Whites parents. I sat in the room, which had been ashleys in the spring of 2012 im sorry am a 2013. I asked them about their daughter. They started telling me about this mission they had done and the kind of person she was. What became very apparent was that it was not her death that had to find her, but her life. And that she was one of those rare people who never talk to you about what she could do. He simply let her actions speak for themselves and one of those people who was much happier doing her job and going home to her husband the doing her job and telling you about everything she just done. And in the corner of the room were reset i saw a piece of paper with all written in black letters you are my motivation. And i thought if somebody can have that left of the gravesite more than a year after the past then we should really know who that somebody was. As it turned out there was this whole team of women that had done this extraordinary thing. They had answered the call to serve not once, but twice. I focused specifically on asking her team because ashleys death was the moment that drew this program that was really built in the shadows much more into the public spotlight. It was also because of who she was. The call went out. More than 200 people answered the initial packet. This is made 2011. Mayy. Women were chosen after the hour of help at camp mccall at fort bragg. These women were chosen in march or may, trained in june or july and deployed by august. They were seeing the kind of combat that less 5 of the u. S. Military sees. Men that were on their 10th 11th, and 12 deployments. Some of these rangers alongside whom they served with ashley served with if you had added up the number of months theyve been a battle with adam to three or four years straight. You can imagine some of the skepticism they greeted them when they brought in people that were on a different training cycle, difference election process, and by the way they are female. What surprised me about so much of what i learned was that battle hardened soldiers, the finest and fittest, fighting alongside many these women considered the greatest honor their career, they welcomed the women who were coming. A. B. Not initially by the end. As long as they delivered each night and paid the rent we wanted them out there. Some ranger said we should of had them on my fourth and fifth and six appointed, not my 10th 11th and 12. So i think so much of the conversation has been what were the mens reaction. Often times, i surprised people by saying if they could help them find the things in individuals that they were seeking, that was the most important. What has led admiral olson general mcchrystal and others to put it this call for female soldiers was not a social nicety or a general gender normally. It was a battlefield the sesame. Male soldiers cannot access the phenyl soldiers they did speak with. That was the driving source force came in from the request. We need women out there because if he cannot talk to half the population you are missing things that are out there. You are missing people that are out there. That was what led to the call that said phenyl soldiers become part of history. What has impressed me is that no matter what year or class they served, there is a bond we have almost never gotten to see among female Service Numbers. Which is because they were recruited as a team and trained as a team and employed is seen even though they were going out to different bases and once in twos. They have a spirit of bonding and thats that ive never seen among the most Service Numbers or as a country i think weve had the seat had the chance to see. What is remarkable about them is if you read the end of band of brothers he talks about the reason he wrote that book was the way in which the soldiers interacted with one another. I would say the same thing. They are each others divorce counters, theres counselors career advisors and professors and the biggest boosters imaginable. Only they know what they have seen and experienced. As long as they live, i do not think anybody else will understand what they did, what they saw, with experienced and how much it meant to them. I got to a point about a month and right alike i could answer almost every question i was being asked because i felt like it was a script. This is the best job i ever had. These are the people that mean the most to me. I would have done this over and over again if they let me. This was the mission that matter. For me, this whole story is not about politics. It is about purpose. And it is a hero story that we have not yet heard as a country. It is and we really should. It is about people who only wanted to do something that matter at the center of an incredibly long more, doing a mission that had real value some of the most important people deciding what happened in this work and people who only wanted to serve alongside the best of the best. And this was their chance. You the finest, the fittest, the most fears, and the most feminine women who enter that call to serve because what they had to do, particularly on the night operations was shown the heat of battle that they were female. They would go to the house, deal with what the rangers would clear or whatever happened on the mission and then the women would go up to deal with women and children they were working with a quickly take up allison show they were women take off their helmets and show they were women. Its really hard to know who was male and female under armour and night vision. So this to meet was the story about the team that came to love one another and their mission and the ways that we as a country have not seen. And really were by and large excepted by people who simply wanted to get off target and complete the mission and the best way possible. And i did feel very strongly particularly in the case of ashley white, this was somebody who had made a mark that nobody paid attention to. Upon her death, the tenant general mulholland goes to her small town in ohio and said make the mistake about this. These women are warriors. They have set a standard for what it means to be a female in the United States army, the finest army in the world. And he talked in a very public and very moving way about what they had done and why it mattered. The next day at her funeral, the Ranger Regiment gets up and gives the speech about the man in the arena which many of you will know. And said this is written for a man, but he couldve been written for this female soldier. And he said ashley, you are a ranger your ranger brothers will be out there continuing the mission. You will not be forgotten. No one in this book is spoke of me did it because they they should do anything that had that should be remembered. They spoke with me because they did not want their teammates forgotten. Because ashley whites obituary led with she was a number of the north or lannett national guard. But her mother said that is not which he died doing. He died doing on a mission she believed in alongside the best of the best and we are incredibly proud. So all of that was behind the story of how i came to write this book and the two last thing going to leave you with on the book, and then a camera to talk to you in this panel, is that this was an Incredible Team of allstars. It was not just ashley steen. Team. First of all, youre going to look around and you wont be able to believe your eyes. Theyre all these incredible powerful women that we do not know where serving in the United States. Second of all, and her team you had the west point track start. Another west pointer who played High School Football for years and i they wanted to stop after the first year but they said people told her she cannot play football she continued playing. Concussion be damned. She did not want to give anyone the satisfaction of being right. You had one formal intel officer who served in bosnia who helped the fbi bust drug gangs in pennsylvania. You had another guard member on her third deployment in the war on terror. You had another soldier who are driven trucks in iraq. All these people wanted to be here more than they wanted the any other mission they had ever done. At the end of the first weekend of interviews i did with the white family, i asked mrs. White what would it mean to you if a little girl told you she wanted to be on be like ashley. She paused. And she said it would mean everything. And she said there was a woman at the funeral this entire special Operations Community attended. There were hundreds of people all ages vietnam veterans, korea veterans, little children with their hands in prayer lining the street. They all can to salute First Lieutenant ashley white with her husband who was her rotc can stay sweetheart who would always pushed her to be the best she could. And this woman came up to mrs. White at the end of two days of ceremony. They just put red roses on her casket and she came up and said mrs. White, you do not know me but i brought my daughter here today. And i brought my. Here today because i wanted her to know what hero was. And that is why the story matters. There are hero stories all around us we do not see any knowledge and this was one way to offer a small salute to people who have served in sacrificing given so much and you really are the heroes story we do not yet know and need to. Thank you so much. I look forward to the conversation here. [applause] lemmon i would just like to get in the line. Tell us your name and your mission and what years you were there. Flex is this on . Kleinman i was in the group that took over for ashleys group. Both the other question . Lemmon what mission you are doing . Kleinman malloy i was part of csd five. I was part of village stability missions. Marquez i was on ashleys mission. I was in a group of volunteers to go out. There are a few here for might operations as well. It is hard to listen to talk about ashley. I see people getting emotional in the audience and im like hold it together. I did the bso omission. Lemmon what attracted you to the mission and who first told you about it . Malloy i wanted to go and my commander would not let me. Lemmon you needed it was a oneyear mission. He needed to get signoff from your commander because they would be they would be down one person. Malloy eventually my commander have a to be gone for a month and i got might xo [laughter] lemmon that is innovative leadership. Malloy she signed off on it and a couple of months later i was up for selection. What drove me to do it . Added three previous to plymouth and iraq. Deployment in iraq. I did not realize there was the gender issue as far as i was the only female on most of them as a medic. They basically just yank me from whatever unit i was at and said we need medics on this mission. In the fourth infantry am a second appointment, one of the other infantry battalions needed medicine medics to search females. They were like you can keep up and youre a medic so the just pulled me right in. No issues there it i went to work and i was professional and they were professional. I served as a medic with route clearance. Which officially is a position that is offlimits to females. Again, they needed medics. They cannot leave without one. I got pulled for that. Shortly after i came back i started hearing the whole think about the, exclusion. And i was like combating solution . Exclusion . I been doing this for a while now. I started hearing stories from friends of mine. She told me about it. She talked about the sisterhood and how these wonderful things these girls were doing and the opportunities we would have. I jumped on it as soon as i could. It was an awesome opportunity. Lemmon i would do it again in a heartbeat, ive probably heard 750 times in the past two years. That is because it was how much everyone missed that mission. They were people willing to take their careers and just keep doing this mission alongside special operations. Im sure there were tons i did not have the opportunity to meet. It was like one after the other. This was the thing that meant the most. There are two things that would you pick up on. The medics that i met, long before there was a program there was we need a female to go out tonight. You are coming out with us. I met 70 people who had gone on these missions and were just so would glad to see it institutionalized. One medical me a story about her commander said he went to go out and get back guys . I knew the answer was yes. She left her base and i think within a week and a half was out on alongside the rangers going on these missions. The second i would pick up on was the combat exclusion policy. One secretary panetta announced the lifting of the policy it was an epilogue in the book. Five months Later Special operations of the press conference and he cited all of the. The general at the time said these women of the cst may well have laid the groundwork for ultimate integration. And specifically cited the cultural support teams work. As a writer i was like oh no, everyone is going to discover the story. But the truth is no one was paying attention. There was direct credit. Obviously there are so many people on the shoulders on each of you stand. That history is there partly thanks to lori manning. I think it was really important to know that you will were single that. Singled out. Can you talk about why you wanted to do it . Did you know immediately know you wanted to do that mission . Kleinman we were both in the air force and my husband was trying to convince us to switch to the army. He said you can go out with operators but you got to switch to the army. I said that is ridiculous. That is not going to happen. That is crazy. He actually flew Reconnaissance Aircraft that would provide overwatch for the teams in the ground. Im telling you, there are women on the team. I can hear them on the radios. I told him he was full of shit. He would give me instructions and i said they would never let me go. I said as an air force reservist this is crazy. About two weeks later we got a email at the air force boss special Operations Command asking for volunteers for air force women assigned specifically. It turned out to me a onetime thing. I was lucky that i volunteered for that. I got the email on a wednesday and then on monday i did the army pfp. Then i submitted my package on wednesday and it took off from there. Lemmon how long before you were deployed . Kleinman i want to say to selection about a month later and then went to training too much after that and was out the door another too much after that. Two months after that. It happened really quickly but it was a little bit of a process. I had this weird cognizant dissidents going on. Im not good to be in combat. The objective will be security for they bring us in. My husband was like he did not know what youre talking about. I can see the group moving and there no rearguard that comes up afterward [laughter]. I do not think it was until is running to the helicopter that i know youre talking about. Lemmon everybody had that moment. You are all familiar with that line which. Language. One of the gals who is telling me a story by the first night at the book open to the mission that ashley was on. One of the gals telling me about it walked in after the First Reading and said this shit is serious. Its about how quickly it all happened. You know youre going to be there, but there is still that moment later like you are like kleinman we would always talk about how you would be with the platoon leader and be separate from the element. You will not be with the people in front. At the time we were like the platoon leader is right there and 20 feet back. But for some reason we had got into the whole combat exclusion thing. We were telling us ourselves we will not actually see combat. Lemmon and the reality was . Kleinman there were not bullets flying directly at me but it was 50 feet, one of your feet away. 100 feet away. The jag before he went into theater said listen, you are not assigned to Ground Combat troops. You are 10 feedback. Feet back. [laughter] kleinman and it was like oh, good to know. Rodriguez lemmon i always have been a best question of where did the name come from . The admiral said it was the best of a bunch of bad options. Cultural because it meant that was the whole reason for the request for forces. Support because he did not want people to think that we were already getting criticism. It was a backed away into frontline roles for women. And team because everything is special operations as a team. That is where the name came from. You have seen the missions now. It is hard you are so far back that is just not the way that that kind of comment happens. Combat happens. What led you to do this mission and what did it mean to you in hindsight . I was marquez my commander comes up to me one morning and says your scores are fantastic but i have bad news. He told me about my father on assignment and i was devastated because i wanted some thing exciting. I was not scheduled to deploy for another year and a half. I would be sitting on a base for a while. I did not want that. The following week becomes a do my classroom and says we need to talk. I think i am in trouble. He sits me down and says this flyer came across my desk asking for women to serve with special forces. I was like you were kidding. I thought he was joking for the longest time until the message came out. I started to apply. During the application process my Branch Manager to much denied me. And i felt like every Branch Manager about my coming commander was turning me down. I would like to metro area beth mary beth at this. We took it up to the Inspector General and finally my branch relieved me to do this mission. I had just graduated from the line which Court Language course right before going to selection. It was like i finally had a purpose. The military wasnt just being in the military and following everybody. Now i was able to be a pioneer in a program that had not started yet. I think the first group of girls were going to training as we were filling out our packets. It is this brandnew contest of putting women on these teams in training us and being able to go and fight on the front lines. To me it was exciting. When we finally got out of afghanistan, it was this world wind whirlwind of every thing about a be in every thing thought it would not be. Lemmon tell me more about what you thought it would not be. Well, you dont really know. There was a lot of gray area going through training. We were told our mission was supposed to be maybe this, we might be doing some of this, some of that, until you finally get out there and the team youre working with is like sit down, let us tell you how its done. And then youre like ok, im ready. An