When Barbara Bush chose Gen. Charles C. Krulak to be the 1989 White House Easter bunny and pose before the press with the first family, she said that he didn’t have to get out of uniform to perform the job. Krulak completed the task but received a phone call from the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps the next morning accusing him of acting irrelevantly to his duty at the White House.
“I received no less than 150 phone calls from all around the world asking to speak to the Col. Bunny,” said Krulak, a, former deputy director of Marine Corps at the White House.
Krulak, 31st Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, sprinkled his lecture with anecdotes on the White House Military Office at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center Monday night.
Krulak said the White House Military Office consists of seven branches: the White House Communication Agency, Camp David, Presidential Air Force One, Marine Helicopter Squadron One, White House Transportation Agency and White House Medical Unit. All the branches were created to aid the U.S. president in performing his job.
“If the president wants his vehicle to be in Tokyo when he visits that place, we take his vehicle to Tokyo,” Krulak said.
When talking about the Marine Corps, Krulak said the Marine Corps makes marines and wins battles. He said there are two things that are important to a marine: self-discipline and selflessness.
Krulak said that to be successful as a leader, one must be a man or woman of character.
“I define character as first being selfless, doing things not for getting credit but for getting jobs done. Second, having more moral courage, willing to tell the emperor he doesn’t have clothes on. Third is having integrity,” Krulak said. “Integrity is the only thing that each of us truly owns. It is the only thing that truly belongs to each of us. Once you give it away, it is very hard to get it back.”
Matt Ockwood, a member of the Corps of Cadets and a junior finance major, said that it is impressive that Krulak came to A&M and spoke to the Corps. He said he especially appreciated Krulak’s comments about leadership.
Clay Cross, a cadet and a senior computer engineering major, said he had been excited about Krulak’s speech for a while because Krulak played such a large role in U.S. military history.
“I had known about this (speech) for a month and was looking forward to it. I was interested in what he had to say, ” Cross said. “He gave a lot of useful information(and) put into words what I was not able to say.”
Krulak said it is his second time to visit the George Bush Presidential Library Complex and that he is impressed with the magnificence of the library, the motivation of the Corps of Cadets and its focus on academics.
Krulak’s speech was part of the ConocoPhillips White House Lecture, sponsored by the George Bush Presidential Library Complex at A&M.