Former U.S. Army Pacific commander, current AUSA president/CEO delivers Class of 2026 Powell Lecture

General (Ret.) Robert B. Brown presented the annual Colin L. Powell Lecture for students of the CGSC Class of 2026 at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Sept. 10, 2025, in the Eisenhower Auditorium of Fort Leavenworth’s Lewis and Clark Center. Brown is a former commander of Fort Leavenworth and commandant of the Command and General Staff College, former commander of U.S. Army Pacific, and currently serves as the president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army in Arlington, Virginia.

“When I was sitting where you are Colin Powell actually gave us the best lecture that I’ve ever heard, Brown said to the assembled class. “I took pages of notes and used it my whole career. He was an amazing leader and I had the opportunity, the privilege to work with him a few times. He was an amazing person and leader, and so what an honor to be here for the Colin Powell Lecture Series.”

Brown then went on to deliver his presentation entitled “To succeed, you have to fail.”

“I tell you honestly, I’d rather sit up here and tell you a few good things I did over the years,” Brown said, “but you wouldn’t learn as much. You learn a lot from failure.”

Brown talked about his understanding of using failure as a stepping stone to success by describing an incident in his unit when he was a battalion commander. No one was hurt, but while conducting Bradley fighting vehicle gunnery, one of his troops accidentally shot a training round and hit an Apache helicopter that was flying on a gunnery range adjacent to the range his unit was using.

“It was very tough,” Brown said, “I was ready to quit, and I’m not a quitter.” He described his conversation with his wife, who was obviously part of his support network along with his battalion command sergeant major. But with the support of his network and his chain of command, he hung on and immediately deployed on a mission to Bosnia where his unit performed very well.

Brown said the incident was an incredible attention-getter for all the officers and NCOs and ironically provided his unit with an advantage going into a deployment. They benefitted from taking a newly-reinforced look at details which helped them on several occasions during the deployment.

“I became a better leader,” Brown said. “You cannot succeed without failure. It’s impossible. The only way you don’t fail is that you’re doing nothing…and that’s failure. I’m not saying it’s not painful. Going through things makes you stronger and we don’t talk about it enough.”

Brown then discussed some other historical examples of using failure as a stepping stone to success, such as President Abraham Lincoln who endured personal and political tragedies before finally being elected president. And even then, he had to persevere through a civil war to preserve the Union and end slavery, proving that resilience, or “grit” as Brown said he preferred to call it, leads to success.

He also spoke about George Washington and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant having multiple failures before finally being successful.

Brown said the failures couldn’t be from illegal, immoral or unethical situations, but from simply trying to do the right thing and having bad things happen in the process.

“True, lasting resilience is forged in the fires of adversity,” he said. He went on to talk about the research into the psychological and neuroscientific insights about the role of failure in deeper learning and growth. He described some strategies to use for handling failure such as taking ownership, building self-awareness, shifting personal mindsets to see challenges as learning opportunities, and learning to build a support network of peers and mentors who offer honest feedback.

Part of his presentation was to encourage the students to change their attitudes about failure and taking risks. He said that reframing failure as a way to learn and grow was the best approach and that avoiding failure by avoiding risks was a guarantee for mediocrity.

Brown concluded his remarks by citing his favorite quote “man in the arena” by Theodore Roosevelt.

“See failure as a journey, learn from failure and embrace grit, resilience,” Brown said. “I hope you got some good lessons from this that will help you in the future.”

After the Q&A, CGSC Foundation President/CEO Lora Morgan, along with Command and General Staff School Director Col. David Norris, presented Brown with a Colin L. Powell Lecture Series commemorative coin from the Foundation in appreciation for his presentation.

After presenting the Colin L. Powell Lecture Brown spoke with students in the School of Advanced Military Studies Class of 2026.

After his time with the students, Brown conducted an office call with Gregg Thompson, deputy to the commanding general, at the Combined Arms Center headquarters and then visited Leavenworth High School to speak with Junior ROTC students. Later that evening he was the keynote speaker for the CGSC Foundation’s Distinguished Speaker Series dinner event in downtown Kansas City.

Foundation Chairman Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Chris Hughes introduced Brown at the dinner event, calling him the most influential mentor of his career.

Brown spoke about the Army and the nation’s history, how the Army is older than the nation in light of the impending 250th anniversary of the nation next year and the Army’s 250th anniversary this year. He quoted President Gerald Ford in his bicentennial remarks at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1976.

“Independence has to be defended as well as declared; freedom is always worth fighting for; and liberty ultimately belongs only to those willing to suffer for it,” Brown quoted.

“The good news is, these folks [the military] are so dedicated that most Americans don’t know it, take it for granted…and they shouldn’t be worried about their freedom,” Brown said. “But it is good if they’re aware of what’s going on.”

In that light, Brown highlighted two examples of Soldiers fighting for the nation, one from World War II and one from Korea, that exemplify the selfless service of the U.S. military. – Army Staff Sgt. Herbert H. Burr, from Independence, Missouri, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Germany in World War II and Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun, from Pilsen, Kansas, who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions in Korea both in combat and while in a Korean prisoner of war camp where he died.

After speaking about these Soldiers selfless service, Brown opened up for an extended question and answer session to allow audience members to ask about current challenges and the U.S. response to counter them.

After the Q&A period with the audience, CGSC Foundation President/CEO Lora Morgan presented Brown with a Fort Leavenworth Lamp statuette in appreciation for his time with the Foundation and its guests.
 
General Robert Brooks Brown, U.S. Army, Retired, is the president and CEO of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. He retired in 2019 with more than 38 years service having led troops at every level. His last command assignment before retirement was as commanding general, U.S. Army Pacific in Hawaii. Prior to that assignment he served as commander of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth and commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College from February 2014 to April 2016. His other significant commands include command of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning, Georgia; deputy commanding general for the 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; commander, 1st Brigade (Stryker) 25th Infantry Division, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and as commander, 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Brown’s assignments took him across the globe including deployments in support of Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and two combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Known as an innovator, team builder, and leader developer, General Brown was involved in significant change within the Army. He was a key leader in the development of the modular brigade and Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) as he did the Operational Testing and Evaluation of the SBCT and then deployed it to combat as an SBCT Commander. He initiated the “Squad as the Foundation of the Decisive Force” initiative while commanding the Maneuver Center of Excellence which would lead to the most significant improvements at the small unit level in over 60 years. He led the improvement of the Army’s educational system through the development of Army University while commanding the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth and he also wrote the Army’s first Leader Development Doctrine in Field Manual 6-22. He led the development and implementation of the first Army Human Dimension Strategy and the future Army warfighting concept of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). Within MDO, he led the effort to develop the first innovative Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) and convinced the Army/DoD to field MDTFs within 18 months after concept development. MDTFs are now in demand by combatant commanders and making significant contributions to joint warfighting efforts across the globe.

Brown graduated in 1981 with a bachelor of science from the United States Military Academy earning a commission as an infantry lieutenant. He also holds a Master of Education from the University of Virginia, and a Master of Science in National Security and Strategic Studies (Distinguished Graduate) from National Defense University. He is also a Class of 1992 alumnus of the Command and General Staff Officers Course.

Brown was an AUSA Distinguished Senior Fellow before becoming president & CEO in October 2021. He and his wife, Dr. Patti Brown, have three daughters, and seven grandchildren.
 
For more photos see these albums on the CGSC Foundation Flickr site:

CGSOC Class of 2026 Colin L. Powell Lecture

Discussion with SAMS Class of 2026

Video on the CGSC Foundation YouTube Channel

Full video of Gen. Brown’s Colin L. Powell Lecture Series presentation

Full video of Gen. Brown’s presentation at the Distinguished Speaker Series Dinner event

Thank you to the Sponsors of the Distinguished Speaker Series Dinner Event Sept. 10, 2025