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Gen. Tommy Franks shares his thoughts on life, religion and war in a question-and-answer session.
By PAUL DE LA GARZA
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 12, 2001
In the mid 1960s, Tommy Franks was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. He was having a good time -- a little too good, he says now.
"I thought I'd better get out and grow up a little bit," he says. "I was having a heck of a good time in Austin and so I decided to leave that behind a little bit and join the Army."
What followed was a 36-year rise through the military ranks -- with time out in the early years to complete and further his education -- and postings in Vietnam, West Germany, the Pentagon, Kuwait during Desert Storm and South Korea.
Now, as commander-in-chief of Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Franks directs a massive military campaign that has driven the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies out of all but a small part of Afghanistan.
The 56-year-old four-star general carved out an hour of his day Tuesday to give the St. Petersburg Times a wide-ranging interview. Sitting in his many-windowed office at MacDill, drinking coffee, he spoke of the world he knew growing up in Midland, Texas; of the never-ending job of running the war; and of a soldier's need to keep ego and feelings out of his work.
"This really is not about self," he said. "This is about a country to whom all of us owe a lot."
What follows are excerpts from the interview:
Q. At this moment in history, what is it like to be Gen. Tommy R. Franks?
A: It's good. I think for the 35-plus years that I've been in this business, I've been satisfied with what I do, and I guess I would say that now. You could say, "Well, gosh, as a general in charge of our war effort in Afghanistan, it must really be intense, it must really be a lot of pressure." But you know ... for those young people who are over there on the ground, the sergeants and the lieutenants, I think there is a great deal of stress on them as well.
Q: Were you under more pressure immediately after Sept. 11?
A: I don't think the pressure is greater or less today than it was on September the 11th. ... I think we all recognize a responsibility to the country right now. And for the military piece of that responsibility and insofar as it relates to my job in Afghanistan, I feel the pressure that I just described. I feel the pressure of the country. I think there are expectations that we do this and that we do it right and we will.
Q: How do you deal with the pressure?
A: Well, you deal with it as best you can. If you mean, "How do you, where do you find release from the pressure," you don't. You simply don't find a release from it. I just take great solace in the fact that I am comfortable with myself, I'm comfortable with my family and that's release enough. So I don't feel overly stressed in the thing. I get enough rest. I get enough exercise. And I have an awful lot of great people who work around me.
Q: Are you a religious man?
A: I think so.
Q: What do you pray for, since Sept. 11?
A: Ah, the country. The way of life that this country has had since I was a kid growing up. I told an awful lot of people and an awful lot of my troops that what all this is about is a way of life. And, I remember when I was growing up and I had friends, some of them had more money than my family and some of them had less money than my family, but we were all blessed in that we really could be whatever we wanted to be. We could do whatever we wanted to do. And when I have a chance to go to a football game down here and watch the Bucs play, which I just truly enjoyed this past weekend, or when I have a chance to be around people on the streets downtown, what I think about (is) it would really be a terrible thing for America to lose this ability that we had to do anything we want to do, and I don't think we're gonna give that up to terrorism. So what I pray for, what I pray about is our leadership, the people who we put in harm's way every day, thousands of them, that they be cared for. That our kids, our grandkids have the luxury -- and it is a luxury -- of a way of life we enjoy in this country.
Q: Would you want your grandchildren to get into the business that you've gotten into?
A: Isn't America great? Isn't America a great place where people can choose what they want to do. My dad was in World War II. A couple of uncles in World War II. No career military in my family. When I graduated from high school and decided to go off to college, my family's view was that I could make my own decision. I could decide what I wanted to do and I want my kids and grandkids to be able to do the same thing.
Q: Is there anything from your childhood, something you learned, that prepared you for this moment in your life?
A: (There was) something that I learned from a high school football coach, a fella by the name of Harold Garms, out in Midland, Texas, and if he said it once, he said a thousand times, while I knew him, he said, "You never quit." And so that's the first thing. And much more important than that I remember when I was getting on a bus, in 1967, to go to Vietnam. I was getting on a bus in Austin, Texas, because I decided I was gonna ride across the country out to the West Coast and fly on to Vietnam because I wanted to see the country and I was getting on the bus, my dad, my mother, dad, took me down and when I got on the bus my dad said, I said, "Well ... you know, what kind of guidance would you give me about all this and what I'm gonna do and everything." And he said, "Well, make 'em a hand." And I think that's pretty good advice ...
It's sort of Texas speak. Make 'em a hand. What that means is wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you work for, be a good worker. Make 'em a hand.
Q: Since Sept. 11 there's been a lot of talk about how life in America will never be the same. How do you see your role in this history?
A: Oh, gosh, that is such a hard question. I think history is history because it's written after the fact. And I think people who have a view of trying to influence history, of trying to be a part of history, wind up in some cases doing the wrong thing ... I guess I'm realist enough to understand that this is a very interesting time in our history, in this country. I just try to not think about my particular role in it as a part of history. This is not about, this really is not about self -- this is about a country to whom all of us owe a lot. We owe a lot, so I just try to take a pure approach. I just want to do it right, I want to do it right in a timeframe that is right and realistic and we'll see where it goes. I recognize that it's very, very important to us, and I just try to not think much about it.
Q: Have your feelings evolved since Sept. 11?
A: I honestly can't say that my feelings have evolved very much because I look at this as a very, in a very practical, in a very practical way. I think all of us who do this work try, as hard as we can, to keep feelings out of it. If we were to go through this military effort that we have ongoing right now and permitted feelings about each of the events to just overpower us, then I think we could not remain intellectually engaged enough in the activity that we're about.
... I think we probably have seen some success in what we're trying to do in Afghanistan but we're not nearly to the end of the day. Because if you were to tie this to specific personalities and say, "Isn't this really about Osama bin Laden," well, no, it really isn't about Osama bin Laden. It's about a network and the core. The cadre of that network happens to be in Aghanistan, but the reach of several of these networks around the planet is just tremendous, and so we have a lot of work to be done and not just in Afghanistan. And I think it'll take much longer to solve that problem than it will for us to solve the problem in Afghanistan.
Q: How badly do you want to get Osama bin Laden?
A: I think you'd want to get Osama bin Laden, because as the leader of the al-Qaida organization, he automatically becomes a target in this effort. But I think it wouldn't be correct to say he is the target in this effort. What we want to do is take down the network, and the reason we want to take down the network is so that we don't go through more 9-1-1s.
Q: But are there moments when you're sitting here or you're home when you're like, Gosh, I wish I could get this guy?
A: Well, of course. It wouldn't be. Well, I'll say it this way. It would be a bit disingenuous to not say that. Sure.
Q: Do you think to yourself what is bin Laden thinking, do you try to put yourself in his shoes, to anticipate where he'll go, what he'll do?
A: Yeah. In a lot of ways, some of which are very sophisticated. We pay very close attention to the way we think he thinks, and we try to put ourselves in his position for that reason as well as a great many others, to figure out where he'll be next, what he'll do next. What motivates him. So sure.
Q: To put yourself in that frame of mind, how do you do it?
A: Well, we've always said that it's very difficult for a Westerner to think like an Easterner and so forth. So, it's very difficult, but what we do is we do a certain amount of psychological profiling to try to understand what motivates (bin Laden), what motivates people like (bin Laden), and then we will try to figure out what he'll next act will be.
Q: What motivates him? What's the profile?
A: Oh, they're all motivated by different things. It's difficult to understand everything that motivates bin Laden. He certainly has a view of himself, of his role in life, of his role on this planet, and he goes about his life every day trying to fulfill what he believes, what I think he believes is his destiny. And one of the very sad things is that it is such a perversion of Islam, of the practice of this faith.
Q: General, are we better off with bin Laden dead or alive?
A: Gosh, I don't know. Justice to him or him to justice. And, honestly, either one works well for me. And so, actually, I don't have a preference.
Q: What inspires you? What motivates you?
A: Country, faith, family. It sounds corny, but it's really, it's really true. I actually believe in what we're doing. And so it's motivation. It motivates me. It makes me want to get up early. It makes me want to stay up late.
Q: Who do you turn to for advice?
A: My faith and my family. Military advice from a lot of people in this building who know more about what we're doing in each of their respective area of responsibility than I do. And so that kind of advice, that kind of advice I go to experts. Advice about strategic action, operations action and all of that, I'll go to my faith. I'll think about it. I'll go to my family. My wife is a genuine anchor in my life. So, I won't talk to her about the secrets but I will talk to her about things that I have in my mind.
Q: For example?
A: Well, I'll talk to her about various approaches to problem-solving. And I've done it for more than 32 years. How to solve a problem. And, at the end of every one of those discussions, Cathy will tell me go with your heart, and so I do. I go with my heart. I go with my experience. And I've done it for a long, long time.
Q: How does one prepare for this moment in life, this type of challenge?
A: Well, first off, you have to want this kind of challenge or you're never going to have it. You have to want this sort of challenge because ... you can retire I guess at about half your pay after 20 years of service, so you might say that people are working for half pay after about 20 years of service, and if you do not really want to do this kind of work then you wouldn't be here.
Q: Why would anyone want this type of challenge?
A: Oh, because, I don't know, poets write things like that (laughs). In my own case because I like what I do. I like what I do. It isn't everyone who can wake up every day and be challenged intellectually, physically, in the sense of stamina, and I like that. And so it's hard to give you a better answer. I can tell you it isn't for ego. And it isn't for money. It's because I like what I'm doing and I believe it's awfully important.
Q: As a kid, what did you want to be?
A: I just don't think I've ever had enough vision to think, "Oh, out there in the future, I'd really like to do something." I just never did. And I will tell you this, my friend, I am still going to get out of the Army. You can trust me. I am going to get out of the Army. I have promised this to my wife and I'm going to do it. Beats the hell out of me when it'll happen. I'm not in a real big hurry right now, by the way.
Q. In this campaign, I'm not sure if happy is the right word, in this campaign what has been the happiest single moment and what has been the saddest?
A: The saddest moment occurs each time you lose someone. That's the saddest moment. So, there have been several sad moments, because we have had some of our young people hurt. And we've had some injured. So we've had some sad moments. Um, there hasn't been a single happiest moment. Now, I'll be happy on the day we have settled the enterprise in Afghanistan, and we're moving on to do the rest of the job. There have been some very good days. And it was a very good day when we were able to get those young detainees out of Afghanistan, that was a very good day. It was a very good day when the people we had sought to advantage by providing the support -- some of the opposition leaders -- were able to, were able to enter cities where people had seen nothing but this ruthless Taliban control for years; Mazar-e-Sharif is an example and there are others.
Q: In your thinking is it all war all the time? I mean, how do you clear your head?
A: The answer to your question is, mostly it's the war. You know, you asked, you know, what do you do to think about something else. Well, I go to Tia's about once a week and have great, and have a great meal and talk to family and friends on the telephone every day or two and just sort of feel good about talking to them. Mostly, it's this, it's this war. That's what I think about. And I don't think I'd have it any other way."
Q: What kind of thoughts do you have?
A: Ah, possibilities. Problems and possibilities. There are problems that we need to solve and the way I go about problem-solving is to think about the possibilities. If you have a problem how can it be solved.
Q: Is it overwhelming?
A: Oh, no, I don't think so, I hope not.
Q: This is way out of the blue but in your eyes, in your heart, is John Walker a traitor? How do you feel about him?
A: Well, I think anyone, anyone who has been involved fighting with an enemy of my country is not ever gonna be a personal friend. And how we ultimately define him I'll leave that up to the courts to decide. But I don't, I obviously don't respect what he's done, the cause that he's chosen to support. It's just a cause that I don't find favor with?
Q: What do you miss most about life in the United States since before Sept. 11? Your wife talked about the freedom to go out. What do you miss most?
A: Well, probably some free time to play golf. To hop in my pickup truck. Take my wife over to St. Petersburg to some absolutely wonderful antique shops, which we like to visit over there. And, so, I just don't have too much free time right now as I did before Sept. 11.
Q: Since the start of the war, were there times, or have there been times when you were worried, when you were alone with your thoughts, and said, "Golly gee, this thing isn't going my way?"
A: It truly has gone according to plan. Because there are two ways to build a military plan. One way to build a military plan is to say okay, we're gonna do this for a period of time and then we'll begin to do something else. And that is a time-based sort of planning construct. And the other way to do a military plan is what we call event-basing. And this plan is an event plan. And what it says is, and I'll even give you an example. It says we are going to continue to work on the air defense systems inside Afghanistan and on the number of tanks there and on his early-warning radar, the Taliban's early-warning radar, we're gonna continue to work on those until we take them out of order so that we can then begin to own the airspace over Afghanistan. And so, in the sense that this has been an event-based plan it really has not been surprising.
Q: So you weren't surprised that the Taliban fell relatively quickly?
A: No, I really wasn't because we worked real hard to make that happen. And to evidence surprise indicates that we didn't have a lot of confidence in our plan. I think the president had confidence in it, the secretary had confidence in it, I had confidence in it and our confidence was sort of reinforced when these things came apart the way they did.
Q: What has been the biggest frustration about the war, did you ever imagine yourself at this point, did you ever imagine being in a situation running the war so directly?
A: I don't think you can really imagine yourself at this point. I wrote someone a note the other day that said, I think none of us ever expect to find ourselves in this kind of position but my experience in dealing with people through the course in my service has been, once we find ourselves in a new position, you never back out. So, that's a decent way to answer that. Frustration? I've worked hard to not be frustrated, but I guess if I were to characterize a frustration, not a mammoth frustration, but a frustration it would be, it probably would have to do with some of the reporting that I see about this war. ... Leave the speculation alone. Very simply tell the truth.
Q: This is the last question, Does the fact that the United States was the one directly attacked, and given that the U.S. is obviously most invested in the war effort, do you have greater leeway and authority than the U.S. did in the Gulf War?
A: I think the nations who are contributing to include the ones you see here in Tampa are just as committed as we are to see this all the way. And so it's hard for me to compare levels of authority or responsibility for this particular operation with the Gulf War or with some other time. I think what I can say is that I feel both honored, I feel honored, I feel trusted by the nations involved as well as by our own government because they give me a great deal of leeway. And I've told a great many people if we don't get this right it won't be the fault of anyone in Washington. And I think that's a very valuable point.