A novel. His first book calm out in 2010 came out in 2010, called the other wes moore, and then his book the work came out in 2016, and his most recent book is about a baltimore during the arrest and death of freddie gray. It just came out, five days, what that is called. But in your book, the work, wesley omari moore, you write that the military saved your life. What do you mean byy that . Guest well, i think the military played an incredibly Important Role in my life where, you know, some of the most important times of my life if not when i was wearing a suit, not when i was wearing a tshirt or jeans, but when i was wearing the uniform of this country. I was first introduced to the military system is, actually, when i was about 13 years old. I was actually sent to military school. I hadar a mandatory year in military school, and it was, i got some issues, some challenges, and when i was younger, and my mom had threatened me to send me to military school ever since i was 8 years old. Every year it was im going to send you away, im going to send you a away. The first time i felt handcuffs to my wrists was when i was 11yearold. My mother noticed i was intentionally hurtingng people that truly loved me so i could impress people. One day she she said, im going to send you to military school. And, honestly, i thought that she was kidding or exaggerating xxa finally i realized she wasn, and i hated every minute of it when i first started. I remember that first, you know, those first days there i ran away multiple times, i ran away five times in the first four ddays of military school. I also noticed that the longer i stayed, i began to fully iunderstand what it was that ty were trying to teach me and also what it was by e mom was trying to teach me. Can and the t fact that we did live in an interconnected environment, anid interconnected community, you know, and how everybodyte was doing in my unit mattered to how my if unit as a whole was doing. And w so when i actually finishd high school and i had a chance to go on, i decided that the thing that i actually wanted to do, the thing i wanted to pend my life on, it was i wanted to lead soldiers. And so thats when i made the decision that i wanted to join the army. So for me, the decision to go into the army was both a continuation of the fact that, you know, id had this level of service, both the fact that they were going to help pay for college, that was very helpful, but there was also this idea that i felt a debt of gratitude because i felt it was like the introduction of that at adu reay crucial time in my life that reallyly helped make a lot of difference that ended up happening in the life that i was living. Host is so what was your role in the 82nd airborne . Guest i was, is so i was a paratrooper with the 82nd airborne division, and i had a few different roles, but my final role in afghanistan, i was the director of operations. So thats a long way of saying that everything that we add had in terms of information ops, psych ops, psychological operations that we had, our entire area of operations which was what they called which is regional command east, the entire Eastern Region of afghanistan where afghanistan and pakistan border each other, i was the director of operations for that. So at the time when i was, you know, my last assignment when i was leaving afghanistan, we had about 1700 paratroopers that were under our command that we were responsible, that we were responsible for. So it was an amazing and an aweinspiring experience. Host wes moore, how had you changed after that first year in military school . As a, what, a 12yearold . Guest yeah, 13 years old. I would say the big thing that changed for me was there was this instructional leadership. What that means, what it meant and the role that it played in my life where i felt like, you know, military school gave me a chance to, in a way, it was a remake of identity that was important. There was a chance for me to rethink my role and my space within society. But also i think some of the other bigger things that happened was there was this very intentional introduction of leadership that matters. You know, sometimes when people say about military school they say, well, or the military, they need discipline. You know, theyll do pushups and theyll wake up early. And the reality is you are going to do pushups, you are going the wake up early. All those things are recall, all those things are true. But thats not what made the experience useful for me, right in the thing that made the experience useful for me was tthis introduction to leadersh. And it was this idea that they are very much going to introduce you to leadership early and in a very deliberate way where theyre going to put you in charge of something. After the initial basic training or police system, whatever it is, theyre going to put you in charge of something relatively early and relatively small. And its not because thats what your task is, its because they want you to get a taste. So theyre going to put you in charge of a hallway and theyll say, okay, youre in charge of this hallway, or youre in charge of the o dumpsters, whatever. If its clean, well congratulate you. If its dirty, then lord help you. And once they notice youre doing a good job at that, youll be promoted and move on to the next thing. Maybe youll have a couple cadets or soldiers under your command, and then you move up, you move up. Theres this graduated sense of responsibility about the way they try to teach you leadership frameworks that i think are not only useful and important for me, but also it was something that really gave me a taste of what was actually important. So like i knew going in that leading people was important to me. I knew going in that whether it was in the case of leading cadets or leading soldiers or i think about the work that we do now, being able to be part of that d process, being able to be the person who can, you know, who can help shape the direction of organizations, thats something that became really important in my development. Andng i think both the framewors for what it meant how to do it, but then also the introduction that was necessity in my life was something that the military helped to foster. Host wes moore, how did you become a Rhodes Scholar . Guest truth is, is thatre tt i actually think about that experience quite a bit because the first time i had a real conversation about the Rhodes Scholarship was actually when i was interning with the mayor of baltimore. Expect mayor of baltimore at the time was a gentleman named kurt shmoke, and it was the day of my internship, and he called me into his office. I think i i have the picture up there, it sits right in my office. And in that picture hes standing this, and hes pointing towards a picture on his wall. And understand, he was not the type of guy that had, you know, camera people following him around all the time. Thats not what he did. But on that day, on the final day of my internship kurt schmoke called me in, and he said have you thought about the Rhodes Scholarship . He knew about my grades. I told him i thought i had heard about it, but i hadnt thought about it. The thing that hes pointing at is his rhodes class and where he was in his picture. That was the moment when he first told me about the Rhodes Scholarship and that i should consider it. He also gave me instructions on people i should talk to about it, and i did just that. I went and talked to certain people, i had people help me with mys says and mys says and how do i express my lifes journey in a thousand words for the Rhodes Scholarship application. And i love that story. Its really important because right there in my office is a picture of my rhodes class. And im very clear that that picture would have never happened if that picture didnt happen. And so it was an experience that i will never forget, one where, you know, literally i think our plane flew off less than two weeks after 9 11 where, you know, the nation expect world had just changed immeasure by at the same time that i was having this experience. It was shaped very much so by 9 11. It was a chance to Study International relations in a place where i was one of only a few americans studying it and getting a chance to truly Study International relations with people in your class who were from brazil, china, nigeria and argentina, you know . Getting a chance to really understand and see how all these dynamics take place among some really remarkable people, people who have become some of my best friends. It was a pretty special experience, and i e give a lot of thanks to kurt schmoke and many others who really helped to light that path for me and helped me to realize that it actually could be real. Host whats your view about money from the cecil rhodes foundation, and what did you tell the overview board . Guest yeah. You know, one of the last questions, the last question they asked me in my interview was because i spent time in south africa. Im also africanamerican, i knowow our history in this couny reallyn well. And one of the last questions that i was asked, in fact, by the person who was the chairman of the board, he said, listen, you, youve been to south africa, youre africanamerican. How can you accept cecil rhodes money knowing the history, knowing howow he made it and knowing the lives that were lost in order for him to make that money . Iand i thought about it and i paused and i said, you know, i know a few things for sure. One was that when cecil rhodes was creating this scholarship, he did not have me in mind, to be sitting here as a finalist for this scholarship money. And he is probably turning in his grave repeatedly knowing that i am here as a finalist for his scholarship. The other thing that i and that does show me what progress means and progress looks like. The fact that something that was not at all intended for me, that i have an opportunity to not only stand here and utilize it, but then also have a real obligation to make sure youre doing something with it to better yourself. And the other thing that i do know is that, that it was my ancestors who fought and who bled and who built and who were able to build in a way that created ail pathway for me to be in that seat at that moment, who were able to sacrifice and to dream for a world that they didnt see, but to dream and fight for one that hopefully one day that i would see. And for me to have the opportunity then to be there in that seat, for me to have an opportunity too then take the privilege of that seat to then go out and as a Rhodes Scholar fight the worlds fight, i felt it would be disrespectful to them not to. And so understanding that when youre particularly looking at history of cecil rhodes, looking at the history of its not even just south africa, but its the entire Southern Africa region and the damage that he did to the people there for his own perm benefit to the point personal benefit to the point that at that time he was the wealthiest man inn the world, its not lost on me. So its also not lost on me the obligation that in now have to use the benefits that were fought long and hard for me to be able to have, to use that now to make sure that we can create a more just and a more fair world. Host whered you grow up . Guest i spent part of my childhood growing up in maryland, part of my childhood growing up in the bronx. You know, i call really two places, you know, home. One is baltimore. Actually, where i live now, i was born a little off from baltimore, closer to the d. C. Area. And then new york where with i e spent a lot of my childhood after my dad died. And so my dad was a radio personality down in baltimore and the d. C. Area, and one day he was complaining about his throat and was saying how his throat was bothering him really to the point he couldnt breathe. He went to the hospital the next day. And as he went to the hospital, you know, he was wearing had an uneven beard, and a lot of assumptions were made about my dad when he walked into that hospital that day looking for help. When my mom final arely made it to the hospital to join him, they asked her questions like is your husband prone to exaggeration. And they gave him instructions toom go home and rest, and if it got worse, then to come back. Finish and five hours after they released him, he died. And thats when we were living down in maryland. My mother had a really difficult time with the transition at that point and finally called up her parents, my grandparents, who were living in the bronx. My grandfather was a minister in the south bronx, and my grandmother was a schoolteacher in the south bronx. And theird house was barely big enough for them, but they figured out a way to make it big enough for all of us, and is so we ended up moving up there. And then at that point after moving up there, thats where i spent a good six, seven years of my childhood before at the end i was going to military school in pennsylvania. So a lot of my childhood was a lot of moving around. But the thing that i knew is that no matter where we moved to, ihe had a remarkable, loving family who i was blessed to be able to say, you know, hey, with what they had, they really tried to provide fored us as best as they could. And i, you know, its something growing up. T host and from your first book, the other wes moore, my father was dead five hours after having been released from the hospital with the simple instructions to get some sleep. Same hospital was now preparing to send is his body to the morgue. My father had entered the seeking help, but his face was unshaven, his clothes disheveled, his name unfamiliar, his address not in an affluent area. The hospital looked at him askance and fault pelted him with ridiculous questions and basically told him to fend for himself. Now my mother had to plan his funeral. Why do m you think those assumptions were made . Guest race. Actually, i think its, its really one of the heartbreaking things, you know, and i think about it a lot both with, you know, where we are now and also when people say, well, you know, at what point in your life did you know or did you understand the impact of race in the world. And as you just listed out, it was at its earliest point that people were treated differently. And when i think about the many systems that we have in place in our society whether it is our health care system, whether it is our education system, whether its talking about Environmental Justice or educational cuts dis, its impossible to talk about thesee things without understanding the role that race plays. Its impossible to understand these things without understanding thehe role that systemic racism plays. Becauses it is not lost because it is not lost on me and will never be lost on me the fact that had those factors been different that had been mentioned before, there would have been the benefit of the doubt been given. Had the benefit of the doubt been given, we would not have had the same type of results. And this is something that i know s is not just, you know, is not just anecdotal. Theres data that continues to reinforce the factat that race s one of the most predictable, you know, indicators for lifes outcomes across several areas, across life expectancy, across education, across, across maternal mortality, across mental and physical health. And so i so the thing that made that real in my case, in the case of my father, in the case of thinking about my Family History this idea that i know hiits inescapable to not understand and embrace the impact of race. Host who was the other wes moore . Guest the other wes moore is a man, young man who i heard about actually at the same time i was getting ready to head off to england. And as the baltimore sun, which is my hometown paper, was writing an article about this local kid who had just received this Rhodes Scholarship. And they were writing about my background, my childhood, they were writing about the fact that just ten years ago i add had handcuffs on my wrists, and now ten years later i was getting ready to head off to england on a full scholarship and, you know, what that journey was like in that period. But around the same time, they were alsoam writing about an ard Jewelry Store robbery, a botched robbery, where four guys came to a Jewelry Store. And when the first two guys went in, they had guns, and they got everybody on the ground. And then the next two guys walk into the Jewelry Store. When they walk into the store the, they pulled out mallets. And one guy with a gun, one guy with a mall lent went to left, the other two went to the right, and the ones with the gun were keeping everybody on the ground, and the other ones with mallets were smashing out jewelry and taking out watches and rings and necklaces. And they got about 400,000 worth of jewelry that day, and all four of them ran outside to the awe jays sent parking lot. One of the people that was in the inside the store that day was an offduty Police Officer who was moonlighting as a security guard, and he was a, he was a 13year veteran for the Baltimore Police force. He was a threetime recipient of Police Officer of the year. He was also a father of five who just had triplets. And thend reason he was working that day was because it was his day off from the police force, and he took on a second job the make exa that money for his fam extra money for his family. And when he ended up when they left the store, he got up off thehe ground, and he drew hs weapon, and he ran outside to see if he could stop the guys from getting away. And when he ran outside, he started kneeling next to cars and vehicles to give himself cover. He didnt realize that one of the vehicles h that he was kneeling next to was one of the vehicles the guys were in. And a window rolled down, and he was shot three times at pointblank range, s and he was killed. And there ended up being a National Manhunt for those four guys. In 12 days all four guy were caught, and one of the people that the police were looking for was a guy whose name was also wes moore. And the more i learned about this crime, the more i learned about this tragedy, often times through newspaper articles, the more i knew there were questions i wanted to ask, and wes was the only one who could answer. So one day i just decided to write him a note. And the first note that i wrote him was, hey, wes, my name is wes, heres how i heard about you. And i wrote to Correctional Institution where i knew thats where he was at the time and still is to this day. And he, about