Christopher C. Miller - Soldier Secretary

A t 3:44 p.m. on January 6, 2021, I was sitting at my desk in the Pentagon holding a phone six inches away from my ear, trying my best to make sense of the incoherent shrieking blasting out of the receiver. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on the line, and she was in a state of total nuclear meltdown.

To be fair, the other members of Congressional leadership on the call werent exactly composed, either. Every time Pelosi paused to catch her breath, Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Congressman Steny Hoyer took turns hyperventilating into the phone.

Two hours earlier, a crowd of Trump supporters had unlawfully entered the Capitol. Congressional leadership had been swept away to a secure location at a preCivil War era Army installation less than two miles away. As Acting Secretary of Defense, I was across the river at the Pentagon, speaking to them by phone and watching the mayhem play out on my TV screen.

But as soon as it was her ass on the line, Pelosi had been miraculously born again as a passionate, if less than altruistic, champion of law and order.

When I could finally wedge a comment in, I pointed out that I had already ordered the complete mobilization of the District of Columbia National Guard and that forces were on their way to the Capitol as soon as they were properly equipped and synchronized with the Capitol Police.

At this point in time, I had been President Donald Trumps Acting Secretary of Defense for approximately two months. I had known when I took the job that it was going to be wild. But I never could have imagined anything like thisgetting reamed out by a histrionic Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell as they implored me to send troops to forcibly expel a rowdy band of MAGA supporters, infiltrated by a handful of provocateurs,through the halls of the Capitol, taking selfies, and generally making a mockery of the entire institution.

As a lifelong soldier who had spent nearly 24 years in Special Forces, Id been in my share of shitstorms. I had been among the first Green Berets on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11. Id dodged bullets, grenades, missiles, and mortars in Iraq. Id captured genocidal war criminals in Bosnia with the CIA. Id hunted down the worlds most dangerous terrorists as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. But I had never seen anyonenot even the greenest, pimple-faced 19-year-old Army privatepanic like our nations elder statesmen did on January 6 and in the months that followed.

For the American people, and for our enemies watching overseas, the events of that day undeniably laid bare the true character of our ruling class. Here were the most powerful men and women in the worldthe leaders of the legislative branch of the mightiest nation in historycowering like frightened children for all the world to see.

Do I blame a bunch of geriatrics for acting like a bunch of geriatrics? Of course not. But do I judge them for it? Youre damned right I do. Most of all, I resent that we are ruled by a bunch of geriatrics that ruthlessly and selfishly maintain their hold on power and refuse to develop the next generation of leaders.

In the military, stress becomes hardwired into your cerebral cortex. Its always there, and you either learn to live with it, or you dont live. And you sure as hell dont run away when youve got a job to do.

Thats what I learned from my dad and uncles as a kid growing up in Iowa. They survived the Depression, fought in World War II and Korea, then raised their kids to be patriots in the maelstrom of the Vietnam era. All of the adults I grew up around were tough as nails, and they taught us to be just as tough.

At family get-togethers, the typical topic of conversation was ass-kicking. I would routinely overhear crazy stories about my dads service in Korea, or an uncle rolling 55-gallon barrels of gasoline into caves to burn out the Japanese.

Their conversations absolutely petrified meyet I was enthralled. To this day, some small part of me wonders whether I joined the Army out of a desire to live life like they didon the edge, in the crosshairs, serving the nation they loved on one death-defying adventure after another. Ive collected a few of my own crazy stories over the years, which Ill happily share in the pages to come.