Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Welcome
to the Steady State Sentinel. I'm Lauren Anderson.
Before we introduce today's guest, I'd like to
take a moment to introduce someone very special
to the Steady State Sentinel. I'm delighted to
welcome our newest co -host, Bree Fram. Brie
served our nation for more than two decades,
first in the United States Air Force and later
as a founding member of the United States Space
Force. Among her assignments was a deployment
to Iraq, and she served until late last year,
retiring as a colonel. I have to say, though,
that one of the things I want to share that's
one of my favorite things that I learned about
Brie. is that she said it was a friend pushing
her to watch Star Trek The Next Generation at
age nine that convinced her that space should
be her future. And unlike most nine -year -olds,
she actually followed through becoming an astronautical
engineer before embarking on an extraordinary
military career. Brie's also an author and a
frequent keynote speaker, and she brings a thoughtful
and distinctive military perspective to our team
that complements the backgrounds the rest of
us bring to these conversations. Like Jim, John,
Peter, and me, Brie continues to be guided by
the oath she swore to support and defend the
Constitution. Brie, we are so delighted that
you joined the team. So welcome to the Steady
State Sentinel. Lauren, it is so exciting to
have this be my first episode of the Steady State
Sentinel. Couldn't be more honored than to join
you. But I will make one little rejoinder that...
You mentioned that I was thoughtful. Let's leave
that for the listeners to decide after we get
through this, because when I start stepping on
my words or making offhand remarks that are complete
nonsense, I look forward to the feedback at the
end on that. But it's awesome to be part of this
and to help both tell the stories that reinforce
who we are as Americans that protect our constitutional
rights. And then to learn from the guests that
you and the others have already had on the show
and those that we are going to have. But before
we get to our guest today, I did just want to
ask you a little bit, because I know you've had
a distinguished career and have probably ended
up in some challenging situations over the years
based on who you are, potentially feeling a little
bit like an outsider. in your environment. Is
there one story that kind of sticks with you
on that? Wow. Oh, there's so many stories. I'll
give you two really quick ones just because they're
really quick. One while I was still at the FBI
Academy and it was the night before we were due
to shoot shotguns for the first time. And they
had all the women stay after. We're all in the
gun cleaning room and we're like, what's up?
Why are the guys leaving and the women sticking
around? And it soon became obvious because the
firearms instructor, who was awkward, really,
really nice human being, stumbling on his words
and said, well, tomorrow we're shooting the shotgun.
We're like, yeah, yeah. And he said, well, if
you have one of those like sports bra things,
you might want to wear them because like if you
have a other one, it's metal and the metal might
get pushed into you when you're shooting the
shotgun. And it came from a good place, but it
was. It was hilarious. I still think about it
today. So that was one example. And another fun
one was in a serious vein when I was working
counterintelligence many years ago. And we were
about to pitch a foreign intelligence officer
from an unnamed country. And we're talking about
it with all the executives and people from the
CIA. And they start talking like I'm not in the
room. And they're like, well, what if he hits
on her? What if he does this? And I said, oh,
I'm actually here. I hear you. I'm sitting in
the room. And if I haven't figured out how to
deal with a guy hitting on me at this point in
life, I pretty much don't belong in this job
or anywhere else. So can we like move past the
point of Lauren being able to deal with a guy
that hits on her and get to what we really need
to talk about? So those are the two that I will
share that I still find incredibly amusing all
these decades later. Oh, well, we are definitely
going to get to the things we need to talk about.
But from your first anecdote, I took away that.
good intentions can often be based on outdated
assumptions and perception of the world that
just no longer is accurate or that there are
people who live in a different time than we actually
inhabit today. And I think our guest today is
going to be able to shed some light on some of
those issues as well. So I am really excited
to welcome to the Steady States Sentinel. Jessica
Ruttenberg. Now, Jessica, Lieutenant Colonel
Retired Ruttenberg, overcame what she humorously
calls her vertical challenges to become a senior
pilot with over 3 ,000 flight hours in the United
States Air Force. And throughout her distinguished
career, she championed inclusivity, dismantled
barriers for women and minorities in the aviation
field in the military. And her advocacy led to
the Department of Defense's first maternity flight
suit. symbolizing inclusivity and addressing
female pilots' practical needs. She also drove
change in aircraft design through human systems
integration, challenging outdated policies that
excluded 44 % of women from aviation based only
on height. And her efforts reached Congress with
the Equality for Military Mothers Amendment in
the fiscal year 21 National Defense Authorization
Act. protecting over 200 ,000 Armed Forces members
from discrimination due to pregnancy, which was
a huge milestone in military equity. And after
retirement, she founded the nonprofit Level Up
Aviation, empowering underserved communities
to access aviation opportunities, continuing
her mission to make the skies accessible to all.
Jessica, thanks for joining us on the Steady
State Sentinel. Thanks for having me, Bray. It's
awesome to have you, and I've known you for a
while, but I want to reach back probably to before
I got the chance to know you, because I'm guessing
there was a point where you realized that the
world, particularly the military, might not have
been designed with you in mind. When was that
point in your career? I think... It can be traced
back as early as childhood when I reflect, and
I didn't realize it until up into a few years
until ago. In my career, I would say it was when
I wanted to go to pilot training. I wasn't tall
enough, but you have to be five foot four to
be a pilot based on the medical standards. And
you can also be too tall. It's usually a male
problem, but they design aircraft usually in
the 1960s in the anthropometric study, meaning
like how you fit in the plane. It's not just
standing height, it's sitting height. Can you
reach the controls, your thumb reach? I mean,
you have to hit a switch around the control handle.
Can you reach it? All those things are considered.
So they took the average male height. about two
standards deviation and created a standard, which
excluded about 44 % of women between the ages
of 20 and 29. And that is just for the average
woman. This is different for minority women.
Women of color are much more impacted by this.
74 % of Black women cannot pass the sitting height
because if you haven't figured out, you sit in
a cockpit. You don't just stand in a cockpit.
From like your hip to your eyesight, looking
out over the cockpit, or if you need to see a
HUD when you fly, they're disqualified because
of that. And that's an engineering barrier that
has nothing to do with their aptitude to fly
because the anthropometric database is based
on one type of race and one type of gender. And
because of that, they built in barriers as they
allowed women into the cockpits in the 70s. I
will say that women were flying in the WASPs
in World War II. They were disbanded. And then
again, in the 70s, they started flying. And then
in the 90s, they started flying fighter aircraft.
So we had those baked in. So we look at stuff
like women, you know, fighter pilots, and we're
like, why isn't there any black women there?
It's because we basically engineered them out.
So for me, going to pilot training, I had stretched
really tall. barely past that five foot four
i wasn't really concerned about it because my
eyes were so bad and i had a waiver that when
they measured me and i failed my standing height
and was removed from my all male pilot training
class and told i was going to fail for my medical
i thought it was for my eyes but then they're
like no it's your height I had just thought maybe
I was slightly short. I didn't think it was a
female issue at the time. And I wouldn't figure
that out until like 18 years later when I was
doing things in the Pentagon, like where Brie
and I were at the time. So there's a lot there
that you hit on. And to me, the key one was engineered
out. And there was probably a point where we
realized. that for the military, for any national
security institution, we had to engineer in institutional
improvement. And I think we saw this with women
dating back all the way to Dakowitz, the Defense
Advisory Committee on Women in the Services,
which was brought in in 1951 by George Marshall.
And it has been in the news again recently over
the past couple of years. as this administration
has attempted to push it out. But that was one
of the first things that started to look at what
can we do to engineer in success? And I know
you then had a lot of effort going forward as
what did it look like to engineer in our ability
to grow and succeed in the military for everyone?
Where did that come from? What did you do to
turn? This thing where you saw people being pushed
out through nothing, through something that had
nothing to do with their ability to accomplish
the job to a way to bring them in. And how did
that make the military and the national security
community better? Oh, wow. Great question, Brie.
I would say that I didn't see it at first. I
really didn't. I think I was like most 25 year
olds. I just wanted to fly a cool jet. I want
to be one of the guys. And I really downplayed
in my head things that were happening to me i
was like well i just didn't fly hard enough i
could have you know this and that um and then
i started having babies and then slowly even
though i was flying the jet exactly the same
way and still somehow the top flying hour person
even though i was pregnant because i hid my pregnancy
got a waiver to fly during my pregnancy and then
hit the ground running the minute i was medically
qualified after the baby i was still at that
level Yet my standing and my rankings were slowly
going down. I was in denial until after the second
child. And then that's when I, you know, it confirmed
my suspicion because nothing had changed. I kept
leaning in, quote Sheryl Sandberg. It was going
even harder. And when it started happening to
my troops, I kept getting promoted despite. The
ranking going down and I kept finding opportunities.
So I just kept serving to my best capacity because
I just wanted to fly. But I found myself as a
director of operations. And for the first time,
I'm in charge of large groups of women. And I
started seeing what happened to me happen to
them. And then I started getting really frustrated
because, you know, these were simple solutions
such as like, you want to fly pregnant? Great.
It's safer to fly this plane than it is your
car. for that same mission driving into work,
right? We know this because of data and statistics
instead of bias. But flight docs were grounding
them and denying them. And I was getting really
fed up with this. And at the end of my career,
I was like, hey, what can I do to change the
system? Because every time I file a complaint,
or fix something, it's like whack -a -mole. They
just keep coming back. So I thought people really
do want to do the right thing. And I'd still
believe that if they get the right information,
but getting them the right information is the
first step. And the second thing is changing
the system. And you're always going to have that
ding -dong, that like one or two, 3 % that makes
all that noise. There's nothing you can do about
it. So I wanted to fix the system. I mean, it
literally went from... I want to fly pregnant.
People are trying to keep me from flying. To
women in my unit being denied going to schools,
pregnant, like SOS, which is a school that really
isn't physically active other than a few obstacle
courses that you can get a waiver for or you
can choose to do, like I would have done, to
changing policy in the Pentagon. It just kind
of morphed into it. I accidentally leaned into
it. I think it's just called leadership. Because
I would have done the same for the guys in my
unit, and I have done the same things for guys
in my units. I was getting them into pilot training,
especially the enlisted ones that got their degree,
why they served, and wanted to cross over. There
were so many. And for the longest time, I got
more men into pilot training until I started
getting into these big policies. Jessica, I'd
love to follow up with that, because I can tell
you from not personal experience, but lived experience,
that In the first years that I was in the FBI,
when women agents would get pregnant, when they
got to first, they wouldn't let them shoot. They'd
stop them from doing things. And when they went
on maternity leave, they took their gun and credentials
away. And it drove me. I'm like, what are you
doing this for? We're giving birth. We're not.
There's nothing that means our gun and credits
should be taken away. And honest to God, that's
what was going on. And I used to say to people.
They're dropping kids. They're not dropping their
brains out of their head when they're getting
pregnant. And so this is insane. But I think
more deeply than that, these are certainly symptoms.
But what is missed, and I'd love you to comment
on, is that when you have women or other groups
of people absent, it's making whatever the organization
is less effective. And I'd love for you to talk
a little bit more about the value added. that
you and your colleagues brought that made a difference.
You know, I want to throw this out there right
now because I found this amazing about you. You
had, I think, over 3 ,000 hours of flight time
when you retired. And for people who don't know,
and I just learned this myself, that's an extraordinary
amount of hours in the air. Extraordinary. So
kudos for that. But I would love you to talk
a little bit, too, on that impact on the effectiveness
of actually executing the mission when you're
absent people who add value. Well, it's a no
brainer whether you're talking about a specific
group, a minority, a woman, anybody. This is
our recruiting population. Why would you put
self -imposed? barriers on the amount of people
you can access, that your talent pool, because
I want the most qualified individual in the cockpit
flying the most advanced aircraft. I want a brief
ram. leading the Space Force as it stands up
that has a degree in this. Not the tallest person,
the smartest person in the room. I want the strongest
person that can physically do a job that requires
a lot of strength. I just want the most qualified
individual. So it makes sense to me. But when
it came to pregnancy, it seemed like a no -brainer
because the biggest complaint I got without people
understanding a very larger conversation, which
I won't even try to address here, is that, oh,
what if you get pregnant? Because I feel that
my, no, I know that my generation, because I'm
kind of in between a couple generations, the,
you know, the Gen Xers and the Gen Zers, I'm
kind of flat in the middle, was, it's cool as
long as you don't have babies. Cool, you're here.
Just don't slow down. Like, don't take maternity
leave or anything like that. Other than that.
Everything's cool, right? So that was the big
barrier. So having a baby, especially a pilot
that you physically have to do your job and being
told you're grounded because of a 1960s chicken
egg study, which I looked up in the back of the
actual medical so -called journal. It wasn't.
It was a recommendation by one individual who
sourced his own study and made that policy. So
that's what was limiting women from flying. And
that was holding our careers back. But we're
always in a pilot crisis, right? We can't retain
pilots. We're throwing $500 ,000 contracts at
them now to stay in. And if you want to fly the
majority of your pregnancy and free up a cockpit
for someone to go downrange and you can take
over the training missions, that just makes great
business sense. And you maintain your currencies,
your qualification. You can come right back in
the cockpit. No one loses any time. I flew all
the way up until the point when they basically
kicked me out. Stayed in the sim, which a lot
of people do. They don't get a chance to fly
for a couple months because they're doing staff
duty or something. Had the baby, came back out,
and six weeks later, it was back into the cockpit.
Now, that's not for everybody. I was in great
condition. I had uncomplicated pregnancy. That
doesn't happen for everybody. So I don't want
to make anybody listening to this feel like,
oh, well, you know, she said she went back to
flying in six weeks. That's not how it is. But
the majority of women that are in the Air Force
that are flying are healthy individuals. They've
been screened, especially the flyers. So if they
are very in shape. very healthy, strong heart,
strong eyes, strong everything, right? And they
have a good pregnancy and they can fly. Why wouldn't
you want that? That's like, I think I calculated,
I pulled the data and I calculated there was
400 flyers per year that were pregnant. If you
took them and only half of them volunteered to
fly half of their pregnancy, you would get years
of pilots back, like 30 instant pilots like that.
and man hours. So it just made great business
sense. And before we even get into the, should
women be flying pregnant, which is a totally
different conversation when we talk about noise,
exposure, radiation, those kinds of things. And
yes, you can measure them. And if you would actually
check, you would see that it was probably fine
for 90 % of the aircraft. But you have guys that
get injured. All the time. So pregnancy is not
an injury, but I mean, it's not like there's
only one group of people within the air force
that are somehow not being able to fully perform
their mission. And I don't know if you have any
data on that, but that for Bree too, I mean,
it might be something interesting. And you know,
what's going to be real fun is that we, we pick
the thing that we're biased against. We all do.
We're all humans, right? I used to do it all
the time. I used to be really, bias against my
own gender because that was the way the guys
were acting. So that's the way I'm going to act
because I was trying to fit in. I was trying
to assimilate until I knew better. And the data
I found was that we sit there and go, oh, pregnancy
is the most obvious reason why women shouldn't
be in these positions because we throw all this
money in them and they just get out. But if you
actually pull the data and look to see why women
can't deploy and men can't deploy. men are more
likely not to be able to deploy downrange because
of administrative, like a flag on their record,
which means if they give you certain codes, medical
codes, administrative codes, well, if they're
in trouble, such as in Article 15. Those take
a very long time to work out. You got to do the
investigation before. You got to have the trial.
You got to have all these things go through the
whole legal process that men are more likely
at higher rates to be non -deployable than a
woman not being deployable for pregnancy. And
I'm talking percentages, not individual numbers.
So you can't say that as the number of women
increase, that's going to change because it's
not. So men are more likely not to be deployable
because of administration problems because of
legal, and women are sometimes not deployable
because they choose to have biological babies.
So a lot of this gets down to readiness and how
do we have a ready, capable force? And there
were institutional barriers in the way preventing
the generation of readiness. And going all the
way back to what I mentioned in Dakowitz in the
1950s, coming forward to 2008, when the Department
of the Air Force first stood up the Women's Initiative
Team, and then later six other teams to address
barriers to readiness, whether that was in retention,
recruitment, military justice, or a host of other
issues, it was about gathering the data and presenting
a case. As to how to improve readiness, what
was it that you saw in groups like WIT and some
of the other work that you have done that made
that so effective and generate readiness? As
you say, just changing a regulation, you get
30 more man years of pilots fixing something
that shouldn't have been a problem. What made
that work? I think it's one thing, the mission.
You work back from the mission and ask what makes
sense. If it doesn't make sense from the mission,
then do we need to have this requirement? And
I found that 90 % of the initiatives we were
working on gave back, directly contributed to
enhancing the mission. For instance, the height
issue. It takes years, you know, contracts for
these aircraft. They take years and years to
develop. So if you miss your window, you're out
of luck. And then we might have them for 30 or
40 years and you're kind of stuck with that problem
or a workaround until then. But so one way we
convinced the undersecretary of acquisition at
the time was the data by just showing them that,
look, you have a standing height requirement
for the back of the plane. The people who sit
in the back, the linguists, the flying linguists
that intercept these missions, intercept, you
know, any kind of transmissions overseas, they
decode them and translate them and send them
back to decision makers to make, you know, real
-time decisions. And we're like, why do they
have to be 5 '4"? Why can't they be 5 '2"? Their
only requirement is to egress the aircraft to
be able to, like, go out the chute, right? And
we researched it. We found that we just decided
to cut and paste the same requirements for the
pilots and just put it in the back of the plane.
Yet at the same time, if you haven't noticed,
people who speak other languages like Chinese
linguists and stuff like that, those are really
high academic aptitudes. So it's really hard
to teach it if you weren't raised with it. And
we had to lower. the standard for our language
schools because we couldn't get enough qualified
individuals academically to pass these schools.
They were washing out at really high rates or
retraining at really high rates, costing the
government millions of dollars per year. Yet
we had a lot of shorter stature women who...
came from a home that spoke those languages fluently,
but we just decided that they're five foot four
and they couldn't get a waiver. There was not
even a waiver process for the back of the plane
like there was in the front of the plane. And
we just said, no, thank you. So with a stroke
of a pen that day, we were able to change the
policy, accept some risk and lower it an inch
or two to get some people at the door that day.
And then we were able to go measure each of these
aircraft for a more accurate, like haze or switch
or something they have to reach that we're not
aware of, and then create a standard that made
sense. So before we pivot to what's happening
right now, or really in the past couple of years,
I want to ask one more question about this data
that you so often gathered because So many of
the decisions about readiness generation are
data -driven. And while there might be some sort
of emotional hook you use or a collection of
anecdotes that gets people to care, you don't
drive change in most instances without data.
And you've built your career and a lot of the
post -military work that you've done on something
called hidden barriers. So when people are blind
to a problem, What do you do to justify the collection
of that data to make sure that you can shine
a light on a problem that is preventing readiness
generation? So the data is hidden? Yeah, just
like you described with these Chinese linguists,
we were lowering standards in one area because
we had never actually figured out that the issue
was not tied to height. there was something else
that we could do. So how do you, then let's,
we can change it a little bit. How do you identify
one of these hidden barriers that you then have
to collect data to understand better? I think
you have to understand what the actual problem
is. And I'll give you a great example of, you
hear a lot of anecdotal, like. you know, stories
online. I would sit there in these forums with
like, I would join like, I don't want to seem
like all crazy, but like 50 different forums
of different enlisted officer, different branches.
And I wouldn't comment. I would just watch and
see what the comments were because that usually
gave me an idea of the zip code. The problem
was going to be, but I mean, the very first thing
you got to do that when you start peeling back
that onion is, are you, what are you fixing?
Like. Are you looking at, for instance, the women
in aircraft? Why is our numbers in the single
digits 50 years after we could fly? Why is that?
Are we just going to accept that women don't
want to be pilots? Or are we going to look back
and see what the data presents? And a lot of
times, these stories are half -truths. And if
you hear them and they keep coming back, there's
part of a truth in there. And that's where you
start looking and you start breaking that down.
That's where I found the 44 % for the women.
And that was actually out there and buried in
somebody's ACSC paper. That's a paper that a
major writes at a school. But then you're like,
I always say keep going because if you stop the
first. answer. I'm telling you, you need to go
farther. You need to ask 10 more questions, because
I watched the chief of staff at the Air Force
ask about this, and he was assured that the waiver
process had fixed it. If he asked one more question,
he would have gotten to 74 percent, or he would
have gotten, you know, Black women, or Congress
made us do this. We didn't actually do it on
our own, right? Like, that's because he thought,
oh, the F -35 is all -inclusive of women now,
so it must be fixed. Well, if you would have
read the cliff notes in the back, Dr. Watson,
who wrote the Anthropometrics Lab, basically
Bible, states, you know, that Congress put the
pressure on the Secretary of Defense and acquisitions
who raised it to what it is today, and not because
of their own accord. So listen to those stories.
There's going to be a small amount of truth.
You know, tie them together, look for the data,
and then ask follow -up question after follow
-up question, and then ask yourself, what is
the real problem here? And that's really what
we came down to in my bio here about, you know,
passing pregnancy discrimination being recognized.
had nothing to do with 200 ,000 women. It started
with Jess Ruttenberg really pissed off. Her ranking
went down and didn't understand why. And she
thought it was because she didn't fly in her
third trimester. So she tried to fix the third
trimester policy. And then she went to try to
like, and she kept going after these policies
and those policies were important. But the big
issue was that Jess Ruttenberg couldn't file
discrimination by. for herself or for anybody
else for grounding them without medical evidence
because there was no protection. And that's ultimately
how we ended up with a short pilot going from
here to Congress. You are speaking to my engineer's
heart when you start talking about root cause
analysis. We're taught, ask why seven times.
Then you have probably found the problem, not...
Why did this part fail? Well, that little piece
was broken. No, that's not the issue. There's
something six more whys down the road that is
really what caused the issue. And we can do that
with so many issues across the military for readiness
generation. For any number of other issues, why
aren't we retaining certain groups of people?
Why are we struggling to develop a skill set
that's going to work so well on a modern battlefield?
So asking why is critically important. And that's
why I think we got in so much trouble over the
past couple of years when these groups that asked
why. or whether that's organizationally, like
the barrier analysis working groups that we mentioned,
or that was inspector generals, that was other
parts of the government that were there to ask
why. We need the people that are willing to ask
those questions. So you, when some of this erasure
started happening, when... the wit was disbanded
and stories were disappearing from people who
brought valuable perspective you created a series
of 404 not found that was highlighting what happened
when you erased our history to include that of
the tuskegee airmen or as you mentioned the wasps
you know these amazing americans that did incredible
things their stories just disappeared because
they were said to be just based solely on diversity.
What is the impact of that kind of erasure on
our future force and our ability to meet challenges
in the 21st century battlefield? Oh, it absolutely
makes a huge impact. One, you should be threatened
by your history. It's called censorship when
you try to change the narrative of what actually
happened. And the first thing I do when I research
anything... I don't care if I'm talking about
an engineering design or a fight between my kids
that happened and they come to me and they want
me to mom to take their side is I need to know
what happened before. I need to know what happened
all the way up to the steps here, what worked,
what didn't work. And we don't learn from our
lessons from the past. We will repeat them. I
don't mean to be cliche, but the height issue
was tried to be addressed. many times, and it
kept falling flat because there was not enough
follow -through, which is what led me to start
writing articles because I realized very early
on that it was dangerous to allow, even though
I fully believe in the military, the people in
the military, I just don't believe in the politics
that sometimes happen. There's a couple of nefarious
individuals out there. But I believe in the men
and women I serve with. And I think they want
to do the right thing. They just need the right
information. And I thought it was very risky
to have all the data in one spot, meaning like
let in the public affairs office only have the
stories. And I get it from a PA perspective that,
you know, you want to have the good news stories
about height and pregnancy and flying and all
the other barrier analysis groups. And, you know,
to give them kudos, you want that. But when you
do that, and then somebody, an individual, decides
to say, we're going to bury all those stories,
there goes the history. There goes that 44 %
that I had to dig out from an air, you know,
staff in college war paper. I'm starting to forget
my ACSC acronyms here. But, you know, but it
was buried. I couldn't find it when I did a Google
search. So it made it very important to me to
start to go to different. um organizations and
talk about this outside one institution i mean
if you were going to fly a fly I went into IT
a little bit when I first retired. And I went
into the cloud space. And you wouldn't want to
put all your data in one data center. You want
to have it in multiple regions as a failsafe.
That's the same thing I'm saying about these
stories and censorship. So when we give it to
one institution, that's pretty dangerous if they're
going to say, and this institution just happens
to be the U .S. government, so it's not just
the DoD. You know, it can be as... the Smithsonian
because they're government funded. And you see
what happens to some of the institutions that
don't fall in line with some current administrative
policies, such as DEI on those websites, that
the funding is threatened. So people come in
line. I think there's even on top of that, a
greater harm because besides destroying history,
you're destroying value. Right. And as you have
eliminated certain groups, you're, what I would
use. the phrase that I've kind of come up with
lately of killing the mirror. So all institutions.
need a mirror, need a means of looking back on
their own conduct. You're both in the aviation
space. That's what you grew up in. Can you imagine
having an airline crash, which is probably the
most investigated, meticulous kind of work that
goes on, and imagine them saying, oh, somebody
might find my mistake, so we're not going to
do it that way anymore, and we're going to eliminate,
you know, the NTSB, or we're going to eliminate
that piece. And so I think to me, This notion
of what's gone on, because a lot of what you
described, Jessica, has transcended politics.
It transcends Republican, Democratic administrations
over decades. But I think what we're seeing now
is markedly different because we are eliminating
that ability to look at ourselves and look at
our institutions. and effectively judge them
with the elimination of 21 inspectors general,
with elimination of so many high -ranking officers
in the Department of Defense and programs, we're
making much, much smaller that aperture that
allows us and allows the Department of Defense
to look at itself, the Congress to look at the
Department of Defense to see if we're doing things
in the most effective way to execute the mission.
And to me, that's an even. braver danger. And
I'd be curious as to what your thoughts are on
that. Ruth isn't afraid of transparency. And
if you're not willing to face our past mistakes
and just want to make it look like that everything's
been, women were instantly welcomed and, you
know. Don't ask, don't tell, you know, oh, we
don't want to talk about those times before,
you know. Then, you know, these are very bad
things for our institution and it doesn't make
us look good, but we have to face them. And again,
censorship, I think that's what we're dealing
with. And when you see a little kid that's looking
at. targeted ads on the tv they need to see representation
so if you're looking at you know rangers and
all the cool stuff they do in movies and they're
using that as a hype for their promotion you
know for the army to enlist in that kind of thing
and they don't see a single woman in there i
mean what is The kids that are playing sports
in high school and middle school looking at that
thinking, you know, when they enter, you know,
is that something they're going to aspire to
be like a ranger, right? So we need to make sure
that all that is represented of the recruiting
population so that it's not just, we're not recruiting
to one mindset. We're recruiting to multiple
mindsets. And with multiple mindsets, we increase
our talent pool. So diversity makes us stronger.
So I don't care what. Unity makes us stronger.
Diversity makes us stronger. Having enough different
types of perspectives will make us stronger and
more innovative. And that's true across the government.
And it's true across the private sector. I know
in the FBI, as under William Webster, who was
the director when I came in, he undertook a concerted
effort to make the FBI look more like the population
of the United States. And that made us much more
effective at doing our jobs because going out
into communities, the same in local law enforcement,
going out into communities when they're seeing
people who live in the community, who look like
the community, the level of trust will start
at a higher level. Trust still has to be earned.
But if you're seeing somebody that's like, well,
OK, here she comes from my neighborhood and I
can tell that. Then there's a built -in level
of trust and a belief that there can be two -way
communication and not one -way communication.
And I think that goes to the effectiveness of
every single institution. And, you know, the
military's decision to start the women investigative
teams, the women teams that engaged in Afghanistan.
It's well documented how valuable that was to
the intelligence that was collected, the understanding
of the culture, the understanding of what was
going on in villages and the community, thereby
making people safer or allowing better strategic
plans and tactical plans to be developed to ensure
the safety and security of everyone. Yeah, absolutely.
And it's important. It's important that we...
I think people are concerned when we say that
we look like each other, you know, as a force,
and you're giving a good case on why that is
important, that people make the assumption that
we are promoting based on quotas. We're not.
We're just increasing the talent pool, and whoever
is the most qualified, you're casting a wider
net. I am never going to put somebody in a cockpit
that isn't 100 % in my confidence able to do
the job. You either can or you cannot. You can
land on center line or you cannot. You can land
on speed or you cannot. Yet we get this notion
that we are not qualified, that we did not earn
it, the DEI. And I remember, because before this
podcast started, I was reflecting on where I
met Bree. I think I knew who she was for a very
long time because her and I were running circles
around each other in different, like the space,
but never in the same room. And one day she was
launching this, I think it was your first book,
Brie. And she was telling stories, just like
Hidden Berries tells other people's stories.
She was telling service member stories. And it
was at the bar down the street at Freddy's from
my house. And I was like, kids, like it's a family
establishment. Like, I don't you think I took
my kids to a bar? Like, you know, Sweet Home
Alabama, you have a baby in the bar. I was like,
come on, y 'all. We're going to go meet Brie
in person. And that's where I met your lovely
wife. And we chatted because, you know, you were
like a celebrity at the time. I really want to
talk to you about your book. So I talked to your
wife and I got a couple. I said hi to you for
like half a second. And then I was like, OK,
I'll send her an email later. Maybe she'll like
want to. hang out with me or something. So, because
I just wanted to get to know her. Well, I'm so
glad we did get to know one another. It was a
pleasure getting to understand your work and
the effort and the dedication that you and so
many others put in to reduce these barriers,
to make sure that everyone could serve to their
full potential. And as you've talked about over
and over again, that we widen the aperture. on
who can serve, because there is talent everywhere.
And it is by embracing that talent, bringing
in people that want to serve, that we actually
generate a more ready, more capable force. But
I do want to look forward a little bit before
we close. And after retirement, you've done a
lot of work to continue this work, whether that's
with the Women in the Services Coalition. incorporated
or the work that you've done with Level Up to
make sure another generation can speak and can
fly. But there's this whole cloud over it of
a silencing effect, a chilling effect. And you've
said you felt a duty to speak out on behalf of
others that couldn't. What is that duty? for
a veteran? How do we continue to speak out despite
what we see happening to people like Senator
Kelly or seeing people sometimes in uniform still
doing it, as we recently saw with Major Watson
on the steps of the Capitol? Oh, wow. Yeah. What
is it that veterans, people that have sworn that
oath to the Constitution, have that duty to speak?
What can we do for others to make sure that our
Constitution holds? I don't think you have to
be a veteran to necessarily be the one that speaks
out. But I do think it helps considerably because
there comes a point when you have to ask yourself
what your values are and what you swore an oath
to and if those are the same thing. And that
can be very different from person to person with
their experience. With veterans, we get our...
freedom of speech back. We don't completely lose
it in the military, but it is heavily censored
when we are in the service, and rightfully so
for a lot of good reasons. But that can be weaponized,
as I think we have seen in the last couple of
years, that when you're able to say something
and you should say something, especially I get...
I think the first two months I was getting something
like 30, 40 emails a day because I had made myself
so visible years prior that, and I was so visible.
Like that's how I used to hide behind a rock.
And then I realized I had to be the face because
I was at the end of my career and I was willing
to put it all on the line. Now that's very easy
for me to say because I was in a financially
in a situation when I could do that. Now imagine.
You're younger. You don't have your guaranteed
retirement. And you're a single income family
or you're a single parent, right? The risk, you're
not just taking that risk for yourself. You're
taking that risk for your entire family, your
spouse, your children, your partner, those things.
I was in a good space. And from that point, I
realized that the greatest service I could ever
do, other than my proud service in Iraq and Afghanistan
and all the missions I flew, and I'm very proud
of those, and I value them very highly, is to
open the door wider for those who are coming
behind me, regardless of what they look like
and who they are, if they can get the job done.
And I said, that's what I'm going to do. And
I want people to understand if they're listening
to this. I'm not saying... You look away when
something is very incredibly unethical or illegal.
But I do say that there is a certain point that
sometimes surviving is the ultimate rebellion
when you're not wanted. You make it to the top.
Because I can voice my concern all day long.
And maybe, maybe I can make some change. But
until we have people that look like us. and think
like us, that get to the top of the food chain,
they're the ones that have the ability and authority
to make these policy differences. So sometimes
we have to play along to get along to a point.
And I'm not going to say what that line is for
you. It looks different for everybody. For me,
I said, my ego wants to make 06. And I know I'm
going to be rocking some boats here, and I did,
and I really aggravated some people. But when
I look back at my career, even if I just got
one more person in the door, and I know I've
gotten considerably more than one person, it
was all worth it. So that's what it looks like
to me. Well, as you said, you have gotten a whole
lot of people in the door. And for so many people,
it is about that legacy that we leave. And that
really is the legacy of this country and what
is being asked of all of us, that we leave it
in a better place. We do the work that was started
to form that more perfect union, to live up to
our oaths to the Constitution. And you have certainly
done that both in uniform and across your career
after your time in service. Jess, thank you for
joining us. It was a pleasure. Lauren, thank
you for bringing me into the Steady State family
and welcoming me to this podcast. And to everyone
listening, thanks for joining us for this episode
of the Steady State Sentinel. We hope today's
conversation gave you something to think about,
and we'd love to hear from you. What resonated
with you? What questions did it raise? And what
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Until next time, thanks for listening. I'm Brie
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