There is a story I once heard about a recruit who was so flustered by the demands and chaos of boot camp he couldn’t do anything right. Every inspection he failed, every repetitive task he blundered, every small or large infraction he committed led to additional tasks for the whole unit. Finally, his drill instructor was so frustrated he made this recruit carry his mask around with him wherever he went. The point was to remind him of how he was sucking the air out of the experience for everyone else. Since I’ve heard other clever variations on this theme, I don’t know if the story is apocryphal—a military legend passed down to keep recruits who are not pulling their weight from embarrassing themselves in the same way—but exaggerated or not, the point is that every serviceman and -woman needs to be able to do the same things the rest of the unit is doing in order for all of them to survive and thrive.
The exercises recruits are put through during training—as arbitrary as they may seem at times—are actually designed to help break troops of their bad habits so they can replace them with lifesaving ones. They are intended to teach discipline and the importance of acting in unison with each other. Any bad habit that prevents a recruit from doing this is something they seriously need to wrestle with and overcome, because if they don’t, they run the risk of jeopardizing everyone’s success and safety in the field, not just their own.
As it happened, my father bypassed the whole boot-camp-from-hell experience. After a quick assessment of his abilities at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, during his junior year in college, it was decided that once he had his degree he would go directly to Officer Training School (OTS) alongside West Point officers and other distinguished military graduates. He’s too modest to say it, but when the Army saw that he lacked the bad habits they try to break in new recruits and possessed so many of the admirable qualities they try to instill in them, they were eager to have him join their ranks.
After OTS, he became a platoon leader. That’s where he helped so many young men learn to swap out their worst habits for far better ones. Despite how dedicated and bright the non-commissioned officers he trained were, he told me that the most frequent and detrimental habit he had to break in them was a “certain kind of selfishness.” He explained, “In their desire to be the best that they could possibly be, they focused solely on their own performance and not on that of the collective team. But winning requires the whole unit to be dominant in its mission ability. To remedy the problem, these young men have to learn to love the man next to him as soon as possible. They have to learn to do things together or the unit will never become proficient. In this business of field training, they have to learn that your eyes are not just your eyes. Your eyes are the eyes of the guy that is next to you and next to him. They have to discover that through these exercises, you learn to see again. You learn to see together.”
When service members look back on their early training experiences, they all admit what an important role strict drill instructors and wise platoon leaders played in their growth, transformation, and readiness for success in battle. The methods they used may have varied, but their objective was always the same: To help you identify and correct the behaviors, habits, and beliefs that could potentially get in the way of mission success.
FORCE OF HABIT
Most of us are like young recruits. We are eager to achieve success, but we have certain habits, quirks, and character flaws that need to be addressed before that can happen. Maybe those habits are not so visible to others—or even to yourself at times—but scratch the surface and you’ll see them lurking there, forming a thin layer of resistance between you and your goals. I call the worst of these habits “demons” because a lot of times we don’t recognize how bad their influence is until they’ve already created some trouble for us. I devised the “Deal with Your Demons” rule to remind me to be on the lookout for these unwanted habits, to challenge them before they ever grow to be too powerful, and to replace them with more constructive habits that will assure my success.
TIME FOR A CHANGE
It’s difficult to imagine now, but throughout the first half of my life I was chronically late for everything. Maybe you or someone you know has the same challenge. I would always pass it off as no big deal, joking that I was even born late, having arrived two weeks after my due date. My tardiness was so persistent, my grade school teachers noted it in my childhood report cards. My high school friends automatically built in an extra twenty minutes for me no matter where we were going, until one day they figured out that the time they spent waiting could be better spent having fun. From that point on they left ahead of me and hoped that I’d catch up.
There were times when this awful habit disappointed my mother too. I would come late to events she hosted for the other military families. I never meant for it to seem as if I didn’t care about our friends and neighbors enough to be on time, but my mother made me see how it could appear that way. In fact, she was the first to identify this shortcoming of mine as a “little demon.” She even warned me to be careful because habits like these can control us if we let them.
As always, she was right. When I went to college, that little demon seemed to grow two heads. Now it wasn’t just letting people down; it was also costing my parents and me a hefty price. Sometime during the first quarter of my freshman year one of my professors threatened to lower my stellar grade in his course if I didn’t make it to class on time. At first I thought that he was overreacting and that it would all just blow over, but it didn’t. I finally told my mother and she was not pleased. College wasn’t free or cheap. She and my father had planned and worked hard to be able to pay for it, and I had also worked hard to earn good grades. She suggested that I draw a line down the center of a piece of paper and list all the pros of being late on one side and all the cons on the other. Guess what. There were no pros. I had to own up to my behavior and do something about it quickly. I compromised and picked three manageable things I could arrive on time for and focused on those. They were my classes, exams, and my favorite social events. I’d have to work on being prompt for everything else some other time.
Of course, “some other time” eventually caught up with me. In the same way that I had set some priorities about what I would never be late for in college, I determined that in my professional life I would never be late for a newscast. My little demon knew there was no negotiation on this point. I stuck to the plan and it remains a deal breaker to this day. However, something my news director said to me one afternoon made me realize that picking just one thing to be consistently on time for was not good enough.
He said, “Harris, I get that you’ll be there for the news, but will you show up for life?”
His question stopped me in my tracks. He was clearly irritated and had finally decided to confront me on the subject. He continued, “You know, we planned a group lunch for the people in the newsroom this week and you were fifteen minutes late, so you missed my opening remarks. I realize that it wasn’t breaking news, but I have to ask, are you always late like that?” I think he might have thought that I was just disrespecting him.
As you can imagine, that event was a turning point for me—even more so than the other incidents. This time, the potential consequences for me seemed far more serious. I began to see my worst habit as the demon I’d been warned about. If I wasn’t careful, it could prevent me from doing the kind of work I believed I was born to do. It could actually derail my career.
The great irony about my persistent lateness is that I love watches and always have. I’ve collected large, vintage, and fancy timepieces for years. As a young child I even used to wear my dad’s watch around the house. He left it lying on the dresser alongside his dog tags when he changed out of his uniform or went to sleep. It’s not as if I didn’t know what time it was all those years; it was that I couldn’t resist the urge to take one more minute to do one last thing. But now I somehow understood the danger of that urge. If left unchecked it could ruin my future in a business I had wanted to be in all my life—a business where I showed real promise for success.
I knew right then and there that I had to rid myself of this awful habit and replace it with a whole new set of good ones. I had to be prompt everywhere I went and I had to direct some of the awareness that made me such a good journalist in the direction of the people I worked with. I knew what I needed from them to do a good job, but what did they need from me to do their job better? What could we do for each other to take us all to a ratings win? An Emmy? A Peabody? I wondered if when my news director gave his speech, he shared thoughts on his vision for the team going forward. It was now very clear that being late to that luncheon meant I missed more than just the appetizers; I may have missed information that could enhance the way I perform—the way we all perform together.
The other irony about my tardiness was that I lived on a military base, yet I never thought about the way our soldiers tell time—or what that way of telling time says about the importance of being where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. Think about it: To be sure there is no confusion about whether an operation begins in the day or at night, the military adopted use of the twenty-four-hour clock. You cannot confuse 12:00 A.M. with 12:00 P.M. when you think of midnight as 0000 hours and noon as 1200 hours. This small but significant innovation not only ensures that the troops are in sync, but it also emphasizes how important being there for each other is—on time, fully present, and ready.
Although I was taught on countless occasions and in countless different ways that my tardiness would bite me in the butt if I let it, I only truly learned that lesson when being late all the time came close to doing that. This is what I mean when I say, “Deal with your demons.” We all have a sense of what our worst habits are. We dismiss them because they seem perfectly harmless at a distance. But you must consider not just how your bad habits obstruct your way, but also how they can be detrimental to the goals and resources of the people you care about. It was when my tardiness threatened my parents’ hard-earned money and my college grades that I woke up to it. It was when it started to interfere with my professional life, including others who supported my work, that my eyes were fully opened. Only when you see the threat your demon poses clearly enough can you begin to break its hold on you.
I am proud to say that when this rule about knowing and overcoming my demons really clicked for me, my perspective shifted. I aimed to show up early and not just for newscasts. As I’ve mentioned in this book, today I cohost an ensemble show that dominates its time slot because our panelists work well as a team. We’ve developed a wonderful rhythm by being attentive and drawing upon each other’s strengths and knowledge. In other words, we’ve cultivated good habits. The same dynamic exists among my producing team on Outnumbered Overtime with Harris Faulkner.
Of course, I won’t sugarcoat things for you. I still have to actively remind myself to keep an eye on the time every morning when my husband, daughters, and I are all rushing around to get to school, work, or an appointment. But there is something a few hundred yards from my home that serves as a visual reminder for me to stay on track. I live near a ferry dock on the Hudson River. It became famous as the location where Captain Chesley Sullenberger (known to many as “Sully”) made an emergency water landing of US Airways flight 1549. You will recall that this plane was disabled by a flock of geese right after takeoff one cold January afternoon in 2009. Now, whenever I look at this dock from my front window, I am inspired by the thought of what the human spirit can do. If Sully could accomplish such a miraculous feat with just seconds to plan for it, then certainly with a little more preparation I can make it to the ferry on time each day.
YOU PLAY LIKE YOU PRACTICE
There is no perfect journey. I find that as the mother of two elementary-school-aged daughters, little demons arise from time to time that I try to catch early. I revisit this rule and find ways to slay those demons in an effort to be a better role model for my girls. I know that one can develop an unwanted habit at any point in life. For instance, how many people addicted to social media could have predicted their struggle five years ago? I’m sure they never imagined a time when they would dine in a restaurant opposite their date and not exchange a word with each other because they couldn’t pry themselves away from their iPhones. But today we witness that happening more and more. New trends and technologies emerge and a whole new set of demons appears with them to entice us.
To be sure that no bad habits form or escape my notice and that no benign ones turn into something more (Is eating a lot of chocolate really that bad?), I rely on the trusty principles of boot camp. I use discipline and an abundance of awareness to my advantage. I check to make certain that I am not backsliding on my vow to get to places on time. I stop and take inventory of the things I’ve been doing lately and look for patterns. I ask myself how some of these things may be affecting the people around me.
I also take constructive criticism in stride. I consider the source, and if it’s coming from someone I love, care about, and/or respect, then I know it is being offered because the other person genuinely wants to see me succeed. I’ve grown to understand and appreciate that others bring a level of objectivity to the conversation, especially if they are people I trust. This is where my special forces come in. I’m sure if they spotted a new habit unfolding, they would be the first to tell me. If it were a good habit, they’d give me a compliment and encourage me to develop it further. If it were not, they’d give me a word of advice.
This whole idea of early detection—remaining alert and aware enough to spot and deal with habits before they ever spiral into something as big as a demon—is really important. It worked for me once in a very significant way.
When I was first starting out in my career I used to be what I call, for lack of a better term, a noisy listener. You know, one of those people who interjects to assure others that they’re still with them as they tell their story. The type who always says “uh-huh” and “mm-hmm” when they can relate, or even “oof” when they want to let the other person know that they feel their pain. This habit may prove that you’re sympathetic when your friend tells you about her latest romantic breakup or your child skins his knee, but it’s the kiss of death if you’re a news reporter. After you interview enough people at fire scenes, you’ll stop doing that real fast because your news clips will never be broadcast.
This was something I did so much as a young person in the field, that it could very well have stalled my prospects for on-camera work or halted it all together. Whenever I’d sit down with my editor to watch the video that my cameraman just shot of me interviewing an eyewitness, I’d find myself feeling deflated within minutes. The editor would invariably say, “You’re right on point. You got the scoop, but we can’t use the footage because you’re talking over it.” I’d ask to take another listen and he’d play it back for me. Sure enough, the interview subject would be saying something critical just as I was voicing my understanding or sympathy. The audio was never clear enough to air.
The same would sometimes happen off camera too. I might have been tracking down crucial information—maybe someone was reading the telephone number of an important contact aloud for me to write down. If I was saying “uh-huh” as they were saying the next number, I missed it. That was especially troublesome when I only had seconds to get that information and the person relaying it to me had already hung up the phone.
You can bet I worked really hard to break that habit. Now after I ask a question, I remain silent until I’m sure my interviewees have finished their response. I don’t say “uh-huh” or “mm-hmm” anymore because I’m trying to hear every word they are saying and if I’m speaking, then I can’t do that. Similarly, when young journalists are interviewing me and I get interrupted more than once in two sentences, I stop answering. What I have to say in that situation can’t be heard over their voices. I often tell them later why I do this so they can learn the same lesson I had to learn without going through similar frustrations.
This is exactly what I mean when I say, “Deal with your demons.” You must recognize them and by extension work to be sure you conquer them. This particular habit could have stalled my career—or worse, halted it all together. But because I was aware enough to identify the problem, heed my editor’s comments, and change my ways, I not only avoided trouble, I actually became a far better reporter.
TAKING THE MESSAGE PUBLIC
Whenever I talk with my brat friends about my “Deal with Your Demons” rule we always have a good laugh. For the most part, brats are some of the best-behaved children you will ever meet. They grow up surrounded by disciplined and aware people all the time. Their parents and others on base model these qualities so brats tend to learn them by both osmosis and steady reinforcement. But we all remember rebelling in little ways, especially around the time when our loved one was deployed. Rules would sometimes get lax around the house because our mom was doing double duty, assuming our dad’s role in addition to her own while he was gone. We might find ourselves stretching our bedtimes, delaying or not doing our homework, skipping a chore to hang out at the bowling alley on base just to blow off some steam, and though fast food wasn’t as prevalent then as it is today, we would relax our diet and indulge in ice cream and pizza a little bit more. But sooner or later brats catch themselves and straighten up. We don’t believe in pity parties. We pretty much pick ourselves up and move forward before any of these indulgences threaten to become lasting habits or demons.
Given the example of our parents’ service to country, a lot of us brats grow up pursuing careers in fields that also call out, address, and/or tackle challenging behaviors and demons in our own society and in others around the world. A disproportionate number of us enter the military, become police officers, social workers, teachers, foreign service workers, and some—like me—become journalists.
A lot of my job is about focusing the public on behavioral patterns, recurring challenges, and thorny issues we collectively need to pay attention to in order to keep moving in a good direction as individuals, patriots, and as global citizens. Although it is difficult, there are times when I have to call out growing concerns in institutions I deeply care about, including the military, precisely because I care about them. I know that if we wish these institutions to continue to serve us as well as they have in the past, we have to mind their demons the same way we mind our own.
One of several demons I see society and the military currently wrestling with is the issue of how to better attend to the health needs of our veterans. This has been a challenge dating back to my father’s day. The decades’ worth of medical advances made between World War II and the Vietnam era resulted in more troops surviving and returning home with physical injuries that would have previously been life ending. Because Vietnam also engaged our troops in guerrilla-style warfare and in direct confrontations with civilians, our soldiers carried back deep psychological wounds, the likes of which we had never seen or dealt with before. They were traumatized by fighting battles without clear rules, boundaries, or even an identifiable enemy. The further burden of the war’s unpopularity at home didn’t help. Troops returning with PTSD were very reluctant to call attention to themselves by reaching out for help. To admit that they needed counseling felt like too public a shame to bear. So many of them suffered alone and in silence. Consequently, the suicide rate among veterans spiked. Alcoholism, drug use, and homelessness also rose.
Thankfully, we made considerable progress in the intervening years. We are now more responsive than we once were. A greater number of doctors and civilians understand the ravages of war and have stepped up to help meet the responsibility of caring for our current veterans physically, emotionally, and mentally. We have a broader understanding of PTSD and its treatment.
The work of foundations such as Wounded Warrior Project, Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust, Air Warrior Courage Foundation, and Operation Second Chance also evidences a societal change. These organizations’ existence proves a wider public appreciation for our troops and an increased willingness to help them in whatever ways we can.
The challenge, however, is that the situation continues to morph with the new circumstances of war. Tours of duty have increased in number and duration. Even more miraculous surgical and rehabilitative strides have been made. As a great many service members return in need of medical care, the stress on the system and on them has become monumental. The conditions these brave soldiers face from day one of their homecoming are grave, challenging, and often insurmountable. Some require daily urgent care visits. Their recovery times stretch on into years. No system can sustain the equivalent of an emergency room visit every day by so many people. As we continue to find new ways to save lives and limbs, we must also find new ways to ensure the quality of our wounded veterans’ existence afterward. This is a demon we all need to contemplate, innovate around, and resolve swiftly.
We’ve been a nation at war for more than a decade in places we all largely agreed to be in. There may be some political divide on this matter, but generally there is widespread support among the American people for the troops who went to Iraq and Afghanistan. No one can say for sure, however, what level of support there will be if we have to send more armed men and women back into those countries or into new areas of conflict. With mounting threats every day in Syria and North Korea, we are going to be in a world of hurt if we do not figure this challenge out now. Our health-care facilities will be crippled under the weight of a greater number of troops relying on them.
What compounds this problem is that older vets are living longer too. Those in my dad’s generation—and those before his time as well—are in increasing need of medical care that is very different from the care young vets require.
I was intimately impacted by this reality six summers ago when my parents came to visit my husband, two girls, and me at our vacation home in southern Arizona. We were enjoying our leisure time together when my father became ill. He never told us that he’d been having some esophageal problems and was taking prescribed medication to treat the symptoms for quite some time.
As it turned out, the condition was far more serious than he led us to believe. Whereas he usually received medical care on base, we were nowhere near his regular doctors or a VA hospital. Our best option was to send him to Tucson Medical Center (TMC). It was one of the closest facilities, and thankfully it is also one of the best in the country. They used a life flight service to transport him from where we were near the US–Mexican border to their intensive care unit. He spent the next sixty-seven days in a coma. I am happy to say because of their immediate response and excellent treatment he recovered fully. Around the same time as he was convalescing, the media began shedding light on the epic wait times those seeking medical services through the VA were subjected to. I found myself increasingly conflicted that some of our soldiers and officers may not have been getting access to the same kind of care. Reporting shows the issue is not with how well trained and talented the doctors and nurses at VA hospitals are. There is a tremendous amount of talent at our VA hospitals. Rather, the system is burdened by the enormous patient overload they’re experiencing, to say nothing of the severity and complexity of injuries and conditions they are dealing with.
The doctors told us that without immediate attention my father would have died. We sadly know some of our veterans have died on waiting lists. The failure to quickly fix this ongoing challenge at the VA is the legacy of the Obama administration, and arguably, of previous presidents from both political parties. We are seeing Americans who have never served react by urging their own congresspeople to do their part with compassionate urgency.
Another perplexing military demon involves the issue of sexual harassment, particularly against women. Of course, the armed services are not alone in their need to address this challenge. All of society is struggling with it. But the military must get its arms around this matter quickly for several reasons. The first is because it’s our moral obligation to. All of our troops are entitled to mutual respect. The second is because our troops’ ability to trust one another and to act in unison will be eroded if they don’t. While most of the people who serve our country uphold military values and treat each other with the dignity that their commitment warrants, those who don’t actually threaten our military readiness.
There is much that the military has done during the last few years to improve conditions for women, but sadly the nude-photo-sharing scandal of 2017 took us back a number of steps. I am referring to the marines who explicitly posted images of female troops without their knowledge or permission through a private Facebook page that was later discovered and publicized in the media.
During a 2017 Senate Arms Services Committee hearing on the subject, Republican Senator Mike Rounds was quick to point out another reason we have to address the issue. He made it clear that we can’t go to war without women anymore. He reminded those testifying and those watching the proceedings that women are an integral part of our present-day military. In fact, the pressure to recruit more of them has been on for a while. Not only do they help increase the size of our total forces, but they bring some unique and necessary skills with them. They are valued for intelligence gathering in places men can’t typically go. They play a vital role when dealing with other women in countries where cultural practices prohibit interaction with men other than close family members. In certain parts of the world, these female troops are the only ones who can enter women’s quarters during in-home inspections, the only ones who can talk to them about what their fathers, husbands, and sons are doing, and certainly the only ones who can search their person for hidden weapons.
And while there are these differences, women soldiers have proven that they can effectively do what their male counterparts can do too. They provide border security, accompany convoys, drive trucks and tanks, fly aircraft, operate drones, and fire mortar rounds. As a woman, I also know that these ladies are great at multitasking under pressure. I think women are just hardwired that way. It’s a skill we require for motherhood but it’s put to good use in other areas too.
These days, women who qualify can even serve in elite Special Forces. And in May 2017 women also became eligible to serve in combat roles. During a historic graduation ceremony held at Fort Benning, in Georgia, eighteen enlisted women became our nation’s first female infantrymen. I happened to be on the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge to commemorate Memorial Day with some of our service members when the news about how well these women did on their final tests spread to members of the other military branches. Words cannot describe the shared elation and pride I witnessed in everyone around me, but especially among the other women in the Marines and Navy. The importance of this milestone was felt most by them. Women used to be safeguarded from the dangers of the front lines, but as we fight in more insurgent-driven conflicts, the concept of a front line no longer exists. Danger surrounds you everywhere. In this way, female troops have already been engaged in active combat for quite some time. We are only acknowledging their proven ability to withstand that pressure now.
It was a relief to me that Congress recognized the importance of women in our armed forces, while also moving rapidly to deal legislatively with the issue of sexual harassment at hand. Just days after that momentous graduation ceremony at Fort Benning, Congress unanimously passed a bill that bans the sharing of nonconsensual nude photos throughout the US military. It was Congresswoman Martha McSally of my home state of Arizona who sponsored the Protecting the Rights of IndiViduals Against Technological Exploitation Act, otherwise known as the PRIVATE Act. So many of us military families, and the public in general, are grateful that she did. It’s an indication that we are, in fact, dealing head-on with some of our military’s most perplexing demons in a timely and decisive manner. But it still gnaws at me that a bill was even necessary—that the acts against these women occurred at all, and that common decency has to be mandated rather than just expected of the people fighting to the right or left of you. Succeeding in life as well as in war means unconditionally respecting those taking up the cause with you.
While writing this book, I reached out to Congresswoman McSally for a broader perspective on the inclusion and treatment of female troops in the service. She is uniquely qualified to speak to this issue as she not only introduced the PRIVATE Act, she was also one of the first women in the United States Air Force to become a fighter pilot, the first woman in US history to fly a fighter aircraft into combat, and the first woman to command a combat aviation squadron.
I wanted to get a sense of the history of women in the Air Force, so I asked if she knew anything about what the first class of women who attended encountered. She was not there then, but she did say, “I have tremendous respect for them to be the first, to be the pioneers, to show up when the institution and the attitudes were not necessarily welcoming.” Then she proceeded to tell me a story, which reflected the bravado of that time. Apparently when the last all-male class graduated in 1979 they had their motto emblazoned on practically everything related to their class including their rings. It read: LCWB. I paused for a moment to try to figure out what the acronym stood for when she told me it meant “Last Class with Balls.” They wanted to be sure to mark the changing times in a way no one would forget.
Things were somewhat different by the time she enrolled as part of the ninth class to include women at the Academy. Every grade before hers—the sophomores, juniors, and seniors—all had some gender diversity, so everyone had enough experience for the presence of women to be the new normal.
But that still didn’t make it easy for the men to embrace the idea of female service members becoming anything more than cargo pilots or civilian aviators. There was still a law on the books that prohibited women from becoming fighter pilots, bomber pilots, or attack pilots. Her reaction to this news was classic. She thought, What do you mean? I’m going through the same training as all of you. Just because I have ovaries you’re telling me I can’t fly that airplane? That’s when she resolved to be the first woman on the front lines as a combat pilot.
I found it interesting that she went on to describe her time at the academy as a very isolating experience—not just one that distanced the women from the men but one that distanced the women from each other too. It was as if those who did successfully assimilate were saying, “I’m one of the guys and you’re not.” She has since observed a similar phenomenon in civilian life among mixed groups of firefighters, police officers, and engineers. “Women in these situations, where they are the minority, can be more critical of each other,” she explained. “Because if you’re not stepping up and performing, or you’re acting in a way that undermines us when I’m over here trying to prove that women belong, you’re making me look bad.”
She talked too about an air of paternalism on the part of some male supervisors and commanders. She explained that it creates a double standard that can easily cause divisions between men and women. She said, “It may not even be on purpose or it may not even be conscious, but sometimes you can have a male leader who is being easier on female subordinates because they almost look at them like daughters. They might say, ‘Okay everybody, we’re packing the pallets up to leave. The guys are going to do that and the girls are going to stay here and do the paperwork.’ Without even realizing what they’re doing, these male leaders are protecting the women. This commander just pissed off some of the guys because now they have to go out in the hot sun while the girls take it easy indoors. Because of this paternalistic approach, these male leaders inadvertently sow seeds of resentment within their team.”
Congresswoman McSally also illustrated how this protectionism plays out among one’s male peers, not just among male leadership. She said that male troops would often argue, “You women can’t be fighter pilots because you might be shot down or you might become prisoners of war.” They made it clear that they would “freak out if a woman was at risk of being captured or being sexually assaulted.” Whenever male troops spoke in a hypothetical sense they would say, “We’d be so distracted trying to protect you; we wouldn’t be able to do our jobs.” Her reply to that was always, “Look, I appreciate your upbringing. I’m not trying to dismiss how you feel. But the reality is we go off to battle with each other after we’ve been through the same training.” She would add, “If your male wingman got shot down and you didn’t have that same deep horrible feeling in your heart—that same drive to do whatever it takes to get them home alive—then you are devaluing the life of your male teammates. Or if they make the ultimate sacrifice and you don’t have the same tear in your eye when his body bag comes home as you would if it were a woman in that body bag, then you need to figure out how to wrap your head around that.” Her final word on the subject was always, “You have to handle it. This is your problem. This isn’t my problem. My problem is I’m going into battle with you trained and ready, capable and qualified. I earned this and now I’m on your team, so you are going to have to manage that in your mind. But whatever you do, don’t devalue our male teammates by somehow insinuating that my life is more valuable than theirs, because it’s not.”
This little bit of history she provided certainly made the challenges the military has had to tackle clearer to me. Listening to the congresswoman talk about how isolated these women feel from each other at times made me wonder if this is one of the reasons why sexual harassment is so underreported. Our female troops may not always have other female confidants to turn to for support or for the encouragement to speak up. I saw how paternalism contributes to resentment too. And laced in the fears of what might happen to female pilots who were captured by the enemy is a deeply rooted objectification of women. It seemed to me as if they are often viewed as women first and capable soldiers second.
Congresswoman McSally is an impassioned speaker in general, but it was particularly evident when we moved on to the subject of the nude photo scandal. She described the situation as infuriating and demeaning to everyone. She explained, “It is infuriating because of what it does to the victims. It’s infuriating because of what it does to the core of our fighting force too, which is the honor, the integrity, the camaraderie, the trust, the good order, the discipline, and esprit de corps—all the things that are underlying what has each of us fighting alongside each other, for each other, and for the country. When you start attacking each other, it’s cancerous. The enemy is out there; the enemy isn’t each other.” She added, “It was disgusting, insulting, and inappropriate. And those are just the G-rated words that I’ll give you.”
She also found what it said about the perpetrators infuriating: “That they think they can just hide behind a computer and act that way because no one is looking or can identify them. That they can denigrate their fellow soldiers, denigrate their teammate—another person who wears the uniform, another person who trusts that your lives are in each other’s hands. That they put the uniform on and come into work, walk past the military’s core values posted in the hallway, and think that they actually embody them. That it’s okay to be living this way. That they think that’s not incongruent is deeply disturbing to me.”
With regard to the PRIVATE Act, she acknowledged that it will require more than legislation. “This is a cultural issue and it’s an individual issue,” she explained. “It will take everyone choosing to embody these values, even when the stakes don’t seem high to them and even when it may seem unpopular or uncool. It will take everyone refusing to be a bystander and certainly everyone refusing to be a denigrator.” She added, “These seeds need to be planted and cultivated in all of our troops. We need to do our part in the military to reinforce these ideals, but ultimately these are character issues and you can’t train character per se. So we’ve got to root out the perpetrators, hold them accountable, address the underlying culture, and make sure that we are recruiting and promoting and retaining individuals who live and act with the integrity that military life demands, because we just cannot have this kind of behavior.”
If that seems like an incredibly tall order, I must tell you that the commitment and determination in her voice made it seem more possible than not. I am greatly encouraged by the fact that she and several other women who have served in our armed forces are now also serving in our legislative bodies throughout the nation. I do believe that they can help make her vision possible—that they can help make the military more inviting and respectful of all of the enormously capable women out there who have so much to offer.
There was something else Congresswoman McSally said before the conversation ended that provided further hope. She mentioned that since her days in the Air Force, she has studied the works of sociologists and other experts on the dynamics of minority groups. She explained, “According to these experts, when a minority group comprises less than twenty-five percent of the total population, they tend to be considered ‘the other.’ There are those that are ‘alike’ and those that are ‘not alike.’ An ‘us’ group and an ‘other’ group. But as soon as your group reaches or exceeds twenty-five percent of the population, you hit a kind of a tipping point where you’re seen as an integrated part of the group—a critical part that can actually impact the behavior and dynamic of that group.”
If this is true, then it would seem as if increasing the number of women in the US military might actually raise the prospects of serious change for the better. Presently, women comprise only 14.5 percent of the US military’s population, but in time, if the trend toward higher female recruitment efforts continues, the culture holds the very real potential of evolving through greater peer interaction.
This idea is so intriguing to me that I think it might be worthwhile to look at the practices of our allies where women are already such an extensive part of the military. In Israel, for example, nearly one third of the international defense force is comprised of women. Every eligible citizen is obligated to serve despite gender. Whereas our society struggles with whether or not we want to make all Americans learn English, theirs accepts that at some point everyone of a certain age and eligibility will have to load, lock, and carry as part of their duty to country. These female soldiers are well integrated into a wide variety of operations just as American women are, though there are still some areas where they’re prohibited, including the kinds of close combat and special occupations the United States has opened up recently to our female troops.
In Norway, women have been prevalent in the military for a long time too. Some have served as defense ministers, submarine commanders, and fighter jet pilots. But for the last four decades, unlike the Israeli military, female participation in Norway’s armed forces was completely voluntary. It only became compulsory for women to serve in 2016. I’m sure that in advance of the change, their commanders carefully considered all the related issues. Now female troops there are trained and even housed in unisex barracks. The theory is that by routinely integrating men and women, a brother-sister bond will form—one that would be hard to violate as the troops work more closely together and rely on each other to survive. According to news reports from StraitsTimes.com and the BBC, it seems to be working.
But Norway appears to be testing out other theories at the same time. They recently implemented an all-female Special Forces training unit called the Jegertroppen (the Hunter Troop). Since this is the first of its kind in the world, I’m sure that many people in armed forces around the globe and certainly here at home will be keeping an eye on its results. It will be very interesting to watch developments of both practices closely, comparing and contrasting what works and why. There are close to forty countries where women participate in the military—whether they volunteer or are conscripted—so the opportunity to explore best practices is ripe.
These are interesting times for women, but I think they are for men too, as both have much to learn from each other. America has a hard-earned reputation for military ingenuity and we certainly love to win. We are also practiced at identifying demons and observing them closely enough to develop successful strategies for overcoming them, so I am optimistic that we will figure out a way to show greater respect for our female forces and also utilize them as the crucial military asset we know them to be.
Again, while my profession engages me in addressing these kinds of concerns publicly, I write about them here because these issues are important to me personally. Ask most brats where they grew up and they won’t name a hometown, city, or state; they will tell you they grew up in the military. That’s our home. So keeping a watchful eye on the issues they are grappling with is the same, in my mind, as keeping a watchful eye on family.
YOUR TURN
It is obviously embarrassing to have your demons pointed out to you by someone else, but if that happens to you as it did to me, take heart. Even try to be grateful for it. It is much better to know about your flaws than to continue on blindly. Having your attentions drawn to them provides you with an opportunity to correct them. It would be awful if my former news director never said a word to me about my being tardy all the time. Even if I was always prompt for the news, being late for everything else could have made my employers doubt just how much responsibility I could handle. If I hadn’t broken that habit, I might not have been afforded the opportunity to cohost or anchor as many shows as I do today. I also believe the repercussions would have spread beyond my career, especially as my life expanded to include so many others who rely on me daily, including my husband and children. Because someone cared enough to tell me, I made changes in my behavior that I am grateful for to this day.
To Deal with Your Demons you will need to:
Note that once you have rid yourself of your unwanted habits, you can improve your life and your prospects for achieving success by adapting the above process to introduce new, healthier, more constructive habits in place of the old ones. Again, this is what boot camp does so well—it swaps out all the behaviors that impede success and teaches young recruits all the ones that will enable them to survive and thrive.
Also note you don’t have to wait for an unwanted habit to develop. You can be preemptive about it. In other words, you can bar a bad habit from ever entering your world at all. We can all look around and see people slacking off, overeating, drinking too much, worrying all the time, or facing any number of other common challenges. Be mindful of those tendencies. We are all predisposed to them under the wrong circumstances, so seriously try to control them before they ever get a chance to possess you.
Hopefully the flaws you discover in yourself after taking a closer look will prove to be relatively minor. But should they pose more of a challenge than you might have expected, I encourage you to take a cue from my father’s generation of war heroes. If one of your demons feels too big for you to handle on your own, know that our culture offers so many more ways to help you now than it ever did before. And those ways no longer carry a stigma. So don’t be afraid to seek a trained professional’s guidance. Whether you wish to overcome depression, anxiety, or addiction, or you wish to lose weight, exercise more effectively, unclutter your environment, become more organized at home or at work, curb the amount of time you spend on social media, or be more prudent with your money, there are people with skills who can help. This book is all about enabling you to be the best you can be. Reaching out for guidance from someone who has an expertise in an area that you don’t is actually a very good habit to acquire.