0:00 to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time and our purpose is to look at military history Doctrine and the practices of great military leaders and distill from them lessons that we can apply to our business and professional lives and so today on today's show I'm I'm super excited you can see I'm I'm already ing earlier than normal because um a a friend of mine uh Zack Arnold has agreed
0:37 to come on the show H just a little bit of background um Zach and I met when I was on deployment on the USS Ronald Reagan uh for the infamous tomadachi deployment where we were sailing off the coast of Japan through basically a big radiated plume and Zach was a uh history professor at Central Texas University and and but he got to come on the ship and he conducted classes for the sailors and and that started uh you know a friendship um that was I I think 2011
1:14 right something like that yeah that started a a friendship ever since then um I know Zach has has been out to California and stayed with uh my family and and um you know we we've kept in touch uh interestingly enough um Zach is now a Seminary Student um and and much of what we connected on when we were deployed together was um religious matters as you know I was a chaplain in in the Navy and and uh one day Zach show up in my office and and it
1:51 started a friendship and and what become just a long conversation about uh um you know kind of what is Life about and and what is the meaning of faith and all of these these these very important and deep subjects and so um you know Z Zach is is is is one of my brothers in that respect and and so really excited thank you so much for for coming on the show Zach thanks for having me I really appreciate it yeah so um let's start out for just at least a couple of minutes if you don't mind sharing a little bit about your background so you know people
2:26 can kind of get a little more flavor of who you are besides you know being being my friend so um yeah sure I uh I have my undergrad in history from U University of West Florida in Pensacola Florida which is where I'm from originally um I got my I I'm a little overeducated in the Master's Degree Department um I got my first Masters in military history from Norwich University uh after that I took the job as a professor at C for Central Texas College uh working for the Navy and I
3:02 did that for about six years while I was doing that I got another master's degree in political science um after that I went and so I taught for six years for Central Texas College then I taught for six years in um the middle schools uh two years in Atlanta and four years in Pensacola uh Civics and history mostly uh then I decided to I I heard the call and I to go to Seminary uh I was accepted I went to South Florida St Vincent dep Paul Regional Seminary and uh earned a
3:37 master's degree in philosophy and I did a year in a parish just this past year and now I am at uh Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology in Milwaukee Wisconsin where I'm pursuing my miv oh fantastic so yeah Perpetual student it feels like well Perpetual learner which which I think is it's a wonderful thing and then once you have your md will you then be um I don't know what the term would be but you'll become a a Roman Catholic priest is that
4:12 correct that the goal is to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest and in about ideally four years from now oh okay wow so this is this is a this is a long a long journey then it is yeah the entire Seminary process is about seven years it's about exactly how long Jacob had to work for Rachel so that is hopefully lay there symbolism on you and you'll end up becoming a [Laughter] rabbi so in um in in preparing for the
4:50 show um um you you you let me know that you wanted to talk about um really one of the central figures in English History and that is King Harold godwinson and just to again to set it up a little bit um King Edward uh died in early January 1066 and Harold succeeded to the throne um but but then he was challenged by William um who became known as William the Conqueror um and um which which
5:28 really set up the Battle of Hastings um and and a major shift in English History so um tell us and we so we're really dealing with the time period from um January to O October 1066 right um and so tell us if you will about um Godwin sin um you know he was a king but I I take it that you know unlike today kings were on the
6:03 battlefield and and so they were military as well as as well as political leaders that's often true but it's not always true um and in CA in this case it U it's interesting because uh Edward the Confessor who had been King of England for quite some time um he was very much I his name Edward the Confessor he was not a warlord he was not a military ruler um that just was not in his wheelhouse uh he was very much the pious ruler The Diplomatic ruler um but he
6:40 needed somebody while he was ruling to really be kind of his right-hand man um his hatchet man right the guy that's going to do the dirty work um Harold's father was that man originally a man named Godwin uh but then he died in the 10 late 1050 S I believe it was and so Harold who was he wasn't the oldest son of Godwin but he was the oldest son still in good standing in the Kingdom of England uh when all this went down so he
7:15 became kind of this unofficial I'm I wouldn't say co-ruler uh the technical term was Ducks Borum which is Latin for U Duke of War uh so he kind of he took care of military issues as they arose uh because Edward the Confessor just was not a military guy uh and the re the that played out in a couple of different ways most notably Edward who was married to Harold's sister by the way um but they never had any kids so when Edward died he has no
7:54 heirs and of course that means the throne is in some sense up for grabs there were several people who had some semblance of a claim to it um long story short within a week after Edward died in January of 1066 uh the English rulers collectively nominated and elected Herold to become king uh he was a known quantity he'd been doing the real work you know the boots on the ground work for
8:30 almost a decade uh he was already one of the leading Earls in the Kingdom um he had a fairly decent reputation uh he was not a he wasn't a saintly individual in the way of Edward the Confessor but he did have some degree of piety uh he had recorded piety as opposed to the rest of his uh male relatives of which there's really no record of that for them um so he seemed seems to be very well liked by everybody and and here's the important thing he was English right the the other guys who
9:07 were espousing some sort of claim to the throne every single one of them were foreigners uh William the Conqueror well he would become the Conqueror later uh William of Normandy um who was Norman French um he had a claim to it uh but he was French uh there was a Danish ruler whose Name Escapes me that had some sort of claim to it from back when Cano had conquered England um he decided he didn't want any part of it um and then there was a Norse ruler named Herold
9:46 this is where it gets confusing because it was another Herold spelled differently h a r a l d uh Harold hardrada who was the king of Norway who ended up making a play for it as well so you have but nobody in England wanted a foreign King they wanted Harold godwinson uh for a lot of reasons not least of wi because he was a local um and so and so they elected him and he and he accepted um and then there is an apocryphal sort of story that on his deathbed Edward the Confessor
10:21 despite whatever promises he had made throughout his Reign to whoever um there's this story that he entrusted both his wife and the kingdom to Herold godwinson as he was dying and so that was that was the cherry on top you know uh everybody was like okay he's gonna be our guy and he was crowned uh first king ever crowned in Westminster Abbey it had just been built then um as Harold II and he got to be king that's the good news of his story uh but the rest of
10:57 that year was very very rough for him I mean he was dead by October um and that whole time he was King they were effectively on Red Alert uh because he knew that he didn't know about the Viking king that was going to come over but he definitely knew about William of Normandy uh and that that was going to be a problem uh either sooner or later but it was definitely going to be a problem U and so he spent the year basically in preparation for that uh um he had and and there's a whole another backstory about U one of his brothers
11:34 who had been an Earl that was ousted and uh was trying to come back and get his earldom it it it's it could just be an interf family struggle but you know these were two very powerful individuals and they had followings and so it can't it didn't quite come to a Civil War uh but there was certainly tensions there his brother ended up actually getting kicked out of the Kingdom and his brother actually went to the Viking king and said hey come come help me take back my earlom and I'll make sure you become king of England and that
12:10 ends up being a problem later in the year as well uh so Harold spends all this time preparing mainly for an invasion from France um pretty early in the year and it was kind of a portentious year too because uh astronomically that was a year that we saw Haley's Comet in the sky and so that spring you got Haley's Comet which nobody really called Haley's Comet and they didn't really know what to make of it but it certainly was portending something and we definitely got something that year um so in the late spring early summer Harold goes
12:47 ahead and call effectively calls out the militia um he he has the right as king to call out the common folk to defend the realm as needed it's usually for a short period of time each year just to deal with putting down an uprising or dealing with an invasion or something of that nature he doesn't actually have an uprising or an invasion he just is pretty sure that one is coming and so he calls them out and he has them stationed all along the southern coast uh watching for this
13:23 Fleet from Normandy because he's pretty sure that's coming his way he just doesn't know when spring goes by summer goes by nothing uh not a not a sail on the ocean from from France um eventually it starts getting toward fall you know these people are Village Farmers they have to go back and work on the farm especially to get the Harvest in you can't keep them called out forever so once it was done or once summer was kind of ending he said uh
13:58 okay relas you guys go back to your Villages he's probably not going to attack this year because the weather wasn't right for the Crossing from the channel um the fighting season really is Summer right that's when sure people can afford to walk away from their Farms go fight and hopefully get back in time for Harvest so it didn't happen in the summer so he figured maybe it's not going to happen this year and then like fall of 1066 was just crazy in England everybody knows about the Battle of Hastings that's that's what ends up in our history books but the leadup to it was
14:36 just um to use a very non-technical term it was just bananas um because they send he sends all his soldiers home and he figures he's got this season we're good we're good until 1067 and all of a sudden he gets a uh a messenger comes from the northern part of England the city of York and says hey um a viking army with your brother in it just landed and uh we need help um so
15:11 the he just disbanded his army so he calls up everybody he can possibly get together and they force March North it's 185 miles from London to just outside of York he makes the journey in four days now if we do the math on that we're looking at a plus 40 m 40 plus miles per day uh which is just kind of it's not that big a deal when you drive a car but these guys are on foot or they're on Horseback right right um so he gets the
15:49 Army there and and they're they're carrying all of their Gear with them right I mean it's not like we're out on a Sunday hike and we're in our shorts and our shirt right yeah uh so weapons armor food tents if they got it bed roll I mean everything is just just pack it up let's go and they up people as they go you know trying to Rally troops on the way north um unfortunately the northern Earls up in York they tried to fight the battle on their own against the Vikings and uh they lost so Harold gets up there and he doesn't exactly
16:24 have as many reinforcements up there as he thought he would uh again kind of make a long story short uh he manages to show up kind of unexpected uh he ends up catching the Viking Army somewhat by surprise and he defeats them so this battle up there is called the Battle of Stanford Bridge uh and it takes place between uh Harold hardrada the Viking king plus Harold godwins son's brother whose name is tostig and they're fighting against Harold godwinson and it's long drawn out
16:59 Affair but Harold godson's Anglo-Saxon Army wins which is great uh the Vikings are defeated Herold hardrada and tostig are actually killed um and the rest of the Vikings agree to depart and never invade England again so he always thought he was going to have a problem but he thought it was gonna come from the south it ended up coming from the north unfortunately as he's recuperating from the uh the victory at Stanford Bridge he gets a messenger from the
17:34 South William of Normandy waited until the last minute he was waiting for the winds to be just right and he he did he crossed England or he crossed the English Channel to England from France uh in uh the fall of 1066 so Harold wins in the North and then he finds out he's got an invasion in the South he's got to deal with so he does the exact same thing in Reverse he gathers up everybody that can walk or ride and he marches South again in uh jig time he gets down
18:10 there uh and he he's got a confr he stops in London very briefly to kind of catch his breath and gather up a few more troops but he doesn't stop for long and then he heads South to confront William and then in October of 1066 uh he and William go head-to-head at the Battle of Hastings and at this uh it's a it's just a one-day battle it lasts all day but at the end of the day uh Harold godwinson is killed and his army is routed um this is October William spends
18:45 the next several months just kind of bouncing around Southern England uh sacking castles and Villages and he's eventually crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066 uh ly because there's no other claimants to the throne right uh the Norse uh the uh the Danish King still wanted nothing to do with it Harold hardrada was dead Harold godwinson was dead there was a young it's like a 15 year old boy his name was Edgar who had a a blood claim from some previous
19:21 grandparent but he was a boy and he really didn't have the chops to to be doing what these guys were doing at that time and so uh William was pretty much the last man standing at that point um so yeah uh David hoar wrote a book about 1066 and he he used a line in there that has always appealed to me about Harold godwinson specifically uh one has to sympathize with the man so bludgeoned by fate and I really I I've always felt a little sorry for him uh because it's
19:56 like every everywhere he turned he was just being uh smashed by some army or another or or some some tragedy uh he didn't even have the full support of his whole family um so it was it was a rough year for him as or not even a year it's like eight months as king nine months as king um nevertheless uh I think he's a pretty inspiring figure uh at the very end yes he lost MH uh and and a lot of history books might not even uh mention him except kind of in
20:34 passing as the guy that lost to William the conquerer um but his resilience and his willingness to like give it 100% in the time that he did have and and the victories he did rack up um before his final defeat uh that speak pretty highly to his character I think um and you know that book by hoar also mentions something else it's that um at the Battle of Stanford bridge and then at the Battle of Hastings um there's not a single record of any Englishman
21:12 fighting for the enemy with with the single exception of his brother uh who was apparently suffering from some kind of U mental illness um you know so he had the support of the people uh regardless of how it turned out uh and yeah I always I've always kind of admired his uh tenacity so so some some questions um sure it it sounds like he was he was sort of Edward the confessor's sort of commanderin-chief if you will sure um
21:49 right I mean he and what what do we know about um uh Harold's loyalty to to his to his Sovereign you said he was he was he had that position for about a decade so during those 10 years what you know I I've got to imagine he's in control of the army it would be very tempting to Stage what would we today we would call a military coup and yet evidently he didn't so what do we know
22:24 about you know the relationship between him and and Ed if if anything it seems to have been where his loyalty was not really in question um so it looking back at it um in the Years leading up to 1066 each every Earl had their own household troops and then the king had household troops as well um Herold commanded the Royal household troops in the field but they were ultimately loyal to the king so I'm not sure that the coup would have
22:59 been uh that simple uh had he wanted to do it although you know his family did make up several of the other Earls right his father Godwin had a reputation as a king maker but also U kind of as an Earl maker in the sense that uh one two three four of his kids ended up being Earls uh all at one time once um so yeah Harold was uh seems to have been very loyal to Edward the Confessor so loyal in fact um so his brother toig had
23:37 been Earl in North Umbria in the early 1060s uh and apparently again the uh the hypothesis uh from some historians was that tostig was suffering from some sort of mental illness he just not like outright Madness but he just he wasn't he wasn't working properly uh and his he was abusing his power he was angering the people uh he was not a very popular Earl for for that reason and maybe a few other reasons but um there was a revolt against tulk
24:15 godwinson and Harold was sent North by the king he's like fix it go take care of that and Harold went up there to fix it and tostig thinks oh my brother's going to help me fix it but what ends up happening is you know Harold uh sizes up the situation and he realizes his brother really is unpopular um the people aren't going to take him back and we're risking a civil war here so he actually he's the one you know with the with the authority of the crown behind him he's the one that Exiles his brother
24:51 and installs uh these two brothers Edwin and morar to become like co- Earls um because that's who the people wanted uh so he was willing to break with the family to keep peace and to and do the bidding of Edward the Confessor uh so any any idea that he was uh GNA take over the the uh the kingdom I mean he took it over afterwards but he wasn't gonna get in the way of the the natural uh nor uh normative Heir or normative
25:26 ruler right and and so so and and you know this is not a period of History I know very much about so this is this is fascinating for me to hear this he he essentially um banishes his own brother um as you mentioned for the sake of Peace but it also sounds like he was intent on doing the right thing in other words keeping Peace Keeping the kingdom together that I mean obviously that would that was good for Edward but it
26:01 seems like that was good for the country as well because a civil war is is is is always bloody it's you know it's it's the classic brother against brother what impact if any do you think that may have had on what then became herold's succession to the throne in in terms of being supported by the other Earls right that that that that sort of I don't know it seems to me the the commitment to doing the right thing for you know his country if if we can
26:37 think of it in those terms you know over a thousand years ago or a thousand years ago do we have any idea of of what impact that aspect of his character had on you know the other ears who eventually essentially made him King well some of the Earls that made him King were his brothers um so they had a like a nepotism sort of interest in all that um well that doesn't mean they didn't also recognize his good qualities um I think for most of the people that
27:12 wanted him to be king again the idea that we already knew he was good at his job he could keep the peace if necessary and he was and like you said he was willing to put the kingdom before family um and he's one of us right right he he knows our language he knows our customs he's uh he's he's English um and I suppose you could probably also say you know he's here right he was there in the capital right at the time when the succession needed to take place he wouldn't have to be
27:49 sent for from afar not that they wanted anybody from overseas anyway um so I think all those kind of played a role now to be fair the uh there's always some politicking going on so as soon as one of the first things that happened when he became king was those two Northern Earls the two brothers that were not related to him by the way um they they got him to marry their sister uh so there's some you know dynastic ambition on their part but also
28:25 marriage Alliance on his part to to secure the North and make sure they stay loyal because the southern earldoms were his family okay so but you know he was willing to make I guess I I don't know maybe maybe she was a real catch I don't know if it was like she was willing to make that or he was eager to marry her uh the record's not really clear about that I I I do think that there there is a a a business lesson here because one of the most difficult tasks that businesses have especially family businesses is this whole issue of
29:02 succession so you have the founder or you have Founders typically they're they're you know if they're successful they're pretty hard- knows businessmen and um oftentimes charismatic and and they have they have other people working at the company um who would would would seem by rights to be the natural successors and and and yet this the succession plans in these in these companies oftentimes are non-existent or incredibly chaotic and and you know for an
29:41 individual um who exhibits the qualities that Harold godwinson exhibited where he was willing if necessary for the sort of greater good to you know break with the family you know I I I I think that you know that was that would be something that you know if I were advising someone on business succession I would say well that's a good trade because oftentimes these family businesses fail because the family is the most important thing not the ongoing success of the business and so there's there's a key trait there
30:17 yeah I think he uh anybody that's watched Game of Thrones knows succession makes things messy right um business or royal succession um I and he learned the lesson really from his father right his father uh was a very ruthless individual uh significantly less Pious than his son um and but he was able to make at least three people um help them become and succeed as kings over the years uh and he was remember I said earlier that
30:52 Harold ginson was not the eldest son um the eldest son um whose name was Swain uh had actually depending on which source you read he either ran away with like eloped with or he abducted a nun from a Convent um and so his father had to uh because the King was very upset about that Edward was very upset about that uh his father had to Exile him so uh you know Herold had seen firsthand you know how we have to
31:27 make sacrif acfic even within the family for the good of either the rest of the family or the realm as a whole MH that I mean that's even today I think that would be pretty controversial right but but a thousand years ago I mean you know wow so I mean even though his father was more ruthless than he was evidently and and less Pious and yet there was still this he he set an example there there just there is a line that you do not cross right right and and and
32:04 presumably his son uh learn learned that lesson so then so then moving forward now he's King and and you know he REM he reminds me of um uh the uh the current seat Well actually he's not current now he the the recently departed CEO of of Starbucks who who who came into the company at a very chaotic time Starbucks is having a lot of challenges with with unions um their business in China H is is facing tremendous competition and
32:41 here's this guy um you know sort of plunk down in the middle of it and he he doesn't come even from you know the food service industry he came from a different industry and he's got all of this chaos swirling around him and he's trying to you know get his arm arms around it and the bottom line was he just never was able to and in I I think he was CEO for maybe about a year he's already been replaced so he was he was not able he he had no victories you know during the chaos and here's here's
33:16 Harold godwinson who maybe in okay in the end he loses at the Battle of Hastings and there's undoubtedly reasons why perhaps you know because of you know mil um you know a misappreciation of of what it needed he needed to do to to you know defeat William um but but nonetheless he as you as you mentioned he tremendous resilience tremendous um um um what's the word not not Innovation but just like to March an army you know 45 miles
33:53 a day and go into battle and then to turn around and essentially do the reverse I mean those you know those are the the military achievements of a of a you know General Patton in many ways so what what was what do you think was inh heral that that I don't know if the word is compelled that supported him in in in doing that because most military commanders I don't think would could have done that that's a that's a good question um
34:30 I I think there's probably two answers to that um one is a sense of Duty uh because once he became king I mean it really is the duty of the king to defend the realm um body and Bone I mean all the way through and and that's I suppose that's true now King Charles but uh you know much much true than uh in a practical sense um you know and the ideaa of Vikings own half of the north of England and the English own the southern half of England
35:05 wasn't new in 1066 they' done that before when they couldn't beat him they just let him live in the northern part of England and paid them a certain amount so they wouldn't come to the South right so that was an option when when the Vikings invaded the northern part uh up at uh York uh he chose not to go that route because again he wanted to try to keep the kingdom um and I I suppose defend it including the people that lived up there um that's one part of it uh the other part which I guess is kind of related to it is the fact that it's not just a duty in a
35:42 political sense um the mindset at the time is it is a sacred Duty like there is it is it is incumbent upon him not just as a secular ruler but also ordained by God God like that's he might get to be king and it's good to be king but remember one of the burdens of being um chosen by God to be king that whole divine right is that I've got obligations that most people don't have and that means I've got to you know go the extra mile or in this case the extra
36:18 185 miles to get up there then than I do um and like I said there was a there's an possibly apocryphal story um that uh Harold had a sort of paralysis when he was younger uh and that he had been like miraculously cured I believe it was at walam Abbey uh which is kind of the root of where his personal piety kind of came into the historical record and came into play uh so I think he seems to have been someone that
36:54 felt uh I I feel like he felt that religious Duty maybe a little stronger than other kings uh that may have seen themselves primarily or even only as secular rulers but I'm also in seminary right now so I see things through that lens so yeah no I you know I mean it's I I think it's a really interesting point because if you look at English business history and one that leaps to mind because of of something I I saw on Instagram the other day is is the cad berries the famous
37:29 English Chocolate Company so they they felt very profoundly that that um they had duties to their employees um that that if they didn't fulfill them they were in essence violating their duty to God that you know they they they they were you know very Pious family um and and so as you probably know um you at the you know outset of the Industrial Revolution the working conditions for for Laborers for workers was to say the
38:06 least not very good right and so then along comes and there were others but but Cadbury like I said is the one that jumps to mind saying no no no this is not this is this is not the appropriate way to treat workers um especially female workers where we we we put them in in a dangerous situation and and in a spiritually dangerous situation where they're taking advantage of by you know male supervisors and and and these kind of things so it it it don't it occurs to me that this this obligation that that
38:42 Harold godwinson felt translates into another uh business idea kind of by way of people like the cad berries that you know we who run businesses or run professional practice is we we have duties to our our team members our our employees whatever we're going to call them and and the fact that we may be the CEO or the COO or whatever it's it's good to be king um but but with that comes very very profound
39:18 responsibilities and we really Overlook them at our Peril um maybe I don't think anybody in business today necessarily well I mean there are companies that believe um um you know their business is is an extension of their faith um Chick-fil-A comes to mind Hobby Lobby right um and and and but I think any business can can look Beyond just the you know the the the raw um uh economics of business and realize that um that that there is a higher obligation to to
39:56 our uh you know to our team like I said our team members you know to our hopefully our customers our clients um you know attitudes of of of honesty and and fair dealing and that there is a root to that even even for those of us even for those people who don't look at it as a religious or a god um centered obligation it is you know of that order perhaps in any event and I I I think it would be a a very good thing if if CEOs kind of kept that in mind if Business Leaders kept that in mind that that you
40:32 know these obligations they can't just be lightly set aside um you know one should look at them the way uh you know Harold God godwinson you know looked at looked at that obligation himself so um unfortunately I'd love to go on we're we're we're we're we've run out of time um so G to have to have you back on the show again um this s such a great conversation and like I said earlier particularly for me to to be able to engage in in a
41:08 historical period I know very little about it's it's it's really fascinating um to you know to be able to get a sense of what it was like and and and and this is the first time I've done um a business lessons from the military um show where we're talking about something that happened you know so long ago and yet you we we can see there's absolute relevance today to it so so Zach thanks so much for coming on the show today I really appr thank you for having me yeah very glad to be here I I'll have you hang tight for just a minute while I
41:43 while I wrap up and uh so um thank you very much all of you for joining us number one uh number two tomorrow Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. is our month ly economic Echoes and that is a show where we look at economic data and see we really parse through it and understand how does it impact us as individuals what decisions do we need to make it's all good and well that you know inflation is what inflation is nationally but most of us do not buy for
42:20 example you know the entire basket of goods that goes into that we buy certain portions of them and so it's instructive for us to understand why are we experiencing the economy perhaps differently than what is being reported and so that that is uh that's tomorrow Wednesday at 10: a pacific time and then um next week uh on Monday at 10: am will be the next episode of trust and Estates weekly and a week from today of course we'll be back for the next edition of business lessons from the military so I
42:56 thank you very very much for joining me if you have any thoughts comments feel free to drop them into our social media um the links will all be in the show notes after the show posts on our YouTube channel always you know love to hear your your thoughts about these and I'll I'll pass them along to Zach I'm sure he'll be interested to hear of them as well Zach again thank you so much for coming on the show it was really great uh to be able to talk with you and signing off as I always do Marie darling you you are