this sector as we think about work being transformed -- i will close with this. kind of a full-fledged job into a series of tasks. i spent an hour with lindsey graham on this subject. he can put things in terms better than i can. he said, what you are describing is you are saying basically a job is like your old cable package. you had to buy the whole package to get espn and a couple of other channels. now you can buy a la carte. you will be able to buy a skill. we will go to that. good side and bad side of that. trying to get out of the binary choice of 1099 and w-2 as the only two options. love to talk to you if you have interest in this. is an area where we can think about not as democrat and republican but as future and past.

thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ] thank you all for your presentations. we have 20 minutes now for questions. i'm sure that our panel can give us some great insights and answers to questions. my question really would be this. you have all kind of been there, done that as governors. what tip, what piece of advice would you give to us all as governors that would help us become more effective in our jobs in our respective states? let's start reverse order. senator warner, we will start with you and go that way. will that be okay? >> i think one of the things that is never going to get you very much attention but if you can keep pounding at home, i think the kind of argument we have between big government and small government is false

choice. people want effective government in trying to -- jack markel did a great job when he was treasurer of delaware and helped teach me. finding ways where you can deliver more efficient government and squeeze out efficiencies whether purchasing power, whether it's better management of your real estate portfolio. there's a hole of thing u.s. can do as governor. it may not get you a lot of attention. you keep pounding that home for a long time and i think you can earn a lot of the respect of your voters that you are actually going to be better stewards of their tax dollars. >> mr. chairman, the fact that you are at the same table is strength. you may have different political parties. i'm seated here with three friends of mine. i will tell you, while two of us are of one party and two of us of the other party, that doesn't enter into it. when there's good public policy

that somehow is going to advance for the greater cause, these friends -- we have stood united. we will continue to do so. on those issues that you choose as your priority, work it out here. make this your locker room. if you gotta throw punches throw them in here. bleed in here. when you go out, be united. the team is together. i mention that how you get some of these things done -- on the safe drinking water act, which is the law on the books, my partner there was bob kerry in nebraska. because in the senate until one party has 60 senators, you have a 60-point rule that you will not be able to overcome. unless you somehow figure out how do this together. also, members of congress appreciate cover. so that if they have to take a

tough vote, if they can point to the fact that the national governors have made this the issue, that the national governors have stood united, you give them cover and that's significant. you know the world of politics. when we think about all of these issues that we have -- in the state of washington, for example, 17 states have been dealing with this issue of state-run retirement plans to try to be a solution. the state of washington -- the industry worked with aarp. we came up with a workable solution. whether when new jersey passed legislation that was not favorable, i suggested to governor christie, if somehow they could adopt the language of the state of washington, it would be very successful. in the state of new jersey, they have an interesting tool. the conditional veto.

you notify you will veto unless these conditions are met. to the credit of governor christie, he provided the language of the state of washington to the new jersey legislature and it was adopted. so, mr. chairman, what i would say on state relations, federal relations, please realize what you can accomplish together if you come out of the locker room on an issue, two issues that are your priority and you stand united. you will be successful. >> thank you. >> over the years in the political arena, i have learned there's two things you don't waste as a leader. that's crisis and a mandate. it's going to happen in your state. you have a crisis or you have a mandate to do something. you should be evaluating your strength and weaknesses. what would you like do in a perfect setting, if that evolves to where there's a crisis, god forbid, you better be ready to

make a change. if there's a mandate where the people are demanding they want change, be ready to take it and run with it. i think that would be the thing that i would recommend. i often said back when there was i think ten of us as former governors -- i wasn't there at that time. but i think there was still ten. when president obama got elected. he got elected with a tremendous mandate and he had a financial crisis. i think if he could have huddled with the governors and said, what would you do, we would do is look at budget. what can you do? it might have helped a little bit bring the country in a different direction, bringing us together rather than splitting us apart. i would say to all of you, take the opportunity of the relationships you have built. i remember i used to call jeb and say, jeb, i see you did something with education. i would call mitch, my good friend mitch and say, what's going on? i see you are doing something. how come you sold your road?

he said, let me tell you, i think it's going to work out for me. i think -- we had a great rapport with them. i cherish that so much. i hope you all take advantage and use it. find out -- you will hit rough spots. also, you have done some things that's probably innovative and creative that your friends would like for you to share with them. i think you should do that. don't waste a crisis or a mandate. god forbid either one of them. the mandate is great. the crisis will hit you at the least expected time. be ready to move quickly on it. i had to do it with changes in mine safety. i think i worked with john huntsman and when he hit the same thing in utah, we tried to help with that. it's a great opportunity. i hope you all continue to expand upon that. >> thank you, senator. senator alexander? >> thanks, governor. the best tip i ever got came from an unexpected place. the question was, i think, what

tip about being governor. a newspaper publisher in tennessee gave me a book written by george reedy who was lyndon johnson's press secretary. i found a definition for what a president does. when i read it, i thought, that might be what a governor does. i think the most important thing about being governor is figuring out what the job is. people do it different ways. commander in chief of the national guard, chief ceremonial person, all sorts of things you can do. here is what it said. three things. one, see an urgent need. two, develop a strategy to meet the need. three, persuade at least half the people you are right. see a need, develop a strategy to meet the need, persuade at least half the people you are right. sort of the governor's moses. i think that's -- i think that's right. i think the best governors i have known have been capable of doing those three things. the only thing i would add to it based upon experience is once

you find that urgent need and you develop a strategy that seems to be working and you have persuaded half the people you are right, double down. don't start looking around for something else to do. if you do one thing while you are there, that's pretty good. that's more than a lot of people do. you might do two. i watch governor haslam on higher education. he did a good job on k through 12. he got into higher education which is a hard nut to crack. my sense of it is, he got in and successfully built on the former governor's proposal to reward -- to pass out the state money to universities who are graduating students more rapidly. then he came up with a plan for free community college, which doesn't cost that much. he figured that out. the state does it. not the federal government. became the first state to do it. now he is giving the regional universities, those that used to be the teachers colleges, more

independence by having their own boards. i think there's a chance when he finishes, he will look back and say i did more about higher education and adult education than anything else. i think it's because he saw a knee, developed a strategy, persuaded half the people he was right and he doubled down on it. >> thank you, senator. we will open up for questions. governor haslam. >> we're working on the persuading half the people i'm right deal. after listening to the four of you, i think the next constitutional amendment would be to serve in washington, you have to have been in state government. if all the members were like, we would be in great shape. a little related to gary's question. what you have learned in washington that you wished you had known when you were governor about how to be more effective in washington?

as governor. >> still working on that one. >> what did you learn in washington that you thought, if you had known this when i was governor, i could have been a better govern floor as ior as io my issues with washington? >> i will give you a short answer so there will be time for the others. i would have all my meetings with members of congress in my home state with other constituents. i wouldn't even bother to come to washington to see a member of congress. i would do it at home, because you can have more impact. and as a member of the national -- second thing is as a member of the national governors association, i would limit my objectives to maybe one or two a year and throw the whole garbage can at it. the whole cloud of this operation hit on one thing. we did that '85 and six. did you it in '89 on education. when terry was there.

president h.w. bush had the national education goals. you did it in '96 as others mentioned on welfare reform. if you do it this year on implementing the no child left behind fix and on passing marketplace fairness, which you can do, i wouldn't have known that as well when i was governor. i would have all my meetings at home with congressmen and i would limit what i did here to one or two great big things and just throw everything you have at those two things. >> very quickly, i just -- i never realized how many congress people, 535, did not have any idea how states operated. i never realized that. unless you were a state legislator, a governor, you wouldn't have the idea -- or the knowledge of the workings of the states and what the responsibilities states have. with that, i would have worked,

i think, in forming -- we formed -- i will never forget when the affordable care act was coming, stimulus money was coming, i'm thinking in ways as a governor and i was going in as chairman and we were all talking. we were on calls with senators. and i said, let me make sure i understand. you are going to give us money. and we have to find ways -- remember all the things going on at that time. i said, why don't you -- i was in good shape at that time. i had to create a hole in order to get the money. i kept telling them, i said, why don't you create a loan program, let us who need it -- arnold schwarzenegger, he said, i need $40 billion. who was going to tell arnold you are not going to get $40 million? it wasn't me. the bottom line was that is that -- the federal government doesn't understand we have to use them as the boogieman. i can't get the changes that

need to be changed because unless i use the federal government. so i said, let us borrow the money that we need to borrow with favorable rates and we will make the changes that we will in order to change the direction of our state. it puts it in a better financial position when the bottom fell out. i don't think that they understood -- washington didn't. i would explain to washington and let the states do what states can do best. they can lead much better than we can. we can follow as the federal government by allowing them to do the job in finding the success that works. sometimes we strap you with one size fits all and it doesn't work. i would have been able to push, i think, a little harder in working through the organization to get a better voice on the hill. those of us who have been here, we reach down to you and call and say, what's going on, what's the highest priority, whether it's marketplace fairness, whatever it may be now with the new highway bill that we had? took us ten year torz gs to get

highway bill. look at how you will invest the money. things like that. i just -- i just have felt that i was surprised to find out how many people did not understand and don't understand basically that all states have balanced budgets or most states did. they were mandated to look at resources they had to pay for what they thought was a priority. >> governor, i would note, you have the territories here. governor taurus, a graduate of boise state university, proud of that. american samoa, the chief, the efforts that we have had in the virgin islands. i will tell you that as a united states senator, when a ceo was on the schedule, we prepared. you are ceos. you are the governors. and so if you make the case to

your citizens back home, you share those constituents with those members of congress that represent your state, if you talk about the discretion, if you talk about what is happening to your budgets, the burgeoning situation of the budgets, the people then, when they go and call on the members of congress, you may be the ones that provide them the appropriate message, the echo chamber. have your data together. know what you are doing. know what the game plan is. the national governors association, you have a work group now on infrastructure. i would encourage you to really push them. let's come up with a solution. because we have identified aid source of capital. i would add, too, i think it's difficult for anybody in public office to really think in terms of aten-year plan or 20-year plan, because we are in two or four-year election cycles. i will say this. january of this year, i was

invited in idaho to come back and to have appreciation expressed to me that ten years ago when i was the governor i put in place a billion dollar road and bridges program. the last of the projects were completed. they wanted me to come back. members that were there in the audience said, governor, you may recall we didn't support you at the time. but you were right. so i would ask you to horizons election cycle and look at the ten year plans and the 20 for the well-being of your states and combined for the united states. >> governor, i guess what i would say, two things i wish i would have known and i have never been a legislator. i have been a business guy before i was govern or so this may be an overall comment about

legislators. i didn't fully appreciate how much when a member of congress actually gets a bill passed, they think okay, i'm done, job's over. when i think as a governor you realize getting legislation passed is just the first step, because how that legislation is actually implemented is how it affects people's lives. the second thing echoing a little bit about lamar's comments on marketplace fairness and others, never underestimate the willingness of members of congress of both political parties to show great political courage by taking away a revenue source from the state. >> yeah, that's a concern, all right. any other questions we have for our panel? let me just ask one last

question. that is, as past members of this organization and past governors, could you again just tell us what do you think in hindsight we should do and what can we do to elevate the national governors association and in fact, have more impact on policy here in this city? we sometimes feel like that although we should be co-equal partners, we are sometimes an afterthought, and sometimes we are not being paid attention to, and yet we see historically that there's many times when the states have led and the congress has responded and listened. we kind of feel sometimes that that's waning so what recommendations would you give to us to elevate the nga, national governors association, where it can be more effective as a voice for state rights? we will go with you, governor

thorne, first, then maybe senator manchin and senator warner and senator alexander. >> my compliments to you for pushing this issue. when 9/11 hit, the terrorist attack on american soil, the role that governors played was incredible. we were the first tsas. governors called out the national guard and put them in the airports. we didn't know what was going to take place. and so governors were front and center in that effort. if you have katrina, governors are the ones that delivered. i can tell you, i could show you the charts of how many c-130s by the federal government flew versus the c-130s of the national guard, the air guard. it's like 80%. when i called kathleen blanco, when i called rick perry, when i

called haley barbour that were being hit by katrina and i said what can i do for you, he said you won't believe this. we're out of fuel. our first responders do not have fuel. i said is it so critical that it is worthy of a convoy from idaho to mississippi? he said without question. i said then please, at some point in the future, make sure the paperwork catches up because governors know how to make things happen. you're pragmatic. i think you need to look at the history of when governors have taken the spotlight and have shone because you will shine. you are going to the white house. i believe after this. you are going to have good discussions but know that in that wonderful, historic setting, in addition to speaking, do the president of the united states, you have many staff members there making a lot of notes, issues such as a proposed fiduciary rule that we

really believe as well intentioned as it was, really will have a dampening effect on middle and low income americans on getting the advice they need as they prepare for the retirement security, because if you have an advice gap, and therefore more people will then ultimately in end use medicaid, you pay the consequences. i would just encourage you to realize there have been significant moments in the history of this country that the country had to turn to the governors and governors are pragmatists. the fact that you sit here, it does not denote republican or democrat. i think when joe was saying he would call different governors, probably of the different party, we're not in competition. governor sandoval, if i were still governor and you had a program that was working, i would call you and you would gladly share with me because we're not in competition. maybe later we'll be, if we go to congress. but right now, you are the ceos.

you are the leaders. of these 50 states and the territories. so seize that moment. >> governor, again, thank you for allowing us to come before you. it's always good to come back home. it's the best memories i have of being in public service. i want to thank my good friend who really made my job as governor one of the most pleasant jobs i could to have a good partner. i know highway important thow i. i would tell people i went around my state, government should be your partner. i'm not your provider. but i'll be the best partner you ever had if you want to join into a partnership. i always looked at government at partnerships. people have relied to us to where we're going to cure all their problems. we can't. jay, we served and really enjoyed that but i have said that, you know, i'm going to help those who want to help themselves. i'm going to take care of those the good lord gave me that couldn't take care of

themselves. with that i formed that partnership. i think we need to do that again. the united states of america is the hope of the world. i sit on armed services and i get a lot of meetings and hear a lot of things and see a lot of things sometimes i wish i didn't have to, but i do. with that being said, we are still the hope of the world. i was asked many times and i know you are all asked as you go around whether it's schools or town hall meeting, mostly in schools, how do you become a leader, what does it take to be a leader. they look at all of us as leaders. you have been elected to the highest position in your states and i had a little girl one time, i will never forget, sixth grader, little school in west virginia. she says mr. governor, i just think a leader should be a dealer in hope. a leader is a dealer in hope. if you can't give the people of your state hope that it's going to be better no matter how tough and how difficult and how challenging it may be, then they have lost all confidence. you are a leader because you are

a dealer in hope. if you never forget that, no matter what faces you, no matter how tough that day is, you are the hope of your state. they're looking at you for that leadership. thank you. >> thank you, senator. let me also thank you for the opportunity to be here, reacknowledge my good friend terry mcauliffe who i know will be a great nga governor as well or nga chairman as well. i want to echo a little about what joe said. at this moment, at least in time, where we work isn't exactly hitting the ball out of the park in terms of getting stuff done. i say a lot of times to folks around the state i'm as frustrated as you. you want to throw stuff at the tv, i'm inside the tv and i feel that way. so echoing a little bit of what joe xdsaid, the notion that at e state level, you can still put

points on the board, again, we can argue about how big or small government should be but the notion that you are still getting things done in a way that is moving the ball forward, i think in terms of a macro approach is probably more important than ever. lord willing, we'll see whoever is elected after this year, there may be a reset opportunity come 2017, but in the interim, continuing to put points on the board is really important from the nga specifically, i would say i was very honored to be invited back. this is the first time i have been back since i've been governor. lamar, god bless him, was coming, speaking to the nga when i was chair and all the years we were here. i actually think though you ought to invite more senators at least, particularly the governors only sessions or maybe to some of the dinners, when you have to build more of these relationships, this is a great setting, but some of my fondest memories were governor only settings when you could really

have a little more candid conversation with no press, no staff and invite four or five, six senators of both parties. there's a lot more people of good will in both parties in the united states senate who want to do the right thing. they just need a little oomph behind them. i think you can help provide that oomph and obviously we can help i think better develop some of these federal/state relations. thank you. >> thank you. senator alexander? >> well, the question was how can the nga be more effective, and governor bentley would probably know the story of bear bryant, who recruited this punter from california to come to the university of alabama and play football, and the kid could kick it 70 yards every time, and the first week of practice, the bear stood over at the side and watched him and never said a word to the kicker. finally, the punter went over to the coach and said coach, i came all the way from california to

alabama to play football for you, and you haven't said a word to me. and bear bryant said son, i'm watching you. when you kick it less than 70 yards, i'm going to remind you of what you were doing when you did. and i think the best way to ask the question about what could thenga do to be the most effective is ask what were you when you were most effective and do more of that. that was '85-'86 with results on education, it was the national governors summit in '89, it was the time you put all your horse power in welfare reform in 1996 and i think it was last year when you led the charge to pass the fix to no child left behind. that's a big deal. we talk a lot about what hasn't gotten done in washington. that's the biggest evolution of power from state to local governments in 25 years. if that's the case and you helped do it, then follow the advice of one of the other governors and double down on it.

spend all next year making sure it's implemented right so you get the power. i would remember the kicker story. then the only other thing i would say is when you pick your one or two things, which i hope are implementing no child left behind fix and passing marketplace fairness, do it yourself. don't delegate it. if you sit down with a member of congress or call him, we will all pay a lot of attention to you. if you just write a letter or something, that's just another letter. >> thank you. we will give our vice chairman the last question. >> thank you, gentlemen. appreciate you coming today. you have given us good advice of how we think we can make ourselves a better organization. i would like to turn the tables for a second with your wisdom, because as you know, with congress, you are in action on a lot of issues, really causes us problems. i do want to thank you for the two year sequestration push-off. i want to thank you for the transportation, now we have five years with governors, we can begin to make some decisions i got to tell you for years it was very problematic at the state

level and gary and i have been visiting the senate leadership and have asked what we can expect out of the congress this year. so far we have heard really not much. we keep hearing it's an election year. these types of inaction really cause us a problem. we do compete on a global economy and inaction is not good for us. sometimes what congress does is very hurtful to the governors. you will be getting a letter from all 50 governors from the armed services committee where on the national guard you are taking some of our folks and trying to convert them to civilian that are under the guard command today. that is a big, big problem for us. i would just ask before you go, there's dysfunction in congress. how do you make yourselves more an efficient operating organization? you have all thought about this. we have heard about the problems that we have in congress. we all work together, we all get along here. how do we do the same thing in the united states congress? >> i will take a stab at that first.

>> we only have five minutes. >> first of all, when i got to congress they expect me to make a phone call every day to raise money for the dse. i expect my republican colleagues to make phone calls. they expect me the campaign against my friends on the other side. i said day one i won't do it. i said where i come from, if i try to -- if i'm working with you, i try to get you fired every day, you are going to kick my butt sooner or later. i said that's now how we act in west virginia so i'm not going to do it. now, how do we change it? i look at my friend lamar and said can we work on something. he said sure, let's go ahead. he doesn't look at me as a threat. he's not going to look at me i'm going to campaign against him. there used to be an unwritten rule. now, how many governors try to defeat when you're up for election? i don't see that happening in the governors' rank. i hope it never happens. it's expected to happen in the senate, expected to happen in

congress. unless we have an ethical change to where it's an ethical violation to go out and visibly campaign against a sitting colleague, you are not going to change that type of demeanor in the senate. >> any other comments? lamar? >> i'm going to be a little politically incorrect here and say more's getting done than you think. and i really don't like to be a member of congress who goes around saying we can't do anything. if i thought that, i would stay home. why should i be a member of congress if i couldn't get anything done. i don't think it's that hard. i mean, we said, i'm chairman of the committee that is in charge of about a third of the jurisdiction of the senate. we set out to fix no child left behind and we got it done in a year. we set out to pass the 21st century cures bill as the house has passed. i told president obama i would like to include his precision medicine and his more recent cancer moonshot fix in that because this is a tremendously

exciting time in biomedical research, and third, we are well on our way to a whole series of reforms in higher education which would take the 108 question that 120 million families fill out each other and reduce it to 10 or 12 questions and we have bipartisan support for that, for simplifying the way you pay your student loans back, for year-round pell grants. we are working on all those things. i think it's not that hard to do and the skills that it takes to do it are skills i learned as governor, which are basically, i don't even need to tell you what they are. n you know what they are. you don't put people in a corner. you give them a chance to succeed. you listen, you consult, you be happy if you get 70% or 80% of what you want. those are the things. but just so you don't go away thinking we don't do anything, there was fixing no child left behind done. the bipartisan budget agreement

law. multi-year highway bill, law. trade authority work with the president done. permanent fex, done. quality fee for services for doctors, done. the usa freedom act on terrorists, done. this was all last year. cybersecurity, done. defense authorization, done. trafficking victims, done. terrorism risk insurance done. iran nuclear review act, done. veterans suicide prevention, done. chemical safety, done. so in one year, we passed the appropriations bills, we would have had a very good year. we are a long way from where we ought to be but the skills we learned as governor help us succeed and i haven't given up on trying to succeed. >> thank you. senator warner? >> i don't think any of us have given up or we wouldn't be going back to our paid job. i do think we have a bit of a structural challenge in that i think the genius of the founding fathers was they set up a

slightly dysfunctional federal government on purpose. the house had to work with the senate, the senate had to work with the house, they both had to work with the president. that was the only way you got stuff done. there are other systems of government. there are parliamentary systems of government that work pretty well. you win and you run the show until you're kicked out. my fear and i agree that we have, there are things that we have gotten done but lord knows there are still a number of others and ticking time bombs like our debt and deficit that it's going to explode in a moment and we will be a national government with a social insurance program and an army and nothing else, and you all will bear the burden of that, but my fear from kind of a governmental standpoint is we have had this checks and balances brilliantly formed government but the last 10 or 12 years, in both parties, when they win control of the congress, they run it like a parliamentary system.

you start with 100% of your team and you go kind of peel off a few of the others. or you say we're only going to pass a bill in the house, if we only pass it with our team. whereas that may be the case in some [ inaudible ] i think for the most part in states that have worked well, you still find a way, you may be a democrat or republican but you still find a way where you try to pick up a slug of the other side. that is less able to do in washington at this point. i think candidly, that's what we have to improve upon. and the notion that every bill, again, lamar made mention, i think there was a pretty good record last year but the idea that every bill has to become armageddon and that everything then gets loaded on or train's getting out of the station and you're going to try to load as much on as you possibly can ends up making small to midsized bills harder to do. if they're running this notion

that you got to start with 100% of your team on every bill, you end up with legislation unfortunately that ends up starting way far to the left or way far to the right, and again, just personal belief, i think more good policy gets done with some level of compromise in the middle. >> governor? >> what i would say, terry, is when i was secretary of the interior, we would have a town hall meeting around the country, i remember one particular setting, i think san francisco, i'm sitting there, hundreds of people and i'm sitting there listening, and a citizen was really giving heat. he said you feds, you're nothing but command and control and he really was going, and i started to smile and he said what are you smiling about? i said i happen to agree with you. and i said that's why i voluntarily left the united states senate to go be governor because i believe in tenth amendment rights, i believe in states' rights.

the audience, suddenly i was a friend. i appreciated what you said about the national guard proposed rule. when the 116th cavalry brigade was deployed to iraq and had the entire province of kirkuk, the role of governors, title ten, et cetera, but it's the families back home. i would mention that i was told early on do not become captive of a never missed a vote situation, because some members of congress for years have never missed a vote. so the first vote that i intentionally missed was back to school night for my kids. pretty hard to rail on that. when paul ryan took some time appropriately to evaluate if, in fact, he would have his name placed forward as speaker of the house and again, think of that moment, where everyone held their fire, the different factions within the republican

house members and the democrats, they held their fire because there was civility to let a man think about this. when paul ryan talked about the fact that he had to evaluate what effect this has on his family life, work, family balance, and there were those in the media that took out after him. so i would just say too often, i think candidates who campaign on family values, once elected, do not feel that they are allowed to practice family values. so create an atmosphere so that we elect citizens who not only preach family values but are allowed to live family values. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. we are so honored to have some

of our own here with us today. we appreciate your leadership and your service. we know there are others, governors are serving in the congress and we appreciate them, too. let's give our guests a round of applause again for their service. [ applause ] we respect you and we honor you. in that vein, we are starting this year a new recognition award calls ted the james madis award designed to honor somebody in congress that has really xem exemplified the spirit of -- not just somebody that talks about it but somebody who $the work and epitomizes what we have been talking about today. i would like to invite senator lamar alexander to come forward as our first recipient of the james madison father of our constitution award.

mrlz mrlz [ applause ] >> as you know, he listed off a long list of things that have been done this past year but specifically for us here, the transportation reauthorization, the every student succeeds which again is a great devolution of power and authority back from the federal government to the states when it comes to education. i think we all appreciate his involvement with the work force investment opportunity act, his championing for market street fairness which is an issue we will be taking on this year hopefully with the help of our special guests here and others, we can get that piece of legislation passed this year, too.

so former governor, lamar alexander, senator lamar alexander, former secretary of education, good friend of the nga, we offer this to you as a small token of our appreciation, the james madison award. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. i think i have already had my say today and yesterday, but thank you. the best job in america is being governor of your home state. the second best job is being able to represent your home state in the united states senate and remind all the other senators that the best job in america is being governor of your home state and you need to remember that when you are trying to be governor of the united states. leave that responsibility to the governors and focus purely on the federal issues that the congress and the president are supposed to deal with. thank you very much.

>> we will get a picture in just a minute. we are on a tight schedule. we thank everybody. we certainly want to thank our nga staff for helping us organize this event. it's been a very productive weekend. we thank you for your participation. we had great participation from the governors. thank our esteemed vice chairman terry mcauliffe. we want to thank the nga staff for the work. again, reminder, we will reach out to you to get your recommendations of what we want to highlight in the book on states' success and spotlights some of the great things you're doing in the respective states and territories across the land. again, nga summer meeting in iowa, and with that, we -- >> it's been a great meeting. i think we ought to give our chair a great round of applause. [ applause ] >> well, again, what a great team. my acronym team is something i

would hear from lamar alexander. team, together, everyone, achieves, more. that's the nga. thank you very much. hustle to the buses. see you at the white house. we are adjourned.

c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. join us tomorrow morning when former nsa attorney and managing editor of the blog law fare susan hennessey will apple's fight over encryption. then we discuss china's placement of air-to-surface missiles and the state of china's economy. watch at 7:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow. join the discussion. how can we best get people to pay attention to wasteful spending? so we tend to find things that are interesting, little different, easy to understand, because the government is so large, an organization like this

has to cut through a lot of the noise and cut through a lot of the other things that are going on, members of congress talking about wonderful things that they are doing, and try to get people to be more involved and make it a little more personal so that they understand the impact on them and their families and their children and grandchildren. >> sunday night on q & a, thomas schaatz, president of citizens against government waste talks about his organization's efforts to bring attention to wasteful federal spending. citizens against government waste also publishes the pig book which compiles a list of unauthorized government programs. >> we worked with a bipartisan coalition of members of congress which then was called the congressional pork busters coalition, and they came up with us with the definition of what was then called pork barrel spending and really still is. eventually became the term earmarks. and we went through all the appropriations bills and started the pig book. i believe the first year was about $3 billion and it went all the way up to $29 billion in 2006 and every year that we can

find earmarks in the appropriations bills, we release the congressional pig book sometime around april or may. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q & a. >> next, a look at efforts to integrate women into military combat roles. current and former service women discuss how the move might affect unit cohesion and holding females to the same standard as their male counterparts. this was hosted by the national defense university. >> ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. we will be starting momentarily. at this time i welcome dr. michael bell, the chancellor of the college of international security affairs to begin with opening remarks. >> welcome to the college of international security affairs. for those that are new to the college, it is the newest of the

five colleges. the five colleges that comprise the university. our mission is to educate and prepare officers and national security professionals from the united states and partner countries for the security challenges of the contemporary security environment. we are the department of defense flagship for education and building partner capacity in irregular warfare and combatting terrorism at the policy and strategy level. today, a great opportunity, a workshop on women's integration into the u.s. military. the basis for this came from the white house's national action plan and from that, a series of tasks to raise greater awareness, greater inclusion, greater sensitivity to a range of issues to include gender and house it affects either resolg contemporary security challenges, the integration of those, of gender perspectives into our plans and strategies. so as you know, the secretary of

defense recently announced that all military occupations in the u.s. military be open to women. this decision will certainly shape the way the u.s. engages in current and continuing conflicts and the ones that we will face in the future. our students are fellows here at ndu. how's the thesis research and writing coming? everybody okay? great opportunity to take some time out, engage on this important topic with scholars and practitioners in the women peace and security field. selected practitioners and scholars have been chosen to present a range of perspectives. for many of you, this will take you out of your intellectual comfort zone. it will expose you to some different perspectives that you are not aware of. now, we should also think about why is this important. certainly from a number of perspectives, you will see these in the panels today, what we are going to have here are issues of

organizational culture, we'll have issues of institutional change and underlying it all, you will see the role of leaders in managing and leading through transitions and ultimately trying to find the best way to master challenges in the contemporary security environment. whether you are a u.s. military officer, u.s. government civilian or one of our international partners our governments, we welcome you to this conversation today. so what we have is two panels set up today. pretty straightforward workshop. the first will focus on the practical challenges and opportunities that the secretary of defense, ash carter's announcement poses for the u.s. military for gender integration and how we will move forward on that. interestingly enough, 40 years ago is when women first entered the united states military academy. 25 years ago, we faced some big challenges with desert storm, where women actually served

roles that had never been contemplated under our policies at the time down at brigade level, in the case that i know quite well, in mechanized infantry brigades where they were looking for the most talented people rather than the most available male soldier to fill those positions. so certainly new challenges out there and then the second panel will look at how gender integration actually can shape the battlefield in a regular warfare context. some really amazing topics here today. one thing we will do, there will be an opportunity for each of our panelists to present. for the fellows end, there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. i would ask you if you have a question, identify yourself, please give your first name and whether you are a fellow or an outside guest, let us know that you are outside, just so the panelists know who's the students and who's not. with that, again, welcome.

we look forward to a great interaction. thank you. doctor? >> good morning. my name is dr. kirkland baitman, the associate dean of curriculum at the college of international security affairs. before we get started i would like to remind the audience that c-span is filming the entirety of this symposium today and is broadcasting live on the c-span network. we are also broadcasting through the ndu television network and also on livestream. so a little scheme of maneuver for the two panels. the first one we will present, each panelist will present for about ten minutes on their respective topic and at the conclusion of their presentations, we will open the floor for about 40 minutes of q & a at the conclusion, we will then take a 20-minute break. so our first panel, these ladies are all four individuals have blazed numerous trails in gender integration within the armed forces. all four are veterans and all four have written extensively on the issue of gender integration into the military.

i know that their bios are in your program but for the benefit of our television audience, starting right here on stage right, i will work down the table. the first panelist is miss kylie hunter, a doctoral candidate at the school of international studies at the university of denver and research fellow at the center for international security and diplomacy. her research focuses on the intersection of cultural and structural forces on political participation, in particular she is focused on how gender roles and military service shape political participation. miss hunter is a u.s. marine corps combat veteran and former liaison officer to the house of representatives. she is the co-founder and director of the think broader foundation, a nonprofit focused on eliminating gender-based media bias. she will present on the changing nature of citizenship and the integration of women into the military. our next panelist is dr. kate

hendrix thomas. she is an assistant professor of health promotion at charleston southern university, a speaker and the co-founder of just roll with it wellness. she is also a u.s. marine corps veteran and helps businesses and military veterans improve their holistic health and quality of life. she will present on the physical and mental health concerns of women in the military or building a resilient force. our next panelist is colonel ellen harding, u.s. army retired. she's a senior fellow with women and international security, where she directs the combat integration initiative project. her research and work focuses on women and gender in the military. the colonel is a graduate much the u.s. military academy and a distinguished visiting professor at the u.s. army war college. presently she is completing a ph.d. at george mason university's school for conflict analysis and resolution. she will present on unit cohesion and the performance of

mixed gender units. finally, our last panelist for the first panel is miss sue fulton, a 1980 graduate of the united states military academy, a member of the academy's first class to admit women. she commissioned in the army as a signal officer, serving as both platoon leader and company commander in germany before receiving an honorable discharge at the rank of captain. during her ensuing years in the private sector, ms. fulton worked briefly with the campaign for military service, supporting bill clinton's efforts to overturn the military ban on gay service. in 2011, president obama pointed her to the west point board of visitors and in 2015, she was selected chairperson of the board of visitors at west point making her the first woman graduate to hold that position. she will present on the role of high standards, training and leadership and successfully integrating women into all military jobs. with that, we will get started with kylie ann. i have some time cards. if we get close to our ten minute limit i will kind of move

close to you and flash a card at you. otherwise, please begin with your presentation. >> great. thank you very much for that great introduction. thank you all for coming and our purpose here today is really to open discussion and to open dialogue, because with the nature of the audience being leaders in your respective fields and respective countries there's a lot we can really learn from one another that's going to both shape our research and advocacy efforts as well as help with the integration that is now on its way. i'm going to speak at a very high level about the issue of women's integration into the u.s. forces. the other panelists are going to be speaking a little more kind of nuts and bolts about some of the mechanics and some of the actual challenges, but to sort of kick off this conversation, i think it's very important to discuss what is the relationship between being a citizen and being a soldier. and understanding how some of

that -- the theoretical ways that we think about citizenship and soldiering has really shaped this integration conversation, and what opportunities are now presented for coming generations with full combat integration. so the idea of the citizen soldier goes back to ancient greek times when you really think about these democracies in particular and what it means to be a good citizen, and really reach the highest of citizenship is soldiering, is the ability to go lay your life down for your country, and that -- this idea has been used by several minority groups, by out groups to really gain full citizenship rights. there's a scholar by the name of ronald crebs who developed this theory of what he calls re torqual coercion. this is the way in which individuals who had previously been excluded from full citizenship rights and whether

it is formal, i.e. they didn't have the right to vote or the right to participate, or more informal in the way that they reviewed by their fellow citizens as sort of lesser citizens. they were treated with whether it was treated with less pay or their vote just didn't count as much, military service has the power to be able to be leveraged to gain more rights, and examples, you can see of this being used with the case of african-americans in the united states, where their service particularly during world war ii really served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement and for them becoming more included in the actual formal as well as informal trappings of citizenship. as well, you see this with -- in israel where their -- when they were brought into the idf as a

compulsory service, they were able to leverage that to gain equal citizenship rights that they previously had been denied. so why i talk about this a little bit is to think about really the role of women in this country, and when you think about women in america, like you think a lot about equal rights and oh, they're equal citizens, there's no real barriers to their political participation, no barriers to their economic participation. however, if you kind of pull back the lens and you look a little more big picture, the inability for women to serve in an equal capacity to men provides an intangible barrier to citizenship. it provides a more or less second class citizenry where you have even those women who have chosen to serve, their service is somehow looked at as a little less, not as you weren't a real soldier or a real marine because

you didn't go into combat, you didn't have ground combat, and now you're seeing it with this legal restriction being in place that it has really denied a lot of the service that women have actually done. so you see i think that some of us from the panel up here and i know many of you probably have peers where they have done the same thing their male counterparts have done in combat and yet received disequal recognition for it. and so this is really the impetus for why there has been a big push for integration and for equal integration. and you're seeing this played out now in particular with the selective service arguments in that why women should be involved in the selective service or not be involved in selective service. for those of you who are foreign students here, the selective service is frequently also called the draft. i think it's important to take away some of that -- the

misnomer here. it doesn't necessarily mean compulsory service that when you register you have to go and serve in the military but it is the list of available people to be called up in case of military conflict. and opening this is really i think the next step for our future coming generations of full inclusive citizenship, because what opening something like the secret service or allowing for full military integration is going to do is give women that same citizenship leverage. it's going to give the next generation of women coming up behind us the ability to say we have the same rights and the same ability to go and sacrifice for our country as anybody else. we have the same possibility of being called up if our country is being involved in a high level conflict. this symbolic power is very

important for citizenship claims and it's very important as you're seeing women become more involved in the political arena, it's involved in the economic arena, to make a pure level playing field. i think that i will conclude here with just some high level comments and pass it over to kate to get down to some more of the nuts and bolts. >> well, thank you. we are going to test my acumen with the microphone here. thank you so much for having me today. i want to talk a little bit about something, those of you who have command or have held command in the past probably speak about frequently and that's the question of mental fitness and mental health as a readiness issue. interestingly, i want to go over the issue background, talk about how it relates to service women. i will share some pieces of some relevant studies with you, but i'm a public health professional and i'm not interested in

talking about problem scope and prevalence without solution sets so that's where we'll conclude today. again, the issues of mental health, i'm going to speak about them a little bit interchangeably, specifically because stress injury, depression, anxiety conditions are all predictors of suicide which has become a problem for our force increasingly. that wasn't the case 15 years ago. the military had much lower rates than the general population. but interestingly, the conditions often co-occur and because the symptoms are different, highly individualized, they are often misdiagnosed. we have some serious cultural stigma issues, those of you in the audience are probably well aware of the treatment recalcitrance of our military population. i like to say you can keep your couch and that's how a lot of our service members who are suffering with conditions feel.

we have misunderstood the problem for a long time. we have talked about it as being combat stress, combat stress, combat stress, when really, service separation is a much more likely predictor or feelings of alienation and low levels of social support. so i have worked with a team of researchers to explore that red range on the slide for the last couple of years. we're trying to look for variables both demographic and behavioral to predict whether somebody will have a mental health condition. understanding that mental health conditions become readiness issues at the unit level. much of the secondary analyses that we have run have been -- have had really large sample sizes and i will share pieces of those with you. again, because we are interested

in upstreaming, we are really looking for these data to inform our prevention efforts so again, it's not just about problem scope and prevalence and who's likely to have these issues, but it's about how do we target intervention programming and what should the content of said programming look like. so i'm going to share some results with you today that use data from the centers for disease control and this particular set of regression analyses had a large sample size, over 54,000 respondents, and we had over 4,000 women that we used in our breakouts. so any time we're talking about a large cross-sectional survey, i know a lot of you are aware this is a pinpoint in time so these data are correlational, not black and white causation. but it was interesting because we were looking specifically for

who has a diagnosis of depression, stress injury, some kind of mental health problem, and then who's walking around demonstrating or displaying symptoms of an undiagnosed condition, because if we can predict that, we can really target our programming, we can figure out where some of our issues are. and the data, doing a little ra chur review, we expected to see somewhere around 15% with the diagnosis and that is what we saw. but interestingly, almost 8% of our sample were self-reporting symptoms that indicate an undiagnosed condition so those undiagnosed conditions can become a problem. we did a breakout of our female service members and we found that you're more likely to have these issues with the female service members. so if -- i will direct your attention to the odds ratio, the second odds ratio there. women were more than twice as likely to have an existing

diagnosis. they were also more than 1.7 times more likely to be displ displaying symptoms of an undiagnosed condition. we also looked at the variable of service era because this was not just active duty members, this was a veteran population, and interestingly, you will notice that the people most likely to have a diagnosis are your gulf war era and you're much more likely to be displaying undiagnosed symptoms if you're from my generation, that post-9/11 oif, oef era. so the question for any public health professional at this point is okay, there's an issue but why, why is there an issue. i know colonel herring will go into detail on this. but for female service members specifically, there are issues with social support and unit cohesion that make it much more likely that they are going to have poor mental health outcomes.

and for all service members, for men and women specifically, you have got practical, we talk about practical and statistical significance. statistical significance matters on a chart. practical significance matters to the c.o. and matters at the unit level. we have such significance when we break out the variable by people who report not having a lot of social support in their life so if you have a lower level of social support, you are much more likely to have these issues. quite frankly, the system as its currently structured has not been ideal for military service women. it has not been ideally cohesive and supportive for service women. one of my favorite researchers is dr. brown out of the university of houston and she said stories are data with a soul. there has been a lot of really

important qualitative research that have collected these stories from service women and they tell us that we have got some institutional issues, we have got some leadership issues, we have got some trauma experience issues that are creating mental health issues for our service members. so in addition to structural and leadership change, we have to be talking about targeting our behavioral health interventions and this is where when we start talking about mental fitness training in our force, i get really engaged and excited and interested, because we're doing a terrible job right now. we can be doing this better. resilient traits are those traits that allow you to take a punch in the teeth, allow you to weather stress, and those can be trained, cultivated and tested for. they are extremely specific and they involve a lot of agentic

down regulation of an individual's nervous system, programming to teach people to do this sort of thing is really best done in a peer-led environment. it need to be kind of tailored to sub-populations and we can could all of that. we know how to. but i think what's key in the military population as we move forward and we see integration moving forward, it's key to understand that you have to have a performance metric attached to such things. it cannot be, you know, more power point heavy annual training that people sit in an auditorium and do. mental fitness training can be assessed in the same scaleable way that we assess physical fitness training. and i believe that is an important component for our future as behavioral health professionals working with the military population. so i know colonel herring is

going to go into more detail on this predictive variables. thank you very much. >> thank you, kate. yeah, i will get more specific to unit cohesion, what does it look like, how do women impact it but i'm not going to talk directly to how are women impacted by good cohesion. you have made some really good points and i think your research is fascinating. so let's talk about unit cohesion. so there's been extensive research on unit cohesion over the years. what we know ercurrently dates back to post world war ii era studies. today it's generally accepted cohesion is categorized as both vertical and horizontal cohesion. vertical cohesion exists between leaders and followers and the connection between -- the connection that a leader establishes with his or her subordinates and the relationship of the leader with his superiors and peers is an important mechanism for all

participants to engage with the larger institution and significantly impacts the overall cohesiveness of units. vertical cohesion influences horizontal cohesion and underscores the importance of leadership in creating cohesive units. horizontal cohesion, the type of cohesion that we typically think about, is characterized by both social cohesion and task cohesion, and these are important distinctions. that ises clear in the literature but people often fail to separate the two in discussions. horizontal cohesion exists across peer groups within an organization. social cohesion describes how well group members like each other. it's their emotional connection and typically develops between people with common backgrounds and similar experiences. while task cohesion, on the other hand, describes the bonds that arise among individuals cooperating to achieve common goals.

the relationship between task cohesion and social cohesion and performance is complicated, but generally task cohesion is believed to be -- more positively influence performance than social cohesion. social cohesion is not reliably associated with improved performance and can have a negative impact on units. high social cohesion is known to lead to group think or situations in which groups may adopt attitudes and values that differ from that of an organization, while some level of social cohesion appears necessary, too much is often problematic. there are no scientific studies of gender integrated u.s. combat units because there haven't been any. however, considerable research has been done of gender integrated military groups in non-combat roles, and the research has found no negative impact on cohesion. there are a number of factors that affect team dynamics

including gender sex conflation, leadership, working conditions, attitudes of team members towards gender integration, and organizational and cultural pressures. however, the existing data does not support the contention that mixed gender teams cannot effectively accomplish mission objectives. so what -- this was kind of a summary of a joint special operations university report recently published where they looked at how does -- how do women impact cohesions of potentially the teams. that was their finding from their research. interestingly, surprisingly, to me, the research team that conducted this research on cohesion failed to interview the women who participated in the cultural support team program, or their male counterparts from the teams where the women were imbedded. oddly, they did interview other

communities including smoke jumpers and s.w.a.t. team members but not the csts. the csts would have been a rich resource from which to gather cohesion data on gender integrated combat teams. last summer, as an independent researcher, i interviewed -- i convened and interviewed and conducted focus group discussions with 25 of the women who served on special forces and ranger teams as part of these cultural support team program. what i learned is that the women do believe that they impacted team dynamics. and this was a surprise to me. i would say it was universally felt by the women that we interviewed, and it was a pretty big population. but their impact they thought was two-fold. all of them reported that their presence did introduce an element of sexual tension. that was their words, to the team. but they also reported that their presence improved mission outcomes.

one of the women who was responsible for collecting the metrics for the ranger teams on which csts served said that over time, a clear picture developed. teams that included women were on average 20% more mission effective than the teams where there were no women present. all of the women said that while sexual tension did exist, at the outset, they were easily managed if team members and leadership acted appropriately. anecdotally, it's interesting to me to hear oftentimes, in fact, our research was criticized as being anecdotal, even though there were 25 women in the research. so i'm going to give you a couple of and ek doek doets but and ek dots over time present a pretty significant picture. here's one anecdote. a senior warrant officer said that several male team members kind of probed for sexual favors when she was first introduced to the team, but when she made it

clear that it was never going to happen, the problem seemed to evaporate from her perspective. she said we became friends, the sexual tensions issues melted away, and she said she still communicates with some of those same men today and that she is very close friends with the entire team. this was a common thread that they discussed in this sexual tension discussion that as long as people acted appropriately, these issues seemed to melt away and all of the csts said that the bifgt contributing factor tt contributing factor to cohesion and being accepted on their teams was job competence. if they were competence and proved themselves quickly, the team was generally accepting and supportive. they believed the cst selection and screening program had done a good job identifying women who could successfully operate on these teams. what they felt was lacking was they hadn't trained with their teams before deployment. they said they shouldability

have to prove their capabilities on the ground while bullets are flying. women should be trained with the teams they support and deploy with so that there's no doubt in anyone's mind about who's going to do what and how well they're able to do it. all of the women said that none of them ever had a teammate -- had ever had a teammate try to shield them from fire or take a protective stand on their behalf. they find this myth to be both amusing and insulting to the men that they operated with. besides providing properly screened and trained team members, leadership was the most important factor where team dynamics and unit cohesion was concerned. their presence impacted overall team dynamics and mission success. leadership, not women, is the senior most important element to

team co-heeg. i would also argue that capabilities, gender neutral standards where everybody meets the same standards is the second most important element to team cohesion. and with that, i'll segue over to brenda. >> thanks, ellen. i always learn something when i hear you speak. in gymnastics we were talked how to negotiate west point's obstacle course, a test we would be graded on every year. one on tackle is an eight-foot wall. we were coached in the approved solution, jump up, grab the top of the wall, do a pullup to get your shoulders above the top of the wall and then flip your body over. a solution that violates the laws of physics for nonmale people whose center of gravity is somewhere below their shoulders. in short order, we figured out for ourselves, if you grab the

top of the wall and hook your anal kl, you can use your leg to get over the top. instructors eventually taught that as an alternate solution and soon women were conquering the obstacle at the same speed of men. times change. that was 40 years ago. the changing socialization of young girls in athletics mean that women cadets got faster and stronger by leaps and bounds. over the years, the little girls who grew up on the monkey bars were soon able to get over the wall with upper body strength like the men did. but the lesson i learned was it matters less how you do it. what matters is getting over the wall. i think that's instructive in war fighting and instruckive as we look at what women bring to the fight. because if women in ground combat roles don't make us stronger, we've screwed it up.

the good news is i have no doubt that they will. there are hundreds of on-leinart kls fretting over whether or not we can deal with the fact that in general, the bell curve of women's upper body strength and speed falls short of the curve of men's. questions answered, by the i what, by simply setting the standards rite and holding to one standard. but if we all could stop wringing our hands over pullups long enough to think as leaders, we would focus on what do women bring to the fight? not just the ability to talk to local women in muslim communities, but where do women outperform men on the curve of ability? flexibility? maturity? counseling soldiers? creative problem solving? i have dozens of stories. the only one in my class who

passed a particular recondo patrol because instead of sighting the squad on the precise grid cord pennaordinant middle of a swamp, she moved them over a little. none of the men thought to do that. the only women in a three-star staff call who asked, well, why don't you do it this way? after a long silence, the commander said well, we've been doing it the other way for a year, we just never thought of it. the ranger patrol that trusted their best navigator to plot their next point. when they arrived, the ranger instructor demanded who plotted this solution, i did, suggested

kristen gray. you did a good job but you're 90 minutes early. what am i going to do with you all now? which brings me to another lesson. i've gotten to now chris greist pretty well since she graduated from ranger school. when people ask her why she succeeded, one thing comes up more than anything else. expectations. as a cadet, she asked to join the infantry mentorship program. sure, he said. no problem. you'll just need to meet the exact same standards that everybody else in the program meets. and he expected her to do it. so she did. he remains one of her mentors. she talks about a key moment in ranger school in the florida swamps. like the other women, she frequently carried the saw.

she's going through the swamp, she's shorter than the other rangers and she feels herself slowing down. she feels like shes slowing down the team. the patrol leader is going to no-go because of me, she thinks. for the first time in over 100 days in ranger school, she asked someone else to carry the weapon and he does. the ri pulls her aside immediately and said you're getting a major minus. you didn't need to do that because you could have carried it. now, i heard that story and i thought she was being a little unfair. and chris said no, i thanked him. that ri did me a favor because i realized he was right, reminding me that he expected me to succeed and i needed to expect that from myself. we've heard a lot about a marine corps study in which women -- there's a lot of issues with

that study. but when there is an expectation that women are not going to perform as well as men, when they're not expected to perform as well on the rifle range, then chances are over time that those numbers are going to be low. and for any of you who want scholarship on this, i decided not to get into it today, but you can research what's called the pigmaliam effect, or its reverse, the golum effect. but expectations matter. you already expect high standards. you demand your soldiers meet those high standards. but taking that extra step, expecting that they will succeed, that's a way to supercharge your leadership. and finally, i haven't talked a lot about being in the first class of women at west point. there was more bullshit than was necessary and i won't bore you with all of that.

but if i have any credibility on that count, let me use it to ask you all as leaders to do a couple of things. the women who will come into your units, especially the combat arms units are not there to make a statement. they're there for the same reason as the guys. to do a jb, to challenge themselves, to learn those skills, to blow stuff up, to serve their country. some of them will struggle. don't coddle them. your job is to maintain high standards and expect that they meet them, but something pems having a laugh at their expense is easy. and it's tempting because your guys, the ones close to you, they're going to laugh. and you laugh at a comment made by one of your troops they're like oh, the old man is cool. if you're a woman making fun of

another woman, that's gold. nothing endeers you to the guys more than throwing another woman under the bus. you can make fun of the shortest guy in the unit if he's in on the joke. you can make fun of the black guy who struggles to swim if he's in on the joke. you can make fun of the gay guy if he's your battle buddy. but if they're not in on the joke, if you're halving at them, and not with them, you're setting fire to the bonds that bring your unit together. because cheap laughs are expensive. they'll cost you. they'll tell your soldiers instantly some soldiers deserve respect and others don't. it forces people to take sides.

you can preach respect all day long and make one time of the month joke at the club, guess which one is more powerful? instead, you want this to work, you want your unit to succeed, tell stories. i heard general milley, general mark milley, the chief staff of the army, talk about coming under fire in iraq one vehicle blown by an i ed and watching a young woman soldier 120 pounds soaking wet lifting a guy twice her size out of the vehicle. just a clean and jerk. he says adrenaline, strength, whatever. but if i had doubts before then that there are women capable of more than we think they're capable of, i didn't afterwards. you have a story. it could be a woman in gym last week that smoked you in

crossfit. it could be a cadet from 30 years ago. it could be a woman who surprised you down range. it could be a story that you've heard in class here. you could remember your stories. less preaches, more story telling. you don't have to tell everyone the moral of the story, they'll get it. you are not asking them to make allowances for the women. you're demanding that every soldier who serves under you gets a fair shake. it may not be easy, but it's simple. thank you. >> comments on integration and challenges and the opportunities that that presents us with. before we open it up to question and answers, i just want to remind everyone that we're still on live television. for those of you that have questions, please wait for one of the mike runners.

our interns have mikes. again, state your first name and your affiliation with whatever organization. only one question per person, please. and of course, our students have this well deserved reputation of always asking thoughtful and considered questions. and i know they'll do the same thing today. any questions, please? here in front. if you go ahead and stand up, get a baring on you? i'm i'm. >> i'm an infantry officer and a graduate of west point. i have a couple -- well, not a couple of questions. one question. we understand this is going to happen. as an infantry leader, now let's execute. but how do we execute?

is it standards? maintain standards? is it also part when women show up to the unit, which happened when i was an battalion x.o. the first females that show up, everyone is fighting to get them in the unit. one of them in particular did not cut the standards from the very beginning. when that thing happens, a unit, it automatically validate what is a lot of people are thinking. i think it's a two-way street. i remember when i went to west point, the female was trying to get into the citadel at the same time. and kind of the same thing happened. also on the female side, do they come in knowing they have to succeed? thank you. >> i'll start, but i'm pretty sure we're all going to say the same thing. it's standards. you have to maintain the standards. you have to hold women to those standards. the women who did succeed and

did meet the standards are going to suffer if you don't hold the one who didn't meet the standards accountable. that's got to happen. and i know that there are going to be women who fail. we recognize that. but you have to -- you can't let someone slide because that's going to hurt the women who succeed. do you want to add something? >> i'll jump in. to speak to some of sue's things here. it's not just holding them to standards once they arrive at a unit. and i think this speaks to a cultural change that is starting to happen but needs to happen a little more robustly, especially from the marine corps side. but it's holding them to standards from day one. and right now, leadership in the military is in a very unique position that they have that influence. that, you know, as an infantry officer and especially here in d.c., you have the ear of some

high-level people of saying hey, we're going to be integrating. we're going to have these women showing up to our units. we need them held to high standards from the day they enter boot camp or recruit training. or their first day at the academy. and they need the opportunity not only to meet these high standards and excel at these high standards. but the training from day one to meet them. something else when we're talking about studies and data here is that if you look at the physicality aspect, and i think the physicality standards are the ones that always get brought up. women don't run as fast, they don't do as many pullups. they don't do as many sit-ups. if you look at the actual training, one, is if you give men and women from an early age, from that 18 to 22-year-old, the critical point, the same tools to meet physical benchmarks, they'll do it. and especially if you know, this is where the benchmark is and

you get -- pullups are always the big thing. you give them the tools they're able to do it. there's also the same studies that this lag effect of not expecting women and not giving them the tools from an early age to perform physically, it's really hard to make it up later. and this is one the marine corps study has been referenced a few times. one of the thing that has finally come out is they tried to train up these women to the same physical standards, basically giving them what men would have received in two years of physical training in three months. all you're going to do is break people. they're not going to meet the standard. is these self-fulfilling prof ffi -- prophesies of we don't think women will make it and they won't make it. we need to be vocal about

holding women to high standards from day one. and being a leader in a position where you're receiving women, that voice is needed. and there's a lot of us who are preaching that over and over and over again, but i think that the public is sort of hearing like, oh, it's those crazy women talking about it again. what do they know? i think if -- especially the male contingent becomes very vocal about this, and becomes very proactive in saying i need well-trained women coming to me, because this is happening, it's going to have a really big impact. >> could i make one comment. everyone is talking standards, but i would throw this one back to you and say what are your infantry standards? are they clear? do we know what they are? and we keep talking about women meeting standards, but the truth of the last three years is we've tried to revisit and figure out what are the standards. don't try to hold women to standards we don't really know what they are. and they're trying to reach or

to achieve a nebulous, invisible standard that -- so that's my first thing. what are the standards? and are they clear in the first place? and is everybody having to meet them the same way. so yeah, we all agree on standards, or meeting the standards are important. but clear standards are even more important and holding women to those standards in the same way that men are held is really critical. >> and my hopes are for leaders today is that everything -- integration becoming formalized makes your job easier. because the answer absolutely is same standards. i recall being part of the generation that needed women on the ground overseas. and it put c.o.s in an absolutely uncomfortable position because of the exclusion ban. i was a military police officer in fallujah. two of my military working dog assets were handled by females. now yes, they were tire-flipping

amazons and they could handle themselves anywhere, but it put a lot of the units to which we attached assets in an uncomfortable position. do they want to that i can take these females on patrol when i might not come back with that american and might be in violation. we had units that went out without explosive working dogs because they weren't comfortable with the fact that they might have to use the female handler. i recall very personally and poignantly that when we needed -- we were training the women to go work the ecped, but i had cos that were uncomfortable with the women sleeping out at the ecps. and we would expose them to contact by convoying them back and forth to the fob twice a day. so you as leaders now have the -- there's less gray area for you. and my hope is with one standard and fewer emotional question

marks, it actually makes your jobs easier. >> okay, good. other questions? >> i have one. so i've listened to many of the presentations you had. sort of had the same theme a little bit that it's very similar to african-american integration, similarities with openly serving gay service members integration, and from those two perspectives, there is often a generational distinction, that younger generations had no problem with fully integrating african-americans in 1948. younger service members had little problem with fully integrating openly serving gay service members. is there a generational distinction where younger service members are onboard and it's more those that are in their 15, 20-plus-year service that aren't? or something else?

>> i would like to make a quick comment on this. i don't think we're done with integrating african-americans, frankly, or gays. i still think we've got a long ways to go on both counts. and the motion that the younger are -- don't have bias across the board is -- that's simply not true. are they a little more open and accepting? i say maybe when they come in, but leadership influences their attitudes over time. and those senior leaders have a huge impact on those junior members who are joining the military. to me it's got to start with senior leaders. but certainly, i would say the entry level are more pliable and more willing to accept whatever leadership tells them. >> i also think there is a difference. the thing about repealing don't ask don't tell is those folks were already in the unit.

it's like it was the person serving next to you that you did not know was gay. and so that's different from both the example of african-american integration and integrating women into combat arms. i do think there is not so much -- it's generational, but not because of society. i think more generational because of experience. i think there sf a difference -- i see a difference in the senior officers today -- you know, i'm going to brag a little bit about my class of '80. it has a number of three and four-star generals right now. and even if they've spent their career in the infantry, they spent four years training next to women. there are other services where we have senior generals who have never fired a weapon down range next to a female marine. oh, excuse me, female service member. or done a combat confidence course with a woman on their team. they didn't grow up with the women next to them.

and i do think that makes a difference in terms of leadership. that, yes, you know, you would argue that if this was a really bad idea, the men who had had more experience training with women would be more opposed to it than the men who had no experience. so just that fact that the men who've had experience, the men in the mps who have fought next to women, who have been under fire down range next to women are not saying women don't belong in these roles. so that tells me something. so i think the experience factor, which does tie generationally because this has grown over time, is really relevant in terms of acceptance. >> i think just to piggy back off of that last comment, you know, being in the service that has been segregated the most from this, from anywhere that we train women initially to i think just a harder delineation of, yo know, combat roles for men

versus noncombat roles for women. more than generational, i think it's socialization. and i think why generationally, the younger generations come in, don't see it as a big of a deal. just socially, they've been doing more with women from day one. i think you can say the same with don't ask don't tell, sort of two-fold. one, these were people already serving. they were able just to serve openly. it's a lot harder to -- you know, somebody you've deployed with multiple times that you have, you know, been in combat with, it's a lot harder to say oh, well, now that i know this about you, you don't belong anymore. there's no way to also really hide the fact that you are a woman ever. and i think even with -- and i agree with ellen that we still have a long way to go with both african-american integration -- not just african-american, but minority in general --

integration, and full acceptance of don't ask don't tell. even in the case of african-americans and the thing that if you look at -- especially rhetorical studies of how groups are able to really recognitio. and you saw this not just with citizen rights outside the military, but full integration. it was a lot harder to tell in the world war ii era that it was a black soldier or white soldier fighting because they were doing the exact same thing. there has been much more now qualification of women's jobs and women's roles. and even as a cobra pilot, there was, i think -- i got both goods and bads. goods in that i got thrown into a deploying situation right away. it was just very much about job performance. but whenever it would come back to garrison, there was a lot of qualification skills.

oh well, you know, it was the female cobra pilot who did this. so maybe things were different. maybe standards were different. because you stand out a lot more. the physical differences, you can tell women tend to be built differently and look differently. there's a physical ability to stand out that i think has hindered some of the integrations in the way that racial and sexual orientation integration hasn't been hindered. >> thank you. other questions? back in the back and then to the front. dr. burnett and professor davidson. >> i would like to -- i'm ari burnett, associate dean and professor of sisa. i was very impressed with sue fulton's comments about how being better in this dimension makes us a more powerful fighting force.

i'm curious about your thoughts in terms of how this makes us a more powerful fighting force, maybe a more dominating force in a comparative sense against our competitor nations who we're likely to go up against, the russians and the chinese in terms of how they're moving or not moving in this direction. >> the research as the least academic member of the panel. one interesting thing i saw was homogenius groups get lazy in their thinking because they think others in the group are going to agree with them. when you add people from racial differences or gender

differences or other differences, they think they get -- they work harder because they feel like oh, i need to defend my idea, my point of view. they work harder to prove themselves because there's not that same sense of oh, these are my people in a sense. i deally, when you have a diverse group, including gender diversity, you're going to bring different strengths to the battle, you're all going to get smarter. you're all going to get better. there's going to be an aspect of proving yourself on both sides that should make the unit perform better. should make the unit make better decisions. it gets more come peculiar. i heard general kazan say it used to be about amassing fire power on the enemy. now it's much more complex. you're making decisions down to the small unit on a regular basis about who the enemy combatant is and isn't.

in more complex battlefields. if you're making better decisions in the unit, if if you have a broader diversity of skills in that unit, it should make you stronger. now, that's. >> howie: thet call. but it seems to me that as we move forward, the smart leaders are going to say okay, what does she bring to the fight? you know, realizing that our, you know, chris greist wasn't a brilliant land navigator, but she made herself a great land navigator. could a guy have done that? yes. but it turns out the best person for that particular job was a woman. so that's the second piece as you're broadening the pool. so you should be able to put the best person, the best job regardless. and i think that's true whenever we take it another step forward. one of the things we said about don't ask don't tell is it's not about equality, it's about

readiness. it's about -- if your best arabic linguist is gay, who cares? you need a really good arabic linguist. if your best person for the job -- and we're going to have this discussion again. if your best person for the job is transgender, who cares, do the job. so in those respects, we should expect that this makes us stronger. and that our enemies who are more invested in traditional ways of -- these are the people who traditionally will fight in our infantry, and those people aren't eligible, they're missing out on talent. so that should put us ahead. any other thought? >> to take it to a higher level, a little more theoretically -- sue touched on the good, practical points. but what it also brings -- especially the russian and chinese model, where it's a very

top-down directed military. you have essentially a military class. you're almost born into that. it becomes a -- not just a profession or a citizen soldier type idea, but a class of people that do this job. you do whatever the leader tep teles you to do. yes, we need strategic planners and we need military professionals who that is what they do for a living, but part of being in a democracy is citizen buy-in, citizen response. this idea of the citizen soldier that's both an enabling force. like sue said, you can draw from a really, really diverse talent pool. the biggest that pool gets, the more you're going to guarantee you get the right person for the job. but on the flip side of that is that it's going to force

military leaders and political leaders to be very deliberate and very measured in their military decisions. you know, if you have the entire citizenship pool, it's very easy to support going to war when you know there's no way you're ever going to have to fight it. if you're saying well, it's just this class of people over here, i'm not part of the military establishment, i'm not part of the military class, sure, i'll support the war. russia is really good at doing this. they're really good at drumming up this really strong military that's its own class and they can sell military action to their public very well, whether or not it's actually the best thing to do. and having a money -- a wider pool from which the military is drawn makes both military and civilian leaders have to be very measured and very deliberate. and hopefully also forces citizens to be much more informed about what's actually happening and what actually is going on, that military

decisions are made when it's actually in the best interest of the country for a military action to be taken. and that, i think, is a very important delineation between democracies and the idea of a citizen soldier and having this very wide citizen pool and nondemocracies who just create a really big military that they drum up to try to show military might. >> i missed one other very practical point, which is some of our military enemies come from traditional societies and their soldiers are terrified of being killed by a woman. that's a simple fact, that facing it might be honorable to be killed by a man, but to be killed by a woman is dishonorable. there's another factor there that's practical. >> i think where i struggle with this debate at the macro level is that the reason we're

discussing integration is that we've been using, needing, women on the ground operationally for the last decade. i trained mail clerks and attached them at the squad level to infantry units. this isn't the choice for the niceties of citizenship, it's a choice because operationally we are, have been, and in the future we'll need to use these female service members. so it becomes difficult, because absolutely we will be stronger if we train them and equip them at the entry level, if we allow them to cohesively bond with units that we're going to operationally employ them with. so i do think that theoretical perspective is really important. but looking at the realities on the grown the last decade for me is where the rubber meets the road. >> professor davidson has a

question. >> i'm caroline davidson. i'm a professor, i worked at fort bragg. you'll imagine some of our questions come from -- or my students' questions who i'm channelling today come about the distinction or whether there is a distinction -- and many seem more willing because they've had woman on the most elite units working alongside them already. actually, many of the comments you just made spoke to a few other points i wanted to emphasize, one of which, i'm teaching this course this year that emphasizes the use of natural sciences in terms of thinking about strategy. and, of course, one of the main points that really struck our students was this idea of variation, being absolutely key towards evolving and improving. and everything you're seeing heterogeneity helps us with that so much. in terms of csts, one of the things that really struck me --

and it's an anecdote, but i thought it was pointed -- i live outside of fort bragg. there was a group of csts who came down for a book talk. they were not invited on to fort bragg. that book talk happened at the small independent bookstore in southern pines. and my impression, just from talking to a few of them over dinner, one of them was an injured veteran, was that they feel like they're not -- no one is paying attention to what they have to say about their experience, which is really alarming to me. i don't know whether you can explain that just because there were very few of them, and whether it is just relegated to anecdotal. it's horrendous to me they didn't take more information from them and interview them more seriously. and then ms. hunter, thor thing that i think we had a presentation on that i thought was very striking, there's a very clear myth out there that the public don't like this idea. and from what i understand the polling actually demonstrates that the public do expect and

want women to be serving, that they're fine with that. so why does that myth perpetuate? and do any of you have any more information on how that has shifted and how that affects what we're discussing as well? thank you. >> so i have a theory about the csts and why they haven't been included in this research, and here's my theory. i proposed this research, i was on the staff of the army war college. i wanted to do it through the war college. and they thought it was a great idea. and then we engaged with general lotell. he was onboard, thought it would be great research. then we got into his staff and suddenly we began to get some pushback. initially they provided large scale support backing the research. literally four days before these women were supposed to show up here in d.c., we had 33 registered, ten of them dropped

out that weekend because they were told by their leadership at fort bragg that they were not -- this was not officially sanctioned and that they were not allowed to participate in the research. so i think there's a disconnect between what senior leaders -- some senior leaders, at least in this case, socom, is saying and then there's mid level pushback from leadership that says oh, we don't want to participate. it's really about organizational change and resistance to this type of change. and you're going to see it throughout every organization. you're going to see mid level leaders who don't agree with it and they become spoilers. they make every effort to stop the forward progress or the full integration of women. i think that's what happened with the csds. after we did our research in august -- or in july, august socom actually did have a little small conference with the csts. they invited them to come to

madil where they spent a short weekend with them. but the csts reported back to me that it was very much backward-looking and not forward-looking. they wanted to capture what they had done. they weren't asking them about how can you inform us about how we should move forward with this. so they were disappointed with that. i've heard from the csts that there's going to be another research conference with the csts down at madill. remember, this isn't fort bragg. different leadership. i do think you're seeing internal resistance at different levels. >> so this actually, i think, leads a lot to your question as to why there's still this perception that it's not wanted. if you look at the public in general, they're like yeah, fine, great. if it makes everything better, it's better. so a lot of it is this mid level area. and i think there's something of this sort of mid level leaders that they feel like it's almost

their way to get noticed and make their mark. if they can oppose this, people will know who they are. and on the -- as someone who has written quite a bit openly and publicly about why this is important, and i know jeanette can speak to the same thing, the comments and the responses that come back to it is like you'll get one or two kind of mid level males or one very notorious in particular retired senior level male who will publicly make these big statements about how i was in combat and this is all wrong. that gets a lot of attention. because they attach their accolades to it. whereas those of us who have been very vocal about why it matters have really taken the road that, you know, passion needs to come out of this, emotion needs to come out of it. let's just look at the facts. let's look at what women have

done. as kate really brings up, it has been an operational necessity. so now, how do we ensure that there is success in this continued operational necessity. and facts and dispassionate discourse isn't as sexy as some guy running up screaming, but all of the dead women! it plays again to this spoiler. again, this is sort of my theory of being involved with it, is that it's a way they feel they can make a mark and get known. now they're the guy who fought the change and was taken over by the social experiment. and they use all this really emotional passioned language that doesn't reflect reality of what's actually happening. >> in front? >> i'm david, a fellow here.

my question is about that emotional aspect of it. from personal experience and from listening to this ed bait in public, there seems to be a growing acceptance or realization that this is a good idea. being in the air force myself and having fought alongside female fighter pilots, it seems very natural from my perspective. but from where i see pushback is this idea of opportunity versus response bability. -- responsibility. everybody i speak to agrees that women should have the opportunity to do this. but when you use the selective service, and when you flip it and say responsibility, then the answers tend to change. so i'm wondering your opinion. is that a societal thing that we need to get past? when you ask a father, do you want your daughter to be able to serve in combat if she wants to?