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Understanding 9/11tv Army Secretary Discusses Leadership in National Security CSPAN March 26, 2024 10:55pm-11:54pm EDT
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the cub, wednesday morning. former transportation department inspector general discussesv$ airline safety, federal oversight of the aviation industry and oversights at boeingistant at the john hopkins school of health talks about chemicals in drinking water. c-span's "wall street journal." live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning on c-span, c-span now, our tree mobile app or at cspan.org. ♪ >> the house will be in order. >> this year,rates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we've been source fol hill. providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government.
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all with the support ofnies. c-span, 45 years and counting. powered by cable. >> and now, a discussion with army sector christine warmouth -- wormuthonal security qualities of a leader. she also discussed ethics and building trust and gave an overview of is doing to create a pipeline for more female leaders. 24 event was hosted bygton, d.ct under an hour. >> good morning, everyone. i want to start by thanking youd sharing this space with us today and also to begin, i would like to thank our co-sponsors, the gender and initiative affairs and the studies
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the national securities program and the g.w. military and veteran services for making in event possible.u for your suppo. i would lining to begin this like to begin this event by saying is it is on the recor are welcomed so today our conversation will center on the role of little and in national security and the role of women in national security and international security and i-can think of no one moreifto y christine wormuth. please allow me to sharem:■q sof her career highlights. she is the 24th secretary of the army. she was worn in on may 27, 2021 following by president biden and her confirmation by the united states senate. as the civilian leader of it
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have united states army, wormute service's $1 5 billion budgets and is responsible forecisions in one million active guards and reserve soldiers. secretary wormuth has worked on defense and national security policy for over 25 years as a career civilian and as a presidential pointee. prior to her current role, she was the director of the international defense and security accerat rand corporation, providing analytical support to the secretary of defense. she was the under secretary of defense for policy from 2014 to 2016, serving as the secretary of defense's tom advisor and representing the department of y council's deputies committee. she also holds ahelor of
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arts in political science and fine arts and a master of public policy from the university of maryland. joining secretary wormuth for this is our own alista ayres. dr. ayres is the first whom to serve as dean at tell cannot school of international affairs. she's an award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit and private sectors from 2013 to 2021 she was the senior fellow for india and south asia. deanes awarded numerous fellowships and has received honor awards for her work with the state department. she focuses on india's role in the world and the astralses wit.
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her book request "our time has come" was published by oxfo 2018 and was selected by the financial times for its 2018 politics list. dean ayres has worked as an interpreter for the national committee of the red cross. she received an m.b. harvard college and a degree from the university of chicago. she has held the trilateral jenld -- aagenda working group and the board of policy board of directors. this yearent for the arts democracy announced she will join the organization as a member of the board of directors. with that,g secretary warmath ad
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dean ayres. [applause] >> thank you, secretary, for making time to be here with us today. we are very excited about your lessons in leadership. as we were preparing to come in that struck me about your biography was that you got your start in government through thegram. before i begin the question i will ask you about leadership, would you say a few words about
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how the program facilitated your career path? sec. wormuth: sure. i am a huge fan of the pmf program and probably would not be here today if it were not for that program. i was fortunate enough to be chosen for the office of secretary of defense back in 1995. i spent almost a year at the state department. i was thinking about that as i drove over here. there was a special office they set up to facilitate the senate round of data enlargement. madeleine albright was secretary at that got to see her a littlet work, which is remarkable. and then i was very fortunate convert into a permanent civil service position on my first spot in the pentagon was with an
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incredible figure in national security. was an early mentor of mine and has been someone who has been very helul a f lot over the course in my career. so i would not be here if it were not for the program. anyone interested in foreigncy f any kind who are graduate students, i strongly encourage you to apply for that program. this is great advice and i hope you take it to heart. here's the first question i was originally going to ask you and becausweere, we are really interested in hearing your thoughts and lessons on leadership. at you consider the essential qualities of leadership, and how has that been manifested throughout your career?
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sec. wormuth: one thing tt a manager, i think a leader has to be someone who can guide people with all sorts of perspectives in a direction towards objective. and i think more characteristics i beeve very important in leaders are humility. i think it is very important. at again at a timed when everything is changing, even if you are running a very large organization as i am now, it is really important to remember there are a tonf that you
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need the input from other people. i think authenticity leader. again, i mentioned michelle flournoy, she is someone i greatly admire. we are very different people with very different styles. i realized relatively early in my journey in national securit i could not try to lead in the same way she does. we are just different people. i feel like if to be effective,e to be true to who you are and lean into your individual st authentic. i think people can smell when you are not authentic so it is important to have authenticity. another really important quality for leaders is integrity. these are some challenging times. ■a right
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. you certainly have to try to do what is right. i think maintaining your professional and personal integrity is important. dr. ayres: as everyone here knows, this is women's history month. you aror major. how do you see the role of women in today's armed services on the opportunities available to women in leadership and career i think there are more opportunities for women and certainly for advancement and to be leaders today than in any time in the past. and there are a few different reasons for that. it all starts in the beginning of the pipeline. if you do not have enough people people of color,ounds, whether different ethnicities, you want to get people early to come into the pipeline of your
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organization if they are going to be able to gain the experiences and the leadership and maturity to serve in ever-increasing positions. i think at the department of defense, i came■÷ in 1995. i was 25 or 26 years old. it was during the clinton administration. the administration had made an effort to try to bring in more women. so there were definitely women around me i could seeip positio. but since that time, a couple of things have really changed that i think have improved ities for women to serve in leadership positions. one is when ashton carter was secretar defense he opened all f the services to women. for example, there has army chia
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four-star general who leads the army who has not come out of the mb arm. if every -- so every chief of staff has been from the women up until relatively recently were not allowed to serve in thoseranches in certain positions. that has now changed. i think that you will see over time, going back to mpo be more women who will have come through those communities that will gain the■ighest level. for example right now, the four-star commander of u.s. southern command is laura richardson. we have a division commander in the army, michelle schmidt. h■"■[ave not d a lot of women
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division commanders but that has started to change. the navy i think is very proud that t chief is admiral frank eddie, a service operator. so you are starting to see it change. the head of u.s. tnspoat woman. you are starting to see changes. the other thing i think that has changed and is making it easier for women to risehighest leaders there are more resources to support women and families. roup of women i started with in 1995, on few were left and continued to stay in government. i thought to myself, why is that? a significant reason■ the fork e they decided whether they wanted
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to have children. it is hard. i have two kids, twin daughrs about to turn 23. it is hard to work the kinds of jobs i had and raise my kids and be the kind of mom went in their lives. i was very fortunate to have a partner who was supportive of that. but it was challenging. have done a lot more in government i think to make it easier for men and women to have families. for example,the we now have 12 weeks of paid parental leave. you can take advantage of that as a woman but also as a man. you can be birthparents or adoptive parents or foster parents. it has enabled people the challenge of career and family a little more easily than was the case in the past. we have done a lot to try childe
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subsidies available so people can balance that. that kind ofly important and can really make a difference in terms of women staying in the workforce long p to higher positions of authority. dr. ayres: the challenge of childcare effects so many sectors of the economy but it is great to■■1e military. we heard in the introduction how large $186■=■"%< billion, extene personnel, three 130 active-duty come up one million reservists? sec. wormuth: we have almost one million people in the army. active-duty is 452,000. garden reserves the remainder. and we have a very large number
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of department of army civilians. civilians, you do not have to put a uniform on. dr. ayres: so a huge organization. how do you balance■ maintaining traditional leadership and values and the need for adaptability and innovation at a time when a lot hard to balancehological both i would think. can you speak a little bit to that? sec. wormuth: sure. the u.s. army has a veryhistory. we go back to before the official start of the united states of america. that, culture and tradition is very important. there are many different army retains its culture and sort of brings people into our everything from talking about our motto, which is this will
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defend, to all of the heritage of our various units, the lineage and history of units that people belong to is always emphasized. at the same time,■d we e innovd on adapting. right now in particular i would say the u.s. arm ufound transfon in probably the last 40 years. we have spent obviously t yearsn counterterrorism. we have been pivoting to a on lt operations, thinking about adversaries like russia, the pacing challenge of china, and to be ready for that we have to be innovative. so we are looking at how to bring artificial intelligence anusing the weapon systems that
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use directed energy and lasers and high-powered microwaves. we s 2018 called army futures command which we chose to headquarter in austintexas ase wanted to immerse the command into a part of the country that has a lot of startups d so i think yoe to strive to be innovative and keep up with the times, but also grounded in your lineage. i was reading a book by robert batesnd he talks about not only his time as secretary of defense but also chancellor of texas and i meant university, h have -- texas a and and which is my hometown. transferred from being an
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all-male institution where they were all cadets to broader, excepting women, he made the decision not everyone had to join the poor. but he retained the corps cadets and growing up there, it is an important part of the texas a and m it even as the universities -- university focus brought into. it speaks to the importance stat make your institution unique. dr. ayres: as you think about leadership, how do you think about building an ethics and accountability into leadership? can you speak a little bit about that? sec. wormuth: sure. i think it is very important. i think leaders need to have integrity. we all need to have integrity as professionals and whatever field
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we go into. particularly at a time i think we are you see a lot of declining trust in institutions here in the united states. so to me it speaks to more than ever the importance of having a culture of ethics and accountability. in the we try to create that culture of accountability and a lot of different ways. west point military academy has the motto duty, honor, country. thereict honor code at west point. there is a lot of emphasis at the academy on character, leadership, integrity, ethics, accountability. but of course wpoficers. the others come from rotc
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programs around the country. but iould say at every level with our leaders, whether they are lieutenants or jr., lieutenant col.'s take battalion command. we take command of battalions and there is an emphasis in those courses on ethics and ac do the same thing for our baby generals, when they become one star professional military education and part of that is about accountability and ethics and we talk about how the more senior you become, the more you are operating in a fishbowl, the more you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. honest, there is
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certainly a perception in some parts of the army that there is a double staar■mwtd. lrthat there is a perception tht we struggle with accountability. and certainlyry recently i made a decision based on some credible information to suspend a four-star is a very significap to take. we do not do that very often. and there is an investigation and that has to proceed and i do not want to say much more about it given that the investigation is ongoing. but we need to ho oures c. perception in some quarters that ncos are held to a different standard officers, that officers will sometimes get a slap on the wrist where an mco is more severely punished. i think very important again in this time of declining trust in institutions that we
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demonstrate not just in words but in deeds that we9 an ethical institution and we do have rules that apply to everyone and that we hd ernecc to the rules and standards. dr. ayres: a quick follow-up for some who might not know, nco's noncommissionedhow does that dir officers? sec. wormuth: officers and noncommissioned officers, wa young american and less in the army as a privates, you can be promoted over time and become a jr. noncommissioned officer. we have first sergeant, sergeant first class, staff sergeant all the way up to the sergeant major t ranking person in the army. it is often the teaches our first lieutenants how to show them the ropes when they first come in and are in charge
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of groups of soldiers. so the ncos are very important parts of the army, the backbone of the army. something that differentiates us from any other military around the world and also i would argue gives us a comparative advantage which does not have an nco corps. but they tend to be the working class, the blue-collar part of the army as opposed to maybe the officer part which you could think of as at that again speaks to sometimes the perception that there is a double standard for how they are held accountable compared let me come back to the question of leadership. students sometimes come to me
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with questions about next steps and career pathways in life. i know mine has not been linear. can you speak a little bit about lenges you may have faced in your career and have you overcome them? because pathways■m are not alwas that everything works out well the first time around. sec. wormuth: first of all, some advice. i think it is very useful to ha aive-year goal you are reaching for, to have a vision for where you want to be five years from now. but they were so many variables and kinks in the road that i think you cannot really plan that far ahead. and if you try to plan five years ahead you can sometimes get locked in and miss opportunities. so i have found for me as my career has unfolded over time that being open to the unexpected can be handy and aa
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career. i'm looking at jennifer, we were colleagues at a think tank in town and career was i had the opportunity to serve as executive director the jones commission, which congress set up to look at the iraqi security forces ine were in the middle of the war peered i am not a middle east expert so who knows why i was asked to be the executive director of the it exposed me to a whole bunch of different issues and people that i would not have■g met hadi not been ready to take advantage of that opportunity. in terms of leadership vjchallenges, i can give a coupe just from my current position as
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secretary of the army. coming in is the first woman to be secretary of the army and as a person who has not served in uniform in the army was a big challenge. coming into that role and being positioned to be effectives armd to earn the trust of the army, both the uniform side and the civilian side. it was a challenge. and i think the way i tried to meet the challenge if you will is first, prepare, prepare, prepare. some folks in the army, some leaders in the army knew who i maybe i had worked with some of them when i was under secretary of defense for policy, but many of the senior leaders in the army did not know me and i'm sure might have had some skepticism about me. so the way i tried to earn their
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trust, one of the things i did was to demonstrate that i was capable and competent and knowledgeable and a big way i di was by preparing. preparation will serve you well, no matter what you do. tried to earn the trust was to listen, to show that i did not know everything and was not coming in with an attitude of there is a new sheriff in town and i will show you who was boss. i took some time to where the army was, what the senior leaders thought were the big issues before i came outbjectiv. again, i think another way to meet the challenge was to bemble wisdom and advice of the people
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that were going to be my most senior cadre of leaders. another leadership challenge i have had a secretary of the army was maybe deep into my first year it started to become apparent that we had a very serious recruitingwhen i stepped into the role. but i started, my spidey senses started going off 79 months into the job -- 7 to 9 into the job. i had to dig. when you are at the very top of organizations, people do not want to tell you bad news and the army has a mission orientedo one likes to say we have a big problem. so my first challenge was just a surfacing the information to figure out just how significant the challenge really was.
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figuring out, ok, what are we going to do about this? what is the first wave of things we will do to trto fix this problem? the army has had recruiting challenges every now and again but a lot of what we are experiencing here is really different. different than recruiting challenges in the past. diate steps to take to try to turn it around was a big challenge and very to help with recruiting because we have to maintain the trust and confidence of coress. if they do not see us taking action to solve a problem, they will solve it for us. and then the third part of the leadership challenge, i have found, is after we took the first steps to try to help
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ourselves,created the future sop course which is an academic boot camp to help young people who did not q score high enough on the test we administer. it was very successful. we tried a whole bunch of other things. some were successful, some were not. it became clear to me with all of the changes we made in the first year of the recruiting crisis that it was not going to be enough to turn it around and get us into a position where we would be able to recruit enough young people. so working with t c staff, i hae out what is phase two of the transformation of■ recruiting. i found i really had to drive that process and roll up my sleeves andive into figuring
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out how we were going to more profoundly transform recruiting. luckily, i knew i needed to find the experts. so i basically reached out to a. that is just a few examples of leadership challenges i have had. dr. ayres: i did not know about the reui interesting to hear you talk about this. you are still working to overcome this? it is ongoing? sec. wormuth: absolutely. when i came in as secretary we were 480,000 people. now i'm 452,000. usually about 60,000 soldiers leave the army every year. a person signs up for four years then leaves. we were retaining at a very high level. a lot of those who join the army make a career of it. but 60,000 a year go and do
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other things. the first year i was secretary of the army, we only 45,000. last year we recruited 51,000. this year we have set the goal of 55,000. and we have positive momentum towards that. but if we are losing 60,000 every year and only bringing in 50,000, the size of the overall army gets smaller and smaller. so we really need to get back to a place where we are recruiting 65,000 a year. that is a very large number when we have recordt it is a very competitive job market, we have the g.i. bill but starbucks also offers college tuition, a lot of companies offer better health benefits than they used to. and they is declining trust in
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init the number of young people who are inclined to consider military service is getting very small. only americans say they are open to the idea of military service. that is a very small percentage. dr. ayres:■+ looking externally, challenges are for the united states looking ahead? how should we address them? sec. wormuth: there arere a weae need to think about as we look out. but two that really strike meñ1, one, artificial intelligence will profoundly reshape our society, i believe. ways that none of us probably in this room can really foresee. so i think leaders of
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=&in have to be thinking about what the changes will likely be, how can we make sure we are positioning our institutions to reap the positives that can come from artificial intelligence institutions and society from the darker things ai could enable. i think thatchallenge because in many cases, people in senior leadership positions are not veryif knowledgeable about , about the technology behind it, about how to talk about it, how i personally am trying to get smarter about ai because i think it is a requirement if you are going be a leader of a large institution at this point because it is really going to shape our world and you can see
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o=think about government structure, regulation. the biden administration has put out an executive order about artificial intelligence and we have policy in the department of defense that says above all ai s that are ethical. but congress i think is grappling and struggling with how to think about regulating the brand-new phenomenon. so i see it as a huge challenge. the second really big challenge i think for leaders as we look outside our institutions how to address all these challenges, whether it is ai or the war in israel or what is happening in ■ukraine, when our government is so dysfunctional and when we are all trying to lead in anat is tt
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polarized i have ever seen in my professional lifetime. at a time where the threat in the national security domain is profound, our institutions are really struggling to come togetho day. i am getting ready to go and do my budget hearings in a couple of weeks, general geo1le and i will testify in front of four different committees. the degree of partisanship is very high and it is hard to bring people together. so i think i might just look at how congress is struggling to pass the ukrainedly in the national security interest of this country. passing the supplemental is not an altruistic thing to do just because we are being nice to it is about our national security interest. i see the dysfunction■ and
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partisanship as a big challenge that leaders have to figure out either how to overcome it, how to bring americans bacle bit, od in an environment that remains as partisan as it is today. dr. ayres:■tion before we open it up to questions. what advice would you offer our aspiring national security leaders■ here as they think abot their own paths ahead? sec. wormuth:follow your passions. i was saying to a professor, i have been blessed throughout my he time i pretty much loved every job i have had. and not everybody feels that way about their work. so give yourself some time and space to pursue what really drives you, because i think if you love the work you are doing
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your chances of being successful in that work goes up. i would say try to get in as quickly as you can, whether you are an undergraduate or graduate, when you leavesomethio roll up your sleeves and start working in the area where you are. and like i said, be open to change. some of the best things for me careerwise have been things i did not expect to happen. and i think sometimes when you push yourself to get out of your comfort zone,ik said, when i became the director of the jones commission, i was not a middle east expert. it mnt to go to iraq in 2007 in the middle of one of the most violent periods. my mom was not super pched about that.
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but i took the leap and it was very useful. so i would say be open to and try to push yourself beyond your comfort zone sometimes. dr. ayres: let's go ahead and open>ñ i lot of questions here. we have someone with a microphone so we can make sure everyone online can hear us? i saw a hand go up over here. yes. >> thank you so much for coming. it is an honor to listen to you speak. talked about ai andcounterterr. ■ is your line between protection of the people in the u.s. and what defines privacy? sec. wormuth: that is a good
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question. privacy is obviously very important and i think one of the things that sets us apart as a democracy is tha as citizens here, we are entitled to quite a bit of privacy. i think that is something have to think through very carefully when we look at how ai and machine learning is we have to continue to hold up the value of privacy and preserve that, because i again, i think all of want to be entitled to some fundamental amount of privacy. i do not know exactly how i example, i think it is very important that only the fbi and law enforcement community can surveilled american citizensj
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and they have to get warrants to be able to do it. we have a system of laws that governi know sometimes there is suspicion and a lot of debate right now but we have a very work that is set up to enable our law enforcement to do his job while also preserving privacy and i go deeper into how ai may give us new tools we need to continue to preserve that system of laws and policy. dr. ayres: i saw a hand go up here. we have the microphone coming. >> thank you. i found your comments about building trust impactful. am a graduate studen here. you talked about the can-do attitude of the army to always accomplish the mission.
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as a leader, how do you assess the operational tempocapacity ae part of sets limits in terms of understanding, trying to accomplish the mission, push the organization forward but then also understanding they have a limit? is it a combination of instinct, talking with the force, and■ldof the organization you lead? sec. wormuth: i would say all of the above. first of all, sometimes i think the can-do mission first attitude can be a little bit of an achilles hl.i have tried to y general officers to be really honest with me how much
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strain there formations are feeling because sometimes i think culturally in the army we have a tendency to bee, i can do anything, it's ok, i'm on top of it and then the wheels come off because humans have limits. organizations have limits. so i have encouraged my general officers, i say to them all of the time, speak truth to power. ddbe honest about what is happening. i travel around a lot. mainly inside the u.s., i visit various army installations. i was that formerly fort hood in texas and just at fort knox collecting our new warrant officers who will be recruiters and everywhere i go, i have a an to talk wit soldiers and i do not have anyone in the chain of command in the room. it is just me and the soldiers and a notetaker and i use those sessionss o truth.
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a lot of times ground truth about how are you really feeling e strains of training and deployment and what have you. certainly i rely on my brigade commander to give input in terms of how much strain is on the force. it is something i worry■ç about. because of the size of the army and it is contracting a bit, the demands on the army and what we are doing around the world are not reducso there is a fundamenl tension between how much more we can continue to do if we continue getting smaller. that is why i am so focused on solving the recruiting crisis but it george and i really tried to surface the issue of strains in
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terms of how many deployments, how rapidly are the units going out and doing things, make sec.e of when we feel like the latest requirement for example to go over to gaza and set up the to provide humanitarian assistance, we tried to inform the secretary about what are the trade-offs in doing that. there is not a silver bullet but we tried to get a variety of input to help us give a sense -- get a sense of where we really are. thank you for coming to speak with us. dr. ayres: the microphone is on its way. >> my question is about force planning in the indosec. wormute think there is not a role for the army in the indo pacific and it is just the job of the army,
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air force, marine corps, space force. but in fact i think there are a couple of different important things the army will do in the indo pacific. let me start with one ofnt thinf the army is doing in the pacific is strengthening our deterrent posture. it is critical because the best and china is to avoid a war there, deter a war, be a■e to, and the army is very important to doing that in a couple of different ways. i think a big comparative advantage for the united states and the pacific is our network of allies and partners. i am sure president xi has notid ded ukraine, the united states did not respond alone to that. we had the nato alliance, a broader ukraine.
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similarly i believe we have a very strong network of allies and partners in the indo pacific and the army regularly exercises most of the countries in the indo pacific, the service that is strongestthe philippine armyn army, the australian we have very strong relationships army to army with all of those countries and through those exercises, we are able to e forces that i think the pla pays attention to. some of the new weapo s we are developing we have actually been bringing over to exercises in the region and i think it gets. so one important thing the army does is hopefully tried to strengthen deterrence so we do not have any kind of conflict. if there were a conflict, i think the army wod be key to setting up and securing the
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staging basis for the air force so they can launc■ç[' fire, fore navy and marine corps so they can resupply, refuel their ships. we have■v very capable air defee to protect staging bases and i think it would be a very im army. we also i think will play an important role in terms of long-range fire. we now have the capability, mid range capability, that allows us to launch missiles from the ground that are able to hit targets such as ships. just as you have seen ukraine the black sea using long-range fire, the army has systems now to be able to do that. i■5t is a very important contribution we will make in
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addition to the long-range fire that can be provided from fighter jets or surface ships. so i could go on and on but that is a couple of things. dr. ayres: there is quon .>> thank you, secretary. gw and work in a small d.c. consulting firm. my question is about what you said a leader that are important to you. you said having a vision and being able to articulate it is the most important quality for a leader. could you perhaps share your vision of leadership with us, and how it how you fostered it and what inspires you to lead? sec. wormuth: sure. first, let me clarify, is to have a vision for that
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organization to be able to guide everyone who was in that in forward. so it was more a vision about the organization that a vision of leadership itself. army, my, we are undergoing the years as i said earlier. we have to transform from a counterterrorism organization to anccessfully in large-scale combat. that means changing force , but also we have to do all of that and take care of our people at the same time. m4it is a bit of a cliché in the army to say people are our most important weapon system. i had heard that when i was■ç in osd long before coming to the army.
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but i have come to understand it is really true. really true. the army cannot do any of the things i just talked about for example in the indo pacific without the soldiers and if sols on the families, they will not stay in the army. so that is kind of my vision for the army. in terms of a broader philosophy i would say about leadership, again, i, i do not think there is one single quality that is the most important. i think there are a handful of qualities that are reallyi thins to want to serve. you have to believe in the mission of the organization■m to make the sacrifices you have to make as a leader.
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a lot of times as a leader you have to make unpopular decisions. if it is very important to you to be liked, i do not recommend you take on leading a large organization. if everyone likes you, you are probably doing it wrong. so like i said, you have to authentic, have integrity, and have humility. one last thing i would say in term of philosophy of leadership, i believe leaders to be effective have to be lifelong learners. you have information, learning new things, if you are going to be able to stay one stepad and continue to add value to the institution you are leading. dr. ayres: i think we have time for one last question. let's take an online question.
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would you read it? >> with the present online please share your question with the room -- with the person online please share your question with the room? ok, back to the room again. [laughter] i cannot access the q&a from here. dr. ayres: i cannot either. we will follow up. l go to the side for the last question. >> hello, i am an undergraduate student here at gw. i have a question for you. you said you joined the army as a civilian. what inspired you to join the army? sec. wormu: i had the opportunity throughout my career
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to work with all of the services, i all of the services have unique attributes. i think fundamentally what drew me to the army when biden administration asked me if i serve, as you can probably see, i am an outgoing person. i like people and as i though about■' services, fundamentally the army is the most people oriented of all of our services and i think i was drawn toso drawn to the fact that so much of my professional career was spent during the wars in iraq and afghanistan a to see the army downrange and to know what it can do, to know what our soldiers and familiesfor all ofi was very drawn to the army. dr. ayres: ok.
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i think we time. i will turn things back to the professor you secretary and our dean for hosting the event and thank you to all of you for the time you have devoted to learning from this wonderful l secretary who has joined us during women's history month. thank you, secretary. [applause] >> an update on the federal
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bridge collapse in baltimore. secretary buttigieg hasveled to the site and posted this picture, writing grateful to the first responders who have be earlier, president bidenge. remarked the federal government was stany to■aible the head of th national transportation safety promises an investigation into the cause of saster. you can watch the comments on c-span.org or the c-span now video app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >>tremely rare. but friends don't have to be. when you are connected, you're not alone. >> cox supports c-span as a public service, along
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