South Carolina two-star addresses retiring U.S. military special operators

Event held on Pearl Harbor Day at Fort Bragg (today Fort Liberty), N.C.

Maj. Gen. Tom Mullikin, PhD, delivered the keynote address to the HONOR FOUNDATION GROUP recognizing and celebrating a number of special operations soldiers retiring from service. The event was held at Fort Bragg, N.C. (today Fort Liberty). The Honor Foundation is a career transition program for U.S. Special Operations Forces that effectively translates their elite military service to the private sector and helps create the next generation of corporate and community leaders.

Mullikin, in addition to his former command of the S.C. State Guard (he retired from SCSG), is a former U.S. Army officer and renowned global expedition leader who for years has worked closely with U.S. special operators (U.S. Army Special Forces and U.S. Navy SEALs) on a number of his ventures from arduous mountaineering expeditions to offshore diving operations with FORCE BLUE and the Mullikin-founded Global Eco Adventures.

His remarks delivered Thursday evening, Dec. 7, 2023, follow –

Good evening and congratulations on an heroic and successful military career from a thankful nation.

Your life and career to date is a testament to many of the highest and best human characteristics: Persistence, bravery, selflessness and patriotism to name just a few.

You now enter a period that many find very difficult. Great leaders have opined that two of the most difficult times in a person’s life are getting started and transition. Winston Churchill said that “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Thus, while your success to date is undeniable it is in not a final destination. You are now blessed to consider your continued road to success in life and in your career.

I have been asked to speak tonight on the intersection between my strengths/talents and my purpose.

As you leave your esteemed military career, the world will offer many opportunities and concurrent challenges. Your continued success will require you to carefully consider your passions and strengths. Researchers conclude that personal strengths are defined as our built-in capacities for particular ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Each of us possess distinct character strengths. For example, these six characteristics provide insights into your strengths:

1. Wisdom – involving your interest in learning and curiosity;
2. Courage – involving bravery that each of you have demonstrated and persistence;
3. Humanity – involving your kindness and love of others;
4. Justice – including your sense of fairness and teamwork;
5. Temperance – including forgiveness and prudence; and
6. Transcendence – involving a sense of gratitude and appreciation.

Research has further demonstrated that the process of identifying and utilizing your strengths in your life will be linked to an elevated sense of vitality and motivation along with an increased probability of achieving your goals, and a stronger sense of life direction. Understanding your strengths is linked to a higher sense of self-confidence, engagement, and productivity.

Allow me to speak briefly on the nexus between my strengths and purpose. As each of us identifies our own strengths, we are better able to understand the skills we bring to the fight and by understanding our passions we will realize what will keep us in the fight.

For me, my strengths were born out of the blessing of a severe deformity at my birth. My feet were turned around backwards at birth through a condition known broadly as severe bilateral club feet. My parents were told I would never walk. I had casts from my feet to my hips before I was 24 hours old and multiple surgeries in my youth and painful therapy. My mother – God bless her – said I looked like a pretzel when I was born. I spent time in my early years in a wheelchair. My father a grizzled WWII Army veteran and a member of the famed reconnaissance unit – Rogers Night Raiders – would not allow his son to ever acknowledge he was crippled. I well remember him standing me up and making me walk with casts up to my hips.

As I reflect on my strengths, I realize I have only one. A characteristic born out of the pain of my childhood. A strength that only a man like my father could impart – that of unabashed determination. Each day I wake to the continuous pain and stretching that allows me to walk without canes – canes that have now become necessary while on trails and in the mountains. So, I suppose that now nearly 64 years later…and after summiting more than 20 mountains around the world, I AM walking and am determined to be the first human to summit each of the seven highest summits on every continent and have dives in every ocean. As each mountain passes, I am reminded of the words of the famous Sir Edmund Hillary that “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” And it is here that I find the intersection between my strengths and my passion.

The older I get and the higher the mountain, the pain and the difficulty has become greater and greater. The strength of my persistence has allowed me to reach summits where climbers much stronger and, in many instances, much more gifted have turned around. I know the dread of failure but I continue to push forward while reflecting on the words of my hero and the father of modern U.S. conservation Teddy Roosevelt – himself afflicted with a childhood infirmity – that it is “far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

From an early age, I had a fascination and passion in nature and the environment. I was the President of the Ecology Club in the 4th Grade (an accolade that I am confident meant I was a nerd – and the foreshadowing of a life spent trying to show people you could be cool and a conservationist). In this post, I well remember planting trees as our fourth-grade class project. Trees that are still standing more than a half a century later.

Each of these trees – like all mature trees – absorb approximately 10,000 gallons of water annually and sink one-metric ton of carbon dioxide over the life of the tree. In my life I have attempted to apply the Aristotelian method of doing not just talking about doing. In fact, Aristotle said that “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” It is my belief that we need more leaders to step forward who will do – not ask someone else to.

Today we find ourselves in a complex fight that involves our environment. A fight that has equally large impacts on our families, our communities, our nation, and our world. And this is where my passion and my life have taken me. Each year humans are putting nearly 14-million metric tons of plastic in our waterways – an amount that adds to that already in the ocean. Plastics are a petroleum product that break down into micro and nano plastics that are then consumed by smaller fish that are consumed by larger fish and ultimately consumed by humans. These carcinogens impact human health, and it is here that we find the intersection between ecology and epidemiology. Two of my friends here this evening – from the “community” – have joined me with cleanups in the Galápagos Islands where I spend about a month a year teaching and cleaning up in isolated bays. Plastics and trash are just one the many areas where I have applied my passion.

We have recently begun a project around the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island building an artificial reef using advanced science and application of the “Gayes Methodology” from Coastal Carolina University to address wave attenuation and rebuilding a living shoreline. Parris Island is witnessing coastal degradation due to the slow march of rising sea levels and have taken a thoughtful, scientific approach to coastal protection. Our team of divers will build the first line of defense in the ongoing battle. Nearly 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of the ocean and we are witnessing about a 4mm increase in sea level rise each year.

Seventy percent of Earth is water but only one percent is fresh water available for humans to consume. Saltwater intrusion is impacting these fresh water supplies and impacting our shorelines. As Chairman of the S.C. Floodwater Commission, we are deploying every natural resiliency strategy possible with the assistance of veterans to support our initiatives. We have brought the passion, purpose of likeminded veterans to participate in meeting this great challenge. I am also honored to serve as the Chief Legal Officer for an organization of former Special Operators – Force Blue – where our marine conservation initiatives have been recognized nationally.

Together through my non-profit and with former special operators in Force Blue like Rudy Reyes (who is now the star on the television show Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test) we are rebuilding our ocean’s reefs. Ocean reefs are where marine life begins – they are a breeding ground for many of the oceans’ fish and other species and provide communities billions of dollars of resources each year. Millions of people and thousands of communities all over the world depend on coral reefs for food, protection, and jobs.

Healthy coral reefs support commercial and subsistence fisheries, as well as jobs and businesses that support tourism and recreation. The coral reef structure also buffers shorelines against waves, storms, and floods, helping to prevent loss of life, property damage, and erosion. Coral reefs have also been called “medicine cabinets” as the coral reef plants and animals are important sources of new medicines being developed to treat cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, heart disease, viruses, and other diseases. We are also using oysters to build reefs and buffer our shorelines. One oyster cleans approximately 50 gallons of water daily so they will also work to keep our waters clean.

It is my passion for nature that drives my ongoing interest in the environment and persistence that keeps me going through the pain of mountain climbing and extreme hiking. From July 1 through July 30 each year we hike nearly 350 miles across South Carolina (in addition to rafting the Chattooga River, kayaking the Edisto River, and concluding with the Smart Reef project where we are building an artificial reef from North Carolina to Georgia). These days – although very hot and humid – give us a wonderful opportunity to hike with many veterans and discuss ways to engage in the fight for our environment. We need special operators like each of you to help protect this beautiful environment that we enjoy. I did not think I would live long enough to see my passion for the environment offer such meaningful ways to contribute to society.

Our global climate that has changed throughout all of time but is now creating even more opportunities to engage with persistence and passion. A Deloitte Economic Institute recently found that the United States could gain $3-trillion through its actions on the macro atmospheric issue. This transformation could add nearly one-million more jobs to the U.S. economy by 2070, according to the report, “The Turning Point: A new economic climate in the United States.” We are experiencing a massive economic transformation due to the environment and within this transformation there is abounding opportunity to provide meaningful service. Our efforts have tried to dispel the narrative that we have to choose between economic sustainability and environmental sustainability. My travels around the world have demonstrated that where you do not have one you most assuredly will not have the other.

I could never have imagined the amazing economic opportunities to engage in conservation. Businesses are developing that have found profit in conservation and ecological protection. Take the North Carolina based Nucor Steel that I was privileged to serve for many years. As North America’s largest recycler and largest steel manufacturer in the United States, Nucor typically recycles 22-million tons of scrap annually, including nine-million cars. Recycled steel reduces mining waste by 97 percent, air pollution by 86 percent, and water pollution by 76 percent. Through innovation and commitment, Nucor has become an incubator for environmental protection.

I know that each of you identify your key strengths and driving passions as you begin the next successful phase of your life. In conclusion, I will offer these final observations:

1. Understand and apply your strengths and passions in your new life and you will never spend a bad day at work.

2. My life is one where optimism was not optional. I have lived by the creed that I am either Up or Getting Up. You are now starting a new journey in life. Remember what made you successful in the previous phase of our life: persistence, determination, selflessness and apply these qualities in the next phase. You will not ride the wave of your past success into the success of your future.

3. Sun Tzu said in his work on the Art of War that “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” I encourage you to never show up at a gun fight with just a knife. Know more than anyone at the table about the subject matter at hand. Use your strengths and passion to learn more and do more than those on the other side of the table. The great Roman philosopher Lucius Seneca said that “difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body” so move forward with purpose knowing the challenges will add great value.

4. And finally, I will tell you with complete confidence that the road ahead will not always be easy. Set your goals high and continue to hold yourself to the highest standards. You have already done more than most anyone could dream to accomplish, and the best is in front of you. Your challenges will be new, and the pain may be different – for me each mountain, each trail, each business has created even greater challenges different pain, different anxiety but I have tried to remember the strong encouragement of my father and the words of Winston Churchill when he said “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large, or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

So, as you move forward in the next phase of your life, identify your strengths, and multiply them with your passions. Remember that excellence is no accident.

Be bold enough to insist upon continued success. You can take it from a cripple boy from eastern North Carolina that if you deploy the same characteristics that you have to
date you will have blue skies and calm seas toward a rewarding life and career.

Thank you for the honor of addressing each of you this evening. May the Lord continue to bless you, your families, and the United States of America.