Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Eric T. Olson has seen it all throughout his four decades as a Navy SEAL.
Olson spoke about what it means to live in the rapidly changing world, which he has witnessed firsthand, at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on Thursday night. Olson was the featured speaker for Cal State Long Beach’s sixth annual Distinguished Speaker Series. Past speakers included Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and Fox News political analyst Juan Williams.
Olson was a part of the Special Forces mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, which became the premise for the movie “Black Hawk Down” and helped plan the raid that defeated Osama Bin Laden.
Oslon spent his last four years of active duty as the commander of the United States Special Operations Command. He was responsible for recommending the deployment and employment of Special Forces globally to the president and the secretary of defense.
CSULB President F. King Alexander introduced Olson last Thursday night by saying that unlike with speakers in the past, he received no complaints about Olson being chosen to speak.
Olson left little room for objection in his speech, which addressed the need for intelligent preparation and teamwork in an increasingly interconnected era.
“The factors that affect how people and nations behave are much more complex and affect us, formally those in the military, but also those of us who continue to think about it, deeply in terms of what it will take to be ready for whatever it is that is coming,” Olson said.
He discussed politically contentious issues, like the secretive nature of his job and the nation’s role as a global leader, with the analytical expertise of someone more concerned with getting things done than with politics.
“I don’t think that I ever became political,” Olson said. “My wife still doesn’t know who I vote for.”
At a time when tensions are running high across the globe, Olson’s message highlighted the importance of cultural understanding, teamwork and, above all, intelligence in military action.
“We are not going to … fight our way out of all of these conflicts; we are going to have to think our way out of these,” Olson said. “The education you are getting is very, very important. I think … taking a measured approach to what it means to be a soldier now as opposed to what it might have been 20 or 30 years ago is very important.”
After the event, Associated Students Inc. President John Haberstroh and Vice President Jonathon Bolin said they were both pleasantly surprised by the speech.
“It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting,” Haberstroh said. “It was informative and funny. That man has seen a lot, and everybody could take something away from his speech.”