I was having lunch with Matt Blanchard and Mick Church at a small restaurant near the Sacre Coeur Cathedral in Paris when the subject of American politics came up.
(The nice thing about having lunch with characters in my books is that we can meet anywhere in the world for lunch... pretty cool, actually.)
"You know, what President Trump SHOULD have done when he was choosing his staff was hire a bunch of sergeants. Instead, he made the mistake of picking generals," Matt said.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah, really," Matt said.
"Why?" Mick asked.
Matt, one of the main characters in my mystery novel "Blood Debt," looked at us and shook his head.
"Guys," he said, "we were all sergeants in Vietnam so that should be easy enough for you to answer."
I shook my head.
"You better explain it to us," I said.
Mick, one of the characters in my novel "Jacks or Better," nodded in agreement.
"Okay, so what are the three qualities every good sergeant must have?" Matt asked.
"Well," I said, "I'd say that the first thing is the willingness to do everything and anything he asks his squad or platoon to do."
"And," Mick added, "a sergeant has to know his troops inside and out. What are the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in the unit? When you know the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in your unit you don't make the mistake of asking your troops to do things they aren't capable of doing, or doing well. When they succeed as individuals the unit succeeds as a whole."
"And," I added, "any good sergeant will tell you that it's not enough to just give an order. You have to have built up enough trust in the unit to have those orders carried out instantly, without question. I mean, when you think about it, that just makes sense. When you're trying to get between 12 and 50 heavily armed troops to all go in the same direction at the same time just shouting 'Forward, March!' isn't really the best way to go about that. They have to trust you... actually, they have to BELIEVE in you."
Matt leaned forward, picked up his coffee cup and took a long drink.
"Exactly," he said.
"But that doesn't explain why you think the President should have hired sergeants instead of generals," I said.
Matt shook his head.
"Look," he explained, "generals see the world in entirely different terms than sergeants do. They think in terms of thousands, not a dozen or so. They see big objectives and seldom take into account that it takes a lot of small steps to get to those big objectives. They make their plans, draw lines on maps, and set timetables without thinking about the fact that each of those small steps is being taken by a soldier, a squad, a platoon, a company, a battalion..."
"So?" Mick asked.
"So they don't take into account the very real human cost of achieving a goal. They don't stop to think, for example, that some guy named Tom in the West Wing is going through a divorce and might not be up to all the tasks he's been given because he's more than a little distracted. They don't stop to consider that Mary, who works on the National Security staff, just found out her mother has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer and is not only worried but probably exhausted."
"But surely, when they find out these things they'll take them into account," I said.
"Sure, IF they find out," Matt said. "The thing is, the men and women who work in the White House are ambitious. They're not likely to go running to the boss with their personal problems. Doing that could put the brakes on their careers."
"But..." Mick said.
"But nothing," Matt said. "That's the way the world works and the way it has worked for a long time. You show signs of weakness, signs that you're not up to the job, the people in charge start giving the good assignments to other people and you find yourself stuck in neutral while other folks move up the ladder."
"But sergeants would know these things because..." Mick said.
"Because that's what we had to do when we were sergeants. Nobody had to come to us and say they were having trouble at home. We might not know exactly what was wrong with one of our soldiers at any given moment but we'd always know when something wasn't right because we knew our troops. These were people we dealt with on a day-to-day basis. We worked alongside them. We sweated with them, laughed with them, ate and drank with them," Matt said.
"They weren't numbers on a board. They were actual human beings who, in many cases, we depended upon to keep us alive when things went pear shaped."
I nodded as it dawned on me exactly what Matt was saying. I remembered my own days as a sergeant, telling a young second lieutenant to keep his eye on a PFC and to do what he said when he said it.
When the lieutenant asked me why my reply was simple: "Because he's been here for 11 months and he's still alive. If you want to make it through this tour you'll do what the rest of us do... duck when he says duck, run when he says run, and hide when he says hide."
"I suppose that you're talking about all non-commissioned officers, not just Army sergeants like we were," Mick said.
Matt nodded.
"A Navy or Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer, a Marine Gunnery Sergeant, an Air Force Master Sergeant... yeah, any non-com from any service knows the same things we all know," he said.
The waiter came over with the check and I paid.
(I always pay... I mean, Matt and Mick don't have any actual money in their wallets.)
Later, as we were walking through Montmartre admiring the art on display Mick said something low, under his breath.
I leaned close to him while Matt wandered over to check out an artist working on a landscape.
"What?" I asked.
"I hate it when he's right," Mick said.

To read about Matt's adventures, check out "Blood Debt" on Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OJCCII2

To read about Mick's adventures, check out "Jacks or Better" on Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DS09W7G

Mike Billingtonhttps://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK