American Valor Quarterly Issue 2 - Spring 2008 | Page 31

practices. Part of that training leads to trust. Trust is hard to get, it’s easy to lose, and once you lose it you don’t get it back. And execution is what your people do as a result of those first three elements. Col. Tony Nadal: I think one of the key components of leadership is having a will inside of you to want to lead, and the ability to transmit that to the unit. Hal had that. There’s a quote from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the famous German general, and he said, “The battle is not lost until the commander decides it’s lost.” One of the things that happened at X-Ray was that none of us ever thought the battle was going to be lost. Hal Moore never thought of that, I never thought of that, and I know John didn’t. So we were able to transmit that, somehow, to our troops. And they certainly didn’t think w