Hard Truths (Think and Lead Like a Green Beret)

Congressman and retired Green Beret Mike Waltz shares how the mindset he honed in military service can help anyone—in politics, in business or in life—conquer everyday challenges.

Up in the mountains of Afghanistan, one of Mike Waltz's snipers watched through his scope as a young boy acted as a spotter for the Taliban mortars attacking a Green Beret position. The sniper requested permission to fire. Waltz refused, insisting on restraint. The child was spared, and the position was held. Later that same day, Waltz visited a nearby Afghan village and discovered the Taliban had hanged a boy in front of his family—because the child wasn't willing to fight for them.

Restraint is a trait common to Green Berets, but rare on the battlefield—and even rarer in today's national political discourse.

Now, Mike Waltz is a retired Colonel and a U.S. Representative from Florida, the first Green Beret ever to be elected to Congress. After twenty-seven years in the Army, nearly all of them in the elite Special Forces where he fought America's enemies around the world, he has developed a perspective distinct from most—probably all—of his colleagues in politics today.