Podcasts about Defense Information School

Welcome to Your Partner In Success Radio with your Host Denise Griffitts. Our topic today is Unlocking Brain Potential: Brain-centric Design for Strategic Communication with my guest  Rich Carr who is a pioneering Learning Scientist and CEO of Brain-centric, a company that leverages neuroscience to transform communication and education through Brain-centric Design (BcD). This innovative approach reveals how the human brain naturally learns and processes information, empowering professionals across industries to communicate with clarity and impact. Carr's distinguished career includes ownership of radio stations, digital media direction, and consulting for Fortune 100 companies, where his methods have achieved remarkable results, including saving a Fortune 500 company $5.9 million from a single BcD course. He is the co-author of "Brain-centric Design: The Surprising Neuroscience Behind Learning" and author of "SURPRISED: The Science & Art of Engagement." Both of these books are on my desk and next week Rich will join me again to talk about Surprised!An Army veteran and graduate of the Department of Defense Information School, his mission is to align communication strategies with the brain's natural learning processes, helping educators, coaches, and communicators unlock their full potential.Connect with Rich Carr on his website. We appreciate you tuning in to this episode of Your Partner In Success Radio with Host Denise Griffitts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps us reach more listeners and create even better content!Stay ConnectedWebsite: Your Partner In Success RadioEmail: mail@yourofficeontheweb.com

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and host Jack Rous takes us on a field trip to 50/50 Martial Arts Academy in Falls Church, Virginia, to meet Ryan Hall—UFC fighter, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, and owner of the academy. Known as “The Wizard,” Ryan discusses his journey from reality TV fame on The Ultimate Fighter to competing on UFC pay-per-view cards alongside legends like Conor McGregor and Jon Jones. Ryan shares insights into the role of communication in his career, including media training, managing high-pressure situations, and connecting with audiences. He also offers lessons learned that apply to public affairs and military communicators. Don't miss this engaging conversation on discipline, excellence, and the power of effective storytelling!

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and host Jack Rous welcomes a special guest: Katie Spencer. Katie currently serves as a public affairs officer in the Air Force Reserve and is a veteran of Operations Enduring Freedom and Freedom's Sentinel. In her civilian role, she's the Sports Outreach Program Manager for the Department of the Air Force. Most recently, she supported the Thunderbirds during their flyover at Super Bowl 58. Today, we'll explore her unique role as a military communicator, and discuss her path to this position and plans for the program.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and host Jack Rous welcomes a special guest: Katie Spencer. Katie currently serves as a public affairs officer in the Air Force Reserve and is a veteran of Operations Enduring Freedom and Freedom's Sentinel. In her civilian role, she's the Sports Outreach Program Manager for the Department of the Air Force. Most recently, she supported the Thunderbirds during their flyover at Super Bowl 58. Today, we'll explore her unique role as a military communicator, and discuss her path to this position and plans for the program.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous is joined by a very special guest, the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Chris Meagher. As the ATSD (PA), Mr. Meagher is the principal staff advisor and assistant to the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense for public information, internal information, community relations, information training, and audiovisual matters in support of Department of Defense activities, and he is the principal spokesperson for all DOD Public Affairs matters. Listen in as we talk PA strategy, his goals as ATSD (PA), and what the future looks like for military communicators.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and host Jack Rous welcomes a special guest: Chris Meagher, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. As the principal advisor on public information and the lead spokesperson for the Department of Defense, Mr. Meagher shares insights into his role, public affairs strategy, and his vision for the future of military communication. Don't miss this in-depth discussion!

Being a life-long blind person I have never served in the military and thus only understand the military way of life vicariously. There is reading about it, of course and there is talking to military people about their lifestyle. Today you get to hear a conversation not only about military life, specifically the army world, as it were, from a 20-year career soldier, Chase Spears who recently retired from the military as a major in the army. Chase grew up always interested in the news and what was going on in the world around him. He attended college, both undergraduate studies and later graduate work at universities in Tennessee. Along the way an army recruiting officer persuaded him to join the army. By that time, he was well married to a woman who, surprising to him, supported his decision to leave college and join the army. Chase's telling of this story is wonderful to hear. As you will see, he is quite the storyteller.   He and I talk a great deal about the world of a soldier, and he puts a lot of things into perspective. For those of you who have served in the military much of what you hear may not be totally new. However, since Chase served in public affairs/relations duties throughout most of his army career, you may find his observations interest. Chase and I had a good free-flowing and informative conversation. I personally came away fascinated and look forward to talking with Chase again in the future. A few months ago, Mr. Spears retired and entered into a doctoral program at Kansas State University where he is conducting research concerning how military life impacts the citizenship of those who serve. You will get to hear a bit about what he is finding.   About the Guest:   U.S. Army Major (Ret.) Chase Spears is first and foremost a Christian, Husband, and Father to five children who help to keep him and his wife young at heart. Having grown up with a passion for news and policy, Chase spent 20 years in the Army as a public affairs officer, trying to be part of a bridge between the military and the public. He merged that work with a passion for writing to become one of the Army's most published public affairs officers, often to resistance from inside the military. Chase continues that journey now as a doctoral candidate at Kansas State University, where his dissertation research explores how military life impacts the citizenship of those who serve. His other writings focus on topics including civil-military dynamics, communication ethics, and the political realities of military operations.   Ways to connect with Chase:   LinkedIn/X/Substack/Youtube: @drchasespears www.chasespears.com   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi there and welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. And we have a I think really interesting show today are interesting episode we get to chat with major retired Chase Spears. I've been saying ret all morning because he's got Rhett in parentheses. And I didn't even think about it being not a name but retired. But anyway, that's me. Anyway, he has been involved in a lot of writing in and out of the military. He was a major military person for 20 years. He's now in a doctoral candidate program, Kennedy C candidacy program. And my gosh, there's a lot there, but we'll get to it also. Major Rhett major Chase spears. Welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Chase Spears ** 02:13 just thrilled to be with you, Michael. Thanks for having me. Now   Michael Hingson ** 02:17 that now that we've abused you with Rhett, but that's okay.   Chase Spears ** 02:20 I think God worse. Well, there   Michael Hingson ** 02:22 you are. And by your friends, I bet. So that's what really makes them more fun. But we're but I really am grateful that you were willing to come on and spend some time with us. Why don't we start I love to, to start this way to give people a chance to get to know you. Why don't you tell us some about the early Chase spheres and growing up and all that stuff?   Chase Spears ** 02:44 Well, it's yeah, it's been quite a journey. I grew up in the southeast us My family was out of Florida. And when I was a teenager, we ended up moving we went out to Texas, which was really just kind of a an entire change of culture for us. If you can imagine going from the kind of urban parts of Florida that are really highly populated a lot of traffic, a lot of tourism, a lot of industry. And we went up to North Central Texas in my teen years. And if you can imagine going from from that, you know, Florida to a town of about 9000 people it was a an oil and agricultural cattle town, and Graham, Texas and it was really kind of a culture shock at first, but turned into some of the best and most formative years of my life where I I really learned the value of hard work working on the fields with my dad really got to kind of connect with nature and just taking some gorgeous sunsets in the evenings out working in the fields enjoying the views of the wildlife Hall. I was out working. But one thing that I did learn from hard manual labor, was it made sure that I kept on track for college. And so I ended up going to Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee in 1998. Right after I graduated from high school, I was homeschooled and met my Hi my sweetie there, Laurie. We were married by senior year we decided neither one of us we wanted to graduate and leave the other one behind. So we got married start a family pretty young afterwards. Went on to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville afterwards because I thought, hey, I want to work in journalism. And it'd be great to have a master's degree in journalism to prove my commitment to the field make people take me seriously. And it was during that time that I ran into an army recruiter while I was working my part time job at a law firm. I was working at the courthouse one day filing paperwork. And this gentleman and I just struck up a conversation in an elevator he was there in his full dress uniform was very impressive to me as a civilian at the time. And so I started asking him questions about what he did. In what army life was like just trying to be friendly, conversational, I was genuinely curious, though I was not looking for a military career. Well, as a good recruiter does, he managed to coax a phone number out of me. And seven months later there I am raising my right hand, swearing into the army in Knoxville, Tennessee. And so we were in the army for 20 years, we moved to several different parts of the nation, we've landed in northeastern Kansas, just on the outskirts of the Greater Kansas City, Missouri area. And now we're kind of starting a new phase of life after the army enjoying being kind of planted Gayndah. Watch our kids grow in a smaller community. And we're excited about what's next. So   Michael Hingson ** 05:42 what is the postdoc? Where are the doctoral degree in, that you're seeking.   Chase Spears ** 05:47 So I am in a program entitled leadership communication. But I'm kind of a misplaced public policy scholars what I've learned, but the faculty there have been so wonderfully gracious to me, and I've been very supportive of my research agenda. So I'm a career communicator. In the army, I was a public affairs officer. So everything I did was about stuff like this. I didn't community engagement, I did interviews, I was did social media strategy, I was part of the bridge that the military tries to build between it and the public, which is incredibly important in our form of governance. And so I love all things communication. And I also love team leadership, small organizational leadership, I had the chance to, to lead teams, I had the chance to lead a company while I was in the army, so fell in love with that. So when I saw a degree program that merged both of those, you know, they had me at hello, I was a sucker from the get go when I saw the marketing. So I applied and they very kindly accepted me. So I've been studying leadership communication, but my research agenda is actually more in the policy realm. My dissertation work is studying how did we come to this concept that the military isn't a political and air quotes institution, when it is funded by the government when it is commanded by elected leadership? When when we exert our national will, on other nations with it there absolutely political connotations to all of that. And And yet, we kind of say the opposite. So I was curious, I was like, this would be something fun to explore, how did we How did we get to where we believe this in spite of what we do? And so that's what my research Jind agenda is all about. And I'm having a lot of fun writing.   Michael Hingson ** 07:37 Well, and I guess we could go right to why well, so why do you think the reason is that we are not a political but we say we are? Oh, are you still researching it to the point where you're not ready to answer that yet? Well, I   Chase Spears ** 07:57 have, I have some theories and what I believe are pretty educated guesses. I'm trying to make sure that I don't bore your audience going too deep in the weeds on this. It's really kind of comes out of the Second World War. When you look at the history of the United States. Traditionally, we are a nation, our ancestors were part of a nation that were really cautious about the idea of having large standing military forces during peacetime. Because there had been this historical observance over hundreds of years, particularly in Europe, that large forces during peacetime ended up causing problems for society and the nations that bred large armies inevitably found ways to use them, that might not always be to the benefit of the populace. So we come out of the Second World War, and the nation has decided we're going to become the global military superpower, we didn't want to be caught off guard again, like we were for what Germany had done in the years after the First World War. And we also have a rising Russia, we need to counter that. So we decided as a nation, yeah, we will become a global, permanent, large, highly industrialized, highly institutionalized force. Well, how do you gain public support for that when the public has traditionally for hundreds of years been very, very suspect of that and very much against it? Well, Samuel, in walk Samuel Huntington, a brilliant political scientist who writes the book, the soldier in the state, and in it he proposed a theory of military supervision in which officers would abstained from voting and then over time that grew legs into Okay, well, now we're just not involved in politics and then in time that grew legs into where a political, but if you go around the force and ask most people what that means, if you ask them to define that word, few would actually be able to define it. It's one of those kind of discursive terms that we've come up with kind of like for the public good. Well, what is for the public good? Can you actually define that, and it's largely often in the eyes of the beholder. So that that's where I believe it came from, I'm still doing quite a bit of work and reading in that. But historically, it's very fascinating to see where we've come and just 70 years on that topic. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 10:25 And also, we're in a phase of all of that, where it seems to be at least that it's changing and morphing again, I mean, with what's happened in the last seven years in this country, and the, the lack of desire for discourse, the the desire on some people's parts to really involve the military and a lot of things. It seems like we're possibly changing again, or perhaps even strengthening the military in some way. And I'm not sure what that is.   Chase Spears ** 11:04 We there's really kind of been somewhat of a public backlash, the last, I'd say, five to 10 years, we saw an increasing comfort with military members publicly advocating for political policy for political parties, which is absolutely within their constitutional right to do, George Washington himself said, we did not lay aside the citizen to assume the soldier. But again, that that discourse coming out of the Second World War, really kind of conditions the American public to think that when you're in the military, you do give up your rights to expression that you do give up your rights to citizen agency, and, and, and meaningful involvement in civic processes. And while we do rightly give up some expressive rights, and that is captured and codified in military regulations, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there's some legitimacy to that argument. But I would say, you know, if you're, if you're holding a ruler in your hand, the regulations kind of restrict us somewhere between the two and three inch mark on the ruler, whereas the perception that's just kind of come out of the repetition of these terms and ideas is more that we're up around the nine or 10 inch mark on the ruler, if that makes any sense for you. So we we've seen in the last few years, more military people being willing to get involved politically, and there has been somewhat of a backlash to it. And therein is the problem. You if you're going to hold to a belief to a doctrine to a discursive claim, then you have to match it. And the military is really kind of at a point right now they have a decision to make, are we going to hold on to this discourse to this idea? Or are we going to acknowledge that? Well, the regulations are much less restrictive than what people have been led to believe? It's it's a tough spot to be there's not a perfect answer, to help the institution requires cracking down on constitutional freedoms. And well, what is the institution there to serve? So it's a very sticky issue?   Michael Hingson ** 13:11 Well, it does seem to me that in no way, because the person becomes a soldier. And even in their oaths, do they give up the right to be a citizen of the country? So I'm with George Washington?   Chase Spears ** 13:26 Oh, absolutely. No, I am with with George Washington himself, you know, the greatest American? And I think we would, it's a, it's a good reminder of the importance of knowing our history and knowing where we came from. It's in my interviews with military members on this topic. In my research, I'm finding that that like me, most of them were just kind of told these things verbally. They were never pointed to the actual rules. They were never actually pointed to the actual laws. I only know the regulations because I have a personal fascination on the topic. And I went and looked them up. But no one ever told me where to find them. That was research on my own team and figure out where do I look for this. So it's, we really need to do better, nationally, to know our history and know where we came from.   Michael Hingson ** 14:14 We do have a really interesting paradox in the world, because we've gotten in the last two government administrations, to different views of not only how to govern, but to a degree how the military needs to be a part of it, and that's gonna not be very helpful to things either.   Chase Spears ** 14:34 Absolutely. The the military at the end of the day is controlled by the Civilian governance. Now. I'll acknowledge that General Mark Milley didn't really seem to think so and there have been other figures in military history who MacArthur being one of them who who seemed to challenge who was actually in charge of the military. But at the end of the day, constitutionally, we We are governed by by civilians. And that that is right, that is proper any anything else would be a coup and you don't want that. So we, it comes down to how does the military try to hold a consistent line? When you have governments that change every two to four to eight years and have drastically different perspectives on policy? How do you as a military hold an even keel and another wise stormy sea. And in previous generations, we had senior general officers who were pretty good at that they were pretty good at saying, regardless of what the ship of state is doing, the ship of military is going to remain on a heading to serve everyone. And there's been somewhat of a lack a breakdown of discipline at the senior ranks in the last probably 10 years, that's really kind of shuttered the ship of the military. And I think the current some of the recently promoted, general officers understand that I think General GA is the new Chief of Staff of the Army, I think he understands that and he's trying to do some things to reintroduce some stability, but it's a hard thing.   Michael Hingson ** 16:16 Yeah. And the other part about it is that the military, in some ways is a part of society. So we've had things like the whole Don't Ask, Don't Tell dealing with LGBTQ types of issues. And, and of course, even women in the military, and there's been a lot of things that haven't necessarily been as visible as they have become, and are issues that we are starting to face and deal with more. But it seems to me that the military, like it or not, is part of society. And we do need to recognize that collectively, as well.   Chase Spears ** 17:02 We were absolutely drawn from society. We serve society, we exist, you know, for the protection of society. But I will say there's one thing that's all always kind of set Western militaries apart a little bit, and the US military hails from that Western tradition of understanding that just because society chooses to take a move in one direction, doesn't necessarily mean that it's in the national security interest of the United States for the military, to follow suit. And then there's kind of a reason that the military has always tried to, in some way, set itself apart, of acknowledging that there's some things that society will do or want to that are affected by the times as Shakespeare himself noted, there's always a tide in the affairs and man, the tide comes in the time tide goes out the the, the winds shift. And but one thing that was said at the military part was this idea of, at the end of the day, if it's a societal change that enables us to better defend the nation, then that's the direction we'll move. If it's a societal change that could potentially be a friction point or cause additional challenges in securing the nation, we might, we might think on that one a little bit harder, we might be a little more a little slower to adopt that. And we've seen that has kind of broken down the military is very much going out of its way to be reflective of society. And in some ways that can be good in some ways that's caused additional unnecessary frictions to the force and is rightly being having questions asked about it.   Michael Hingson ** 18:45 And that's where having good solid leadership in the military at the highest echelons, has to be an important part of it, because that's where ultimately, the direction that the military goes, is at least in part, going to be authored. Yes, there is a civilian government that and civilian commander in chief, but still the military leaders have to really be the ones mostly to figure out where the military should go in terms of policies and how it deals with different issues or not, I would think.   Chase Spears ** 19:27 And the key word that you hit on there, Michael is leadership. Back a few months ago, I wrote a piece that was published by real clear defense called seven new things the new Sergeant Major of the Army could do to restore trust in the force. And the argument that I made his predecessor was one who was very kind of reactive to the, to the whims you might say, of a the younger generation of soldiers. He was very much all over Twitter about telling me your issues. Let me get involved in your issues. And he was, in some ways a very divisive, senior official in the military. And I equated it to you, you want to look at kind of the British constitutionalist position, the British Crown, if you're looking overseas, it has traditionally been something that it's kind of the rock, unmovable, unshakable, the parliament will do what parliament will do that the Tories and Labour will do what they will do, but the crown is unmovable the crown serves all. And that's kind of something that the military reflected, and I call out to the new rising generation military leaders to remember that, to remember that we don't own this, we owe nothing in the institution, we all leave it one day, as I left it a matter of weeks ago. All I have are my memories and and hopes that I was able to leave some things better than I found them and that the people I served that I hope I served them well. But at the end of the day, we hand it off to someone else. And it's so important for to have good leaders who recognize that we we steward the profession, that we we want to do the best we can with it in our time, and recognize the decisions that we make, will impact those who serve long after our time and do our best to hand it off in the best possible condition that we can for them. Because then to the to society, we returned. And then we depend on this who came after us for our national defense. And so it's the steward mindset to me as key.   Michael Hingson ** 21:41 Yeah. Well, and going back a little bit. So you're in graduate school you got recruited in and accepted and went into the military. What did you do? What was it like when you first went and that certainly again, had to be quite a culture shock from things that you would experience before? Ah,   Chase Spears ** 22:02 yeah, I figured absolutely was you'll never forget your first shark attack at basic training for for anyone who's unfamiliar with that, it's when you once you've done your initial and processing there, whatever base you get your basic training at, for me, it was Fort Jackson in South Carolina. And then they eventually buss you off to your your training companies, which is where you will actually conduct your combat training. This is after you've received your uniforms and done all your finances, paperwork, and life insurance and all that. And then the buses stop and the drill sergeants, they're just there waiting for you. And it's a moment you never forget. And of course, you jump off the bus and they're giving you all these commands that they know it's impossible for you to, to execute to any level of satisfaction. And then when you fail, as you inevitably will, you know, the entire group just gets smoked over and over and over again. And I remember that moment just having that realization of I have not in Kansas anymore, like the next next few months of my life are about to be very different than anything I've ever experienced. And it was it absolutely was. I got through that. And I think the first thing that was really kind of shocking to me be on to the training environment was the use of last names. So yeah, I go by chase my friends call me chase people who know me call me chase. I'm I'm not hung up on titles. I'm a simple guy. In the military, you are your rank and last name. I was specialist Spears sergeants First Lieutenant spears or LT Captain spears, major spears. And I remember at my first unit, there were other other people who in my unit there were the same rank as me. And so I thought were peers I'd call them by their first name. And they never gave me problems about it. But our higher ups would you know, people have rank spears, we don't go by first names spears. And I never I never 20 years and I still never really adjusted well to that I learned how to how to keep myself from getting as many talking to us about it over the years is I had in previous times. But that was a culture shock. And, and just the the constant what we call the military, the battle rhythm, you know, civil society would call it your work schedule, while in the military. It never really ends your day start very early. You have physical training that you're doing with your unit at 630. Depending on what unit you're in, you may be off at a reasonable time in the late afternoon, early evening, or you may be there. I've remember staying at work one night till 4am Just because the boss gave us a job to do. Frankly, it was an unreasonable job. But he gave us a job to do and an extraordinarily tight deadline and it took us till 4am to get the job done and And I was at work by 630, the next morning. So you never, ever really do get used to that in some ways, because you kind of come to accept it. But it's been really eye opening to me in the last nearly three months now that I've been now, looking back and having some control over my schedule now for the first time in 20 years, and realizing, wow, that was such a foreign existence I lived. But when you're when you're swimming in a fishbowl, you don't know you're wet. So every time you do adapt to it, but it's been neat being on the other side and realizing, you know, can kind of breathe in and start to have some say over what a schedule looks like, because I'd forgotten what that was, what that'd be like.   Michael Hingson ** 25:44 But as you rose in the ranks, and I assume took on more responsibility, did that give you any more flexibility in terms of how you operate it on a day to day basis.   Chase Spears ** 25:56 It all depended on the position, there were there were some jobs I had, where were, regardless of the rank, I had flexibility. And then there were other jobs, where I absolutely did not even as a major want, there was a job that I had, where the boss was very adamant. This is the time you will be here and you will be sitting at this desk between these hours and you are authorized authorized is a big term in the military culture, you are authorized a 30 minute lunch break period. And you will be here until this time every day. And this was when I had you know, I think I was at my 1718 year mark. And I remember thinking to myself, golly, do I need to ask permission to go to the bathroom to see, it seemed I didn't. So it really kind of depended on your job. There's a perception a lot of times that the higher you go in rank, the more control you have over your life. And I observed that the opposite is actually true. The higher you go, typically, the more the more demands are placed on you. The more people are depending on the things that you're doing. And and the bigger the jobs are. And the longer the days are was my experience, but it had been flooded depending on what position I was in at the given time.   Michael Hingson ** 27:17 Now, when you first enlisted and all that, what was Laurie's reaction to all of that.   Chase Spears ** 27:23 I was shocked. She was so supportive. She actually grew up in an Air Force household. And so she knew military life pretty well. Her dad had been been in, he spent a lot more time in the air force than I did the army. And then even after he retired from the Air Force, he went on and taught at the Naval Academy as a civilian. So she is just always had a level of familiarity with the military as long as she can remember. She joked with me that when she got married to me and then had to give up her dependent military ID card that it was kind of a moment of mourning for she didn't want to give that thing up. So one day, there we are Knoxville, Tennessee, and I approached her. And I'm trying to be very careful, very diplomatic, very suave, and how I bring it up to her and let her know I've been thinking about the army. And I'm kind of curious what she might think about that. Because it'd be such a drastic lifestyle change from everything we've been talking about. And I was bracing for her to look at me and be like, are you insane? And instead, she was like, Oh, you won't get in the military. And I get an ID card again. Yes. She was she was supportive from from Jump Street. And so you talk about a wife who just was there, every minute of it, and loved and supported and gave grace and rolled with the punches. milori Did she was absolutely phenomenal. Though, I will admit when it got to the point that I was starting to think maybe 20. I'll go ahead and wrap this up, because my original plan had been to do 30. But when I started talking with her about that she was she was also ready, she was ready to actually start having me home regularly for us to be able to start making family plans and be able to follow through with them. Because we had the last three years we had not been able to follow through with family plans, because of the different positions that I was in. So she was very, very supportive of me joining and then she was equally very supportive of me going ahead and and calling it calling it a day here or the last just at the end of this year. But what a what a partner could not have done it   Michael Hingson ** 29:41 without her. So where did she live when you were going through basic training and all that.   Chase Spears ** 29:46 So she stayed in Knoxville for nonGSA. Yeah. And then from there, she actually ended up moving up to her dad's and his wife's place up in Maryland because my follow on school after base See training was the Defense Information School. That's where all the Public Affairs courses are taught. And it's so happens that that is located at Fort Meade, Maryland, which is just about a 45 minute drive traffic dependent from where her dad lived. So while I was in basic training, she went ahead and moved up there to Maryland so that while I was in school up there, we could see each other on the weekends. And then from there, we didn't have to go back to Tennessee and pack up a house or stuff was already packed up so we could get on the road together there to wherever our next duty station was. And it turned out funny enough to be Colorado Springs, Fort Carson. And here's why that's funny. When, when I approached Laurie, about joining the army, one of the things that she was really excited about was seeing the world if you're in the military, you get to see the world, right. And my first duty assignment was the town that she had grown up in, because her dad had spent the last few years of his career teaching at the Air Force Academy there on the northern end of Colorado Springs. So so her her dreams of seeing the world with me, turned out that our first tour was going to write back home for her.   Michael Hingson ** 31:14 Oh, that has its pluses and it's minuses.   Chase Spears ** 31:17 Yep. So it was neat for me to get to see where she had grown up and learn the town little bit.   Michael Hingson ** 31:23 I've been to Fort Meade, and actually a few times I used to sell technology to folks there. And then several years ago, I was invited to come in after the World Trade Center and do a speech there. And so it was it was fun spending some time around Fort Meade heard some wonderful stories. My favorite story still is that one day somebody from the city of Baltimore called the fort because they wanted to do traffic studies or get information to be able to do traffic studies to help justify widening roads to better help traffic going into the fort. So they call it the fort. And they said, Can you give us an idea of how many people come through each day? And the person at the other end said, Well, I'm really not sure what you're talking about. We're just a little shack out here in the middle of nowhere. And so they ended up having to hire their own people to count cars for a week, going in and out of the fort was kind of cute.   Chase Spears ** 32:23 Well, there's quite a bit of traffic there. Now that basis when   Michael Hingson ** 32:26 I was then to there wasn't just a little shack, of course, it was a whole big forest.   Chase Spears ** 32:32 Yeah, yeah, it's I was back there. Golly, I want to say it wasn't that long ago. But it was about five years ago now is back there. And I almost didn't recognize the place. There's been so much new built there. But oh, I know, as far as army assignments go, it's a it's a pretty nice place.   Michael Hingson ** 32:50 Yeah, it is. And as I said, I've had the opportunity to speak there and spend some time dealing with folks when we sold products and so on. So got to got to know, people, they're pretty well and enjoyed dealing with people there. They knew what they were doing. Yeah,   Chase Spears ** 33:07 yeah, that's a it's a smart group of people in that base.   Michael Hingson ** 33:10 So you went through basic training and all that and what got you into the whole idea of public relations and what you eventually went into?   Chase Spears ** 33:20 Well, I had studied in college, my undergraduate degree was in television and radio broadcasting. My master's was in journalism, I'd grown up kind of in the cable news age, and the at the age of the emergence of am Talk Radio is a big, big tool of outreach. And I grew up thinking, this is what I want to do. I love communication. I actually thought it'd be really neat to be an investigative reporter on if, if you remember, back in the 90s, it was this big thing of, you know, Channel Nine on your side, yeah, had this investigative reporter who tell you the real deal about the restaurant or the automotive garage. And I always thought that would be amazing, like what a great public service like helping people to avoid being ripped off. And so I wanted to be a news. I'm sure you're familiar with the Telecom Act of 1996. That That caused a tremendous consolidation of media for your audience who might not be familiar with it. It used to be that really, if you had the wherewithal to buy a media station or a television station or radio station, you were unlimited in what you could you there were limits, I should say on what you could buy, so that you couldn't control too much, too much media environment, the Telecom Act of 1996, completely deregulated that and so large media companies were just swallowing up the nation. And that meant there's a tremendous consolidation of jobs and the my junior year in college. I was in the southeast us at the time at Lee University. Atlanta. Nearby was our biggest hiring media market, my June Your year CNN laid off 400 people. So I could tell really quick, this is going to be a chat and even more challenging field to break into than I thought. And that's why I ended up working part time in a law firm was in, in Journalism School. Afterwards, because I was looking great. I was looking for a backup plan. I thought if journalism doesn't work out, I also love the law. It'd be nice to get some experience working in a firm to see if I want to go to law school. So it was a natural fit for me when the army recruiter started talking to me. And he was asking me what I was interested in. And I told him, Well, here's what my degree is in, here's what my career plan had been, here's who I really want to do with my life. And he said, we have public affairs, I said, What's that? It turns out, the military has radio stations, and they have television networks and you PR, I had no idea. I was a civilian. And I was like, Well, that sounds good. And so I thought, yeah, sure, I'll I will enlist for that come in, do one four year contract, I'll build a portfolio and and then I'll be able to take that portfolio out into the civilian realm. And hopefully that will make me more competitive for a job in the news market. And of course, a couple of years into that. I was in Kuwait deployed to camp Arif John. And my brigade commander sat me down to lunch one day, and made it very clear that he expected me to apply for Officer Candidate School, which was nowhere on what I was interested in doing was nowhere on my radar, I applied, I really didn't have a lot of confidence. I thought, I looked at officers and I thought they were people who are way, way more intelligent than me, way more suave than me. And I really didn't know if I'd get in, well, I got in. And after I commissioned officer candidate school is about like basic training all over again. So that was fun. And I ended up being assigned to a combat camera unit. And then afterwards, I was able to put my paperwork in to branch transfer right back into public affairs, it was a perfect mess was everything I wanted to do. I didn't get to work in news directly. I wasn't a reporter. But I got to work with reporters, I got to be an institutional insider and help facilitate them and help to tell the stories of what some great American patriots were doing, and wanting to serve their countries. And so it was, for the most part, more often than not, it was a really, really fun way to earn a living living.   Michael Hingson ** 37:34 I collect as a hobby old radio shows I'm very familiar with but back in the 40s was the Armed Forces Radio Service, then it became Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. And so I'm aware a little bit of, of the whole broadcast structure in the military, not a lot, but but some and know that that it's there. And it does, I'm suspect, a really good job of helping to keep people informed as much as it can as they can with the things that they have to do in the world. It's   Chase Spears ** 38:04 definitely it's a comfort over the years, if you're spending a lot of time overseas to have kind of that that taste of home and our forces network does a really good job of that letting I think we're starting to see some debates inside the military. Now. What do we want to continue of it? Because now information is so ubiquitous, if you will, you can pull it down, you can stream whatever you want, wherever you are in the globe. So I kind of wonder in the next 1020 years, will it still be a thing, but during my early career during my early deployment before he could stream stuff, it was really cool to have an AFN radio station to tune into is really cool to have an AFN television network to tune into to be able to get a taste of home. That was much a comfort,   Michael Hingson ** 38:52 right? Yeah, it is. It is something that helps. So you can't necessarily stream everything. I spent a week in Israel this summer. And there were broadcasts I could get and pick up through the internet and so on. And there were stuff from here in the US that I couldn't get I suspect it has to do with copyright laws and the way things were set up but there was only so much stuff that you could actually do.   Chase Spears ** 39:20 And what a time to be in Israel you will I bet that trip is even more memorable for you now than it would have been otherwise.   Michael Hingson ** 39:27 Fortunately, it wasn't August. So we we didn't have to put up with the things that are going on now. But still Yeah, it was very memorable. I enjoyed doing it. spending a week with excessively over there and got into getting to meet with with all the folks so it was definitely well worth it and something that that I will always cherish having had the opportunity to do get   Chase Spears ** 39:51 for you. If it's on my bucket list. I've always wanted to spend some time over there.   Michael Hingson ** 39:56 Hot and humid in the summer, but that's okay. Let's say but they love breakfast. Oh, really? So yeah, definitely something to think about. Well, so you, you joined you got you got the public relations, jobs and so on. So how did all that work for you over? Well, close to 20 years? What all did you do and what, what stories can you tell us about some of that?   Chase Spears ** 40:25 It was it was fascinating. It was fascinating because everything that I got to touch was, in some way a story. And so my first job was in radio and television production. I did quite a bit of that in Kuwait. And it was actually there that I got my first taste of crisis communication, and I was immediately addicted. Do you remember back in? It was December 2004. Donald Rumsfeld said you go to war with the Army you have not the army want or might wish to have it another time? Yeah. I was there. That that was uttered in camp you're in Kuwait. And that was such an interesting moment. For me in terms of a story to tell. I was with the 14 Public Affairs Detachment we were deployed to camp Arif John to provide public affairs support for for Third Army's Ford headquarters. This was back during the height of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so there's a lot of military going over there. We were part of that. And I remember hearing this tasking that had come down that the Secretary of Defense is going to come out here is going to do this town hall meeting with the troops. There's going to be no question that you can't ask. You're going to be allowed to say anything you want to say to the Secretary of Defense, nothing's going to be scripted, nothing's going to be put through for review. And by the way, 14 pad you guys are going to make sure that it can be televised live back to the United States. And so here I am thinking what can possibly go wrong. And so we helped we all the event, Secretary Rumsfeld hindered and handled it really, really well. They set up this big, you know, fighting machinery display, they're in a in a big aircraft hangar epic camp bearing which is in northern Kuwait, just not too far south from the Iraqi border. And he gets up he gives the speech. He's well received by the troops. And it goes to the q&a part. And soldiers were asking him all sorts of questions. Most of them are jovial, you know, hey, when when do we get to go to Disney World, stuff like that. They were kind of big jocular with them.   Michael Hingson ** 42:42 Seems a fair question.   Chase Spears ** 42:44 Yeah, you know, I felt them right. And so finally, this one guy, I'll never forget his name, especially as Thomas Wilson from the 2/78 Regimental Combat Team. Tennessee National Guard asks him a question about when are they going to get the body armor that's needed? And in true Rumsfeld style, he's he says, Well, I'm not quite sure I understood the question. Can you ask it again, which is a great technique. He used to buy him some time to think the answer. And then it came back after the second question. And the whole hangar about 1000 of us in there. It was hast. I'll bet you could have heard a plastic cup hit the floor at the back back of the room. I mean, everyone was like, what? Oh, no, what just happened? What's about to happen? And Rumsfeld makes that remark, you go to war with the army have not the one you want or need. Yeah. And and then the questions went on. And there was not be after that. There was no awkward moment for the rest of the time. And I and I thought, wow, that could have gone south. But it didn't cool. It was just it was neat to watch. I was running the television camera that caught the moment. I was in the room. And so we me and my sergeant had to stay up there the rest of the day because there were some other television network interviews with other officials that we were running the satellite transponder for. And it was a long day our commander was kind of being a jerk to us. So by the end of the day, we were tired we'd been up there sleeping on cots for a couple of days, we were kind of just ready to get back to data camp Arif, John to our beds and put the whole mission behind us. And then we drive to three hours through this pouring pouring rainstorm in Kuwait, and a Canvas side Humvee that's leaking. All you know, water just pouring into this thing on us. So we're done. We're done. We're done. We're like, we just want to get a bed. We get back to our base. We're offloading all the equipment, putting everything away. And at this point in time, I forgotten about the moment earlier in the day when that question was asked, and I walk in and there we had this wall of televisions you know, tracking all the different news networks back in the US and on all of them Their Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the army have not the army won or wish to have another time. And at that moment, I was like, it's about to be an interesting few weeks around here. And it turned out, it turned out indeed to be an interesting few weeks, an interesting few months. And I got to be on the front end of what the public affairs response to that looks like. And I can tell you, I've never seen armored vehicles flow into a place as quickly as they did in the following month. So the power of a message transmitted is a real thing. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 45:39 so whatever happened to specialist Wilson?   Chase Spears ** 45:44 I don't I don't know. I know that news coverage. When that news reporters were asking that very question and coverage that I saw said, Oh, his unit, his assured that nothing bad will happen to him. He was a national guardsmen, so he kind of fall under a different, different command structure than us. From time to time, I have wondered that and I've tried to look him up online, and just try to find out what happened to the sky and what was life like for him? I'd love to talk to him and ask alright, what was it like, man, what is your unit do? But I, I have no idea. I can't find him. I presume he's gone about his life and doesn't want to be famous about it. But it also goes back to National Guard culture versus active duty culture. We talked earlier about the citizenship aspect. And the National Guard gets that way more than the active component. At the end of the day, they demobilize. And they go home. Right, you're running into the same people you serve, with the church, at the grocery store, at the grocery store, at the PTA, places like this, some of them might be your neighbors. And so they have an entirely different outlook. This is what they do to serve the country when needed. And then they go on about their lives. I don't think you would have seen an active duty soldier ask that question. I really don't because the culture is so so markedly different. And there's a level of kind of freedom of thought and expression, present that guard that that is much more lacking in the active component.   Michael Hingson ** 47:19 Should there be more freedom, in that sense in the active component? Or do you think that it's really appropriate for there to be the dichotomy that you're describing?   Chase Spears ** 47:32 And the act of force you need discipline? You need a discipline force, who, when they're given a lawful order, will carry it out hastily, because lives could hang in the balance. That's absolutely important, and we can never lose that. But sometimes we can use discipline I say sometimes, often, more is the more appropriate term often we confuse discipline with silence. We confuse discipline with a lack of willingness to ask tough questions. We confuse discipline with just saying Yes, sir. When you know, in the back of your mind, there might be something you need to dig into more. We we need, unfortunately, since the end of the Second World War, going back to my comments earlier about this large, industrialized, institutionalized force we have it breeds careerists. It breeds a mindset that's fearful to ask tough questions, even if you know they need to be asked. Because you want to be promoted. Right? You want to get assignments, right. And it breeds a culture where you really are much more timid. Or you're much more likely to be timid than someone who's maybe a reservist or National Guard member. We need people who will ask tough questions. We don't need indiscipline, we don't rush showmanship, we don't need people who are being performative just to be seen. But there are valid questions to be asked is, you know, is US defense policy? Better set for a 400? Ship navy or a 300? Ship? Navy? That's a valid question. Is it better for us to use this route of attack versus that route of attack? Given the Give Me Everything we know, those are valid questions. We need people in the military who who are willing to be critical thinkers, and there are a lot of extraordinarily brilliant people in today's armed forces, as there always has been. But there is on the active duty side a culture that works against original thought and that's really to our detriment. And I think the manner in which the evacuation of Afghanistan ended is one more blatant indicator of that.   Michael Hingson ** 49:48 It was not handled nearly as well as it could have been as we have seen history tell us and teach us now   Chase Spears ** 49:56 Absolutely. i It broke my heart. I'm A veteran of that conflict I'm not one who cries easily, Michael but I can tell you that morning when I saw the some of the images coming out of cobbles especially there's a video of a C 17 cargo jet taking off and people literally hanging to and falling to their deaths. Just i i fell off, I fell off my on my run into a sobbing human being on this on the ground for a little bit it is there's a lot to process and it has continued to be a lot to process. And there again, there's a great example of why you gotta be willing to ask tough questions. There was no no reason at all. We should have abandoned Bagram and tried to evacuate out of downtown Cabo. But that's a whole nother conversation. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 50:52 Well, speaking of you, I understand that you weren't a great fan of jumping out of airplanes, but you got used to doing them? I   Chase Spears ** 51:01 sure did. Oh, yeah. I always thought that would just be something that no, I don't want to say no sane person would do. I mean, I enjoy watching skydivers, I think it's really cool. And obviously, they're saying, I never thought I'd be among them. I thought, Nah, that's just something, I don't think I'm gonna do that. And when I was an officer candidate school, I was roommates with a guy who had been to Airborne School earlier in his career. And he was like, man, don't do it. Don't let him talk you into going to Airborne School, though, you'll be stuck at Fort Bragg, you'll just you'll be broke all the time, you'll be hurting all the time, the army takes the fun out of everything. And he's right. To an extent the army does take the fun out of most things that touches. But I got to my first unit as an officer. So I'd done enlisted time for three years, then I went to Officer Candidate School. And then my first job as an officer was at the 55th combat camera company, which is not a full airborne unit, but it's a partial airborne unit. And they had a hard time keeping enough active duty paratroopers on hand. And so I remember day one, when I was in processing the unit, there are all these different places you go, when you're in process, you gotta go see the training room, and you got to go see the administrative room, and you got to go see the Transportation Office and all these places, and they're just checking your paperwork. And so I see the training room, and there's the sergeant in there. And he's looking through my list. And he's asking me all these questions, you know, when was your last PT test? Where's the last physical, you know, making notes on me for the unit record? And then he says, Do you want to go to Airborne School? And without thinking, I said, Absolutely not. I have no interest in going to Airborne School. And his reply to me was go ahead and get an airborne physical. And I thought, There's no way I'm ever getting an airborne physical because I'm not going to Airborne School. So a few weeks later, I'm in the unit, I'm more comfortable. And I'm across. I'm in a different office across the hall from where this guy worked. And I'm joking around with this other sergeant. And I'm like, sir, and you're just such a cool guy. Like you've got all together, you're, you're like everything I want to be when I grow up. What how do you do it? He said, Well, sir, you got to go to Airborne School. That's step one. The other guy across the hall ever hears that, you know, mouse ears, I don't know how. But he darts out of his office across the hall into this opposite we're in, looks me straight in the face and said, Did you say you want to go to Airborne School? Like no, is not what I said, I absolutely have no interest. I'm not going to Airborne School. And he again replies with schedule your physical. And I thought, I'm not going to disappoint me scheduling a fiscal. So I get back to my office that later that day. And I thought this guy is not going to give up. So I came up with this brilliant plan. It was smart, smartest plan you'll ever hear of, I'm going to pretend I'm going to get my airborne physical and then he'll forget about me, leave me alone. So I called him and said, Hey, Sergeant, what's the phone number I have to call them schedule an airborne physical and it gives me the phone number and the the name of the person to talk to and I said, Great. I'll talk to him. There were two or three other lieutenants set to show up to the unit next in the next month. So I thought he will assume I'm getting a physical which I'm not getting and there's other guys will show up and he will convince them to go and I will fall off his radar. I was incorrect. That was a bad bad miscalculation on my part, you might say a flawed operation   Michael Hingson ** 54:39 with your the and you were the one who was talking about brilliant people in the army Anyway, go ahead.   Chase Spears ** 54:43 I know I know. Right? Yeah, I am a paradox. And so that within an hour I get an email from him with my he's already put me in for school. I already have orders generated to go to jump school. And then he calls me he's like Hey, by the way, your report in like three weeks, I need your physical as soon as you can get it. And I thought this guy, I told him I'm not going to Airborne School. Well, at the same time, our unit commander was a paratrooper, and he loves jumping out of airplanes. And I had two or three paratroopers in my platoon who were underneath me. And I thought, There's no way I can go now. Because if I, if I get the commander to release me, one, I'll lose face with the old man. And I'll lose face with the troops that I lead because the soldiers have to compete for this. They're just giving it to me. And so I went, protesting, kicking, screaming the whole way. I hated ground week. I hated tower week. And then they put took me up to the 250 foot tower and dropped me off the side of it under a parachute. And I loved it. I was like, Oh, this is fun. I actually asked if I can do it again. And they said, they don't get what's right. So the next week, we go into jump week in there I am in the back of an airplane, and it comes to my turn to get up and exit it. And I do, and I get to the ground and I survive. And I literally just sat there and laughed uncontrollably because I couldn't believe I just jumped out of a plane. And it was my first of 40 jobs. So I was I was absolutely hooked from that moment on.   Michael Hingson ** 56:20 And what did Lori think of that?   Chase Spears ** 56:23 She was a little bit surprised. She She again, was supportive. But she was surprised she never thought it's something that I would take to and it ended up being a great thing for us. Because having been on jumped status, it opened the door for me to request the unit and Alaska that we ended up going to for six years, you had to be on airborne status to be able to go to that job. And so had I not going to jump school, I would not have qualified to go into Alaska for that particular job. And so it ended up being a wonderful, wonderful thing. But I would have never guessed it, it just it's another one of those poignant reminders to me that every time that I think I've got a plan, it's God's way of reminding me that he has a sense of humor, because what's going to work out is always going to be very different from what I think.   Michael Hingson ** 57:10 And you help Laurie see the world. So well worked out. Absolutely.   Chase Spears ** 57:15 Yeah, she we never, we never got to spend time together overseas. But Alaska was an amazing adventure. And, gosh, if if no one in your listeners haven't been there yet to go see a Sunday?   Michael Hingson ** 57:29 Yeah, I went there on a cruise I didn't see as much as I would have loved to but still, I got to see some of them. It was great.   Chase Spears ** 57:38 It's nothing like it. No. Now you   Michael Hingson ** 57:42 as you advance in the ranks, and so on you, you started being in public relations, being a communicator, and so on. But clearly, as you advanced, you became more and I'm sure were viewed as more of a leader that was kind of a transition from from not being a leader. And just being a communicator and doing what you were told to be more of a leader, what was that transition like?   Chase Spears ** 58:07 That was another one of those things that I would have never seen coming. After I did my three years as the spokesman for the Airborne Brigade. In Alaska, I ended up becoming the deputy communication director for US Army, Alaska, which was the highest army command there in the state responsible for 11,000 troops and their families in multiple locations. And I remember one day, my boss came to me and saying, hey, the general is going to give a speech to the hockey team at the University of Alaska, about leadership. And so I need you to write it. And I looked at him and I said, boss, all right, whatever he told me to write, but the general has forgotten more about leadership than I know, like, how do where do I start with this? And I don't remember the exact words, I think it was something to the effect of, you're smart, you'll figure it out. And so I put together a speech, it was by no means anything glorious, but it was the best I had to give that moment in time and what leadership was fully convinced that I was not one. And then over time, I there are people who spoken to me at their headquarters who called out leadership that I didn't see they were pointing out influence that I had there pointing out people who I was able to help steer towards decisions that I didn't realize that I didn't know and it made me start looking back in other parts of my career and realizing, Oh, my goodness, I actually led that team. This man actually looks to me for decisions. I actually I am a leader, I had no idea. There's something I always thought if if you were in the military and you're a leader, you were some grand master, you know, like, like Patton or Eisenhower and I didn't think think myself anything like that. And so finally, in 2015, I was offered A chance to take command of a company which in civilian terms, that's kind of like being the executive director, if you will, of an organization of 300 people. And I was so excited for it. Because by that point in time, I finally made the mental transition of saying, I'm not, I'm not merely a communicator, communicating is what I've done. But occasionally it's I've worked on delivering us on passionate about, by came to realize, I love that so much because communicating is a part of leading and, and I, I am a leader, it's just something. Looking back. Of course, my life has always been there, I just never knew it. I never saw it, I never believed in it. And so by the time I was offered the chance to command, I was very excited for it, I was very eager for it, because I realized this is going to be an a wonderful adventure getting to lead a team at this level of this size. And it was the hardest job I ever did in the army, and the most rewarding. I don't know if you've ever watched any of the Lord, Lord of the Rings movie. But there's this moment where Aragon is being chided, is set aside the Ranger Be who you were meant to be to be the king. And that meant that came back to my mind several times I had to challenge myself that just because I only see myself as a communicator all these years doesn't mean that I can't do other things. And so it was a joy to actually walk into that. Believing is not easy. There's there are a lot of hard days or a lot of hard decisions. Especially when I was a commander, I agonized every decision. So I made because I knew this will have an impact on a person, this will have an impact on a family this, this will change the directions and plans that people had. And so it's a heavy weight to bear. And I think it's good that those kind of decisions come with weight. And I would question someone who who can make those kinds of calls without having to wrestle with them.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:01 When you look at all the things that you've done, and the work that you do, and the work that you did, at the end of every day, or at some time during the day, I know you were pretty busy. But did you ever have the time to just kind of sit back and reflect on how did this go today? How did that go? What could have been better? Did you do any kind of introspection? Or did you feel you had time to do that?   Chase Spears ** 1:02:24 I didn't really feel I had time. And it would be easy for me to blame the unit, it'd be easy for me to blame people. But that responsibility rests with me. It's a discipline that I didn't develop until way too late in my career. And I eventually did develop it, I eventually came to realize the importance of reflection of introspection of taking a mental inventory of what I've accomplished I didn't accomplish and what I can learn from it. But it was sadly something that I didn't do as much as I should have. And I didn't do it as early, I was really, really bad at assuming well, because the unit needs this right now. I can't take care of this thing that I need to take care of that will that will allow me to be the leader that I need to be you know, I get in a car, someone slams on my car, and I need to get them to take care of it. Why don't have time unit Scott has to have me We gotta move on. Well, I've got six screws in my left hand and my left shoulder right now because I was always too busy to listen to the physical therapist and take care of myself, you know, the unit needs me the unit needs me the men need me. And so it, it was a hard, hard learned lesson. The importance of sitting back and reflecting is something I wish I would have learned much sooner. But once I did, it served me well. And it's a discipline that I still practice now.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:46 Yeah, yeah, it's, I think a very important thing. And a lot of things can can stem from that. What's the best position your favorite position in the army and why?   Chase Spears ** 1:03:59 The best thing I ever got to do is company command. And it's hard to say that because it's really it's really closely tied with being a brigade director of communication. And t

On this episode, Defense information School instructor and show host Jack Rous is joined by former DINFOS Public Affairs Officer and current instructor Pete Robertson to discuss our school's upcoming 60th anniversary! We talk about the events and celebrations we're having, the history of DINFOS, and where we're heading in the future. Listen for some stories mixed in from current DINFOS instructors about their favorite school memories, and what our institution means to them.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous sits down with Sean Hudson, the Washington Nationals Director of Military Affairs. He's a former military communicator and public affairs professional who's taken the lessons he learned in the service into the world of professional sports. Join us as they discuss what it's like to run day-to-day PA for a major sports team, how to handle social media pitfalls and challenges at a worldwide scale, and some positive reminders of effective communications techniques and how our service skills are adaptable anywhere, even in baseball.

On this episode of Sword and Pen, host Lori King speaks with army broadcast journalist Lance Milsted, a former Defense Information School instructor. Milsted, the chief of production services at DoD's Defense Media Activity (DMA) talks about his belief that everyone has a story to tell, and an important part of journalism is to tell those stories, to make people feel something, to get to know the subjects of our stories and ensure we stay out of the way and let them tell stories. Listen as Milsted also talks about: how being a radio DJ in high school led him to join the army as a broadcast journalist the Defense Information School and the broadcast track he attended then taught how attending the National Press Photographers Association Workshop in Norman, Oklahoma changed his life the power of storytelling, and tips and tricks of the broadcast journalism trade Got an idea for a podcast guest or topic? Shoot Lori an email at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lorikingblog@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Sword and Pen is a Military Veterans in Journalism production.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous has a conversation with three of Adobe's public sector digital media solutions consultants about generative artificial intelligence. They discuss the creative tools Adobe has developed for its use in their products involving AI, their content authenticity initiative and the idea of content credentialing visual information products, and more examples of the practical applications of generative AI in the daily life of a professional communicator.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous has a conversation with three of Adobe's public sector digital media solutions consultants about generative artificial intelligence. They discuss the creative tools Adobe has developed for its use in their products involving AI, their content authenticity initiative and the idea of content credentialing visual information products, and more examples of the practical applications of generative AI in the daily life of a professional communicator.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous has a conversation with three of Adobe's public sector digital media solutions consultants about generative artificial intelligence. They discuss the creative tools Adobe has developed for its use in their products involving AI, their content authenticity initiative and the idea of content credentialing visual information products, and more examples of the practical applications of generative AI in the daily life of a professional communicator.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous sits down with the Chief of Community Relations at Joint Base Myer - Henderson Hall, Ms. Susan LeRoy. She's a former DINFOS instructor and student, and she shares what makes for a good COMREL program, how to build a successful and meaningful relationship between the community and the command, and some quality tips for future community relations specialists.

On this episode, Defense Information School instructor and show host Jack Rous sits down with the Chief of Community Relations at Joint Base Myer - Henderson Hall, Ms. Susan LeRoy. She's a former DINFOS instructor and student, and she joins us to talk about what makes for a good COMREL program, how to build a successful and meaningful relationship between the community and the command, and some quality tips and tricks for future community relations specialists.

Show SummaryOn this episode, we feature a conversation with Bruce Townshend, the Chief of Employer Engagement with Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), an office of the Department of Defense that promotes understanding between Reserve Component Service members and their civilian employersAbout Today's Guest Bruce Townshend, Chief, Employer Engagement, Employer Support of the Guard & Reserve (ESGR), Department of Defense Bruce Townshend is responsible for the planning, design and execution of proactive ESGR employer engagement initiatives to customers (Employers) and stakeholders (Guardsmen, Reservists and the Department of Defense). In this capacity he establishes frequent contact with corporate executives in a broad spectrum of industries, state government executives, mayors of major cities, and high-ranking military and Department of Defense officials to positively influence, motivate and persuade leaders - many of whom are uninformed or skeptical - on the merits of ESGR programs and services. Mr. Townshend is a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he enlisted in the Army in 1981 as a military policeman. He holds a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice from Northeastern University in Boston, 1987. He was commissioned as an officer in the Military Police Corps through ROTC. He is a 2004 graduate of the Defense Information School as a qualified military Public Affairs Officer. He served a combined total of 28 years in the Army and Army Reserve, with assignments in Alabama, Virginia and Washington, and overseas assignments in Panama and Germany. He has served in Korea and deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 416th Engineer Command from Darien, Illinois, in 2003. For the final three years of his career, he mobilized with the Army Reserve and was a primary developer and implementor of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program (YRRP) as a project and program manager up to his retirement in 2011. He worked for the Army Reserve YRRP as a contract program manager until coming to ESGR in November, 2017.Mr. Townshend and his wife, Robin, have five grown children and eight grandchildren. He is an avid poker player and is fiercely proud of his Scottish and Irish heritages. He has been to all 50 states. He and Robin currently reside near Front Royal, Virginia.Links Mentioned In This EpisodeESGR WebsiteState and Local ESGR ContactsPsychArmor Resource of the WeekThis week's PsychArmor resource of the week is the PsychArmor the course, Best Practices for Employer Support of National Guard & Reserve Members. This course is intended to help guide employers who hire or are looking to hire National Guard & Reserve members. This course will discuss best practices pertaining to recruiting, training, and developing family support policies. You can see find the course here:  https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/Best-Practices-for-Employer-Support-of-National-Guard-and-Reserve This Episode Sponsored By: This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystems specializing in military culture content PsychArmor offers an. Online e-learning laboratory that is free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. Contact Us and Join Us on Social Media Email PsychArmorPsychArmor on TwitterPsychArmor on FacebookPsychArmor on YouTubePsychArmor on LinkedInPsychArmor on InstagramTheme MusicOur theme music Don't Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families.  You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com  

Robert Jefferson is an American broadcast news anchor and Air Force veteran, professor of journalism and has had the majority of his career working in Japan.Jefferson shares an overview of his career and biography, while offering his views on the decline of journalism and the West. He offers advice for those considering life abroad and emphasizes the importance of staying curious, questioning authority, and learning history to navigate the current media landscape. Jefferson also shares his personal health journey and the benefits of gardening and maintaining a healthy lifestyle in this insightful interview.Connect with The Kamakura GardenerSupport The Kamakura Gardener : patreon.com/TheKamakuraGardenerSubject Time Stamps:* (01:26) The Mid-Atlantic Broadcast Accent and Biography* (03:25) The Dark Side of Paradise* (07:25) Relationship to Social Media* (09:25) Work at NHK World TV…* (15:58) An Interest in the Foreign* (20:24) Moving to Japan* (27:19) A Decline in Japanese Media * (34:48) Being a Free Man in Japan* (45:07) The Kamakura Gardener / Catharsis * (57:05) Teaching at Temple University* (1:02) Critique of being labeled a conspiracy theorist and the importance of seeking truth* (1:09) Finding Opportunities Abroad * (1:15) Closure and Where to ConnectLeafbox:Today I had the pleasure of speaking and learning from Robert Jefferson. Robert is an American 47 year broadcast news anchor, and Air Force veteran. He's a professor of journalism and has had the majority of his career working in Japan. Aside from his broadcast duties, he has a smaller, intimate project known as the Kamakura Gardener. Today we explore his biography, his disenchantment with corporate media, truth finding and sense-making, and his eventual catharsis in finding local content, connecting community to the gardens and surroundings of Kamakura Japan. He shares his experience finding freedom in Japan and offers an analysis of the decline of journalism and of the West. We talk about his brief stint in Hawaii and the mainland, and offer an option for those considering life abroad and paths for finding opportunity. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy. That's one of my first questions. I think my mom, she introduced me to your videos and I think she fell in love with your voice. You definitely have a beautiful broadcaster voice. Where did you actually grow up in the States?Robert Jefferson:I was born in Philadelphia, but I grew up in Montgomery County, which is about an hour north of Philadelphia. And I have what's called a Mid-Atlantic Broadcast accent. I was in broadcasting in the military. That was my job information broadcast specialist. I was a TV news announcer in the Air Force. I was lucky. I insisted. I had an FCC license when I joined. I had been studying up to that point, actually. They tried to make me an inventory management specialist, and I said, hell no. Hell no. And I prevailed, and it didn't take long, just a week or so, and I was sent to a technical school, the Defense Information School of Journalism Public Affairs. I know Honolulu well, I knew Honolulu very well back in the mid eighties for KHVH News Radio 99 and KGU Talk Radio 76. The voice of "Hawaii".Leafbox:Well, you actually had the perfect Hawaii accent there. That was pretty well done.Robert Jefferson:Yeah, most people have no clue what the W is a “V” sound.Leafbox:It's not America and it's not Japan. It's in between both. But here in Hawaii, I think we have, there's a strong sense of Aina, of place, of localism, of culture, of being connected to each other. People haveRobert Jefferson:The benefit of true diversity. You have the Japanese, the Chinese, the Portuguese, and the Polynesians, and then all of the other imports from around the world. So yeah, it's truly diverse. And that's not some just trite word. It truly is. Yeah. And then the local traditions, the first time I was ever called nigger was in Hawaii, in Honolulu. I was walking home one night from a club or somewhere. I was living in Lower Manoa, and I was walking up the hill from Honolulu. And these young, they were Asian kids, they were drunk or something, and they lean out the window, Hey nigger. That was the first and only time. I never felt any racial discrimination or antipathy or anything like that while I was there. And I was like, well, what the hell was that all about?Leafbox:What year was this in?Robert Jefferson:85, 86. But yeah, that was the only time. And so I would never let that taint my view or my experience in Hawaii. I mean, I was, it's this young, skinny black kid basically who got hired at two of the best radio stations in town. And then ABC News hired me to come back to, I left Japan to go to Hawaii, and then ABC News hired me to come back. So I'm not sure what that was all about, but that was the only time most people were very kind and gracious.Leafbox:So how long were you in Hawaii for?Robert Jefferson:About two years. And I meant to do this. I had to go back. When you get older, you kind of forget certain things, especially when it was four decades ago, a year and a half to two years that I was there. And I was able to, actually, I think I may have it, if you give me just a quick second here. There was a recreation of a voyage, a Polynesian voyage, the Hokulea, and I was there when they arrived at the beach, sort of like a spiritual leader, Sam Ka'ai. He was there, and yeah, I'll never forget that. They were blowing a co shell and they were doing all kinds of Hawaiian prayers and whatnot. It was absolutely beautiful.Leafbox:I didn't know anything about this. And your biographies kind of limited online a lot about yourRobert Jefferson:Yeah, I used to be on LinkedIn and all that. I erased it all. I got rid of it all. I don't trust LinkedIn, and I don't mind people knowing about me. But yeah, I would just prefer to have control over it.Leafbox:I apologize about these people in, butRobert Jefferson:Oh, no, no, no, no. You don't have to apologize at all. You have to apologize.Leafbox:Well, I mean, the good thing is you saw some of the darkness in Paradise as well, that there's very complex class issues.Robert Jefferson:When I was in Lower Manoa, I lived at, it was a house share, actually an old converted garage share. I was sharing with two other guys. One was Filipino American and the other one was from Detroit, a black American. And the owners were Chinese, and they were really sweet, very nice. The old lady, she used to get, she realized how poor we were. So she used to give us our lunches or dinner boxes, whatever. And she would always say "Sek Fan" , she couldn't speak much English. Sek Fan" is Cantonese for Have you Eaten? Which means How are you? But basically, it literally means have you eaten Shan Shan? And yeah, she's very sweet. Her sons were very nice, very nice. So yeah, I mean, I never had any racial issues except for that one night. Luckily it was just that one night. Yeah, you're right. It's good that I did experience a little darkness in paradiseLeafbox:Talking about darkness. I just was wondering what your concern a few times in the interview with the Black Experience guy, you talked about how you removed your Facebook account and how you just said that you deleted your LinkedInRobert Jefferson:Pretty much at the same time. Yeah, that was like 2016. I had just gotten fed up with big media.Leafbox:Well, that's one of my first questions is that you were in big media. Yeah. What shifted that media disenchantment or disgust?Robert Jefferson:Well, it was what Facebook and Zuckerberg were doing, prying into people's private affairs, restricting people from doing this, that and the other. I could see it coming, what we have now, the blacklisting, the shadow banning the outright banning of people. I could see that coming. And I said, I don't want to be any part of this. That's why I did sign up for Twitter years ago. I tried to use it a couple of times, and I was like, what the hell is this for? I couldn't really see the purpose. And it turns out it's just a place for people to go and show off or b***h and complain about each other. I don't want to be a part of that. It's something that Americans don't learn in school, and that is Jacobinism, bolshevism, Communism, Marxism. It is exactly what's happening in the United States now.It's being taken over. You go back and look at the French Revolution, the Jacobins, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, how they destroyed Russia, what happened in Germany during World War ii, the Nazism and all that. And they're doing it here now. Well, here, they're doing it in the United States now, and most people aren't taught about this stuff. They have no clue. They have no clue what's happening, and you can see it. For example, what's his name? The former FBI Director McCabe back in the seventies when he was in college and just getting out of college, he was identified Marxist, a communist. He was a member of the Communist Party, Brenner, the former CIA director, communist.And the media won't say anything about them. You try to bring it up and they'll deny it. But I mean, their quotes are out there. They don't deny the quotes. And now these people are running government. I mean, the whole Congress just pisses me off. I mean, how do you have somebody making 170,000 between $170,000 and $200,000 a year owning million dollar mansions? What's Maxine Waters in California? She owns a four and a half million dollar house on a $170,000 salary. That's impossible. Nancy Pelosi is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Her husband is worth more.Leafbox:Robert, why don't we go back one second, and just for people who don't know about your career and who you are, just a one minute biography for people.Robert Jefferson:Currently, I am a broadcast journalist. I work for Japan's public Broadcaster, NHK, at which I am a news writer and an announcer. I worked for two sections of NHK , NHK World tv, and I also work for the domestic service channel one as an announcer. We have what's called here, bilingual news. And the evening news is translated by a huge staff of translators and simultaneous interpreters, and I'm one of the on-Air English language announcers. So on a sub-channel, sub audio channel, how you can tune into either Japanese or English or both. You can split the channels. NHK world TV is internet based. It's for a foreign audience. It's not allowed to be broadcast in Japan, sort of like Voice of America used to be banned from broadcasting in the United States until Barack Obama came along. It was illegal for the United States government to propagandize its citizens, and the Voice of America is considered to be propaganda.And Barack Obama changed that to allow them to broadcast propaganda to American citizens. But anyway, I digress. So yeah, I've been in broadcasting as a professional. It'd be 50 years in 2026, actually started learning broadcasting in 1974. So next year will be my 50th anniversary as a novice, at least. I started in Philadelphia. I started, I heard it at W-D-A-S-A-M at FM in Philadelphia, if you can see that. I think it says 1977. I actually started in 1976, and I also worked at WRTI in Philadelphia, Temple University's radio station. And that was back in the late mid seventies. And then in 2003, when I went back to the States, I worked at WRTI, Temple University's radio station for a short while, while I was still in Philadelphia. Sorry to be jumping around like this, but right now, yes, I work for NHK right now. I was in high school.I started studying television production in high school in 1974 as a freshman. And then in 1976, I went to work as an intern, a production assistant at WDAS AM and FM in Philadelphia. People may remember Ed Bradley. He was with 60 Minutes. He got his start at, I don't know, maybe not his start, but he did work at WDAS in Philadelphia for a short time. And I went on and joined. I was enrolled at Temple University after high school in 1978, and I only spent one semester there because I was just sick and tired of sitting in classrooms after having spent 12 years in grade school and already had experience. I even had a federal communications commission's license, a third class radio telephone operators permit, which I still have somewhere around here, the certificate be in the business. I wanted to be, my dream was to be a foreign correspondent, which came true later.I'll get to that. And I wanted to be a war correspondent, but there were no wars at the time because the Vietnam War had ended, had it continued, I probably would've been drafted, but it ended in 75, and I came of age, well military age in 77. So I decided to join the Air Force. A friend of mine was thinking of joining the Air Force, and he wanted me to come along and basically sit with him and hold his hand while he talked to an Air Force recruiter. And so I went along and listened to him, and after he finished his spiel with my friend Tony, he turned to me and said, well, what about you? And I said, I'm fine. I'm enrolled at Temple University. And yeah, I've been a pursue a broadcasting career. And he said, well, don't you realize that the United States military has the largest network at the time in the world?And I said, really? Never heard of that? And he said, yeah, I'll come back and I'll bring some pamphlets and show you what we have. So he did, did come back, and there was the promise of being stationed overseas. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. And so here I had an opportunity to travel the world and be paid for doing something in the United States military, at least that I wanted to do. And it was so enticing that I said, sure, I'll do it. I said, get away from the college classes. That would just totally boring. And to continue doing what I had already been doing for the past couple of years, four years at least. So yeah, I signed up and went to the Defense Information School of Journalism and Public Affairs. Overall, it was about a two year course and my first assignment, I was never stationed stateside. All of my assignments were overseas. My first assignment was in Southern Turkey at Interlink Air Base, just outside the southern Turkish city of Adana, just off the Mediterranean coast, just above Greece and Cyprus, close to the border with Syria and not too far from Lebanon.Leafbox:Where did this interest for the foreign come from? Was your family also military family, or where did you have Philadelphia? Why were you concerned with the rest of the world?Robert Jefferson:My family wasn't, we weren't traveling military. All of my grandfather was a jet engine mechanic in World War ii. My father was in the Korean War, but he was stationed in Germany. His younger brothers were also in the Korean War. They wanted to take advantage of the GI Bill, which they did. My father went on to study architecture at Drexel University in Philadelphia, but from a very young age, I was very curious about news. My first recollection, well, what I remember most about my childhood, the earliest recollection that I have of my childhood was November 22nd, 1963. I was three years old when John F. Kennedy was shot. And I was wondering, why are all of these adults staring at the television and crying, and why is the TV on all the time? All day long, we had this black and white TV sitting in the living room. We lived in Philadelphia at the time, and I was just fascinated.I could still remember the cortage of Kennedy's horse-drawn coffin on top of a horse-drawn carriage going down. I guess it was Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House or wherever. I'm pretty sure it was the White House. And ever since that, I was just curious. I would sit when my mother would have her little cocktail parties or whatever, I would sit in the other room and eavesdrop. I was just curious about what they were talking about. I was always curious about news. Back in the sixties, you had the African liberation movements and the assassinations of African leaders. The Vietnam War was in full swing. Well, after Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson came in. Then there was the moon, the space race, how the Soviets were winning the space race, the first country to put a satellite in space, the first country to put an animal in space, the first country to put a man in space, the first country to put a woman in space, the first country to put a person of African descent in space in Americas was being shown up. See, we don't learn this stuff in school, but you could fact check me. Yeah, we had had newspapers galore. We had the Philadelphia Daily Bulletin in the morning and afternoon. We had the Philadelphia Enquirer. They had two papers a day. Of course, there was no internet back then, but people actually read the newspaper and actually talked about it. It was okay to talk about things. The civil rights movement was in full swing. It was quite a heady time to be young and impressionable.Leafbox:Robert, did your sister share this interest in media and international, your twin sister, you have?Robert Jefferson:No, not at all. Not at all. And I've, she recently joined Telegram, and I sent her a little welcome message, and then I tried to send her something newsworthy and she didn't want to hear it. She even said, I don't want to be seeing things like this. I forget exactly what it was. And so I deleted it. And I've never said anything like that. I have an older brother. I have two older sisters who are also twins, and then an older brother, and we used to send each other articles and we used to talk about things. But there's been a huge divide I found in America. A lot of people have joined a team, a tribe, and they don't want to hear anything else, whether it's the cult Covidian or the staunch Democrats or the staunch Republicans, the MAGA country people or whatever, people, a lot of people just don't want to talk anymore. But back in the sixties and seventies, people talked. They argued and they went out and had a barbecue together. There wasn't this vitriol in this division. Now, and this is done on purpose to divide and rule people. This is all being done on purpose. But back to your point, yeah, my sister, she was interested in sports. I wasn't. I became the house announcer at basketball games. I did play in junior high school. I did play football, but that was about it. I never played basketball, never learned the rules, never learned the positions. It just didn't interest me. I saw brothers fighting over basketball games and whatnot, destroying each other's bicycles over, and these were brothers how they went home and solved it, I don't know. ButLeafbox:Just moving forward a bit in time to Japan, you do the Air Force, they train you to be a journalist or announcer, and then how do you get to Japan?Robert Jefferson:Not only that announcer, a writer, a camera operator, a technical operator pressing all the buttons in the control room, ENG, electronic news gathering, the little mini cam on the shoulder thing, everything they taught.Leafbox:I mean, this might be a direct question, but you talked about propandandizing the population, being educated as a journalist or person in the Air Force seems, I'm curious how that educational experience is different than maybe how you're teaching a Temple and what the goals of that information management is.Robert Jefferson:Well, it is interesting. I dunno if you've seen the movie, Good Morning, Vietnam. Remember the two twins who were censors, the identical twins who were censoring, they would stand in the other room just beyond the glass, staring at the DJ or whatever, making sure they don't say anything wrong or if they're reading the news or something. That's Hollywood. There was never any such censor. We had no one censoring us. We had host nation sensitivities. Here I am in Southern Turkey during the Iran hostage crisis. No one stood over my shoulder censoring me. When I put together a newscast, it was my responsibility, and nobody told me what I couldn't say or what I couldn't say. It was just be respectful. We are in a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey, and so be respectful. And I was actually studying Islam at the time, and so I was one of the few people who could pronounce the names of the people in the news back then, the Iranian Foreign Minister or the Iranian president, the Iranian Foreign Minister.. , and the president's name was..., and I was one of the only people who could even pronounce these names.And the Saudi Arabian, who was the OPEC oil chief, Ahmed Zaki Yamani. I was studying Arabic at the time. I was studying Turkish and Arabic, and so I could pronounce these names, but we didn't have censorship. We used the wire services, United Press International, UPI and Associated Press AP. And they had some really good broadcast wires and far different than today. They were real journalists. Then.There may have been some slants pro this or pro that pro Europe, pro-Israel or whatever, but it wasn't as blatant as it is today. I think we were far more objective and neutral back then than what I hear today, especially on the corporate networks, the big American networks, the cable networks and whatnot. We were far more objective and neutral than what people are listening to today. And this was in the Air Force. So the news that I was broadcasting was basically pretty much the same as people heard on the radio while driving to work in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, although I was in Southern Turkey, we tried to recreate the American media atmosphere there as either as DJs or news announcers, because we had all of the same inputs that you would have at a radio and television station back in the state. The obvious slants that you see today, that CNN, for example.Leafbox:What about Japan? That's one of my main critiques or questions I have about how the Japanese media is managed and your analysis as an American of how that media consensus is created in Japan. If you have any opinion on that.Robert Jefferson:Well, it seems to me, I've noticed, I've worked in Japanese media now for 40 years. It seems to me that now there's been a huge change. Japanese media used to be more curious than they are now. They seem to follow, how should I put it, the status quo, the western status quo. Don't, for example, the war in Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine, they're calling it an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. It was not unprovoked. Hello? There was a coup d'etat instigated by the United States during the aba, the Barack Obama administration, the overthrew, a democratically elected, the first democratically elected president of Ukraine, was overthrown by a US backed coup led by the state department's, Victoria Neuland and John McCain was there, John Kerry was there, Neuland. She was there handing out cookies in Maidan Square, and now they called it an unprovoked invasion. The Ukrainians were killing their own people.They happened to be ethnic Russians, but they were killing their own people. 14,000 of them were dying in Eastern Ukraine. The Donetsk Lugansk don't question that. To answer your question, the Japanese don't question. They just go along with whatever Reuters is saying, whatever the AP is saying, whatever the Western American corporate TV networks or cable news are saying, it is just blindly following the status quo. And years ago, they didn't do that. They're taking sides because Japan and Russia have some territorial disputes, some four northern islands that Russia invaded and took over in the closing days of World War ii. And Japan and Russia have yet to sign a peace treaty. They have diplomatic relations, but they've yet to sign a peace treaty because the Japanese were upset that the Russians won't vacate those adds and give them back. But there's a lot of untruths being told in Japanese media about what's going on, that the Ukrainians are winning when they're obviously losing, that the Russians committing atrocities. And it's been proven that the Ukrainians military has committed far more atrocities than the Russians have, and on and on.Leafbox:Do you think that change in journalistic culture, where does that come from? Is that from just external pressure, the lack of, why do you think? Is that because of the decline of Japan economically, the independence that it's had? I'm just curious where you think thatRobert Jefferson:There's a lot of them. Yeah, it is the economic decline. It's wanting to feel as though there's a feeling, in my opinion anyway. I sense that there's a feeling among the Japanese leadership that they want to be accepted. They have been accepted in the Western Bloc. That's a full fledged member of the Western Bloc, and they don't want to lose that position. But they sense it's obvious that economically Japan has fallen very far, and basically it's suicide. We had trade representatives, and I still remember some of the names, Charlene Barshefsky, the US Trade representative coming to Japan, forcing Japan to stop being successful economically, forcing their automobile companies and other industries to stop being so goddamn successful. How dare, how dare you produce such wonderful cars that everyone wants to buy, especially from the 1970s when they produced cars with great, great mileage, gasoline mileage.And here we are watching Japan. It's already slipped from number two to number three behind China, United States. And United States is not the number one economic power anymore. And Western media, American media won't admit that, but America may have more in the way of money or wealth. But when it comes to purchasing power, there's an index called PPP, purchasing Power Parity, and then there's also manufacturing China, far outstrips the United States in manufacturing capacity and purchasing power of parity. So China is number one economically. The United States is number two. Japan is number three, but it's about to lose that spot to Germany, but then Germany is going to lose it to whoever. I mean, Germany economy has been screwed. Again, it's another example of the German economy is another example of how a company is committing suicide. All the EU is basically committing suicide, allowing the United States to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, and it's like, whoa, we don't know who did it? Who did that? Who did? Okay, well knock it off. Joe Biden ordered that pipeline being destroyed, and we have him on tape saying that if the Russians do this, that pipeline is dead. We have Victoria Neuland saying basically the same thing. We have a Twitter message from someone in the US State Department to, I think it was the Polish leader. The job is done, and she got fired soon after that. I mean, it's all a sick game, a deadly game being played here.Leafbox:As a journalist and as a thinker about media information management, how do you think you are seeing through it? How are you seeing through the untruths? Why does writers at the New York Times differ? Is it because you're a foreigner in Japan that you think you have that, or where do you get that independent spark from?Robert Jefferson:I've got nearly 50 years of experience in news in international news as a foreign correspondent with ABC news here in Japan. I was also the Tokyo correspondent for the West German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle Radio at the same time that I was working with ABC. And at that time, I was also an announcer at Tokyo Broadcasting System. It was a weekend anchor at Japan able television. I did some radio programs and entertainment program music programs here in Japan. I've been around the world, not all everywhere. I haven't been to Africa, I haven't been to South America, but Europe and Asia and Pacific I've been to and covered stories. I can see how the news coverage has changed. It's very obvious to me. I can see right through it. I stopped watching television. I've got a television here. I've got one downstairs, big TVs. I don't even watch them anymore. I may hook them up to my computer and watch something online on my TVs, but I don't watch CNN. I don't watch Fox News. I'll watch little snippets of it online.And one of my heroes was Peter Jennings, someone I really looked up to. He was with ABC. He started at ABC back in the sixties when he was 26 years old. He was an anchor for ABC's World News tonight. It may not have been called World News tonight then, but ABC's Evening News, whatever it was called back then. His father was a Canadian. He's Canadian. Well, he naturalized as an American citizen eventually, but his father was a news executive in Canada and Peter Jennings, I mean, he was a high school dropout. He never went to college, but he was absolutely brilliant. He was an autodidact. And yeah, I think he was quite brilliant. He didn't need such diplomas and degrees and things, but he felt that he needed to leave the anchor role and go and hone his skills as a journalist, which he did.And he stayed with ABC, and he became the chief international correspondent based in London. And back in the early eighties, there was a tripartite anchor team, Frank Reynolds in Washington, max Robinson, the first black network news anchor in the United States. He was based in Chicago, and Peter Jennings was based in London. They had a wonderful, wonderful, and the ABC Evening News back then was absolutely wonderful. They actually told you what was going on around the world, but you could learn the names of countries and cities and leaders and places and people, and now you've got people on these networks now who can't even pronounce names correctly. Even people who are foreign correspondents can't even find places on maps. It's just, it's sad to see how low journalism has fallen and trust in journalism has really fallen. I mean, it's in the single digits now, which is sad.So yeah, I can see through, I mean, the whole situation that erupted in February of 2022 in Ukraine, people like unprovoked attack by Russia. Russia wants to take over Europe. No, they don't. They simply want to be left alone. The United States under Bill Clinton tried to rob Russia, tried to go in there and steal Russian industry, the Soviet industry, basically to use the oligarchs who basically swooped in and scooped up all of these industries and made billions of dollars who were trying to persuade born Yeltsin who was suffering from alcoholism to basically sell out his country. He wasn't stupid, but he did have an alcohol problem, and he turned to Vladimir Putin and told him basically, dude, you got to help save Russia. A lot of Americans don't know the history between Russia and the United States, that Russia supported the American Revolution, that Russia parked some of its armada, naval armada off the coast of New York Harbor and told the French and off the coast of I think the Carolinas, and told the British and the French, don't you dare interfere in the American Civil War. The French and the British were trying to help the South and against the north, and the Russians, the Russian empires said, no, no, don't you dare.Leafbox:In one of the interviews you had with the, I forget the host of the name, but you said that you feel free in Japan. I forget the exact quote. You said, maybe like I'm a free black man in Japan.Robert Jefferson:Yeah.Leafbox:How does that connotate to how you analyze the world? I mean, do you think if you had been 40 year career in the States, you'd have this lens?Robert Jefferson:I have been back to the States once the first time to Hawaii for two years, and then when I was in 2000, I was turning, I think by the time I went back, yeah, well, that year, 2000, I turned 40. So I have been back to the states, and I had no desire to work for corporate media. I went back and went to work for WHYY in Philadelphia, which is an NPR and PBS affiliate, and I actually was an NPR correspondent. I was their Philadelphia correspondent. While I was there covering expressly presidential visits, whenever a George Bush would come to town, president Bush would come to town, I would join the White House press pool at the airport and ride in the presidential motorcade into the city and follow the president around. I was a pool reporter, and then I left WHYY and went out west.I wanted to challenge myself and do more. So I went into media management and worked at a community radio station in Portland, Oregon. And then I went to another community radio station owned by Bellevue Community College, just outside of Seattle, Washington, and went into a management there as assistant general manager and program director at a radio station there. And it was wonderful to work at a nonprofit media organization teaching people how to do news. And when I was there, Portland, Oregon was voted year after year as the most livable city in America. Look at it now, a shithole, a shithole of left-wing people who've just destroyed the city. And I'd always consider myself left. But at 63 years old, now I'm conservative, not a Republican conservative. No, I'm just conservative of hopefully someone who's got a little bit of wisdom and who would like to conserve decency and morality and people's right to practice whatever religion they want to and to say what they want to look at, how free speech is being eroded in the United States.Now, some of the things, I'm talking to you now, I'd be criticized or banished from saying, and this is by people on the left. We never heard anybody on the right saying banished them. And I remember when I was in Hawaii at KHVH News Radio, rush Limbaugh was getting his start. He was on KHVH. Larry King was on KHVH, and we allowed people to say what they wanted to say, Limbaugh. He would take the word liberal and say liberal. He would just vomit it out. But you had another voice on there, Larry King and other voices, left, right, center, whatever. And now look at how polarized and divided America is today. It is sad. It's very sad. But yeah, it is not like I'm here in Japan in a bubble. I can see everything. You see, I don't watch television, so I'm not watching KION or what, I forget what the other stations are. I wouldn't watch them. But if something is newsworthy, I can go online and see what's happening in Lahaina or Lana, as most of the journalists these days call it. They don't even do your research, learn the pronunciation, and they even put up a transliteration on the screen, L-A-H-H-A-Y-nah. It's not Laina, it's Lahaina.It's just laziness. A lot of journalism today is just laziness going along to get along, being part of the team. And this is what I didn't like about sports growing up, just seeing brothers fighting over a goddamn ball game. And here we have that now, this sports mentality, this tribal mentality of wearing colors and painting your face colors of your team, and it's bled into our politics. Now. I remember the house speaker Tip O'Neill, he would say something, oh, my friend across the aisle, now it's that terrorist across the aisle or that oph file across the aisle or something. America has really devolved, and as someone who grew up at a time when in the sixties, up until the early to mid seventies, we didn't lock our doors. There were no home invasions. What happened in Lewiston, Maine yesterday, 22 people being shot. We didn't have kids going into school, shooting up each other. We had kids walking down the street with a shotgun over their shoulder. They were going to hunt some squirrels or deer hunting or something, and they did it right. They registered their guns, they wore the orange stuff, and what the hell happened? What happened to families? What happened to mother and father? Now you've got single women raising kids, fathers, making babies, and walking away, what the hell happened to America? And it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.Leafbox:Going back to Japan, I'm just curious, Japan has a history of political violence and disagreement.Robert Jefferson:Last year we had the assassination of a former Prime minister.Leafbox:Correct. So I thinkRobert Jefferson:The attempt assassination this year of another one, it's successor.Leafbox:So I'm just curious how you contrast that to the us or if you do, or I always feel like information in Japan is actually more freeIf you look for it.Robert Jefferson:YouTube channel, well, not used, but websites aren't banned here in Japan as they are in the eu. They don't have these draconian measures like the EU does. And the United States would love to impose information flows freely here in Japan, if you know where to look for it. If you want it, you can look for it. You can get a VPN and disguise your location and find out more information. But yeah, political violence, there's a long history of it here. I mean, going back thousands of years, I mean, Kamakura, the city I live in here, there's a monument and the graveside of a guy named Hino who had his head lopped off because he disobeyed a Shogun. And just this morning I walked past his little, this little graveside. It is like, wow. And I looked into the history of it. He got beheaded because he disagreed or the win against a local warlord or Shogun, the leader of, well, Japan wasn't unified then, but it was becoming unified.But yeah, Japan was extremely fascistic at the turn of the last century, the 20th century, prime ministers were assassinated. The military took over, got Japan involved in World War ii. Yeah, yeah. But it's been very peaceful here, post World War ii, there are lots of heinous crimes that are committed every day, seemingly ordinary people. People you wouldn't expect to fathers against sons, sons against fathers or against mothers. It happens here. Japan is not a paradise here, but it is. I do lock my doors here, but no one has ever bothered me here at my home. No one's bothered my car. People are very decent. There's decency here that is disappearing fast, disappearing in the United States. Neighbors who won't talk to you in the United States, I know my neighbors here. One reason I moved out of Tokyo is because neighbors, you lived in an apartment building. You get on an elevator, you're like, well, who are you? I wanted to know who you are.I'm Robert. I live on the sixth floor. Who are you? I demanded people to know who people were. But here, people are curious. They want to know, well, who's this black guy who moved here when I moved here 17 years ago, and now everybody knows me. The police know who I am. They come by and check on me. They have a registration that you fill out so that they know who's who. But yeah, I've never bothered by the police. I don't fear going to the police station. I laugh and joke with him. One policeman came on his motorbike years ago when I first moved here a few years after I moved here. And he was just doing his patrols. And he slipped and fell, and he had some mud on his boots and up his pant leg. And so I helped him wash it off and whatnot. And we had a good laugh about that. Yeah, I mean, it is, I don't have to put up with foolishness, and I'll look at things on Twitter or X as it's called now, of black, especially youth running amuck in the states, going into convenience stores or department stores and just going crazy, acting crazy in fast food joints, tearing the place up, throwing chairs and tables and stuff. It's like, what the hell? I never experienced that when I lived in the United States. And everybody thinks it's normal now.That happens. Something terrible is going on in the United States, as you say. It's happened in Venezuelas, it's happened in Colombia, it's happened in Mexico, it's happening in Europe. Now. The chickens are coming home to roost. I don't know, but something is afoot, and I'm simply saying, not today, Satan. Not here, not with me.Leafbox:So maybe we can go to your gardening project, Robert, because that sounds like a, to me, it feels like a counter to all that negative energy. You have this personal space, and you have such a wonderful voice and broadcast history, but now you're producing this content that offers an alternative. So I'd love to know where that comes from and why you're doing it.Robert Jefferson:It's catharsis, it's healing. Nearly 50 years of covering wars and murder and mayhem and thievery, and just, I'll admit it, it's still exciting when news happens. It's exciting to see. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be the first to know and the first to tell. I wasn't a snitch. No. But that's what attracted me to journalism was being the first to know and the first to spread the word for me. Now, after all these years, five, six decades of reporting the news, I'm tired. Some or so that I gave up drinking three years ago. I gave up alcohol, completely, cold Turkey in one day, April 30th, May 1st next day, Mayday, mayday, mayday. I was alcohol free. And I had been since then, desire, I even had still a few bottles left in the fridge and here and there, and I gave them away.I had no desire to drink anymore. So my gardening, I've been doing that pretty much all of my life with some breaks in between. I grew up gardening, helping a neighbor, particularly with her garden. And then as a teenager, when I was also working at the radio station, and on weekends, during the week, especially in the summertime, during summer break, I worked for a landscaper, a guy in my town. He had a landscaping business. And I love working with plants, either cutting them down or helping them grow. Yeah, it is just beautiful for me. This is very cathartic, the gardening. And then something said, well, I've been doing this for years and I'm not, I thought about YouTube years ago, and it's like, nah, it is the alcohol that made me so lazy. I didn't even want to do it. And then finally, oh, about 2016 or so, 2016 I think it was, I made one video, and if you go back and you can see my very first video, it's featured my two dogs at the time, my band spunky and just showing my garden.And then three years ago when I quit drinking, I needed something to do with my time because I'm an independent contractor, so I don't have a set schedule, schedule changes, and sometimes I'm busy and sometimes I'm not back. Three years ago, I was not very busy at all, and now I'm extremely busy and I love it. But yeah, it was a chance to channel my energies into something productive and to give something back to the world. Instead of talking about how many people got murdered in Lewiston, Maine yesterday, how to take this little seed, sprout it, grow it into a tree that's taller than me now, and to give something back. A lot of my subscribers and viewers, as you say, they mentioned how calming my videos are. And I think now that you've heard me talk for a while, you can see why I do what I do.I've got a lot in me that's just screaming to get out, and it's not all negative, but there's a lot of negativity out there. And instead of joining that bandwagon, I decide to put this energy into something that can hopefully, even if people don't want to get into gardening or they can't because they live in an apartment. Someone just sent me a message the other day saying, I mentioned growing stuff. If you have a balcony, and they said, no, I live in an apartment. I don't have a balcony. Then I thought about, yeah, there's a lot of people who don't even have balconies, but if they can't do gardening, at least I can bring them some sort of enjoyment or peace of mind for the 15 or 20 minutes that they're watching my channel.Leafbox:Well, that's why I enjoy it. I think you're offering kind of like, yeah, just a counter to that negative informational, and also being in Japan, you're creating, as an American, you're offering this alternative Look, you can live in this calm way. You can go to the gardening store and be polite. You don't have to rob the store. You don't have to get in a fight. You can share this space. And you met this British guy, and he's doing the natural farming. Another form,Robert Jefferson:Actually, he's Dutch.Leafbox:Oh, Dutch, sorry.Robert Jefferson:He studied in Britain. He went to Oxford. And yeah.Leafbox:Anyway, it's just nice to see you building this community. I mean, you have the community of foreign correspondents and Japanese broadcasters, so it's nice to see you go very local, but now you're sort to, you can feel the layers building you're building.Robert Jefferson:Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is one reason why I wanted to come back to Japan. I went back to the States, and I was there for five years. Even though the people here is a majority Japanese country, it's not as homogeneous as you think it is because the foreign communities are growing here, especially other Asians, Vietnamese and Chinese and Koreans. The article in the newspaper just yesterday that I saw that the numbers are increasing quite a bit, but it's a place to come and meet people from all over the world. Hendrick, my neighbor here, I walked past this house every morning and I'm like, this is Hendrick. This is interesting. And then one afternoon I walked past and I see, oh, this is your place. And he looked at me like, who are you? Like, well, who are you? Why are you half naked out here in somebody's front yard and it's his front yard?And I said, dude, we sat and talked for an hour and a half, and then I came back with the camera. I said, if you don't mind, I'd like you to give me a garden tour and whatnot. He just sent me an email this morning. He's going back to Shizuoka, which is south of here. He's got some land there. Him and his son are going down for the weekend to do some work on the land they just bought. They don't have a structure on the land yet, but they're just working the land. Yeah, it's a chance to meet people from all over the world. And I found that when I was in the States, there's this closed mindedness, this closed mentality. You in Honolulu, you've got a lot more, as we were saying earlier, there's a lot more diversity, cultural diversity, ethnic diversity, and that makes a living in Hawaii so nice is that diversity.It's not just all the same types of people or people. They had their enclaves here and there, but there's more of in the United States, I mean even in places like New York or even the larger cities, people are separated in different enclaves. Here, there's a lot more melding in, well, it wouldn't make sense for all Americans to live in this section or all the Chinese to live in that section. But I mean, you do like an ost, there's a preponderance. There's a lot more people of Korean descent than in other cities. And in Yokohama, a lot more people of Chinese descent. But you don't have these ghettos that you see, these ethnic ghettos that you see in the States. So here, it's, it's a place to be, place to be yourself, to be oneself, to be who you are. A lot of people, especially when they're young, they come here and they do this.If, I dunno if you remember that song, turning Japanese, I forget who, a Divo or somebody turning Japanese. Oh, yes, I'm turning Japanese. Oh, yes, I think so. I forget who did the song. And people play that little thing. Everybody goes through that. We're in kimono and going to the Matsui, the festivals and stuff. Everybody goes through that. Then you've kind of had enough of that. But it's a place to, because I don't care. Even if you get Japanese citizenship, you're never going to be Japanese. So it's a chance to come and find out who you are. I don't have to speak like a brother from the hood, and I really can't do it anyway, so I better not even try. I don't have to act black. You may see in some of my speech patterns and mannerisms and whatnot, but I can just be me. We were talking, you were trying to figure out my accent. Earlier. When I was in high school and junior high school, I used to be ridiculed by other black kids. Bobby talked like he white because, well, if you notice, most children speak very clearly. They don't have black accents or this accent or that they speak very clearly. It's not until they get into puberty and beyond that, they start adopting these speech mannerisms of black or Asian or whatever.Leafbox:Do you think Japanese have the same freedom when they come to the US or when they leave Japan?Robert Jefferson:Yes. Yes. Because Japanese are under extraordinary pressures to fit in, to join a company, to fit into society, to not break the rules. It's a very rules-based society. And that's why you see such rebellion. And a lot of it, it may be superficial. A young Japanese kid with dreadlocks or now since the nineties, the big fat is to bleach blonde your hair, bleach your hair blonde. It's such a, and they're trying. Even still, there's a debate going on for high schoolers about the length of hair. They have to keep their hair at a certain length. The girls can't perm their hair. In many of the schools, the boys, if they have curly hair, they have to straighten it. And now you've got kids of mixed heritage. And there was a kid who's part black and part Japanese, and he was trying to wear cornrows at his graduation ceremony and couldn't attend. They banned it from attending and things like that. But see, I didn't grow up that way. I didn't grow up here for one. But yeah, there's a huge pressure. There's a lot of pressure, tremendous pressure for Japanese to conform, and they leave a lot of 'em still. There's a huge desire, oh, I want to go to the States, because they can finally explore who they are, who they want to become.And I had many students when I was teaching at Temple for 13 years, they said, yeah, next semester I'll be going to the main campus. And my advice was, be careful, make good friends and be very careful. But I said, go and explore. I mean, you're going to meet some wonderful people there, and you'll meet some horrible people. Some of them will be white, some of them will be black, some of them will be fellow Asians. You're going to have good times and bad times, but just take care. Be careful. Watch your back.Leafbox:Robert, talking about your classes at Temple, I think you were teaching ethics. What were you teaching? Ethics. I taught Journalism. I taught journalism. I started teaching media management and organization. That was my first course. Then I taught writing courses. And then at the end, I was teaching, the last four years or so, five years maybe. I was teaching ethics in journalism and the history of journalism. They were separate courses. So I taught history one semester, ethics, the next history, the ethics, the next, or over the summer I teach one or the other. So the history of journalism and ethical issues in journalism. Yeah.Well, I was just curious about what topics you were particularly interested in the ethics of journalism.Robert Jefferson:A lot of it dealt with hypocrisy in the media and using clips from media showing the hypocrisy and the outright lies, showing how, for example, CNN, there's a CNN correspondent in London, staging a demonstration. They went and got a group of people from a particular group. They were Muslims, and I forget exactly what they were protesting against, but they were actually telling people where to stand and how to stand. And the cameraman only framed these people in the shot to make it look like it was a huge crowd, but it was only about 10 or 12 people. I don't know why they recorded the whole thing, but I showed them the clip of the correspondent and the producers telling people what to do, when to hold up their signs. And then suddenly, oh, we're live now in London and it's all fake. And I played a lot of them. Have you seen the clip of the news catches like a montage of clips of newscasters all across the United States. We're concerned about our democracy. And they're all saying the same thing.Leafbox:Yes, it's troubling. I playedRobert Jefferson:That years ago, three, four years ago to my classes. And that was from Sinclair Broadcasting. They had all of their affiliates around the country read the same script, and somebody got ahold of all of them and put them all together in this montage. And that was three years ago. And look what we have now, people being canceled for saying the wrong thing. And these news organizations claiming to want to protect democracy. No, no, no. This is what communists do. And in America, we don't learn about the communist Ong. In China, the cultural revolution back in the 1970s, it wasn't that long ago, just 50 years ago, of students going after their professors, putting paint on their faces, making them wear dunk caps and stuff. And what's the guy's name? Weinstein in Oregon, who was raked over the coals by his student.Leafbox:Oh, Brett Weinstein. Yes. Weinstein. That was before CovidRobert Jefferson:Out of his university. Him and his wife. Yeah. Yeah. And I was being, they didn't have the balls. My core supervisor, temple University didn't have the balls to confront me. He wouldn't even have, we never once sat down and have a conversation. How about anything? He's one of these probably Marxists. I mean, they were marching up and down the streets supporting George Floyd, who just recently this news came out when he died, that he was not killed by the police officer. And this is what I was trying to tell my students. He died of a fentanyl and not fentanyl. It's fentanyl. Look at how the word spell you idiots. NYL is nil. Tylenol, fentanyl. And you got broadcasters who don't even know the difference, can't even pronounce the word correctly. But he died of a drug overdose. Fentanyl was in his system. Alcohol was in his system, cocaine was in his system. And what was he doing when he got arrested? He was trying to steal from a shop owner by passing counterfeit bills. And he and the police officer were bouncers at a nightclub. They knew each other, they knew each other. But that was hushed. This whole thing was hushed and cities burned. Milwaukee burned. Five police officers in Dallas were killed. Shot in their cars or on the street or wherever. Five of 'em just murdered by B bbl, M and Antifa.Leafbox:And what was your relationship with the Temple professor? You were saying?Robert Jefferson:He was my core supervisor and he was talking behind my back, calling me a conspiracy theorist. Journalist should be conspiracy theorists. That's why we had, I have Stone and Jack Anderson and Seymour Hirsch, who's still alive. And Glenn Greenwald. All journalists should be conspiracy theorists. We have to theorize about conspiracies because our government carries them out. The Nord streaming bombing was a conspiracy to tell Germany and the rest of Europe stay in line. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, it was a conspiracy to get America more involved. The Vietnam War, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a conspiracy not only of the Japanese, but Theodore Roosevelt, not Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt, FDR, to get America involved in World War ii, and he blamed it on Commanders of the Pacific fleets. There we should always be conspiracy. And this is what I was trying to teach my students to always ask questions. When I was a news director at the radio station at Portland, I was news and public affairs director, and I would put little reminders on the wall. Stay curious. Always stay here when somebody crossed out the C and put an F. Stay furious.And yeah, this is what I was trying to teach my students to question authority. Our job as journalists is to give voice to the voiceless and to question those in power. Not to just power what they say. I mean, this whole Covid thing, especially Black people who were complaining about systemic racism, they ran out to get the man's poison injected into them multiple times. And now we're learning just how dangerous that s**t is. People dying of myocarditis, sports, people first and now just regular people, children, they injected the s**t into children. My own twin sister, she got injected and now she doesn't want to talk much about her medical problems. I mean, this is what the media has done to the United States in particular. It's happened here too.Leafbox:Robert, do you know what post-truth is, meaning the sense that we're moving into a media empire state, that it's almost impossible to know what's real or what's true AI like you're talking about the CNN,Robert Jefferson:It's OrwellianLeafbox:Generating narratives. What are some tools?Robert Jefferson:We have AI news announcers now. Yeah,Leafbox:I know, but how do you try to stay sane in a world where it's like a Philip k Dick universe in the sense that everything is unreal and unreal at the same time? So how do you navigate this post-truth? Reality?Robert Jefferson:You have to have a good knowledge base. You have to have lifelong learning. When you see that link in something online or whatever, click that link. Go deeper. When you see that word you don't know, click on it and look up that word. Broaden your knowledge base, read history. Go onto YouTube and look at some of the historical documentaries. And one, some of it, it's b******t, but the more knowledge you have read books. Who's reading books anymore? Not many people, whether it's an audio book, but you can listen to it, or if it's an ebook. Read study history. That's why I was telling you about the history between Russia and the United States. Most of us Americans have no freaking clue that Russia and the United States were once so very close. That's why Russia sold us Alaska for pennies on the dollar, and it was so far away. They hadn't even explored much of their far east. But yeah, and most people don't know that Russia and the United States, that Soviet Union were allies in World War ii. It was that Russia did most of the heavy killing in World War II to defeat the Germans. We're not taught that.The whole thing with a Russiagate, you remember that? It was totally bogus. I was trying to tell my students then that this is b******t. It was all b******t, and I was proven right. I'm not there anymore. I tell the truth, but I was right. And those students will hopefully realize that their professor was trying to tell them the truth, and my superiors were trying to undermine me, and it is just sickening to see that whole Hillary Clinton cooked up that whole Russiagate thing and the FBI went along the FBI should be disbanded. The CIA was involved in overthrowing a duly elected president. And if it happens to Trump, I don't care what you think about Trump, I'm not. Are you a Trump supporter? No, I'm not a Trump supporter. I'm a truth supporter, and I would say this in class. I'd be the honest, do you support Trump?No, I don't support, I didn't support Barack Obama either. Here's this obscure, skinny Black dude from Chicago who's elevated to the presidency, first to the Senate, and then the presidency. This is all b******t. It's all b******t. He's fake. I'm sorry, but yeah, the key is, is to become an autodidact, mean someone who learns on their own. Yeah. See, and a lot, Al Robert, you're just a conspirator theorist. It's like grow up. I've had enough, I tried to warn people about the Covid injections. It is totally bogus, and most people don't realize that the whole thing was a Department of Defense project. Most Americans had no clue. That was all DOD working with the Chinese. Anthony Fauci sent millions of dollars because of gain of function. It has been banned in the United States, but they did it anyway, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. So they farmed it out to the Chinese and then blamed it on them. Isn't that some nasty s**t?Leafbox:I mean, that's one theory. There's also the Chinese theory, so there's so many theories and alternative theories, and that's why I,Robert Jefferson:Yeah, the Chinese theory is like, okay, okay, we're not stupid, so we're going to weaponize this thing against you. The art of war. That's another thing people need to study. People like Sun Tzu, study Confucius.Leafbox:One of my last questions, Robert. I have a lot of friends in America who are concerned about collapse in the US and the West, and they're all dreaming about either moving to Japan or moving to Alaska or doing the homesteading kind of thing. I lived in South America and we had a hyperinflation situation when I was young, so I've seen it firsthand.Robert Jefferson:Where were you?Leafbox:In Brazil when I was like 13. We had hyperinflation. Yeah. And so I'm just curious how you feel being in Japan. Are you going to retire? I mean, do you plan on staying the rest of your life in Japan, or what's your, do you want to return to the states or who knows what the so is?Robert Jefferson:I have no desire to return to the States. I did twice. And when I went back, was it 23 years ago, middle age, I could see then the downward spiral of American society. America's a beautiful country. I drove from Pennsylvania all the way across the country to the West coast, to Oregon, three and a half days. It took me, it's a beautiful country. They're beautiful people in America. I'm not anti-America. There's beautiful people there. Our governments, local, state, national, are basically ripping us off America's in debt. They've been talking about 33 trillion in debt. No, no, no. It's more than that. We're talking about quadrillions. If you can imagine trillions of quadrillions of dollars in debt, the pension plans are broke. There's no money there. Social security. There's no money there either. Remember Al Gore talking back in the 2000 election about the social security lockbox? People, Social security is gone. They'd spent all that money, and this is why they had to take us to war. To war. And there's going to be, I'm watching. I'm hearing a number of different voices. We're going to war on a global scale, world War iii. It's going to happen. They have to because most governments are broke. America's broke. Japan is broke. The European Union is broke, but Japan has been around for thousands of years. It still has cohesion.They seem to be committing suicide. Young people don't want to have children. Businesses, when I first came to Japan, there were clear societal roles, familial roles. The father went out to work and he worked hard, and he worked for his company for a lifetime, whatever, and that's all gone now. Young people can't even find jobs or they're getting part-time jobs or whatever.Everybody should first of all know where their food comes from. Where's the chicken come from? The supermarket not done. People should know where their food comes from. They should know how to grow food. They should start growing little things like herbs and tomatoes and potatoes. They're the easiest thing to grow. Go to the supermarket, buy some potatoes, wash them really good, and then put 'em in a brown paper bag. When they start sprouting, put 'em outside. Or if you have some old potatoes that start sprouting, put'em outside in a bag, I use grow bags, buckets will work.Just have some drainage in them. People need to grow, need to know where their food comes from, and they need to start learning how to grow their own food and just like their ancestors did. Not that many generations ago when I was growing up in the sixties, I had friends whose parents could barely speak English. They're from Germany, they're from Italy. They were from Hungary or Ukraine. They left their countries for a better life. Americans of today may have to lead the United States for a better life. Don't just sit in the same place going through the same. I tried to tell my elder brother, how about Mexico? Oh, man, Mexico is dangerous. Dangerous. There are some wonderful places in Mexico, Probably. He's five years older than me. He's 68. He could live very well on social security there. People don't want to take the chance.I always get on an airplane. Boom, I'm gone. I couldn't wait to get on an airplane, go somewhere else. Will I stay here in Japan? Yeah, I'll probably, but I'm keeping, I've got the corner of my eye on a side escape route. I'm not sure where. But like I just said, I can live on a retirement very cheaply somewhere. It could be, I don't know, Cambodia. It could be Vietnam. There's no major wars going on there right now. And the people there still, they still know how to smile. I do get asked this quite often, keep your eyes wide open, Japan. Not unless there's a major war. And it seems as though the leadership here, the political leadership, are just itching to get into a fight with someone and Japan's military, and they do have, it's called the Self-Defense Forces, but it's a military, but they have no practical experience fighting.They'll get massacred. They don't understand guerrilla warfare. They don't understand urban warfare. Japan should just stay pacifist. I'd be glad to see American military bases. It leaves Japan. I mean, it's how I got here is through the military, but there's no need. Japan can defend itself, and actually it shouldn't be any need. Japan, Korea needs to stop fighting over some dumb s**t that happened a long time ago. So much of their culture has come from China and India and elsewhere through Buddhist connections and contacts. But yeah, Japan should stop trying to ape the west. Stop trying to imitate the West and be Japanese. Be Asian for once. Yeah, I mean, Japan and Korea should not be arguing the way they still are and China as well. But then these are global forces trying to divide and rule to keep the Korean peninsula separated. That's ridiculous that the Korean peninsula is still separated.The same people still quarreling over some dumb s*

A revered leader with 25 years of command experience, DeDe has been described by Dr. Brené Brown as one of her “leadership heroes and a total badass.” She has held several pivotal roles, including as an advisor to the Department of Defense's top leader, commander of Air Force bases in Barksdale and Iraq, a national security fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, congressional fellow advising an Indiana senator, senior advisor to the Air Force chief of staff, and chief public affairs officer for the Thunderbirds.No stranger to high-stress environments: As a senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DeDe was a trusted influence in developing solutions to the military's most pressing issues. She also served as the military's lead spokesperson responsible for implementing plans supporting the Department of Defense's global communications strategy.A Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, DeDe is an executive coach certified through Georgetown University's Executive Leadership Coaching Program. DeDe holds a master's degree in leadership from American Military University and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Iowa. She is also a graduate of Air War College, Air Command and Staff College, Squadron Officer School, and Defense Information School.

In the most recent episode of The DINFOS Way, DINFOS Instructor Army Staff Sgt. Justin Kuhl engages in a conversation with Army Sgt. 1st Class Will Reinier, who previously served as the Public Affairs Advisor to the Sergeant Major of the Army. They discuss Reinier's concept of "Operationalizing Senior Leader Intent Through Social Media." Additionally, Sgt. 1st Class Will Reinier is announced as a presenter at the 2023 DINFOS Social Media Forum.

In this episode we speak to Airman 1st Class Julia Ahaesy about the importance of resiliency. Ahaesy, a recent graduate of Basic Military Training and technical school, learned a plethora of good information in her role as an additional duty Resiliency Training Assistant while attending the Defense Information School. We also learn a little bit about Chevrons' newest co-host in the process.

In this episode of "The DINFOS Way," we explore the Mass Communication Foundations Course (MCF) - now in its third year - through the perspectives of our esteemed guests. Staff Sgt. Kris Dimond provides insights from the perspective of teaching the course during its launch, and the challenges and rewards of teaching the course. Pete Robertson, the DINFOS Public Affairs Officer (PAO), sheds light on the strategic implications of the MCF course and its alignment with the Department of Defense's mission. And Brooksann Epiceno, a member of the Facility Development team, offers valuable insights into the strategic planning, developmental considerations, and principles involved in creating the MCF course. This episode is a must-listen for those interested in the behind-the-scenes efforts that go into crafting a comprehensive and effective course like MCF. We also delve into the practical side of things, discussing what the course is like for the students and what leaders can do to promote growth in MCF graduates.

Carmen was raised in a gentile home but discovered later that she was Jewish.  Rabbi Carmen Welker is a graduate of Messianic Jewish Rabbinate.  Author of several books and host of a major Messianic website, The Refiner's Fire, she is a former U.S. Army Sergeant Major who served 22 years as a journalist and newspaper editor, administrator and German language translator. Originally from Germany, she came to the United States in 1960 when her mother married an American soldier.Carmen has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of the State of New York and is also a graduate of Mid-America Business College (Springfield, Missouri); the Defense Information School (journalism) at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana; and the prestigious United States Army Sergeants Major Academy in El Paso, Texas, where she also worked as a lesson developer and instructor.A former Bible study teacher and leader in the prison ministry “Friends in Transition,” she is now a Hebraic Faith/Netzari teacher and author who had the distinct privilege of being the original editor/proofreader of the Aramaic English New Testament. 

DeDe Halfhill is a Certified Dare to Lead Facilitator and executive coach certified through Georgetown University's Executive Leadership Coaching Program. DeDe's mission is to teach the critical skills today's leaders need to navigate difficult conversations on hard topics to create a more purposeful, inclusive culture. She has over 25 years of experience in command positions and currently helps others become effective leaders. Throughout her career, DeDe has held many pivotal roles: advisor to the top leader of the Department of Defense, commander of Air Force bases in Barksdale and Iraq, a national security fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, congressional fellow advising an Indiana senator, senior advisor to the Air Force chief of staff, and Chief Public Affairs Officer for the Thunderbirds. She has been a trusted influence for solutions to some of the military's most pressing issues. Dr. Brené Brown lauded DeDe as a “leadership hero and a total badass.” She holds a Master's degree in Management from American Military University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from the University of Iowa. Additionally, DeDe has completed several prestigious military programs, including Air War College, Air Command and Staff College, Squadron Officer School, and Defense Information School. Today, DeDe describes her journey from military insider to emotional intelligence expert and how she learned a new way to support young leaders. She discusses the small steps you can take to encourage young people in your life. She talks about the value of looking inward and the importance of reflecting on your accomplishments to understand how you show up in the world. We deliberate on enhancing creativity using tools like stillness and spending time in nature. DeDe educates us about vulnerability and shares some stories about the resistance she faced when trying to get members of the United States military to be more vulnerable. She offers advice on healthily navigating vulnerability. DeDe also discusses different types of vulnerability and why it's more important to put yourself out there than to be perfectly eloquent.   “By taking action, you're actually building confidence.” – DeDe Halfhill   This week on In the Doctor's Chair: What a career in high-level government positions taught DeDe about emotional intelligence How DeDe transitioned from leadership development to leadership support The best ways to support young leaders The value of reflecting on your past accomplishments DeDe's recommendations for reflecting on how you show up in the world What a force multiplier is and how it can help you look forward How time and space can help enhance your creativity DeDe's gratitude practice How nature bolsters creativity The importance of vulnerability and navigating it in a healthy way The challenges DeDe faced when talking about vulnerability in US military culture Why vulnerabilities in security or communication systems are different from vulnerabilities in human relationships Connect with DeDe Halfhill: DeDe Halfhill Website DeDe Halfhill on LinkedIn DeDe Halfhill on Instagram   In the Doctor's Chair Thanks for listening to In the Doctor's Chair, the show where you'll hear conversations that share life lessons, health habits, and leadership practices that focus on positive psychology, lifestyle medicine, and ways for you to live with more vitality. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts. For more resources to help you to live with more vitality, please visit my website. Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | Google Play | Stitcher | Spotify The post #109 Force Multipliers and Questioning How You to Show Up in the World with DeDe Halfhill appeared first on Mark Rowe.

Army Major Stephen Von Jett, a public affairs instructor at the Pentagon's Defense Information School, discusses what federal agencies and corporate executives can learn from how military officers are trained to communicate with the public about crisis situations.QuotesIn a crisis of public trust, you have to stop the bleeding. And once you do that, you can start building back. - Major Von JettCrisis response needs to be done when the skies are clear and the waters are calm. It starts early with establishing a crisis action plan and a release authority matrix for public information. - Major Von JettFeatured Guest in this episodeMajor Stephen Von JettPublic Affairs and Strategic CommunicationsLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-von-jett-95b93050 The Pavilion Dinfos Online Learning Website: https://pavilion.dinfos.edu/ Chapters00:00 Introduction00:53 Purpose and activities of the school01:41 Crisis Communication Training03:44 Application of the Training05:26 The role of media training play08:04 Crisis communication of Military, Government, and Industry10:36 Some Crisis situations13:12 How Pavilion works15:44 Pavilion simulations and exercises16:49 Pavilion training resources18:10 Things to learn from defense information20:12 Being a well-equipped crisis communicators21:53 Takeaways from Major Von Jett22:54 OutroProduced by Heartcast Mediawww.heartcastmedia.comThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5602540/advertisement

Tonight live,  ! He will be discussing his book “ The Paranormal Christian”  Richard D. Lewis is an author, journalist, and veteran of the U.S. Air Force. A graduate of the Defense Information School's writing, broadcast, and public affairs programs, Richard joined the Air Force in 1987 and spent 10 years as a broadcast journalist stationed in Turkey, Utah, and Colorado. After his time serving in the Air Force, Richard worked in TV production in Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California. Creator of the award-winning Pentagon Channel TV newsmagazine Air Force Space Today, he has won multiple Telly and Thomas Jefferson Awards. Upon completion of Doreen Virtue's Angel Therapy Practitioner Course in 2003, Richard became a certified spiritual counselor by the California Board of Hypnotherapy. He is also a communicant member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in good standing. He is an active member of Ascension Lutheran Church in Torrance, California, where he participates in special choir and assists in worship services. He has also enjoyed fellowship with Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists, and Church of Christ congregations, where he has delivered sermons, conducted song services, and led small group Bible studies. Richard has been featured in Blackbelt Magazine, FILMINK, Rocket Magazine, Geek Monthly, Astro News, P3 Production Update, Space Country Times, AMC Theatres, AFN TV, Fangoria.com, Campus Circle, The Pentagon Channel, Milsat Magazine, and Santa Maria Times among many others. When not writing or watching the latest Dodgers game or professional boxing matches, Richard enjoys relaxing with his family in Gardena, California.

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with current Secretary of State Steve Hobbs about his campaign for Washington Secretary of State - why he decided to run for re-election, the threat of misinformation campaigns and cyber attacks on Washington's elections, how partisanship affects the office, and whether partisan attacks on his opponent are warranted. On the topic of elections, they discuss how he builds trust in the system in an environment of disinformation, addressing issues with disproportionate rates of signature rejection across the electorate, his plans to increase voter turnout, and his stance and approach to local jurisdictions potentially adopting alternative systems such as ranked choice voting. The conversation continues with the experience Secretary Hobbs brings to manage other components that fall under the Secretary of State's large umbrella and his vision to create greater accessibility for experiencing the state archives' historical records, resources for corporate and charity filings, and requesting governmental documents via public disclosure requests. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Secretary Steve Hobbs at @electhobbs.   Resources Campaign Website - Steve Hobbs   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.   Today, I'm thrilled to be welcoming a candidate and the current officeholder for one of the most important roles that we have in our state - Secretary of State. Welcome, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. [00:00:51] Secretary Hobbs: Thank you. And thank you for saying it's very important. Thank you - I appreciate that. [00:00:56] Crystal Fincher: It is extremely important. And I think a lot of people are recognizing just how important it is now perhaps. Many more people are recognizing that than they have before because of how much talk we've had over the past couple of years about how important elections and election integrity are. But also, in addition to elections, all of the other things that the Secretary of State is responsible for like archives and records management and all those different things. And we're seeing an increasing amount of news stories and coverage in issues and challenges in those areas. So with all of that, what made you decide that - one, you wanted to take this on in the first place, and two, that you want to run for a new term? [00:01:41] Secretary Hobbs: Well, first of all, I've always dedicated myself to public service - starting at the age of 17 when I enlisted in the Army Reserves - then, and then going on to active duty shortly after that. So this was a nice transition from serving in the State Senate, which I did for 15 years, into this role because it's a nice little Venn diagram - you know how you have the two circles there? So one is defending democracy in my role in the military and the other is serving in the State Senate. And this is a great overlap because right now, as and your listeners would know, our elections have been under attack. Our democracy has been under attack. [00:02:30] Crystal Fincher: Sure has. [00:02:31] Secretary Hobbs: And so having that background that I have in the military - serving in the National Security Agency, being a Public Affairs Officer - having been in that role and defending elections in both Kosovo and Iraq, this is a great fit for me. And I enjoy it, I love it - but it of course has its challenges, which we have had several this year with three misinformation campaigns and a cyber threat that has occurred already just this year alone. [00:03:04] Crystal Fincher: So how do you defend against those? And what is the plan to combat all of this misinformation and the targeted attacks? [00:03:12] Secretary Hobbs: Well, it first started when I got into the office and there was an outbriefing by former Secretary Kim Wyman, who is now working for the Biden administration. And in that outbrief, she had told me there were several thousand - thousands - of attacks, cyber attacks, on elections and 180 instances of misinformation and disinformation. We all know about what happened in January 6 in our nation's capital, but some of you may not know or remember - there was an attack on our own State capital. We had to deploy the National Guard there. In fact, several of my soldiers had to go on that mission to defend our capital. And so I started by looking at the budget that was submitted by Kim Wyman and pulled it back and resubmitted it. And what I did was expanded the cyber security team. So we had a cyber team of four, now we've gone to eight. We're strengthening our relationships with the Air National Guard that we call upon for cyber security when we are overwhelmed. We are looking into doing exercises - one step up from a tabletop exercise, but actually a full-blown exercise in 2023, where we'll be having folks who are trying to penetrate our system through cyber and through misinformation, disinformation - a closed system there where we can react to it. We have created a team that would combat misinformation and do voter outreach and education, because some of the vulnerabilities that we have of people not having trust in our elections is because they simply don't know how we do elections here in Washington State. So we've got to do a little more education of that. And then creating a team of outreach to our disenfranchised and underserved and underrepresented communities that we're doing. Sorry, I went on, but there's a lot to do. And there's a lot that we have done so far in trying to push back on some of the misinformation campaigns that happen and the cyber threat that happened this year. [00:05:23] Crystal Fincher: Well, and it's really important - there is a lot going on. And I guess one of the more fundamental questions that people are asking themselves is - with the nature of the office and because this is a little bit different this year in that you're running against someone who identifies as an Independent, not as a Democrat or a Republican, what is the role of partisanship in this office? Is this an office that should be a partisan office? Is there any advantage or disadvantage to being a partisan in this office? How do you view that? [00:05:53] Secretary Hobbs: Well, in my personal view, I can operate in this office if the Legislature deems that it should be a nonpartisan office. Now, in order for that to happen, you have to pass a bill to do that. I doubt that will make it out of the Legislature since the Legislature is controlled by Republicans and Democrats and I don't see that happening any time soon. I think what you have to do is look at the individual who's occupying this office. How do I say this? Well, I go back to a motto - when I'm serving an infantry battalion, all infantry battalions have mottos and mine was, or ours was - "Deeds, not words." So look at what I've done, not what I say. And you'll see that I'm a person that works across the aisle. You'll see that I'm a person that can get things done. And you look at the list of endorsements that I have - I have Republican endorsements, Democratic endorsements. I have the endorsement of the Association of Washington Business and the Washington State Labor Council. And having a label on there - it doesn't do anything if you're going to be a bad person. So the last three Secretaries of State were partisan - Sam Reed, Kim Wyman, and Ralph Munro - and they were trusted with the public and they got the job done. I will say - in this day and age, though, people tend to trust Democrats running the elections, because they know where they're coming from. And I'm not going to back away from the fact that I am a Democrat. I'm proud that I'm pro-choice. I'm proud that I'm pro-labor. I'm proud that I support the environment. I don't think those are bad things at all. Whatever the Legislature decides - if they want to make this a partisan office - or nonpartisan office - that's fine. But I can operate in any environment. And I don't think it really matters anyway, at this particular time, but I'm not going to back away who I am. I'm a Democrat. [00:08:05] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. No secret here. I think the values that you listed are very good. And that the people, in this day and age - given the harboring of anti, disproven, disinformation about elections and campaigns that they see coming from the Republican Party are comfortable - more comfortable - with the Democratic Party in this position. But with that said, there have been - I don't know that any of this has come directly from your campaign. But the State Party and the leader of the State Party has attacked the other candidate, your opponent Julie Anderson, for her associations with some Republicans, or the Republican Party. Given that - you just talked about, hey, it's about who you are, it's about what you do - do you think those attacks are warranted or fair? [00:08:57] Secretary Hobbs: Crystal, you did bring up a couple of points that have been brought up recently in this campaign. And all I can say is - to the listeners out there, look into it, right? So she did show up at the fundraiser of the minority party in the House who wants to take control of the House - that's JT Wilcox, Representative Wilcox. If you're calling yourself nonpartisan, I'm not sure why you would go to that fundraiser, representing a party and some folks out there that want to put these elections back to poll voting and eliminate vote by mail. And the same group of folks that fan the flames of misinformation and disinformation. She does have a political consultant that's Republican, and a communications team that's Republican, and a treasurer that's Republican. But I'm not here to bash on her. I'm just saying to the listeners out there - do your own research on it. But yeah, that's true that there are, she's - has some ties there. [00:10:07] Crystal Fincher: You mentioned your willingness to work across the aisle. Could that just be her attempting to do the same types of things that you were talking about in reaching out? To that, it does look like she has also, in the past - I don't know if she has in this general election - but met with Democrats and Democratic organizations. Do you put that under the same umbrella? Or is that different than just trying to work in a bipartisan manner? [00:10:33] Secretary Hobbs: I think it's an attempt to look at this race and go - okay, well, Steve's got the Democrats, so maybe I'll go get the Republicans. Because there are Republicans out there that simply just don't want a Democrat in office - and doesn't matter if that person's a good Democrat or not - they just can't stand the fact that there's a Democrat occupying that office. And so - she's going to reach out to those folks, it's just a campaign strategy. But again, I stress to the listeners - look at the backgrounds and see the deeds of the person and see what they can bring to the office. Again, I've been in the office so far for almost a year. And you got to ask yourself - is anything wrong with what's going on? And if not, why change horses at this particular moment in time? Crystal, I mentioned the three misinformation campaigns and the cyber threat - these are real things. These are real threats to democracy - I would say that you'd want someone who understands how to counter those threats. There was a story in NPR All Things Considered about a recent misinformation campaign that we pushed back on. And that happened in February - and it had to deal with one of the cybersecurity devices known as an Albert sensor that Homeland Security asks every government agency to have on their system network so that they can be warned when there's a suspicious IP address that data is coming from and to - because that's what an Albert sensor does - it tells you where the data is coming from and to. And you're not going to believe this, but the misinformation campaign directed at the Albert sensors was trying to tie the Albert sensor to George Soros. I'm not making this up. [00:12:30] Crystal Fincher: Well, unfortunately, I do believe it, but it is wild. That is - the attempt to tie everything - my goodness. [00:12:39] Secretary Hobbs: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:40] Crystal Fincher: I'm sure lots of people are shocked to hear that what they've been working on is somehow masterminded by that person. But yeah, there have been wild and malicious attacks and just an outright denial of what has happened in elections. And I actually think you raise an excellent point that we don't talk about a lot - in that you brought up even - we see this stuff happening on the national level and even January 6th on a national level. But that we did experience that in our own state at that time - both in-person and the attacks on our voting system. And so I guess one of the questions I have is given that we're in this environment of not just misinformation, but malicious disinformation, and people with an agenda to erode and degrade trust - how do you build trust in our electoral system? Because although there are absolutely people who are intentionally misleading people, there's a lot of people who sincerely believe we have issues within our system - and for a variety of different reasons and from different perspectives - this is not just Republicans, it can be a variety of people. In an environment where there is so much disinformation, how do you build trust and credibility with voters in this state? [00:13:58] Secretary Hobbs: Oh, it's a long-term campaign that you have to start right away and not only be aggressive on, but consistent on. So for example, the misinformation campaign on the Albert sensor, you have to - we brought together all the county auditors and we brought, we invited county commissioners, and we brought in Kim Wyman, Homeland Security and FBI to inform the county auditors - hey, don't believe this misinformation. It's not true. The Albert sensor is simply a device that protects you, not a George Soros machine. Unfortunately, one county removed that system and now we're still working with that. But we are right now launching a major voter information campaign called "Vote with Confidence" - we launched it yesterday. It'll be out on TV and probably when you're pumping gas - sometimes you see those video screens that are up that's showing commercials - and on social media platforms. And basically we're going to do more than just remind people to vote because we've done a great job of reminding people to vote. Myself and the county auditors have have all done that, but what we haven't done a good job of is letting you all know what happens to your vote and how it is secure, transparent, and accessible. You may know this here, Crystal, because you're familiar with politics - that you can go to your county auditor and witness the process. You can see these ballots come in, you can see them get counted, you can see every signature being checked. But the average person doesn't know that and that's what we need to start doing. We need to start telling people - even things that are somewhat technical - that this state is part of the ERIC system, the Elections Registration Information Center, where our state is connected to other states and different databases so that if you were to move to another state and register there and fail to cancel your registration here - guess what? We're going to know about it. Don't try to vote multiple times in the same election by trying to register in different counties because guess what? We're going to catch you and we have caught people doing that. This whole myth about dead people voting - that's just not true and when it does happen on very rare occasions, it's because a spouse votes for a recently deceased loved one and maybe that spouse, before they died, said who they were going to vote for and they voted for them and they signed their ballot and guess what? We catch that. We find that out, but we have to do more though - we have to let people know what happens with their ballot and we haven't been doing that. [00:16:49] Crystal Fincher: Well, and one question I have - we have seen, and there have been reported on, inconsistencies in how rigorous people are in either checking signatures or even potentially malfeasance in checking signatures. And we saw in a report on a county in our state where people with Latino surnames had signatures that were rejected at a much higher rate than those with other names, even though it appears they were valid voters, that everything else was in order - but they seemed to be disqualified visually with the commonality that they did have a Latino surname. And questions about whether racism was at play and bias within our electoral system - what role can you as the Secretary of State play to make sure that we're implementing process and executing processes across the state, throughout all of the counties, in a consistent way? And how do you hold counties accountable to that? [00:17:48] Secretary Hobbs: Yeah, thank you for that. That was a study that came out of the State Auditor. And she had - it's very shocking - Blacks were four times as much rejected, Hispanics three times as much, Asians twice as much. Young men were actually rejected at a slightly higher rate. And our role on that one is we're taking action on it. So already we're working with the Legislature. Now we know about this data, now we got to find out why that is - and so we're doing another study with the Evans School at the University of Washington. But we're not going to stand idly by and wait for the study. There's some actions that we can take already to try to mitigate that. And one of the things that we are doing, though it won't come online for probably another - probably not 'til next year - and that is text messaging the voter the moment their ballot is rejected. Because the main reason why ballots are rejected - it actually has to do with not signing the ballot. A lot of folks just fail to sign it because they - maybe they didn't see the signature block. Or, especially those where English is not their first language, they just didn't read it because it was in English. And so you have ballot rejections happening because people fail to sign. And right now the current system is we send you mail, which - not very efficient. Counties might call you. But what we're thinking about doing and what we'd like to do is - hey, send a text message out to them right away so that they know their ballot is rejected and so they can do something about it before, and sometimes even before the Election Day. Because right now most people get their ballots cured - and the term cured is used when your signatures don't match, or you failed to sign your signature - is there's a close election and a bunch of people go into a particular Legislative District or jurisdiction and they're curing ballots because there's a campaign - the campaign is trying to get their candidate across the finish line. [00:20:12] Crystal Fincher: So now - with that, and you're trying to get voters there, you're trying to make sure every vote counts. Do you also see one of your core roles as getting more people to vote - increasing turnout and participation? And if that is, how do you plan to do that? [00:20:30] Secretary Hobbs: Oh, absolutely. I think it's very important. I think we have to constantly try to do that. It's a struggle because sometimes voters just - oh, this election is not important, so I'm not going to vote. Well, we have to constantly remind folks that, hey, elections are important, it's part of the democratic process. That's why I'm happy that the Legislature gave me the funding to not only do this voter information campaign letting people know how their ballots process, but also reminding them again - hey, don't forget you got to vote, there's an election coming up. One thing that we are trying to do to increase voter turnout and increasing the amount of people getting registered - because there's a lot of people out there who are eligible to be voters but haven't done it yet - is getting at young people before they even turn a voting age. And so we're looking at, and this is theoretical this moment, but we're going to try to really push it in the next - if given the opportunity to serve out the rest of the term - a mobile gaming app targeted at young people. Maybe it is where they vote in a fantasy setting, they vote for imaginary folks - we throw on some civics questions, and maybe they get points, and they level up - to get them jazzed up, if you will, about voting and participating in our democracy. And looking at our curriculum, because we do provide curriculum to the elementary, middle school, and high school about elections - and so maybe there's a way we can make that more exciting, maybe we team up with our local tabletop game companies here in the State of Washington and send out - in a form of a game. The other thing we need to do is reach out to our underserved communities out there. And so taking a great idea from King County, the trusted messenger program - hiring folks that come from a particular community - knowing the language, knowing the community, knowing the culture. They go out there and do the outreach necessary to get people registered to vote, and teaching them and informing them about the process of voting. I can't hire enough people to do that, so we're already looking at - well, maybe we also contract out to different organizations that do that already. I was talking to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce a couple weeks ago - maybe that's an opportunity there out in the Tri-Cities - I'm going to go visit them again on the 18th of October. But we just have to do more. I was very excited - we started because COVID is slowly getting manageable - we were able to go to the July 4th naturalization ceremony in Seattle and we registered about 300 new citizens. And that is exciting - we're going to be at those events as well. [00:23:41] Crystal Fincher: So in a debate early in this race, you shared your view that we shouldn't change our electoral process to ranked choice voting, which is on the ballot in a handful of jurisdictions in our state, or approval voting - because you had concerns that some people already have issues with trust in our system and making changes might make that problem even worse. Is not making changes because of a fear of misinformation a valid reason not to explore changes? Or should we be investing in things that help make the process more clear to people, especially if it's going to update them on a voting system that should increase turnout? How did you come to that decision? [00:24:19] Secretary Hobbs: Well, Crystal, it basically - it comes to the fact that I've been in this job for a while, I've seen the amount of disinformation that's going out there. There's a King 5 poll that showed 35% of Washingtonians didn't trust the 2020 election - that's Washingtonians. And looking at the voter turnout - right now our system is pretty easy - you vote for the person that you like and it's one vote. Under ranked choice voting, you have an algorithm, you rank people. And at this particular moment in time, when you have this amount of disinformation going on and you have the situation in our own - US capital and or state capital - really now is not the time to do something like that. But one thing that I get very concerned about, and this is my own personal connection to this, is that you're asking people to vote in a foreign way, something completely different. And that we have a huge population of people where English is not their first language. And so now you are going to disenfranchise a group of people. And that's something we certainly do not want to happen. I think about my own mother who naturalized to this country - English is not her first language - and I can't imagine if you go back in time and all of a sudden you said - hey, vote ranked choice voting, and you didn't have a voter's guide or any explanation to her in her language, it'd be very difficult. I also think about my son. I have a - my middle son, Truman, who's got a cognitive disability. It's very easy for him to vote because I show him the ballot and I show him the voter's guide and I go - hey, Truman, all you do is you color in the bubble to the person that you like. And for Truman, a lot of it's visual - he's going to look at the picture, he's not going to do a lot of reading. And by the way, he has every right to vote. If you have a disability, that shouldn't prevent you from voting. [00:26:29] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. [00:26:30] Secretary Hobbs: He is going to have a hard time doing ranked choice voting. It's just not possible for him. And so I know the advocates out there pushing the ranked choice voting, but let's not disenfranchise a whole group of people out there. They may not be the majority, but they're out there and we shouldn't disenfranchise them. Also, I don't know what this is solving. I really don't. We have the most diverse legislative body right now under the current system of voting, a very diverse city council if you live in the City of Seattle. I'm not quite sure what this is trying to solve. But I will say this because I know that there has been - people say, oh, well, he's not going to help us out when we do ranked choice voting. That's not true. My job as Secretary of State is to support the elections in the state and local municipalities. And that is exactly what I'll do if a municipality or county chooses to do ranked choice voting. But I am telling you and I am asking the citizens, please pause and think about it before you choose ranked choice voting, because there are other people out there that may not get it. It may be difficult to understand. Let's not leave them out in the cold and let's think about our democracy right now with the amount of misinformation that's out there. [00:27:59] Crystal Fincher: Well, and I guess I should ask a clarifying question because ranked choice voting is certainly one reform or change that is on the ballot. There's also another change currently on the ballot in a jurisdiction this year - approval voting. We see different methods of voting - one, just in our neighbor to the south in Portland - there they have a different type of voting on the ballot for their city this year. We're seeing a number of different types. So is your opposition strictly to ranked choice voting or to any of the kinds of changes, whether it's ranked choice or approval voting or any kind of change that would be made? [00:28:36] Secretary Hobbs: It's right now - this particular moment in time - is any kind of change, unless you can find a way where you're going to get the word out to those individuals where English is not their first language, where they've got cognitive disabilities, and the fact - hey, is this vulnerable to a misinformation? Because right now, if there's a close election, you just count out the votes and whoever has the most votes wins. That's how it's done, right - in close races. But let's say it's ranked choice voting or preferred voting - it gets slightly complicated. In ranked choice voting, you're basing it upon an algorithm. And so now, what's going to happen? Well, what's going to happen is you're going to have a group of individuals who didn't get their way, and they're going to say, oh, this algorithm got hacked, which is not true. This algorithm, written by George Soros, and again, not true. But that's what's going to happen. [00:29:36] Crystal Fincher: Well, I don't know that I would call it an algorithm, but a different method of tabulation and rounds of tabulation. [00:29:42] Secretary Hobbs: Well, that's what we call it - it doesn't make it a bad thing. It just - that's what it is. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm just saying to you that you just leave yourself vulnerable to misinformation that could attack it. [00:29:59] Crystal Fincher: I got you - but I think the underlying, as you pointed out, related concern is they are on the ballot and those changes may be made in places. And so the role of - again, in the implementation of these things - certainly there can be a lot of challenges that are introduced with implementation - how well just the system itself is implemented, and how well residents are trained and informed and educated before it happens. Do you plan on playing a role in that and being an advocate for voting and participating in the system should one of those be implemented? [00:30:41] Secretary Hobbs: Well, we have to - that's the role. I can't not do that as Secretary of State. I have to make sure that these - if a local jurisdiction chooses this form of election, then of course, we're going to be there to support it. [00:30:59] Crystal Fincher: And so I do want to talk about - we've talked about elections - and that's, to most people, the most visible thing that you're involved with as Secretary of State. But my goodness, you have a lot more responsibilities than that - just going down the list, aside from dealing with elections and initiatives and referendums - producing and distributing the Voters' Pamphlet and any legal advertising; registering private corporations, limited partnerships and trademarks; registering individuals, organizations and commercial fundraisers involved in charitable solicitations; administering the State's address confidentiality program, which is really important for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking; collecting and preserving the historical records of the state and making those records available for research; coordinating implementation of the State's records management laws; affixing the State seal and attesting to commissions, pardons and other documents to which the signature of the governor is required; regulating use of the State seal, which came in handy in another state - there was a whole thing about - that is an important and relevant thing. Filing and attesting to official acts of the Legislature or governor and certifying to the Legislature all matters legally required to be certified. You're also frequently called upon to represent the State of Washington in international trade and cultural missions, and greet and confer with dignitaries and delegations visiting the State of Washington from other countries. This is a big, big job and my goodness, you have your hands full with just elections, but there are so many other things underneath the umbrella of your responsibility. How do you both focus on elections and all of the other stuff? And how has this gone so far? [00:32:47] Secretary Hobbs: Well, I've got a great staff and I got great people who manage these different divisions. Thank you for mentioning those other things because sometimes my employees that are in libraries and corporations and nonprofits and legacy - which is history of Washington State - not to mention our CFD, our Combined Fund Drive - sometimes they feel neglected. My Secretary of State's office is about nearly 300 people and 22 people occupy Elections. There's a lot more that we do than just elections and I love it. I actually love the other side. It's very therapeutic to me because there's not the controversy that's involved in those other aspects. Libraries are near and dear to my heart. In fact, we have libraries in every state institution - our state prisons and our state hospital. I'm proud to announce that we're actually going into our state juvenile detention facilities, which we haven't done, and I'm glad we're doing that. It's about time - they should be in there. What I'm going to do and what I'm starting to do is use our state libraries as a place for rehabilitation - getting folks who are incarcerated, giving them the skills necessary when they leave the prison. We really haven't done that in the past and I'm looking forward to doing that. I get it's not going to be a lot of people, but you know what? Let's not let that space go to waste. I'm also excited using libraries as a place where we can provide therapy for the incarcerated. I'm working with, or talking with, some of the tabletop gaming companies - the use of RPGs and gaming as a form of therapy is an opportunity for us - to have that in our state libraries, so I'm looking at that. We team up with rural libraries and community libraries out there in Washington State - we're looking at doing more of that - creating game libraries out in the rural communities. They do it in Vancouver and in Spokane - they actually have game libraries where you can go and play games and it's an opportunity to create a safe space for young people out there in rural communities where a library is the only place where they can go to. And of course, corporations, charities - you had mentioned that. We are on the verge of creating satellite offices so that you don't have to drive all the way to Olympia if you have a problem with your corporate filings and your nonprofit filings, so I'm looking forward to that. People shouldn't have to drive to Olympia if they're having major problems. And there's a lot of people out there just - it's hard for them to navigate the internet, especially those who are older. So we're doing a lot out there with the other agencies of my office, so thank you for bringing it up. [00:35:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And so there are a few things - so many things we could talk about - these are all things that have areas, they're crucially important, they require deep expertise. You are there, and as in many departments and in many areas, there are very professional, dedicated, experienced staff who keep this running between and across administrations who are crucial to the work. But there are conversations about how important having a leader with experience in these types of work is. And that's been one of the areas that your opponent, Julie Anderson, has talked about as an advantage that she has in this race - as an auditor who, in addition to dealing with elections, also deals with a broad portfolio of responsibilities - that she has experience with many of these things, in addition to elections. And decades of experience she talks about, and that it's important to have that kind of experience in elections and in these other areas in the office, and saying you don't have it. How do you respond to that? [00:37:06] Secretary Hobbs: Well, I would say that clearly she doesn't know my background. And again, I offer anyone to look at my background, but I've been in the military for 33 years. And I've had varying levels of experience in the military leadership - commanded recently a 750 joint task force dealing with COVID support operations in Western Washington. That is far more employees than I even have now as Secretary of State, far more than what Julie Anderson has in her office doing multiple tasks. And that's just not just one thing - commanding companies and commanding battalion-level units - multiple people in a unit. Also, the the fact that I'm doing it right now. I've been running the Secretary of State's office for almost a year, and no complaints - I really haven't heard any major complaints from anybody. And it's been a blast doing it, using my skills - not just in the military - but having a Master's in Public Administration, my service in the State Senate. It's not easy being Chair of Transportation and managing that very large budget and navigating legislation. So I have more than enough skill, right now, in this office. Again, I just invite you to look at the backgrounds of each of us. [00:38:41] Crystal Fincher: Which makes sense. And so within those, what are you doing to preserve historical records, which is one of the things within the state - especially as we see in some areas, there are people who are much less interested in the preservation of historical records. And sometimes challenging that and attacking that at the federal level, bleeding down to other levels. And how do you make those records more readily available to the public than they are today? [00:39:09] Secretary Hobbs: Ah, yes. Well, so one of the things that we're doing - and it's challenging, because we just have so much paper records right now - digitizing all those records. So we're trying to provide more, hiring more people to do that, hiring better equipment. Just as I got into office, I traveled all - most, pretty much all the state archives buildings, except for one - talking to rank and file there. When I went to Bellingham, I talked to the archives folks there. And they were telling me, Hey, we need a large scanner to be more efficient, because right now we got to take - so you got to scan sometimes larger maps and stuff, you got to send it all the way to Olympia. It's well, let's see if we can purchase and get you a scanner so that you can do it there to make things more efficient. So those are the things I've been looking at. And of course, being able to have access to that online is very important to me. And digitizing our records is just one small part in keeping our records, but also telling the story about our state. As the state archives, I have the - we have the State Constitution, we have these old documents, and they shouldn't be behind a vault, a dark vault. People should see this, so I'm again, this is theoretical, and hopefully I have to get the Legislature's funding approval on this. But I'd like to bring these artifacts out, this history out, and travel the state and show people, show young people - visit, maybe, the high schools and elementary schools - hey, this is the history of our state. We're building a new library, and we're going to put a lot of info - not just our archives in there and books, but the state's history and the state's culture - let's tell the story about, especially in my community - I'm an Asian American, there's the Japanese that were put into camps. Let's talk about that story. Let's talk about Native, our Native peoples in this state - how we took their land and how they were struggling, and now they've become a political power in this state and how great that is, and how they have educated us on the environment - saving salmon. We need to tell these stories, and I've been looking at using our archives and our libraries to develop - not competition with you, of course - but doing a podcast. [00:41:35] Crystal Fincher: I'm all for it. I'm all for it. [00:41:38] Secretary Hobbs: Yeah, and talk and do it in the style of YouTube and Twitch, so there's interaction there at the same time. And I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, because I forgot to mention this, but - the listeners out there, if you're really into podcasts, there's one called Ear Hustle, which is a podcast ran by those incarcerated in the California penal system. And I want to do that here in the State of Washington. I want the prisoners to do their own podcasts to talk about how they got there, and how is life behind bars, and how they're changing themselves for the better. No, I really want to bring to life, light, what is going on in Washington State. [00:42:26] Crystal Fincher: So is it fair to say that you would want to - we have our physical libraries, we have our archives across and around the state - that you want to also create a digital library that is accessible to researchers, to the public - to see these artifacts. I was on a different site reading treaties, actually, that are incredibly interesting - to see what was promised and agreed to, and what actually wound up being delivered - which are in most cases, two very different things. But is that what you're looking to do - to be able to have people access, have access to these things - to view, to see - virtually as well as in-person? [00:43:08] Secretary Hobbs: Oh, yes, absolutely. You can do some of that already. But man, we have so much - so much archives. I was up in, again, the Bellingham one, and I pulled out this old, dusty, large leatherbound book. And I opened it up - a lot of the pages were empty. I just kept on turning the page, turning the page, and finally a page came up, and there was this story. It was very funny - it was nice handwriting - it basically said something like, Laura Smith marries David Hamilton, and two chickens, a cow, and some land was exchanged, or something like that. That, I don't know, I geek out over that. I think that's totally cool. It was a story of, obviously, a wedding, because we counties always record marriages, and that was recorded before the days of statehood in our territorial days. So all that needs to be preserved, that needs to be digitized, and we all need to see it. I think that's fantastic. [00:44:09] Crystal Fincher: All right - so we have heard from several municipalities, several reporters in municipalities about challenges with record management. And this is another part of your portfolio - records management across the state, which is also really related to the ability to deliver on public records requests, public disclosure requests - the ability to do that. And how many challenges there are within the system - hearing from municipalities and from reporters across the state that wait times for documents, for discovering whether something exists or doesn't exist, for records that should have been retained that have been deleted - creating lots of challenges for - really the goal of retaining a record is so you can be able to access the information. And so people who are entitled to that information, including the public, can access their information. We are seeing so many challenges with that right now - in the length of time it takes to fulfill requests, in the consistency of how records are retained and managed. What can you do to improve that? [00:45:15] Secretary Hobbs: Well, just like I said last time, I just got to get more people to do the digitization of our records and better equipment - especially the older documents - to have that scanned in. But the other thing that we've been noticing, Crystal, and maybe your listeners out there might know this - is the weaponization of the public records requests, where you have somebody making an outrageous request of a government agency to simply overwhelm them. And we have seen the rise of that as well, which is unfortunate, because that is not what the public records laws were meant to do. It was meant for transparency, not to overwhelm a local government with a frivolous request. Which is unfortunate - local governments and our own state government are struggling to try to keep up, but we have to be transparent, and that's what we constantly are trying to do. [00:46:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and even that area is a big challenge. For the person making the request, it's always interesting, but I think there have been some instances - certainly that I can recall - where someone who disagrees with the nature of the request, or maybe it's from some political - people who disagree with decisions that they've made before, or reporters who are simply investigating what is going on - being characterized as malicious, but seemingly making some standard requests. Now, there are certainly bad actors out there, but that is not the entirety of the issue. And so for - looking at implementing records management processes across the state, assisting municipalities with that - is there anything that can be done? Is it a situation where truly - sure, we have these retention policies, we have to save this, but if we don't have the staff, then that's just it. And ultimately, then the public does not get access to information that they're entitled to. Are we really relying on allocations of funding from the Legislature and from other levels of government to be able to deliver upon this really basic entitlement that the public has? [00:47:32] Secretary Hobbs: Well, there's certainly attempts and technology changes to make this easier, but it does come down sometimes to people. And so that is a struggle. But we've done a really good job of meeting the public records requests ourselves in our own - we're a separately elected agency - but some of these small towns and cities are, they're having some challenges out there. [00:48:02] Crystal Fincher: Well, as we get close to wrapping up our time here, as voters are considering who they're going to choose in this election and trying to weigh - okay, I'm hearing arguments on one side, I'm hearing arguments from the opponent. Why should I choose you, and what am I going to see that's different, or what will I not see that's different - if they vote for you? What do you say to voters who are undecided as they consider this decision? [00:48:33] Secretary Hobbs: What I would say to them is the Office of Secretary of State has changed. It has changed across the United States and those offices as well. It's not one that it just simply works with the counties to manage, oversee, and support elections. It is now one where you have to protect democracy, you have to protect elections from threats of misinformation and cyber threats. And I am the only candidate that has the background to do that - with my background in the military, having served in the NSA, with my background of being a Public Affairs Officer, being a graduate of Department of Defense Information School, knowing how to combat misinformation and combat cyber threats. Also, the fact that I can work across the aisle and have done so in my 15 years in the State Senate - it's the one of the reasons why I have Republican endorsements and why I've been endorsed by organizations that typically oppose each other, like the Association of Washington Business and the Washington State Labor Council. Also, we need to have somebody that understands and can speak for those communities that are underserved and underrepresented. I'm a son of an Asian immigrant. I am the first API member that's ever been Secretary of State, and I'm the only statewide official who's a person of color. We need to have somebody that represents them as well. And lastly, I ask you this - because in all these elections, when you're trying to get rid of someone, is that person just not working for you? Are they not doing a good job? I've been in this office for almost a year. Are there any complaints? If the horse is getting you to the place where you need to go to, and the horse is a good horse and strong and improving, why change horses? We've done, like I said, we've handled three fairly large misinformation campaigns that - reported in NPR and NBC News. We've had two special elections in a statewide primary, and those have gone smoothly. And then you've heard in this episode here about what I want to do with other aspects of the office, such as libraries and corporations and legacy. So if you're happy with those things, there's really no need to change. And so I'm hoping that you will give me a chance to do the full term. And just to think of the improvements that I can do in the next two years. And of course, I'm always going to be there to defend democracy, defend elections, because I did it for real in Kosovo and Iraq, and I'm doing it now as your Secretary of State. [00:51:34] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, for having this conversation, and for letting the voters get to know you a little bit more. Much appreciated. Thank you so much. [00:51:42] Secretary Hobbs: Thank you. [00:51:43] Crystal Fincher: Thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our post-production assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow me @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Podcast guest 569 is Richard D. Lewis, author of the paranormal christian book series, We discussed the paranormal in Christianity. Richard D. Lewis is an author, journalist, and veteran of the U.S. Air Force. A graduate of the Defense Information School's writing, broadcast, and public affairs programs, Richard joined the Air Force in 1987 and spent 10 years as a broadcast journalist stationed in Turkey, Utah, and Colorado. After his time serving in the Air Force, Richard worked in TV production in Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California. Creator of the award-winning Pentagon Channel TV newsmagazine Air Force Space Today, he has won multiple Telly and Thomas Jefferson Awards. Upon completion of Doreen Virtue's Angel Therapy Practitioner Course in 2003, Richard became a certified spiritual counselor by the California Board of Hypnotherapy. He is also a communicant member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in good standing. He is an active member of Ascension Lutheran Church in Torrance, California, where he participates in special choir and assists in worship services. He has also enjoyed fellowship with Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists, and Church of Christ congregations, where he has delivered sermons, conducted song services, and led small group Bible studies. Richard's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/38rlewis Richard's website https://richarddlewisauthor.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jeffrey-s-reynolds/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jeffrey-s-reynolds/support

Shanta speaks with Richard D. Lewis, Author of The Paranormal Christian. Richard is here to share that those supernatural experiences you have had may not be what you have been told you entire life. What we have been taught to fear, those true experiences that you rarely share. What do you believe to be true about life after death?, what about reincarnation?, and what about those things that are unexplained? Ricard is here to share is perspective and if you are seeking real answers, its time to bring the paranormal back into the light. Richard shares what he believes about reincarnation and so much more. ABOUT AUTHOR: Richard D. Lewis is an author, journalist, and veteran of the U.S. Air Force. A graduate of the Defense Information School's writing, broadcast, and public affairs programs, Richard joined the Air Force in 1987 and spent 10 years as a broadcast journalist stationed in Turkey, Utah, and Colorado. After his time serving in the Air Force, Richard worked in TV production in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Los Angeles, California. Creator of the award-winning Pentagon Channel TV newsmagazine Air Force Space Today, he has won multiple awards for hiswork, including Telly, Thomas Jefferson, Air Force Media, and Space Command Media Awards.CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR:Richard.D.LewisAuthor.com ****HOST INFORMATION:www.authentictalks2.com

Meet Russell Midori, a New York City freelance news photographer, documentary filmmaker and co-founder and president of the Military Veterans in Journalism (MVJ), a relatively new professional association that builds community for vets, supports their career growth and advocates for diversifying newsrooms through hiring and promoting more vets. Midori served as a combat correspondent in the Marine Corps from 2008 to 2012, working as a video producer for Marine Forces Europe and Africa and the NCOIC of the Parris Island Public Affairs Office. During his enlistment, he held the rank of sergeant and was twice named an honor graduate of courses at the Defense Information School. According to  U.S. Census data, even though military veterans make up 7% of the population, approximately 2% percent of those who work in U.S. media are post-9/11 veterans. Why is this important? A recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) sponsored study conducted by the RAND Corporation and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans revealed that organizations gain employees with extensive experience and competencies when they hire veterans. The study states, “Vets deliver subject matter expertise, years of on-the-job training and advanced skills in everything from information technology to transportation logistics and from supply-chain management to public relations. Vets can raise a company's workforce to the next level in many areas.” The MVJ is led and run by military veterans such as Midori and co-founder Zack Baddorf who acts as the Executive Director. Their work includes creating opportunities for veterans to break into the media industry and to also serve as a career pipeline by providing news outlets access to talent and diversity for their members.  In this 126th episode of “E&P Reports,” Publisher Mike Blinder is joined by Russell Midori, co-founder and President of Military Veterans in Journalism (MVJ), to discuss the organization's goals of supporting career growth for vets in the news publishing industry and diversifying newsrooms through hiring and promoting more vets. Joining the discussion is Lori King, host and producer of the MVJ podcast “Sword & Pen” and a journalism instructor at The University of Toledo and Kent State University.

We have wanted to make this episode happen since the very beginning of Holding Short. NORAD Tracks Santa has been a part of our holiday traditions since we were both small. Cameron remembers gathering around the family computer with his family waiting for the dial up internet to load Santa's schedule for the night and Laura's mum decreed we HAD to have NORAD on. Join Laura as she learns about how the program keeps jolly old Saint Nick safe, and how it all started with a phone call 65 years ago. Our guest, United States Air Force 1st Lieutenant Sable Brown is currently serving as a Public Affairs Officer at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Public Affairs, and NORAD Tracks Santa, at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. Sable grew up in Mascoutah, IL just a few miles away from Scott Air Force Base. She earned her bachelor's degree in Mass Communications TV and Radio Broadcasting from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2015. In 2017, Sable commissioned from Air Force Officer Training School as a 2nd Lieutenant. After commissioning she was assigned to the 12th Training Squadron at Randolph AFB, TX. She crossed into Public Affairs, completing Defense Information School training in March 2019. She previously served as the Chief of Media operations for 20th Fighter Wing PA at Shaw AFB, South Carolina until September 2020. To learn more about NORAD Tracks Santa, and to track Santa this year, visit their website at www.noradsanta.org/en/, find them on social media on Facebook @noradsanta, Twitter @noradsanta, and Instagram @noradtrackssanta_official, or download the NORAD Tracks Santa App!

Major Sharon Anne Hyland Sisbarro graduated from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. She was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 2008. After graduation from The Basic School in April 2009, Second Lieutenant Sisbarro attended the Public Affairs Qualification Course at the Defense Information School, Fort Meade, MD. Second Lieutenant Sisbarro reported to Marine Corps Recruit Depot/Eastern Recruiting Region Parris Island, SC as the Deputy Director, Public Affairs.Nowadays, she is helping lead a group called the Marine Women's Initiative Team (WIT) which is a grassroots effort to identify barriers and advocate for policy changes to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of female Marines.She talks with Dr. Pam in this fascinating episode about stressors women face in the military, pregnant marines, the work WIT has done to make life better for female marines and changes that still need to be made moving forward as well as how body composition tests get in the way as women try to enter a space that was created for male bodies.The views expressed in this podcast do not constitute the official position or endorsement of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or the US Marine Corps.

The Marine Women’s Initiative Team (WIT) which is a grassroots effort to identify barriers and advocate for policy changes to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of female Marines.Major Sharon Anne Hyland Sisbarro graduated from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. She was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 2008. After graduation from The Basic School in April 2009, Second Lieutenant Sisbarro attended the Public Affairs Qualification Course at the Defense Information School, Fort Meade, MD. Second Lieutenant Sisbarro reported to Marine Corps Recruit Depot/Eastern Recruiting Region Parris Island, SC as the Deputy Director, Public Affairs.Nowadays, she is helping lead a group called the Marine Women’s Initiative Team (WIT) which is a grassroots effort to identify barriers and advocate for policy changes to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of female Marines.She talks with Dr. Pam in this fascinating episode about stressors women face in the military, pregnant marines, the work WIT has done to make life better for female marines and changes that still need to be made moving forward as well as how body composition tests get in the way as women try to enter a space that was created for male bodies.The views expressed in this podcast do not constitute the official position or endorsement of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or the US Marine Corps.

The Marine Women’s Initiative Team (WIT) which is a grassroots effort to identify barriers and advocate for policy changes to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of female Marines.Major Sharon Anne Hyland Sisbarro graduated from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. She was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 2008. After graduation from The Basic School in April 2009, Second Lieutenant Sisbarro attended the Public Affairs Qualification Course at the Defense Information School, Fort Meade, MD. Second Lieutenant Sisbarro reported to Marine Corps Recruit Depot/Eastern Recruiting Region Parris Island, SC as the Deputy Director, Public Affairs.Nowadays, she is helping lead a group called the Marine Women’s Initiative Team (WIT) which is a grassroots effort to identify barriers and advocate for policy changes to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of female Marines.She talks with Dr. Pam in this fascinating episode about stressors women face in the military, pregnant marines, the work WIT has done to make life better for female marines and changes that still need to be made moving forward as well as how body composition tests get in the way as women try to enter a space that was created for male bodies.The views expressed in this podcast do not constitute the official position or endorsement of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or the US Marine Corps.

Misinformation and disinformation seem to be everywhere in media. Join our conversation with John Higgins who is an Iraq war veteran and a public affairs professional. He has 47 weeks of formal training at the Defense Information School of Fort George G. Meade Maryland and a decade of experience in that field. He works as a government contractor now. Follow Enjoy Every Second of It on Facebook and on Twitter. Join our Discord to discuss episodes and to suggest topics! Would you like to be a guest? If you can frame your topic as a how-to, fill out this questionnaire and maybe we will contact you! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/enjoyeverysecondofit/message

This episode is made possible by Freedom Sisters Magazine. Freedom Sister Magazine is a premier digital magazine app designed to share the stories of women veterans. It launches in January of 2021. Learn more here.She joined the Defense Information School faculty in 2019 as a government civilian after four years as bureau chief for the Defense Media Activity in Guam, supervising day-to-day operations and coordinating multimedia coverage throughout the Indo-Pacific region. She served as a combat correspondent and public affairs chief in the Marine Corps from 1993 through 2010, when she was commissioned as a public affairs officer in the Navy Reserve. Her first duty station was Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where she produced daily radio and video reports as part of Operation Sea Signal and Joint Task Force 160, the military operation in response to the influx of Cuban and Haitian migrants attempting to gain asylum in the U.S. She transferred to Camp Pendleton, California in 1995. She served as a military journalist for the base newspaper and operations manager for the commander’s information channel. In 2003, she served as an instructor in the broadcast and public affairs departments at the Defense Information School, and while at DINFOS, was selected to be one of the first on-air anchors of the Pentagon Channel when it debuted in 2004. In 2002, she was mobilized and deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. She also deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to Fallujah and Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006 and 2008. It was in 2006, the value of the intelligence information was believed to be among the Iraqi women. Women would talk to each other as they performed their daily tasks and had a wealth of information. But American men were unable to gather that intelligence. Women began to be integrated into combat arm units to gather that information and the role of Female Engagement Teams began. Many people do not understand the role of women in the Iraq and Afghan conflicts over the past twenty years. Because of the work women have done, now all roles are open to women within the military. This changed was due to the courage and commitment of women starting with Female Engagement Teams.She was mobilized to active duty for two more deployments to Afghanistan, serving as the senior U.S. PAO at the German-led NATO Command in 2012 and as the PAO for Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force under the Joint Special Operations Command in 2018. She served a yearlong tour in 2014 at U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany, supporting special operations exercises in Niger, coordinating a large-scale African media conference and helping to develop contingency plans for the military response to the Ebola virus. In 2019, she served as the PAO for naval support facilities and Aegis Ashore missile defense systems in Romania and Poland. As a civilian, she has worked as a general assignments and military beat reporter for NBC affiliates in San Diego, and as a producer and anchor for Oceanside Community Television in northern San Diego County, She was an adjunct professor at the California International Business University, teaching at the undergraduate, graduate and doctorate levels. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in communication from California State University at San Marco and a Master of Science in global leadership from the University of San Diego.She has won numerous journalism awards, including the Marine Corps Broadcaster of the Year award in 2006, and the PRSA Bronze and Silver Anvil awards in 2009.Connect with Amy:InstagramLinkedInRelated Episode:When Public Affairs Changed – Episode 67How A Care Package Created a Business – Episode 74Finding Herself in the Marines – Episode 12Want to read the whole transcript? Click here.Thank you to my Patreon Sponsor Col Level and above:Kevin Barba, Adriana KeefeThank you Patreon members for your support. Want early access to episodes, ad-free content, and one on one mentorship advice? Become a Patreon member today! Click here.     

A few years ago, I heard Mark Rockefeller speak about how Veterans can help remove the divide in politics. He talked about how veterans are taught to work and execute a mission with people who are different from themselves. As military members we come from all over with all different types of cultures and experiences but are all seen as soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, coasties and have one primary mission, to get the mission done.It requires not only talking to your fellow service member but also working together to solve the problems at hand. That is why I am so excited to talk to Tabitha about why she is running for office. She shares a little of her military experience and her difficult transition and how that led her to run for public office. But it is what she is doing today that is most exciting.Not only is she running for office, but she is already working to bring positive change for her community through helping to organize various events and holding weekly conversations that local Indiana residents are facing. She wants to have a real conversation and stand up for change. She wants to help people with simple solutions and focus on solving problems. She wants to take the politics out of non-partisan issues and find the solution to issues instead of disagreeing and not finding a solution. Tabitha Bartley enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2010 and completed recruit training at MCRD Parris Island, SC. Following recruit training Private Bartley attended Marine Corps Combat Training at Camp Geiger and then the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, MD. PFC Bartley reported to Base Public Affairs, Headquarters and Service Battalion, Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA in June of 2011 to serve as a staff writer for the Quantico Sentry.Lance Corporal Bartley served as the assistant director for the Base Community Relations program where she was part of the Toys for Tots Campaign and ran the base volunteer program. Corporal Bartley then made a PCS move to Marine Corps Recruiting Station Columbia, SC in June 2014.While Stationed at RS Columbia Sgt. Bartley served as the Marketing and Public Affairs Director. She handles all the marketing, public relations, community relations, media relations, and advised the commanding officer. Sgt. Bartley also served as the uniform sexual assault victim advocate.During her time in the Marines, she maintained numerous social media platforms, developed strategic marketing plans, and orchestrated community initiatives. Sgt. Bartley ended her service in the Marine Corps in October 2018 and relocated to Monticello, INShe currently works for the University Development Office at Purdue Research Foundation and serves as the director for Women Veterans of Greater Lafayette, IN. She is also a member of the Disabled American Veterans, the Tippecanoe County Veterans Council, and the Midwest Women Veterans Coalition.Tabitha is married to Jacob Castro and they have three children.Tabitha Bartley’s personal awards include: Navy Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy Marine Corps Achievement Medal with 3 gold stars in lieu of 4th Award, District Support Marine of the Year 2015, District Support Marine of the Year 2016, District Marketing and Public Affairs Marine of the Year 2017.Connect with Tabitha:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tabitha-bartley/www.facebook.com/bartley4indianahttps://secure.actblue.com/donate/bartley-for-indiana-1Mentioned in this episode (affiliate links used):Final Flight, Final FightDo You Know the Story of the Original Military Women Pilots?Girls Guide to the MilitaryRegister to VoteRelated Episodes:Finding Herself in the Marines – Episode 12Join the Marine Corps – Episode 80Serving as an Officer in the Marine Corps – Episode 51Thank you Pateron members for your support. Want early access to episodes, ad-free content, and one on one mentorship advice. Become a Patreon member today! Click here.Affiliate SupportAre you starting a business or needing help in the next step of your business check out the Ministry to Business Guide here.Are you trying to decide what you are going to do as a parent for the upcoming school year? I'm diving into homeschooling, but I'm getting support. Check out the Clever Kid Curriculum here.We recently started investing in the stock market, get two free stocks when you create your Webull Account today! Click here.

Kim J. Plyler is the CEO and president of SahlComm Inc., a public relations and creative communications firm based in Pennsylvania. Kim is a public speaker, PR strategist, Certified Optimize Coach, and author of Master Your Story, It Matters! She has written speeches for admirals in the US navy, has an education in theatre with a Bachelor of Arts degree from DeSales University, and attended The Defense Information School for Journalism, Public Affairs, and Media Relations. Kim has traveled the world, inspiring her to become a storyteller at heart. Kim joins me today to discuss how to master your brand story. She shares why authenticity in your narrative is a vital part of connecting with your audience. She discusses the importance of looking inward to find out who you are and why failures are powerful lessons that will point you in the right direction to move your business forward. She shares tips for refreshing your brand and highlights why it is vital to discover people's perception of you and your business. Kim also shares her favorite marketing tips, business apps, and podcasts. “The best place to learn is when you fail because that's when you start to look internally and you start to see, really, what you are.” - Kim J. Plyler This week on the SmallBizChat Podcast: Resources Mentioned: Connect with Kim J. Plyler: Fix Your Business! Are you ready to run your business with intention? Ready to create a business that allows you to live your dream life and take those dream vacations you deserve? Then you need a copy of my latest book: Fix Your Business: A 90-Day Plan to Get Back Your Life and Remove Chaos From Your Business. Fix Your Business gives you concrete advice on the problem areas many small business owners face as well as the step-by-step process to find solutions so you can live the life of your dreams. It's time to take back control of your business and change how your business is run. Order your copy of Fix Your Business and design your business - and life - with intention. Let's End Small Business Failure - Together! Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the SmallBizChat Podcast - the show on a mission to improve small business success. If you enjoyed this episode, head over to Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, and leave us a rating and review. Help us spread the word and end small business failure by sharing your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media. Visit our website or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube for more great content, tips, and strategies to improve your small business.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WORDS ON FIRE is about the power of communication to do great harm, and how civic leaders and engaged citizens can hold leaders accountable to prevent such harm. Garcia focuses on the language President Trump uses that conditions an audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against a targeted group, rival, or critic. Helio Fred Garcia is president of the crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group and is on the adjunct faculties of New York University and Columbia University. His last book, The Agony of Decision: Mental Readiness and Leadership in a Crisis, was named One of the Best Crisis Management Books of All Time by BookAuthority. His prior book, The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively, was named to the United States Marine Corps Commandant's Professional Reading List for five consecutive years. He is a senior fellow at the Institute of Corporate Communication at Communication University of China. He is a contract lecturer at the Defense Information School and at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

WORDS ON FIRE is about the power of communication to do great harm, and how civic leaders and engaged citizens can hold leaders accountable to prevent such harm. Garcia focuses on the language President Trump uses that conditions an audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against a targeted group, rival, or critic. Helio Fred Garcia is president of the crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group and is on the adjunct faculties of New York University and Columbia University. His last book, The Agony of Decision: Mental Readiness and Leadership in a Crisis, was named One of the Best Crisis Management Books of All Time by BookAuthority. His prior book, The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively, was named to the United States Marine Corps Commandant's Professional Reading List for five consecutive years. He is a senior fellow at the Institute of Corporate Communication at Communication University of China. He is a contract lecturer at the Defense Information School and at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

In this episode, I talk with Tabitha Bartley on how to maintain a resilient mindset during challenging times.  Favorite quotes of the episode: “Nobody can tell you what you can or can’t do, that’s up to you.” Key to a resilient mindset? “Allowing yourself to feel all of the emotions. You don’t need to ignore them, but we don’t need to dwell on them either.” “I love organized chaos and thrive on stress, but it’s important to know your limits and ask for support when you need it.” Episode Overview In this episode, I talk with Tabitha Bartley on how to maintain a resilient mindset during challenging times.  Tabitha Bartley enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2010 and completed recruiting training at MCRD Parris Island, SC. Following recruit training She attended Marine Corps Combat Training at Camp Geiger and then the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, MD. PFC Bartley reported to Base Public Affairs, Headquarters and Service Battalion, Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA in June of 2011 to serve as a staff writer for the Quantico Sentry. During her time in the Marines, she maintained numerous social media platforms, developed strategic marketing plans, and orchestrated community initiatives. Sgt. Bartley ended her service in the Marine Corps in October 2018 and relocated to Monticello, IN So with that, let’s jump right in.  TOPICS Tabitha’s unique career path. Mindset and Resiliency skillsets. Leadership skillsets to be a role model through challenging times. What’s your secret to balancing being a mom, working, and serving your community? Connect with Tabitha on Linked In at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tabitha-bartley/ Interested in connecting with women veterans? Join the Midwest Women Veterans Coalition by registering here. 5 Questions Segment Q1. We know that the most successful and happy people have a morning routine, what do you do each morning or evening that sets your day up for success?  My morning commute is where I get ready for the day, listen to my favorite music, or have time to myself to think. Q2. What's your definition of Success? It’s personal to me. It’s not someone else’s definition. It’s about doing good, making an impact, and feeling that I’m meeting that purpose in life. Q3. What's your definition of Happiness? Being able to be your authentic self, once you figure out who that is. Once I figured that out, I was getting more done without feeling burnt out because I was able to be myself. Q4. What do you know now that you wish you would have known 10 years ago? Listen to your gut more to know who you are. Q5. What do you think is the biggest issue facing busy professionals today? Work-Life Balance. If you are going to take time, then take the time. Put your phone down completely and spend time with your family. Completely be in the moment. Want to connect? Join our email list at https://www.pawsconsulting.com/shownotes Sign up for a free High Performance Strategy Session at https://www.pawsconsulting.com/podcast  Connect with Angela at www.pawsconsulting.com or on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram @DemareeDVM. How to leave a review on iTunes: Go to https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-stethoscope/id1354281411 or open iTunes. Click 'View in iTunes' (or maybe you are already there)                   Click 'Subscribe' Then Click 'Ratings and Reviews' Then Click 'Write a Review'  

Rear Admiral Frank Thorp speaks about his family’s longstanding service, within and outside of the military. He speaks about the principle of America’s service men and women serving and defending our Constitution, representing freedom and people’s desire to fight for it and give up what they have, as embodied by Bob Feller. Rear Admiral Thorp speaks about being in the Pentagon on 9/11 and reminds listeners that valor is not a word to be taken lightly. “In his final active duty assignment in the Navy, Rear Adm. (ret) Frank Thorp, IV was the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Information (CHINFO), serving as principal spokesman for the Department of the Navy and providing strategic communication counsel to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. He led the Navy’s Public Affairs community of more than 2,500 active and reserve officer, enlisted, and civilian communication professionals.Prior to this assignment, Thorp served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense (joint communication) where he was responsible for overseeing Department of Defense (DoD) efforts to shape department-wide communication doctrine, organization, and training for the joint force. As director of the strategic communication integration group (SCIG) secretariat, Thorp also led DoD efforts for strategic communication auspices of the deputy secretary of defense, DoD strategic communication plans.He served as the special assistant for public affairs to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2003 until 2005. In 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Thorp was deployed to Qatar as the chief of media for U.S. Central Command (forward).From 2000 to 2003, he served as special assistant for public affairs to the Chief of Naval Operations. His other assignments have included serving as the public affairs officer for the Bureau of Naval Personnel; Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet; Joint Task Force Middle East; Cruiser Destroyer Group 12 and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). He has also served as director of public affairs and congressional notification at the Navy Office of Legislative Affairs.Thorp has also had several previous assignments at the Navy’s Office of Information. As a commander, he served as assistant chief of information for media operations. Other assignments include executive assistant to the chief of information, national news desk action officer, and aide to the chief of information.Prior to specializing in public affairs, Thorp served as a surface warfare officer forward-deployed to Sasebo, Japan.In 1999, Thorp completed a fellowship at Hill & Knowlton Worldwide Public Affairs in Washington D.C. He has a master’s degree in broadcast journalism and public affairs from American University and a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. Thorp is a 1986 graduate of the Defense Information School and a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in operations analysis.His decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal (2), Legion of Merit (2), Meritorious Service Medal (3), Joint Service Commendation Medal (2), and the Navy Commendation Medal (3)” (United States Navy website).Bob Feller Act of Valor FoundationPodcast hosts: Tyler Buchholz and Nathaniel CameronSupport the show (https://customcoinholders.com/product/walk-of-heroes/)

This episode we highlight local Jacksonville, Nc small business RP Studios. https://www.rpstudiosllc.com I'm so excited you're here! I hope you enjoy what you see and I look forward to working with you.    A little about myself,  I am a California native (high desert area) that ventured off to the military and became a Marine Combat Photographer. This is where the excitement grew and   really  formed the foundation of my photography career. I am now a spouse to an awesome Marine and have two  amazing kiddos!  I am certified through the Defense Information School in Maryland and I have attended numerous seminars and online classes to continue the ever growing skills needed to create the style of portraiture I love to capture.  One of my specialties is in making women feel beautiful! I love having the chance to remove the daily hustle and bustle ladies go through day in and day out. In the Glam sessions You spend the day being pampered by a professional makeup artist who will style your hair and glam you up for your photo session. It is so much fun and you leave refreshed and ready to take on the world!  I'm really excited to start a new venture in photography called Personal Brand Photography. If you are an online influencer, entrepreneur, creative or business ready to stand out from the crowd, then this is for you. We create visual content that will tell your story but make you shine  above the rest! 

I conducted this interview in 2017 but today in 2020, it's still so relevant. Now that the old podcast is down, I'm publishing again so that the great work being done is not forgotten.Former U.S. Marine Erin Kirk-Cuomo is fully aware of what her sisters in the Marine Corps are going through as they battle Marines United; a group of 30,000+ men who stored and shared thousands of photos of female Marines on Google Drive and Facebook. Some of the photos were taken without permission, some were nude photos shared without permission. In many cases, male Marines encouraged each other to find these women and rape them, even posting their duty stations, full names, addresses and phone numbers.Erin knows because it happened to her. As co-founder of Not in My Marine Corps, she's helping to lobby for federal laws that will make non-consensual photosharing illegal on a federal level, and providing support for victims. But like many before her, she's sometimes fighting an uphill battle not everyone is sure she can win.Listen on iTunesShow Notes:Links: https://www.facebook.com/NotInMyMarineCorps/https://www.notinmymarinecorps.org/Biography: Erin Kirk-Cuomo is a former United States Marine, business owner, activist, co-founder of Not In My Marine Corps, Coast Guard wife, and mother. Ms. Kirk-Cuomo is a 2002 Graduate of the University of Tampa with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and a minor in Chemistry, and a 2005 Graduate of the University of the Arts in Photojournalism. Upon graduating from the University of the Arts in 2005, Ms. Kirk-Cuomo enlisted in the Marine Corps as a combat photographer.After completing basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina, Ms. Kirk-Cuomo completed combat training at Camp Geiger in Jacksonville, North Carolina before attending the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland where she graduated as the Distinguished Honor Graduate. Ms. Kirk-Cuomo was assigned to Camp Pendleton where she briefly worked at the base combat camera unit before being transferred to 1st Marine Division Combat Camera, deploying several times to Fallujah as a combat photographer. During her deployments in Iraq, Ms. Kirk-Cuomo was deployed with various infantry units in and around Al Anbar to include Ramadi, Al Qaim, Saqlawiyah, and Korean Village. Ms. Kirk-Cuomo was also a member of the lioness team and later a member on the very first female engagement team created in Fallujah in 2008. Upon the end of her deployment to Iraq in 2008, Ms. Kirk-Cuomo was selected as the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ photographer for General James Conway. Ms. Kirk-Cuomo traveled to Afghanistan extensively while being assigned to the staff of the Commandant including covering the beginning of the battle of Marjah in 2010.Not In My Marine Corps was created in order to provide a platform of resources for survivors of military sexual trauma, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and non-consensual photo sharing. Not In My Marine Corps also strives to provide an online support group to share stories and experiences to encourage and educate survivors that they are not alone in this fight.

A college coach who says college might not be for everyone?! If you've got high school aged kids, or you're ready to go against the status quo in your industry - don't miss this episode!Thomas is a retired Army officer and recovering financial advisor who has a passion for helping families navigate the debacle of higher education in this country. He became intrigued with the whole higher ed thing almost as soon as he got into financial management. One of the first couples that sat across the table from him asked two questions he couldn't answer: Can you help us figure out how to pay for college, and do you know how to file for financial aid? That started a 23-year journey of becoming an expert on financial aid and developing a process to maximize the higher education experience.Now he coaches families and students on all facets of admissions and financial aid. But he takes a practical approach to college. Today it has to be a value proposition for families.Thomas is Managing Partner of OptimumEd, a Virginia-based higher education and financial aid consulting firm. His undergrad degree is from the University of Florida, and he earned his Master's Degree from the University of Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the Army's Command and General Staff College and the Defense Information School.He is also a member of the Virginia Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the Higher Education Consultants Association, as well as a member of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants.Currently, he is in the process of publishing the 4th addition of his book on Higher Education, “Plan for College, Prepare for Life. The No-Nonsense Guide to Higher Education.” He has also been published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and been featured in other local publications and on local radio and television as an expert on college and financial aid planning.He has delivered seminars for The Governor's School for International Studies, Richmond Community High School for the Gifted and Talented, the Chesterfield County School System's ""Very Informed Parents' Program"" (VIP) as well as other schools, church, civic organizations, and corporations, such as Capital One.With his wife, Thomas also founded Beacon Tree Foundation, dedicated to assisting families with mentally ill children, by providing information, resources, and funding.He has served on the Community Advisory Board for Bon Secours Saint Francis Medical Center, the Virginia Treatment Center for Children's Advisory Council and is a member of the Children's Mental Health Resource Center's program committee. He's also member of the Kiwanis Club of Midlothian-Chesterfield and served as president of the Midlothian Youth Soccer league for the 6 years before their merger with the Richmond Kickers Youth Program.He and his wife, Diana, live in Midlothian, Virginia and have four children and two grandchildren. Find out more at www.optimumedcenter.com. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

U.S. Army Veteran Jose L. Torres is the writer/creator of Speakeasy/Markosia's series The Hunger, Image Comics’ mini‐series Heirs of Eternity and the “American Dream” short in their Outlaw Territory anthology. After attending the Defense Information School, where he was named the Distinguished Honor Graduate of his Combat Photography Course, he was hand‐picked for the Special Missions platoon of the 55th Signal Company. He deployed to Afghanistan with the SOCOM Joint Taskforce

Today we’re talking with Master Sergeant Nicholas Kurtz. Nicholas has been an Air Force Broadcaster for more than 15 years. He talks how he uses his experience to train up-and-coming broadcasters as an instructor at the Defense Information School in Ft. Meade, MD.He talks about the importance of finding good mentors and being open to new ideas and experiences. Nicholas talks about building joint service teams in combat zones and about emulating people you admire. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

157: Savings Angel and upendPR with Navy Veteran Josh Elledge Love discounts and saving money? Or, are you in need of good public relations? On today’s episode of Veteran on the Move, Joe Crane interviews Josh Elledge of Savings Angel and upendPR. Tune in to learn where you can get the best savings deals and boost your business with media coverage. Meet Josh Elledge Josh Elledge is the Founder and Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngel.com®, and is one of the nation’s leading experts on consumer savings. He's a weekly syndicated newspaper columnist – reaching more than 1.1 million readers. He also regularly appears on more than 75 TV stations across the country – having appeared on TV or radio more than 1500 times. He's also the founder of upendPR.com which helps entrepreneurs and startups seeking to exponentially increase sales & traffic with big media coverage. Josh lives in Orlando, FL and is a US Navy veteran, a dad of 3 awesome kids, and is a self-proclaimed fitness geek. Following Uncle Sam Josh worked well in the navy from 1990-1995. He was scheduled to work in a nuclear submarine when he realized that it wasn’t for him. He pursued journalism instead. For that, he studied at Defense Information School where he got the opportunity to meet other people from different military branches. Josh did quite well that he got qualified to go to a broadcast journalism school. “Wherever Uncle Sam needs me to go, I will go and serve.” -Josh Elledge Towards the end of the course, they were asked to turn in dream sheets. They were given the chance to state where they’d want to work. Josh indicated that he’d go wherever he’s needed. He got his answer, and was sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He worked there for 3 years and afterwards worked in Alaska as a morning DJ. Following New Career Directions Josh earned college credits while in the military. Because of that, he only spent two and a half years for his Bachelor’s degree. Eventually, he got into internet development. He fell in love with designing websites, and did some work for his professors. It was in demand that time. In the process, he came upon entrepreneurship and started a number of businesses. He started Savings Angel 10 years ago, and has been in the media many times. [adrotate banner="5"] To hear about Josh Elledge’s savings business and media coverage for startups, download and listen to the entire episode. Leave us a rating and review if you enjoyed the show. We love hearing from you! If you are short on time, here are the highlights of Josh Elledge: Following Uncle Sam? ([1:43]) Following new career directions? ([5:05]) How Savings Angel works? ([10:07]) Debunking the Walmart myth? ([17:20]) Save with coupons? ([20:29]) Startup publicity with upendPR? ([21:52]) Josh’s piece of advice? ([26:50]) Episode Links: Savings Angel upendPR Franchise with a Leader Download Joe Crane’s Top 7 Paths to Freedom or get it on your mobile device. Text VETERAN to 38470. Join the Veteran on the Move on Facebook! Check out Veteran on the Move on Facebook to connect with our guests! It’s also a great place where you can stay in touch with other veterans who are transitioning to entrepreneurship, and get updates and free gouge on the people programs and resources to help you in your transition to entrepreneurship. The Veteran On the Move podcast has published over 150 episodes giving listeners the opportunity to hear in-depth interviews conducted by host Joe Crane featuring the people, programs and resources to assist veterans in their transition to entrepreneurship: Marine Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard veterans, DOD, entrepreneurship, business, success, military spouse, transition, education, programs and resources.  Veteran On the Move has garnered over 500,000 listens verified through Stitcher Radio, Sound Cloud, Itunes and RSS Feed Syndication making it one of the most popular Military Entrepren...

108:  Mark, MHWPR president/owner, has broad knowledge in the many facets of public relations ranging from strategic communications planning, crisis communications, and internal, media and community relations to development and delivery of the communications tactics to support those efforts (print, web, photo/video, etc.). Mark retired from the U.S. Army in Fall 2004 as a Lieutenant Colonel after 23 years experience leading and training Infantry and Public Affairs Soldiers around the world. After retiring from the Army in December 2005, Mark worked for a year in corporate public relations and left that position to start his own business. Mark has a B.A. in English/Technical Writing and an M.A. in Journalism/Public Relations (with honors) and was an honor graduate of the Defense Information School. http://traffic.libsyn.com/veteranonthemove/Mark20Wiggins20Ep108.mp3 - Networking takes time - Grow where you are planted The Veteran On the Move podcast has published over 100 episodes giving listeners the opportunity to hear in-depth interviews conducted by host Joe Crane featuring the people, programs and resources to assist veterans in their transition to entrepreneurship:  Marine Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard veterans, DOD, entrepreneurship, business, success, military spouse, transition, education, programs and resources.  Veteran On the Move has garnered over 500,000 listens verified through Stitcher Radio, Sound Cloud, Itunes and RSS Feed Syndication making it one of the most popular Military Entrepreneur Shows on the Internet Today.

Maureen Stewart is the MC, Host & Workstop Producer for the DC Shootoff Video Workshop.  Maureen has over 13 years of experience as a videographer, and graphic designer. She joined the Air Force in 1999, and served for 10 years. While in the Air Force she served with the 1st Combat Camera Squadron as an Aerial Videographer, documenting contingency operations around the world. She also has more than 6 years of experience as an instructor and was certified in and taught 3 courses at the Defense Information School. While serving she earned her BFA in Digital Design.Currently she is the Chief of Publishing and Design for AIRMAN magazine, the official magazine of the United States Air Force. She also runs her own freelance graphic design business, Design Stew, where she regularly volunteers her talents to non-profit agencies in need of design work.

I talk with Jordan Martin, who is currently raising money for his new film REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT.In this episode, we talk about his upcoming film, why Jordan joined the Air Force, learning the military's rules so thoroughly you know enough to break them and his subsequent award as the Department of Defense Communicator of the Year for 2021, how he became a filmmaker and what it's like to work as one in Oklahoma, and his recommendations for aspiring filmmakers. If they are anything like Jordan Martin, the future is extraordinarily bright and creative. We discuss suicide in this episode. Know there are resources available to you, and if you're struggling, it's okay to share your feelings. 988 is available 24 hours a day.We also use military acronyms in this episode. MEPS is the military entry processing station, an evaluation center before you ship out to basic training in whatever branch you're joining. I remember the rate of braggadocio at MEPS from the soon to be military members was inversely related to how soon they were attending basic training. And if it's your day to leave, MEPS is the last part of the civilian world outside of the airport you are going to get for awhile.DINFOS is the Defense Information School, located at Fort Meade in the Washington, DC suburbs. If you're listening to a military spokesperson or looking at a photo or video produced by the military, there's a high likelihood that person attended DINFOS. Links:REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT Seed & Spark Campaign (https://seedandspark.com/fund/rbf-film#story)REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/rbf.film/)Jordan Martin Website (https://www.thehumanlens.co/)Defense Communicator of the Year (https://www.dvidshub.net/awards/dma/2021)"Created To Be" - Rico Hilliard -- Inspired by the Tuskegee Airmen By Jordan Martin (https://www.dvidshub.net/video/787683/created-rico-hilliard-inspired-tuskegee-airmen)Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/first-time-go/donations