Retired general Stanley McChrystal believes our leaders can do better

STANLEY A. MCCHRYSTAL’S ONLY CHILD SAM used to be in a punk-rock band. Two, actually: the Welfare Babies and the Lucky Scars. They played the circuit a bit back in the early 2000s, when McChrystal was doing his own kind of tour. He was climbing the ranks to become leader of the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the nation’s elite Special Forces teams. By 2009, just as the Lucky Scars were winding down, the older McChrystal was in charge of all operations in Afghanistan.

These days, father and son have almost switched roles. Sam McChrystal now works in “the intelligence community,” as it’s referred to in Alexandria, Va., where both men live, attempting to protect America from real, potential or perceived threats,