Hard Truths

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.