Transcripts For CSPAN3 Women In The Military Discussion At Sea Service Leadership Association... 20240713

From other countrys militaries. Its about two hours and 20 minutes. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. All right. Well, good morning. And, maam, im honored to be able to moderate you this morning, so as she just mentioned, were going to be talking about secretary james new book. Ive read it, ive listened to it. Its absolutely amazing. I will tell you today, thats what were going to talk about. So, maam, first and foremost, just to kind of break the ice, what inspired you to tell your story. Well, throughout my life, and as you heard, be i have been at this business of our National Security for actually closer to 40 years. Time goes by since that bio was written. Ive been always a civilian and i have worked in congress. Ive been in the pentagon for several tours and ive been in private industry. Always working on defense issues. As i was making my way up and trying to figure out my career next moves through the ups and downs of life, i would always look up to the people above me and there were very few women at that point to look up to, but there were a couple and there were some men. I would always wonder to myself, wow, their lives must be perfect. That they were able to attain these great heights. Here was my life, which had some successes but had plenty of failures. I felt like a hot mess in comparison to these role models i would like up to. Of course, i know now that wasnt true. That everybody has something. So i wanted to for the next generation of women who may in some ways look to me and think, wow, she must have had this perfect career and this trajectory without any problems. It aint so. So, im trying to share some of those challenges. You learn as much from your failures in life, if not more, than you do from your successes. That was point one. The other thing was i was a great beneficiary coming up through the ranks of mentors, people who helped me along the way. I believe strongly its incumbent upon us that we need to pay it forward and mentor others, which ive tried to do. I do quite a bit of it, actually. By writing a book and putting the story out there, it was a way of mentoring at a higher level. Those were the two reasons. That and i had time on my hands. Whats the 23rd secretary of the air force to do when she gets out of office . Thank you, maam. Very good. The first thing id like to say is, when you get the book, its broken down into three main parts. The first part talks about chart and navigate your course. And so in the book, reading it, id like to ask you, what gave you insight to develop road map your road map in charting your course in your career . I want to begin by explaining that the book is laid out into three main parts and there are strategies under each one. Believe me, when i was in my 20s and 30s, this wasnt some formula that i instinctively knew about or that i followed. Rather, this is something that the ablege i am, the experience am, im looking back, reflecting, trying to put down my Lessons Learned. When it comes to some of those lessonses learned, i think some was just instink actual with me. The others came to me through trial and error of things that either i did right and they worked and lets do more of it, or as i said, failures. I tell stories of failures and what i learned from those failures. Its also from being an observer on the scene and being a careful listener and watcher of others, how others succeeded or failed. I do believe, first of all, that to chart and navigate, you have to take control of your own life. And everywhere everyone at all times, regardless of where they are in life, ought to have a plan. A plan a, lets call it. Heres where i want to go, here are my ideas. What are the steps i ought to be taking to achieve those goals . At the same time, be prepared to pivot because you may reach the goal and find out you dont like it once you get there. It may not give you the fulfillment youre searching for. Or you may not reach it, which is what happened to me in my early life. My first dream literally went up in smoke and i had to pivot. Plan b, though, whatever that pivot may be, could be even better. You dont know what youre going to be inspired by until you try. So, always have a plan a reque, but be prepared to pivot. Very good. S secretary, as you spoke about your plan a didnt quite work, can you share in the book, the secretary recounts her actually wanting to work for the state department and not being able to do that. I think you use the term, you were rejected, if you will. How did you move forward with that being able to pivot and you kind of recount wanting to Say Something to secretary kerry later, but did not. But that you said that was a big turning point big turning point in your career. Can you speak on that . So, when i was a young person, i had my plan a and i wanted to be a diplomat. I wanted to travel the world and work on Foreign Policy matters with the state department. Throughout high school, college, graduate school, i took all the right courses. I learned a foreign language. I lived abroad and became immersed for a semester. I even was able to secure a rather highly coveted internship in those days with the state department. So, when i got out of graduate sxool i moved to washington and applied, i felt i had everything going my way. What more can anyone expect of a young person who at that point maybe i was 23 or 24 years old. Well, as you say, i applied and i got rejected. It was the first big rejection that i had had in life, and i just crashing. I remember going to bed for the better part of a week and crying. I was so dejected and thought, my life is flashing before my eyes. But, of course, one has to eventually get out of bed because i needed a paycheck. Dont we all need a paycheck in life . And so i started applying elsewhere. I landed a job, only one offer did i receive, as a civilian with the department of the army. Wheres the army contention here today . All right. Now, this is very exciting except at the time, guess what . It wasnt exciting to me. Because what did i know im being truthful here. What did i know about the army or the military at large . I had had no real exposure. I never thought of it before. And i was still feeling dejected from the whole state department experience. I took the job. I did my best. After a few months the most remarkable thing started happening. It was really interesting work i was engaged in so i was feeling that sense of purpose that i was working on sort of in my own little way, these major issues of the day affecting our National Security. I had a great team that i happened to fall in with that there was camaraderie, they cared about me, i learned from them and i had a first grade boss who was my first great mentor. After that, one thing led to the next led to the next that became this, what i think, has been a fantastic and hugely fulfilling career for me, all focused on the military. As i said, capitol hill, the pentagon, the Business World but supporting defense, and before you know it, 35 years have gone by and i get to be the second woman ever to lead a military service. Amazing. And all of this, i want to remind you, started with a big failure and a plan a that turned into plan b. So the john kerry story on, ifs hobnobbing with the big people, and i got to meet thensecretary of state john kerry. And it was all i could do to contain myself and not say to this man, thank you, thank you, thank you that you rejected me 35 years ago because, you know what . Life turned out pretty doggone well for me. But, of course, i said none of that. I think we talked about the weather, because thats what diplomats do, they talk about the weather. Thank you, maam. Thank you. As you discussed, you just briefly highlighted your first job with the army, which turned out to be an amazing job. That was also the first time you got a great mentor. Yes. Can you articulate how you paid that forward as you have mentored many in your career. Ive done mentoring oneonone. I think thats very important. When i got into a position in authority, both in business when i was secretary of the air force, i actually insisted we launch formal mentoring programs. So, i spent about a dozen years with a Company Called saic, clint headquartered locally here. So, i did it myself and i actually rated my people on the requirement to do it and how well they would do it and so on and we set up a program surrounding it. In the air force we launched something called my vector. This was already in existence but we we beefed it up, we enlarged it, we made it bigger. If you havent heard of it, its a match. Com like approach to people all over the world and the air force can go online, they can say theyd like to be mentored on certain subjects, career fields, et cetera, and then mentors, people like me who are willing to mentor others, would also go online. We would list what we were able to give advice on and then there were matches. Again, i expected my directs to do that when i was secretary of the air force, tried to encourage others, talked it up. So, i think theres different ways to pay it forward. The most important thing is do it oneonone. Everybody has the power to do it oneonone. Thank you. In your book you highlight the importance of having a Diverse Network as well. You talk about the network of those the community you live in, those that youve worked with and worked for. Can you expound on that Great Network and how it helped you in your career today . Absolutely. I know this is obvious but everyone in this room, although theres 1,000 people and you wouldnt be able to over the course of two days get to meet and know everyone in this room, but please dont leave here without at least ten new deep people you can keep in touch with and become part of your greater network. With the exception of the state department, as i said, i was applying and had to apply to the department of the army after that, i can honestly say, ive never applied cold for a job again. Its thanks to referrals that i would get, a tip that i would receive from either someone who i considered to be my mentor in life. All of my mentors were informal so i myself have never been in one of these programs i just mentioned to you. Mentors or the network essentially opening a door. Of course, it was up to me to walk through that door to be able to tell my story, to be able to hopefully secure that job, but the network, i really owe a great deal to that. And a great deal of continual learning. Thats another important aspect in life. Never rest on your laurels. Keep learning and your network and mentor can help you do that. Thank you. Maam, you talked about leading inspired teams. During your tenure as secretary of the air force, we had actually experienced a nuclear incident. Can you talk about how you rallied the Team Together to look into that incident and that you went on to do an investigation and move forward . Can you talk about how you transformed that team . Yes. Nothing blew up, by the way. Whenever you say nuclear, you have to make sure it was an incident that nothing blew sky high. So, three weeks into my tenure as secretary of the air force, so here i am, brandnew, i have my plan a, i have six months of a travel schedule all laid out where im going to be pursuing themes that were going to be my mantra as secretary of the air force. Boom, i get an email that is informing me and other Senior Leaders that theres been a cheating incident out west in malstram air force base, the site of one of our icbm units, so, the nuclear missiles. Those young officers who were standing watch and prepared to use these weapons, should it ever come to that, were caught cheating. Some were caught cheating on a proficiency exam. Now, of course, in washington, anything nuclear immediately your worries go nuclear. The president has to be informed and the press it all over you about it. So, im brandnew and what to do. I didnt know exactly what to do at first but i knew this was kind of a big deal and i better get on top of it and fast. So, took a few days, got myself more prepped up with the team, air force team surrounding me about the checks and balances and was able to convince myself that the Nuclear Enterprise was safe and secure. Still, we had this matter in front of us. Why did it happen and what were we going to do about it . Decided to go public with the information. In washington, big secrets frequently leak anyway. I have learned in my life that bad news only gets worse with the passage of time. Get out there, tell people, be forthright with the congress, with the press. We did it with our own airmen as well. Heres what we know. Heres what we dont yet know but well find out. Stay tuned. Well give you periodic updates. After that after that press conference, i remember ripping up that travel schedule and, instead, i focused on the Nuclear Enterprise for about the next six months. And discovered that it went way, way beyond just a handful of airmen cheating. There were cultural issues afoot, there was undermanning, the way they were training was encouraging cheating. I hate to say that but they were only promoting airmen who got 100 on these tests. So these airmen probably didnt cheat to pass, they cheated to get 100 . So, there was a lot of changes that came out of that for training for people, for modernization, which overall were good changes, even though it all started with a bad incident. Thats so much the way life is. You got to take something bad and pull from it the Lessons Learned and leave it in a better position than you found it. Yes, maam. Thank you. I know the clock is ticking. One of the other things you talked about in your book was diversity, how to create a more diverse force. So, being that were here at a womens leadership symposium and leadership is a big topic, you state women in minorities in your book are an important tool as we succeed in america, especially in the military. However, there is there continues to be a lack, as we just saw on the screen, a lot of firsts. Last year dod did a report that really talked about female officers and the numbers are still staggering. I am an africanamerican female and i notice that we dont have any in the air force and havent had any since 2005. We have now the marine has their first one. Can you talk about what you believe are barriers to women and then minority women reaching those ranks. I think we need to focus more on recruiting more in the front door so focus on our successes. We do a good job of bringing women and people of color and minorities on board ultimately than retainering them midcareer. Its better retention. How do you do that . I think i always go back to what i call the three ps. Youve got to look at your policies, youve got to look at your processes and look at people programmatic issues. During the tenure that i served and some of this was broad, it affected the entire military by secretary of defense and some was specifically the air force, which was within my control, but policies sometimes policies are outdated. For example, we doubled the Maternity Leave policies for women during that era. We actually advocated for tripling it. The navy did it for a few months and got reversed because everybody had to be the same. Thats an example of work life balance. Its the key reason women, in particular, get out. By the way, we extended paternity leave as well. We allowed more for men as well. Postpregnancy deployment. It used to be six months. We extended that in the air force one year. So a new mother would not face deployment for at least one year out as opposed to what it had been. Issues of flexibility and all of these are examples of policies. Process, we found a process issues have issue with respect to how we gave exceptions for people of shorter stature, frequently women, but not always, to go into the pilot career field. We expanded that. Hopefully opened up the aperture for more women to be pilots. Which in the air force is a big deal. Its what most of the Senior Leaders are, they are pilots. Then an example of the people issues, this is mentoring. This is focusing on people and their Leadership Development and their professional development. I think these are the three key areas that we need to do more of and im a big believer in measuring. One of the things that i did during my tenure, i gave accession goals for officer accessions. I remember at the time we had about 25 women entering the air force academy as, you know, first year students. And i said, give me 30. Pretty much made that up. There was nothing magic about 30 but it was a stretch. It was give me more, lets do better. That caused the academy and other officer accession programs to go out and search out more qualified women. In year one, if memory serves me, we didnt quite make 30 but we made 28. We are might not have even made that if i hadnt set a goal out. So, measurement helps and followup is crucial. Maam, as we are about to close, i do have one question. If i could take you back to the point in time when you were serving as secretary of the air force, what was truly your aha moment where you were operating in your zone, you were synced and you were like, wow, this is what i can do . You were there. I think it may well have been after that Nuclear Matter we talked about earlier because that was one that was high stakes. Not everybody was in favor, for example, of making this a public matter. They felt like this was sensitive and could remain private and whatnot. I kind of bucked the tide on that. I used my own leadership imperative and i followed my own instincts. And because at the end of the day it was a bad situation, but because we were able to make it better, and it is transparency actually, Congress Gave us kudos for being transparent about it. That made me feel like following my instincts and having that confidence that i was in a good place. I think that was my aha moment. So, the very beginning . The very beginning. Well, thank you, secretary james. Ladies and gentlemen, i would like to put a plug, if you would like to purchase a copy of the book, its an incredible masterpiece, you can do so by purchasing in the bookstore. I do know the secretary will be around to sign the book as well. Thank you. And i believe we met our time. All right. Thanks, everybody. [ applause ] thank you very much, secretary. On behalf of the sea Service Association and leadership, we would like to give you a token of our appreciation. Thank you so much. Now id like to introduce one of my cochairs, mr. John dittmer, the only man on our Sea Service Leadership Association board. And the founding president of ssla. John has worked for us for 26 years. Hes an advocate for women in the military and this conference wouldnt be as successful without you, john. Im proud to introduce you, john dittmer. Thank you. [ applause ] im retired Navy Commander john dittmer, vp for admin and one of this years cochairs. Im the founder of ssla and this is my 24th year of helping. I only missed two and i was the only reason i was stuck overseas. One time it was in bosnia and the other time i was in cuba. So yeah, i was doing my overseas service. Its been amazing watching this oh grow over the years. I was remarking to one of my friends that ive known for 30 years. Back in the day we were lucky if we could get 100 people in the room. Now we have over 1,000. Thats amazing. Part of todays success belongs to one special person i was like to thank, martha mcphee, in addition to being the woman behind the scenes, shes also a captain in the marine corps reserve. Shes actually one of us. Go, martha thank you. Next im honored to introduce the next panel to you all. On the frontier changing culture is a group of women from the coast guard and marine corps who have been placed in maledominated units. And just as a personal note, i understand because i was a man in a predominantly female field. I understand there are certain ways you need to blend in and work effectively in those fields. I have no doubt theyll have some interesting stories watching the culture shift, so, please welcome the members of this panel along with our moderator, hope hodge seck, editor for military. Com and a huge advocate for military members. [ applause ] well, thank you all for being here this morning. This is an extraordinarily extraordinary privilege for me and im very excited to hear from this panel and learn their insights as well. As a military journalist, i think i am the first female editor of military. Com, im not supposed to play favorites, but eye been covering the marine corps and coast guard for a long time and yall are my favorite. And if you want the full rankings, see me in the back later. So, both of these services have been on the front line of sort of this ongoing conversation about gender equality, inclusion and representation in the military. All albeit in different ways. So, without further ado, lets dive into discussion. Panelists, if you could take a minute to talk about yourselves. Well go ahead and start with chief carter on the far end. Well, its great to be here. This is my second year doing. Ive been a reservist for 16 years. Always been a reservist. Ive been stationed for small boat stations to sectors. Ive been deployed with Port Security unit, which is our deployable units. And now i am senior enlisted adviser stationed in destin, florida. Its great to be there in the winter because i live in buffalo. Good morning, commander nan silvermanwise. Im also a careerman and i was commissioned with noaa, so that was a support for our other noaa officer. I like to go backwards. My im currently the j3 for the Coast Guard Reserve unit at u. S. Southern command. Wow. Did i ever thought did i ever think id go there as a coast guardsman . No. Prior to that i served in other command roles at a couple of our other Port Security units around the country. And before that, Homeland Security on watch in washington, d. C. Ive had different jobs up in the northeast, which is where im from. I currently live in d. C. And i support the department of energy and, interestingly, the administrator of the nnsa is a woman and she spoke many of the same stories that our last speaker spoke about. Thank you for having me. Good morning. My name is major stephanie defeo. I serve in pentagon as oc policy development. Before that i im also a reservist as well, so before that i was stationed at marsoc, part of of their detachment. Before the ima detachment i was part of marsoc combat support battalion active duty. Before that i was in okinawa, japan. Ive deployed to afghanistan, iraq and bur kina fas een n bur the african continent and i did short deployments in asia when i was with the 3rd battalion in okinawa. Good morning. My name is major katie sudhoff. Im commandant part of headquarters marine corps. I spent 17 years on the hill working for senator and im in my payback tour now. Before that i cut my teeth as a Communications Officer in 2nd Marine Division in camp lejeune, north carolina. When i showed up there i was at a division com company first, learning all about my job. After doing a deployment to afghanistan i went to our 2nd assault and amphibian ba tanytt. I was one of the first women there. And im here. Thank you so much. Well, i really hope that this is a freeflowing discussion. Any question i throw out, anyone can answer and, you know, feel free to kind of go back and forth a little bit as well. Im excited as well to get to your questions before the end. Obviously, the cultural changes taking place in the military, theyre happening in parallel with changes in the culture at large, albeit the military presents unique challenges. To set the table for this discussion, could you each talk about the cultural changes or struggles youve observed in the span of your own careers when it comes to gender equality in the military . Yeah, i can start. Being attached to a unit predominantly all male is tough. You dont have somebody to turn to when you have struggles with female issues, whether its that time of the month or, you know, getting pregnant, none of that. Youre kind of alone in that fight. Also theres just certain things you just dont feel a part of the boys club because youre different. And thats okay. Thats wonderful, actually, because what i realized is i brought something to the table that my male counterparts didnt. Marines are known to be rough around the edges. And as a woman, ive i wasnt as rough. The marines noticed that and they felt they could come to me more often than my male peers and the counterparts. Sorry. What she said was really phenomenal. Yes, so we have to when you see another woman out there, introduce yourself, tell her, you know, get coffee with her. Its hard for us. Like, here it seems like, wow, theres a lot of women in the military. Like, were all here. But when youre at your units, its different. You feel youre a woman and thats amazing. And we bring so much more to the table, i think, just with our femininity and we can be proud of that. We dont have to be one of the boys. And if you work hard and you do your job really well, youre going to stand out because, one, youre a woman and youre different there. But working hard and just standing above the crowd next to the guys, you will get noticed. [ applause ] i think one of the things i didnt realize i really wanted was senior women to look to. I think that was one of the hardest things about being one of the only ones, was that from a very early age, i had to be the one. And i think everybody in the military experiences that to a degree. Ive realized since spending a year on the hill that in the military and the other services, we receive a lot of leadership opportunities at a much younger age than other people do. If youre an nco or platoon commander, youre going to be in charge of people a lot earlier than your counterparts will be in other fields. Thats normal. But then there was the added pressure on top of that of every single unit i went to, i was the senior woman. I and had the good four tune of having several male mentors who were very good to me and really helped me and pushed me to grow. But there were never any women for me to look at and say, how do you do this and relate to . I always had to be performing from the start. I had to be the one that the junior women could look at, even as i was trying to figure it out on my own. And so for me that was one of the chief struggles of being one of the first women in. The united i e i ended up going when i first got there, that unit wasnt opened yet. I asked to go there and they were like, no, thats against the policy. I went to afghanistan and while i was there they opened it up and they said, check it out, youre going in. I showed up and i was a captain. There were two lieutenants just staring at me wideeyed, what do we do now . Weve been here for months. Weve been waiting for you. Its like, i guess well i guess well figure this all out together. Finally coming here to the pentagon, just a little by coincidence, im in an office that has concentration of senior marine women, which ive never seen before. It was suddenly like this breath of fresh air. I didnt realize what i was missing having women to look up to and see them having careers and making it happen and having families or not having families and pursuing their goals and doing different fields and taking different opportunities in all the different ways you can make it happen, you dont get to see that breadth of experience when its just you. [ applause ] i havent actually been the only woman, but ive been one of the few women my entire life. Captain laguardia and i actually went to the coast guard together back in the 80s, but we look great. So, we have been around the service where there have not been that many women. Im also an engineer. I went to an engineering school. Not many women. Chose fields where not many women. So, im very familiar with it. And i definitely saw the things youre talking about. I like to think i know im bucking the whole system but i like to think it didnt hold me back being the woman in the room. That is partly, i think, from my constitution. And my like in my command, my motto was, do the right thing. I think if you dot right thing, as you both said, youre going to continue to do well and people are going to recognize that you deserve to be where you are. You know, you shouldnt have to fight to be there. If youre doing the right thing, youre going to get recognized. If youre not getting recognized, then its somebody like me as an o5, its my look to achieve to make sure were recognizing the right people and were giving them opportunities if theyre not getting them or theyre not ready to take their own stand and push their way in and ask for that job in that Hard Division or group that you want to go to. Something that isnt being done. I think for me thats been my role in the coast guard. Ive always thought my job was to remove the roadblocks for people and then as a commander, i had that opportunity. In my unit, thats what i looked for. What was in the way . Was it for the men and the women . There was a piece of me that always has a special eye out for the ladies in the service with me because they might not take it the same way i did. They might need that knock on the door or to help them open the door. I think thats been my day on it. A little different. [ applause ] for me, im typically older. I go to deployable units or if i deactivate for hurricanes and stuff like that, im generally one of the older females in the group. I become the mother hen. The guys look at me as the mother hen. Which makes me be able to do my job very well. Im a support role. But at the same time, it separates me from being one of the group and one of the guys because nobody wants their mother hanging around. But i have been at a couple of units and ive had some very Strong Female leaders. Martha and i were we were together at ohio sorry, mobile and you were my Senior Reserve officer and it was good to work with you and kind of support and get there. I was still fairly young at that point. I worked at transcom. We had as a joint command, we had quite a few various branches had Senior Leaders but i had two coast guard leadership in there that supported, pushed, helped. It was good to see their careers go and that i could follow their path. Not follow their coat tails but watch them go and say, i can do that on my own because im going to stay enlisted. Senior leadership enlisted. But being a unit where youre the old lady, the mother, is tough. I wanted to be one of the guys. It kind of precluded me in doing what i could do well and the guys appreciated it. Can i ask her a question . Sure. Chief, as im learning more about the Chiefs Network, can you enlistghten all of us, enlisted and officers, what about being part of the Chiefs Network . Being part of the Chiefs Network is great. Theres always people you can reach out to. Theyre there. Theyll theyre there to help you. Theyre there to help others. Which is how i became mother hen. But when youre at a unit, i was the only female chief deployed with this group. It was i had nobody femalewise to go to. We had a couple other chiefs that males. They dont get the female problems. They dont get some of the female issues. There were 100 of us, 5 females. And three of them were enlisted. It made it tough. I want to pull on a thread that secretary james spoke to very well, and something that im hearing as a theme, as you all are talking, which is the importance of mentorship. And, you know, i think thats female mentorship and male mentorship in the military to be where you want to be and to know what you need to know. So, what have you found to be an effective way seeking that out and what advice would you give to women who are maybe more junior in their careers and who are looking for that . I would say certainly as a starting point you have to perform and you have to actively pursue it because youre going to get as much as you put in. And if you show that you have a thirst for learning and that you want to push yourself and you want to grow, then youre going to get more of those opportunities and thats going to compound. Like, the more you want to push yourself, the more your mentor will push you, the more youre going to learn. When i think to my time in division, the two best mentors i had were my bosses at the time. So, i actually worked directly for them in a professional capacity. But kind of the hallmark of those relationships was that i told them that i wanted to push myself and i told them that i wanted to do whatever i could for the team. And after i showed that i had my job down cold, then they gave me opportunities that were far outside of kind of the normal career path. And so, what i am forever grateful to for them for is that they kind of went out on the limb for me, which i think that you have to sometimes do if you are going to be a really above and beyond mentor. Sometimes it is going to require a little risk on both ends. They both, like, gave me the opportunities that probably some other people, and other people looked at them and said, that is a little crazy. But we had established a trust relationship. And then once i had that opportunity, that was like everything. Like i went allin on it. And because it was an active role on both sides and the trust relationship and we both took some risks and went into it, it really was successful in both cases, and i really, and it was not easy in our instance, but i learned a lot, and i like to think that i brought some value to the table as well. And so, it was not an easy thing, and required active participation on both end, but that was of huge value to me. Not only as corps career person, but me as a person. Okay. So i know that you talked about addressing the young women in the room seeking out the mentors. I would like to address some of the mid level like maybe senior captains or the senior 03s or the junior 04s out there, and you may feel like you are not equipped to be a mentor or be that advocate, but you are. You are 100 equipped to go out there and to see the junior enlist tord Junior Officers and take them underneath your wing, and they will be forever grateful. I remember being like Second Lieutenant and first lieutenant, and you cant spell lost without l. T. , right . So which way is up. I had leaders who took me underneath their wing, and it would have been even greater if they had been a woman leader, but we just didnt have any. So those men identified potential and took me underneath their wings and guided me and im here today because of them. So, if you dont think that you are a leader, you are, because you signed up to be in the United States military and that makes you a leader, because we are like 1 of the population. This is a lot of, and this is a great percentage of the military, but its so small compared to the United States, the population of the United States. So you are a leader, and seek mentors, but seek mentees as well. So it is not enough unfortunately to be there and have earned your place in the unit and where you are. Unfortunately, there is this element in some cases where you to kind of prove yourself after you get there, and you know, the marine corps has grappled with this very publicly and through some of the social media scandals over the last couple of years, but it is, i think that it has kind of pulled back a corn over a much bigger discussion, and like this, is going on for a really long time, but it is now sort of in the public eye which can be a good thing. So, you know, it is interesting to be talking about this now. Four years going on since the marine corps opened and against the recommendations of Senior Leadership. And so for all panelists, and could you talk about the times, any times that you have encountered that mentality of, you know, just being less than, whether in capability, physicality and what you found are the most effective ways to challenge that way of thinking . I can touch on that one. Being short in stature, and im wearing heels so i look very tall. I am barely five foot. Being older. Going to the deployable units where the p. T. Is a little higher than the coast guard standard, and they look at me funny. Kind of like, ugh, you can do the girl pushups, yeah, i dont think so. Not going to happen. If i am going to this unit, i am prepared to go in to do whatever the age Group Ten Years younger than me can do. That is my goal. It has nothing to do with anything but me walking in, and saying, im not going to just sit here and do and be that old female thats barely 50 and i can do it. I have pushed myself. I think that i can take that theme and move into some other Port Security units. Little older, and same thing. We have the same size, but my thing is that i always try to do my age on my, im 51, so i have to do 13 pushups. If i can only do 13 pushups, i should not be leading a coast guard deployable unit, so i should go for the age that i am, but part of me doing that is so that everybody in the unit sees the c. O. Doing the best the c. O. Can do. So if i have to run and get out there to run all yearround so i can run at the test, which i kind of do anyway, im going to run. If you are 18 and you cant keep up with me, that ought to tell you something. So when i have 18 and 25yearolds who cant keep up with the co who is twice their age, it inspires them to work harder, and so i think that i lost a little bit of where you are going, and where the question started us, but those same kinds of things and give it your all to inspire other people at least in my experience, and maybe, i have seen things like that, and people ahead of me that have been phenomenal leaders who have just, i wanted to be like them, so i wanted to do the best they do and follow their example, and so i try and do that in the units i have been in, and the combat for everybody who is not in the coast guard is these Port Security units. We are the deployable units of the coast guard and deploy outside of the u. S. And not typically inside, but then one active duty element that goes to the Patrol Forces southeast asia, and so some of the active duty are not able to join us here today and we are the deployable part, and so we have to be having everybody in the unit ready to go. We have operational components, and we have the boat operators and the, and we actually train to marine corps standards for the maritime enforcement, and the land forces, and we have the basically the support forces and on my last unit, every single one of my support unit, everyone went to basic combat skills and performed far above any expectations that anybody had for them. It is a good example. And you have to do it and encourage it, and then the y 1 active duty was the number one cheerleader to get people in the class and do better than guy carrying the heavy pack across the line. She was like, no, im doing it and so are you. Im going to continue the theme of the physical fitness, and i think that is when we walk into the room and the first thought is wonder how slow she is going to run. And i wonder if she is going to be the first one to drop out. And not this girl. No, not going to happen. I am thinking, which one of you guys is going to drop out, and which one of you guys is going to beat me . We have to be the meat eaters, and we have to go out there to challenge ourselves, but we cant beat ourselves up. I think that is the women who are notorious for being so cat ti so catty and so destructive on ourselves. It is going out there and even if you didnt make, and you didnt run as fast as you wanted to or do as many pushups as you wanted to, that should be the drive to do one more. That should be the drive to run two seconds faster. And like everyday, you have to continue to push yourself, but you cant beat yourself up over it. I remember my first deployment to afghanistan, i attached to a team of green berets, and from there, i also went out on a couple short little, i guess, attachments to the marine raider teams. I was the only woman, and that was the thought, like, i wonder if she is going to slow us down, and not, nope. Not going to happen. I worked so hard, and i didnt slow them down. There were guys behind me, and i am like, you have to keep up, chief, lets go. Hey, marine, not so just challenge yourself. If it is hard, it means it is working. It means that you are just getting stronger. That burn when you are working out, just do one more. Do one more, and have that mantra in your head one more, because that going to continue to make you stronger and faster and again, it is going to help you stand out. Also, if you are that physical fitness phenom at your unit and you see other people struggling, say, hey, come work out with me, and be my battle bud dirks and especially if it is a young woman, and hey, come, i will help you work your physical fitness plan and whatever, and be a mentor in that sense as well. I think that [ applause ] what i am hearing now is that there needs to be a reassurance that we wont hold the team back, and it is sad that is the expectation, and the more that everybody gets used to seeing women in these teams performing the more that will become not the default assumption, and they will realize that women generally can perform. And as we do so, we help to raise the standard. The great component of it is also important, not just like that we are not going to hold the team back, but also when they see people who are like very short or like a lot smaller than everybody else in the unit working hard and keeping up. They realize that it reveals a character trait that is important. And beyond the physical stuff which i have definitely noticed, and it is talked about a lot for that reason, and it is certainly there and important, and it is important to be a real person. And that looks different for everybody. But, it can be part of leadership is people trusting you and understanding who you are. And so, if you are not being who you are, because you are trying to hit some arbitrary expectation of what a member of the team looks like, people will be able to smell it immediately and see right through you, and then they wont trust you. So the performance, physical jobwise is critical, but also being who you are, and even if you go in thinking, i dont know if i fit in here. Like, you are not going make it happen by trying to not be you. So if you show up, and you are you, and you know your job and you do your thing, people will come to realize the value that you can bring. Well said. I think that partly it is not always the expectation that the woman and the team is going to bring us back, but it is the success that you all brought, everybody in the room, when you do those things, you demonstrate that there isnt anything keeping you back so that the next time that team gets a woman or man, they are not going to question if they will hold you, because because they dont have the reason to do that anymore and i am circling around on myself, but when you do well, and when you perform the way you can perform and do the job that you know that you can do, you break the barriers that other people had when you came in, and so continue to go back in and that ties back to the mentor piece. If you are doing the right thing, then people will not have that same question, and those same people will not have those same questions, and so keep doing the right thing and performing, and just keep being the one out front with the good ideas. Dont stop doing those thing, and keep doing them, and then next time you wont have a question, and the person following you wont say, i think that i am going to make it, because there is an expectation that you will make it. I mope it makes sense. Thank you. I wanted to talk a little bit about representation, and this is something that the military leadership has keyed into especially as they have integrated previously close units and talking about a cadre of some women Staff Members in place, because, you know, to so that you are not the only one, and that has been effective the some extent but you have experienced being the only one of you, and at some point in your career. But what can the military do better to make sure that there is the representation so that there is somebody kind of, you know, that the unit commander can say, what am i missing here or what do i need to make sure is happening so that, you know, the Women Service members and the men Service Members have what they need to do their jobs. I think that secretary james mentioned this measurement, and so when there was a period of time in the coast guard when the reserves specifically and not necessarily women, but the reserve was being put on the side. And there was a big change throughout the service where all of the i think it was a Group Commander and they had the responsibility of ensuring that the reserves performed to the same level as the active duty member, and the Group Commander was rated on whether or not all of the people could do their job. That was effective for most people, right. So there is always somebody who is going to buck the system, and always some commander who says, well, this part of my division does not really matter, and that is their problem, and it is not our problem as the workers. In the service, itself, it needs to take care of that and when that measurement was put with the responsibility saying that the commander will have all of the people perform and up to speed in what you need to do, it was effective in helping the reserves. So when the mandate comes from the leadership that says that you will accept everybody into your units and the changes that we have made, and i think that goes a long way, and holding to it. The secretary mentioned, it is not only putting the measurement out there, and checking and seeing what we are doing, and so if we have a statement that says that we need to have more women in or women in certain jobs or different roles in the services, we need to check back and see if we are getting there. Because, how do we know if we are doing well or not. I think it is important that the services actually care. I know that there are a lot, and lot of issues that Service Level leadership have to deal with, and a lot of which are can seem existential on the daily basis and thinking of the mechanics to running a service, and trying to man equip everyone, and deploy the combat service, and it is a lot. Issues that can be seen as womens issues can be sort of pushed off to the side and it is not critical, but as we start to see more people realizing what value that women bring and what value diversity brings, it becomes more of an imperative to realize that if we are not laying the groundwork now to retain these women, we are going to be facing a hurt in terms of the leadership that we need, you know, in 10, 20 years. And so it takes leaders at the senior level who are going to really engage, and not just look at what policies we could possibly implement around the edges, but really sit down with women, and really collect the data to find out where the issues really are, and put some creative thought to what policies are going to address those actual issues. Addressing causes and not just symptoms, and that takes personal engagement at the leadership level. That takes measurement, data, and that takes real concrete engagement with Service Members across the components. So it is not exactly easy, but if people are engaged at the highest levels, then you can see a turn where it is not just a thing here or there, but an actual concrete shift. I think that it comes with the personal encounters that we have with the mentorship. If you see a young leader who needs to stay because they are that good, advocate for them. Be the person to stand up and say, what do we need to do to keep you, because youre an effective leader with unlimited potential, and we cant lose you. That, i know that there is a shift to the talent management, and i think that across the board within the services, and that is key. If you see talent, you need to figure out how to keep it. That is the oneonones, because the pentagon sees change, and it happens very slowly within the bureaucracy, and so we need to change it one person at a time as well. It is not just overarching. So going back, be the advocate, be the mentor, be a leader. There is a lot of good stuff hereness a and so i am sure tha audience has some questions. So if you have a question, feel free to go to the mic, and ill call on you. And we know that you are not shy. All right. Lieutenant margaret gresham, United States navy. I have a question and this is something that has been something that i have seen personally. As a female leader, whether it is senior enlist odder the senior officer, how do you bridge the gap with personalities. As you said before, we want to be successful and we want to be the best and prove ourself, and i have seen with some leadership with senior women, it can come across abrasive, if you will, and so what is your best, from your own experience on how to still get the point across and still be respected, but at the same time not be the bword that i am thinking about. I can take that one at least to start. Right. So i just left my command, and martha can tell you more than anybody, but i laugh more than i cry, yell or anything else. So i certainly could be the b but that genuine laughter, and that genuine attitude of we are all going to succeed is my personalty, and so i brought that to my leadership. And ai think that one of you mentioned to not be somebody that you are not and be your true person. That is what it is. You have to be true to yourself, and bring that personality. If it means that you get angry sometimes, be angry, but if it also means that you yelled at somebody and you need to apologize afterwards or perhaps explain, and i dont like when people say i did not mean to say that in the news all of the time, but if you get really down and dirty and are reprimanding somebody, and just having a tough conversation with a peer or somebody thats close to you, close to your level, and you think that you were out of line afterwards, go to talk to them, and find out. Maybe there is a better way that the two of you can communicate, but i think that the bases that you have to be true to yourself and i would be willing to bet that most of the people in here are nice people. Most everybody i have met womenwise, i can speak for in the military, they are really nice people. So dont worry about putting that other face on to do the job that you have to do. Be your true self. Thank you. Good morning. Martha wilkins, and im here as a d. A. Reservist, and retired reservi reservist, and i wanted to contribute to the dialogue and not so much a question. But on the topic of mentoring, and active mentoring we also have to realize that as leaders regardless of gender, but actually specifically because of our gender, we are also role models. Role models, you mentor through your actions and whether you are on the pt field or in a meet org commanding the unit, you are being watched. Whether it is by the lowest private or the highest senior officer, male or female, you are being watched and how you conduct yourself in those moments of stress doing one more pushup, running that much faster or handling a challenging issue in your unit, you are setting the example in leading and mentoring both men and women, junior and senior peers across the board. So just how you handle everything and approach everything, you are mentoring and leading through that. Thank you. As a followup to that and a secondary, the thought that i had was on the whole abrasiveness side. If you have somebody you can talk to about how you are going to present something, that can be invaluable, and even if you end up saying the same thing, and you have talked it through, and maybe somebody said perhaps that you want to tweak it this way, somebody that you trust. Perhaps you want to tweak that specific part this way, that could go a long ways both on the first question and to the being a role model. So it is important to stop and think what you are going to say and how it can come across and dont be afraid of the message, but think of how you are going to say it. That is also applying to emails. [ laughter ] can you hear me . Okay. My name is Wendy Peterson and i am grateful to be here as a civilian working in the workforce, and thank you for this opportunity, and i serve as a firstlevel supervisor in the wing of 800 engineers and over my career, i have been one of the few if not the only engineering leader, and i live for mentoring and doing the personal and professional development, but often it is a little overwhelming to get the regular duties done in addition to that and i wondered how you balanced the mentorship with getting your technical job completed. One person at a time. I didnt have that many marines underneath me. I had a team of 12. The initial counselings that i had with them lasted about 45 minutes. So that was on top of the day that we already had, so it is 6 00 at night, and hey sh, can just get some time with you, and figure out who you are, and you know who i am, and we can start this off right. One person at a time. If it takes you 2 1 2 people a day for the year, it takes a year, but at least you had that encounter with the people underneath you. Also and you have to be selective. You dont have unlimited time, and the time is incredibly valuable and so you should recognize the value of your own time and what that meanses to you. And so, like, i am here to give basic advice or answer questions for anyone. When i have marines, if they need something, i drop everything immediately and answer it on the spot, but when it is coming to the more intensive mentorship, and the kind of thing that is a time investment, i like to treat my time like my money and put my time towards the things that matter, because it is a statement of what i value. So if i am taking on a mentorship role that is more time intensive, it is going to be for someone who i feel can really benefit from it, and someone who does not have access to that necessarily, so probably a young woman who does not have as much access as someone else. And it is going to be for someone i can develop that trust relationship with that i mentioned earlier. Im frankly not just going to put a ton of time into someone who has a lot more resources at their disposal, because my time is limited and i wanted to give it to somebody who doesnt have as much access. I will say some of the best mentoring both as a mentor and a mentee have been my informal mentoring people i have had throughout my career or people i have helped, and again, the drop of the hat, can you help me with that, or hey, i see this active duty opportunity, and will it work for me or help my career, and being there to just answer the questions whenever takes five or ten minutes. They have made a step up in their career and look back at it and thank you and as a mentor, i have done the same thing. I have a captain that i reach out on a regular basis and she reaches out to me to bounce career things or job things or workrelated things all of the time and it is the best mentoring is the informal ones. Morning. Im Senior Airman nesbit stationed on the west coast. I heard you talking about grit in constitution, and my question this morning is when you are finding a lack of that or something that has shaken your constitution, and what are solve the things that you ladies do to help bring yourselves back to center . I have two coast guard friends, and i have many others, but i have two coast guard friends, and they are my triad. It doesnt matter what the topic tr time or the time of the day, if i need something, they are there and the second thing for me that im such a bplus type and striving for the bplus instead of the a, i have gotten into the meditation and my own version and i may not empty my mind of things but i take time to do some of that meditation, and between those two thing, and my husband helps once in a while, but between these two thing, i have been able to do it. And so find your resources, and talking about the mentors, and find what or who can be your resource that you can go to any time of the day. And everybody has one, but you need to ask them or see who they are. Ill admit, i am not afraid to say that i will go into the room and cry. If getting a good cry out, and yelling at something, hitting the pillow works to get it out, so i can get back out and focus, ill do it. Amen. Yes, yes. Those relationships are so important, and especially to know what kind of person you r and im a hard core extrovert and i need to engage with people and helps me to feel lifted up again, and in addition to that, try to take care of my body which i am not always best about and we can lose track of that and especially in the high intensity times when there is a lot of physical requirements, and so i try to like go to get a massage if i can find the time to do it, i will do it, and especially if i have had a hard work out so i wont be injured. At night, try to remember to put the phone down and read a good book, and that has nothing to do with work or anything, and let my brain go to the place that is not the news and the marine corps and all of the stuff for at least a little bit before i go to bed every night. Lets try to squeeze in one or two more questions. Im lieutenant daifrson anve im a pilot. And so i have two wonderful kids and there is a ballance of getting to a new deployment, and when to have kids and having the burden of the family and the burden of continuing your career and trying to make rank and doing all of the things that you want to do in the military career. On multiple occasions, i have been told, shouldnt you just go home and take care of your children. I have been told that i am not putting my family and my husband who is also active duty that my family is not putting everything in that we should be doing, and you know, not giving 100 and the men are having to pick up the slack for us. So, it is just, and for those who havent heard that before, i would be actually surprised. So my question to you is how do you guys give that mentor or the advice for the people coming to the unit who are struggling with that work family balance and especially when it comes to the women to have the children and now you are off for, you know, nine months being pregnant and the six months and not deployable for a year, and that burden coming in, and being the one who is the slow nest the un slowest in the unit, and that not what i fall into it, but it is a female coming into the unit, and she is going to be pregnant and not deployable, and how do you defeat that cultural change . My level being the midline supervisor, i do get the females coming through. I am supportive. It is your choice and your right. We are here to support you and your family and if not, you are not good at your job in the office. So i will even fight my supervisor is going, look, she needs to take her time, and do this with her kids, it is fine. We have it covered and try to make the entire office work as a team, so we have you covered, because if you are feeling like you are covered, you will feel better about coming in to do your job. Being supportive like that is so important. I have been pleased to work in an office recently where you never hear any of the negative comments about, oh, how will we ever pick up the slack because this woman is out on Maternity Leave, and that is the kind of the positive culture that we need to see everywhere. So i think that if you can be supportive exactly like you said, and recognize that it is everybodys choice, and that families are important, and that also our participation in the military is important, and then make sure that we are reinforcing that culture everywhere we go. If you see someone who has a negative attitude about that, kind of pulling them into the room, and having a conversation about why it matters and where their bias is coming from and trying to counteract it, and that active participation needs to happen on our part. The coast guard has put out there that headquarters now funds the reservists to come in to back fill the active duty folks, male or female who are taking maternity or paternity leave, and they will come in, and now you feel a step better going, because somebody is going to come in to cover your work. As a reservist, i have sent people there to do the shortterm stint, because it is going to help better their career, and allowing that person to take the leave, and that member can go and not feeling like their job is going to suffer. All right. Id like to squeeze in one final question. Chief senior monica harper, United States navnavy. My question deals with family and the change of the culture. Have any of you been in a marriage or significant relationship where you have had to help change the culture of the significant others mindset of what you should be doing, and can you give any specific examples of things that you have said or crucial points, turning points in the conversation with that person to help them be more supportive of how culture has changed and how critical your role is . I dont know if this is going to answer it, but communication, and being open and honest. My husband and i talked about what we were going to do for our career paths, and he said, im going to be the working entity and i was like, okay. I am okay being a stayathome mom, and transitioning to the reserves, because that is what i was okay with. That is a hearttoheart that you guys have to sit down and discuss and figure out what the way ahead is for you guy, because it is different for every relationship. Ours worked out, but we were honest about our plans for the careers. Thank you so much. And please join me in a warm round of applause and a wonderful panel. On behalf of the ssoa we would like to thank you and give you these tokens of our appreciation. Again, thank you for sharing your experiences and perspectives. This is where i get to adlib a little bit. I have some special requests from all of you. If you like what you have been seeing these three days, come join us at the board. And theres an easy way of doing it, if you can see the badge with the board member pin or the picture and bios of one of us board members, you can identify us, feel free to approach us. It doesnt matter what the service s and we have even an air force Staff Sergeant working as the vp for membership, sorry, technical sergeant, because she was promoted. It does not matter the status, retired, active duty or reservists, and we need people to make stuff like this happen. We have a new varieties of positions available, new president and vp of programs and people working in the symposium that we will do as soon as we are done for these three days, and so feel free to come ask us how you can help out if you are interested in starting a chapter, let us know, and we are about to start up a chapter in hawaii, and since they have a hard time coming out to events like this, and they are organized and they are setting up to do their own. We haven been talking to some of the canadians about something up there, and so feel free to join us. Little known factor about myself, and during my time in the navy, i served five years overseas and i was stationed in denmark, italy, cuba and bosnia. One thing that if you see some of our sisters from the other services overseas, engage with them and learn from them, and especially from the scandinavian countries and the British Commonwealth countries, they are ahead of us in the gender integration, and ask them how they do things, so you can learn from it. Another special request from the men, it is okay to respectfully engage and have a sense of humor and learn how to get along. It is okay. So, a while back we thought that it would be interesting to hear from the International Counterparts and what it is like for women in the military there. And so it is a symposium that we have more people attending and this year, the first danish representative here, and being stationed in denmark for three years, find that personally satisfying, and the list of countries to continue to grow. I would like to invite the panelists up here in a minute, but i want to share something that i found out about the moderator susan davis and not only a p. R. Firm, and helping us to put together these events for nine year years, she is interesn the ray of Hope Foundation which supports the education of 700 girls in rural afghanistan, and believe me, that is a little bit challenging. And we know that she is a big supporter of the women in the military and so at this time i would like to welcome her and the panel up to the stage. Ladies. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, john, for the plug for our school, and so it is www. Roziasrayofhope. And it is outside of kabul, and we are everyday concerned for our girls, but so far, okay. So as john said, we have three fabulous women from denmark and sweden and australia who have storied careers themselves in their armed forces. And we are going to talk about countries that are in many respects a little bit more enlightened than our own in terms of the gender diversity, and the policies that support women in the armed forces. I think that you will find it really fascinating, because there is so many interesting stories that i have learned in speaking with them so far. And we are going to leave some time for questions for you as well. So, lets just begin by selfintroductions. Id like to ask each of you to introduce yourselves, and beyond that also to say why you chose to join the military in your country. Thank you, susan. I am captain stina christianson from denmark and the danish army. Im a linguist and reservist. I have been always been a reservi reservist, and i have been deployed three times. To aden and kuwait and iraq with the air force and currently embedded with the u. S. Forces in tampa centcom. Thank you. I am very thrilled to be here and im honored and im also very humbled to be here today with all of you talented women and men of course. For starters, i would say that i do not consider myself a pioneer since the first women in denmark joined the armed forces in 1962. But when i prepared for the symposium, i realized i am a female army captain and something new and a role which is younger than me. I was born in 1982, but women in denmark were not allowed to join the combat units until 1988. So, in that sense, i am still, well, i would say that we have not yet reached the Critical Mass of women within the armed forces in denmark, and by that i mean a group of women in the armed forces which is big enough to be selfsustainable in terms of the recruitment and promotion opportunities. And i do experience each and everyday at my job that there is a very firm male masculine culture among my male colleagues that i sort of have to stand up against. And that leads me to why i joined the army. I joined the army, because i had graduated from the university and of course, that is a challenge in itself. But i really wanted to do something that not many women before me had done, and i met a female linguist when i did an internship at the Danish Embassy in ottawa. She was so inspiring and talent and a nice attitude and she was a female role model, and this is what triggered me, and what made me apply. Thanks, dana. That is a hard act to follow actually. Im captain robin from the Australian Navy and also work at the joint forces and the transcom, and i have been in the service for 30 years. It sounds horrifying to say that, but it seems to have gone very, very quickly. This very much apart from the time at the Defense Force academy when i joined out of school, that is my longest time serving anywhere in my whole career, and this is three years straight and i have only done jobs two years since then, and so you are moving around and working with different people and experiencing different jobs and that has kept it fresh for me. In my career, i have had three or four command appointments in various units, and i have served at sea for six years in different capacities. I have often worked in maledominated areas, yes. I have enjoyed the challenges that arisen and gone toe to toe to a few blokes who are not as robust as i am. And i have done performing ahead of my male counterparts, because they were not as robust to achieve the goals i could, and that is quite good. The people talking about leading from the front, and demonstrating the physical capacity does come into play in so many ways, and i appreciate the stories. Although i am not in one of the combat Service Environments as much as some of you ladies are. I am not sure that i will go into any more of the career, and im happy to take questions later. The reason that i joined the Defense Force is that none of my friends were looking at doing it. It sounded interesting and adventure attached to it. It gave me a University Education and guaranteed career and got me out of tasmania where i grew up. And a lot of my friends were looking to do something about going to the australian mainland as well. That was the way i chose to forge my path. My family were mystified at why i would try to do that and take that career path. We were a military family, and very supportive nonetheless. And that is why i joined. I chose the navy, because i honestly thought that the uniform looked better and the opportunity to travel the world. And the opportunity to travel the world was much more ready for me in that service than the other two that were on offer at the time. So that is part of the time that i chose a little superficial at the time, and hey, it has worked out pretty well for me. I am so looking forward to the conversation today and happy to be here to talk to you inspirational people in the room. Thank you. So, okay. My name is Jan Lindstrom from the swedish navy. I joined the navy in 1995 and so 24 years now. At that time, we have had only Conscription Service in sweden and that was maleonly, and females could voluntarily join, and i did that in 95. So Service Officer and specialized in mine warfare and submarine warfare and i have been on many ships and staff position, and had a privilege to be a Commanding Officer in the mine hunter and Squadron Commander at the 42nd mc squadron, and my current position is head of recruitment, bron as it is called in the swedish training officers headquarters, and so in that position i am responsible for giving direction of how the recruitment of the Swedish Armed forces are to be conducted and how we are to be prioritized, and what we should to, et cetera. One of the biggest focuses in sweden right now is growing. We have for the first time for a number of year, it is the same for you guy, and not cutdowns, but more money, and getting more equipment, and we need more personnel, and so 2018, sweden reintroduced the conscript system, and so now, it is the gender neutral, and all men and women might be called in for enrollment, and but, and it is a big focus for us in sweden now. And why did i join the navy. I was actually engaged or joined the youth summer cam independence the navy, and then i thought that this is exciting, so i continued continued continued continued. Jenny, you talked about conscription, and maybe if you can talk about it in sweden and denmark as well. Yes, we reintroduced nit 2018, and that is because of the security situation in the baltic seas and it was a genderneutral and that means that it is not everybody. We dont need all of the 18yearold in this that is born for example in 2001 and everybody who turns 18 in sweden male and female has to fill in a form, where they describe themselves and what background they have, et cetera, et cetera. And then out of those, a number is selected to do tests, and then we, so that we pick out the one that is most suitable, and it doesnt have nothing to do with the gender, and the most suitable person who fits the requirements that we have and that is working, and the conscription and 4 and 15 month, and from that we recruit the enlisted soldiers and the specialized officers and the commissioned officers and the reservist, and you have to do the military services to do a career in the armed forces. Can you object to being in the armed forces . Well, actually, we do not want to have those. We dont want to force people, because of course, we dont need to, but if you have a special skill. For example, 18yearold in sweden, many of them dont take drivers license, so if you have a drivers license, it is a very likely that you will be called in, because we need them. So, and so, yeah. You can say that you dont want to, but if we pick you, then you have to do it. Australia doesnt have conscription, but we have what is offered as a gap year for people to do a try before you buy will almost, but we havent had the need for conscription for many years and we did it in vietnam and that is the only time in our sort of, in my sort of understanding. I could be slightly off on that fact though, and i dont see it happening in australia in our situation and due to the recruitment levels. We are generally quite well supported by the public and recruitment levels are quite good. We are also expanding our recruitment activities over the next few years to support our increased capability requirements, and yet, we dont see any issues with that, and currently we have around 58,000 active duty personnel in comparison to the u. S. Military and the population bases are only around 24 million people, and we comparatively speaking, we are not that difference per capita. Thank you. I am really happy that we have raised this question, because it is one in my opinion, it is one of the great issues within the danish armed forces, the conscription, because we dot no have je we do not have conscription in the danish military. We have a conscription for men when they reach the age of majority which is 18 in denmark and then women, we have that we have the right to serve on c conscripti conscriptiontype term, and at the same time in the system, one of my terms is that we dont have the same obligation as men, and whereas the men have to perform the entire or have to go through the entire training period, females can drop out. So what happens i guess when you are standing there in that room at the first days that many of your male colleagues will look at you and think, who will be the first dropout among the women. Which i think is very crucial when it comes to the reputation of women, but also the support that you get from the male surroundings when you are serving. And one thing that i have noticed is that we have a lot of policies describing how we should support diversity in the armed forces in denmark and how we should develop our recruitment and so on. But, we never discuss or the politicians in denmark do never discuss female conscription. There is no political will to take up that question. Even when we recently got a new female minister of defense, it has not been discussed. So, what percent of the Defense Forces are women in denmark . Another very interesting question. Thank you, susan. [ laughter ] talking in general at the ministry of defense resource area, it is 16. 1 women, but if you are looking purely at military personnel, it is 7. 6 . If you are looking at the conscript like soldiers, last year in 2018, 17 of them were women. However, if you look at privates in the army or in the armed forces in general, there are only 8. 5 . So that supports the idea of female dropout, right. So where do they go . We start out with having 17 , but then all of the sudden, it is down to 8. 5 . What is it in australia and sweden . So currently our active duty percentage is around 18. 5 for female participation. Different services are slightly different. Army is the lower of the group at about 14 . But navy and air force are around 20 , just over 20 . We actually have a goal of reaching 25 for air force and navy by 2023 and army 15 by 2023. Were actually doing really well against that. In the last five, six years, its increased by about 4 participation. So i think were sort of getting there. Senior leadership, not quite as high proportionally. But that has improved over the last ten or so years as well with some of the policies and processes in place to encourage women and support them getting to the higher ranks. And obviously the numbers coming through make it much more available as an option when you sort of see the different layers of the organization coming through the system. Thank you. In sweden, in total its 17 . Within the military personnel, its 11, so. And in different categories, you could say in the conscript area, last year it was 16 , but that was the first year with gender neutral. Were aiming for 20 and up to 30 within a couple of years from now. So i would say its quite low, but were getting there. The numbers are increasing. Its the same in australia, the navy, and the air force. The air force has the highest numbers, then the navy, and the lowest in the army. Thats the same. You made the transition from submarines to recruitment, which is a pretty big transition. What kinds of tactics are you finding are really successful for you in your new role . I find successful that ive been in the operational field. I know what is needed out there and what we need to do, and ive been working with young people because when you come to the headquarters, then the middle age gets a little bit higher. People tend to forget when how it is outside. So that is very important that you keep the so that is something i bring with me. And what about recruiting women . You had some interesting comments. Yeah, i think what we have found out through surveys and everything is that women tend to and men they dont like the same advertisement, you could say. Females, they want to know things. They want to have facts. Females want to know, what can i contribute with . And men, they can see a machine gun going off and, yeah, i want to join. A little bit like that. And the men, we get them. So thats not a problem. The problem is to address the young female to make them understand that they have a place in the armed forces. Also we have done that they have very little knowledge about the armed forces, and if you dont have knowledge, then you dont understand whats in it for me. So we need to get out the message about what is the armed forces, that everybody has a place. Last year this year we had a big campaign, actually, that we called come as you are and showed a lot of different persons in the armed forces right now, not only females, but females and others that isnt this muscular guy thats maybe the typical that you think is in the armed forces. This was very positive among the target group that was young females. Is that similar in australia . Yes, it is, susan. Weve done a lot of media campaigning in recent years to try and encourage, you know, a broader section of the community to join the armed forces. Our women sort of recruitment activity is part of a broader diversity and inclusion campaign, in fact, to recruit people of different cultural backgrounds because weve generally been, you know, stereotyped. White male sort of organization. That has slowly sort of decreased over the years. Its becoming more inclusive. And our Advertising Campaigns are very much now giving the visuals of people from different cultural backgrounds, more women. We have specific campaigns targeted at women to try and encourage their participation, and we also have a number of other programs that are trying to sort of support women participation, things like leadership camps, Work Experience opportunities, leadership and mentoring activities that are going on regularly. We have specific female recruiting teams in some areas. We also have increased recruiting targets in some cases for different services. We have all jobs open to women now, all of our combat activities in army now open to women. Only a small portion have taken that up because some of those jobs havent been open up until around 2017. We have women in submarines now. Thats been the case for many years. So we have had a lot of success, but we continue to build on that and reinforce what weve done in the past with our Lessons Learned. Could you talk a little more about your leadership camps for women . Sure. It basically has i guess students coming in to our navy bases and military bases and actually spending time with military members on base and understanding what the military is all about, talking about leadership, personal development, just exposing them to some of those opportunities and demystifying the organization to them because often women do not consider it as a viable career path. Men dont seem to have that problem quite as much, but were 51 of the population. Weve got around 20 participation in some of our services, a lot lower in the army. Why is that . Were not going to attract women easily to a number of those jobs, but what we can do is show them whats going on. We can also increase parental understanding of what the service is all about. If you dont have your family or peer support for joining, then youre not really going to have much of a chance of getting through the process. Its tough. Its not easy to necessarily go through the recruitment activities itself. Its a long, arduous process. Its confronting when youre not used to be tested and prodded and assessed physically for things. So understanding those processes is also part of that sort of engagement we have with students. And its all about our recruiting campaigns as well. We get out there into the schools. We go to seminars and work expos. We go out and bang the drum as much as we can to give people that opportunity to understand us. And ive done recruiting for about four years of my career. Ive been lucky to select, you know, our future generations of servicemen and women from a joint perspective. And ive loved that opportunity. Its been really rewarding and inspirational to have that exposure to the community and try and promote my service and my Defense Force in that capacity. What about denmark . Im guessing based on the lack of policy towards conscription that theres probably less on the leadership side to recruit women. Well, actually, we have a type of policy which is similar to australia. We call it the policy of diversity. So this effort to recruit more women is part of a broader strategy to recruit other groups from society, which are not prone to join the armed forces. However, we didnt succeed in achieving our goals, we can tell. So some of the things were working with, like australia, is to make female role models in the armed forces more visible by simply making posters with sort statements on them. Then were trying to promote the idea of female values going hand in hand with the service in the armed forces. Like you can be the mother of two, as myself, and still be deployed with the armed forces. We are trying to do that at various recruitment events, but we also have q a sessions on our web pages where female officers answer questions of potential recruits, and we tend to ask female officers to do the briefings during the recruitment we call them recruitment seminars. Its where we invite potential cadets in for briefings and testing. So thats just some of the things we do. Are all jobs open to women in the danish forces . Yes, they are. And with regard to testing and demands, women and men well, we put the same demands for men and women. However, as i said before, theres a very firm masculine culture until the danish armed forces, and for some reason there are more women in the air force and the Danish Emergency Management Agency than in the army and the navy. And ive been wondering why is that so because we do more or less the same recruitment campaigns. We have to meet more or less the same standards and demands, and a lot of jobs are the same. But i think, again, its a question about culture. The Danish Air Force is only 70 years old. And the Danish Emergency Management Agency didnt exist until 1992. Whereas, the army was formed in 1614 and the navy was formed in 1510. So they have spent decades nurturing this very firm masculine culture, whereas these efforts to recruit more women into the armed forces existed when the Danish Air Force and the Emergency Management agency were formed. I dont know. Speaking of culture, do you want to mention the issue that exists actually, i think all of you have it to one extent or the other in terms of language. Right. Its somehow anecdotal, i think. But in danish, you cannot say maam to a female officer. You can only say sir. So when im commanding one of the units at home and i say, good morning, unit, theyll answer me back, good morning, sir. You two both have similar kinds of situations or examples . I have been a little taken aback when ive been called sir a few times now. When im deployed with other international, you know, sort of navies or militaries, a number of those cultures do not really recognize the female maam. And ive also sometimes been mistakenly called sir because people just get flustered or something and then they just revert to what theyre used to saying, i think. One of the things i find quite interesting is how if im walking along a pathway or something and im with a male counterpart whos junior to me, that person will actually get shown, you know, respects and saluted before myself because they will defer to the male counterpart that im with and not recognize the rank situation between us. Its really interesting. And i understand theres some cultural there are some similarities in cultural differences when youre in company with other people. Ive spoken to a gentleman who had a latino background. He said if im with a white male, that person will get saluted before me, even though im the senior rank. Just this interesting thing that people defer to when they sort of see a couple of people in uniform. Its just one of those funny things you sort of notice. Yeah, ive been addressed as sir also, but that was not in sweden but in another country. I said, no, you can call me maam. No, no, no, we dont do that here. So another conversation that we had earlier this morning before the session started kind of relates to the b word that was brought up in the question before. It really relates to how women are perceived and how its your disciplinary action or management style or whatever. How do each of you deal with that . It has been interesting over my career to see how ive been perceived in different capacities. I was explaining to the Group Earlier that we have a situation where we have a 360 reporting activity that happens every couple years for our Navy Leadership and development activities. And this is trying to sort of break down some of the cultural issues weve had over the years with gender and Workplace Behavior in more general terms as well. One of those things ive always thought was im a pretty personable person. I support people. Im not dictatorial. I dont direct and play the power game all the time. Im a teamoriented sort of leader. However, when im in certain jobs, im not perceived that way. Maybe i do have to come across a little differently because of the group im working in or the command team im part of. It was just interesting how the perception of me was so markedly different in a couple different jobs that i had over the last ten years or so, since weve been doing that program. Whilst i know i can be the b word on a number of occasions, that is not the best way to lead your people and be seen as a role model, like weve talked about here earlier. I try and be genuine. I try and be myself but also understand the group im dealing with and try and play to that in some respects as well and whats going to push their buttons. Sometimes it does take you out of your comfort zone. Sometimes being that hard, you know, yes, you will do it this way and we will go that way across this issue, is the way to perform and lead your team. So yep, sometimes you can be called a b word, but if thats the only way they can describe it, thats fine. [ applause ] yeah, i agree. I recognize what youre saying, and what i think also is that if a male commander, he commands in this way, then if i do it as a female, then i will be judged in another way, harder. I will be but that is also i think if youre a minority, youre always seen. You can never hide. If you do something good, yeah, thats a good thing. Then everybody will know that. But if you do a mistake, everybody will also know that. But a male counterpart, they can do more mistakes, i would say, than i can do, than is accepted. The private sector is no different. Stina, thoughts on that . Right. I would say to me, its like this. If you confirm a prejudice view, you will sort of its harder. So if a woman gets kind of sensitive or aggressive in a female i know in my last job, i had command of a logistics unit. I remember my Operations Officer was also a female. My senior enlisted was also a female. I had a boss who was a female. That was the most femaleoriented team id ever worked in, in my whole career. It was my first time i ever had a boss that was a female. So id been in the service for 28 years, never had a female boss. I guess thats probably similar to a lot of your experiences as well. But it was quite interesting to work with that dynamic. There was no difference from what i could tell to working with a maledominated command team. I think everybody appreciated the different sort of approaches that we all brought to the table. I remember one of them telling me we had a particular personnel issue, which is very sensitive, fairly far reaching around the unit. But i remember them saying, my god, i didnt realize you could be such a, you know, hard ass sort of, you know. With people who were really expecting me to sort of roll over and not take it as seriously as we did. So it was just interesting to sort of see. People always expect youre a female, youre softer, bit of a soft touch. Yeah. Well, at times, sure, when the situation calls for it. We dont get to these positions without doing those hard yards and actually, you know, putting in that sort of effort to make sure we actually perform to the level that our service expects us to perform at. Can i Say Something, susan . I think sometimes in these situations where it comes to sort of confrontations, i sometimes have success with asking questions, just being polite, asking questions, applying a bit of sense of humor to the situation. An example was when i went to kuwait last year in 2018. The first thing, literally the first thing my commander said to me was, right, so you have two small children and now youre here. Then i was like, what am i supposed to say to him . I asked him, would you ask the same question if my husband was here . And then he was like, no, actually, i wouldnt, and he got so embarrassed because hes actually one of the men promoting female officers in the armed forces. So thats a way, i guess. Good for you. [ applause ] so the me too Movement Just caught on fire here in the u. S. , and i know that it reached far beyond the u. S. It also could could you talk little bit about how it may or may not have affected your country and your Defense Forces . Yeah, sure. In sweden, there was a huge me too and also within the armed forces. The females within the armed forces raised up and talked, and this was like a plug that was released. Actually, it was really hard when it came out a couple years ago, but it has changed. It has made us Pay Attention to this and not leaning back and think we have reached this, we are finished with this. No, because if it is out in society, if you have problems in a society, you will have them in your armed forces, of course. And whos responsible for fixing it . We all are. But its a command problem. Its not the females whos going to fix this, but its now im in a double role so yeah, its my problem as a commander but not as a female. So that is something that we have had a lot of discussions. It has changed. It has been a culture barrier that has changed. In what way . Because were open about it. Were talking about it, and were discussing, we have been discussing it in the workplaces all over the armed forces and not just the females, everybody. It has our higher commanders have put attention to it. Then you cannot hide. We probably didnt have such a wave of me too responsiveness in the australian Defense Force. Weve had a lot of activity over the last 20 years or so, which has focused on sexual abuse, inappropriate behavior in the workplace, trying to make it pretty much very clear that its not acceptable in any of our workplaces. Our cultural training, some annual mandatory training, training within our recruitment processes has made it pretty well understood situation where that is not tolerated. Weve also had a number of royal commissions into child sex abuse and issues where we had junior recruits treated inappropriately many years back. A lot of those cases have come out in the media. Weve also had another sort of investigation into responses into other abuse in the military where people have made claims about abuse theyve suffered through the Service Environments. All of those things have really put it on the table for the general population to understand, that its not tolerated. Well deal with it. The service and the organization has apologized for that culture that was rampant in those years that it was happening on more frequent occasions than today. Not to say were not having issues still, its just not as widespread. But it is dealt with as best we possibly can. Its out there in our Education Programs and information that its not to be tolerated. All these sort of media activities and campaigns support, you know, our own organizational community to respond to it. We are a reflection of society, though. We do have things happen in our services that happen in society more broadly. And its, yeah, something well continue to tackle and be very open and forthright about as well. Well, yes, in denmark we have recently our veteran center has done a survey among veterans, female veterans. What came as a shock to, i believe, not only me but most of my colleagues, is that most female veterans have in some way or another in denmark experienced some kind of genderbased abusive behavior or some kind of genderbased harassment. I dont believe that we have yet implemented any measures against this kind of behavior, but its definitely something that we have to work on. But i think from my perspective, its a dilemma because if you want to include women on equal terms with men, what does it mean . In denmark, the way we have tried to include women in the armed forces has also been by letting men and women live in the same barracks when were deployed, having men and women sleep in the same tents when we are doing exercises and so on. On my own account, when i started ten years ago, we only had one shower. So the few females we were, we had to shower together with the men, which was quite that was i must say, that was odd. In the beginning, at least. Is that true in sweden too . Yeah, i would say that were fully integrated. We live together in the barracks and quarters. We live together. We share cabins on board the ships. Theres no difference if youre a male or a female. And i understand that this is maybe nothing that you can do, but in sweden, that is okay. Thats not a problem. And that has when i get the question, how do you deal with it . Isnt that a problem . No, its a matter of respect for each other. It has nothing to do with gender, actually. So its about respect. You have to be able to fight together, to be in combat together. Of course, you have to be able to thats the way we see it, to live together. Robin . So i think submarines are probably the only place where our male and female crew members actually live in the same mess decks with each other. And that was driven by the fact we could never get six females at sea at the one time, so we were limiting our opportunities to send our submarines to sea with qualified personnel and restricting womens opportunities in that capacity. But apart from that, we all have pretty much segregated accommodations, and we have designated facilities for males and females in most areas where its possible. Sometimes its not quite so great, but we do have we dont have common shower facilities where we expect males and females to go in naked together. Not sure whether that was yeah. Yeah, thats what i thought you were referring to. I just thought id clarify that, stina. Thank you. Yeah, we havent gone that far. Thank you. Neither have we. No, but actually, what is interesting is that its not like that anymore. Now they have put shower curtains up. But it wasnt like that when i started ten years ago. So something has changed obviously. So lets take time for a few questions or well just continue this conversation. Are there any questions in the audience . A little hard to see here. Okay. Go right ahead. Good morning, ladies. United states marine corps. A quick note on maam. I havent encountered that with other forces. In our own forces, it does seem that a group of ladies together causes a lot of conner sternati amongst junior marines. Getting to good morning ladies instead of good morning, maam, still a work in progress. So im right there with you. There was a lot of discussion about your recruiting efforts, but i was wondering if you could speak to some of the family leave policies that have been helpful for female retention as our Services Work through that. In sweden, i was here maybe some of you guys were here two years ago. I attended also the international panel. Then i told you guys about the swedish system. We have a very good parental system in sweden. Both mothers and fathers stay home with their children up to 1 1 2 year. You get paid for it. Yeah. [ applause ] and of course that is also the case in the armed forces. So its not just a female problem. If youre getting a family, if you have children there was discussion earlier. You get a female, and, oh, what is she going to get pregnant . As a Commanding Officer, if i get a young person, i would say, oh, when are they going to have parental leave . So that has nothing to do with, in sweden, actually, men and women, they tend to stay home longer. Of course, mothers tend to stay home longer, but its getting there. Me and my husband, we split. I stayed home nine months, he stayed home nine months. [ applause ] so in australia over the last ten years, weve increase what had we call our Flexible Work arrangements. Thats been a really, really Good Opportunity for women to be retained in our services. So once theyve come back off Maternity Leave, they can work part time. They can job share. They can work remotely from home. And thats encouraged quite a bit now, to retain our experienced personnel because we did have that situation where they would leave after having children or not undertake service or operational gds, that sort of thing. Now we try and create a buffer opportunity for them. We also provide that to males. So the women who are trying to do some of those career milestone postings have the opportunity to go and do those jobs, and the male is able to take those Flexible Work arrangement opportunities, and its becoming much more culturally acceptable now for the male to take over those opportunities and provide that family domestic sort of support requirement in the family unit. So around 6 of our personnel are currently undertaking Flexible Work arrangements in both the navy and the air force. And 1 in the army. Again, just a bit behind the other two services when it comes to sort of Personnel Matters like that. But i think its been a really positive we can come in and out of the service during reserve time, come into permanent active service time, much more flexible. Thats really, really helping our service. Right. In denmark, we have a very nice parental leave system as well. We are paid for 13 months of parental leave, and we can share it between the father and the mother. However, often the woman takes more parental leave than the father. Then, as in australia, we have Flexible Work arrangements. We can work at home some days a week, and we have Flexible Working hours. But an issue i would like to raise, its anecdotal again, is that an example, when i left for my second parental leave, someone else took over my portfolio, and it was an older man. He was higher ranking. So when i got back, i had nothing to do. He had taken over all my assignments. So i sort of had to fight to get back my assignments, and i would have wished that my commander would have been more aware of this issue because he wasnt aware. When i talked to him, i finally pulled myself together after half a year being very depressed and almost stressed out. I told him, i have nothing to do. You put me in a corner. He said, really . Did i do that . You always work so hard, and youre so talented. I wasnt aware. So i think i would have wanted him to be more aware from the beginning and having helped me more. It would have been nice with a female role model as well, but she wasnt there. And thats part of it, actually supporting those opportunities and understanding what people are going through in a change of the Work Environment where youve been sort of dislodged and displaced almost. Its important. So for those people in those command jobs to sort of recognize that and take interest is really important. I think we have time for one more question. Thank you, ladies. Thank you for coming. I want to kind of circle back to the conscription and being gender neutral and tie it to the me too movement. When we see people gender neutral who are fully integrated, do you think that will help with the me too movement and providing that Mutual Respect . Because now everyone is required to do the same. And do you think this could move into denmark and australia . To like provide a Mutual Respect because of the conscription policies now. Yeah, i think so. In sweden, it will help because then everybody is there on equal terms. Theres no difference. It has nothing to do with your gender if youre there. Its because youre the most fit person to do this service. So yeah, i think it will help. I think so. If that was an answer to the question. Yeah, just essentially with integrating gender and with making it to where everyone is equal, is that helping with Sexual Assaults . Has it been going down . Has it been going up . Did you ask if we have problems with it . Shes saying has the gender neutrality policy helped reduce Sexual Assaults. I dont know if it has to do with the gender neutrality or this conscription but we are working with it. Its more open now, i would say, the discussions about it. Sweden was, like you were describing, we thought of ourselves being in that situation. We have very clear regulations. We have everything. We have the policies. Then suddenly we noticed that things happened that we didnt know as Commanding Officers. The me too has helped us open our eyes and realize things are happening. I wish we could continue this conversation. Please join me in thanking these Inspiring Women leaders. [ applause ] on behalf of ssoa, wed like to thank you for your participation and sharing your experiences and perspectives. Thank you. [ applause ] we can nigheknights this we featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, biographer george nash recalls the world war i relief work done by herbert hoover, which saved millions of lives in the wars aftermath and set the stage for his white house run. This begins a night of programs from a conference on hoovers humanitarian efforts, his president ial library in west branch, iowa, is the host of the event. You can see it tonight starting at 8 00 eastern here on cspan3 and enjoy American History tv every weekend, also on cspan3. And this week were also showing you book tv programs, showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight the theme is national defense. Former defense secretary general james mattis recounts his military career and offers thoughts on leadership in call sign chaos. Then ashton carter, another former defense secretary, talks about his book on working in the pentagon inside the fivesided box. And eyes in the sky journalist reports on the pentagons aerial surveillance system. And thats tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern on cspan2 and enjoy book tv every weekend, also on cspan2. Sunday night on q a, historian jeff guinn discusses his book the vagabonds, about the summer road trips taken by henry ford and Thomas Edison between 1914 to 1925. The idea was that they wanted to go out and have fun. They wanted to demonstrate, hey, guess what, you get in your car and go do these things too. But they werent going to have to try to light their own campfires. They werent going to eat cold beans out of cans. You know, they werent just going to put a blanket on the ground. They had all these different amenities. They had a refrigerated car powered by edison batteries so they can have fresh dairy. They would have chefs who would prepare gourmet meals at night. In the morning they would dress in freshly ironed clothes. But you see, they were so famous and america was so grateful to them, that it didnt matter. The point was, hey, were out in cars traveling and seeing these things. You can do it too. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Thinking about participating in cspans student cam 2020 competition, but youve never made a documentary film before . No problem. We have resources on our website to help you get started. Check out our Getting Started and downloads pages on studentcam. Org for producing information and video links to footage in the cspan library. Teachers will also find resources on the teachers materials page to help you introduce student cam to your students. My advice to anyone that wants to compete this year is to find the topic that youre truly passionate about and pursue it as much as you can. This year, were asking middle and High School Students to create a Short Documentary on the issue that you would like the president ial candidates to address during the 2020 campaign. Cspan will award 100,000 in total cash prizes plus a 5,000 grand prize. Go get a camera. Go get a microphone, and go start filming and produce the best video you can possibly produce. Visit studentcam. Org for more information today. The defense departments adviso Advisory Committee on Sexual Assault in the military held their 13th Public Meeting in arlington, virginia, recently. In this next portion of the event, the Committee Hears from chiefs from the army, navy, marine corps, and coast guard. Later, several military special Victims Counsel and Legal Program managers testify. Some of the items discussed include conviction and acquittal rates, the adjudication proce