Transcripts For CSPAN Top 20240704

When you are connected you are not alone. Cox supports cspan as a Public Service along with these other television next, discussing force in the creation as is 10 years a senior at this divisor to the joint chiefs of staff. He talks about quality of life for military families, military recruitment and threats from china. This is hosted by the air and space force association. Force association. Thank you to all the people joining us online and from across the globe. Its a real honor to be here with the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, susie colon lopez. They are the only airmen to serve as see agut since the position was created. He advises the chairman on all issues that impact enlisted force. That means his focus is ensuring the enlisted force is properly trained, postured and sustained. They are a true and proven warrior, who has served in every operating theater over the past 33 years. All that comes to an end when they will be succeeded by sergeant of the marine corps, troy black. I wanted to give a moment to give special thanks to our special sponsors listed on the screen. We are grateful for their support in making war fighters in action possible. C ac thank you for joining ust, its an honor. A question just to get a question to nick rowland. After nearly 40 years working primarily for general millie as the joint chiefs of staff, youve seen a lot. Covid, the afghanistan pullout, a pivot to the specific. A pullout to the pacific. We have seen changes from the force and the need from the force. How has it changed your understanding, for what it takes to support the joint work vices the joint work fighters and be decisive at the merge . A lot of the things that we factor are based on historical needs historical deeds. Our successes and failures, we kept on with 20 years of combat in the middle east and before that, we had other engagements that we learned from but as we look at the enemy, the way that we see it in the near future, we look at great and Strategic Power competition, i believe that we need to condition our forces not only to be technologically advanced but also intellectual and resilient enough to withstand whatever the fight brings to them. We know technology is a doubleedged sword and it can help us a lot when it comes to advantages on the battlefield but what happens when it gets shut off and we have to rely on flesh and bone to make that Decisive Action take that Decisive Action to continue to bring the fight to the enemy . We need to strike a balance somewhere between there between intellect and courage to make sure we have the best people on the about field. I am with you, it is exactly what it takes in this generation of work fighters shows that to the world. Cz, what do you think is your biggest success . Beyond that advice beyond that, advice for the next generation for leadership at your level. What is your advice and what do you think . You went through a long list of things we have experienced over the past four years, covid, civil unrest, withdraw from afghanistan, the fighting in ukraine and so on. One of the biggest successes we have had is in the middle of the narrative that accompanies every single one of those situations, is to maintaining the troops focus on what were here to do and that is war fighting. It has been my duty to make sure i go back and counter with facts to keep them focus on what they are there to do and making sure the nation is in good hands when it comes to National Security. You had a little bit on and do you reference the threat, a different set of threats, where dangerous than any time in our nation across the National Security apparatus so can you talk about what you share with the troops and your own view of threats . You have a joint war fighter level of experience. You have faced threats directly and obviously prevailed. The nature of the enemy that we can face in the near future is different from what we got accustomed to fighting over 20 years. Counterinsurgency is different than dealing with a followup dealing with a foe that has nuclear powers. The stakes are higher and what we used to refer to as being outside the wire, when you think about it, against a strategic competitor, everyone is outside the wire so we need to take that into the calculus and decisions we make when it comes to escalation and the use of power to inflict that will on the enemy, to either stop or get what International Laws. It is more critical now than ever because we are not only fighting an enemy, we have to deal with the cautions of what happened with our counter actions and how is that going to affect our families and our people back in the homeland. That is the main concern that i have when it comes to Strategic Power competition. We share in that view that Family Readiness is combat readiness. Can you share with us in the audience a bit you are advice really on the top number, 1, 2, three, or five challenges that families face today that Senior Leaders across the National Security apparatus from congress that we need to get our arms around so the public better understands those needs for our families in their own selfsacrifice to support the nations security . Advisor colonlopez i will be the first to say that our families are the foundation of our courage and ability to project the instrument of war worldwide. I know from personal experience. One of the Biggest Challenges that we have when it comes to them is misinformation. We all know, we used to say in communities, happy wife, happy life. That applies to every single dynamic of the families today because if they are not fully waiting to accept our responsibilities, our service members, they think the institution is rotten, they will lose the and mechanism and no longer believe on what they are to do when we deploy. I was quoting quoted by saying that misinformation is the hypersonic weapon of selfdestruction and everyone is vulnerable to it and that weapon is being actualized right now. We need to make sure families have the resources they need to retain resiliency. We need to make sure they have the right information to make decisions on which direction their family needs to go, number three, we need nations supporting mechanisms to the people within the department of defense to care for them and make sure we have the best interest in mind and to make sure that when something goes wrong, put our best foot forward to help them out. That is really at the core of my position as a Senior Enlisted Advisor to the chairman. We take immediate action because we do not have time to dance around the subject. If this impacts someone elses life, it is affecting thousands of others and we need to do right by them. There is no doubt in my mind that our secretary of defense, secretary austin and you are about trying to take care of our families. Are there specific issues that are you are working on childcare to schools, education, spousal Employment Opportunities . Advisor colonlopez all of the above and just this afternoon, the Service Center advisors and i are meeting with personal readiness on the taking care of people in the moment and the memorandums the secretary has rolled out and engaging the gauging the progress of every single one of the initiatives we have put forward, whether it is childcare, health care, many things on the table right now. We are taking and a static approach to make sure that we are gauging the progress and continuing that to message that to the force. We no longer live in a place where we can wait until everything is done before we tell people. People want information but people like progress and if it seems stagnant, it doesnt sit well with the force. We are doing everything in our power to inform them on the progress we are making and the things we are doing to make their life better. Would you like to build on that . Talk about for the audience to our three points on where you have made progress at the inner level . Again, pick one. Childcare, medical support, educational opportunities, spousal Employment Opportunities. On the spousal Employment Opportunities, we have been working with the white house on making sure we have better record better reciprocity when it comes to licensure and better opportunities where they have a place to look for jobs as they move along and the services and taking opportunities to make sure they prolong assignments so families have more stability. On the education side, we have expanded the way we educate officers and enlisted. This is what we needed to do and this is the knowledge we are giving you right now and that knowledge is dynamic because we know something that is relevant today, next week, may be relevant so we need to have the flexibility to change the course of instruction to fit the situation we are dealing with. Lastly, on the health care, the joint chiefs and the chairman and secretary of working with dha and the department of veteran affairs to make sure we collaborate better to provide better care for our people. Those are just three examples of initiatives. Those are great examples and thanks for the leadership. No silver bullets, it just takes constant hard work and leadership like i know you and general millie and secretary austin bring to the fight, so thank you. We talk about retention as a National Security imperative. How about recruiting . I know you can talk at length about how you are interacting across the army, navy, air force, marines and across the space forced to recruit. We know there is a recruiting crisis and i know there are opportunities. Can you talk about recruiting . Advisor colonlopez i think if we are going to speak about recruiting, we need to go about accessions. It is separated from retention because its a totally different dynamic. When it comes to attracting the talent in the nation right now, we need to do better job of putting the narrative of the purpose and value of a generational commitment to National Security and i dont think we have done everything that we can to be able to be as aggressive as we need to be with that particular messaging. In parallel to that, we are saturated in highly negative environments to where every topic set up by the department defense, nine out of 10 topics are negative in nature. Whether it is that our soldiers, marines, and guardsmen are rapists, whether somebody is saying we are woke, whether somebody is saying our focus is on Everything Else other than war fighting. All of those damaging narratives are impacting the way people think and if you look at the composition of the armed forces, it is less than 1 of the population. Even that 1 , their families, they do not really understand what we do on a daytoday basis. So what about the other 99 of the society that has no clue what service is all about . But all they hear is the negative narrative. I think that as a nation, we can help each other and talk about the value of service. I can tell you as a poor kid , growing up with nothing, to being the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and having access to opportunity to help people, we will never i would never dream this would happen to my life but it happened when i joined the air force. We need to Start Talking about those stories instead of the one offs. While they are horrible, the same things happen in society. Nobody is highlighting the stuff happening at our colleges, certain parts of our country. They zero in on the military and i would like for people to take a pause from that and take it for face value. There is accountability. We have different laws to deal with these things and we just need to continue doing that. On the other side of that is that we need to have a lot of the people that have benefited from the actions of our war fighters to be able to tell the stories about i remember september 12, 2001. I remember the pride i had when johnny, susie from my neighborhood ended up going forward. Susie did not come back. She sacrificed her life or her country but she took an oath to do that. She fully understood what that was all about. And that message needs to be ingrained into our population and our youth to be able to understand really this is a generational commitment that all of us need to do this at one point or another, because someone is always looking in to see how they can disrupt our way of life. Our democracy. And go against the ideals of what being an american is all about. I am right where you are. The joint war fighter ethan oh that is still deeply embedded in todays war fighting forces, so im going to tell a quick story. A war fighters story. Then i would like you to tell one because you are out there, youre seeing with the young men and women do. So thinking about a good example of just how good our soldiers, sailors, airmen and guard our. Alden started. I was at an air force base. In the 91st icbm wing. I met a Second Lieutenant and staff sergeants who were defenders and as defenders, fully equipped, very capable with a whole range of weapons, being the Second Lieutenant, we met. When i asked her in her responsibility for protections, security of the most lethal weapons in the world. Her responsibility and accountability for the most lethal weapons in the world. I said would you shoot me if i crossed a redline . She said absolutely. She cant wait to be upgraded to a convoy commander. That would be responsible for convoy, icbms rolling on public roads across north dakota. Average raised average age, less than 25 years old and responsible and accountable for the most lethal weapons of the world. So that is my story, over to you. Advisor colonlopez that story is common because what we find out is for whatever reason, the young men and women joined the service. That flips when you understand what their roles and responsibilities are. I will give you one story, i will give you two because i think we need to bring the total force into this. The first story is when we were doing the retrograde from afghanistan and the United States transportation command was looking for a better tracking mechanism to be able to track the flags and ships coming from different places and if you put that up for bid, that will cost you millions of dollars. Here comes this crew led by an that says we are programmers. They said we will do this less than a week. I may be misquoting, but very fast. They pushed it forward and put it in place at the cost of commendation medals. That is the talent we have in the department of defense. Americas sons and daughters that are given an opportunity to go ahead and do something, whatever that may be, based on their specialty. And they do it well. The second example is in Somalia International airport. We are training the special forces there and there is a lot of equipment coming in but the accountability of that equipment was horrible. Here comes this Army Staff Sergeant from the reserves and in one deployment, he ended up programming an entire system of accountability that got everything down to the single weapon and where the weapon was located. When i talk to that staff sergeant, i asked what is your background, who are you, what do you do . He said i am an m. I. T. Guy and in my reserve time, i do the soldier stuff. I just took whatever i do on the outside and put it in here. So when we talk about the total force of active duty, that is our youth coming in to do something greater than the purpose they had on the other side of things and they are serving their nation. Those are my two stories. I would just like to ask you if youve got an experience as you were deployed all over the world, the business, what you did to defend our nation is remarkable in many ways. Some of that you can share, some of that you cant share. But as you are talking to a future dj is pj is there a story you would share with them on how to handle the reality of a combat operation . Advisor colonlopez there are many scenarios, clearly there are far many more valiant pjs then i have ever been. So i always consider myself in the company of remarkable warriors. And when i gauge my actions in combat and the things i have to do, it is the necessity. Its just really what we trained to do. The one thing i will pass on to any young paire rescue man or special operator is that complacency will be the biggest killer you can ever face. When you start getting comfortable doing certain things because of repetition and expertise, that is when you fall on your face so i encourage buts when you fall on your face flat. I will encourage every single one of them not to do that. When it comes to their skills, it is something you have to continue the muscle memory to make sure you do it and i have a quote that says amateurs train until they get it right and professional training until they do not get it wrong and that is what we do every day. It is not checking a box and getting the form filed so you can get paid. It is because that is the expectation on the battlefield. When all the variables are working against you and you have to take action at that moment. That is probably the best advice. Lt. Gen. Wright training and prepare, not just to get it right but to never get it wrong especially given the responsibilities we have for the most lethal forces in the world. Some 17 plus deployments that you and janet is your spouse and your family, when you are together, no doubt it took a toll on you personally and professionally. You made this Statement Public that you lied on Periodic Health assessments over 17 years. How did that personal experience as you got to the Decision Point shape the way you as a leader faced challenges like suicide in the marines . Advisor colonlopez i rely on humility as the foundation of my approach to anything we do. A lot of that because i grew up with nothing i came from nothing , and the air force gave me an opportunity to do something with my life. It was the same attribute that i violated because of my ego as a warrior, specifically in the company i kept with co and special forces and others. As i continued to deploy after the the fourth time, it became second, third, the norm. This is what were supposed to feel and be numb to. This is what we are supposed to embrace the suck because this is our life. In parallel, our families were noticing changes and refused to listen. Because that is just the way things were. It was all that ego, the ego of nothing can kill me, nothing can hurt me and i am the master of my own destiny and so on that eventually was our biggest detriment. For me, for close to 15 years, i was telling everyone that only have two beers and ate my vegetables and never smoked. A lot of people laughed because they are doing the same thing right now. Two concerning areas. We are not being truthful with the way we are conditioning the human Weapon System but the most concerning thing is that we are not trusting the institution that is supposed to be there to help us, for whatever reason, whether it is the actions of a particular sergeant at one point saying we need to be put on ice and you will no longer be able to deploy. And people not wanting to get ahead and get rid of their purpose when they are struggling with other things and that is the one thing they can always go back to to feel alive. What i learned when i finally came clean it was a huge weight off my shoulders. My family was relieved because i was finally doing what they had been asking me to do for a decade and a half. I put life progressively started Getting Better in the sense that i am realizing that i am not superhuman. I do have flaws. I have faults. I have weaknesses i have to address. I started to think about the many people that cared about me that actually said i am so glad you are finally doing this. If that helps to destigmatize the system, the one variable we dont trust the system so we are not going to be truthful and if that helps my peers, when i say peers i dont mean the special operations i mean everybody that has gotten into a gunfight. That has been john was some kind of stress to get help we will be in a better place. Health is health and we need to continue. Lt. Gen. Wright is there a spiritual dimension to this you would like to share or encourage . Advisor colonlopez yes. There is about eight domains that come into play. Anything from Financial Stability, family stability, psychological issues, talking about nutrition, talking about finance and the spiritual aspect of things. We have a very robust religious system in the department of defense from chaplains all the way up to people who do not believe but the beauty of it is, you does not matter it does not matter what denomination you have to do will be have the support matter where you go. Sometimes that is what helps them gravitate toward something that will give them the strength that actually moves forward. I will tell you for me personally the biggest pillar of strength was janet. I talked to a lot of people in the process of doing this but the most impact i got was from the person that was going to bed with me every night and telling me all along so she is the one i get the credit to. Lt. Gen. Wright how many years . Advisor colonlopez 27 years. Lt. Gen. Wright thank janet for her service and her courage as you go to phase two. We will go to the audience but we before we do that, i am reminded to remind those who will ask questions to please unmute your microphone. Could you offer a couple thoughts as you encourage and provide advice to Sergeant Major black as he steps into your shoes . Advisor colonlopez he is a dear friend of mine. We have had several conversations. The institutional changes that are going to take place in the next four years are going to be the focus of his tenure. That is going to have to do with pay and compensation. It is going to do with the military health care system. It is going to have to do with the way we treat and maintain and go ahead and enhance our human Weapon System. As of three priorities the Sergeant Major of the ring cory troy life will have in the forefront on his responsibilities working alongside the incoming chairman. Advisor colonlopez we will go to the audience now. Lt. Gen. Wright we will go to the audience now. First question will come from chris who writes for air and space magazine. Lets see if we can get this first question will link. This first question rolling. Hello, chris . How about helping us out with any additional russians. I have lots of questions i can ask additional questions. I have lots of questions as with the audience up on the net. As you have traveled around the world, have you been in and out of the indo pack and how it looks at china threat and the relationships we are building and rebuilding including deployments to the philippines and australia or anything else you want to talk about way out west please . Advisor colonlopez the leadership is very credible. One admiral has a lot of experience in the area of operations and his Senior Enlisted Leader was a teammate of mine. We went to war together. Leadership lies, they are in great hands. Partnership wise, they are in great hands because well we dont have a nato in the region we have a Strong Alliance that has been working together for decades to make sure they keep any threat to a minimum and make sure we continue to abide by the rule of International Law appeared the partnerships and the access in the region is great. You mentioned the philippines is an example. We have been in and out of the philippines for ages. From cold bases, warm bases and episodic engagements and deployments to and from to make sure we maintain the proper access to have the global reach we need. Some of our other key partners. You mentioned australia is an example. Gauge meant in engagements and exercises keep getting stronger. The australians this year created the first member or generator the first member to fill the position of seac. In the Australian Armed forces another have an equivalent to my position in the United States should everything is transparent and seamless in that region. I did some time in okinawa, japan working with the Japanese Armed forces. We have not only partnerships but we have friendships all around the region. Lt. Gen. Wright whats go back to chris and see if we can get your voice. Can you hear me . Lt. Gen. Wright you bet. Thank you. As you have highlighted in many of your comments already, there are many tremendous stories of service. I think we see retention levels are doing quite well. So on the recruiting side, how specifically do you tell those stories . You highlighted combating miss perceptions misconceptions but one but what forms can you go through to go about that because there is broad consensus on some of the problems that need to be addressed regarding that but what about implementation . Advisor colonlopez implementation is critical. I will tell you that and this is the advice i provided my leadership in the pentagon. The messaging cannot be internal primarily. We need to rely on outside entities to be able to propagate the message alongside with the department of defense. What i mean by that, the use of influencers. We have people that have wide castanets with big followings that have some connecting tissue with the department of defense. Those are the experiences we need to Start Talking about. Need to communicate with the film industry, tv industry to give us a little bit more leeway to be able to highlight the good of surfing in the military. Lastly, a lot of our own private organizations that are looking to help us when it comes to any particular issue whether it is wounded warriors, Financial Stability and so on to actually speak on the positive of why they are doing what they do as an organization to make sure we maintained the legality of required to fight a determined enemy. Those are just a few examples of what we need to do with the recruiting effort to move the ball forward. Lt. Gen. Wright did you have a followup question . If not we will go to susanna. You can go ahead to the next question. Lt. Gen. Wright susanna . And please unmute your microphone if you are up with thoughts. If not, we can go to albert from defense archives. Can you hear me . Lt. Gen. Wright arrowhead, albert. My first question, since the study of the reservist with m. I. T. Mentioned, what are the services doing to make people of such backgrounds be more interested in serving as compared to working at netflix and apple and the like . Advisor colonlopez so this topic of conversation comparing a lot of the industry that is out there that is pushing forward some pretty attractive packages for our youth in comparison to what the service does for them. I will take health care as an example because i have heard Horror Stories from people who go into certain civilian Health Care Institutions and programs compared to what we get in the service. We have our own issues and problems when it comes to our health care but every institution has got their challenges and we just go ahead and work through those. But the one thing that youth will not get working at netflix or working at starbucks or some of these other attractive packages is a sense of purpose. When you have your grandchild on your lap, how much are you going to talk about the great coffee you make versus service to nation . That is a small example. What will you when will you have the best opportunity to do something that will impact the lives of many across the globe when it comes to the service that you are willing to go ahead and put forward because you took an oath to the nation . What about the pride of being one of the Many Service Members to have taken the generational commitment to the nation . I say we need to speak more on the context of what is the meaning of Service Versus compensation packages because you can compare all day but when it comes to the purpose you have in life, that does not compare. Not even close. Lt. Gen. Wright go ahead. That feeds into my next question and that is about negative perceptions of service you mentioned earlier. We have heard stories about how there is mold in older buildings and the entire issue with how families were notified about the fuel week. The fuel week. What sort of policy changes can be made to deliver tangible, positive and preferably highprofile improvements for war fighters and families who would affected by these things . Advisor colonlopez the first thing i would address is we as a society tend to generalize and the first statement, was there is mold in old barracks. That is not the case. There is mold in some barracks but that comes with the environment and so on. There is mold in many buildings but somehow if it belongs to the department of defense and the military, i dont know why it gets over sensationalized and it becomes the world is falling apart. The services are running Due Diligence to make sure they take care of the issues. The second part of that is sacred hill is a perfect example. There were some missteps but the one thing i can guarantee is going to happen is there is accountability for those actions because we have a higher standard when it comes to the way we operate in everything we do. From garrison to combat to taking care of our families. The last thing i will say is at times we will not always get things right but you can always count there will be people who truly care that will take the issues headon and they are going to rectify, correct or prevent them in the future but that is something we as leaders need to do and continue to do when these issues arise. Lt. Gen. Wright we will go to susanna. Otherwise i will read her question. What is our readiness in burkina faso and niger given the changes occurring, in particular the role of special ops contract forces . Advisor colonlopez we have a very robust presence across the globe. In africa i was the Senior Enlisted Leader for the United States Africa Command for three and a half years. We had Rotational Forces coming in from these hotspots where we could potential have conflict and we have Rotational Forces when it comes to training those groups to the able to self sustain organically based on the rules of their own governments. That posture changes episodically from time to time. It is persistent. We have a Security Forces system brigade. We have state Partnership Programs that continue to engage our partners and allies specifically in east africa. The regions that you mentioned. We will continue to do that as long as the partners welcome us to be able to provide that advice and be able to train their forces. Lt. Gen. Wright i think we have got susanna. You have a question i think. Can you hear me . Lt. Gen. Wright we can. Thank you. I have two questions. The first one, policy changes. Presently occurring in the constitution of our forces and the second question is more specific regarding readiness of our forces. What is our readiness in burkina faso and niger . In particular the roles of special ops contracted forces. Lt. Gen. Wright could you tell us your background or organization . I am president of a fundamental research lab for materials for military in overbrook, kansas. Weve been in operation since 2000. Lt. Gen. Wright thanks for joining us today. Advisor colonlopez you actually came in broken on the first question. I got the second one on readiness. The first one we did not hear your question so can you repeat the first question . The question is how does the war fighter east coast standup fighter ethos standup to the policy changes presently occurring in the constitution of our forces . Advisor colonlopez on that one i will need to know specifically which policies and which changes you are referring to because that is a very broad question. Specifically when you are talking about if your talk about force compensation on any particular area of operations, that is information we do not divulge public because of the element of surprise but if there is any specific policy you are winning to touch upon, please tell me. In particular, on your earlier comment regarding the transition of intellectuals like engineers and physicists and specialist any theoretical matters into the forces. Versus the standard archetype of the warrior in the trenches. I personally believe things hopefully your advice to the chair can give so that the public can understand how our forces are changing in terms of the changes that are occurring in the world especially on the battlefield . Advisor colonlopez the first thing i will say is the warrior is not changing. The warrior evolves. Warrior evolves to any specific threat but at the end of the day the actions are the same. That is worth fighting. It is good to have skills at the one thing that will require unquestionably is the courage to go and fight the enemy appeared make no mistake that is the number one priority of the department of defense when it comes to a global posture. On the second question, you mentioned the readiness. If youre talking about any particular posture when it comes to any conflict that happens worldwide, you can respond at a moments notice. That has happened over and over again. That is a hostage rescue, responding to a threat that is near one of our adversaries or allies. Whether it is responding to natural disasters. We have the ability that is unmatched across the globe to be able to do that and we will continue to do that. When it comes to the war ethos, that is never going to change and that is a basic requirement of every young man and one woman who comes to serve our nation so i want to make sure we are clear on that one. Lt. Gen. Wright can we go to ted please identify your background and ensure your off of meat. Off of mute. I can read the question. Ted asks given the opportunity to serve, what do you understand is the chairmans legacy for leaving the war fighter and the department of defense better than you found them in terms of an analogy, advancements, integration of advanced technologies and Mission Accomplishment and support of the National Security strategy and fence strategy . I will have to say barn on the chairmans main priorities general melanie has taken on is making sure we have systems that speak to each other. In general make we know from your background that is not always been the case. Proprietary systems become a distant advantage because we cannot communicate transparently across a similar mission settler undertaking. That is something he has taken on as the global integrator to make sure we have the systems and processes in place for combating comments in executing the missions. When it comes to the constitutional, i will be the first to say or one of many to say that has been in the forefront of general milleys tenure making sure we as the department of defense remain apolitical, we as the department of defense remain truthful, honest and loyal to our oath and we as the department of defense are ready to execute whatever task, whatever the nation needs us to do when the flag goes up. It is my confidence we are able to do that. Lt. Gen. Wright going to ask a question on behalf of doug. You spoke about qualityoflife of life issues for military families. How do you think that affects recruiting difficulties in the modern landscape . How visible are those issues to those who may or may not join the military . What more can the military do to commit more Young Americans who are not interested in serving . We spoke to some of this already but to reiterate your points. Advisor colonlopez i will take education as an example. Recently the nation was talking about loan forgiveness for school debt. My point has always been we already have that in the department of defense. Not only do you get Free Education but you get to save urination. You get a trade you may be able to use on the outside. And credibility to boot because you are going to become a global entity and not just a hometown person. You get exposed to so many cultures, 70 methods within the department of also to a mobile environment that is foreign to a lot of people that never traveled. I think there are a lot of benefits from the way the military employees and assigns are trains them for any man and to benefit from it. If you do two four years and the end up having an overseas assignment at school and done, they are far ahead more than one day came into the service because of the opportunities they were given. They have an experience. If you would be able to compare with him and it comes to travel and interactions with other people. Lt. Gen. Wright the opportunitylt. Gen. Wright to achieve at the highest level of human endeavor. Let me press on a little bit. To open up in the context of opportunity, open up recruiting opportunities. Opportunities to serve to an ever wider spectrum of the population. I know we have done studies on the tools across our demographics that are out there for recruiting. Broadly, and i think you made some of these points already. How do you explain the opportunities to an ever Wider Population cohort . Advisor colonlopez i have always stated that we are our best recruiters. We meeting every service member. For Fighter Pilot to go back to his hometown or her hometown and be able to tell the story of her i was at one point in my life where you are right now i decided to put my metal to the test and this is where i am today. I think it resonates with a lot of people. It may peak their curiosity to come into service. For me personally, coming from a background that did not speak english, coming from a background that did not have exposure to any special offers because in our poor communities we were not surrounded by special forces. There were tradesmen and you were supposed to do what your neighbors were doing. To be able to be exposed to someone that came from that same place you came from and open your eyes that even though you may be living in this environment today, that is not have to be the case for the rest of your life can have a way out. That was the routing office. The recruiting office. The recruiter who got me into the air force and the opportunities i was given to put my metal the test. Without preferential treatment and without any benefits. Just because i was different. I have clearly experienced meritocracy for what it is. You put in the work. You rise up to the occasion. It is that simple. That is an opportunity that is accessible to any young man and woman from every corner of our nation to serve us, to serve with us, to be our teammate in the department of defense. Lt. Gen. Wright we are going to wrap up shortly. I have another question. We appreciate those who have been online today and the questions that have been asked. As we wrap up here, how do you stay in such great shape . There are some tips for those of us getting wiser . You were cal every day and what do you do . Advisor colonlopez i have had to evolve when it comes to my training habits. I cannot run as much as i used to run. That needs. Bad knees. I never let that be an excuse not to stay in shape. The reason i stay in shape is all the way up into the end of my days as an active rudy member of this institution i am a war fighter. If the flag goes up held there i am not ready to do what the nation needs me to do. The second thing is there are many young and and women looking at those excuses. I am working turn much. I dont have the proper diet you have to be a visible example for the change you want to see it. If they see it in their old man held there they do not when they have their golden years in front of them. At the peak of their youth. The last thing is out of selfrespect. I am a human that actually figured out my purpose in life. There is a certain image that comes along with a purpose in life and that is wearing the uniform and who am i to disgrace that standard as a Senior Leader by not doing what the nation asked me to do and that is to be ready any time to go ahead and be anywhere and take someones ass . Lt. Gen. Wright amen. Thank you for tuning in. Please be sure to join us again for this thursday, august 3 for next war fighters event with a commander of the u. S. Air force Expeditionary Center and i know many of us are look forward to 1113 september and for afa air and cyber conference. Let me close with this. Thank you. In my 35 years or so in serving the air force i am only alive because of great ncos. I cannot begin to express how much i appreciate your leadership. I would also offer for those of you who are considering staying in our military and i hope sharing a message to join the military, the gift of military service is looking across the table knowing i can trust you implicitly, my kids, my family and my car, my dog, everything here to me and my wife. Thank you and please stay in touch. Af book tv celebrates 25 years of celebrating nonfiction books and authors. Book tv is live with the library of Congress National book festival. Since 2001, book tv, in partnership with the library of congress, has provided signature uninterrupted covered of the National Book festival featuring hundreds of nonfiction authors and guests. Watch saturday is book tv brings you live all day coverage of the National Book festival. 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