Leighton W. Smith, Jr. Quotes (8 quotes)

“There's a violent peace out there, there are going to be problems over the horizon, and certainly that proved to be true.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

The End of the Cold War
Interview at USC Berkeley (1997)
Context: I had a role in developing the doctrine From the Sea, which was later modified to Forward From the Sea. But the way we looked at the situation was that the world we live in is a dangerous place. There's a violent peace out there, there are going to be problems over the horizon, and certainly that proved to be true.

“Peacekeeping is not a soldier function, but only soldiers can do it, because we've got the organization. We can make things happen in a hurry.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

Why Peacekeeping is So Difficult http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/LWSmith/lwsmith-con07.html
Interview at USC Berkeley (1997)
Context: When we went to Bosnia the people in Bosnia welcomed us with open arms, and I would go down the street and people would come up and say, "Admiral, thank you for bringing peace to Bosnia." And my standard answer was this, "I cannot bring peace to this country. Only you can bring peace to this country. I can bring the conditions in which peace can be established, but I cannot bring peace to this country." So the mistake we have made in our country, if we have made a mistake, is that we believe that we can influence or that we can enforce a peace, and we cannot. You can stop the fighting, and we did. And you can put money into a country and you can try to build it up so that the momentum you get from a visible economic engine creates a condition where peace will take hold. But that requires a political will that is not today evident in Bosnia. It was certainly not evident when I was there.
I think we are doing the right thing to put our military into these kinds of operations. No one is better able to do it. Peacekeeping is not a soldier function, but only soldiers can do it, because we've got the organization. We can make things happen in a hurry.

“We went out on a very cloudy day, in an area we probably should not have been operating in, and the two of us did a maneuver that was not authorized, and I made it and he didn't.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

On losing one of his wingmen during an unauthorized dive-bombing maneuver used against some authorized targets on a beach in Vietnam, as quoted in Afterburner : Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War (2004) by John Darrell Sherwood, Ch. 20 : Leighton Warren Smith and the Fall of Thanh Hoa, p. 276
Context: We went out on a very cloudy day, in an area we probably should not have been operating in, and the two of us did a maneuver that was not authorized, and I made it and he didn't. … We pulled up over some overcast to dive bomb the target. I had practice with this maneuver in the Med, but Bill was less familiar with it. I made it, but Bill just disappeared. I went back and looked for hims. I saw no race of any wreckage. I tried to tank and go back but was ordered to return to the ship.

“The Naval Academy is a very prestigious place, and I choose to try it.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

Background http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/LWSmith/lwsmith-con01.html
Interview at USC Berkeley (1997)
Context: The Naval Academy is a very prestigious place, and I choose to try it. I got there and darn near didn't pass, just about flunked out the first year, but a commandant by the name of Bush Bringle managed to call me in one day and taught me more about leadership in about 15 minutes than I have learned in the rest of my life. And because of Bush Bringle I regained some faith and confidence in myself, learning I had a little bit more in me than I thought, and I went back to work and finished.

“I didn't realize it at the time, but it became apparent to me later, that I had just experienced the most incredible lesson in leadership that I would ever experience”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

On a meeting with Captain William Floyd Bringle during a period of low academic performances in his first year at Annapolis, in which he was told he would improve his them within 10 days or face another counseling session with him, as quoted in Afterburner : Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War (2004) by John Darrell Sherwood, Ch. 20 : Leighton Warren Smith and the Fall of Thanh Hoa, p. 274
Context: I didn't realize it at the time, but it became apparent to me later, that I had just experienced the most incredible lesson in leadership that I would ever experience: a Navy captain, who was in charge of the entire day-to-day operations of the Naval Academy, took the time to reach down deep into that organization and drag an individual up who was having trouble and try to instill in that individual a little bit of self-discipline and self-confidence. He knew my uncle, obviously, but I felt he would have done this for anyone in my predicament regardless of who his relatives were.

“I can bring the conditions in which peace can be established, but I cannot bring peace to this country.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

Why Peacekeeping is So Difficult http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/LWSmith/lwsmith-con07.html
Interview at USC Berkeley (1997)
Context: When we went to Bosnia the people in Bosnia welcomed us with open arms, and I would go down the street and people would come up and say, "Admiral, thank you for bringing peace to Bosnia." And my standard answer was this, "I cannot bring peace to this country. Only you can bring peace to this country. I can bring the conditions in which peace can be established, but I cannot bring peace to this country." So the mistake we have made in our country, if we have made a mistake, is that we believe that we can influence or that we can enforce a peace, and we cannot. You can stop the fighting, and we did. And you can put money into a country and you can try to build it up so that the momentum you get from a visible economic engine creates a condition where peace will take hold. But that requires a political will that is not today evident in Bosnia. It was certainly not evident when I was there.
I think we are doing the right thing to put our military into these kinds of operations. No one is better able to do it. Peacekeeping is not a soldier function, but only soldiers can do it, because we've got the organization. We can make things happen in a hurry.

“There were a lot of people who were willing to write a letter for me. Not because I was academically inclined, but because I worked hard.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

On his admission to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1958 as an appointment of US congressman Frank W. Boykin, as quoted in Afterburner : Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War (2004) by John Darrell Sherwood, Ch. 20 : Leighton Warren Smith and the Fall of Thanh Hoa, p. 272

“I remember a picture I saw in a paper not long before the wall came down. There was a man standing holding a very young daughter, my guess was that she was only about one or two years old. She had on a rather plain dress, he had on a coat and a tie and he was carrying probably a cardboard suitcase. And my guess is that everything he owned in the world was in that suitcase. And he was weeping. He wasn't weeping because he left his car and the rest of his family back on the other side of that Iron Curtain; he was weeping because he was free. He was weeping because now he had opportunity, he had the chance to choose for the first time in his life, and his daughter whom he was holding in his hands had a future, whereas before she would not have had one. That struck me as a very, very vivid picture of what this all meant.”

Leighton W. Smith, Jr.

On the end of the Cold War, in part 7: The End of the Cold War http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/LWSmith/lwsmith-con02.html
Interview at USC Berkeley (1997)