professions. and i can show you how you look like. good morning everyone. good morning. good morning. good morning and >> good morning everyone. welcome to the kentucky book festival mainstage. i am a sophomore at the uk departmentnt our first guest from adelaide kentucky the first female marine from the fa 18 the country and baseball from the age of 12. >> in our next guest from the fbi and we counsel global experiences that shaped her life.

>> can you hear me? so amy will let me ask the first question thank you for everything you've done for our country and your service. for anyone whod follows you and all the little girls who can bllook at amy and not ask the question will i be able to do that can i fly that fa 18? they can say i can do that. and that is because of the me. so give her a big and for that. thank you. so my first question is for me and most t people in this room we are never going to fly and fa 18. the closest we will come and

is watching the new tom cruise movie he's noty really flying the plane. so i really want to know about what it's like to fly the fa 18. but i want to know viscerally. does it feel like you want to scream does your stomach went to come out of your throat? tell us what it is like. i want to know. >> first of all thank you for the kind introduction and before i tell everybody what it's like to fight the f-18 i want to say something very briefly about kathy. who spent allies for service to our country as well in the fbi and went all around the world and it's a very dangerous things for us. and was a trailblazer for me tbecause women in the 1980s and

early nineties going into these fields are not necessarily accepted and kathy when you read her book you will see just how hard it was for her and people like kathy that literally open the doors for people like me. i appreciate you and it's an honor to be standing next to you today. so what it's like to fly the f-18. number one you don't have a lot of time to stop and smell the roses. it's not like you are up there and like cowboy. your very intense. you constantly thinking and working. it's like health physically difficult that is will doing math problems in your head all

att the same time. when you get out of the jet you opened the hatch of the cockpit and then you are drenched have you ever walked out in the sat or the act and your brain is fried? that's what it's like after you fly a combat mission. that and your body it's like walking off of the soccer field or the basketball court. it is exhilarating and the best job on the face of the earth because it is so challenging in your mind and in your body and the best part is when you do a training mission flying into las vegas and you pull up next to matthew mcconaughey private jet and he walks out in the

cockpit you think mine is better than yours. [laughter] that is the best part. [laughter] but thathe is always after you have done the mission it is notemely intense there's much timeme to think. >> that you can look over at matthew mcconaughey to say im way cooler than you will ever be. >> think kathy and i have a lot of in common you both krupp and kentucky and left home going into very male-dominated environments and careers and national security alexandria virginia and training at quantico but we both had a dream at a very young age and i wanted to ask you because you talk about it in your book how did that come about in your book?

like kentucky, you knew deep down you wanted something else. can you talks about that quick. >> i have to say is a little girl growing up on a big farm, that i discovered the rest of the world through books and to me, books are everything i learned through books there is a lot out there and i was determined to see it. so the w stories take me to other places and that is what gave me the adventurous about and for some reason, probably my mom watching her and the fact she didn't have many choices she grew up in a time there were no choices. i wanted choices in my life so i was determined i would do something that other women did

not get to do or what to do one —- want to do and apply to the state department that i just missed testing date because i was told that working for our government and i dids go out very patriotic because my father was in world war ii and he did not talk about it but i distinctly remember my father saying long before a catchphrase the last few years freedom is not free. and another thing my father did that made me think and i think about it when i watch tv series and the main charactergh standing at night after the horrific dayf and says i want to find myself a quiet little

farm and watch things grow. and i i said daddy why do you stay ind hawaii after the war? he said i wanted to find a quiet place where i can watch things grow. that really hit me because i knew that was his patriotism talking but at the same time it's what he wanted so i grew up with that feeling to be a patriot. that's why i ended up with a government agency. so in a nutshell. that is it. >> when you read the book you hwill see she has so many amazing stories from her training all over the world of india and china and the stories are so details my question is did you have a journal? how did you remember? >> no. most of the work i do is classified and words and

phrases don't forget the monkey story. things likemo that. but i have a pretty good memory. if i had a word or phrase to jog my memory then that is how i ended up writing the book. which brings me to a chapter in my book it's called the ngflight i'm talking about sri lanka and the suicide bomber case and she was a woman in my thought was what did she believe in so much she was willing to die? in the end i asked the question what is it that each one of us believes in so much we were die for it? a recent interview someone said are you advocating suicide bombers? know. that's not what i'm asking. what do you believe in?

all those who marched for the right for women to vote and all those who marched for civil rights. they did not know they would come back he had no idea if he would be killed in the process. althen it hit me, we ask our military to go to the same thing. we ask our soldiers to walk out the door and go fight for something that we believe then. so how do you resolve that within yourself knowing you're going on a combat mission? they think in my going to come back or just you had to go fight for something he believed in? >> i think for me to five fighter jets and be in aviation in the military that is a terribly dangerous job whether you are at war or

peace. if you're the kind of person that wants to go into the field, you have to make peace with that early on in training. i have lost friends. and most of my friends and i have lost along the way were not lost in combat. only a couple. two or three. of the ten friends of mine that are no longer with us most were killed in aviation mishaps. and when you look at that, some of that, none of it was their fault. they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. the machine did not work. we are doing really dangerous stuff. and is something that you recognize in the very

beginning not everybody was to do this but our country needs people to do it. and i'm willing to do it if i lose my life in the process and then to look back on that time in my life and that is what i have always felt. obviously you never want that to happen but it's something you make peace with early on. but i want to ask you about your training i alluded to in the beginning that you are going through training in a male-dominated environment in the 1980s. and when you read a book you will realize people literally tried to sabotage her training because she was a woman.

i never experienced that. there are a lot of people who do not want me there but i cannot say somebody actually tried to sabotage my training actually tried to make me fail. can you talk about that? they bring that up because i feel there's a difference in one decade because i went to training in the 19 nineties she went in the 1980s even having one decade more of these fields i believe has actually changed how the federal agencies have worked because things were better i think they are better now for women than they were in the eighties and nineties. can you reflect on that quick. >> the chapter amy is talking about is my experience at

quantico he changed the sites on my gun so i could hit the target. i knew what he had done. i grew up in kentucky and i kept telling him my sites were off. he said no. just walk out now. you can't shoot. so being from kentucky i knew with the help of a west virginia state trooper who stood t behind me until the where my shots were going out to get through it but that was my first experience in the fbi. and i think over the years the fbi has evolved but one of the things i knew i was on the right path with 15 or 16 women who had filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the fbi because

those instructors at quantico are trying to sabotage their training. 2019. i thought to myself has it changed? really? yes. there are morere women in leadership positions, butt i think the fbi is still inherently male-dominated. and unfortunately a lot of the negative media they are getting is warranted especially with the young women, the young gymnast he went to the fbi to talk about their sexual assault and were ignored i personally think and just my opinion they were ignored because they were young women. so what i do now i have gotten so many e-mails from young women who want to join the fbi and this is what i say. you go into the fbi do not let it change you. you change it and the more

women and minorities that go into the fbi than the more it will change. because you said in the book and you said it so well. when men see women in the positions they are and they willan basically realize women are not minorities in can do the job. you said is so much better i am paraphrasing. but what she saidd was so true in what i tell young women is the truth more women and minorities need to be in the marines and in the military and fbi and then bring their influence into the organization it will change and stop being a misogynist male oriented organization so i say to all young women if you want to do this, go for everyone to be a marine or

fire jack, go for it. don't let it change you. you change the narrative. >> one of the things we both talked about in our books is our mother's and influence our mother's hat on m and you knew early on influence your mother had on you you start every day you are in our by her but i the other hand did not understand everything that my a mother had given me until i was an adult but i was very fortunate that the last several years of her life i got to spend time with her i got to know who she was as a person. not justwa my mom or somebody to be there when i walked in the door do you want a sandwich? that was my mom that i got to know her dreams as a person so tell me about the influence

r.your mother had on you and then you have a daughter. she is five. do you want to tell her everything you have done and accomplished? or do you want that influence to happen organically like with your mother? >> probably organically. my mother was a physician going to medical school one of the first to graduate university of kentucky at that time so i knew that about my mother i didn't know, jim so she had on other people until she got into a war at 11 and 12 years old so we went across the river and she accepted an award and got up in front of a

group which is for five times the size of the grouping gave an acceptance speech and here a.m. a preteen going to the very back and by myself to just watch and a woman came up next to me and said to me you doctor mcgrath starter late thirties or early forties and what you to know something your mother save my life. you oughtre to be proud of your mom. she is very special and you are special to be her daughter. and to me, that was the first time i ever really realized so my mother did have the big influence on me and later on going into the marine corps

certain things would happen and i weighed, like this happened. what do i do about it? should i i be worried? how do i get through this my mom would say they did the same thing to me and sixties. on. my mother helped me see all along the way even as an adult because she had been through it and then mail dominated environment in the sixties, i could basically plow through some things that may have stopped others. because mom said it's a big deal. move on. and with my daughter, one of the things i loved about both

my parents is they never made fun of me. i went d to a catholic school. i did certain things and not others. and they never said to me that is a dream that is not for you. and that is the way i want to be for both of my boys and girls no matter what they decide to do. let's get into some good hard questions but i have some technical ones. if you are like me the first thing i thought was fbi? why isri the fbi overseas? are they domestic? i wanted to know if you can touch on why the fbi is even overseas and then it occurred to me do i even know what counterespionage is? you did that.

so talk about the process of the fbi to take things out of your book because i had to go through similar process with mine through the department of defense where they look at it and say you have revealed classified information to you cannot say this. that did not strike anything out of my book which is great but she must've gone through something similar. you have black lines in there. and then they have to read anything and then send it to a certain unit if it is classified.

is not classified the general public doesn't necessarily need to know it. but where you doing that? they are everywhere but if you have the letter cia in your book andye they have to review the book and that could add months to your publication. i said forget it. it's a much longer answer but the fbi is overseas and over 70 offices based in the us embassies throughout the world if there is a nexus to the investigation and to china then i am the person who works

at the chinese government to get that information or evidence to get it back to the united states your investigation and vice versa. so the attaché is generally what you are doing and if there is o a case of terrorist bombing if they want the fbi to help with the investigation a make a formal request and if it is warranted and then they sent people over to the country and help them with the investigation. also there is a terrorist attack overseas and americans are killed and that is the fbi's jurisdiction.

and looking for spies that's what we do. and i like to say the fbi we hunt down the spies and the cia will make the spies. and iss it in a nutshell. >> in your book you talk about survival evasion resistance is skate training on —- escape training that is like a cakewalk be using the book that on page 167 you become like a pow during sere you resistant are you cannot resist any longer.

and then to come home alive with honor. and john mccain has been called the loser because he was a pow and sometimes the public looks at soldiers who are captured and then forced to read a statement and we know it's a lie but then to be perceived as a loser and that they were week forgiving in.

and then they are probably somebody so anybody shot down or captured so one of the things they train you to do it doesn't help theou country one sure captured to die in captivity. it doesn't help us it doesn't help the war effort if you come back in a body bag. and the goal is to survive. you don't want to give away state secrets. but uncle sam doesn't want you to die. they want you to survive you're not helping the war effort.

you are captured so do what you can to survive with honor. that means you're not doing everything on —- anything the enemy wants you to do with their torturing you to the point that you will do on —- you will die than survivor country will be okay with that. so they do it in a hard school called survival school about one of the hardest things i've ever done because it involves lack of food and sleep and physical contact. and as a senior officer and they do not get treated the best they get treated the worst. it wasas definitely an eye-opening experience but one of the things i loved about

john mccain the last talk he gave was us naval academy right before he passed away. and somebody asked him about honor. he was a pow for many years and those offered to get him out early because his dad was an admiral and said we can get you out months or years you will cut the line of all the other prisoners that we are releasing and get in front. and he said no. that is honor. right there. he stayed as a prisoner of were for many years because the rule was the other prisoners who were there longer got out first. andwh he said when asked why did you do that he said i could've gotten out. i may have died in captivity. but if i had gotten out early

how would i live the rest of my life? i would live the rest of my life with no one are. that's what they teach you the reason we have for political office because i felt i had to do something. i had to try. >> more people read amy's book because you actually show people if you are captured as a pow you do what you need to do to survive is a sign of strength. not weakness. i really hope that more people get that message from you and i don't know how we can make that and that opinion and perception is out there and i

know that you do to my to give you a chance to ask a few questions for five or ten minutes if you are major hand covering the microphone to you what is the most common questions so what would you

say is the most surprising question? >> why did you write your book? period that's the question i get asked the most. not tell me what's in the book or why did you write it? that's because if you look at bookshelves only one other female agent who retired as an tagent and that was over 20 years ago. >> if you could give her some advice what would you tell her? >> army or navy? >> i would tell her stick with it there would be good days and brown days on —- and bad days. that's i would tell her.

>> themm coming. >> of course i love it but i have a question but why do they call that position it sounds like you have to be a lawyer could you explain that a little bit? >> that is a question everybody has asked since the attaché offices were open. the department of justice actually sends attaché overseas as well and the doj attaché and the fda on —- the fbi said they have to have a different name so they came up

with legal attaché which makes no sense whatsoever because it still sounds like we are from the doj but not the same unit as the others but we went to headquarters and said can we change the name and it confuses everybody and then says it's too much trouble it's too much time into much money i'll take years. it is government efficiency at its best. >> what are the next projects? >> and then to write about obscure women from history. and i want especially women to

know about. i have a short list of women that i discovered in my tetravels. i want to write about those women because i want people to realize our history was built by women, not just men. writing about me was one thing another woman is another literally another story and created nonfiction so i can learn the craft of writing nonfiction about other people because is totally different. >> but i do like to write and op-ed's. so january 6 i actually wrote

not only an op-ed that took the manuscript and rewrote the last chapter. i scrapped it it was all into the publisher then january 6 happened andet i said i have to rewrite it. and then three or four op-ed's. and then to tie my experience and credibility and then to think about that with these little kids. and then to be focused on baseball lately.

>> i would like to ask either or both of you to stop the division? >> i think, we can do individually number one if we could a nokia later sells a little bit against misinformation to help others to get a nokia later on —- inoculated. ourry enemies are looking at what is happening in our country and then misinformation that is dividing us and that is what they are trying to push. and then never thought the capital would have been

breached and it has not since 1814 and we did it ourselves. and then i do to to raise at my hands. and it's more than just voting. you know about country and you have to. and to believe in the values that they have. why is that so important because it's about our ycountry. and with the patrioticti american.

>> and then to add what amy said about national security. and then in that particular area of expertise and while you're eating ourselves from within the chinese are going around the world and getting allies and buying up raw materials and they love the fact and then to fight with each other and not trying to understand how the other person things across the aisle we need to start understanding each other better anday the way that we can work together as a country again because if we don't china is circling into me that's our biggest threat. >> one more question.

>> the first part is what it is the example for the military or fbi? and as a result? and then the second part of the question and then to understand and connect with translators when they are open from females or others.

>> can you repeat the first question? >> what is an example of where males could recognize or respond to females from other cultures as a result of your trailblazing. >> and then in response to you in your career? >> this is true for all women in the military yes there were some jerks no doubt but by and large what i found and how men respected you and what i loved about the military was performance matters. can you put the bomb on the

target on time?.go you cannot mess with that. in kenya but that $70 million jet on the back of the aircraft carrier at night? i did it. can you do it? nobody else in the, cockpit cockpite with me once you have done some of these things can you make it through survival school the one that gets beat up the most? i did it can you do it? and then that are your peers say she's for real. the men who are your superiors are harder to change because they have neverpe had women peers. and it's not that they are bad people it's just that they

have never trained with a woman never had that experience to go on a 20-mile hike right next to their full three or they have been with men always in the back of their mind they are not quite sure but your peers who train with you get it. and you can change the dynamic of the culture when i first went into myno first fighter squadron allied of antics and locker room stuff but when i came back at a higher rank guess what cracks than of that happened. i wonder why because now i'm in charge. and what we t found out was guess what cracks the bomb still hit the target on time and the jets did not turn pink we still did our job without

the crap and we did a better. so that is my lesson to folks who integrate women and corporations and businesses and agencies that you can still be very professional without all the antics and performance matters. >> i agree. but when i progress up the ladder that's when i encountered men who did not want me to be there so when women are in those positions they will look at women and say now we are accustomed to seeing women in these positions they can do their job and they do it well all the other nonsense will go away. but i would like to say i am down with the pink jet that

with all the russians and the chinese off. thank you. [applause] thank you foro coming. it isre awesome. >> these are how many questions i wanted to ask her and in you i would never get to them. and then there's a way to get in contact to ask your own question. coming up next taking the stage. have a great day.

and i think this will be terrific if you have not read this wonderful book professor of psychology at the university of michigan one of the worlds leading. one of the lng