people who are potentially mega donors to their campaigns, or to their future campaigns. this is why voter apathy is so upsetting to me. because we do show people like governor perry that acting in ways like that will go unaccounted -- they're not held to account for it. and i think that we all ought to own our responsibility to make sure we're using our voices in a way that show that we are as powerful as some of these folks that can write the big checks. >> right. because ultimately politics is powerful, but we also need to change culture, and we need to change the way that we see these issues through a moral justice lens. maybe that's the direction we need to go. so how do you determine your political platform and agenda? who educates you on the issues that you champion? >> it really comes from in here. and as an elected official, i try very hard to keep an open door for people to come in and talk about things that matter to them. my work on testing the backlog on rape kits in texas came from somebody bringing the issue to me and helping educating me on this issue. coming to my senate office and saying, do you know about this? never underestimate the power we each have, whether we decide to run for office and push these policies forward ourselves, or whether we're in our elected officials' offices helping to try to move them. we can't know, or have been in the shoes of everyone, but if we're thoughtful as elected leaders, when someone helps us stand in their shoes, we'll respond in a way that gives voice to that. >> wonderful. who are your role models and heroes and heroines and mentors? >> well, certainly ann richards. the last female governor, and the last democratic governor in texas. who experienced certainly her own brand of what it was like to run as a woman in the state of texas. her daughter, cecile richards, who is part of planned parenthood, is very much a role model of mine. she started an entity in texas, the texas freedom association, or texas freedom network, which stands for civil rights and freed freedom, expression, and that legacy continues, you know, after she left. so she certainly made her mark on the world. and it certainly shows that she's unflappable in the face of criticism, and unflappable in the face of an attempt to undo all of the work, of course, that that fine organization is doing. and she's -- for me, she's a great role model of how we conduct ourselves as women, even in the face of what can be a little bit of a backslide from time to time. >> it's nice to have people we can see who embody strength and thick skin, and certainly you've talked -- you wrote in your book how far you've come in this regard. and really not letting the turkeys get you down. so your personal story makes the case for public policy that supports women. how do we get men to be allies in the fight for -- to fight to further these policies when they don't experience these things personally? how do we make men care about feminism? >> we share our stories. again, not to be a broken record, but humanizing these issues, just as i, for example, as a state lawmaker might not understand issues that are happening in the prison system in my state. when people are coming and humanizing those experiences, it motivates me to want to be helpful. we have to make sure that we make men our allies in this fight. because we won't achieve true gender equality without it. and again, as ann marie slaughter invites us to consider, true gender equality comes from making sure that we're thinking about men as well, and the choices that they have in front of them, and making sure that they are free to choose as we currently are. men who have daughters tend to really be much more open to these issues of gender equality, because they see it through the lens of their own daughters who they want to be happy and successful. and so making sure that we're sharing those stories about each other's experiences with our male counterparts at work or in the political arena, or in our families, is very, very important. >> right. sharing stories, what i'm hearing is it's about empathy, and helping people, men and women alike, to understand our perspectives, and we do that through story telling and sharing and vulnerability really. and authenticity. so you embody that very well. what is your political future? >> i have absolutely no idea. i'm working right now on creating an advocacy organization for women. i'm very passionate about this issue. and certainly it's the case that not being in political office doesn't mean that you have to go radio silent on things that you care about. we can have just as big an impact outside of political office as we can inside it. and in fact, not being an office holder anymore, or a candidate right now has been really freeing. i can say whatever the hell i want to say. and no one is message managing me. and i can really listen again to my heart, and the things that matter deeply to me, and to spend my energies and my efforts fighting for those. and that's what i'm going to do. and if that ultimately takes me back into the political candidate or office holder arena, great. if it doesn't, i'll still be fighting in a way that i hope will be effective and make an impact. >> wonderful. well, i look forward to seeing your continued impact grow, and thank you so much for being here. and for sharing your story with us. >> thank you. and thank you all so much. [ applause ] "american history tv" looks back 50 years to president johnson's signing of the medicare bill. an idea that lbj said president truman inspired a generation earlier. before signing the bill in truman's presence on july 30th, 1965, lbj said it was designed to ensure every citizen against, quote, the ravages of illness in his old age. starting at 8:00 p.m., lgj's daughter, linda robb, and library director on the battle to pass medicare and medicaid. and why president johnson succeeded where others failed. and phone calls when lbj and his aides as well as members of congress who talk about the politics and strategy behind the bill. then at 10:00 p.m., the medicare bill signing on july 30th, 1965, at the harry s. truman presidential library in independence, missouri, including remarks from president johnson, and former president truman. all of this tonight on "american history tv" on c-span3. ant tonight at 8:00 on c-span, the reverend al sharpton, education secretary arne duncan, and the urban league annual conference in ft. lauderdale, florida. here's al sharpton. we must begin to prepare now whether it's the national urban league, whether it's the naacp, that we are on the brink of a post-obama era. we've had for seven years a black president, and a black first lady, and a black first family. whoever wins this election will be the first whites in the history of this country to succeed a black president. we've never been there before. [ applause ] so we need to see who is the one that we feel is qualified to follow eight years of a person sensitive to us, that come from us, that will not turn around what he has began. we don't intend that when the black family leaves the white house, that black concerns leave the white house with them. [ applause ] part of the discussion from the national urban league conference, it also includes a discussion about african-americans killed by police. the 2016 election. the voting rights act. and education. we'll have it in its entirety tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. tonight, on "the communicators," author and british technology pioneer kevin ashton on the creative process, and how that process takes work. >> why did the wright brothers fly first and what was the process they used? because they weren't the first people to have the idea of building a flying machine. and they weren't the first people to try. so why did they succeed where everybody else failed? and the answer is, they understood the problem they were trying to solve, not better than anybody else. and at the end of the day, being creative is not about having ideas in the shower, or an aha moment or lightning bolts of inspiration. it's about solving problems one step at a time. so understanding the problem of the piece of paper which is a problem of balance, was the key for the wright brothers starting on their course that ultimately led to them flying. >> kevin ashton, tonight on "the communicators" on c-span2. next, a look at changes for u.s. service women since the 2013 recision of the defense department's ground combat exclusion policy. and research showing unit cohesion can take place in the company of both women and men. women in international security hosted this event. thank you, everybody. and welcome back. we have a thrilling panel for you coming right up. i think this next discussion gets kind of right at the heart of everything we're talking about to a great extent. my name is mike breen, for the center for national policy. we're proud to say that no exceptions is the initiative of ceip and led by a remarkable group of women, including combat leaders from our organization. and heartily supported by an even larger number of men in this project for who also have combat experience. including myself. i served in iraq and afghanistan. and to me, i don't know when this issue was settled for me. i'm probably supposed to be an objective moderator, but just to put my cards on the table, my sister is currently serving with distinction as a detective in the gang unit of the new york police department. she could kick my ass, i can tell you that for sure. and, you know, over two years on the sharp end, on the battlefield, i've seen more than enough examples of women distinguishing themselves, including in the close fight, providing the kind of fire support, whether that's from a cockpit, or another platform that we desperately needed at various times, defending their convoys when they came under attack. i think for very many of us who have seen this movie out on the ground, this was a debate over a long time ago. those are my cards and they're on the table. any pretense of objectivity i will abandon right now. out of curiosity, how many currently serving or former military u.s. or otherwise do we have in the audience today? i should ask how many civilians were in the audience. yes? excellent. it is no exaggeration to say there's an abundant wealth of military information in this room. i know we're all looking forward to the presentations. this discussion is really about the cohesion of leadership, in the battlefield, especially in the close fight. and we have with us four people that i think provide a great perspective on that across the board. dr. megan mackenzie, a senior lecture ur at the university of sydney. her research crosses security studies, gender studies and international development. mackenzie is published in a number of journals. her first book, female soldiers in sierra leone includes 50 interviews with female military members. beyond the band of brothers, the u.s. military and the myth that women can't fight. debunks core arguments keeping women out of combat roles, and the myth to american military identity. it is one of my favorite mini series. but i'm willing to see that happen. we also have dr. robert egnell. he's ooh visiting professor and director of teaching with the security studies program, as well as a faculty adviser. dr. egnell is also the founding director of the stockholm for the center for a think tank created in 2005 in response to accurate and nongovernmental research and policy advice in the swedish and international context. we're also joined by my friend captain john rodriguez from the u.s. national guard. he works with me at the center for national policy. he served six years as an army combat officer. i also had the privilege of spending a time in the valley myself at a different time. john provides, i think, an incredible experience. that sort of that type of close fight in a number of cases. that's a perspective needed in this conversation. we're happy to have him. he's a member of the maryland national guard. has worked in human rights focusing on human rights, counterterrorism. we're also joined by mary beth bruggeman. i'm sorry, i should have asked you how to pronounce that. >> you got it. >> mary beth graduated from the u.s. naval academy in 1999 and served on active duty in the marine corps during the 2003 invasion. in the combat arms. as a combat engineer. after transitioning from active duty, mary beth worked for a robotics company where she developed robots for marines. she's currently the executive director of the southeast mission of the mission continues. i'm going to start it by turning to dr. mackenzie, and asking her to replace me at the podium. if you could tell us about this question that lends its name to the panel. what did you find as you were researching this book on the band of brothers, and what it means for combat? >> thank you. i am the outsider in the room. i'm a researcher. and i spent the last several years looking at the topic of women in combat. primarily because i started my research in sierra leone interviewing women who participated in the conflict there. and what was interesting is i found some of the arguments, so there was a high percentage of women who participated in that conflict. but even though i talked to a lot of the women who participated, when i presented my research, i got a lot of feedback that said, well, they weren't really soldiers. they weren't really -- they were just following. i found some of the arguments were similar in the debates that were happening around the combat exclusion for women in the united states. so that's how i made that shift. so i spent the last three years really sifting through all the research i could find on physical standards, cohesion, and women in combat. and so i'll talk about that. so first of all, i wanted to say thank you to inviting me. it's a real honor to be here. so focusing on cohesion. one of the most common arguments used to justify the combat exclusion, in the u.s. and elsewhere, has been the position that women undermine the types of bonding necessary for combat troops to operate efficiently. so the cohesion hypothesis as i call it presumes all male combat units are more cohesive, and therefore, more effective than mixed gender units. so this became the dominant argument along with physical requirements for excluding women from combat in the two decades leading up to the january 2013 decision to remove the combat exclusion. and it remains the main argument used by other militaries across the world to retain the combat exclusion. so today, i'd really like to talk about the role of myth, emotion and gender bias in shaping the debates around combat cohesion. there's really two points that i'd like to make. the first is that there is an extensive amount of research on women and cohesion. the question of women's impact on cohesion is addressed in actually a staggering amount of well-funded studies, conducted both within the u.s. and abroad. at presence, there's actually a greater need to reflect on the result of these findings which i'll get to in a minute, rather than call for another study on cohesion. second, in my book, i argue that all male units have been central to military identity, and national identity in the u.s. for a long time. there are deeply embedded assumptions associated with the band of brothers. from my perspective, cohesion arguments rather than simply focusing on mission effectiveness can sometimes be code for preserving the band of brothers. so while cohesion is often treated as a group dynamic that can be objectively measured, much of the debate around cohesion is driven by emotion and stereotypes that serve to reinforce the perception that camaraderie, loyalty and bonding is exclusive to men. so let's start with the evidence related to combat cohesion. so the first point to note is that studies show the need to separate by social and test cohesion. social cohesion is the bonds between members of a group. particularly the feelings of trust, and camaraderie. by contrast, task cohesion is de find as a commitment of a group toward a shared mission or objectives. put another way, social cohesion refers to whether group members like one another, task cohesion refers to whether they can work well together. despite the distinction, researchers often ignore the difference and measure them together. and this is important, because there's some indicators that women slightly impact social cohesion. and this makes sense. many types of workplace studies have found that we tend to want to work with people who are similar to us, in terms of race, class, gender, ideology. so to learn that men tend to feel more socially bonded to male colleagues in the military is actually no surprise. but those studies that isolate social and task cohesion have found that task cohesion is more strongly linked to mission effectiveness than social cohesion. in fact, one major study concluded simply, quote, military performance depends on whether service members are committed to the same professional goals, not on whether they like one another. so knowing the task cohesion is a greater indicator of effectiveness, and social cohesion, because when we focus on task cohesion, women are not a factor. leadership is. and here there's room to learn from other militaries that have integrated women into combat. for example, research on the israeli defense forces found that cohesion can be inspired through shared commitment to a mission, irrespective of previous social or personal interactions. in a canadian report on gender diversity determined that th cohesion of a mixed gender combat unit was primarily a leadership challenge. so in turn, research that conflates it, overemphasizes social dynamics and underestimates the role of leadership. and training. and may lead to flawed conclusions about women and cohesion. so now, getting to the heart of the matter, there's actually quite a few studies that indicate that -- that have been conducted domestically and internationally that find little relationship between the integration of women and various understandings of cohesions. as early as the 1970s, the u.s. military conducted tests to determine that women did not have a significant effect on operational abilities. 1970s. we're still having similar conversations. these conclusions were supported by a 1993 gao report that found that gender was not listed by a requirement for effective unit cohesion, and rand did a couple of excellent studies on this and found in the 1990s that the real cohesion story was one of leadership. so something that's often overlooked here is the fact that similar cohesion arguments were used, and then put to rest when it came to african-american troops, and gay and lesbian service members. also, we tend to ignore the potential negative effects of social cohesion. in various workplace settings, including the military, overly cohesive or homogenous groups have been associated with group think, while diverse groups have been found to have enhanced intelligence as well as enhanced problem-some offing and decision-making skills. so moving on to my broader point about gender and cohesion. i think there's two main indicators that there may be gender bias in relation to discussions on cohesion. first is that cohesion is often referred to either implicitly or explicitly as male bonding. second, evidence indicates that the main impediment to cohesion may be meant attitudes, not women themselves or their ability to perform. so the first point cohesion as male bonding. we're looking at the public debate in the broader literature around cohesion, some descriptions tend to assume that cohesive requires segregation, that it's the masculine nature of the bonding, not the bonding or trust itself that's essential. anthony king in his research acknowledges that, quote, sociologists have generally preferred to emphasize the role of informal masculine rituals in sustaining social cohesion. similarly, kingsley brown, former u.s. supreme court clerk, made the following observation. quote, men fight for many reasons. but probably the most powerful one is the bonding. male bonding with their comrades. perhaps for very fundamental reasons, women do not evoke in men the same feelings of comradeship and followership that men do. so linking national security to all male units makes it very difficult for those who are trying to integrate women into combat units. defining military cohesion and troop effectiveness by masculine rituals or masculinity places women as outsiders and as a threat by their very nature, irrespective of their performance. this perspective can't be countered with more research. it requires a change in perspective. so this is why attitudes matter. going to the second indicator. i mentioned research earlier that showed little correlation between women and reduced cohesion, but there are some studies that actually show to the contrary. if you dig deeper into the studies, you can find interesting conclusions. let me explain. one study found that units with higher numbers of women may report lower levels of cohesion, because women as a group tend to report lower levels of cohesion. so the more women you have, the lower levels of cohesion, because women report lower levels. another study found that women -- that did find that women negatively impact cohesion also found men's acceptance of women impacted cohesion. the more accepting men were of women, the higher the cohesion in the group. here you have a separate factor, attitudes impactsing cohesion. this has been reintroduced in international studies on mixed gender units which found that men's acceptance of women positively correlated with horizontal cohesion and combat readiness. this is really important, because it means that men's attitudes towards women and their acceptance of women, not women themselves, might be the key factor in levels of cohesion. it's also important because it seems that irrespective of women's performance, negative attitudes about their place in the military persists, and impact how a group describes its cohesion. just a couple of weeks ago, the results of a survey given to the american special attitudes about their place in the military persist and impact how a group describes its cohesion. just a couple of weeks ago, the results of a survey given to the american special operations forces were reported. and this was a survey used to gauge apprehensions that troops may have in relation to women in combat in order to preemptively address them. and the results did show several misgivings and concerns, including concerns about sexual assault. so we need to understand how these types of misgivings and reactions to women in combat might impact group dynamics and reported levels of cohesion. we also need to acknowledge that sexual assault is not a gender integration or cohesion problem. it's a sexual assault problem. so again, what these studies show is the main issue may be men's attitudes and perceptions. we may want to focus on cultural change rather than future studies on cohesion. debates around women and cohesion, particularly those focused on women in combat, leave several important questions unanswered, including why does there seem to be more concern regarding women and cohesion with regard to combat units? do women only hinder cohesion for combat troops? do combat units require different types of cohesion from other units? and are we suggesting that the training and military leadership are unable to foster task and social cohesion amongst the soldiers? i would argue that combat cohesion is not a gender-neutral concept. an essential element of the band of brothers myth is the unexplainable or indescribable bonds of the all male group. this representation of cohesion can make it really a moving target that's impossible to pin down and measure. and therefore it's very difficult to counter with research. irrespective of the vast research indicating that women don't impact cohesion, ideals associated with the sacred or special bonding between all male units are all too often treated as fact rather than narrative. i think this characterization sells both our male and female troops short. it implies that men cannot be professional and serve alongside fellow service members irrespective of their gender. and it assumes that women are not as trustworthy or dependable comrades as the male counterparts. evidence indicates these claims simply aren't true. we cannot let myth override reality. the idea of men on the front lines and women staying behind in support roles are over. stories like ashley's war are stories that i'm hearing over and over again not only in the u.s. but in australia, canada, and new zealand. women are on the front lines and play a major part in modern warfare. speculation about cohesion can actually reinforce myth rather than make women's jobs easier. i think we need to move forward when it comes to combat cohesion and we have the research we need to do so. now we need to address the attitudes about women and consider how the military culture needs to catch up with the reality of women's participation in the war. thank you. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you for that absolutely terrific overview of the landscape and the research behind it. i mean, robert, can i turn to you now and just ask you sort of the straightforward question. based on your experience, based on your research, do you feel that the evidence and the experience of international military supports the idea that introducing women into combat units will degrade performance? or do you not feel that way? >> so we'll see. i'll come to the answer at the end of this. first of all, thanks for a brilliant presentation there. i was desperately flicking through my notes wondering what i could possibly add. but i'd therefore like to go back to the quote by general dempsey that was up here in support of this earlier on. i'm an academic. well, i'm slightly double-hatted of course. and i'm a foreigner, so i don't have to be nice to anyone in here. so he said, we will extend opportunities to women in a way that maintains readiness, morale and unit cohesion. we'll preserve our war fighting capability to defend the nation. and that sounds good, but when i unpack that, there's a lot of really problematic assumptions and negativity baked into that one. it's about maintenance, about preservation of the existing order. that to me is an assumption that the existing organization is perfect and whatever we do to change it can only have negative or no impact if it's done really, really well. that to me is the wrong starting point when it comes to the inclusion of women in combat. i just wanted to put that out there. i think it's horrible to join an organization and feel that the only way i can impact it is negatively or not at all. so let's think of this more in terms of increase combat effectiveness or maximize combat effectiveness. i also think, on the other hand, that military effectiveness, unit performance, et cetera, those are the right measures. those are the right topics to talk about. we have military organizations for those -- for very specific purposes. the army calls it fighting and winning the nation's war in order to defend the nation. i should probably add that military units do a lot more than just fight the nation's wars, or that fighting the nation's wars these days entails a whole host of very complex tasks beyond tactical level engagement with the enemy. but physical fitness and unit cohesion, those are two traditionally very important aspects of military effectiveness. it's absolutely right we're focusing on those things. that's where you hear most of the complaints or the fears about integration of women. so we have to tackle them on their home court, if you will. i think we've done a pretty good job of the physical fitness. and at this point, i would just say, get over with it. just do it. let women compete with the existing standards but then also work with those standards to make sure that they are not only gender neutral, because that's a term that quite often hides gender blindness. we assume that just because it's the same for everyone, they're neutral while actually they're part of a highly masculine tradition, highly masculine view of what war is and what it means, how it's conducted, et cetera, and tradition, also part of a masculine such. so we have to be aware there and create gender-aware standards for all m.o.s.s rather than gender neutral or slash blind. i also think we should be aware about this argument about effectiveness since we have not exactly come out of 15 years of almost continuous war with great success and glory. there's been tremendous mistakes, most of them at the strategic level, but also at the tactical level. so there's all reasons to try and improve the way we fight. the way we organize. the way we train, et cetera. and i think we should view this issue as part of that ambition to always try and improve and maximize the effectiveness of the armed forces. something really interesting that came out of iraq and afghanistan are a number of organizational innovations. we have the lioness teams were the early versions. the female engagement teams, gender field advice, gender focal points, cultural support teams, et cetera, et cetera. lots of interesting innovations going on. those were not ordered from the political level and imposed on the organization. they were attempts at dealing with tactical-level challenges our units were facing in the field. so again, let's not just look at this in terms of maintaining effectiveness. let's look at it as a way of improving it. these were necessary measures. and i'm going to come back to them in terms of what are the most appropriate ways of integrating women or creating female engagement teams, et cetera, et cetera. but remember that they were responses to tactical challenges, not imposed on units. there's a number of fields of research. and megan did a great job of covering them. you often hear this argument. we need more evidence, and there is quite a lot of evidence out there. the challenge is that we are up against what is considered common sense within the armed forces. a feeling that what we have really works. and we know how to train a good infantry unit. we've done it for centuries in the same roughly way. and our drill sergeants know exactly how to push our recruits very hard, and they know that they should encourage the weekend activities that men do, as well, quite often hard drinking and wooing the ladies down at the local pub, et cetera. those are all ways that we know work. and we're comfortable with it because we assume that it is the way we do things. and, you know, if it worked for centuries, why should we change it? but there's also quite a lot of research highlights that these types of masculine social cohesion units, or sort of constructions, if you will, can quite often lead to some extreme and very problematic cases of hypermasculinity, abuse. now, i don't know if it's directly related to sexual violence within the armed forces, for example, but it seems to me a pretty obvious connection. there's also the link to toxic leadership that we quite often consider quite acceptable because they are usually quite effective. they create the kind of units that perform according to the standards at the end of the day. why should we fire them if they're effective as officers. while actually they are producing unit cultures that in the end may become really problematic. in all kinds of ways. and there are some, again, some experiences from iraq and afghanistan with the worst cases of units' misbehavior leading to war crimes, for example. we have the business literature, the civilian literature out there supporting us more and more. that doesn't mean so much, though. because, again, we are looking at combat that doesn't apply because warfare is something completely different. if the business community is improved by general inclusivity that doesn't apply because warfare is something completely different. you can always dismiss that. but that's very clear, though. we are seeing the same thing within diplomacy and negotiations and humanitarian affairs that if you have gender lenses, if you conduct gender desegregated analysis, you'll do it more effectively. so one might assume that applies to the military affairs and intelligence gathering as well. unless it's so unique that it doesn't again, right? we can also obviously look at the impact on noncombat units. and that's most of the studies we have from the past. there's no serious indicators that it ruins it. if there were -- and sometimes you hear this. that we all know that it doesn't work. you can't mix men and women. and we all know what happens, sex and love and what have you. so it ruins unit cohesion effectiveness, et cetera. now, we've had decades of integrated units. if they have performed so poorly and no one said anything, that would be -- you know, shouldn't they be on trial for misleading the country in such an important way. we are talking about direct combat support units who are absolutely crucial to those fighting on the front lines. and, by the way, that distinction these days in modern warfare is pretty ridiculous anyway. we have plenty of experience of integration of combat units internationally, as well. so far, and megan would know much more about this than me. but what i'm seeing in my own research is what would be referred to or dismissed as anecdotal these days because we don't have enough cases to make it really quantitative. but we're seeing very little negativity in those studies. what you hear, first of all, is usually it's an absolute non-issue. it doesn't matter at all. she performed the job great, became one of the guys. i don't see why sex or gender has anything to do with it. now, that's the first reaction. but when you prod them a little bit, they will actually acknowledge that it is an issue. that it had an impact on the unit, that you had to resolve certain issues. love, sex, again, it happened. but those are not the worst things that can happen to a unit and a good leader can tackle those issues just as any other challenge that many of these units come up with. so it is an issue. and i think we should, again, be aware. rather than being gender blind, let's be gender aware. let's adjust leadership so we can tackle those issues that might arise. you also hear really interesting stories of improved effectiveness from inclusivity or gender integration. one being that men overperform when there's women around. so they get better when there's women around. they don't want to lose to women, for example. i don't know about that. i think more importantly, you hear lots of stories about a matured culture within the unit. and again, we have the diversity dimension that with more backgrounds, more experiences, you become a more effective problem-solving unit avoiding the group think. so there's -- it's a bit of a mixed bag. but it's looking very positive. and as i always highlight, you very seldomly hear from this anecdotal evidence the opposite, that i served with women and it really didn't work, it ruined the unit, et cetera. you hear that from the people who have first of all never served in a military unit but are very vocal about how military units should function because they've seen it in movies. but also the people within the organization who have never actually served with women, or with women in combat. and again, of course, that's pretty rare. but there's a staggering amount of people who have served with women. and you would think that those stories would seep out more than in the angry commentator fields and in the professional journals, that some of them would step up for the sake of the country, for the sake of the organization if it's such an important issue to defend the existing effective organization. but we don't have that. and that to me is very encouraging. men's attitudes towards women as a key factor. i thought that was absolutely astonishing and in so many ways provocative and also, i would say, accurate. it was a way of saying what i've been trying to get for a long time. and that also raises issues about bigger consequences, perhaps, of integration, as well. it's not just a nonissue. it's not just about preserving the existing culture and order. it might be something more fundamental, that it has an impact when you mix men and women. but it can be an incredibly positive and rewarding process for our armed forces. and let's study that as well. let's try and study the improved impact as carefully as we try and find the negative impact these days. and i'll stop there. there's so much i'm sure john and mary will cover as well. >> thank you, robert. that advances the discussion pretty beautifully. because i think it does indicate that too often we ask the wrong question. frequently we ask, how do we avoid hurting the force by doing this. and that's implied sometimes as much as it is explicit. and i think the real question we ought to be asking ourselves is how do we improve the force. i think it's fair to say there's an deaver -- a sphere of human endeavor that has not benefited from extending the opportunity to join in that endeavor to all those who are qualified regardless of gender or any other characteristic. this feels to me like a case like that. and you're suggesting that it is. but you raise a couple of important questions, both of you do. and i want to turn to john and mary beth about those questions. and john, i think, you can speak to this with great credibility. is combat, as robert asked, so different from every other sphere of human endeavor that these rules don't apply? john, you had the experience of -- you're a ranger qualified infantry officer. you had the experience of leading, really training and leading an almost new combat formation into some of the heaviest and most sustained combat the army's experienced since the vietnam war. so of all of the folks who can talk about this, you know, i think you're certainly one of them. from your perspective, given that experience, do you feel that having access to a talent pool of women for your unit would have improved your performance? would you have some concerns as a line leader about that? how do you think it might have improved your performance in the close fight? >> yeah. so first off, i just want to say that my views here today are my own, don't represent the department of defense or the maryland national guard. but to answer your question -- >> thanks, john. i should have said that up front. >> you know, no shit. there i was fall of 2008 deploying to afghanistan with my rifle platoon to the korengal valley, the most kinetic company sector in the war on terror. and my platoon was at 75% strength. so when you ask would my platoon have benefitted if we had opened up a greater pool of talent to draw from? i think the answer is yes. so why was my platoon under strength? so we trained up for a year before deploying and we lost people. we lost people because of injuries. we lost people because of, you know, drugs, discipline issues. and as many recruits as we would get into our unit as we were building up strength, we'd continue to lose folks. and so we never got to 100% strength and then we were sent into this crucible. so while we kind of kicked out some folks and didn't bring them with us, there were folks we took overseas that maybe i kind of regret taking them with us. they weren't necessarily physically fit enough to do the job. to be an infantry man in the army, you need to be a male and pass, you know, the bare minimum of the pt test. so that is a standard that applies across the board. and it's not differentiated whether you're a light infantry man in the mountains of afghanistan or a cyber guy or gal here at ft. meade. and so when i think about the, you know, the women that are competing or going through, you know, ranger school right now. you know, made it through wrap week. you know, i don't think that 42% of my platoon could've made it through rap week that i deployed with. that? that's a pretty tough challenge. and so to open up the field to have like the best people possible i think would have been a value added. because going to the point that, robert, you were making about, you know, we idealize the band of brothers and we idealize unit cohesion, certainly i served with a lot of just outstanding human beings. and i thought that our unit overall performed at a very high level. but, you know, not every infantryman is, you know, audie murphy or john rambo, right? you have folks like that out there. and i served with some individuals who were heroes. but there's other folks that, you know, are just kind of barely skating by. and so when we think about, you know, bringing in, you know, women into an infantry unit like that, i think in the popular debate it's always we're thinking, oh, you're going to replace, you know, john rambo with jill rambo or whatever. and she could never, you know, keep up. but that's simply not the case. right? i think that a lot of women would be able to perform at that same level. at least certainly well enough to have been a value add overseas. getting to some of that discussion about cohesion and what did it take to build cohesion. we did focus in my unit on kind of task-driven cohesion as much as possible. you're leading a bunch of 18, 19-year-old kids. and you know, you try to make being squared away, you know, doing your job, make that what it is to be cool, right? so these young soldiers emulating their squad leaders, looking up to them, they're role models for them. and you make being physically fit, being competent at your job, you know, what it means to be a good soldier. and those young soldiers want to emulate their elders and follow in their path. and i think we worked at a really high level. now, going to the idea that is combat different than working in a business environment. i do think that at least the stress that my unit was put under in afghanistan was much higher than the stress you'd find in, you know, a civilian occupation. and so we were really tested. and, you know, there are times when individuals weren't able to kind of keep up. we had a number of soldiers that would go home on r & r and they wouldn't come back because they were, you know, scared. they were suffering from ptsd. there was, you know, a lot of issues. and you had other soldiers who were suffering but, you know, were toughing it out and kind of did not seek care because they knew that their friends were out there. that if they left, you know, we'd all be a soldier down. so that level of stress and the level of cohesion you need to maintain kind of -- just maintain in the face of that level of adversity is much greater than what i've found now. but most of my experience in the military was not, you know, the korengal valley. right? and there were times in afghanistan that, you know, weren't necessarily hell. so, yeah, you want the most cohesive unit possible when you're going into high-intensity combat like that. but i think that most of the techniques and leadership skills that you would use in the civilian sector and the way you can kind of have a broad base of support and reach out to a broad community of people works in the military, as well. >> thank, john. and to that question, i think, too, mary beth, you led a company of marines on certainly not an office retreat. the invasion of iraq in 2003. can you speak to what that experience was like for you and some of the leadership challenges you may or may not have had? and i think also possibly speak to this larger question of -- i'm continuously fascinated by the way we look at this as if we're diving into an unknown world that we have not in any way experienced in terms of having women in direct fire combat. does that strike you as accurate? or maybe something's been going on for the last 15 years? >> yeah. for sure. it is interesting that we approach this as though this is the first time we're dealing with this issue. when i see so many faces in this audience, some of them familiar to me. we've been doing this for an awfully long time. the difference, i hope, between my experience on active duty and the experience of the young women i see in the audience is i hope you won't have to fight so hard to get there. when i was on active duty and i served from '99 to 2007 as a combat engineer officer, i was in a field that was open to women, but there were a number of units within the combat engineer field that were not open to women. so i could only do 2/3 of my job. i was barred from training in a whole third of my occupational specialty. i wasn't allowed into that part. so we fought everywhere we went. we fought to train. and i'll actually say i may say "i" while i'm talking here, i was, actually, the only woman in my combat engineer platoon. so it was very much me fighting as a woman to get these training opportunities. but everywhere i went, i had things closed to me because i was a woman and closed to my platoon because i was a woman and i wasn't allowed to lead them to certain places. so, you know, one example, i had an opportunity to take my platoon to bridgeport, the mountain warfare training center with a company of combat -- a combat engineer company which was closed to women. so there were no women there. i had an opportunity to train with them with my platoon for a month and do their mountain warfare training package. i was told no by a number of people. fortunately, my commanding officer was not one of them. so i'll come back to that common theme as i go through. i had some pretty amazing leaders. so despite being told no by several people, i did it anyways. and everybody survived, we did great. and the nice thing was, you know, being able to compete with the men up there -- and i wasn't in competition with them. but being able to keep up with them and excel on that mountain, it said something. and those 200 men that walked away from the experience, having seen a woman complete those tasks, left having a different idea about women. and i'll admit that for the first couple of days i was a distraction to them. i can't deny that. they were fascinated by me. like i was some weird alien creature. what is she going to do next? how is she going to do this? and i'll have to watch the whole time to find out. they were really, really ed fascinated by me. but they got over it. but they got over it really fast and the rest of the month went extremely smoothly. and i built some incredible bonds, amazing relationships through that experience. fast forward a little while to a combined arms exercise in 29 palms where i was an engineer platoon commander. and we were organized at that time. they were trying a wonderful experiment where they organized all the engineers into a pool, male, female, no matter what part of the engineer field we were in, they put us in a common pool and farmed us out to the units that needed them. i was essentially detached from my parent unit and put into an engineer pool to be used wherever engineers were needed. well, when they tasked out my platoon, they forgot i was the platoon commander and tasked me to a light armored reconnaissance company that was headed out to the field for a week into, you know, to practice to train for combat. so i showed up all bright-eyed and cheery with my platoon of all men. and immediately, the platoon sergeant for the l.a.r. company said, you can't come with us. i mean, there's -- i wouldn't want you to get in trouble. you know, there's this combat exclusion rule that says that women can't train with combat units. and i said, wow, no kidding. [ laughter ] what time do we go? because i'm what you've got and i'm here and this is my platoon and guess what. i'm coming with you. and again, for the first couple of days i was out there with them, i will admit, i think i was a distraction to those guys. but they got over it so quickly. and we went on to have an amazing week in the field, built lifelong relationships with those guys, and boy, we had some great laughs about it over a few beers at the club afterwards. just them getting over that process. so fast forward a little bit more to kind of the culmination of my career, i think, which was the invasion of iraq. i was a company commander. we were in kuwait ready to cross the border. i crossed the border with the 3rd infantry division, actually, with the first units that went across. and the days before, all of a sudden a colonel who will remain unnamed realized that i was a woman and thought this is going to be a problem. and he told me i would not be able to take my company across the border and that i would be replaced after being a company commander for nine months and training my company and doing all the prep work that needed to be done and being extremely well bonded with them and my platoon commanders. two days before the invasion of iraq i was told i couldn't go. that i was being pulled out of my unit and i'd be replaced by someone these marines had never seen. so again, fortunately, i was surrounded by amazing leaders and one of those leaders was my commanding officer. and he kind of did the "shh, it's okay," you know. and this time the fog of war worked for me. and they forgot. and i did it anyways. and it was great. and obviously me being a female did not hold me back from that mission at all. and so, you know, crossing the border was by far one of my proudest moments. second only to bringing everybody home and crossing the border back into kuwait safely afterwards. so yes, absolutely. i mean, this was -- this was 12 years ago now. this is not a new argument. women have been doing this for a long time and doing it extremely successfully, extremely proudly. i am so proud to be counted among them and among you in the audience here. the ones who have gone before me. and juliette snuck out, but i owe a special thanks to her. as a combat engineer female and one of the first. she busted through that glass ceiling and made a nice neat hole for me to climb through with my compatriots. so i appreciate that. the key was great leadership all along the way. the key was not whether or not i was strong enough to do it. i was. that helped me. but the key was always that i had terrific leaders who trusted in me and trusted in my ability to lead my marines and that was all that mattered. i love what john said earlier, just kind of listening, he didn't say this explicitly, but just kind of listening, we've broken this down now over the course of the day to being so much about the physical standard. and truthfully, and not to discredit the research here, but -- or draw attention away from it, but i'd like to keep the focus on that. because i honestly think that's the only thing holding us back anymore. and it's not going to hold us back very much longer for women. women have figured it out for an awfully long time. and once the standards are thoughtfully made -- maybe they're there now. i'm not an expert on that. once they're thoughtfully made, women are going to figure out a way to do that. and that needs to be the last barrier. because the talk about any other surrounding issues is gone. we've proved that. my generation proved that many years ago, and the generation, i mean, i've got two rangers sitting in the audience. female rangers. women who went through the ranger course sitting with me. and it's amazing. sorry. i don't know the exact term there. but we've done amazing things. women have done amazing things. and i think that the focus should be on what the true barriers are left. which aren't very many. >> thank you. that's a really, really inspiring story. and you talk about decisions made on the basis of what's good for an organization. as you were telling your story, john and i were sort of sharing a look like, i can't think of anything dumber than switching out a high-performing line combat leader two days before the invasion of iraq because of gender. >> right. >> i mean, my god. so i think your company's very, very lucky that didn't happen. at this point, i think we want to open it up to a conversation with the room. i'm sure there's plenty to discuss. would anyone like to jump in? we have microphones orbiting positions. >> major head. army national guard. i had a question that mary just actually touched on. as we were -- as i was talking to mari here and the researchers too, do you see it more as a generational gap, that as we