper. Admiral Bill Gortney, the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, was terrific. He asked me to come and talk with him. I did, and we spoke for about two hours. The Navy had some senior leaders who were interested in the paper. I think they personally agreed with most of the findings.

Then, after speaking with Admiral Moran and a few others about the paper, I was left with the distinct impression of “thank you for your initiative” and “we really appreciate you doing this on your own time, but I’m not sure if some of the things you cite are actually what our sailors are thinking.”

Really?

Yes. I thought, “Ah-ha—this is fantastic.” They were right, because the paper simply represented my thoughts based on the data that I had collected. So, I thought, why not ask the Fleet? Let’s ask them to see what informs their decisions. What were the key decision points for sailors to decide whether to stay in uniform or seek other opportunities in the private sector. That’s what led to the 2014 Navy Retention Study and subsequent results that we published. I recruited a fantastic board of advisors, who came from numerous naval specialties and various backgrounds to ensure the questions we asked were relevant and thoughtful. The intent was to make the Navy a better place, to provide hard data and insight directly from sailors that senior leaders may not normally hear from.

A former naval officer, Ben Kohlman, helped a great deal in this initiative. We are both passionate about determining what factors influence recruitment, talent management, and retention. Obviously, those factors also determine whether the military is a place Americans want to serve...or not.

How is the Navy today? Has anything changed based upon your recommendations and your study? How are we doing on retention today?

It’s too easy to be fascinated by the Navy’s problems—and of the military in general. Too easy to sit around squadron ready rooms and ship wardrooms, kicking your feet up and talking about these issues. It’s far more important to engage, to figure out what is really going on, to determine what to do about it. Even better if you can propose a solution to get us moving in the right direction.

Most every recommendation in the paper was ultimately acted upon. The Navy (re)implemented a bonus structure for commanding officers, surface warfare officers received a department head retention bonus, Navy leadership created a weekly email to broadcast information to the Fleet, and the bonus structure for sea time was changed—to address a few.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a speechwriter in the military?

First, know why you want to do it.

As a speechwriter, you are going to be a mile wide and an inch deep—you will know something about most every topic of consequence to your boss, but you won’t know the topics in minute detail. It’s an unparalleled opportunity to gain a diverse experience base, plus you’re afforded an opportunity to observe closely the senior decision-making process. This fact alone will pay dividends for the remainder of your career.In a span of twelve months—because things are cyclic in D.C.—I had written multiple budget testimonies for Congress, letters to foreign leaders, remarks for NATO meetings, policy documents, strategies...everything. When President Trump visited the Pentagon, twice, I wrote the remarks and put together the slides for those meetings. So, you are going to be exposed to just an incredible, top level education that you will likely never receive anywhere else.

The U.S. Naval Institute Press is releasing a guide to working in the Pentagon in November 2019 that is worth a read. This one is the best one I’ve seen by far, as it was written by those who have recently held front office positions for senior leaders, and the chapters are broken down by major functional roles on a major staff.

What about you personally? How would you summarize your career and your experience in the Navy?

I couldn’t be more thrilled with my 20-year career. I had the chance to live the dream that started as an eight year old. To attend the U.S. Naval and Air Force academies, to become a fighter pilot, a TOPGUN instructor, get three masters degrees, be a squadron commanding officer in Japan. To work for Admiral Greenert and then return to the Pentagon to serve as Secretary Mattis’s director of communications and his chief speechwriter. How could you ask for more in a twenty-year career? The only difficulty was the hardships it placed on my family...that’s where it got a bit dicey.

For example, my oldest son who is just about to start the seventh grade, went to five different elementary schools. When you are moving every six to twelve months, and then you peer down the road to what life would look like if I stayed in, it just becomes more difficult for the family. This is a problem the military will need to address, especially as today’s workforce employs a lot more service members with spouses who have their own career paths than in the last couple of decades. That creates additional pressure on retention. 

In my case, I was selected for the nuclear power training pipeline that would ultimately result in command of an aircraft carrier. An incredible honor, though it’s also an eight-to-nine-year pipeline and I would have been a geographic bachelor for the first two years.

This was the only time in my career my wife used the words, “If I have a vote.” She said, “We’ve talked about this for years. Despite receiving assurances that you’d be an air wing commander, we knew that you might get drafted to nuke power. In my opinion, you’ve had a great twenty years. But, you have to choose if you want to get to know your family or focus on the navy. You’ll never really get a chance to know your kids before they go to college if you do this.”

I found myself reflecting on anytime your wife says, “If I get a vote.” Wow, of course she gets a vote; she’s my wife. Focusing on the family made the decision to retire easier.

Overall, it was a tough decision. I absolutely love the Navy. I even spoke with Admiral Moran (then the Vice Chief of Naval Operations) to request a pathway for those who declined aircraft carriers to recompete for air wing command, a path that in my case would have provided my family with the stability they so desperately needed. (He said, “No.”) But I would have happily recommitted for another couple decades if he would have kept me.

The reality is that it’s always easy to live your dreams when someone else has to pay the bills. Sarah had been doing that for fifteen years. It was right to put the family first.

Now it’s time to determine how best to continue serving out of uniform.

Bus, thanks for your time. Best of luck to you.

Christopher Nelson is an active duty naval intelligence officer stationed at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Suitland, Maryland. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School in Newport, Rhode Island. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not represent the official position of the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Guy “Bus” Snodgrass most recently served as chief speechwriter and communications director for Secretary James Mattis, the 26th secretary of defense. A retired F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, TOPGUN Instructor, and commanding officer, he is now the CEO of Defense Analytics and the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis.

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Header Image: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis walks near Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, where he announced the National Defense Strategy on Jan. 19, 2018. U.S. Navy Commander Guy “Bus” Snodgrass is third from left. (Kathryn E. Holm/DoD Photo)