 Greetings from the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our program on Overcoming Challenges, Women in the Military. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Friday, April 2nd, at noon, we'll hear from George William Van Cleave, author of Making a New American Constitution. In this book, Van Cleave explores flaws in the U.S. Constitution and proposes solutions for them. And on April 6th, at noon, Jonathan Petropoulos will tell us about his new book, Gearing's Man in Paris, the story of Bruno Lose, who helped supervise the Nazi systematic theft of thousands of artworks during World War II. Women have fought for our nation from its earliest years, but it took more than a century before women were able to enlist and serve in uniform. America's entry into World War I marked the first time women could serve in roles other than nursing. In the ensuing decades, roles for women in the military expanded. Women achieved officer rank, took on leadership roles, gained access to service academies, and fought for equal footing with men in combat. Tonight's discussion will explore the challenges women in the military have faced, their successes, and the opportunities that lie ahead. Now I'd like to introduce you to our panelists. First Lieutenant Madison Hovern attended the United States Military Academy at West Point where she was part of the women's basketball team. During her time there, the team played in the NCAA tournament, and she was named first team all conference. The summer following her sophomore year, she interned for the San Antonio Spurs and ESPN. Hovern graduated from West Point in 2019 and commissioned as a Signal Corps Officer. She is now stationed at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia where she is serving as a platoon leader in the 442nd Signal Battalion. Kristin Kay French is Chief of Staff at the Defense Logistics Agency. From July 2016 to March 2018, French was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and served for 16 months as the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Material Readiness. French graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986 and was commissioned into the regular army as a Lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps. She retired from military service as a Brigadier General in November 2015. Her nearly 30 years in uniform included duties in key command and staff positions worldwide and combat deployments in Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Croatia. Heather Wilson became the 11th President of the University of Texas at El Paso in 2019. She graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in the third class to admit women, is a Rhodes Scholar, and earned her Master's and Doctoral Degrees at Oxford University in England. Wilson has also served as the 24th Secretary of the United States Air Force as a Member of Congress for 10 years from New Mexico and as the President of the South Dakota School of Minds and Technology. She's a member of the National Science Board which oversees the National Science Foundation and chairs the Women in Aviation Advisory Board of the Federal Aviation Administration. Our moderator, Soledad O'Brien, is an award-winning journalist, speaker, author, and philanthropist who anchors and produces the Hearst Television Political Magazine program Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien. She reports for HBO Real Sports, PBS NewsHour, and WebMD and has anchored and reported for NBC, MSNBC, and CNN. She's the author of two books and has won numerous awards including Three Emmys, the George Peabody Award, an Alfred I. DuPont Prize, and the Gracie. Newsweek Magazine named her one of the 15 people who make America great. She is the founder and CEO of Soledad O'Brien Productions and with her husband is the founder of the Powerful Foundation which helps young women get to and through college. She's also a member of the National Archives Foundation Board. Thank you for joining us tonight. I'm Soledad O'Brien and I'm very excited to be moderating this conversation with three truly phenomenal women. President Heather Wilson, if I may, I'd like to start with you. You graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in the third class that admitted women. So looking back on limitations, I guess is the way I'd put it, to women's opportunities, what made you decide at that point that that was the right career path for you? I grew up in a family of aviators. My grandfather was a flyer in the First World War and then he came to America in 1922 and was a barnstormer and opened little airports around New England. My dad was also a pilot and enlisted in the Air Force and then when he got out of the Air Force he was a commercial pilot. He also, when he came home, he married his high school sweetheart, my mom, who was a nurse, and in the 1950s when a lot of women didn't even drive, he taught my mom to fly and we built an aircraft together and he built an experimental aircraft inside our house, a little 1600 square foot house and so I grew up around airplane parts and around aviators and when they opened the Air Force Academy to women in 1976, I was a junior in high school and I remember where I was when I saw the news on television and I thought, you know, I was a good student, I loved to do different things and my dad had died when I was young but my grandfather was still alive and so here's this man who started out, started flying in the years just after the Wright brothers and I went to talk to him about this Air Force Academy thing and he had flown in the Second World War in the United States doing bearing parts and things with the wasps and he said, well, you know I flew with some women in World War II who were pretty good sticks so I guess I'd be okay and so with his blessing and a full Wright scholarship I became the first person in my family to go to college and it was absolutely life changing for me So Madison, let's talk about 2019 because that's when you graduated and I'm curious how you saw it in terms of both opportunities and also hurdles as well and I really should refer to you as first lieutenant Madison I'm getting all comfortable with my panelists What was through as you were juggling and thinking about where you wanted to take your next steps how were you gauging what would be an opportunity and what might be a challenge Yeah, so my path was a little bit different getting into the military I was recruited for basketball obviously going into West Point so that initially drew me in honestly was not going to go to West Point at all I was like absolutely not and then we visited and I was just like this place is so amazing like the things they're doing here the things they're accomplishing the family atmosphere I was like this is for me and they had great basketball on top of that so I was like I can't argue with that but overall once I showed up I was like the military is just it's what I meant to do I can tell and there's just so many great opportunities for me here and a chance for me to really thrive as a female leader Were there any things that you were worried about in part of your absolutely not that were obstacles that you were thinking about as a woman potentially coming into the military At first I didn't really know what to expect but as I started to research a little bit more I did learn that women definitely there's not as many obviously in the military and that definitely was a huge obstacle especially when I first went to West Point basic training being with so many guys there was only two women in my squad me and one other girl and the rest were guys so about eight in our entire platoon and it was just such an adjustment but luckily the guys we had around us were super helpful and very supportive and that really helped the transition but I definitely think being one of the few women was a huge obstacle and it's just something you really have to like grow with and I think it made me stronger overall and just learning to work through being one of the women in the room has really helped me to gain my voice and gain my confidence general Kristen French now retired you spent 30 years nearly in uniform talk to me a little bit about the efforts to integrate the services to women what what worked and what do you think still remains to be done to be effective okay thank first of all thank you all for having me tonight I'm excited to be on this panel so I listen to what Madison says said about her experiences and I think about what you know we went through 30 years ago and and she said she had two people in her squad there were women and we only have one in our squads or none depending on maybe two two in our entire platoon because there's so few women in those days it was something like 10 under 10% women now it's up to 20 or 25% so I look at what we had opportunities for when we were graduating from West Point and the other academies versus what is available now and then what's available in our military across all the different services and I think about how women can be fighter pilots and women can be on nuclear submarines now which we couldn't do 30 years ago and women could not be in the combat arms in the army in the infantry and armor branches couldn't go to ranger school there were so many things that weren't available 30 years ago that are available today for women so the opportunities are really amazing for folks that are women that are graduating now from college or going into the military there is some things though that do need to be considered for the future I know like the Marine Corps I work now in a joint environment so I work with all services not just army and I know the Marine Corps is working to get some joint integrated training and they haven't done that all around yet they're still working through that and I know there's some things that we won't really know about it'll take maybe a decade or more to get some of the gains with what we've done so far for example in the army a couple of the young women that have gone to ranger school are now in the infantry branch but they're still captains they're junior officers so we're going to have to see it about a decade if they can continue to progress in those branches and aspire to do more senior level missions and positions that hopefully will be available to them so I think there's still again more to be gained it's just going to take a little time to see Heather I pose the same question to you what obstacles do you think remain especially if you're talking about both leadership and recruitment so from the very beginning the Air Force attracted more women than some of the other services and that may be because it was thought of as more technical or I'm not really don't know why but the Air Force also pretty much fully opened all opportunities for women earlier so in 1991 the law changed to allow women to fight combat aircraft and that got women to you know over 97% of the positions in the fields were open to women so opportunities were open earlier I would say that one of the challenges still with young women is encouraging them to pursue the fields in the Air Corps or in the other services in the Air Force the other services where they're going to be at the center of things which often means being a pilot, a navigator or a multi-piloted aircraft operator some logistics maintenance so the things that are core to the mission as opposed to things that are administrative in nature or public affairs officers those kinds of things because you need that experience in order to have credibility once you get to mid-career so Madison since you were the most recently recruited maybe I can sort of pose a version of this to you are there ways that you feel that recruitment could be better where you say the military is undermining its own efforts to recruit more young women like yourself and I'm curious about your experience in your recruitment and what did you think was again because you said oh absolutely not until you got on the campus I'm curious what was part of that absolutely not because I have to imagine that there's a number of young women who might say a similar thing yeah actually one of my basketball teammates told me that she was like crying and screaming when her dad made her come and she was like absolutely not as well and then she got there and she was like oh actually I like this so it was the same way she forced her to come and she ended up really liking it I think it's just the whole not really knowing what you're getting into the whole army seeming like it might be too tough you just don't know what to expect and your first thought is just like those infantry men out there doing that crazy stuff and I just feel like there's just so much you don't understand as a woman and so many opportunities that until you're actually they're visiting until you're actually in it you don't realize that you are capable of doing it and it is something that you know you can make happen I don't think when we recruit I sometimes think that the way in which the services recruit appeals more naturally to boys than to girls but think about this for a second if you ask everybody who's listening to this today to close your eyes and think about the most protective person in your life who would run into a burning building to save you and protect you from anything half the people listening are remembering their moms we are the very often women are natural protectors and that's what the military is and we don't capitalize on that enough and that desire to serve and protect when we recruit you know it's all about the cool things you get to use and what you get to fly and where you get to go and it's not the reason more girls care about the reason why not just the cool things you get to do that's a great point and I was actually I'm going to ask you Madison if there are things that you thought the military could have done in terms of framing where you wouldn't think oh it's guys and they're doing crazy things it's more strong women I love I love certain in my country why not me I'm curious if you have any sort of just thoughts in terms of what you could if you could whisper in someone's ear and give them advice about recruiting the next generation of women what you would say I think well I think first off showing all the different branches would be really helpful just knowing that you don't have to be the one out there on the front line there's other career opportunities and obviously just seeing other girls I mean just seeing other women doing it you're like okay she's doing it like I can do it but going back to the branches when you know that infantry is not the only branch because I didn't know what the branches were probably until my sophomore year like I had no idea so so if you know that you don't just have to go into combat arms and you can be a support branch I think that could really help a lot of people out and make them want to join as well great point Kristen I would like to have you start up a conversation about sexual assault because we are getting data that it's risen between 2016 and 2018 and it's been a conversation for long before then talk to me a little bit about what institutional factors you think set the stage for sexual assault and how it's being addressed now and is it effective this is definitely a topic of conversation in today's military but I would tell you it's been around for years you know we've had sexual harassment and sexual assault for decades well probably for eternity and I think about 20-30 years ago and the training we had as young officers and enlisted and the training was for you to confront your perpetrator if you were harassed or assaulted not to go to get help but to look at the person who was doing it tell them to stop doing it and we've definitely progressed from that type of environment where people weren't wanting to go forward to their perpetrator and say you know they'd stop doing that to me so where we are now is we've really educated and had training on what to do with regards to sexual assault and sexual harassment and what's great is we've instituted some programs throughout our military and we're working not just with folks that you know you always think it's women who are being harassed or assaulted it's also men and so you've got to look at really across the force so I think we're really providing more support to victims and we're doing some great programs across like I say across the military now I would tell you that the age of the military population is causing some of the reasons that we're having problems they're young people they're around their peers and around people who they feel that they're comfortable with and then before you know it there's a situation that comes up that maybe isn't appropriate and folks might not realize that what they're doing is wrong or they know what they're doing is wrong but they continue to do it and so we just have to educate folks continue to train on this topic it is a very very tough topic and you see what's happened recently with the terrible situation down in Fort Hood where Specialist Guyan was assaulted and then eventually was murdered and the problem is we've got to get at it and I know our military is trying to find ways to help people understand that this is not acceptable in our military this isn't acceptable in society and so I think that again it's a tough topic but we have to keep looking at it and addressing it. The good news story is I think one of the reasons that there's a higher number is because more people are reporting incidents because people feel that they're taking people are taking action when something's happening and so we've seen arises in a lot of my organizations I've seen arise in reporting over the last five years because people are taking action when there's something that is reported and that's a good news story I think that's very true that it can reflect sort of an attitude of this is finally something that's going to be taken seriously so then you can come forward. Heather when you started your story you talked about your family and your story is kind of typical because I think it's like 60% of army recruits come from military families you know you're in it because you know someone who or your grandfather or your father and I'm curious if there's issues ultimately because I think half of its enlisted population is recruited from 10% of the nation's high schools is it too narrow? I would guess if I walked out in the street and started polling people there's a whole bunch of Americans who don't know anybody who serves in the military and I always have found that very troubling that if you're either a military family or you don't know anybody at all it troubles me too and it's about half in the Air Force when you say is there your mother father grandfather grandmother served in the military so it's a similar similar in the Air Force but you think about this during World War II one in ten Americans served in uniform one in ten so the average household size means that every third house on the block had a blue star in the window today it's less than two in a thousand so the military is much smaller even though we continue to be a superpower and we're able to to have enough people in the military through an all-volunteer service and I strongly support the all-volunteer service but it does mean that there it's not only the fathers and grandfathers who didn't have the draft now who don't are three generations removed from anyone in their family even being subject to the draft so it's not just that they don't serve it's that they know they would never have to serve and I'm not sure that that's really good for our country because it does create a gap between the protected and the protectors but it's also a consequence of the fact we're able to protect our country with only two or a thousand people in uniform what do you think and maybe Kristen will ask this of you is getting in the way of appealing to more women if you look at the number of people of color actually the military has done incredibly well among Hispanics, African Americans those numbers and that outreach has been very intentional and is very good and then you look at women and you're like it's only okay, improving certainly but clearly having a lot of success on one hand and less on the other maybe you can start me off Kristen and Madison and I'll have you jump in as well part of it is the recruiting that we talked about earlier we don't have a targeted audience with women it's more recruiting just during football games you'll see a lot of recruiting during sporting events and they don't target all Americans they target mostly young men but also I think it's a little bit of the societal norms people, a lot of women don't even think about joining the military it's kind of like what Heather is saying people don't even know about the military so they don't think about serving their country in uniform I think it's also the nervousness of working life balance I mean that's a big discussion that people have of how we can serve and then have a family Heather was saying about protecting our family and being mothers so there's multiple reasons but I would tell you that we just it's just unfortunate but we just don't have a lot of women thinking of going into the military and the opportunities are so great but they don't see it they see a lot of the infantry and the submarines and the aircraft carriers a lot of different things that is just causing us to not have women joining Madison I assume you agree with that were those things that were your concerns did you think okay well what would my career be, what would I be doing and how would I balance a family and a life if in fact I go ahead and do this those were definitely some of my concerns and like I said I just didn't know what it looked like fully because I just feel like nobody ever really explained to me what to expect that it wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be and that it wasn't all just infantry and I feel like a lot of people just target like you said to the men and to the young boys because it's just such an easy target you're like oh they're the ones who are going to want to do it anyways we don't even need to bother with the young girls but then there could be so many young girls that would want to do it giving the opportunity if they had the knowledge on what they could be getting themselves into the benefits, the opportunities I feel like they miss out on that opportunity sounds like the armed services need to rethink marketing 101 and who their ultimate you know client could be or the person they're trying to reach could be for Kristen and Heather I'm curious how you think your military experience would be different if there hadn't been restrictions that existed when you guys were first starting like do you look back this fully and say oh if I could have all that Madison has opened it available to her here's how I think they could have gone why don't you start us off Heather and then Kristen I'll have you weigh in I actually made a decision to do something different after graduate school I had a slot to go to pilot training but at the time you know when I closed my eyes and thought about flying it was something small fast with one seat and that wasn't that wasn't open at the time I went on to have a wonderful experience in the Air Force and have no regrets I fly a little airplane and I actually now have as secretary of the Air Force flew in some aircraft all kinds of different aircraft I have to say I really like my little Cessna 152 better than I like being strapped in and you know masked up and everything else you can go faster and have 16 but I can see more in my Cessna so it's not a big deal coming for you Kristen I have a little when I was a cadet I went to flight school for trainer opportunity and I enjoyed it but it was helicopters not planes or the big aircraft the Air Force has but I enjoyed it but again it wasn't an opportunity that I could go and fight in a combat helicopter on the front lines it would be more of a supply helicopter so I did some other opportunities and found that I really enjoyed logistics and I ended up you know following that path and I would tell you that it doesn't mean I wasn't able to do everything I wanted I deployed to Iraq Afghanistan Kuwait Croatia I mean all over the place I also commanded at all levels and I was in divisional units I was right there with all of the maneuver forces the whole time and so I think that it's not that we didn't have opportunities they were just different opportunities but we still were able to I was able to continue to get promoted and progress up the chain now yes Madison will have more opportunities because a lot of times at the senior levels they don't have a lot of women opportunities and things like the chief of staff of the army chief of staff of the Air Force but it could happen in the future and it could happen for the young officers and young enlisted now that they could go all the way up to the senior ranks so I didn't look at it just not having an opportunity just different opportunities Madison I'm going to ask you the next question I just wanted to remind anybody who's listening if you have a question for any of our panelists you're welcome to submit it you're watching this on YouTube so feel free and I'll get to your questions in just a little bit I'm going to continue to moderate this conversation but I'll switch to audience questions in just a moment so Madison my question for you you mentioned that you were sometimes felt like one of the few and talk to me a little bit about your mentors did that mean that you had all male mentors was there an effort to give you female mentors were there just an abundance of female mentors talk to me a little bit about navigating that yeah I feel like I definitely had a few of both some male some female a lot definitely came from older players on my basketball teams they were great mentors because they had been through it and they were able to teach me so much my basketball coaches were huge mentors to me I went to them for so much and they really helped me through things on the court off the court and then I also had officer mentors that were able to help me on the more officer military side so it was really great to have mentors in different areas that you know had different knowledges on different areas basically that allowed me to go to different people and yeah I'm really grateful for that it sounds like it was very intentional and structured that way meaning if you're not a basketball phenom you wouldn't sort of be at a luck because you don't have any basketball coaches to mentor you yeah exactly like everybody had activities or sports that they could do so they are able to find some mentors either within that or with different activities so it was definitely structured in a way that people were able to seek out mentors great for Kristen and for Heather what do you think women leave the military do you think it's kind of a reason that you know women would talk about leaving any job you know it's work-life balance becomes very difficult is it the discrimination is it an exhaustion about being one of the few um why don't you start for me Kristen and then Heather I'll have you jump in at the end of that well first of all what Madison just said about mentors complete opposite for women mentors for some of us that are a bit older we did not have the women mentors I did not have the women mentors when I was growing up in the military I had a lot of great mentors but they were male mentors I think back about how few women I saw who were senior to me that had children and were still balancing their military career with their family I also would tell you when I was in a fourth infantry division I was the only female lieutenant colonel in the entire division and there were no women above me in rank so it just shows you how there weren't a lot of women at the senior levels that you could go to and ask for advice and support so I did have a lot though of other mentors who gave me great advice so I think getting out of the military you know people people were looking at the they look at work-life balance they look at you know what opportunities they have to get promoted and continue to serve in senior levels so there's a lot of reasons that people decide that maybe the military is not for them but I would tell you that the mentorship piece is so critical to have people who can tell you how to balance what you're going through and be successful and before you jump in Heather I wanted to go back to Madison for a moment because when you were describing your coaches I assumed you were talking about women am I right for Madison sorry you cut out a little bit there forgive me I'm sorry no worries well you were talking about your coaches and some of your mentors I assumed you were listing off those were women am I making the correct assumption so we had multiple male coaches and multiple female coaches and I definitely feel like I was mentored by all of them obviously in different ways they had different personalities but I really feel like all of them gave me something that helped me to grow as a player and a leader automatically off the court that's what I wanted to clarify so Heather why don't you walk me through what you think are the reasons that women depart is it mentoring is it just a lot to balance certainly for the Air Force the number one reason that we were losing people from the Air Force particularly pilots who had a lot of options very highly trained a lot of options outside of the service men and women was the operational pace and you think about this the Air Force went to war in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and they've never come home 30 continuous you know 31 continuous years of combat operations and very high levels of deployment rates and it just doesn't stop and at some point families are trying to you know it's the birthday factor right I've missed another birthday I've missed another anniversary and that balance becomes very very difficult to justify and these are very highly trained people and they're very much in demand and so they have options and so recruiting and keeping talent is one of the keys for the future of all the services I said I was going to go to questions in a moment but actually there's a question exactly about this so I'm going to jump in and break what I just said and go to it because I'm curious about how that is changing how things change for women in the military who struggle with balancing family life pregnancy, military housing what you're describing I could see that being a complete deal breaker not just for women but maybe for anybody what is the military doing overall then to deal with things like that that are really about balancing you know life and a family and not feeling like you're stuck I'd like to go ahead Kristen I was going to say I'd like to start out by saying that I had my son and eight months later I deployed to Kuwait and they're changing the rules now with maternity leave they're even providing paternity leave or second caregiver leave so they're making the army and the services I should say all the services are changing some of their policies because of the struggles that they've seen of people who have either left the military or decided it wasn't for them after one or two tours because they're trying to balance you know what's happening in their personal life with what's happening in their professional life so for example it used to be six weeks for a mom to have maternity leave and then go back to work and now it's over 12 weeks they get and then a secondary child paternity leave you get two to three weeks so they're making the services are making changes so that they're also looking at high school stabilization where they allow people to stay at a duty station when their child is a high school senior so there's a lot of things that I think the military has looked at to help families, help women, help people who want to balance that personal and professional but it's absolutely it's something that we're seeing in society right now with telework and women who are at home and trying to balance their children going to school virtually and them doing their job at home and it is a tough balance so I think that really that's what you see a lot with women getting out is they just have a hard time balancing you know what they want personally and professionally Heather I would say just to add to that in my time as the secretary the chief and I really worked to reduce the operating tempo to give more white space on people's calendars so that it wasn't just back to back to back deployments and I think the other one that was probably one of the biggest changes to help people in the military was to change the way we do assignments so it's a lot more like medical school where there's like this you know matching algorithm to try to try to get more people what they really want no matter what their reason is to want that you know whether it's a joint assignment with your spouse or I'm trying to get closer to grandparents or this is what I want for the next piece of my career so I give people a lot more input on it rather than just you know somebody down at Randolph Air Force Base who has your life in their hands you know one more thing about assignments we haven't touched on this yet and it's the Garden of Reserve the National Guard in the Reserve a significant part of our military and it helps to address some of the issues on how do you make work life balance work because it doesn't require the constant permanent change of station moves my husband was in the Guard after he was on active duty and had a really satisfying career as doing pulling guard duty couple of weeks in the summer and weekend every month and it was very satisfying a lot of women should think about that opportunity too. I do want to bring up one of the things she mentioned her husband is having a support structure when you're in the military because you can be called on a short notice deployment you can be called to go to the field and do training and if you have a family you've got to have a support structure and you know I had my husband I had my parents I know that other people have relatives or friends and so if you're single in the military and a lot of women who like I said I followed were single women and never married or never had children because that was kind of the old school way of being in the military but now you see a lot of women with families and you've got to have a support structure and and it's tough because sometimes you're only near you and you've got to find a way to make it happen but our military is not you know it's not a telework army Air Force Navy or Marine Corps they have to be at work so it is something you've got to balance Madison is the most recent grad I'm curious as you hear these conversations are these things that you think about as you plot out the next steps of your career I mean I still have a little bit more time in my current job but I'm obviously always looking to hear advice for further in my career and how I can improve and especially maybe when I get older and do you want to have my own family taking advice like that and really applying it because I know they have so much experience so it's really important to me to listen to what they have to say maybe I will hit them both up then to give you some advice I'd be curious thank you you know give me sometimes mentoring sessions can last five hours but give me a couple of thoughts for Madison as she navigates her steps kind of as a fledgling as a recent graduate what would you advise her what would she be thinking about how would you talk to her about you know not just the years ahead but the decades ahead if she wants to stay in the military Heather why don't you start for me and then Crystal how do you so when I was your age Madison I was really focused on the job just you know just do really really well at the job I had and but when I look back on the things that I was able to accomplish the thing that I remember are the people who were there with me and what endures over time are the relationships of trust you build through the work and those it's almost like investing with compound returns because over time that friends and those friends and those the network that you've built will help you along the way and they'll also you'll also be helping them as you rise in the military or in a broader profession so steward and build relationships of trust and don't just do the work I like that thank you absolutely and I'd say yes friends are so critical in the military and your buddies that you work alongside are everlasting friends so I would tell you also is take advantage of what all the military has to offer everything from travel to schools what Heather mentioned about maybe taking a break from your you know your duties as a officer on the front lines to go to a class or a school and maybe get a second degree look for opportunities to have other leadership roles and take on some challenging jobs because if you get outside comfort zone you'll learn some new things and you'll be added to your kit bag for the future and so I tell you the military what an opportunity to see the world and visit some great places and meet some great people and just explore as an institution you know Kristen I don't know about you when you were a lieutenant but I looked at what my friends from high school were doing right out of college you get more responsibility as a young person in the military than any other profession and maybe it takes a little bit longer to rise in that institution it's not like you're going to be CEO in five years of your own company or something but you get a lot of responsibility for other people and equipment and getting a mission done it's nothing like it I can't think of another profession where you get that much responsibility at a young age sounds like a very effective marketing tool for the military as they open up the conversation to young women this idea of lots of responsibility and lots of opportunity at a young age is a great part of the conversation I want to turn our conversation to some of the questions we've been getting from our audience a big thank you to the audience this one is should women be made to register for selective service Madison I'm going to have you answer that one first personally I don't think they should have to because I think that so many women can excel and do well in the military but I think if we want to increase our female population it needs to be something they want to do and not something people are forced to do we need to show them it's something that they have so many opportunities in and something that they would enjoy rather than something they're forced to do so I think to increase female population they need to know it's something that they truly want to do Kristen how about you so I'm opposite opinion on that I believe that and I know this is a big discussion in congress right now and they're just talking about if they should make a mandatory for women I believe that if men have to register for selected service women should too I know other countries do that you know Germany Israel other places I've been assigned or visited they make both men and women sign up and some of them have mandatory service and I think that if women want to do the same roles and be in the same responsibility level of men that they should also you know register for selective service that's just my personal opinion how about you Heather as I mentioned before I don't think that we need a draft but the question is about registering for the selective service I think our selective service system is pretty outdated I mean the idea that at 18 we put out of the post office and fill out a postcard that goes in some database somewhere and that otherwise the government is not going to be able to find you I mean you know come on if we had to go back to a circumstance where we needed people to defend this country we better take the best and some of the best are women and everybody should be subject to serve in a kind of national crisis like that and you don't have to fill out the postcard it is a little antiquated I agree I've forgotten that that is the way right this next question my husband and I sponsored Naval Academy midshipmen and women what additional support slash guidance do our panelists wish they had when in military college before going into the field why don't you start for us because you're up on my screen Heather why don't you kick us off well first of all thank you for sponsoring midshipmen it means that you're buying that Costco have really changed several gallons of milk every weekend or something I would encourage them to continue to develop and grow one of the things that will be different Madison for your generation we went through school we got our bachelor's degree at some point maybe we got a master's degree we went to school some specialty school but more today than 30 years ago there will be a continuous spiral of very rapid development and learning and so for for young people today that commitment to continuous learning has got to be just part of their DNA and if they don't like it they're just looking forward to graduation and closing the books I got news it's not gonna end the only difference will be the answers are not in the back of the book I would tell you to that the social media today there's a lot of information out there but it's not all correct information so it's really important to get to know folks who are in the same environment so if you if you're in a military college you should be looking for folks who are either instructors there or people who have served recently who could help you with understanding how to navigate in the future and I definitely agree that the social media is so much information and like we said things are changing so rapidly like Heather's mentioned that you've got to keep up with it and it's important to to talk to folks and understand what you to expect when you get out of college and then what to look for when you're out doing doing your service to your nation and how about for you Madison what do you wish that somebody, advice that somebody had given your support and guidance that someone had given you I think some of the guidance I wish I had been given would be to maybe do my own research into what the big army is like and then also really focus on the military training and like because that's a lot of what you do when you get to the real army and I feel like I spent a lot of time when I first got to the big army learning more about like what it is the army actually does and what my job will be because not that I didn't take it seriously but I wasn't as focused on like learning about what I'm going to do because I'm like oh I'll figure it out when I get there so I think just looking ahead to what your job is going to be and looking ahead to like what to expect so you prepare yourself in advance instead of jumping in and trying to learn things in the moment I have one final question that I'd like each of you to answer for me and that is what's the one thing that you think the military could do today that would literally and tangibly grow the numbers and the appeal women into the military and since you're on my screen Madison we'll start with you the list of things that we've talked about some of them what specific thing could you see happening that you think would really move the needle on growing the number of women and making women feel like they're not the one of a few you know per class I kind of touched on this already I think just changing the stigma that it's not just guys out there doing crazy stuff and that crazy stuff like frontline is the only option when you join the military so just also changing the stigma about women in the military because I know some people still don't have the best opinion on it so just realizing that women are capable they can do a lot of great things in the military but at the same time they're supporting roles and other opportunities if that's not exactly what they're looking for just changing the stigma that women are capable and it's something that they can definitely excel at for Kristen and Heather since you guys have been in it for a minute as you look back on your careers I'm curious both of those things one what specific thing could starting tomorrow could make a change but also do you look back and see tremendous change do you feel good about all the changes from when you were in until you know where Madison is right now and Kristen why don't you start off with me and then Heather I'll give you the last word okay so first of all I think forums like this opportunities to show during women's history month and then during just throughout the year ways that women have done great things in our military and having examples and I know there's a lot of opportunities to have young women and then women who are at the end of their military careers come back and explain about what they've done to showcase go to high schools go to colleges just just put the word out and advertising on different TV shows because you don't you don't see it enough and I think that's that's will help us with getting more people interested in potentially serving and I would tell you that I guess let me tell me again what your second question was as you look backwards you feel like wow there's been so much change and I feel really good about that change or do you feel like wow it's moved at a snail's pace and I you know it should have been faster I thank you for that I would tell you that I think that over the last decade it's really moved fast I think it wasn't moving as fast in the before that I mean we were kind of stuck in the 80s as they say but over the last decade I can see a lot of change I mean I've mentioned it to you we've had everything from women being able to serve in different roles that they couldn't serve a decade ago women getting selected for higher levels of you know service we had our first four star in the army over the last decade and the Air Force has had several women four stars and then and the Navy's had one so a lot has happened over the last ten years and it's it's because our environment we changed so quickly nowadays versus maybe 20 30 years ago but I've I would tell you I enjoyed my service and I would have had it another way and I look at you know the generation before me and how they were you had even less opportunity so I think the generation after me is going to have even more it's exciting times for Madison and all the young folks who are joining our military Heather I'm going to give you the final word this evening before we wrap up our panel I think the biggest change that the Air Force could make or the country could make is that the Air Force is too small for what the nation is asking it to do and it's burning out our people and that's why they're choosing to leave and so so we need to either reduce the requirements for airpower by saying there's some things that do not have enough forces to do or to make increase the number of squadrons and so so right-sizing the Air Force is is what would make the biggest difference from as far as change goes and since I graduated from the Academy in 1982 when I became the secretary of the Air Force so I'm the fourth woman to be secretary of the Air Force by the way the Army and the Navy still haven't had one but I'm the fourth woman and my successor was also one and but when I was going through the kind of charm school to get ready for confirmation hearings I met with senior officers and they were briefing me on things and you know trying to fill my head with facts so that I wouldn't screw up in front of congress and there was this one briefing where there were there was this group of senior officers answering questions and so forth and we got to the end of this 45 minute briefing and something and I'm you know trying to be professional on all that and I just said okay break break said I just want to that this is the first time in my life I have there were you know six or seven general officers in this room this is the first time in my life I've ever been in a room with three three star women generals I've never seen this before I just want to let you know that I think it's really cool and and they and what was also really cool was they hadn't noticed it it was just the way it was they were the best people for the job and it was pretty neat that truly is I think a sign of real progress right when someone points out something that's very transformational and everyone's like we didn't even notice because it's become typical great story a great way to end our panel thank you so much to our three panelists our first lieutenant Madison Holman general retired Christian French and president Heather Wilson thank you to the three of you for joining us thank you they truly appreciate it thank you thank you