will they determine if none of these eight women in this small select group makes it that we're going to keep ranger school closed to all women forever? so i don't understand the assessment. what i would have liked to have seen was maybe the assessment was to look at gender neutral standards for ranger school but i think that the women are just being expected to meet the existing standards which are very high and well set and clearly published, so that's not necessarily problematic as long as the standards that were set are actually job related. so that's the army. now, the marine corps and the army have taken very -- kind of charted very different paths. they're different services and they have approached this i think with a different mindset, but i don't want to evaluate -- i'm just going to tell you what they've done and i'm going to

try to keep any kind of evaluation out of this. so the marine corps has done a bunch of different studies and research. they began with a -- actually, they began with the infantry officer course which they opened to women in 2012 and asked for volunteers. women, if you want to come to try out the infantry officer course, you're invited to attend. at the same time that they were doing that, they also began developing a set of combat proxy tests. the combat proxy test, they were six largely upper body based -- i should say upper body strength based proxy tests that they evaluated the performance of 409 women and 379 female marines against and what they found from this combat proxy test was that about -- well not about, but 66% of the very good performers were men and 34% were women, and then the highest performing categories, it was 92% were men and 8% were women. so this initial screening test that they developed showed that there was certainly a percentage of women that fell into the good

and the very good category, but -- and i thought that would have been the measure to open some of those combat branches to women in the marine corps, but it wasn't. in fact, i don't even know what they're doing anymore with the proxy test. they seem to have been discarded, but perhaps not. the second thing that they were doing, as they were doing the infantry officer course, they decided after a year into the officer infantry course, they were going to try it with the infantry training battalion for enlisted women marines. they would more than 330 women volunteer and they were very successful -- they were fairly successful in that now 120 women have graduated from the infantry training battalion course. unfortunately at the same time that women were graduating and being successful at itb, they were not successful at the infantry officer course. the marine corps had hoped to get 92 volunteers but that has not transpired. they only ended up with 29 women volunteers and none of the women were able to graduate from the course and last month they closed that research project and said we're not going to take any more women volunteers for the

infantry officer course. about a year ago, it was a year ago just about this month, they launched a very ambitious -- initial it was called an experiment, then it became a research project. it's the ground combat element integrated task force, and the reason that i was told they were doing this, and i went down and i sat down with the marine corps. they've been very generous with a lot of their information. why they were doing the ground combat element integrated task force was because they believed although there were women now graduating from itb, they didn't think that itb might necessarily have been the best measure of future performance or long-term performance because what they know is that some marines get out into the fleet and they aren't very successful even if they've been through itb, so they said we really need to be able to measure or examine women over time, and so they created this task force. they actually recruited and trained a bunch of marine women

to do all these combat branch requirements and then they assigned them to this task force and they're training them for about nine months and they're examining how they progress through this nine months of training. one of the problems with the training though is that they quickly discovered that some of their collective tasks were not very well defined. so how are you determining how well or how successful women are against collective tasks if the collective tasks aren't well defined? they said we're going to set collective tasks at the same time we're studying women because then it will be gender neutral. but as they progressed down this path, what they've done is actually peel out groups of all male teams and then varying groups of mixed gender teams and they're comparing the performance of these teams against each other which to me looks like a competition of all-male teams against varying levels of female teams, and the problem with that is that these

women are brand new to these occupations. they were just -- they're right out of the school, and the males in the teams may have had -- likely have had a lot of time performing in those occupations so it wouldn't surprise me at all if teams with women aren't going to perform as these seasoned teams of men. they were going to try to mitigate against that by assigning newly trained men to these all-male teams and hopefully they've done that and the results will be fair and they will actually measure or set some gender neutral standards. so that's been the army's approach, then the marine corps' approaching and now i will give you the experts' approach. >> just before we move to sue for a moment, one -- as ellen said, one of the things -- one of the issues has been the transparency with what they are trying to measure here, and as the reporter from "the christian science monitor's" question in

the last session noted, when you go down there and watch it, it's not exactly clear. so, sue, please include within your presentation a little bit about the transparency of the canadian process as well, if you would. >> sure. well in canada we've moved for quite some time towards job specific testing. so just so we're clear on what job specific tests are, they're work -- >> move your mic maybe, maybe move it up your lapel. >> can you hear now? >> do you want to use mine? >> do you want to try this? >> it's on.

>> testing. >> it works. >> well then maybe i just need to move it right up. can you hear now? no? >> speak a little louder. >> i'm just going to hold it. so in canada we have moved towards job specific testing for quite some time. employing -- job specific tests are work or task simulations meant to be representative of the major aspects of work duties or tasks performed on the job, and these can be mainly divided into two groups. discrete tasks to evaluate critical job elements or those that are applied as a circuit, and in canada we actually employ both methods, so our common military fitness standard that

all service personnel must meet are comprised of four discrete tasks. there's a sandbag lift, intermittent loaded shuttles, 20 meter rushes and a casualty drag. in contrast if we're assessing the annual fitness levels of some of our more physically demanding occupations, we tend to move towards circuits. so an example would be how we evaluate our firefighters on an annual basis. they are required to complete ten task based circuit of simulated work tasks done in a continuous manner in full firefighting gear while breathing through a self contained breathing apparatus because that's reflective of how the job is performed. the standard would be the time take ton complete the circuit which would be representative of the body of work that's performed on the job. so how do we set our standards? well, we certainly do not use a

normative data approach and for quite some time we have been using subject matter experts who view test performance either through videos that we make or during standardized work samples, and having them rate performances either acceptable, minimally acceptable or unacceptable. this is recognized in the scientific literature as being an acceptable approach because they're familiar with what constitutes effective job performance and also critical job behaviors. so using the context of the canadian law which is a little different, it states the standards must be set at the minimal requirements for the safe, effective, and efficient performance of the job. so standards is set where the rating of performance and transitions from being minimally acceptable to unacceptable. we have very clear definitions

as to what constitutes acceptable versus unacceptable. acceptable is working at a rate consist went the successful completion of the essential job components. important elements are safe, it's working in an efficient manner that does not endanger one's self, co-workers, or the public. performed with a sense of purpose consistent with accomplishing the task and does not require intervention by a supervisor. so then on the other hand if we're talking about unacceptable performance it would be a rate of work that's not consistent with the successful completion of the job task, unsafe either working too fast or too slow which would endanger one self, a co-worker, or the public, and task performance requires intervention by a supervisor. if we talk about minimally acceptable work, it's a rate consistent with the successful completion, however any slower rate would be considered unacceptable, and in this case -- we try to get as many job incumbents to complete the job specific tests as possible so we get a really nice range in distribution of scores.

when we're taking a look at the general military population, we see a very normal distribution. we have less fit people that perform poorer, and they have fitter people that obviously are going to perform better on the fitness test. but as we move towards more physically demanding occupations, we see that the performance scores are more homogeneous. these physically demanding occupations have high fitness standards to get in so you're cutting off part of the tail of the distribution and so your performance scores are a tight bend. we need to take that into consideration when we're developing these videos and showing these videos to subject matter experts to ensure we have videos of performances that are outside this narrow band because it is quite possible that the minimally acceptable performance could be outside the range of scores that the job incumbents are performing. so i think that's a really crucial step. so now when we go about developing these videos, we tend to do so under the guidance of a senior and very well experienced subject matter expert that is

not only well versed in the task performance, has performed this task very recently either as part of a mission or operational training but also has experience in a supervisory role so they know when performance would require an intervention or not and that's a key point also. so during the actual filming, this senior individual or subject matter expert also provides guidance to us to ensure that the tasks that are being incorporated in the video are being performed correctly because the last thing you want to do is create a video and then have one of the tasks being performed correctly and then our subject matter experts are saying we'd never have performed the task that way and they lose focus of the working group which is to set the standard based on minimally acceptable performance. we send to use an actor. this way if someone that's on the subject matter expert panel, if you were to use a job incumbent, there's the potential that person could be recognized and then you're already bringing in an inherent bias. either you like the person or

you don't or you think they're a good performer, poor performer and that can influence where you set your ratings. we use an actor that no one knows and we try to ensure that the same -- that we have the -- the actor has the same an throw more fixes of the incumbents. you wouldn't want to put someone 4'11" in your video because it would be a distraction. we produce multiple video was a wide range of cases, and we utilize our subject matter expert or senior subject matter expert to clearly incorporate in our videos unacceptable pieces, right? so that at some point you have that variation of rating and also to ensure that we have a wide range of paces and not just the paces that the incumbent population would perform. the changes in pace must be clearly detectable and so again if you had a fitness test that was completed in 6:36, your next video couldn't be 6:37 because a one-second change in performance time is not going to be perceptible. you will not be able to perceive

that. again, your subject matter experts can help you in that area. once all of the videos are compiled and edited, we establish a working group. we usually bring at least 10 to 12. we found that there's diminishing returns after a certain number of smes on your panel, so that's something to keep in consideration, and we qualify all the working group members as actual subject matter experts, so we do this through verification questionnaires to make sure they have experience performing the task in either operational or mission setting and that they have completed this task or these tasks recently and also because they're going to rate performance as either requiring the intervention of a supervisor

or not, they have to have been in a supervisory role. so then what we do is we bring all the subject matter experts in, we give them individual computer stations, and we show them the videos independently from start to finish, from fastest to slowest, and then backwards from slowest to fastest so you do this independently. again, at individual workstations to reduce the potential for biases. on the way back from slowest to fastest, smes are instructed to place their bookmark where things went from unacceptable to minimally acceptable. we use option finder. it's an interactive keypad which permits the working group members to respond anonymously and have the responses compiled and projected instantaneously onto a screen. no one else will know how they voted but at the end of the day our panel members will be able to see how the overall group has rated these performances. so once this first round of the process is completed, then we facilitate respectful and meaningful discussion with the group members and we ask them so

if we have one person that's rated performance on one end of the scale and sometimes this does happen, then we get them to explain to the group why they would have rated that performance as they did, and then others can discuss back and forth and then what we do is we go into after this discussion into a second and third rounds where we complete these processes. and typically after three rounds experience has shown us we get consensus among the working group members. although a strong level of consensus among subject matter experts may have been reached, we still account for the variation in ratings amongst the smes and the developed standard. to accomplish this the variant in ratings is -- it's incorporated in the developed standard. we take the standard error of measurement and apply it to the mean time of the sme ratings. by establishing a standard, it's expected that if we were to go out and show these videos to the entire population, then approximately 95 to 97.5% of the population would rate that performance as being minimally acceptable or faster than the standard.

so what this allows us to do then is by accounting for variability in sme ratings, a more robust and legally defensible standard may be established. so that's kind of the canadian perspective as to what we do and how we approach it. then others can discuss back and forth and then what we do is we go into after this discussion into a second and third rounds where we complete these processes. and typically after three rounds experience has shown us we get consensus among the working group members.

although a strong level of consensus among subject matter experts may have been reached, we still account for the variation in ratings amongst the smes and the developed standard. to accomplish this the variant in ratings is -- it's incorporated in the developed standard. we take the standard error of measurement and apply it to the mean time of the sme ratings. by establishing a standard, it's expected that if we were to go out and show these videos to the entire population, then approximately 95 to 97.5% of the population would rate that performance as being minimally acceptable or faster than the standard. so what this allows us to do then is by accounting for variability in sme ratings, a more robust and legally defensible standard may be established. so that's kind of the canadian perspective as to what we do and how we approach it. >> carolyn? >> well, i first want to say that i started as a women's

rights advocate for military women, and i'm very indebted to the lawyers of the group, and i have been fortunate to have had three mentors in that area. i will name them jean adkins, pat cormley who was a navy can't who was brilliant, and another brilliant lawyer, duffy. and i think duffy gave an excellent overview of standards and what they mean. i was asked to give how would i set it up if i were queen? i'm no longer queen, but looking at the memos, i would have approached it with general counsels and u.s. -- pardon me, the secretary for personnel and readiness to develop the guidance from the services. what seems to me that is lacking in all of this is consistent guidance to the services. a consistency on how to develop the gender neutral standards and the job standards across the service.

i was being flip earlier with the army presentation saying that they lowered the standards for men because that could come back -- they're always looking to -- some people, they lowered the standards. well the standards weren't correct, which they weren't. that is the important part, to measure what the actual standard is. and i think duffy's point about the established case law in title 7 will be used as challenges come for the military. the military is in title 10. a whole different section of the law, but there are specific and long-standing case law in title 7 that i'm sure will be applicable, and so it would have been prudent by my estimation for the osd general counsel in coordination with the joint chiefs of staff to set out the legal framework of how they should be doing this as opposed

to a hodge-podge of everybody making it up as they go along. that might not be quite right, that's pejorative but a consistent standard so you're measuring apples to apples. i also would have thought that on the presumption of co-location, because these are joint jobs now. the military operates in a joint environment, and if one service co-locates women in say the infantry and combat arm, i would presume all services with similar setup would open those position. this is primarily an army and a marine corps issue because we're talking about the infantry, but they are co-located together and in joint operations. i also would have wanted to see more specific guidance on what it would take to close an mos, more specifically.

now, how does this work? for some of you, many of you know but many of you may not, as you know, we have civilian control of the military. the secretary set out the guidance along with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. the office of the secretary of defense then is the oversight civilian organization that oversees the military policies. so the under secretary for personnel and readiness would be the overarching person, and julie was here representing them in the list of personnel division. what it goes down into the services, the assistant secretaries of man power and i was man power and reserve affairs, and man power and reserve affairs for the army, man power and installation for the air force, but they would have the oversight role to oversee the services in accordance with osd policy.

that's the way it's supposed to work. i was being flip earlier, with the army presentation, saying that they lowered the standards for men, because that could come back, they're always looking to some people, oh, they lowered the standards. well, the standards weren't correct, which they weren't. that's the important part, is to measure what the actual standard is. and i think the point about established case law in title 7 will be used. as you know, we have civilian control of the military. the secretary set out the guidance along with the chairman, joint chiefs of staff. the office of the secretary of defense then is the oversight civilian organization, oversees the military policies. so the under secretary for personnel and readiness would be the overarching person. julie was here representing them in the personnel division. when it goes down into the

services, the assistant secretaries of manpower and -- i was manpower and reserve affairs for the army, manpower and installation for the air force -- but they would have the some of the results close, as they're readying, but how they're setting up the overall framework, i think, has not been clear. finally, because i know there are researchers in the audience, there are things that once we get past this, and we will, to consider. for instance, and i'll just throw one out, the path to senior leadership in the services is through the combat arms. the three-star, four-star. there are some non-combat arms but most it comes that way. i think there needs to be work on, what are the valid

leadership skills you need in those positions, in a three and four-star level positions. as combat arms, is that the only route to get there? leadership skills are leadership skills, and the people today, and those coming up behind, will have had more theater experience, combat experience. they will know what operations are. they will have gone to the same schools. i think looking at leadership in that would open up, i would believe, opportunities for women. because in the leadership literature, women are very good leaders. i think there needs to be some work down in that area. then a third rail but very important is work on women's health issues for the military women that are in the services. so for you future researchers, go forth and do good work. >> okay. thank you all.

thank you to the panelists. now, we'll take some questions from the audience. yes? >> so i'm not [ inaudible ] with the army civil affairs in fort bragg. my question is about the research. we've talked a lot today about physical demands, whether or not women can do some of those rough marches and whether or not, as we're saying the men can even do it at some of the stuff. what kind of research is out there right now about the right type of people that are needed, the mental part of it? are these people even supposed to be there? are they good at it, needed to do it? not just the leadership piece either. i don't know if -- we were just making a comment about, if i want to command the 25th id, where the majority of the people

are, the ground combat. not the leadership piece, but what are the characteristics that fill in the jobs? i've seen some of them. i've seen women come across in my career that are filling those exceptional roles. they were engineer of commanders, the first ones out there before it was not command -- supposed to be a commander until next year. we see the women filling out the positions, and they screwed it up for the rest of us. i'll be honest. they weren't meant to be in the roles. i don't know if the research for that is happening. >> i'll start on that. my comment would be, the leadership qualities are the same for men and women. i don't think the women screwed it up, necessarily, than any bad male commander would have screwed things up. there were so few of them, that a woman sticks out when she does poorly. her mistakes are attributed to

all women. it sounds like that what you're doing, is blaming a woman -- or attributing a poor leadership quality to a woman that then made it tough for you coming along behind her. as far as evaluating people, what research do we have, what are we doing? that's a good question. that's one of the things we haven't studied well in terms of screening people for the right positions. the focus is on the physical. it hasn't been on cognitive or emotional. we haven't done that screening. i believe special forces, special ops does screening. but not the traditional ground combat units or even the support and logistics branches. we screen for -- do you have the basic cognitive abilities to get through the schools? that has to do with gt scores. then do you have the basic physical capabilities to pass pt tests. that's been the screening.

>> the research though you haven't seen so far, any research as we were opening up positions to look at that cognitive, emotional -- >> for women in particular or just soldiers in general? >> i guess both. as we're going through the process of opening up positions, there isn't any research out there right now, or not happening? >> not that i've seen. >> first of all, i think research obviously can inform this. but the process is that they're supposed to be setting standards for all the jobs in the military. that isn't just the physical standards. it should include cognitive standards, emotional standards, whatever they've determined in a valid process are the appropriate standards. one of the things that's confusing about the army ranger

effort and the marine corps efforts is by saying we're putting women in and seeing if they can do it, that's not really a valid way of doing it. you're supposed to say, what does it take to do it, and then yes, you might want to look at men and women doing it because they might be -- there might be different ways of using it. a women might use hips for something a man would use arms for. that's fine. you can't end up by saying -- my view is, they can't have any exceptions. not just because of the group, no exceptions that's a sponsor here, but you can't have any exceptions. pause what would it be based on? if you say, we tried 400 women and nobody did it, what about the 401st or 402nd? if you have valid standards, and you've set them fairly, then you let the chips fall where they may. maybe no women can do it and maybe a lot of men can't do it, but it's open and you can try. >> i would ask, has canada done anything with cognitive? >> not for the general military population, but acceptably for special forces or some of the

more elite occupations, such as search and rescue, for example. where there is a high cognitive load. what we do is work as a team of researchers. we have clinical psychologists, industrial organizational behaviorists that come in. you decide what the qualities for the job are and assessed by that. i don't deal with the organizational or the cognitive side of it. we do work in a team, and then we establish that. >> over here. >> good afternoon, ladies. i'm a major, just came off active duty in september of 2014. i'm a reservist, a major in the reserves. i was a candidate at the march ranger training assessment course. you asked, why did they open up the course? i like that because, as you know, it's not a course that's required for promotion. it's not a course required for an occupational specialty. so i wonder, do you think at any point was this integration about maybe measuring the command

climate or the organizational culture for those not only going through, but maybe senior leaders or instructors that were charged with this really historic effort in the army? thank you. >> so i've tried to give the benefit of the doubt to the army and the marine corps, in that maybe the studies and the research that i see as problematic, because we're basically doing what duffy just said, looking at a small amount of women and saying, this is going to determine whether all women can do it. but what may be worthwhile in this one-time assessment, or the marine corp's research, is it begins to allow the culture to begin to accept the future of women in these different organizations. so this ranger school assessment, i don't believe this is the end of it. i think this is the first time and it's going to keep going. but this, calling it an

assessment and seeing how women do, may allow the culture to open and begin to accept women in a way they might not have had it been a directed thing, open it up now and we don't care what you have to say. so i hope that's what's happening. what was your sense while you were there? >> i'm glad you asked me. i wanted to share. [ laughter ]. >> it was incredible. in fact, most of our peers, and mariah and i were in the same class together, interestingly enough, all of the candidates there, our male counterparts, i

found to be extremely welcoming. there was no difference in terms of our training, the way we responded. the things we were expected to do. they didn't treat us with any exception, good, bad or indifferent. it was really actually the senior leaders leading up to making the request to go to the school. a lot of the questions i personally was asked is, why do you want to do this? why now in your career? because i was definitely -- we were the more senior candidates there, being that majors were the most senior candidates allowed to attend. then the ranger instructors, the ris that were there, they trained us the same. i don't think they saw any gender difference at all.

early in the class, there was remarks made about, hey, there are women in this class. not just in infantry, or women in field artillery, but whether or not there is a possibility that something is created for women that has to deal with the human engagement piece that, to me, seems so important for women. as we see, i think, this war changing, we see the lines of combat becoming blurred, i see that the engagement, the human engagement and the, i guess it would be, the vagueness of what is combat is going to be hard to define. it seems to me that creating an entirely new mos that would therefore be fielded out to ranger regiment or special forces in which the women specifically dealt not only with

human engagement but were trained effectively combat wise, so the men they're with could trust them. >> explain for the audience the cst. >> the cultural support teams was an initiative in 2010/2011 to embed women on small special operations teams. we have quite a few women here, who will talk more about it later this afternoon, about the cultural support team program. so i personally, my personal opinion, is i hope not. to me, i don't want to see any teams of just women because i don't think -- we're people. so men and women together make a more powerful team. i don't want to see women ever segregated or separated out, as though they're a unique or distinct capability that only women have and only women can address. i think the cultural support teams were initially -- the reason they're called cultural support teams and not female engagement teams was it was envisioned to be a capability that could address populations at large, not -- of course i think civil affairs should have been able to do that to begin with.

anyways, that's another debate. cultural support teams should be able to do the same thing that these -- i'm sorry -- civil affairs should be able to do the same things the cultural support teams were identified to do. i don't want to see any separate women's teams, women's only moss, because that says we're different. we're largely not. >> i do agree with that, but i think the problem with civil affairs is they were, as a branch, fielding out their [ inaudible ] units. that's the problem a lot of women run into. restrictions placed upon them by the respective branch. having the capability to continue to support these while retaining the mos in training. >> i understand. it's a problem they need to

wrestle with, between the civil affairs and the community. >> hi. colonel kelly martin, active duty air force. two questions. one is, you talk about standards and completely off on the way it's described here. in these training courses, it's not just the ability to do the job, it's the ability to do the job under stress. so quite often, we use physical, the physical aspect to make up for things we can't do in training, ie, shooting someone. being in that life and death situation. i'd like to get your perspective when you add that into this aspect of training. my second question is, we are an all volunteer force. you do volunteer for the different moss, up to a point. because when you get to the point you need to fill infantry spots, you just take the bottom

of the classes and fill up the spots. >> right. >> unless you're a woman. if we open it up for women, should women be forced to go into infantry? >> you want to start? >> i absolutely think that's good for the goose is good for the gander. if you're going to force men into these -- qualified men into the positions, then absolutely, women should be treated exactly the same. to your earlier question, point about -- what was it? >> stress. >> stress can be created in a whole host of ways. it doesn't just have to be done through exhaustion or tired. you can create stress through low sleep, not much food, unexpected environments. that's what the ranger school does. they tell you what their physical standards are. they make it very clear. six pullups, this, this and this, and then they load stress on by you never know when you'll be woken up, when your mission will end. stress can be added in a host of ways that aren't just physical. they're psychological.

the series school does it. a lot of different courses create stressful environments without it just being a lot of pushups. >> i agree. you can use sleep depravation, restriction of food, water. there are different ways to impose stress. >> and i should also say that this is not only in the military, where these kinds of things occur. if you think about the training that physicians get, interns get, being on long shifts, lack of sleep, et cetera, there are all kinds of ways to be sure that somebody can react fast in an emergency. you can question whether they're the best ways perhaps, but it's not -- this is all part of the setting of whether somebody can pass what is a standard. >> few more minutes here. >> good morning. i had a question about the research behind the process. it sounds like there's a very in-depth research-led process to ensure the standard approach to

enforcing the letter of the law or the regulation when it came to the physical elements. i was wondering if there was the same amount of research and forethought that went into the consideration for normalizing the new social recognition of the spirit of that same regulation, or would you rely mostly on the existing social structure, which would be chain of command? >> do you know what she's talking about? >> yeah. >> could you clarify what you're talking about? >> so, for example, we've discussed and it sounds like there was a lot of thought put into ensuring that no matter who was taking the test, all of the evaluators and instructors would know precisely how to score that particular assessment piece. when it comes to the actual integration piece, how do you

ensure that the mindset behind that enforcement and behind the unit, because it would be a new social situation for the groups, not to speak poorly of the people already in there, but we have to recognize that it's a new situation, is there the same body of research behind the social element of it? >> i think what you're asking about is bias. how to guard against bias. to me, it's a leadership issue within an organization. so leaders who know that subordinates are unfairly biased against certain groups, and they're treating them differently, they need to be able to get rid of that in their organization. identify it and eliminate. i would suspect the women who went through ranger school could -- do you have that experience? did there seem to be any bias? if there was, how did they deal with it? >> interestingly, within the class itself, i think via -- our class was primarily infantry lieutenants coming out of obc. to them, it seemed natural that

there's women here. it's all they've ever known. or they went through rotc and ranger challenge with women in their teams. hearing this debate as they were cadets. we didn't see any bias among our classmates. if the leadership felt any bias, they did a good job of acting professionally and treating everybody the same. i don't know what discussions happened prior to implementation, but they certainly did a good job as leaders of making us all feel included. i would think that most units would be capable of exhibiting that kind of leadership. >> one thing is that -- i mean,

one of the things said in the last panel in response to a question about, what are they doing about the cadre in general, the department and chairman dempsey's memo, making sure there was a sufficient cadre when they implemented any of the units, and the issue of cultural studies, why are they doing cultural studies and how will they use them? although i don't think we got totally satisfactory answers from the earlier panel, what they're saying is that both of those are supposed to be helpful to the actual integration process. we also know, of course, from the experience of don't ask, don't tell, and the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, that the military argued for and got from the congress a specific implementation period, when they said they were going to go talk

to the troops and make sure everybody understood, this is going to happen. you all have to accept it, et cetera. i didn't think we needed that process then, and i don't think that we need that process now. but they are at least saying that what they are doing is looking at these cultural and other factors so they can begin to see where the problems are, and then can address the problems as they integrate. we have to take them at their word now, i think, because we haven't seen any of the studies and we don't know what they're doing in response. i don't know if you have anything to say? >> it's a leadership issue, pure and simple. i mean, the leadership sets the tone. it's a leadership issue. i don't know that you -- i'm

always leery of studying cultural stuff, because i think you get -- i'm too old. i've been through too many of these things. but it's a leadership issue. the leadership sets the tone. the leadership sets the standards. it's up to leaders to hold their subordinates accountable. it's up to the leader where you are, and the leader above them to hold them accountable. >> sue, did you want to comment on that? >> that's kind of outside of my domain. we do have researches that go in and do culture audits and report those findings back to the leadership. but that's clearly outside of my domain. >> do i need to close? need to shut it down? okay. we need to stop. sorry. i know people have questions, and i think the panelists will be around for a while. please talk informally. [ applause ] thank you and welcome back, everybody, we have a thrilling panel for you coming right up. i think the subject gets at the heart of everything we're

talking about to a great extent. i'm the executive director of the truman national security project and the center for national policy. we are very, very proud to say no exceptions is an initiative and led by a remarkable group of women, including some combat leaders from our organization. and heartily supported by an even larger number of men in the truman project who also have combat experience. i served as a combat arms officer in iraq and afghanistan. and to me you know i don't know when this issue was settled for me. i'm probably supposed to be an objective moderator. just to put my cards on the table, my sister is currently serving with the station as a detective in the gang unit in the new york police department. she could kick my ass, i'll 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 we desperately needed at various times defending their convoys when they came under attack. i think for very more of us who have seen this movie out on the ground, this is a debate that was over a long time ago. so those are my cards and they're on the table. any pretensive objectivity, i will abandon now. just out of curiosity, how many currently serving or former members of the military do we have in the audience today? okay. i should have asked how many civilians were in the house. >> yes. excellent. so it is -- it is no -- to say there's an absurd wealth of knowledge in this room and that's why i think we're going to make this more of a conversation than a series of presentations. and i know we're all looking forward to that. this discussion is really about the central question of unit cohesion and leadership. in the battlefield, especially

in the close fight. we have this four people that provide a great perspective on that across the board. dr. megan mackenzie from the university of sydney. in the government international relations department. her research crosses security studies. gender studies and international development. mackenzie has published in a number of top journals on these topics including foreign affairs, parameters and security studies. her first book, female soldiers, sex, power and post conflict development includes interviews with over 50 female soldiers. mackenzie's forthcoming book, which we're excited about and lends its name to our panel today. beyond the band of brothers, the u.s. military and the myth that women can't fight. debunks core arguments to keep women out of combat roles and explores the centrality 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

visiting professor and director of teaching as well as a senior faculty adviser for the georgetown institute for women peace and security. he's currently currently on leave from a position as associate professor at the swedish national defense college. he's also the founding director of the stockholm center for strategic studies a think tank created in 2005 in response to a growing demand for accurate objective and non-governmental research and policy advice in the swedish and international context. also joins by my friend captain john rodriguez of the u.s. national guard. he's a 2015 herbert scoville junior peace fellow who works with me at the center for national policy. john served six years on active duty as an army infantry officer including a combat deployment to afghanistan's korengal valley. and if that place and name doesn't mean anything to you, perhaps it will if you look it up. i also had the privilege of spending a year in the korengal valley myself at a different time. so john provides i think an

incredible experience. that sort of archetypal infantry unity in a daily grind close fight, very high intensity in the number of cases. and i think that's a perspective that's needed in this conversation. so we're happy to have him. he's currently still a member of the maryland national guard and he works -- has worked as a national security intern at human rights first focused on human rights complaints, counterterrorism, and security partnership polts. we're also joined by mary beth bruggeman. i'm sorry, i should have asked you how to pronounce -- >> you got it. >> she served on active duty for eight years clag deployment to iraq as a company commander during the 2003 invasion in the combat arms. as a xwrat engineer. after transitioning from active duty she worked for riebtices company where she helped market counteri.e.d. robots to marines. she's currently executive director of the southeast mission for mission continues and a statement of policy manager at georgetown

university. this is a great panel. i'm going to start it by turning to dr. mackenzie and asking her to replace me at the podium mercifully for everybody. but if you could tell us about this question that lends its name to the panel. what did you find when researching this book on the question of the band of brothers and what does it mean for combat integration? >> okay. 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 wahat was interesting was i found some of the arguments -- there was a high percentage of women who participated in that conflict. but even though i talked to a lot of the women who who participated when i presented my research i got a lot of feedback that said, well, they weren't really soldiers. they were just following. and 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've spent the last three years sifting through all the research i could find on physical standards cohesion, and women in combat. so i'll talk about that. first i wanted to say thank you to weiss for inviting me. it's a real honor to be here. 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 that all male combat units are more cohesive and therefore more effective than mixed gender units. 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. and 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 im's impact on cohesion is addressed and actually a staggering amount of well-funded studies conducted both within the u.s. and abroad. at present there's actually a greater need to reflect on the results 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 effective, 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 around emotions 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. the first point to note is that studies show the need to disaggregate between social and task cohesion. soernl cohesion refers to the emotional bonds between members of a group, particularly the feelings of trust and camaraderie. by contrast, task cohesion is defined as the commitment of a group toward a shared mission or objectives. so put another way, social cohesion refers to whether group members like one another. task cohesion refers to whether they can work well together.

so despite the differences researchers often ignore the difference and measure them together. and this is important because there are 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 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." knowing that task cohesion is a greater indicator of true effectively is significant. 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. so 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. and a canadian report on gender and diversity determined that the cohesion of mixed-gender combat units was primarily a leadership challenge. in turn, research that conflates social and task cohesion mistakenly overemphasizes social dynamics and underestimates the role of leadership and zprang moreover they lead to potentially 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 both domestically and internationally that find little relationship between the integration of women and various understandings of cohesion.

so as early as the 1970s, the u.s. military conducted tests that determined that women did not have a significant effect on operational capabilities. 1970s. we're still having similar conversations. these conclusions were supported by a 1993 j.o. report that found that gender hom oj niity was not listed by focus participants as a requirement for effective unit cohesion. a couple of excellent studies found in the 1990s, that the real cohesion story was one of leadership. so something that is 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-solving and decision-making skills. 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 men's attitudes, not women themselves or their ability to perform. this first point, cohesion is male bonding. so when we're looking at the public debates and the broader literature around cohesion, some descriptions tend to assume that unit cohesiveness requires segregation. that it's actually the masculine

nature of the bonding, not the bonding or trust itself that's essential. so anthony king in his research acknowledges that sociologists prefer informal masculine rituals in sustaining social cohesion. similarlily, kingsly brown, a former u.s. supreme court clerk, made the following observation -- "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 don't invoke in men the same feelings of comradeship and followership that men do." linking national security to all-male units makes it very difficult for those trying to integrate women into combat units. defining military cohesion and troop effectiveness by masculine rituals or masculinity actually places women as outsiders and as a threat by their very nature irrespective of performance. and this perspective can't be countered with more research.

it requires a change in perspective. this is why attitudes matter. so going to the second indicator. i mentioned research that shows little correlation between women and reduced cohesion. but there are some studies that actually show -- that find the contrary. but if you dig deeper into some of these studies, you actually can find some quite interesting conclusions. so 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 that did find that women negatively impact cohesion also found that men's acceptance of women impacted cohesion. the more accepting men were of women, the higher rates of cohesion in a group. so here you have a separate factor. attitudes that's actually

impacting cohesion. and this has been reproduced in international studies on mixed gender units, which have found that men's acceptance of women positively correlated with horizontal cohesion and combat readiness. so 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 roles, negative 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 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 continue on in generations those things will kind of go -- not go away but kind of allow it? like she said, when she was in the class with the lieutenants they wasn't worried about oh, you're female. maybe it's more of a generation, as you said, generations before. i think i graduated the same year as you.

i saw different things and probably the lieutenants coming out today. that's my question. and is there research being done with maybe a generational gap as far as cultural as we change our culture? i definitely believe it is leadership's ability to change that and make a difference. >> that's a great question. anybody want to take a crack at it? anything you researched about the generational question? >> i think there is research that indicates there is sort of a cultural gap and certainly with don't ask don't tell there's the same kind of indications. the problem is often that leadership is part of the generation that may be stuck in the old culture we're talking about. so it may take some time for cultural change. so yeah. i certainly think that attitudes among new recruits, there is indication that -- especially around issues of gender and don't ask don't tell were very different. >> i think just to add quickly the military historically is not great at quick culture change.

it takes some time to come along. and while i do see huge differences between the generations of my parents and myself and the young men and women here in the audience, i think that's not good enough. and i think for us to be able to push it gently in the right way in a thoughtful fashion, is extremely important. that's why these panels and these discussions are important. it will happen on its own but not in enough time. >> i'd just like to echo that. i've been in so many conversations with different levels of command as well. where the younger generation will say with all due respect sir, to generals and then explain the fact that they're already everywhere, they're performing excellent, my wife's flying the helicopters we go in with, et cetera, et cetera. there's something tremendous happening in terms of generational shifts. >> so my name is jessica trisco

darden. i'm associate professor at the east school of international service at american university here in d.c. big shout out to my georgetown colleagues. i would just like to speak to this point a little bit about generational shifts and cultural shifts. dr. mackenzie brought up the israeli defense forces, and they have historically had women integrated into their operations. but even in pushing through some of their removals of gender-based combat exclusions they're having an extremely difficult time. for example, women who operate unmanned aerial drones are allowed to deploy in theater but 99 infantry units. they're only allowed to stay back with artillery units. there is still even amongst the most advanced countries in overcoming these hurdles hurdles still remain. so it's a little bit naive to think that all these issues are going to go away immediately in part because a lot of these developments are tactically driven. and so i'm very excited that came up as a point of

conversation. my own research deals primarily with irregular armed groups, rebel groups et cetera. insurgencies. and what we've seen is that a lot of the developments in developing world military, so for example the sri lankan military formed an all women's unit in response to the high levels of female participation in the tamil insurgency in sri lanka. so the degree to which these developments are being externally driven from our engagement in conflicts like iraq and afghanistan versus internally driven through changes in american culture or perceptions of the role of women in the workforce is something i'd like to see you speak on. because there does seem to be this tension in the conversation with this panel about whether it's about manpower and manpower shortages and getting full staffing levels or it's about acknowledging as owen harding said earlier that we're all people and we're all equal and

we should all be able to participate in these same roles. so your view on whether this is an externally or internally driven development would be very helpful. >> that's an interesting question. does anyone want to take a crack at it? >> i can start perhaps. it is a great question. and it's -- but you're opening a pandora's box here as well. the short is it's both. we haven't talked at all about u.n. security council resolution 1325, the u.s. national action plan on women, peace and security, which are you could say a more rights-based arguments, that this is the right thing to do, we have to empower women, gender equality, et cetera, et cetera. but at the same time, those come from an understanding that the existing order isn't working and that we can improve the way we create peace development humanitarian affairs by high representativeness of women.

so even there it's a combination. operational experience from the last decade is hugely important. we've learned a lot of lessons there. so they all combine. so the way i try to avoid that issue of deciding whether it's the right thing to do or the smart thing to do is to say that there's a difference between that sort of very difficult fundamental chicken and eggs sort of discussion versus how we sell this as an agenda to a highly reluctant organization. and there the rights-based arguments to me simply do not work. they will acknowledge that it is really important with gender equality and improved opportunities for women. but we're in the business of war. so we can't deal with that within the military. is the response you get. but if you do explain it with examples scenarios that indicate where it has an impact on operational effectiveness,

you will have their ear for a little while and you can sort of crack a door -- or at least gain access to the organization and explain yourself. i find that that argument always gets their attention at least when you're focused on operational effectiveness. so i would encourage to you do that not because it's the real reason why we're doing this but because it's the most effective in terms of organizational change, which is what we're approaching. but you're also touching upon a number of how questions. so how do we go about this intd graigs process? and you asked a really good question to the last panel about the female engagement teams, cultural support teams et cetera, et cetera, that are necessary capabilities. i think most would agree with that these days, that we're never going to fight a war where those capabilities are irrelevant. so how do we do that? now, we can create female mlss. we can create female engagement teams with those specific

functions that fills the gaps of the existing organization. but this is the panel on unit cohesion. we all agree that unit cohesion is a very important thing for military effectiveness and unit performance. so if you have ad hoc solutions if you bring in a woman to the special operators or if you add a female engagement team to an existing platoon when they go out on a patrol, that's always going to be a liability because they will not be as cohesive and trained together as they will be if that platoon has those functions baked into it. so i would always say first of all get the women into the units if they need them rather than add that as a specific sort of add-on to the units. apart from the fact that having female mlss, et cetera, will always then create the risk of feelings of different standards, for example.

so if you have a ranger platoon where you hypothetically have physical standards that no women have so far passed and you add a few women because they need, it it's always going to be seen as a second-rate ranger even though they might be performing extremely well. so i would avoid that. but again, as they highlighted in the last panel, they have to look at all these standards and rethink them. >> unfortunately we have to wrap up the conversation so we can move on with our program. i would encourage everyone to continue it outside where the cliff bars and the coca-cola are. but thank you very much to our panelists for joining us. and thank you to all of us for being part of this conversation. [ applause ] >> is it easier for you if i sit here or go up to the podium? does that make a difference for anyone? okay. so i'll sit here. this for me is a privilege. first of all it's a privilege to be on stage with all of you. second of all, it's a privilege

to actually be talking about a book that's out because if some of you know, you spend two years with something that's your baby and it's just you and your laptop. and now it's out in the world with all of you. so in the nice to see it again. this for me has been two years of cross-country travel, a lot of holiday inn express stays accident and conversations with some of the most seasoned military leaders to talk about what happened in 2010 and 2011 that led to women on the battlefield alongside special operations. and this for me began with the question that led to more questions, that after months and months and months finally led to answers. which was i was hosting an event and a marine said, well you know, this is 2012 and a marine said, well you know it's like that lieutenant who died on a night raid in afghanistan last

year. and i said, what? what was a female soldier doing on a night operation in afghanistan? who were these people? why were they there? and how do we not know about them as a country? and those sets of questions really led me on this journey. and what i have learned after conversations with folks like admiral olsen general mcchrystal, and lots of soldiers who have executed some of the most difficult missions that the united states military has seen, is that in 2010 admiral olsen had an idea and in 2011 a poster went out and there were people starting in 2010, going into the start of 2011, who answered the call, female soldiers become part of history, join special operations on the battlefield in

afghanistan. and my personal journey with this started in ohio at the home of mr. and mrs. white. who were lieutenant white's parents. and i sat in their room, which had been ashley's, in the sprichk 2012 -- i'm sorry, 2013 at this point. and i asked them about their daughter. and they started telling me about this mission they had done -- she had done and the kind of person she was. and what became very apparent very quickly was that it was not her death that had defined her but her life. and that she was one of those rare people who never talked to you about what she could do, who simply let her actions speak for themselves and who was one of those people who was much happier doing her job and going home to her husband than doing her job and then telling you about everything she had just done. and in the corner of the room where we sat i saw a lined piece of paper with all written and

black letters "you are my motivation." and i thought, if somebody can have that left at their grave site more than a year after they passed then we should really know who that somebody was. and 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. and i focus specifically on ashley and her team because ashley's death was the moment that through this program was taken from the shadows much more into the public spotlight. but it was also because of who she was. so the call went out, more than 200 people answered the initial packet. this is now march of 2011. in may of 2011 about 55 to 60 of the women are chosen after 100 hours of hell, as it was called at camp mccall on ft. bragg, and these women were then -- they

were chosen in march or may, trained in june, july, and were seeing the kind of gas the united states military sees, alongside men who on their tenth and 11th and 12th deployment. and some of these rangers alongside whom the women that served were people who had -- if you added up the number of months, talking about three and four years straight. so you could imagine some of the skepticism that greeted them when they have to take people out with a different training cycle. a different selection process, and, by the way, they're female. but what surprised me about so much of what i learned was that battle hardened soldiers like these guys, finest, fittest, men alongside many considered it the biggest privilege of their career to go and serve alongside. they actually welcomed the women

that were coming. maybe not initially, but certainly by the end. because as they said, as long as they delivered each night. as long as they paid the rent, we wanted them out there. and some rangers said to me, we should've had them on my fourth and fifth and sixth deployment. not my 10th, 11th and 12th. often times, what i've surprised people by saying, if they could get -- help them find the things and the individuals that they were seeking, that was the most important. because what has led admiral olsen, admiral mccraven and others to put out this call for female soldiers was not a social nicety or a gender norming, it was a battlefield necessity. male soldiers could not access the female soldiers they needed to speak with. that was the driving force behind the request for forces that came in from the admiral. we need women out there because if you cannot talk to half the population, you're missing

things that are out there. people that are out there. and that was what led to the call that said female soldiers become part of history. now, there are -- what has impressed me and struck me about every, is no matter what year or class they serve there is a bond we've almost never gotten to see among female service members. even though they were going out to different bases in ones and twos, they have a spirit of bonding and sister hood i've never seen among service members or as a country we've had a chance to see. and what is funny and incredible and remarkable about them, if you read the end of band of brothers, the reason he wrote that book was the way the soldiers interacted with one another. confessors and biggest boosters imaginable. and only they know what they

experienced and how much it meant to them. i got to a point about eight months in where i felt like i could answer almost every question i was being asked almost because i felt like it was a script. you know, this is the best job i ever had. these were the people that mean the most to me. i would have done this over and over again if somebody had let me. this was the mission that mattered. and for me, this whole story is not about politics. it's about purpose. and it's a hero's story that we haven't yet heard as a country, and that we really should. because it is about people who only wanted to do something that

matters at the center of an incredibly long war, doing a mission that had real value to some of the most important people deciding what happened in this war, and people who only wanted to serve alongside the best of the best. and this was their chance. so you had the finest, the fittest, the most fierce and also the most feminine women who answered that call to serve because part of what they had to do, particularly on the night operations side was to quickly show in the heat of the battle they were female. so they would board the bird, go to the house, deal with whatever would happen on the mission would happen. and then the women would go up to deal with the women and children and women they're working with and take off their helmets and show that they were women. because otherwise, under body armor and night vision, it's hard to know who is male and who is female. so this to me was a story about a team that came to love one another and their mission in the ways that we as a country hadn't seen. and who really were a by and

large accepted by people who simply wanted to get off target and complete their mission in the best way possible. and i did feel very strongly that particularly in the case of ashley white, this was somebody who had made a mark that no one had paid attention to. because upon her death, lieutenant general who was then head of army special operations command goes to her small town in ohio and said make no mistake about it, 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 talks in a very public and very moving way about what they had done and why it mattered. and the next day at her funeral, the colonel gets up and gives

the speech about the man in the arena, which many of you will know as teddy roosevelt speech. and says, this is written for a man, but it actually could have been for this female soldier. and he says, ashley, your ranger brothers will be out there continuing the mission. you will not be forgotten. it led with the fact she was a member of the north carolina national guard, which she was. but as mrs. white told me that's not what she died doing. she died oon mission she believed in alongside the best of the best and we are incredibly, incredibly proud. so all of that was behind the story of how i came to write this book. and the two last things i want to leave you with on the book and then i can't wait to talk to

this panel. which is that this was an incredible team of all-stars and it wasn't just ashley's team. you talk to, spend the night with you know let's say you get cst one to eight in a room. first of all you're going to look around and you won't believe your eyes that there are all these incredibly powerful women that we just don't know, who are serving the united states and second of all, in ashley's team, you had a west point track star. another west pointer who played high school football all four years and wanted to stop after the first year, but because they said people told mer girls can't play football, she just continued playing. she wanted to be in glee dlub, but didn't want to give anyone the satisfaction of being right. and then you had one former intel officer who'd served in bosnia who had helped the fbi bust drug gangs in pennsylvania. you had another guard member who was on her third deployment in

the war on terror. you had another who had driven trucks in iraq. all of these people wanted to be there. more than they wanted to do any other mission that they'd ever done. and 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 like ashley? she paused. she said it would mean everything. and she said there was a woman at the funeral -- now, this funeral, as i'm saying, this entire special operations community attended. it was -- there were hundreds of people of all ages, vietnam veterans, korea veterans, little children with their hands and prayers lining the streets. and they all came to salute

first lieutenant ashley white with her husband. with her rotc sweetheart who had pushed her to be the best she could and the best she ever had been. and this woman came up to mrs. white at the end of two days of ceremony, had just put red roses on her casket, and she came up and said mrs. white, you don't know me but i brought my daughter here today. and i brought my daughter here today because i wanted her to know what a hero was. and that's why this story matters. because there are hero stories all around us. we do not see and do not acknowledge. and this was one way to offer a small salute to people who have served and sacrificed and given so much and who really are the hero story we don't yet know and need to. so thank you so much, and i look forward to the conversation here.

so i would just like to go down the line. if you could tell us what -- your name and what mission you did and what years you were there in afghanistan. >> is this on? >> yes. >> my name is annie kleinman. i was in csd-3. so i was in the class -- or the group that took over for ashley's group. and i -- what was the other question? i'm sorry. >> what kind of -- what mission you were doing. >> i was on the dm mission. >> sergeant first class megan malloy. i was part of cst-5. so we just got back in '13. and i was part of the village stability operations mission. >> janise marquez. csd-2, which was ashley's mission. also the first set of all volunteers to go out to do the cst mission.