Good afternoon, everybody well fed, i hope. Joining us at lunch today is phillip carter, senior fell explore director of military veterans and at the center for a new american security. His research focuses on issues that face veterans and military personnel, force structure and readiness issues. His most recent article, what america owes its veterans, is published in this Current Issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Serving from 2005 to06 as an advicer to the state departments reconstruction team, mr. Carter returned home to an increasing involvement in veterans issues. As a civilian we has worked in the private sector as an attorney and business adviser, and is currently teaching as an ajunk professor of law at georgetown university. Today he is with us as a moderator and friend of our key note spec, flo groberg. Grown in paris, never a bad thing, and in 2001, naturalized american citizen, after which he became flo bow bobo go flo gw berg. He tackled major seth off the mans suicide vest. Many were spared as a result of his swift action. But captain groberg sent three years in recovery, and his book 8 seconds of courage which will be available after lunch, recounts his early life in france, his truly tough army ranger training, and the courage brought him to take the brave action that saved those many lives. How can be thank a man whose own sense of responsibility inspired him to take that action. Perhaps president obama had the right idea when in 2015, on veterans day, he received our nations highest military honor, the congressional medal of honor, seen prominently displayed at your neckline, to cant flo groberg, the first immigrant to be so recognized since the vietnam war. Please join me [applause] many congratulations to you. Thank you for being here with us. [applause] so, its real honor and privilege to be here with you, and one of the thing things i took away from your book, which i had the chance to read this week, was despite the medal, despite your incredible bravery, youre also a pretty humble and selfefacing and down to earth guy. Theres one story i think crystallizes that. And maybe you can tell everyone about the day you fell into the sewage. Guest wow. Yeah. My first tour in afghan does afghanistan we had a great idea from the Civil Affairs folks, create passed out cards, right . Business cards to the local afghans in different villages, and the point was, if you came into your division, just call the number on the back of this card and let us know. 75 of them couldnt read so that was a problem. Theres in uberapp, but we actually put out translator phone numbers and what happened is the locals figured, oh, if we appear to be helping the americans, then we just call them and tell them theres taliban here and they come, they think were friends, then theyll give us fuel, build us a retaining wall, build us a mosque. So, heck, theyre smart. So they called us one night, and said, taliban is here, and they so we took off as a unit to that village. Make a long story short, the taliban was never there what happened was, instead, its pitch black dark. Im over here trying to figure out where the enemy is, and the people are open the door, mad at us because its the middle of the night. I fall into the sewage. Its really some of you are still eating so well it was one of those things that we just kind of dumped in there and thats where i fell in all the way up to my chest. Host oh. Guest i remember did not realize, then smelling it and then seeing my guys, as im asking for help, oh, no, sir, youre on your own. You are walking back. So it was serious, too. A tougher fight than fighting my guys to get become on the truck than to fight the taliban. Host im sorry. Sometimes you have good ideas. That is not one. You have an unusual story of all the army jobs, the South Carolina know, your story how you came to the army is unique. Its really striking. Tell us about how you became to be an army officer. Guest i joined because i was 12 years old, didnt speak english, adopted bay great man, my father, came here, moved to bethesda, maryland, area, and went to school at Walter Johnson high school. When i was 13, my uncle, an imam and lived in algeria if anybody knows where that is woo. Guest there we go. The gia came in the laying 80s, early 9 sod, radical islam to that part of the world. That country that was a muslim country, and my uncle thought that this was obviously wrong, he was preaching, and so like many of other algerians he put on the uniform and fought these individuals, and then february of 1996, during the cease fire, that was a testament to what was happening the world. To be honest, nobody was paying attention to it. I kind of compare what happened to what is happening around the world right now. If we see boko haram kill people, we say, this is horrible, go on to the kardashians, right . Its this culture in a sense. If it happens at home, its for the next 17 days. That bothered me as a young child, the fact that so much evil could be happening over there and nobody is talking about it, but i remembered it. When i became a us citizen, my catalyst was 9 11. I was a freshman in college, and here i was, they killed my uncle, attacked my family and now im a naturalizes is . Of this country, and as soon as i get naturalizes, these individuals come in and hurt my new adopted country. My solution was to be part of the solution. Host were lucky you did. So, you dont just choose the army, you choose the hardest part of the army and the hardest part of that, Ranger School. What their formative experiences for you in the army . Your training and now your time in combat. What made you into the person that was there on august 8th . Guest i think the person that made me there on august 8th what a combination of actions in my life. You got to look at my father and my father, look at my family and my peers. Have to look at my High School Coaches and my track coach Ted University of maryland. Look at my time in the training in in the military and so on, the training received while really the men that surrounded me. I think these experiences and sequences of action make a pacific decision on august 8th , 2012, which i believe the majority of my peers would have made as well. You talk about training in the army, and i wrote my first chapter about one of the most significant experiences of my life, which was Ranger School. I kept hearing about Ranger School months months and monthsr to going to Ranger School. When i chose infantry as a path in my military career. But i never realized what it was until i got there. And its no joke. Host for those who havent been through that crucible, whats a ranger story . Guest 62 days of training and youre out there in three different phases, and in regards to you eat two mres a day maybe, you sleep an average of a couple hours a night, carrying a rucksack that weighed approximately 100pounds and going over 250miles in the course of 62 days, over some really severe terrain between georgia and florida. While having a responsibility to lead men on certain missions, and then follow. It was tough. I had moments where we were death march are done that what call it for 23 hours. You keep going up and down, and i had a heck of a story in that book, at the time i thought i lost equipment but i never lost the equipment. I was dragging it and it kept following. Changed my life. What Ranger School does, they call its leadership school. Not because they want to see if your the toughest person in the world. They want to make sure physically you have the stamina to succeed but its with what you do, youre hungry, starving, literally, and youre dead tired. You havent slept more than five hours in three days. Youre carrying all this weight and youre supposed to lead men into decisive action. What will you do . When youre not in leadership position, youre far away from everyone else, pulling security. Are you going pull security . Going to have integrate when no one is watching or go to sleep. These are things you learn. I learned if i have to choose between eating and sleeping, i eat. I had no idea that it would be i would get sick. Nope. When they gave me that choice, 25 minutes before the next day starts, to eat, i ate. I was a hungry ranger. But i also learned a lot about myself. Some of the faults i had and i needed to fix to be an effective leader in combat, and learned what the reality is behind utilizing every single asset in your platoon, which means every individual and realize their strength and understanding their weaknesses, such as yours, and combining those strengths while eliminating the weaknesses as best as you can. Host so lets go to afghanistan in 2012. When did you deploy and your second deployment. Guest the second deployment, i was running a personalized detail for the colonel mingus, 45 different on stations in afghanistan. He had five provinces total and was the man. It was an unbelievable tour. For every single day, seven days a week, i i got ride in helicopters, got to see some of me most beautiful parts of afghanistan, i got meet really incredible forks folks and i got to see afghanistan from a completely defense perspective my fit tour i was platoon leader and i did whatever i was told. Ing this tour, i was providing security and got to see generals and understand in the mission as best i could. Host so, in the eastern part of afghanistan, incredibly rugged country, mountains as tall as anywhere in the world, to accompany a bod for a meeting in asadadad and take us through that. Guest my first tour. I was in the same area of precision my first tour. Every wednesday at 10 00 in the morning, governor of eastern afghanistan wanted to run the security, and so obviously i wasnt going to take the boss to that meeting every week he wasnt, i wasnt going to take him. He made his own schedule. Hent to want to go every week because then you become a threat and we become a target. On august 8, 2012, we had not gone in fight a few weeks. They wanted to meet the leader inside jalalabad. And the next day we decided to fly out to the security meeting and the topics of conversations and wanted to address those with the governor. I was supposed to have 12 to 15 escorts and unfortunately, the unit that was supposed to receive us decided to take call 15 minutes prior. They cleared out before we let which made sense. So i had two brigadecam commanders and an afghan children, two state department two majors, and then my team of six. And the enemy that summer had one motto, which was push away the small attacks and do something big. For that you have to have patience and pick your target accordingly, and when they saw us with that much brass, they probably thought, map, this is christmas in july, and they committed. So they had ready to take us out. And so that day, as we were 700meters into an 1100meter movement, they came out of at us from motorcycles in front of our patrol. I actually put an Afghan National army up front. I did not trust him at the time to be behind us because we had too many greenonblues happening out there and i didnt know this group of folks. I fought with spin credible Afghan Soldiers but didnt know them. Punt the um front and wanted to make our patrol look bigger to deter any potential threats. And did a heck of job. When the motorcycles came towards the patrol, the point guy, afghan soldiered started screaming at them which forced the motorcycle folks to dismount and start running away. That was the whole point. Thats what they wanted. At that point, came out of the structure, young, maybe 20 years old, and clean shaven, black and walking backwards. Identified him, thought obviously this guy is a threat, didnt know what was wrong with him. Where did he come from . Then he dade 180degree turn and then another 90degree turn to my principal which prompted me to leave my position and scream at him, while sprinting at him, reached him, hit him, grabbed him, realized he had a suicide vest on. Do whatever you can do, which is throw him as far away as possible as quickly as possible to save the boss you. Gist think about doing your job. So i threw him. I have a kind of changing same topic, changing it, my goal on that deployment was to do the best job i could, which you have to be pretty darn good, well photo do that. The best athletes do it and i was trying to compete. So i was working out a lot. And i was i looked good. Right . I looked good. Guess what . When i threw him, he landed right in my face. I wasnt lifting enough. He didnt go anywhere. He was not big. I was bigger than him. He went straight down on my feet, which looking back, come on, no, could have done a little better. He landed chest first and then detonated. So he had a dead mans trying sore he came in committed. No matter what, that man was going to die that day. And so when he hit the ground, he let go of the dead mans trigger, and everything went black. Host you last four of your comrades that day whose name are inscribed in a bracelet on your wrist. A number of you were injured. You wake up intermittently and you finally wake up in lang long style and who is there not a soldier but guest i just texted him yesterday, too. I lost four incredible americans, for individual do everything in the world to bring back. These men were nowhere near the bomb and for some odd reason, the rule of law, in a way of life, they were picked and left our world, which im full theyre out there looking over us and looking over me and protecting me and protecting our families. But thats the craziest part about the whole story. The fact a guy blew up at my feet and killed four others that were 30 feet away. Doesnt make sense but it is the way it is. But my injuries dish i woke up in germany, and im pretty sure i was i had a pca with the office, and i see this figure in front of me. Im laying down and i look up and its got hair everywhere, and hes talking to me. Hey, man, so proud to meet you. Youre a hero. Im looking at this guy and thinking, are you the guy from corn . The 90 saturdays . Are you Jonathan Davis hes like, yeah, man, im like, why are you sneer here . Where am i . That was juan over keelest experience, Jonathan Davis was going on a uso tour at the time and was out there visiting the troops at a hospital where if you got hit in afghanistan, thats the first top before you go home. I thought i was hallucinating. I figured, really heavy drugs here. I havent help listed to corporation in a while at that point. Its a small world. Im telling you. A small world. Him and i war just texting. Literally just texting with him because he wants to doso tour and ill going to back to iraq and afghanistan and other areas. So its been awesome. Host so you go from being track star, mayor ranger, going to compete in best ranger, and youre banged up and you have a journey ahead. What is that like and what are the hardest parts of that . I am impressed when i meet wounded veterans and the grit theyve got, the perseverance to keep going. Tell up about that journey. Guest to be honest, it wasnt easy. I have severe survivor skills. And i had a mild concussion. I call it a damn good mild concussion because i couldnt remember used to bring these pictures of giraffes and lions and give you math equations and im just tough math equationsment how many quarters in a dollar. Right . And i look at them and i was never really good at math. I have no idea what to do now. You got me. Is this an s. A. T. Question . Theyre like, no, what is one plus one. Thats a tough one right there my brain wasnt working. I could look at the giraffe and i knew what it was, right, internally, i know what this is, but i just dont know what it is. And for six weeks, pretty severe, they that was tough. Then you add the the dedill lawsuit tide and then you get abreu ofriend and drugs so i can sleep and then they close the door and your mind starts playing games. For months and months i was really struggling. You contemplate suicide because youre so internally defeated no incredible how you can feel that low. It was beyond depression. So, when i hear about the 20 veterans that take their lives every day, thats something that is very powerful and why i wear this ring as a reminder that people have to question why, how. Guess what . No taliban, no enemy has ever been as strong as my own demons in my head. I actually had the best of the best on my side always, every time i went out inside the wire to fight the enemy. At the time, or so i thought, when i was fighting the demons at night, and this incredible i completely underestimated it. I had friends that took their lives in the service and i could not understand. Could not they have everything going for them, right . And here i am a in the same boat and thinking about the same outcome. So, that was tough. Honest i dont thick would have made it unless it was for the support system i received, which many if you remember anything about this, remember the name travis. And make him a superstar. He was doing that a long time. I got hit in april of 2012, and in november 2012, walked into my room during the course of my changed the course of my life. Able to rewire me in a way that i didnt think was possible. Listening to me and giving me advice, and also giving me a reality check. Thats what i needed. Everybody is different. Everybody has a trigger. For me it was the reality check that i wasnt a failure because i had four People Killed on my watch and still had a purpose and a mission. I couldnt get that through my own head until he came in and told me, like, open up your eyes, stop being weak, have to be humble and see what is around you. There are guys that have it worse than you but i know its so personal but you have a responsibility for the rest of your life on this earth and to honor your brothers and come home and honor their families. Host were going to go to questions. Youre know with the boeing company and helping serve veterans and honoring those. Tell us about what youre doing now and why thats so important to you. Guest i made three decisions in my life. So i say. First one is, joining the out army. I havent made as a young man, i wanted to serve my country and avenge my uncle, and i came out with a completely different respect. I went in with a hate and anger and took that away, otherwise i would just get me killed and get other People Killed. And i fought withve. Love of brotherhood and sisterhood. The greatest and motor important thing to do in combat. When all hell breaks loose, trust me, even if youre a knopp believe a nonbeliever, trust me, you believe in god. Fact. Ive met athiests and when things go wrong, theyre praying. I dont care whatever you are. Please help. And then really each other, looking each other in the eyes. So to me that experience i wish i could have been in the military longer, done a career, but im just grateful for the opportunity even to have served a day in our military. The second one is, join the boeing company. What a blessing. I never realized what they did. Honestly. Thought they just made airplanes. I was an infan triguy. I didnt like jumping out of airplanes but i was always scared in an airplane, and here i am now working for the number one Aerospace Company in the world. When i came here, seeing the culture, the leadership and the people, just reminds me of the military and the brotherhood. Unbelievable, company of 120,000 employees can be so close and have a great impact. When they told me they wanted to amplify my mission, which is give back serve the veteran community, they would give me the funding, people, resource to go out there and make a difference every day with our team, to change Service Members, veterans and their families lives. Unbelievable. Dennis smallberg, our ceo announced, we gave. Were giving this year 50, million in grants to poor communities, to support the veteran community, activities, specific duties. To next few years were doing 25 million for just our veterans. What is important, though, is the fact that not about giving money. Everybody can do that. Bill gates could give a billion dollars every other day and still be a billionaire. Its actually about putting imploring your employees to good out and make a difference. We are committing 1. 75 million hours toward veteran Service Organizations over the course of the next five years. Thats our employees going out in the community and serve the community with different organizations. Thats us. You add the funding, which is absolutely necessary for these organizations to succeed, but you tabling our expertise, our inkind and then bring our employees be hand, on, thats how you make difference. How everyone is involved. And just yesterday i had a great conversation with our brg and i said you are my success. We cannot accomplish what we want to do within the boeing company in our communes, without our own employees being spearheading this initiative. And so thats what were doing. We just did one great one with the uso path finder program. Were going to impact 200,000 or 250,000 transitioning Service Members every year to give them the right opportunities and tools while theyre still in the service to prepare for transition so the day they transition, the day they got that dd21 , theyre ready. They know where theyre going to live and understand their medical services and have a career in front of them theyre ready to start off in and families are take care of and their spouse is hired as well. Thats how you save lives and take the number and bring down to zero hopefully. Thats my ultimate goal, to bring this to zero. Give people an opportunity to succeed, take care of them with their Mental Health issues or physical issues and do not give them a handout. You give them hand up. We can take care of ourselves once we give them the opportunity to do so but we cant do it alone. Host and the third decision, im guessing, i is carson . Guest absolutely. One year today im going to be married to my best friend and that is the greatest thing that could ever happen. Host we have time for questions. Im not sure the protocol, use the mic here or raise your hand well use the mic. As an american american, i want to thank you for your service and inspiring our veterans. I want to thank you for your service. Ive lost family to the terrorists as well. I want to ask you about the pharmaceutical addiction. Do you have any comments . I hear often that it is after theyve been prescriptions. Guest so, i am not a physician or doctor or i dont in the anything about that kind of stuff but i can tell you, it is real. Its scary. Addiction, until i became addicted to i. V. Benadryl, a horrible drug. Couldnt have lived without it. It was unbelievable. Got to the point where at night, i would go to my computer and try to i would google body bag which is not legal. Right . So i found that out it was not legal, my nurse kept telling me you cant do this, this is illegal. Was so addicted to it that i told the doctors and the doctors helped me get through it, and so with the multiple surgeries and obviously put no i. V. Benadryl on my chart through a little withdrawal but had some other stuff, but youre absolutely right. The most important piece is of the United States army, leeway talk leadership talking about this. Its an epidemic we need stop. I had 600 millions of morphine in my drawer at home, and its on us, the responsibility to, once were done mr. Win be get out of pills, if we dont use them to bring them back to the pharmacy. You think a Wounded Warrior is going to do that . I dont know when the pain will kick in. I was actually allergic to morphine, and it makes me. I like crazy. So, i was off the medications after a month or two, and the first month or two had mo choice. It was they were reconstructing my leg and that was it. I saw a lot of my friends struggle with. Thats something i know the va, the military is looking at. Theyre doing everything they can in their power to make sure they come up with a great solution. Unfortunately, we are still going to have to provide some tough medication, some strong medication to our Wounded Warriors but need to be more responsible bit on both sides. Host the other mic. Ices brian from kentucky and southern indiana. Louisville kentucky. So a fellow Wounded Warrior and fellly infantryman. I want to ask you to comment on the life and schedule of medal or honor recipient, travel, and international, as well as ask if you have been to the Kentucky Derby and have you considered that . Guest i was 100 consider going to the Kentucky Derby. Absolutely. I want to wear my cool suit. Ive been to preakness but the Kentucky Derby is probably something else. Some interesting time at the preakness. But medal of honor life. Its what you make it. Thats honestly. I know that i have folks that i am in a society with who are fellow recipients who do nothing and because that is their right. Off the reservation, they went through whatever they went through and dont want to be associated with anything. I know other folks who are very political. My daytoday schedule depends on what im doing with the boeing company. Im lucky enough that it work for a company that supports me and supports the foundation. Theyre number one funder of the medal of Honor Foundation so makes sense for them to allow me time to support the programming. As a platform to do some good. I think that the medal represents my friends who didnt come home, their families. Represent every Service Member that ever put on the uniform and i represent all of us here. This is not mine. Im just a curious and i have a responsibility and a role to make sure i earn it every day and that it do some good behind it because it has begin me a platform to support our military support our nation to the best of my ability. But i would say between a Character Development program that we have with the foundation to the different events, i probably travel a week or two combined so maybe 15, 20 days a year just for the medal of honor. Im on the road every week, minimum two or three days for boeing. Its a glove. What im doing spurts the medal, the military, the bike company. Have they greatest job in the world. I literally have the greatest job in the world, which is to give back and be part of a greater solution to make some positive changes in peoples lives. Sky Colorado Springses. I ahead to say thank you for your service because that has become a trite thing that 9 say to the 1 but i thank you for the service you have done since afghanistan because youre a wonderful role model. A quick question. Cost spring Colorado Springs has a growing homeless problem. Army and military presence there. This is not just a local problem, this is national. Through your foundation of work you all do, insight on how we deal with homelessness, especially with the veterans, which seems to be the biggest injustice. Guest well, first of all, a pleasure, sir. I was stationed in fort carson, cost, and homelessness has been incredible problem for our country. I think it was at one point 11 of all homeless folks were veterans and less than one percent serve so theres some issues with Mental Health and opportunity there were trying to support the organizations within our community, and different communities, to make sure that we housing, meals and supporting opportunities for these folks to get housing, meals, housing, and then an opportunity for a job. Its hard to just focus on veterans because were committed to our community. We do emphasize to every group that we support, that we want to make sure that we also target veterans. They tell us, obviously, literally, we know this, a large portion of our folks who are going through our program are veterans. Were really trying to figure out a way to support the va, too. I think the va has got this National Initiative of going out there in our communities and partnering with the local governments to make surely we make difference. I dont know how they do it but they claimed it, so they are a zero percent, theyre homeless free in virginia. I dont know what thats means because if i see one person thats homeless, i consider that one too many. Put reality is we have to go out there and put our time, put our Employee Engagement in terms of supporting the organizations who know the community best. The day you think you have all the answers is the day youre going to fail, and the day that organization does not want to Work Together is the day theyre going to fail. Whats thats what imseeing in the nonprofit sector, to Many Organizations competing nor same dollar. I i want to create with boeing company, i will not give you a dollar or recommend to give you a dollar unless you are ready to co lab brain with otherdo collaborated, share successes and failures. My goodness, we got a lot of money to pass out. Right . Not just us. Im talking about the different corporate organizations and different programs. But if you start competing against each other, and you forget the end, which is to support a specific group or specific person or initiative, then our dollars go nowhere and no impact is being made. Homelessness has been around since forever, its going to be very difficult for us to end it completely. Why . Ill be honest with you, some people dont want to hear this and this is my own personal opinion. Theres folks who want to be homeless. They had a life and they walked they they love their life now. Its simple. They know where to go. They know where to get a meal. Here in d. C. , good job of feeding homeless. And theyre comfortable with it. That is very hard to help a person that is thats a lifestyle they want. But we know theres many, and thousands, and thousands of homeless vas out there who just want ant opportunity to get back on their feet and be a functioning member of society, as they put it. So were on it. Were working on it. And its going to be a fight. Hi. Im ken from World Affairs council, western mass. Im just wondering if you can quantify for us the extent of the veterans and really the people who arent veterans as well, who need Services Like youre providing. You mentioned some big dollar numbers, and you just mentioned theres thousands of people who are homeless. Do you have a sense from your work at your company, what is the scope of this problem in america . Depends on what you define as a problem. So, at boeing we work on two the first is work force provision, which is providing Skill Development and the programming for our folks who are transitioning out of the military or ready to transition, to put in experience on people paper and build a network and start a new career. We dont want them to just get jobs. The Unemployment Rate for transitioning Service Member is lower than the national average, 3. 9 . But the problem is our retention rates are really bad on average. Nine months and were gone after our first job opposite we have transitioned. Thats because we dont know what to get ourselves into. Were unprepared to understand the reality behind life as a civilian or in the Corporate America or educational field. So were trying to help that program right here and support those initiatives. That is 250,000 Service Members that transition every year. Thats every year. So you add that number, right . Every single one of those folks is going to need some type of support. I dont care if youre a fourstar general or e1 private. Its funny to can to generals because generals have been doing this for so long, they are like, just dont know what im going to do after this. Dont worry, sir. I really dont know what im going to do and get myself into. Even dish dont want to put him colonel rocks, my favorite personsoldier for life. Changed the course of the Army Residents way of looking at transition, i talked to him about transition, whats going on, sir, where are you going . I dontow. Come on, man you have been having these conversations nonstop. He did something great. But even him, he needed that support, needed to make the phone calls, connect with Service Organizations externally to provide him women a better, clearer path on where he can be how he can continue to make a difference that is going to be passion of his there are millions. You can attest to that, too. Its a number that will grow. Its a number that is never going to be never going to end, and thats not just veterans if you think about it. Its everyone that transitions from a career field. Were obviously focused on the veteran side right now. Well, no, i want to thank you for your service, for the leadership of our generation and sharing your insights here today. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause]