Who is the Post-9/11 Veteran: Defining a Generation

>> Jackie: I really appreciate you all being here, especially coming all the way to Texas A and M, San Antonio in the rain. Unfortunately, Representative Gonzalez also got stuck, but his traffic was a little worse. He's stuck in DC, so apparently there's something going on on the hill. I don't know, boats.

But he did give us a welcome message. So I wanted to start with that.

>> Rep Gonzalez: Welcome to the Post-9/11 Townhall City kickoff. I apologize for not being in there in person. I'm here in Washington. I'd much rather be in the beautiful city of San Antonio, Texas. As a Post-9/11 veteran myself, having served 20 years in the military, retired as a Navy master chief.

Having spent five years in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm grateful for everything that the Hoover institution does to bring light to the veterans and figure out a way forward. Now is a trying time, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. And it's important that we all come together and we stand firmness and Americans to bring us the unity that we need to be the leader of the free world.

Thank you for having me.

>> Jackie: All right, with that, I wanna welcome everyone here to the kickoff of our event in what is our Post-9/11 veteran town hall series. So this series is all about the identity and the legacy of a generation of veterans that started with September 11.

So you have a generation of military service that's bookended on one end with the fall of the towers and on the other end with a bit of an ignominious retreat from Afghanistan. And I think the ending to this generation maybe came with very little closure, very little reconciliation about what it means to have served over the last few decades.

And so that's what this town hall series is supposed to do. And for us to have a conversation, to begin a conversation about what it meant to have served after 9/11 and then what it means for veterans as they return to their communities. And ultimately what that 20 years of military service means to local communities, American democracy, and the future of the military force.

We're here today specifically to tackle kind of the initial core question about this generation. And that is, who is the Post-9/11 veteran, and how does the diversity of this generation affect the legacy of the generation and a little bit of a plummet? Is there enough that we all have in common to forge a common vision or purpose for this generation as we move forward?

So for me, San Antonio is the perfect place to begin this conversation. And most of the people in this room know this. But for those of you who are not from San Antonio, San Antonio is often called the veteran city, and it's home to over 160,000 veterans and 80,000 active duty members.

So that means in this county, in Bexar county, you're looking at 15% to 20% of the population is military or veteran. So that means that you are always two to three Kevin Bacons from a veteran, if you live in San Antonio. And honestly, case, that's a big deal, because studies show that it is the kinda commonplace knowledge of veterans.

It's the interaction with veterans in your neighborhood, your local coffee house, schools, that has the highest relationship towards service. So it is knowing veterans that leads others to choose to serve. And in San Antonio, it's almost impossible not to know veterans. And for me, this kinda story of everyday occurrences with veterans is that's my military service story.

So I'm the daughter of two Air Force brats who met at Judson High School while their parents were stationed at Randolph Air Force Base. I grew up going to the commissary and the bowling alley, and we would drive by the house where my great grandfather lived when he was learning to fly for the army airport.

That, if now at Randolph, my cousin Marie teaches pilots at the same base. So for us, for me, San Antonio is as much a part of who I am as a military veteran, really, as 9/11. So I signed my contract with the Air Force ROTC on September 10, 2001, in New York City.

I was a freshman in college, so San Antonio brought me to the military, but that day ended up defining the significance of my service. So, I remember I watched the second plane hit the tower in the lobby of my dorm room. But I could look out the window and see the smoke and that experience, that kind of visceral moment.

I think for those of us in this room who are alive on that day, we're always gonna remember where we were, what it felt like, what it smelled like that day. You have these, there's a few moments in time where you realize you're living in history. And that's what that day was for me.

So I joined the Air Force 18. I have no idea what that commitment meant, totally free world. But I remember that day, President Bush standing on a platform. His arms were around a fireman. And in that second, I knew that the decision I had made the day before, it had a certain type of me.

So there was a lot of clarity in that moment and after 9/11 about who we were as a country, our willingness to join the military, to go to combat, to volunteer, to risk our lives. But it got murky and complicated over the next two decades. And I think that uncomfortableness about what we did or did not do after 9/11 has kind of made it socially acceptable to not talk about what 9/11 means to this generation of veterans.

So that's what we're gonna do today. And so the panelists that we have in front of you, in case you haven't noticed, represent an extraordinary diversity of experience. And that extraordinary diversity, the differences between this panelists, that is why we're here because I believe that's a part and parcel of this generation.

And yes, I accidentally put too many marines on, I overrepresented. In an air force city. So I'm gonna just let you all, no, I'm on the record. I am going to overrepresent the air force and hold it down for the sake of all things Lemay. All right, so I wanna introduce you all to our panelists.

Major General Angie Salinas retired from the Marine Corps in 2013 after 39 years of military service. She was the first woman to command a Marine Corps recruit depot and the first Hispanic woman to become a general of the Marines. She is the CEO of the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas.

Now, sitting next to her is Adrian Perkins. Adrian Perkins is a US army veteran West Point graduate who served eight years. And you're thinking that eight years, three tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And then, he decided to be a slacker, got out, became the president of your law class.

Harvard, and then went on to become the mayor of Shreveport. And Major General Juan Ayala retired from the US Marines in 2015, also with appointments to Iraq and Afghanistan and he now serves. As the director of the Office of Military and Veteran affairs in this fine city of San Antonio.

So he is the living embodiment of the linkage between civil and military in Veterans City, USA. Next to him is Doctor Trill Pauline, who is a staff sergeant in the Army National Guard and the CEO and founder of Freedom to Feed, a nonprofit that works to improve infant nutrition through innovations to solve infant allergies.

She is a combat veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And finally, Lieutenant Currell, retired. Donnie Hasting, who retired from the Marines with two decades of service, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. There's a theme here, and he is now the vice president of security at technology firm 2F. So, Adrienne Trill and Donnie are part of our Hoover Veteran Fellows program.

So it's a program that supports post 911 veterans who are seeking to make meaningful contributions within their local communities. And for the rest of this conversation, I'm gonna be referring to everyone on this panel by their first name. And that's intentional. That's a way to emphasize the commonality of this extraordinary experience on the panel.

But the titles ranked honorifics that each of these members hold are part of their unique identity. So I'm not downplaying that, just up playing how much we have in common. Okay, that was preamble. That was resume. But now I I wanna talk about who you all are as veterans and as civilians.

So, Angie, I want to start with you because you have by far. Well, you have one of the longest services I've ever gotten the honor to hear about, and you have the longest service in this panel. So I'm interested in what drew you to serve, and then can you describe what motivated you to join the military?

 

>> Angie Salinas: So, first off, let me just say thank you so much for inviting me to participate with this incredible panel and what you're doing at the Hoover Institute. So when I had so my timeline a long time ago. Long, long, long time ago. And I will add that the wheel was invented back then.

But it was a different time. So I would tell you that the Vietnam war ended. I'm living in the bay area, so I just want to kind of give this scenario a little bit. So, I'm a sophomore in college. I grew up with protesters on the 6 o'clock news.

I've seen the American flag being burned in the name of freedom of speech, and at the same time, I've also seen a man land on the moon carrying a flag. I am really seeing our country in great turmoil. It's almost like a repeat, I think of history. But at this time, Helen Reddy is singing a song that says, I am woman.

And so this is an opportunity that women are looking for equality. And I went to go mail a letter. And so there's no real purpose really, for me as a woman, for any patriotism. The nation has just started the all volunteer force. I think nationally we felt that men were still gonna run to the door out of sheer patriotism.

And the realities were they weren't. So I went to go mail a letter one day, and this was when the post office and recruiting services were all still in the federal buildings. And out stepped a United States Marine, who, I will tell you, anybody in dress blues looks good.

So this United States Marine looked at me and said, why aren't you a Marine? And I'm 19-years-old, as you can imagine, and my intent is only to mail a letter. So you can imagine what a 19-year-old response was to this marine recruiter, which was, please just get away from me.

 

>> Angie Salinas: But what he said following that conversation was, you have an opportunity to do something that nobody else really has an opportunity to do now, which is join an organization that does not want you. And you will get people pay, and you will be in an organization that does not want you, but you will gain a title that once you earn a title, no one in your entire life will ever be able to take away from you.

And so I met him on the 30th of April, and those words resonated with me cuz there was something about joining an organization whose motto is, we're looking for a few good men. And so to join an organization. And then I think that just really this idea that the challenge, this idea to be part of something that very few with a core of roughly 175,000 and to be in a group of only 2000 women and to earn that title.

And I think that became the attraction. And really I had nothing else to do.

>> Angie Salinas: Because I think then it just became a monetary thing. Like, how do I get money? How do I get a job? And think about this, it's 1974. Nowhere else in this country could a woman get the exact same pay as a male, regardless of a job.

So I could come in as an E2 and get paid exactly as my male counterpart, whether he was a combat arms, whether he was an aviation tech, an admin clerk. And I paid exactly as he did. And so I met him on the 30 April, on the 4th of May, I do solemnly swore to support and defend the constitution of the United States.

And by the 7th of May, I was a parasite in total shock with a drill instructor screaming at me. And I had a horrible case of hired remorse.

>> Jackie: But you stuck with it for, like, I don't know, almost four decades. It's impressive.

>> Angie Salinas: But you talk about the trajectory, I mean, the crossroads.

And I think, because what the core did was, it was the idea that nobody just very much what I think our parents all try to instill in this and what life is is that no one gives you anything. The idea is that you earn every step. You earn every moment in life.

And then there's this expectation that what is earned and given, you give back, that it's a privilege for everything that has given the given and earned by someone else. And I think that's essentially what those of us who wore on the cloth of the nation is that it's it becomes this value, this value based organization, regardless of branch, and that we become our own community in our own family.

And it was the values that I got, because I always believed that I had my own family values. But what the core instituted in me and really enhanced was these core values of the honor and the courage and the commitment. And at the end of it, having been a lackluster performer and academics, you know, I managed to take the two years of doing nothing but partying.

I managed to go back to school realizing that education was what I was now. That was my ammunition. I now had the weapon that all this time, I was just doing nothing with it. I was just haphazardly shooting around with it where now I had eyes on target, and I was able to now see I needed that, I was in control of that weapon.

I could do something with it. So the Marine Corps gave me that discipline to go back and see that that was the only way out.

>> Jackie: Wow, moving to another Marine Corps veteran like Andy, you started your service at the beginning of the all volunteer force and behind the cold war.

But can you describe to us what it felt like beginning your military service in the shadow of a looming nuclear war? How did Vietnam affect your decision when you joined the Nazi?

>> Juan Ayala: Well, I grew up in El Paso, Texas. I was the oldest of nine children, first generation, and I always wanted to give back.

I always thought that it was important for us, especially where I was living, that this country had given us quite a bit. My father was very proud of the fact that we spoke English first and foremost, and I graduated from high school in 1975. Vietnam had ended. And I was a little disappointed to be quite honest with you, but I wanted to be a mariner since I was in the fourth or fifth grade.

I can't remember when, but I knew I wanted to be a Marine, and the reason being my dad had a little restaurant. He ran it for 30 some years, and a lot of the young people that used to go in there with their dads, I saw them. They were knuckleheads to be quite honest with you, and about 90% of them joined the Marine Corps, and I remember when they came back, just their presence, their composure.

They weren't even in their dress blues, to be quite honest with you, and so that really further inspired me to join the Green Corps. And so I also liked the discipline, I also liked the fact that we were gonna give back to our country, and I think that was really important to my parents at the time, and it still was until the day they died.

I know my father never became American citizen for family reasons, the day my father died, my mother wasn't applied to be an American citizen. So I think my story is real common, very common story, yeah, I, no regrets.

>> Jackie: Well, to finish my Marine Trifecta, Donnie, you also served before 911, but four years, so it's kind of proportionally a much smaller proportion of your total service.

You're in the 90s in the Marines, the focus in the 90s Marines is humanitarian assistance, right? And peacekeeping, can you explain a little bit kind of what those four years were like before 911 for you as a Marine?

>> Donnie Hasting: Yeah, it was really interesting because at the time, the last real combat that the United States had seen was in Somalia, desert storm, time frame.

And there was this general feeling of that we kind of settled a lot of issues, there's peace and there's still a need for the military. But it was a lot of times, a lot of our training was on operation up in the war. It was not combatant evacuation operations, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and those sort of things, and my very first assignment was a 39, eight Marines.

We ended up deploying on the Marine Express train unit that actually went to coast coast. So we were at a period of non combat, we were the only people that saw anything that would be termed as combat. Not close to I'd say, what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in 99 that was the only real show in town.

So being able to see kind of that up close and have this unique experience of, okay, how do we apply peace and how do we support two warring factions and kind of step between them? But we kind of thought that was gonna be the job, as we'd be stepping in areas where they needed help or had our two areas or fighting.

We were gonna step in between and kind of separate them and settle things and let things move forward until they could achieve some degree of political solution otherwise. And so as I closed out to that, we were certainly inspired, when you think back to our grand prix generation of war two and all.

And thinking there was gonna be something like that, we just didn't believe it was going to occur. And then when you fast forward then to September 11, I had just finished my first employment with an instructor at the basic school. When you're walking through one morning, and for the Marines there, there's a bar inside the Marines basic school called the hawk.

Normally, first thing in the morning, Marines are not in the bar, believe it or not, but that morning we're walking out of a decision game and there's, it's packed. And I remember myself and the other instructor, she and I were walking by, we're like, that's kind of odd.

And then right as we kind of passed mid view, we saw the image of towers and things have changed. And just that whole radical shift of trying to figure out what's going on, securing a base that was pretty much open, Quantico once. Was a very different, so it was a very radical shift from thinking of what you were getting into and thinking of what your job was gonna require to, yeah, we're back to what we were told.

 

>> Jackie: So we have three veterans here a little bit who started their military service not because of 911, but stayed in after 911. This becomes like a pivotal moment, but Trill, Adrienne, you guys both decided to join after 911. And I'm interested in hearing about how 911 shaped your decision to join the military, Adrienne, you're on track to be a d one athlete at a regular school, no offense to West Wing.

 

>> Jackie: Then 911 happens, you make a very different choice, you decide to go to West Point after all these other college is recording you. Not only do you do that, and this actually is really impressive to me because West Point is really, it's tough, right? Nobody need to do that, you took a year at prep school, which that's a lot of commitment.

So can you explain to me a little bit of kind of your decision making as you were entering the military, deciding going to West Point and how 911 affected those choices?

>> Adrian Perkins: Yeah, no, absolutely, and I wanna reiterate the general's point as well, I'm just thanking you all for being here today.

I'm a national servant but I'm also a local servant and being the mayor and I know how important it is to have citizens that go out. And do things and get involved in their community cuz we are very busy as Americans, so thank you so much for being here.

But my story starts a little bit before 911, and growing up in a military family myself. My grandfather served in the Korean war and I remember this very prominent photograph of him drinking a Coca Cola with his buddy in Korea. A black and white photo at my grandmother's house that I would see every time I went over there, and it was just the coolest photograph to me.

My older brother also served, he retired with 25 years in the army as enlisted as well, so I got to see my grandfather's photo, I got to see my brother serving. I would actually spend summers with my brother while he was in the military, so I was at Fort Bliss for a couple summers.

So I spent some time in El Paso as well, but all of that was not convincing to me to join, just being honest, I was not convinced to join at all. I thought it was a cool place to go, but I had other visions on making it out of Shreveport and out of our circumstances.

Another important part about me is I grew up in a neighborhood named Cedar Grove in Shreveport. It's the poorest neighborhood in Shreveport, one of the most high crime areas in Shreveport as well. So again, I was pretty committed to getting out and track was offering that venue to me.

I was a preseason all American going into my junior year, I was Allstate athlete as well, very committed to going to a normal school. I thought I would go to LSU, I had already had my roommates picked out, we knew what dorms we were going to try to get.

I did Boise state as well, so very familiar with the campus, and then 911 happened, and just like you, I remember it like it was yesterday. It's one of those defining moments where everything seems to slow down and you just like are sucking in every single detail. I was sitting in my biology two classroom junior year and I remember being in the classroom for a couple of minutes.

And another teacher just like bursting open the door and dashing into the classroom and whispering into my teacher's ear, my teacher's eyes got really big. She ran over, turned on the tv and we saw the first tower like on fire and burning and she couldn't tell us what was going on.

We never bothered by the way, biology, this teacher was tough, she would not turn on the tv for anything. We were gonna be focused on biology two concepts, so the fact that she even did that, we knew something was a ride. She couldn't explain anything to us, we were just watching the tower burning.

Obviously we saw the plane crash into the second tower and watching the fear on my teacher's face that morning, watching the fear on my classmates face that morning. Going home, we ended school early, going home, watching the fear on my family's faces. That's what made me decide to serve, cuz I wanted to stand in between my family and my community and the people that perpetrated those attacks.

So that's what got me over the hump, and West Point was already recruiting me. I was very dismissive at first during the recruiting process, but after that morning, I actually reached back out and said, hey, I'm very interested. Took a visit to the campus, and I was committed, so the rest is history after that, but that's what pushed me over the hub and like you.

In the two decades since mixed feelings about our service, but I was absolutely all in, in that moment and still very proud of my service as well.

>> Jackie: So you were a freshman in high school when 911 occurred, so that means, it didn't just shape your results, but it also shaped kind of like, this really important period in adolescence.

So can you talk a little bit about how 911 influenced your decision because you enlisted in the guard right after you graduated, right?

>> Dr. Pauline: Before that.

>> Jackie: That's great, you're 17, right?

>> Dr. Pauline: Yes, first thank you so much Jackie, thank you to Bloomberg for having me and to all of you for coming out in the rain to be here today.

Exactly as you mentioned, Jackie, I was a freshman in high school, I was in first period algebra class, and very similar type of situation where someone came into our class. Said something to our teacher, and then we wheeled a tv because we didn't have tvs in our classroom, unfortunately.

But we wheeled the tv into the room, and then we stayed in that classroom, we didn't move to our next period. We stayed in that classroom and we watched the second plane, we watched all of this happen, and I remember walking home that day, and at the time I lived in North Dakota, right?

And so even in the space of thinking this would not be an area of target, but the conversations in at the school was about the fact that North Dakota happens to house a lot of our military weaponry. And so maybe it would be, and so being a freshman in high school, watching the skies as I walked home, the two blocks to my home, thinking what if something happened here?

And truly being terrified, when I was 17 years old, in the last few months of high school, a national Guard army recruiter came to the school, and I knew that I wanted to get an education. I knew I wanted to go to college, very similar to Adrian, I had a very rough upbringing, I'd been in and out of child services.

I've been out of foster care, and in my mind, an education was what was going to project me out of that situation. And a recruiter came to the school and said, well, how are you going to pay for that? And I was like, that's a really good question, I have no idea, and they said, well, we can help you, we can help you pay for that.

And so it was this culmination of this patriotism that I felt at that time, I mean, I was 17 years old, I was a baby. So very similar, I really, truly didn't fully understand the implications of my decisions, if I could be honest. But it was this culmination of wanting to serve my country, wanting to give back, wanting to ensure that my life could be better than what it had been.

And to provide that for my family if I was lucky enough to have a family in the future, and it seemed like the military was the space in which that could occur. So I joined at 17, went to basic at 18 years old, and now I'm serving my 18 and a half years in the national primary decades.

 

>> Jackie: So you reach these.

>> Dr. Pauline: It's almost, yeah, so close. Double that. To get even near that. So, yes, that was a big piece.

>> Jackie: I wanna stay on September 11th for a moment, cuz I think that really was really pivotal, that's why we're all here. So, Angie, Juan, Donnie, you choose to stay in after 911, but maybe it changes the tenor of your service, definitely kind of what you're focused on.

Juan, you were in Stuttgart?

>> Juan Ayala: Stuttgart.

>> Jackie: Stuttgart, sorry, Stuttgart, Germany. And your focus at the time on humanitarian assistance and peace keeping?

>> Juan Ayala: Yes, I was the chief, believe it or not, of the humanitarian assistance branch of the United States European Command, what an oxymoron, rehumanitarian, but I was great.

But the 90s were great, that's kind of what we were doing in the 90s. At the time they didn't have an Afrikaan. And so my portfolio was Africa, Eastern Europe, and we traveled all over quite a bit. And what we would do is we could go into the American embassy to bring in foreign leaders from those countries.

And then we would rebuild or build orphanages, wells, schools, hospitals. And then at the very end, because we wanted access, influence and good press from the United States, we put a big sign in front of that facility and say, donated by the people of the United States of America.

That was my job, but also my job was every incoming ambassador to any of those countries, we would brief them on our programs and how those ambassadors could use those for access, influence, good press. I was sitting, I was briefing the incoming ambassador to the country of Uganda.

And we were in a big conference room and I was telling them, these are the great programs and blah, blah, blah. Here comes, I was a colonel at the time, or lieutenant colonel, and here comes a three star general. Of course, I'm lieutenant colonel, my God, he opens the door and he says, turn on the televisions.

So he turns on the televisions and as we're all watching, we saw, the second plane hit the tower. Very sobering, I'll never forget it. There was a couple of the folks in there who just couldn't believe it. We had one from New York City that couldn't stop crying.

And the world completely changed after that. The tone and tenor of our command completely changed. I remember vividly we lived in an area which was right in the middle of town, and it was quiet, so I could walk to the German bakery, the Turkish Balau place, whatever, just no barriers.

And I recall going home that day, and there was barriers, there were NPs, there was barbed wire all around the housing area. And I'll never forget that about a half mile into the gate on both sides of the street, there were German citizens with cards, balloons, flowers, wishing the United States of America luck and the best.

But it completely changed, finished up my tour. 11 months later, I'm on a plane to Kuwait.

>> Jackie: That is a crazy transition.

>> Juan Ayala: It was from humanitarian assistance, all tn crumpets and coat and Thai to you're getting ready to go to war. And then we, it was surreal when we got to Kuwait, and my fellow vets will understand this.

Got to Kuwait, we landed there at the bases and we started taking rocket fire. And so you really know, okay, this is real.

>> Jackie: You were a kid of living somewhat similar transition. You also, I think, were you teaching about humanitarian assistance?

>> Donnie Hasting: Well, you teach the whole, so the basis school covers the whole range of things you'd expect a marine officer to do.

And it's focused around infantry skills. So you certainly talk about all the combat skills. But, yeah, there were sections on patrolling. I taught some of the patrolling for if you were in a non combatant or a peacekeeping situation. So we had many of these things that we were actually teaching and then shifting the curriculum.

 

>> Jackie: Yeah, so now you have to teach a marine an entirely different concept of fighting.

>> Donnie Hasting: I mean, the basics were still the same, but there was definitely a tender shift in the school. And especially trying to get feedback from the first over there and what they're learning and what we can immediately integrate in.

Because as we ramp up very, very quickly, it was not a case where you're gonna check your unit, you're gonna have a period of time. It's, these officers are gonna go to the next city station and run their own west, and they're going to step the units probably already deployed.

And we were also around a large group of officers who are meeting, it's time for us to go, too. And we had this very sobering call from our commandment officer, you need to stay here and teach. Trust me, this is not going away very soon.

>> Jackie: Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard for people now after two decades of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, how much learning on the fly was occurring in a very, very short period of time.

Andy, when 9/11 happened, you were the commanding officer of marine recruiting, essentially throughout the west coast. So you are recruiting, not troll, cuz yours was a guard recruiter, but you recruited people like troll people who watched 9/11 happen in their high school classrooms. So first, what was that day like for you?

And then how did recruiting change after September 11th?

>> Angie Salinas: At that particular day I was actually in Portland, I was there visiting one of my substations, the Portland recruiting station. And like everyone who remembers that distinct moment, I was preparing. I was in the Marriott Hotel and I was brushing my teeth and I was listening to the Today show with Katie Couric and came around because they were talking about the first tower being hit.

And I remember just kind of coming around and I brush my teeth and I'm looking at the tv and I watched that second plane, the second tower hit. And instinctively, marines, and I suspect anybody else, but instinctively I knew this is not an accident. Spit the stuff out, call my Marines and say, get the cars, we're going.

And we jumped and we were stationed at the time, my home base was San Diego, my sergeant major, my recruiter instructor who's an e nine. And we said the planes, the airports were already shutting down. And we knew that that was not going to be an option. So we got rental car and literally just drove straight back down to San Diego, which our McRe San Diego, pbase there is located literally next door to the San Diego airport.

And the eeriest sound ever was total silence. We're pulling up to the base and it is in total lockdown. And we're in full uniform and we're being like, slapped up against the fence and I'm like, I got a little green ID card and I'm a colonel but they're, everyone is in total lockdown.they don't trust anybody.

And of course, our family, they're looking on the base. But that whole transition and interesting, because the Marine Corps has always been successful in recruiting, but we worked hard. We make good Marines, selling intangibles is what we refer to. But after that point, people were running because of patriotism.

And as the nation realized, and I think, interesting, if you go back and look at statistics, crime went down. I mean, even criminals got patriotic, they're like, okay, we're not going to rob anybody, we're going to mug anybody, we're going to all come together because we as a nation have been attacked.

And so I think everybody wanted to answer the call to the nation. And every time that everyone was trying to get to the fight, I was always in recruiting. That seemed to be my skillset. And it was very hard because what we call the parents and our influencers, it's very difficult because in this patriotic, you're still taking your first born, you're taking your most loved possession, and how do you say, for the greater good.

I'm willing to offer up because that's really what you're asking. A young 17, 18 year old is going for the intangible, this sense of patriotism, this desire to want to serve. But yet the parents, the mom and dad who knows that you're saying, I'm sending my youngest, my oldest into honest way my own child, both men and women, which is if you think about this after Iraq, you know, women now were coming in droves unlike in any other time in history.

 

>> Jackie: So, there's a little piece that you mentioned, Donnie and Juan. And, I want to pull on it a little bit cuz it's really important to my memory of this as well. And for those of you who have served, did you know that there's a force protection condition normal?

And in that condition you can go on and off the face as long as you have an american driver's license. You may not know this because we haven't been in FPCON normal since September 11, 2001. And so the bases that you were on were essentially open to the communities that you were in.

I was like as a kid I'd go on Randolph airport space and go home It was part of the community. When you told me a story that I would like people to hear, you were in Germany and in the community did something special for you guys on that day.

 

>> Juan Ayala: Well, they were very supportive and like I mentioned, they were, this was very heartwarming. They, they lined up in the streets and they were sending us messages in English on cardboard, you know, piece of cardboard. But they were throwing flowers as our vehicles were coming in. They were lighting candles as they were going in, a ot of them had tears in their eyes, and these are Germans.

These are not american service members or family members after that. I recall that the German community really came together around us, offered us. I mean, we had lots on the door and we lived in a place called, I can't remember the barracks but it was incredible, the support that patch barracks.

On the other hand. On the other hand we also had some protesters that were for the 911 bombers in downtown Stuttgart. And so, yeah, we kind of got to see both of it and you're seeing that now. But yeah, that was, we'll never forget that at the headquarters too.

We had a, all european nationalities and European command. And I remember the condolences and heartwarming things that all our allies that were stationed with us, you know, came up to us and did all kinds of things. The Germans obviously the Brits that were there, the French. Yeah, we drank a lot of beer an a lot of wine, it was great.

 

>> Jackie: I think one of the themes here, for those of us on the panel, but probably those of us in the room. Is that 911 radically changed our personal lives, but it also changed the, that the US military was fighting from kind of wars or humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, air power.

We had a moment, we had a moment in the nineties, the air power and kind of war from afar. And the post 9/11 military they were fighting wars of counter insurgency, counter trinterrorism. These were intimate wars, so these are wars in which American military members are fighting on the ground.

They're mortared at their bases, they're attacked in the convoys, they're attacked when they're doing local outreach. And there's 20 years of these types of wars, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, but also, and honestly, I don't have the right list. There was Syria, there was Libya, there were parts of Africa, there was an extraordinary amount of conflict that veterans in this time period saw.

Same time that we're fighting these very intimate ground wars, the US is still doing its kind of big deterrence job with China, North Korea, even Iran, Russia. And so, this means that even as US forces are fighting the Taliban, and Iraqi insurgents, you have a whole different cadre of military professionals that are patrolling the oceans.

Participating in exercises, like, for a deploy, but they're for deployed to South Korea and Japan. And so, at the same time, you have a group of people who are stateside, and they're doing 24/7 operations with remotely controlled, remotely piloted vehicles. You have people who are still in Silos in Minot, North Dakota, who are assuring nuclear deterrence.

So, you have this extraordinary group of missions that the US military is conducting over this 20-year time period, and I think that can actually. That is a testament to the professionalism of the all-volunteer force and the capability of the us military. But it kind of makes this post 911 veterans generation a little bit hard to identify, and to create commonality.

So, I want to discuss this directly, and I wanna discuss directly how important combat services to the post 911 veteran identity. So, this is something that comes up a lot for me when I discuss my own veteran service, and I actually feel it's a bit of an asterisk, carry it with me.

So, I served six years in the airports, all in Asia, I had one deployment, I was actually supposed to go to Iraq. And a month before, we got told no, you're going to Suon, South Korea. So, for me, every time I introduce myself as a veteran, I always tell everyone I'm not a combat veteran.

And it comes almost instantaneously, one right after the other, I'm also still extremely proud of my service. So, I wonder how much you feel this asterisk, I honestly, for me, looking at you, you have this, kind of historic resume. You are a glass breaking woman, but you still didn't get to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan because you were so senior, so good at your job.

So, I wonder, how do you think of the value of your non-combat duties after 911, personally, it's hard for me as I struggle, and so I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts.

>> Angie Salinas: Well, that's, I think sometimes it's the toughest critic is when I look in the mirror, and there are a few.

I think occasionally there'll be someone that's not within the community, I don't think veterans themselves often question it. I think sometimes it's a civilian who's never worn the uniform, that's the first question is, did you go to combat? Because they tend to be the one that wants to judge that arena, when I was the commanding general of MCRD San Diego.

I probably had at one point, maybe 98% of my brains between the recruiters and my drill instructors, who had served in combat. And when you're in uniform, you can tell right away, because we wear our resumes on our chest, the ribbons immediately tell you if you're a wounded purple heart.

And then it was a service campaign, so you could look at me right away and people go. And so, when I would talk to my instructors after graduation, I would always start off with, I know I never served. However, you are America's best and brightest, and finally, one of my senior enlisted Marines pulled me aside and said, the United States Marine Corps chose you to be here.

You are the most qualified and the best qualified, you are our commanding general. We don't go, we don't care, they just as easily would have chosen, anyone else that you are the one that's here, and so, that's your resume as far as we're concerned. And so, I stopped worrying about it after that point, because then I became the person who assigned people to go.

Because it's not like I never was jumping up and down on the trampoline saying, pick me, pick me. I just was the one where every time I said, please let me go, I was more valuable in the eyes of the people making the decisions. This is your skill set, and you're so good at it, this, because again, as I said, when I tried to go, this was what I was really good at, and the institution saw that was.

But when I became, manpower, then I made sure that there were other women who got the chance to go and be in key positions. So, they were the first woman to come in, in theater, for example, so that was my contribution, I guess, for ensuring that the roles were somebody else, got to live action.

 

>> Jackie: Now, you served 36 years so kind of on paper, most of your military service is before 911. But after 911, you were in the initial ground invasion of Iraq in 2003, and then you did another three combat tours, including one as an advisor to Iraqis. And then your last combat tour was Fallujah.

 

>> Juan Ayala: That was when I was an advisor, we had Ramani for, we had the triumph Ramadi, Fallujah in house across the parts of Baghdad.

>> Jackie: So how important are those 14 years, how you think back on defining your military service?

>> Juan Ayala: Well, I mean, those 14 years, every single assignment prepared me to go to Congress, every single one of them.

And I think that as Andy was saying and others will say, that we continually train, to do that. And I think that, I'm very proud of the fact that as a colonel is I got to do it, and I got to do it again and again, and I was jumping on a trampoline here, though.

But those 14 years were very formative and, we did all kinds of things in those 14 years that really got me prepared. Not only for my occupational specialty, but leadership, maturity, and then leading marines, it's an art to lead marines. And I'll tell you, when we saw the marines in combat, it was an incredible validation of how well we train marines, starting at boot camp, and how well we train them in our units.

Our country is in great hands, and I really think that those young marines, I wish all of us could, all of you could see them that, were not in the military. These are 1819-year-olds that are just incredible, and I think those 14 years, I knew that all along, that was a great validation when I went into theater.

 

>> Jackie: I promise that I wouldn't overemphasize the marines, so, Adrian.

>> Jackie: For the army, how was your experience different or similar to the marine experience? I mean, you, eight years, three combat toys in a lot of the same places, do you think it was a similar type of experience?

How was that military and that combat experience for you?

>> Adrian Perkins: Yeah, well, far more junior, right? I deployed as a first lieutenant was my first deployment so, far more junior than my counterparts on the stage with me. I'll say, I wanna reiterate a point, the only time or that I hear about anybody kind of stratifying a combat veteran versus a non-combat veteran is somebody on the outside looking in.

And they look at, it's an organization they don't know much about, so it's caricatures that they, look at veterans as caricatures. But internally, I never hear a veteran talk about, they might ask the question, but there's no judgment there because we understand we're a part of the team.

And that was my backdrop, I was on the track team, I played football, and I played basketball. I was an athlete, and I knew how important the team was, I was, I'm short. I can't dunk a basketball, but I knew how important my center was, right? And we wouldn't win games if we didn't play together and we didn't bring our best selves onto the court, so I never did that.

And another component that made me never stratify is my brother already had 14 years of service. And when I entered, and he didn't get his first deployment until six months before I deployed, for the first time. And that was his only deployment, so my brother having served 24 years, I still deploy more than him.

And it's no way that I can say, I contributed more, my contribution was special because, I deployed three times. I very much put myself in those positions to be able to deploy to, and being honest, I knew which units were deploying. I was looking at the pass charge, and I went into the military very much wanting to be combat armed and wanting to be on the front lines.

But even with that, it's still a probability, anybody that knows anything about the army and the green machine, you do not control your destiny. Ask people stationed at Fort Polk.

>> Adrian Perkins: I'm from Louisiana, I can say that, so, no, it was, I never, viewed that. But I will say the only times that I have heard, green suitors use the, say, hey, I'm deployed, is when they are taught, it's very in house thing.

And I'm exposing some, in house laundry right now, but some of our senior NCO's only when trying to get our junior soldiers to focus and training. Knowing that we were about to face a deployment, that's the only time that they would go down that resume and. Point to a patch or something like that, only to get them to focus and understand the severity of the situation that we were in.

So, it was a means to an end, it was never an end to make themselves feel bigger or better than anybody else, so. Yeah. We're all part of the same team, and we're part of a very small percentage of Americans that raise their hand to defend the constitution and, everybody should be praised.

 

>> Jackie: Well, speaking of team and truly, you were and still are, a part of the National Guard, this is the total force. Those of you who don't know, total force is the active duty as what we generally think about, but it includes the reserves as well as the national Guard.

So, the post 911 conflicts are really unique for the total force, because this becomes the first time that you have members of the National Guard and the reserve. That are deploying, sometimes at the same intervals as their active-duty reference so. They actually become direct substitutes for the active duty, but despite the fact that many of the guards employed.

Just like the active-duty, gardens to some extent reserve, actually don't receive the same benefits as the active duty. And I think you also, it's not quite the same public credit, and we talked a little bit about how you sometimes wonder, there's benefits for them. The military is up for me, I'm a guard member.

But you did deploy to Iraq, and not only did you deploy to Iraq, you volunteered to go into the local communities. You were essentially on the front lines at a time where many in the public and even the military didn't think women were in combat. So can you talk a little bit about why you deployed and what you did in Iraq?

And if you're comfortable, can you talk about some of the trauma and experiences that you had downrange?

>> Dr. Pauline: Absolutely. To Jackie, to your point as well, I think that something that I see commonly in the military is a humbleness about our service. And always knowing that there are others within our ranks who have deployed more, given more, not to come back.

And so I think that there's, even for those of us who have several deployments, there's a little bit of that feel right? Of like, but I didn't x, y, or z. And so I don't think that that's a common experience in the guard. This is not only part of my experience, but also part of many of our realities as a guard member.

So I joined the National Guard, I've always been National Guard with a deployment in 2007 to 2008 to Baghdad. And at the time, I was 19 years old, I had a year of undergraduate under my belt, and I was voluntoring with a unit that I'd never met before.

And so I got yoinked from the unit that I was currently in as a logistics individual, so basically, like part of a unit that was doing mechanics, if you will. And I was pulled and went with a completely different unit where I knew no one. And I was put as a radio operator, and I had never ran a radio.

And so I get to this new unit, I'm gonna learn what a radio is, and let's go to Iraq. So in that, what's fascinating about my service is that while I was there, we, our unit, and this happens a lot in the card, is that we created what was called a task force.

Where instead of it being like, all of the people that you know and that you've trained with this entire time, instead, we literally took five different states with us to Baghdad, we were like, cool. North Dakota is the headquarters. Iowa, you are our quick reaction force. Illinois, you're going to be our infantry guys.

And we literally took five different states of, and we didn't know each other at all and we deployed together. So there were about 700 of us in this task force, and of that, 28 were female and only came from the North Dakota National Guard, the rest of the units were all male units.

And it was fascinating and quite frankly, awful in that during the time that we were there, because there were all male units and we were doing local patrols. And looking for weapons caches, looking for persons of interest, we were oftentimes in people's homes in Baghdad. And that created a huge cultural problem because our all male units from Iowa were interacting with the female local nationals and that caused a lot of cultural rift.

And so what ended up happening is the unit called out to these 28 women who were part of this task force and said, will you volunteer to go out with these all male patrols to be that cultural buffer, if you will? And I was all of 19 years old and single and mostly dumb and I was like, yes, me.

I was jumping up and down on that tripoline as well as we do and so I volunteered to be one of those individuals. And so I went from my job is, I'm a full time college student, and sometimes on the weekends I do logistics in a maintenance bay to I'm running a radio.

I am doing pat downs of local female nationals, and I'm in all male patrols on a regular basis. I think, some of the big moments for me during that time, not only, obviously, these jobs that I had literally zero training in until you were on the job training for sure.

In addition to that, I had extended, I stayed longer because in the guard, if you don't deploy for a certain number of months, you don't get all of the benefits. And so I had to extend for two more months with the next unit that I had never met, who was from Arkansas, in order to get all of the benefits as a guard member.

So I could get all of the college benefits, basically, so I extended ended up working and running the entry control point with the local nationals coming in who were working, which was equally as hard of a job. And while we were in Baghdad, some of the main threads was that we were regularly mortared, sometimes on a daily basis, sometimes bi-weekly.

It was always a surprise as one of the individuals running the radios. It was my job to go and do 100% accountability to make sure we had all bodies, everyone was accounted for. And so sometimes that was on a daily basis that we would have to do that cuz we were being attacked on a regular, cuz we were right nestled up next to Baghdad.

We also, in our patrols, I experienced in some of our humanitarian missions where we were delivering things like shoes to some of the local nationals. There was an incident in which my very small stature human of what I'm working with, all, like, 120 pounds of meat at 19, dripping wet, I was trampled while we were doing a shoe drop for some locals.

And that in addition to some of the other experiences I had overseas, I came back home and experienced a few things. One, the struggle of coming back and still being in, but only doing weekend drills, not wanting to be kicked out. Because a lot of my fellow soldiers that I saw who reported things like, what we experienced were then kicked out of the guard.

There was a lot, it was a hard time to then just jump right immediately. You come home and you immediately jump back into your civilian life and to come back and be like, all right, I'm gonna go to. Anatomy and physiology class with these 19 year olds who were gossiping about who kissed Sam last night at the party and there's this huge disconnect now and then.

You just do that over and over again every month where you read, you put on your combat boots, and then you take them back on and you put them on, you take them off. The struggle that I have today is the acceptance and the working through that trauma while still serving.

And two, the fact that even with all of that and at the end of this, I will have served at least 20 years in the National Guard, in the military. Yet the benefits that are waiting for me are nowhere near the benefits for somebody who maybe did eight years active duty, it looks completely different or 20 years and retired.

And there are a lot of moments in which the question of like, yeah, that's a benefit for the military, but I have to look up, do I actually get it? And even as a combat veteran, oftentimes the answer to that is no.

>> Jackie: So I wanna come back a little bit to your experience because I wanna transition a little bit to kind of who we are now as civilians.

And on the paper, you should have the easiest answer because you lived your entire life balancing this. I'm a guards member. Nope. I'm deployed. Nope. Now I am a civilian, but I think it's really difficult to navigate. And on one hand, you are a staff sergeant who has done everything from logistics to survey design to ECP.

But in your professional civilian life, you're a PhD in microbiology. You're creating technology that solves infant malnutrition. You're pretty impressive. But how do you think of yourself when people ask you, who you are? Are you a veteran? Are you a surgeon, military member? Are you a civilian? How do you navigate living three different identities?

 

>> Dr. Pauline: It's complicated. I think that a few pieces, I kind of grew into both of my careers and they took a two very different trajectories. And so now they've deviated so far from each other that it's kind of fascinating to look at, but it's also in spite of themselves.

Meaning that what I found throughout this is that I've had to decide which one gets my attention because I cannot effectively do both at the same time, which has led to where I am now. I have a PhD in cellular molecular biology, I have invented a test system to help infants who are navigating food reactivity, I'm the CEO of a biotech company.

And at the same time, then on that weekend, I put on my combat boots and my patrol crap, and I'm a survey design engineer, I'm an E-Six. Yeah, and I'm being enlisted folk up in the panel. Back to your question about, how to effectively navigate that? I'm still figuring it out I think, half the time it's hard to express to either sides of my life what the other means.

And to ensure that they understand and or can that it doesn't become a detriment to me. To one for it feels like in many places, they both become a detriment to each other because of the misunderstanding of personnel mostly, right? So whether it's a professor who just does not understand when I say, like, no, I can't be here for Friday because I'm being called up for hurricane duty, and there's nothing that I can do about it.

Or on the other side when I have to talk to my commander and be like, no, I'm not coming to October drill because I'm going to San Antonio and it's gonna be amazing. Like, yeah, you are. Yes, yes. And so having those two things coexist is difficult. And when I think about my identity, I think the main piece of my identity is continued service.

And that's where that deviation that comes back full circle, is that my civilian career as a scientist and what I'm doing on the civilian side is very similar to my continued service to the country. In that both of them are continued service to others. And that is what I think will continue to be the commonality in these split personalities that I have going on, and something that I'm proud of.

Yeah, I mean, I think being the guard reserve is a really difficult identity.

>> Jackie: In some ways, Donnie, you should not have an identity problem, right? Like, when I look at your resume and say, okay, this is what I would envision as a typical trajectory, you served a little over two decades in active duty.

Then you transition to a civilian world, where you are a successful tech entrepreneur, leader in the Bay Area. I mean, you're like, you've got that sweet military retirement, you've got Tricare for life, and you're killing it in the Bay area. Veteran transition success story, check. But can you talk a little bit about how you found value in your civilian life?

 

>> Donnie Hasting: And I would say that, yeah, on paper, the transition looked super smooth. And I talk to veterans all the time who talk about that, and I'm like, well, how did all this work? You just need to understand that, looking back, I can tell you the 18 steps and doors I walked through to get where I'm at now.

But you gotta understand, at step six, I had no idea where step seven was, and I was terrified. And so, just because you made it on the other side doesn't mean it was always smooth, that's the thing I always tell folks, you gotta figure out where that path is.

And like you said, where do you find value? In my first role, which was in cybersecurity, but we were also really focused on a small PE firm that was turning around, struggling businesses or businesses that really wanted to reorganize for growth. But at the end, when you're dealing with a private equity firm and small software companies, the whole focus is to deliver product and making profit, right?

And never begrudge anyone for that, right? But it's not coming from 20 years in the Marine Corps, wherever mission and service and taking care of your people, it didn't exactly translate, right? So I found myself looking for other ways that I could contribute because I was being very successful, but I wasn't getting that thing that I felt I needed.

And some of that dealt with rural nonprofits, with Marine Reconnaissance foundation, with the FBI, Zimmergaard, with scouts. Some that also dealt with kind of repurposed how you thought about your job. So, in cybersecurity, even though it was a for profit firm, private sector, and all, I was focused on, like, the things I do are keeping my team and our customers safe.

The things I'm selling are making my customers lives better, and here's how I'm doing that. So, you do have to think deeply about that, because you might get a great job offer, you might have a great thing, you might be a successful in paper. That doesn't mean you're not struggling with that value that you take for granted sometimes being in the client.

So it's not just finding that next step, it's finding the next step where you can take care of your family, you can be successful, but you can also be fulfilled. And getting that together sometimes requires, it's not open in one place.

>> Jackie: Yeah, I think when we talked before the panel, that was one of the commonalities that really struck me about each and every one of you.

The word value came up in every single one of our discussions. It was a key motivator behind why you are at this Girl Scouts, a nonprofit, you could be working Fortune 500 company, right? Adrian, if it's one of you, made a crazy decision to run for mayor while you're in law school.

Juan, it's when you are in this extraordinary position to serve our military communities within San Antonio. That is something that has really struck me. And I think that it's not just about the panelists that are up here, I actually think that it's what 911 veterans have in common, we have an extraordinary desire and inner motivation to serve.

And so, this is what I'll argue is the actual legacy of our generation. It's not necessarily what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's only so much control that we all have over that, but it's in how we return to our communities. It's how we lead the Girl Scouts and our military communities inside Santa and feed infants and fight fires and lead the city of Shreveport.

And I think that that is something that all 911 veterans can share. Now, I wanna end with, we don't have time for just a few of the great questions that came in. One of the questions I received was about the future of all volunteer force, and especially in a time when the services, besides the Marines, are having trouble meeting their recruiting goals.

So, Angie, I want to turn to you, because you have an extraordinary amount of experience in recruiting. So, do you think recruiting has changed since our withdrawal from Afghanistan? And then, I think this is an important debate, is it benefits or beliefs that is more important to this new generation when they're deciding whether or not to serve?

 

>> Angie Salinas: So, really good question because I think, so, it's really a challenge. So, COVID, I think really made a huge dent, I think, in our ability, because the market has always been our high school graduates. That's what all the services have used that because we like the idea of a high school graduate.

An educated military has been the best bet since the all volunteer force. Our young people wanna stand next to somebody that's as smart and as motivated as the person to their other side, themselves as well. The benefits have always been, and I think throughout the all-volunteer force has been education, that has always been the incentive.

You've heard us all talk about how that helped us get where we needed to be. It paid for us to go to college. We got a free education by going to West Point. That motivated us and has allowed us to be where we've arrived for no better way.

Today, if you go to Starbucks, you can get your college degree. Pay for you go to school if you go to Chick-fil-A. Essentially, medical benefits now are being provided, again, medical, so now they're dividend, I think, between why someone would serve, because we call their tangibles. In the Marine Corps we have these things called benefit tags, that's how we would have a conversation with somebody.

I would put down technical skills, I would put down physical fitness, so you could pick three things. And then we have intangibles, a sense of belonging, that pride. So I could then sit down and say, what's important to you, and I would pick out technical skills. I want to travel, then I also want to have a sense of belonging.

And then I would describe why those things are important to me, and that's how I would be able to focus how the Marine Corps could provide that for you. Well, today, then I'd have to go home and talk to what we call influencer, to say to mom and dad or big brother, grandma, grandpa, to say why those things are important to this person, this young person wanting to serve.

So that everybody, because it's a family decision, the realities are today we're so divided that those are harder conversations to have, because the technical skill now is competition for everyone. Education now can be provided by anyone. And so now, why? Why? What sacrifice should I make to stay away from my family?

Why would I wanna have low pay? Why would I want to have the opportunity to go into harm's way? And so, this is really a serious conversation because it's this divide, and when we talk about the intangibles, the commonness, when we talk about a legacy of what we all have in common, we have each other's back.

You just meet somebody regardless of service, branch, you just, I served. I gotta get back. It's just, it's a kind of nod, it's a handshake. And we know it's whether, whatever businesses we're in, if we're serving on a committee together, you got my word, I got it. It's gonna be done.

That's not necessarily in another environment. Like, I have to double check somebody else. And I think that's the divide. So when people are trying to figure out where they're going to work for, are you gonna hire me. People tend to want to be afraid because when you say, I've served, they're kind of like a little tilt of the head.

We have the tilt of the head, but it's a tilt of trust. Everyone else has a tilt of a distrust.

>> Jackie: Well, that actually perfectly cues up one of the other kind of themes that came up in the questions in the audience, and that was about civil military relationships.

So, some of the questions are about, what is the community and the civilian world owe veterans? What do veterans need to transition into those civilian communities? So I think Even in the military our frame is differently in dynamics, we have, like supported versus supporting. I think maybe too often we think about this military divide.

It's like, how is the kind of civilian world supporting the veteran world and where it's actually a much more complicated relationship and you live this relationship wise. So I was wondering if you could take a stab at kind of how do you think local communities should do better to support veterans or what they're doing well, and then how can switch it to supported supporting?

How can veterans and military members support their local communities?

>> Juan Ayala: Well, it works both ways, I mean the military installations are not islands just take Joint Base San Antonio it's in this community. Utilities, roads, 80% to 85% of all are active duty and civilians work on the bases, litmus base.

So they live in our communities. And so I think it is incumbent upon us in the community to do all we can to support them. I agree that veterans understand veterans. And veterans, we tend to be insular, we tend to hang around with each other. So I think communities can do a great job, but the communities I want to have to do it and unite.

I sit in the city of San Antonio and there's some, and I won't say who. There are some members of city council that are more aggressively supporting the veteran communities and some that are not. I think it's incumbent upon us, and I think communities take their military for granted.

A great example is during the COVID pandemic here. Lot of businesses went under, a lot of furloughs, a lot of people were laid off. Military got paid, every veteran or every retiree got paid. Military construction projects continued. And so I think that's not just economic, I mean, there's a lot of other things that are tangible and intangible, and I think the community needs to do more of an outreach.

I think we do pretty good, pretty well here in San Antonio. But on the other hand, having been an installations commander, I think that commanders, military commanders are very reluctant to reach out to the community for a lot of reasons. I mean, we have a hard time getting some, I won't say with services, getting them to city hall to do a cape cutting ceremony.

They got to go through their 50 lawyers. So, there you go, but you're a lawyer. That comes to a, yes, I feel like this misdirected. But anyway, I really do think it works both ways. And I think there's an outreach that we have to do, and I think this community does it very well.

When I was the installations commander, I had all 24 bases in the Marine Corps levy. Some did it really well because both the military and the civilian community wanted to exchange ideas, wanted to interject, wanted to speak with each other. And I saw some that, they're behind the fence line.

I'm here to do it. Our mayor said something during the COVID response that I'll never forget. He said, COVID has no fence line. And if 85% of those folks that are working on base, live mouth base, guess what, we have to talk to each other, and we did.

So I think it's important that this has to work both ways. Unfortunately, there's a lot of hard heads on both sides. They don't wanna deal with the military. And that fence line is a fence line. But I think it really does work both ways.

>> Jackie: Yeah, I think realizing how much we have in common versus what differences, an all volunteer army that forgets about where it came from in the citizenry is a mercenary army.

We need to make sure that our veterans, our active duty guard or reservists, remember that they are part of the citizenry and they will return to the citizenry after their service. And so that relationship between civilian and military is not about defense lines. It's actually about kind of who we are as Americans.

 

>> Juan Ayala: Well, one more thing. The military, and say this to everybody, is a reflection of our society. It really is, it really is probably more of a diverse reflection of our society. If you look at our military units in the Marine Corps, I remember I was amazed. I was in a battalion of 1100 people and there was 50 languages spoken in that one battalion and it was an artillery battalion.

It wasn't even an intel now. So you really have to look at the military.

>> Jackie: So I want to conclude with something that I didn't warn you guys about because it's kind of fun as a moderator. We're gonna do a lightning round. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to throw some questions out to you.

Some of them are stupid and silly. Some of them are like the type of questions you want to write a dissertation on. And all of you can answer you got like five seconds apiece, right, like short answer. So first, important for Aston, Texas.

>> Angie Salinas: Okay, there's three marines on here.

 

>> Jackie: I know, so I didn't ask best service because I was like, no, the marines are gonna win that one. Okay, breakfast tacos or breakfast burritos?

>> Angie Salinas: Taco.

>> Adrian Perkins: Burrito.

>> Jackie: I'm a taco.

>> Juan Ayala: Burrito.

>> Dr. Pauline: Burrito.

>> Jackie: All right, best place to be stationed? One.

>> Donnie Hasting: The one you're stationed at, then at home.

 

>> Dr. Pauline: I'm biased, I'm north and National Guard. So where I get to live, my own head in my own bed.

>> Juan Ayala: Camp Pendleton, California.

>> Jackie: My personal favorite when I served was at northern Japan.

>> Adrian Perkins: Port Campbell, Kentucky, home of 101 airport.

>> Angie Salinas: MCRD San Diego will remake marines.

 

>> Jackie: All right, those are easy questions. Should we reinstate the draft? Do you drink over to.

>> Adrian Perkins: Yes.

>> Jackie: Okay, in, no, one?

>> Juan Ayala: Yes.

>> Dr. Pauline: Yes.

>> Donnie Hasting: Not military to public service.

>> Juan Ayala: Public service, yes, I agree with that.

>> Jackie: I agree with public service. All right, Topo, Chico or San Pellegrino?

 

>> Dr. Pauline: What are we talking about?

>> Jackie: This is an inside San Antonio show.

>> Dr. Pauline: Well, I am outside and I changed all of the above

>> Donnie Hasting: Hippochiko here, pacheco over here.

>> Angie Salinas: HEB.

>> Jackie: She went like real local. Okay, all right, Lemay or Patton trip.

>> Dr. Pauline: What?

>> Jackie: Lemay or Patton.

Gerald.

>> Dr. Pauline: Boy, Patton.

>> Donnie Hasting: I'll go Patton.

>> Juan Ayala: Justin Pooler.

>> Adrian Perkins: I'm a West Pointer, I gotta go with Patton, Brook Ruler.

>> Jackie: All right, okay, what is one thing you want civilians to know about serving in the military, why?

>> Juan Ayala: It's a hell of a lot of fun, Charlie.

 

>> Dr. Pauline: That I've gotten to do some cool ass shit.

>> Donnie Hasting: You're going to do, have some amazing experiences and meet the best people in the local world.

>> Adrian Perkins: Worthwhile.

>> Angie Salinas: America's best and brightest.

>> Jackie: All right, one last question. I give them some prank. Favorite basketball team, and I'll give up.

It's basically spurs or something.

>> Angie Salinas: Spurs, this is important.

>> Adrian Perkins: No, I can't say the spur. I grew up a Chicago Bulls fan and I'm in Chicago.

>> Jackie: All right.

>> Juan Ayala: You took Texas Western, El Paso, Texas harbor on the border.

>> Dr. Pauline: I'm not batting well in this lightning round because I'm a football fan.

So they'll bring back.

>> Donnie Hasting: I've been angry, but I've got it back up. My father in law's team, Golden State warriors.

>> Jackie: Well, I just want to say, on behalf of the spurs, that the spurs are a wonderful representation of that balance of civilian and military. To get David Robinson, Naval Academy grad.

Greg Popovich, probably the most famous veteran that lives in San Antonio.

>> Angie Salinas: Air Force grad.

>> Jackie: Air Force Academy grad. I should have had him on the panel, that would have even things out a little. But I wanna thank all of you. And this is the beginning of a conversation, it's an important conversation.

And this will be online, but we will also have other ones. Our next stop is Philadelphia, then we go to Green Bay. See, we don't go to Green Bay next. Then we go back to our home in the bay area off to Green Bay, then Denver, then Massachusetts, then DC.

I gotta get this straight, then DC, then Newark. Most importantly, those nice little bookmarks have our schedule. So please continue to follow this series because we have some really extraordinary veterans in the lineup. I wanna thank the World Affairs Council. I wanna thank Texas A&M, San Antonio. I wanna thank my Hoover team.

And I wanna thank all of you panelists for taking time out of your really, really busy schedules. So, thank you all for being here in the rain. And please enjoy the refreshments that we have. Thank you all.