“Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I just want to first off recognize Auburn. Yesterday I had General Ryan with me, and he reminded everybody that April 29th, it started with some historical facts, but one of those facts was that Bo Jackson was drafted. April 29th. And I had the opportunity to tackle him and play against him, and also have the opportunity to be his teammate for three years. And he’s the only guy, I’ve played with Ronnie Lott, 12 years, and he’s the only guy I’ve ever seen truck Ronnie. And just an unbelievable athlete that didn’t work out, didn’t do the norms that you would think a professional athlete would do to prep, hated practice, but nobody could touch him in the way he played that game. So I just want to give you a little credit for that.
I think to start off, I always go – Winners associate with Winners to Win. And yesterday, I’ve been here 20 plus years, and I’ve never, ever seen the amount of stars, four stars, that come in here for a promotion ceremony and a change of command. That’s never happened at this level. Not even in the beginning of the day, in the early 2000s. You have your next chief of staff, most likely, Chris LaNeve, here. You have the co-coms, the strat com, four star, golden dome, Mikes here. Ryan was your new Western Hemisphere command, centered on SMDC. This tells you that they are making SMDC the change agent for the problem.
And the problem is bigger than golden dome. It’s that I’m going to help you here. It’s not just golden dome anymore. It is our forward operating bases. It is our maneuvering force. It is our allies. It is huge. And it’s all about resources, process, and culture.
And I’ve been telling you, culture’s going to change. It’s changing. And the process has to get ripped out, because you’re not in the fight when you need to be in the fight. American lives have been lost. Billions of dollars of our capabilities have been destroyed. It has to change.”
-Riki Ellison
