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[indistinct conversations] >> thank you for representing the people.

>> i've had several people come up and tell me i did an amazing job. i know i did an amazing job, but it's so great to hear it. there's some people saying we need to set a magic threshold to get a welfare check. infiltrating the party and fighting over the money.

and 2012 they had three state affiliates, all of which had a different presidential candidates on the ballot. i do not want that happening to this party. i want this party to stay libertarian for my entire life and beyond. more room tomorrow, to the white house coverage with the libertarian nomination process from florida. secretary, we proudly votes tof our delegate the next president of the united states -- [cheers and applause]

each year, nancy pelosi holds a women's history month reception at the capital. this year, michelle obama, joe biden, and cathy mcmorris rodgers joined her honor women veterans. this is one hour.

the >> thank you for joining us for this annual celebration of his history month.

of congress members and friends to lift up the legacy of every woman who is stepped forward to expand and defend freedom throughout our history the health of office we take as members of congress is to support and defend the constitution and the american people. for year, we ordered supreme court justices who support and defend the constitution with their waste them. today, we are privileged to pay tribute to honor the women who support and defend the constitution and american people. america's women veterans. today it is an honor to be joined in the celebration by two of our nation's greatest champions for the women veterans and families. our beneficent first lady, michelle obama.

outstanding dr. joe biden. thank you for your leadership in creating their joining forces initiative to empower our servicemembers veterans caregivers and families. as we celebrate all women veterans, we're proud to be honoring one woman in particular, retired brigadier general wilma l. bought, u.s. air force. [applause] a trailblazing woman who gave nearly 30 years to service. one of the first women to become brigadier general. [applause]

the first woman to deploy with a strategic air command meant bombardment wing on operational deployment. one of the most decorated women in american history. now she is president emeritus of the women in military service for america memorial foundation. keep that in mind. [laughter] here we have a slight change in our scheduled program. your program shows dr. biden speaking later in the program but after 340 days in space, astronaut scott kelly has come back to earth, landing in kazakhstan late last night. it is longest time an american astronaut has spent in space and it is an historic achievement. [applause] it is personal for us in the

connection of scott kelly's brother, mark kelly, also an astronaut and husband of our former colleague gabrielle giffords. [applause] we always like to associate ourselves with greatness one way or another. dr. biden must leave early in time to help welcome captain kelly home on behalf of all americans. please send him our congratulations. we thank you for making time for this gathering and it is my privilege to welcome dr. jill biden. [applause] dr. biden: good afternoon, everyone. thank you so much, leader pelosi for hosting today's event and

for your enduring commitment to those who serve and sacrificed so much for our country. let me start by apologizing as the leader said for leaving a little early and as leader pelosi said i have the honor of traveling to houston to welcome home astronaut scott kelly from a year in space. we are so proud of scott kelly and it is going to be a really special celebration. i will be joined by scott's twin brother and members of his family. as part of our joining forces education initiative, i have invited three military connected students from aberdeen high school in maryland to travel with me to tour the johnson space center and welcome home retired navy captain scott kelly. [applause] i want to show the students that

if they work hard and if they dream big, there is no limit to where they can go. and it is always a pleasure to spend time with our first lady, michelle obama, who works tirelessly for military families and i am proud to call her my friend and my partner in joining forces. i would also like to thank the chair of the house republican conference, kathy mcmorris rodgers for her leadership and support of our military families. [applause] and brigadier general bought, we are truly honored in your presence. you are an inspiration. [applause] madame leader, in 2010 you posted an event to award the

congressional gold medal to the first woman to fly u.s. military planes. the women air force service pilots or wasps went overlooked for too long so you along with the bipartisan group made sure their service was celebrated. i'm proud to stand with you six years later as we continue our commitment to honoring and supporting our women veterans. it is because of those women like the wasps, like the brigadier general and so many of you here today that michelle and i started our joining forces initiative in the first lace. -- place.

michelle and i talked back on election night in 2008 about how the two of us could work together to serve those courageous americans the way they have served each and every one of us. together, the first lady and i traveled all across the country starting the dialogue with service members and their loved ones. to hear what kinds of support were needed and what kinds of advocacy could make the greatest difference. what we heard during those conversations was very similar from what we hear today from all american families. they want to ensure that their kids have a good education, that their family has the health care that they deserve, and that they have the opportunity to have a good paying job. as a military mom, and a lifelong educator, i also understand on a personal level

how essential it is for teachers to be trained to support the children of service members. it was very personal for the biden family when our son was deployed to iraq in 2008. his teacher put a picture of his unit alongside the door to the classroom so every time natalie, our granddaughter natalie's class would walk into the classroom they would be reminded that natalie's daddy was fighting a war. similarly, michelle and i know that some of the most talented, hard-working, resourceful employees in the country are veterans and military spouses. for many military families, education and employment opportunities are essential. studies show that women veterans

are more likely to get a college education. yet, less than a quarter of women veterans use their g.i. bill benefits. it is so important that we ensure women veterans have the tools and the resources they need to succeed. because a new job or degree can empower a veteran and her family. it gives them their shot at the american dream and they had -- have earned nothing less. in the five years since michelle and i have joined -- launched the joining forces, more and more businesses have stepped up and hired more than 850,000 veterans and military spouses. [applause]

dr. biden: because here is what we know. our servicemen and women are among the most highly skilled workers in this country. humility, discipline, work ethic, it is in their blood, it is who they are. institutions of higher education have been making some big strides in helping veterans succeed on campus. and more than 850 governors in -- and city and county officials are working to end veteran homelessness in their communities. and many have already done it. michelle and i intend to continue pushing forward on this work for our remaining time in the white house and beyond. and we hope that all of you here today will join us to show the members of our military and

veteran families that we stand by all of those who are willing to do so much to sacrifice everything for the good of our great nation. thank you again for having me here today. have a wonderful women's history month. god bless our troops, our veterans, and their families. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the honorable cathy mcmorris rodgers. ms. mcmorris rodgers: good

afternoon. it is an honor to join everyone and thank you for being here. i certainly want to recognize leader polsi as a trailblazer herself, as the first woman female speaker. [applause] mom of five, grandmother of nine, and it is an honor for me to be able to be here with the first lady michelle obama and dr. biden, and i have the pleasure of cochairing the military family caucus with sanford bishop and we spent a lot of time together as we were thinking through priorities and it is great to be on the stage with you today and certainly recognizing general baught. it is hard to miss the reminders of great women before us. we follow their lead, remember their struggles, and enjoy the rights and freedoms that they have helped to secure. so often we talk about the past but women's history month provides us an opportunity to

challenge people to think about those who live today and create history for the next generation. today, we honor women who dream big, set goals, and accepted the call to serve our country and protect our freedom. women like the general. who in 1980 became the first woman selected for promotion to brigadier general in the comptroller career field. we honor another young woman who a few years later in 1984 joined the air force and made the personal decision, she was going to be the first female fighter pilot if and when the ban was lifted. when the and was lifted us young -- ban was lifted, this woman faced another hurdle, a challenging environment in which she was often the only woman in

the room and where not everyone in the room wanted her to succeed. by working hard, improving her abilities she not only met that goal, she became the first woman to command a fighter squad earned in combat, in charge of a 24 fighter aircraft and personnel responsible for deploying anywhere in the world in 24 hours. during her military service she flew 325 combat hours and was awarded the bronze star. among other commendations. she broke down the barriers, faced hostility, and was tremendously successful in a male-dominated field but it is important to remember that success was not just because she was a woman. it was because of her leadership and her results. that young woman is our friend and congressman martha mcsally. [applause]

martha is one of the historic 104 women, i see many in the room, serving in these halls of congress. and making history in our own way. while we come from different backgrounds and have different disagreements at times, we have one thing in common. we are breaking down barriers for our daughters and their daughters' daughters. from the first woman to represent their state to women who have made dramatic care -- career changes from the trailblazers to innovators to passionate advocates for the voiceless. to lifelong public servants and women who went from secretary to the corner office. we honor you and we thank you. all of us in leadership positions are showing to girls

around this country that with hard work, they can achieve anything. no dream is too big, no goal to far-fetched. what i believe as a lawmaker is what i believe as a mother of two young girls. we should not be defined by where we come from. but empowered but wait -- by what we can become. let's focus on a bright future for every american, especially women to live courageously, follow their hearts, see potential, believe in ourselves, and be risktakers. you all have made a difference in the world and left a mark so every american can feel safe and secure in their lives in the future. -- and the future. and where women can keep making history for years to come. thank you very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, brigadier general wilma l.

vaught, united states air force. [applause] brigadier gen. vaught: it is a privilege indeed to be here today to be representing the veterans, the women veterans who have served our country. and i think i decided what i was going to talk about today is how history affected my life. i graduated from high school in a small school in illinois in june of 1948.

and little did i realize that in june of 1948, the legislation was being signed into law that said women could be full-fledged members of the military. and i can tell you if i had known it it would not have meant a thing to me. [laughter] and as i -- so as i think about this, as i think about graduating from this small school of about 56 students in the high school, my class was the largest ever graduated, 24, 12 men, 12 boys, 12 girls. needless to say as i think about this, i wonder sometimes, who would ever have dreamed that in about 80 years i would be standing here in front of you. not me. [applause] brigadier gen. vaught: after graduating from the university

of illinois, working for an atomic energy company for about five years, i received a letter from an army recruiter telling me that i could get a commission and i could manage and supervise and that is what i wanted to do. so i joined the air force. what can i say? [laughter] and when i think back to that time in 1957, when i think about the opportunities open, number one, there was one colonels position, only one that i could compete for, the director of women in the air force. and i could not be -- think about becoming a general because the law said that women could not be generals or admirals so that was out. so and as i think about the law that passed in 1948 said we were limited to 2% of the force and at that time we were .7 of 1%. by 1967 during the vietnam war that law was changed. the limit was taken away, the 2% limit and the restriction on promotions was taken away.

now, if you think at that point in my life 10 years after i had gone in, i immediately thought, i am going to be a general. i did not. as a matter of fact, i went to vietnam instead. and when i think about 1971 to 1973 and at that time, women did not get the same benefits as men in the service, if you got married he could not get an id card, could not go to the base exchange, the commissary, any of those things, and one of our air force first lieutenants sued the secretary of defense and said that she was being discriminated against.

and she was advised that she would surely win. she did not. she lost. that case got picked up by ruth bader ginsburg. [applause] who took it forward to the supreme court and that was her first supreme court victory. [applause] and she is very proud of it. and that opened the door to other lawsuits. that was how rotc got opened to women, lawsuits by women saying they were discriminated against. there were four women suing over the academies being close to --

closed to women. they sued about women being forced to leave the service on the day that they were diagnosed as being pregnant. they sued on the principle that if women had children in their household, they had to get out. they sued about that. and they won all those lawsuits and things changed. some of those things did not apply to me because i never had children and i never was married, but you could not help but be aware of the changes that were taking place in women having greater opportunities. in 1980, i was promoted to brigadier general. as she said -- and at that same year, when you think about history, that was the year in that timeframe that the va discovered that, my goodness, we have a lot of women veterans and we are not doing our facilities for women veterans. we do not have the right kind of

doctors. we do not have the right kind of facilities. and it started changing then and has been changing ever sense, and we have the members, particularly the women members of congress to thank for many of those changes. [applause] and another thing happened. in 1982, that you would think was not particularly important but it was. that was when the first history of women in the military was published by major general jean holm, air force, retired. it truly has been a revolution. and i do not know that it is finished yet. for the first time, here i am now, a brigadier general of two years and for the first time, i was able to read this history of

women in the military. 1985, i retired as a brigadier general, and i remember it well. there were seven women generals or admirals, seven, and i was the ranking one, a brigadier general. and when i think about today, we have three four-star women, two in army, generals, and one in the navy as a four-star. we have come a long way. [applause] so i returned to washington, d.c. wondering what in the world i was going to find to do because i intended to keep

working. and little did i know that mary [indiscernible] from ohio and who was a congresswoman and senator frank murkowski were busy doing something that was going to influence my life. because they were working to get legislation passed to build a memorial honoring all the women who had ever served. and they got it passed and signed into law. [applause] in 1985, and frank murkowski's daughter is now -- frank murkowski's daughter is now in the congress. i was asked in december of 1986 to be on the board, and in january, 1987, i joined the board because there were only five general officers or admirals in the area. and i knew the others were not going to do this and i felt one of us had to do it so i said i would.

and i did and i intended to do what generals do so well, make comments. and in march, i got a phone call, i was sitting at home and one of the members of the board said why were you not at the meeting? i said what meeting? she said the board we are on. i said i forgot about it. what did you do? she said, we elected officers. you are the new president. and that was 29 years ago. this month. so, the first year i had to think through this because i was not sure if we should build a memorial because we had worked very hard to integrate ourselves as women with the men and should we build a memorial that is -- that segregated women and i finally decided as i began to

talk particularly to the world war ii women who had served, this was something we had to do. and, you know, when you think about the women, going back to the american revolution and at that time, there were 1.8 million unrecognized women veterans, and you might say, why didn't anybody see them, why were they invisible? because nobody ever asked them to tell their story. the books were written about the men. they did not even write about the nurses. and that is the way it was. so i felt we have to do this, and so we had to build it, and it had to tell the story and pay tribute to the women. you do not do these things alone. i had a lot of help. there was a man that many of you know that was here, jack murtha, in getting it done. [applause]

got it done, we still needed help and jerry lewis from california helped. juanita mcdonald, who was a congresswoman. we need to support this memorial for $5 million a year need $5id, we don't million -- i was wrong, but she got us about a million dollars a year and then what did she do? she died and i can tell you i went to her funeral because she was the greatest supporter that i had and she started something that exists today because it she started the caucus of congressional women to come every memorial day timeframe and memorial,th at the

and they have done it every single year. and corinne brown who is sitting right over here. anotherackson lee was .ood they were friends and they have been at every one. and many of you who are still here, are that, and so, we still do that. as i think about the help we had , we had other help, too. barbara bush, hillary clinton.

and jill biden have helped. and since that time, through the joining forces, and michelle obama hosted us at a tea party after i reminded her something that she didn't know that eleanor roosevelt had invited women to tea at her house and i asked her if they still served tea at the white house. and they do. and they did. and it was a great event. we had about a hundred 50 people there. it was wonderful. thank you again. so, we have always also had help i never saw and i did not know her name was leader pelosi until today. it is amazing what you can

learn. .eader nancy pelosi every time i think i ever saw her, she acknowledged my presence and wanted to know what she could do to help. i do not think i ever answered that question. i should have. i will think about that. closing, until 1948, through world war i, starting with the american revolution, ii, womenrld war answered the call because they wanted to do with the could to serve their country and when he served in the military in world military, theyd were reserves.

and world war ii, they were in for the duration, and they could not be thing about her career in the military until 1948 when women finally became official members of the military. and so, when you think about them, we have come a long way since then. women have always been volunteers and i guess we will be until they decide to draft us and if they do, we are americans, to. we will want to serve our country. in in 1901were taken but they were not formed like the men's corners. they do not get rank. the reason they didn't is at the male members of congress said women should be ordering that around.

women have been ordering men around since the beginning of time. and now we're up to about 3 million women veterans and every veteran at the moment we only have about 269,000 registered. we need your help. and i want you to know that that who was killed in woodbridge has been registered already. thank you.

>> ladies and gentlemen, democratic leader, nancy pelosi. >> thank you general for your exceptional leadership on behalf of military women. wasn't that something? oh my gosh. whatever you want. >> i forgot to say that january 1, after 29 years, i retired. my replacement is here, major general dean mcwilliams. where are you? right there.

she gets all of the worries now. >> the both told me that they need their money to pay the rent . i know that i speak for some -- for everyone here i say you on earth with your presence. i think ms. rogers for joining us and saluting veterans in the celebration. thank you for your inspirational message, as well. [applause] today, the post-9/11 generation represents a largest generation of women to ever serve in the military. any women faced broad and discriminatory barriers many women come home to a society

that does not recognize their service and heroism. all too often they are invisible veterans. you are an inspiration and are changing the face of courage in america. they honored guests here today are a testament to the 2 million women veterans. thank you to the washington, d.c. mayor. air force general deborah james. the american legion director, miss jones. and senator elizabeth the dole. establish the elizabeth dole

foundation. the v.a. secretary bob mcdonald for encouraging women veterans to come forward. thank you. we are glad to support the v.a.'s i am one initiative to ensure that women veterans get the recognition and support that they deserve. >> we know there are women veterans serving in the congress on both sides of the aisle on both sides of the capital. senator joni ernst,

congresswoman gabbert, congresswoman duckworth. we have many friends from the veterans department would joined us as well. secretary mcdonald, tim wall. thank you for your service. we continue to act on our sacred responsibility that the military leave nobody behind on the battlefield when they come home. we need to leave no veterans behind. at the women's federal memorial carved in class cry out the words of the army nurse from world war ii words that define the mission and embody our purpose here today.

that is, let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom. it is my privilege to present a woman who has inspired millions with grace and strength of her leadership, first lady, michelle obama. not yet, not yet. i am milking this for all it is worth. she uses the power of her positions to lift up the extraordinary service. the first lady is ensuring that the courage and sacrifice of those that serve and that of their families are the center of

the national conversation. she's helping to ensure that military men and women to the full respect that they deserve, now. please join me in welcoming, the first lady of the united states, michelle obama. [applause] >> thank you. good afternoon. it is truly a pleasure and an honor to be with you all today. we will give ourselves a round of applause. just one month. i want to start by thanking leader pelosi for that kind introduction and for hosting us here today. i want to thank her for her outstanding leadership, every

day in congress. i do not get the chance to visit capitol hill all that often but when the leaders invited to me, i was delighted to accept. like so many of you i am a big fan of our leader, nancy. she has been such an extraordinary leader and advocate on so many important issues including supporting those who serve our country and i'm so grateful to her for everything she has done. >> i also want to thank jill who has been an outstanding partner in joining forces for so many years. we could not have got so much done if it were not for our friendship and partnership. i also want to thank chairwoman

mcmorris rodgers for her terrific work is been a tremendous partnership and of course, i want to recognize the brigadier general. the wonderful history of women in the military and veterans that happens to be her life. one of the most inspiring women i have ever met. every time i see her i tell her that i want to be just like her. generations of women in the military. every person across america. she is working tirelessly although she is retiring.

she has put so much effort into honoring women and women veterans. i am so proud to be here today to honor her for her extraordinary service to this country. thank you so much. thank you to brilliant and fearless woman, more than 200,000 women are serving our country in ranks. the army ranger school, they are awesome.

as you have already heard, they will soon be welcome in every combat unit in our armed forces. there is so much progress to celebrate. we also know that our women in uniform -- it is really 3 million, they still face plenty of challenges as they serve this country and then transition act to civilian life. one striking reality is that many women veterans do not self identify as veterans. as a result, too many miss out on the benefits that come with serving this country. only one in 10 women veterans take advantage of their g.i. bill. she mentioned that three quarters of women veterans do not use the v.a. health care system at all. at first, statistics like these

might seem surprising, folks might wonder how could these women serve with such honor and hesitate to even discuss that service when they come home. when you meet these women and hear their stories to begin to understand why they might he reluctant to tout their status as veterans. take the story of captain brown. she will celebrate her 17th year in the army in may. she's been deployed to iraq and served as a cup a commander but when she decided to reenlist after spending time in civilian life. many asked her how she could possibly put her career ahead of her responsibilities as a mom. a question they would not dream of asking male colleagues. then there is the specialist, kate toyed to is with us today, rocking a great jacket.

kate served as an army photojournalist in iraq, documenting more on the front lines, writing in convoys -- riding in convoys and taking cover from mortar fire. when she locked into a local v.a. organization, they took one look at her and offered her an application for military spouses. the executive director is here with us today and i love her to death. she is awesome. she would not acknowledge yourself like many of you do not do. she has served in the air force. she is the first female thunderbird pilot and is flown over two dozen combat missions. this is what nicole shared with

us during the meeting. she said when she would tell people that she was a fighter pilot they often would not believe her. she would get into this back-and-forth thing and they would say, yes i am, no i am not , so finally she would just say, google me. every single female servicemember can sell stories like these. stories of misguided questions outdated assumptions and interactions with folks who for one reason or another one to believe they cannot just as well as a man. think we can all agree that they sacrificed so much and have served so bravely they should hide their competence. they should beginning every single one of the benefits they have earned.

that is why i am so proud that my husband and this administration has worked with so many folks in this room to increase funding at unprecedented levels. unprecedented levels. to help expand benefits particularly the women veterans. that is why, over the past seven years, we've trained 2700 health care providers in women's health and established a women's health provider at every the a medical center in the country -- every v.a. medical center in the country. that is why we have a staff made entirely of women discuss benefits and provide referrals to women veterans and their families.

we know that government alone cannot close this gap. we all have to play the role in honoring and supporting our men veterans. step up and do our part. today, i want to challenge everyone to take action on behalf of women veterans. if you are a member of congress, work with us to ensure they get the support that they deserve. go back to your states and districts, find these veteran service members and connect veteran families to benefits and opportunities that they have earned. if you are a ceo or hiring manager or hr director, raise the bar and commit to employing more women veterans. as you have heard they are some of the most skilled and

dedicated workers you could ever have and bringing them on board isn't just the right thing to do it is the smart thing to do for your bottom line. if you are a health care provider, make it your point to ask all of your patients if they have served. if you are a reporter, a publisher, or an editor, tell the stories, they are amazing. make sure that folks understand that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. finally, if you are a woman veteran, if you have worn this country's uniform and serve so bravely, i want to ask you to stand tall and share your story. i know that so often you are trained to focus in your team and missions and not yourself.

that is part of the challenge. as the music indicates -- [laughter] i can also tell you this. those years in the military help to develop skills that uniquely set you apart. i have seen it with my own eyes as i met with our military members and veterans across the country and our spouses. they are amazing individuals. through our service you learn what it means to be a real leader. how to work with all kinds of people in all situations, including challenging life or death situations that many of us could not imagine.

some of you learn how to load weapons onto multibillion-dollar aircraft or how to perform the most complex high-tech analyses using the most cutting edge technology. all of you learned how to build a team and complete any mission in front of you know matter what it takes. that is why it is like the so important that you tell your own story, general has been doing. you have to tell your own stories. they are so worth telling. our girls, daughters, and granddaughters need to hear them. when people hear about your service and sacrifice, once they see how patriotic you are, trust me. i have seen it. they will slowly, but surely start to get what we have got. you all are amazing. you are a gift to us. tell people you are a veteran. tell them proudly.

tell them about the extraordinary things you have done to protect us and keep us safe. when you start to face resistance, tell us that. know that we will have your back, every last one of us. we all have social media, we all have access to facebook, twitter and instagram and we can all use the women's hashtag to lift up your stories in the way that they should be. if we keep doing our part to celebrate these heroes, if we all keep joining forces and i am confident we can begin to serve our men and women in uniform as well as they have served this country and that is the least we can do to honor them for everything they have done on our behalf. so want to continue by once again thanking our service members and women, our veterans -- it has been an honor to serve you.

it is been one of the great gifts of being first lady. to give you voice and honor you. and to make sure that you are never forgotten. i want to thank everyone here for being leaders in the work of supporting our men and women in you arm and their families. as jill said, we will keep doing this work after we leave the white house. thank you, and god bless you. [applause] >> again, are we blessed to have had the presence of the first lady here today. today, we have gathered here in the heart of our democracy, in the halls of congress. above us, the star-spangled

banner flies in honor. from time to time we represent outstanding individuals with flags that have flown above the capital. in recognition of their contribution to our country. rarely do we do so in statuary hall in the presence of such distinguished guests. first lady -- i don't know if you can to the second lady, the first lady of the united states, and dr. jill biden. right now, the flag that flew over the capital on january 1, 2016. the day that she retired from the memorial foundation. in recognition of her service, in the presence of the first lady and so many members of congress, it is our honor to honor all of you in presenting brigadier general wilma of the

u.s. air force with this flag. and with our nation's gratitude. god bless you, general. and god bless america. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please remain at your seats for the departure of the official party. following their departure, please enjoy refreshments here at statutory hall. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

>> admiral john richardson talks about the defense budget process, his strategic vision for the navy, china and u.s. actions in the south china sea and more. newsmakers today at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> tonight on q&a, u.s. senate historian betty cohed talks on various events in senate history. june 1998 of a newly mentioned historian. my colleagues said it would be nice and quiet, we have an election coming up. you have a lot of time to settle

in and get comfortable. within a few weeks, the house impeached bill clinton and we got busy very quickly. we had to do a good deal of research on impeachment trials. the senate leaders at that time, trent lott and tom daschle, really wanted to follow historical precedent. andonight at 8:00 eastern pacific on c-span's q&a. >> now a look at integrating women into u.s. military combat roles. from the national defense university, this panel of current and former servicewomen addresses concerns about mental health, unit cohesion and holding women to the same standards as their male counterparts. --. one hour and 20 minutes this is one hour and 20 minutes. >> 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. dr. bell: 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 ok? 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? dr. bateman: good morning. my name is dr. kirklin bateman, 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 10 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. ms. 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 ms. 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 10-minute limit i will kind of move close to you and flash a card at you. otherwise, please begin with your presentation. ms. fulton: 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 u'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. dr. hendricks: 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 whyere 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 display 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 ok, 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. 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 ernlcurrently 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 is 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 anecdotes but anecdotes 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 biggest contributing factor the biggest contributing factor to cohesion and being accepted on their teams was job competence.

if they were competent 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 shouldn't 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.

and how that impacted overall team dynamics and mission success. leadership, not women, is the senior most important element to team cohesion. 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. 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 the top of the wall and hook your ankle, 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 instructive 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 online articles 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 way, 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 --coordinance in the middle of a swamp, she moved them over a little. none of the men thought to do that. they all set up overnight in the swamp. onlymy colonel, the 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 pygmalion 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 job, 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 laugh at their a

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 laughing 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. that sets one service member against another. 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 ied 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. professionalism, it may not be easy, but it's simple. thank you. >> alright, thank you to our

powerful for the 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 mic runners. our interns have mic. 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 bearing on you? >> i'm an infantry officer and a

1999 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. as leaders, it is a two way street. 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. thesed up with

self-fulfilling prophesies of we don't think women will make it and they won't make it. it is being 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 person 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 ecp's, 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.

do you see the same thing with women's integration? 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