E024 Felicia Rodriguez, Part 1

Passionately Wrong Podcast Episode E024, Part 1

Interview with Felicia Rodriguez

We hear about sexual assault quite often, but what do we really understand about victims, offenders, the legal system and how our culture, gender roles and unconscious biases influence us in this controversial topic? Join Felicia Rodriguez, former Sexual Assault specialist in the Army, Victim Advocate, Command Sergeant Major with 25 years in the Army, and retiree as she discusses with James and Randy what she learned while working as a Sexual Assault specialist. Felicia will share some interesting insights and examples of the things that challenged her, as well as many people, about Sex Assault and the military justice system.

Topics covered in this video: 

• Why Felicia joined the military, and her background growing up
• On joining as a mechanic and attending Airborne School
• On being driven and motivated, getting promoted
• Felicia’s move into the sexual assault realm (SHARP)
• Her personal experience with sexual assault
• Why predators get away with their bad deeds
• What happened when Felicia started broad training programs
• Details of some of the reports she got and how she handled them
• How she built support for the program, and why she was suited to the role
• Training Special Forces operators versus the conventional army
• On becoming the first female Sgt. Major in the 173rd Airborne Brigade
• On dealing with sexual harassment herself soon after starting
• On the fallout from having made her own SHARP complaint

Resources in this video:

National Sexual Assault Resources (RAIN): https://www.rainn.org/resources 

Transcript

Felicia: 0:00

Also personality matters. Who, who you are and how you present things matters. If you come with a doom and glue and everything's horrifying. But if you can come in and say, Hey, let's talk about sex today, you know, it's different. It's, it's how you present it too.

James: 0:16

Greetings, friends. I'm James.

Randy: 0:18

And I'm Randy. You're listening to The Passionately Wrong podcast where we challenge your assumptions, offer some different perspectives, and hopefully help you make better decisions. Hey everyone, uh, this, this is Randy and James and we're here on the Passionately Wrong podcast. And today got, we got a special guest, Felicia, who's a, uh, command sergeant. Major retired 25 years in the Army, Sturge in a lot of roles in the military, including a former sexual assault, uh, specialist and victim advocate. And she's transitioned outta the military and she's gonna start nursing school, uh, pretty soon. So we have a lot of questions for her about, you know, women's, uh, challenges w women's face in the army, especially in the military in general. And, uh, about, uh, sexual assault, how the military addresses it, and, uh, and some other questions might come up too. So, Felicia, welcome.

Felicia: 1:13

Oh, hello James. Randy, thank you guys for having me on. Uh, I've listened to previously, or previously listened to, um, your show, and I'm just happy to be here.

Randy: 1:24

I'm really glad that you came, uh, that came to talk to us. Um, I think I'll let James start. Go ahead. Since you're the civilian.

James: 1:32

Yes, I'm happy to do so and I do have a lot of questions. Felicia. Uh, thanks very much for coming on and for helping us perhaps dispel a few myths that people have. I know my own knowledge of, the military is still quite spotty despite, many inner exchanges with Randy. Maybe my first question is just to satisfy my curiosity. What was your thought process when you joined the military to start with, how old were you, if you're willing to share that? I shouldn't have asked. Sorry. roughly and what, yeah, what did you have in mind? What did you think you were gonna get out of it?

Felicia: 2:07

Okay. Um, no, I don't mind answering questions about my age. Um, doesn't bother me at all. Uh, I was 17. Um, I lived in, uh, little town in Pocatello, Idaho. And, um, I have a kind of a poverty background. Uh, my mom was a single mom of five kids, and I just, I've always had a great desire to educate myself and be better at whatever it is that I do. Very driven. And I knew that I wasn't gonna be very successful if I stayed there. We didn't have enough money to do much anything. My mother couldn't help me. So I, I knew that the military, despite being gone, um, offered, you know, tuition assistance and opportunities to go abroad and, and just, uh, grow and develop. And it was an opportunity that I thought I would excel. And so at the right old age of 17, I went to basic training. Um, I returned for my senior year of high school and, and then after duty starting, um, the summer after I graduated high school, and now it was a little over 25 years ago. So, um, yeah, just wanted to do the things and. I, I do believe that there's, a, a theory out there that, you know, young people go out on s of duty. I didn't, I can't say that they had that. I grew that very quickly. I grew that, but I didn't understand what serving meant and I didn't understand exactly what all entailed. I just was a tomboy, rough and trouble kind of girl. And, um, I wanted adventure and bought opportunities for my education more, more than everything. Opportunities for education.

James: 3:41

So, do you remember where, do you remember where you formed your impression of what the military could offer you? You said it would provide you opportunities to be educated for adventure, for travel. Where did that idea come from? Did you watch recruiting videos? Was there somebody you talked to?

Felicia: 3:59

So, where I grew up, there's a huge, uh, community of veterans, uh, world War II and Vietnam Vets during that timeframe. And I was working, um, washing dishes as little at a little restaurant. And, uh, BES would come in at six in the morning when I started working and they would sit around this coffee table round, coffee table drinking coffee, and I would go out, listen to'em. And you know, of course I'm like, I don't know, 12, 13 years old working with my mom and they just had the coolest stories. I was like, let's do it. I wanna do this, I want adventure. So, and, and they would oftentimes kind of coach me and tell me, like, you do this, you can go here. And they would tell me their stories. And although they were men, I was like, that's what I wanna do. So, yeah.

James: 4:44

Okay, that's fine. You also said, if I heard you correctly, that you thought you would excel in that environment or something like that, uh, that you would do. Well, what, was it that was, if I heard you correctly, giving you that sense of confidence, had you done well in school up to that point? Were you physically strong? What is it that you felt confident about?

Felicia: 5:03

So, um, I was a straight A student, uh, with, with a love of science and reading. And, school came very easy to me. not that I didn't work at it, but I loved it and it was something that I wanted to do. And I was a straight A student. I also, I wrestled, I played rugby, I played volleyball, I ran track. So being physical and physically fit, was just, well, I lifted weights, one of the first weightlifters in my high school. And, um, of course I set records cuz I was the first one. But then my sister came along and beat them. But, but, um, I just, I, I was all, I worked in a farm. I did a lot of outdoor stuff. I was very, outdoorsy and I just kind of gravitated towards that thinking that I would be rough and it would be hard and I wanted that challenge. So I just very internally driven. It's very intrinsic. Um, I, I don't, the e external environment wasn't really something I was worried about. Um, and so just kind of that inner drive.

Randy: 6:04

so just to get some context, James, Felicia's probably about 10 or so years younger than me, and, but it, it's still all pre nine 11. So all the people that joined pre nine 11, not all of'em. I mean, there's a lot of patriots. It's just, that wasn't our primary reason. It wasn't my primary reason either. I, I mean, I lived out, out of the United States for most of my life, as we've discussed. So I didn know I didn't believe in apple pie and football games cause I'd never been to football games. I wanted be adventure and, uh, I, I didn't join for the money. I didn't even know how much money I was gonna make, but I think my first paycheck was eight. I think our generation before nine 11, somewhere between the, you know, 1990 and, and 2001 we joined for, a few of us joined for patriotism. A lot of, some of us joined for the adventure. Some of us joined for the money, some of us joined because we didn't have anything better to do or we wanted to get out of where we were at. But a lot after nine 11, a a lot of that changed

James: 7:02

in the sense of people joining for additional patriotic reasons. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Felicia: 7:09

No, the Army hadn't been at war for a long time, since the late sixties, and Vietnam war was not okay. Yes. So there was Desert Storm, desert Shield, but that was like 92 days. there hadn't been a war in a very long time. In the last one that we had was not well viewed for a long time too. it was kind of a sedentary army for a long time. this is in, in the late nineties. Clinton was the president at the time, and I know that sounds strange, but the presidency and, and whether they're Republican or Democrat, oftentimes drives the military's upsizing downsizing. And, and that also that fluctuation, directly impacts promotional potential and fear and equipment and, and how well stockout army is going.

James: 7:57

That makes sense, right? the amount of money we spend on the military is enormous, but it is a big existing infrastructure that we have to maintain. So an incremental plus 10% or minus 10% probably is quite, something that people inside the military sense. Could you, for our benefit and or my benefit and listeners benefit, describe maybe at a high level how your 25 years in the military went, how long did it take you to get promoted? What different roles did you serve in? And then I'll, I'll have some specific questions, but just the, the high level overview of your progression to the top.

Felicia: 8:33

So, yeah. believe it or not, although I'm, I am not a very tall person. I'm kind of small. I grew up, like I said, in a agricultural background, and I drove a lot of vehicles, 10 middlers when I was very young on the farms and grown up and already had to fix stuff. So I, I gravitated towards a, a mechanic background, which is what I enlisted to be, is, uh, a wheel vehicle mechanic, a large one, matter of fact. Uh, large, large equipment. Um, but unfortunately for me, maybe, fortunately, I'm not really a great mechanic. What I did was I focused on jumping out of airplanes, cuz that's what I started out doing. I, um, I haven't even finished training and I had signed up to go to Airborne School, which, um, is basically, uh, insertion, uh, potential or, uh, venue, um, during war. So you jumped into combat and I jumped out of airplanes for the duration of my career, I think right up until, um, last year that I turned a status of 24 years. as a mechanic, there's, there's the, the, the mechanic on the floor that works on the vehicles, and then there's a bunch of management, um, that goes on in that. So I quickly gravitated towards the management just because my organization, my Ooc, d e and the way that I could think through problem sets, whereas even some of my seniors at the time weren't that great with it. I just learned the environment very quickly. I, I worked really hard at pt, uh, physical training. And, I was never late. I was just very al on time and I was doing the things that needed to be done. You know, my leadership recognized that, and very quickly they were putting me into leadership positions. Um, I was thinking it was like a, a motor sergeant very quickly, which is unheard of for a woman. There's not many. There was, there was no women in my field. So, yes, I kind of unicorn in that, but, um, as you know, when you get into management, you have to learn to grow up and out. You're not necessarily focused right now. Um, so I was a platoon sergeant really quickly. I was in charge of quite a bit of equipment, quite a bit of people. Um, I had a, at a very young age, was 20 years old. I was, I was in charge of other people, um, and they were all older than me. I was a young one. I was the only girl that was very, like I said, very driven, very motivated. I would push the issue. I didn't understand the concept of glass ceilings. Therefore it didn't exist and I didn't try to break it or be seen or, or look at it like I couldn't break it. I just did what I needed to do. And that was really, really, um, taken well by my leadership. Like I said, uh, probably within eight years I was promoted to sergeant first class, which is E seven. Um, and the rank scale, you start out as an E one and you can get promoted all the way to E nine, which is a sergeant major transformation. Um, and this is also at the height of the war. So I'm growing. Um, there's tons of upward mobility and I just took advantage of those things and I was promoted. I was, like I said, my evaluations were very strong for my years and, um, seven and eight years outside of the war as unheard of, especially my, my analyst at the. And so it just kept going like that. Now, once you get to the E seven, E eight and E nine, wrong, it does like granny's safe kind of pyramid at the top. I think I, in less than four years I was already a master sergeant, which was an E eight. And then that's when I was actually, in that time period is when I got, or I was selected and almost manipulated into going into the sexual assault realm. My first sergeant at the time I was at E seven, just got back from Afghanistan and, um, was looking for a slowdown and he said to me, how would you like to go into a job where you work at nine and you're off at five? Because in my job at the time, I was at five 30 and I was leaving at six or six 30 at night. So it was 12 hour days. Like normal? Yes.

Randy: 12:23

And you believed him.

Felicia: 12:24

I did, I got sold. He said, uh, I said, well, what is this job? It sounds great. He said, you can go to school at night. Cause I was still going to school full-time student in the evenings, online and in class, even during my deployment. I was like, yeah, that sounds great. What, what is this? It's gotta be better than what I'm doing right now. And he is like, we're gonna send you the chart. And I was like, okay. Sharp. I had zero clue what that meant. I was like, what is that job? He's like, oh, it's like equal opportunity. You're gonna go up to the next, the next level of command, which was AADE level group. Um, and I was in seventh Special Forces Group, Brandy at the time. he said it sold it to me like that I'd just come off the heels of the deployment. I was ready to get away from a, a hot motor pool cause I didn't have any conditioning at the time. And this is in Florida by the way. in the summer. So it was. Quite, quite the settle. And I said, sure, when do I go? He's like, we go next week. I was like, okay. So long story short, the group psychologist had told the commander at the time that they needed, okay, so little background information. Seventh group, seventh Special Forces Group have just moved their entire unit from Fort Brag, North Carolina to Egland Air, first Place Florida. When they did that, the Army, what they do is try to keep spouses, dual military spouses together. So during that time, prior to our move, a lot of spouses were reassigned to seven groups so that they could move to Florida with their spouses. I was also one of those, I was married to a special forces man. and so that's why I ended up in Seventh Group. A lot of women there too, and that's why we had such a high concentration of women in Seventh Group, Brandy at that timeframe. So when we moved down there, I was also 10. Probably 10, 12 years in that same job. And I was just getting tired of just the, the, the mundaneness of it. of course I'm maturing as a woman and I was just sick of the heat. I was tired of the rough and tumble and I was actually trying to go to nursing school at that time cuz the Army has a nursing program, but the Obama administration had started downsizing the military and so they restricted a lot of things that we could do. And so I wasn't able to change my, you know, job description and become an officer because they wouldn't accept me because they changed the requirements and I didn't meet them and they wouldn't allow me to go.

Randy: 14:46

So just to put some more context in here. First of all, what does Sharp Stand for

Felicia: 14:51

exactly? I was getting there. So it's sexual assault or sexual harassment and Assault Response Pro,

Randy: 14:58

right? Yeah, there's there. So, so she's gonna finish her promotion story, but the thing everyone needs to understand is you get promoted because of your, your evaluation reports. Mm-hmm. And also the rank of the people that are signing off on those evaluation reports. So to stand out if, if you have a lot of people competing for a promotion, uh, slots, you know, then they're gonna look at all of your evaluation reports. They're gonna look at the schools you've been to, they're gonna look at your college education. So the fact that she was going to college puts her apart from her peers who weren't the fact that she worked in a sharps position and a sharps. Position is, uh, the evaluation report is signed by the commander of the unit, which is a colonel. And most people do not get a colonel to sign off on your evaluation report unless they already are a sergeant major and she's getting it done as an E seven. Mm-hmm. So that makes her look, you know, higher than her peers too. So when she's, uh, eligible for the next promotion to E eight, she has these, all these, all these great, you know, ideally cuz she did a great job, uh, you know, evaluation reports signed by high ranking people. And she's got probably some, you know, some awards for doing great things for the unit in the thera, the, the realm of, you know, sexual assault and, and solving problems and things like that. So that puts that all, that sets her apart and puts her on a, a good kind of line to get promoted above her peers.

Felicia: 16:28

I love it when you talk like that, Randy, I feel so awesome. So yes, he's correct in that context. Uh, but at that time I wasn't looking at those things. I was just doing things that I was asked to do. so promotion. I was an E seven at this time. My evaluations had already gotten me towards a promotable status, so that was prior to, but I do believe that my time as a, so the title that I had, it was a sharp program, and the title I had was a Sex Assault Response Coordinator, and I do believe that was evaluations catapulted me towards Sergeant Major on a faster track than it would have because this is a new program. There was, that had not been any sexual harassment assault programs in the past. I think they called it something like posh or something. I, I can't even remember. It's been so long. But also this is Congress directed and it's a very, very, um, restricted and well, it's a new program, so they're figuring it out and laws are changing almost on a daily basis. And so, so my first sergeant sells this to me and I go up to Fort Bragg to go to training and it's two weeks long and that training was ruined. I realized at that point that, and this is where culture comes into it as a mechanic, had a very rough and tumble with culture there. The mechanics are very much like what you think sometimes think mouthful of dip rough guys. Um, kind of brutal in how they say things. The sexual jokes and sexual innuendo was a commonplace, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it was. and I was very much a part of that culture and I was very much that person. And I'm also like, like I said, very driven and I've kind of take things to an extreme. So I was. Saying dirty jokes, they saying using foul language. And I, I was just trying to, one of the guys, um, so during that training I realized that the way that we carry on and some of our analyze and probably the infantry is worse. it really lends itself to offenders being able to operate under their mos and with relatively little or no, attention to themselves and how they do business. and I even remember at one point I was so brutal, that I even said, how is it that women that get raped once get raped multiple times? That's ridiculous. You know, I said something, you know, very ignorant to that, to that degree. And, um, during this training, I also realized that, we do blame victims very, very significantly. I know you all brandy, but you're. Probably gonna be surprised, and I don't mind sharing. It's, it doesn't hurt me. But, um, in 2002, uh, 2003 when I was in Korea, you know, we're all out drinking. We're having a good time. It's all my, all the NCOs. And, there was a, uh, a guy that I had been studying with, a couple of, a group of us, but one particular guy who, we were studying for the Star Audio Murphy board. We were all the extremes and, and high, high speed people. And I, I was in my room job and my room, my room was unlocked. And we came in and did, when he wanted to try to deal with me and, forevermore, I locked my doors. And, and I never thought about it too much because I was like, well, I was drunk. I should have locked my door. I did these wrong things. I must have given the wrong idea to somebody and I deserve this. and so that was 2002. And here I am in 2012 going through this training, realizing. Now, again, I'm a referenceable girl. I'm very resilient and I, I don't, can't hurt like that. I, I don't have emotional pain like that. So I, I share that with you because it did, it didn't even dawn on me that, that I had experienced a sex assault, a sexual assault, um, in my own life. And I just moved on with life about it. And, you know, luckily for me, I didn't have the trauma and all of those things that a lot of women to experience. But I sat in that classroom at my sharp training and realized, wow, we we're really fucked up in some ways. and it happened so often and I didn't think that I was anything special. I just like, this is my fault. I deserve this moving on and went on with life. Well come to find out that, you know, that's how predators work. that's how they do things. And it's not just in the military. It's actually worse on college campuses, in the dorms and it priors and stuff. So alcohol is involved with almost everything and there's never. I can't say that almost always the only time a predator is seen is when victim see them in those elements. and I also looked at my own conduct and behavior and from that day forward and changed how I did business, I had to change a lot of things in my life cuz I felt like I had let people become predators after my watch as a sergeant. and then I returned to Eglin and I get told, I was like, okay, so where do I go to start this sharp program or go to the Sharp? They're like, oh, you're it, you're starting it. And I stood it up and um, okay, so more context. We have about 5,000 special forces operators that are, I think it was 5,000 about that, right? Randy? 3,700 to 5,000 SF guys in a group. Sure. Hyper masculine, very, very much don't care about equal opportunity. They don't care. And I don't say that all. I'm just saying that's kind of the attitude that it was there. They're like, we don't wanna hear that. We wanna go train, we wanna go shoot things. We wanna go kill people, uh, blow things up. You know, we're special forces guys, you know, and they are very intelligent. They are very intelligent. So skirting around some of the laws and rules is what they do. That's what they're designed to do. They're built and grown like that. Um, so here I am trying to institute something they don't care about. They don't care about sex assault, they don't care about all of these, touchy feelies, if you will be equal opportunity victim advocacy. They're just, they're just out wanting to have a good time and they literally play college duty in their life. So, um, I would wanna play college duty all day long too, and not worry about the dishes in the laundry, but that's not how life works. So here I am and I, I get brought in and I'm like, okay, so I have to do this. And at the time the TCO was like, okay, the deputy commander, uh, because half of the units were still deployed at this time. and he was like, listen, You need to go talk to all the commanders. You need to go do this. You need to start doing training, and this is what we're gonna do. Here's your budget. and the floodgates opened after that, the amount of victims that came through my doors, once I started doing training in a public setting. During those uh, times, I experienced more men coming to talk to me about their sexual trauma than, than I had ever expected in about 5,000 worth of men and maybe 500 women, um, at the most, oh gosh, I don't even think there was that, maybe a hundred women throughout the whole group. And I heard more men's stories, heartbreaking stories from when they were little to when they were teenagers, to when they had been out partying. And this was also about the same time that don't ask, don't tell went away. So there, there was a growing, um, had homosexual kind of awareness and, there were men who had never even been touched. Other men just approached them and they were horrified. but the stories that I heard were pretty significant. Um, and then women, um, for whatever reason, 82nd Airborne Division on Fort Bragg, which is where we were closely located to just few years before started. so the Sharp Program also has this, uh, policy in it that a victim, if they have a plausible, sex assault and they're experiencing high levels of trauma, we're able to be transferred from one unit to the other on very, very short orders. Now, the military doesn't do that, except for in extreme cases and um, cuz they generally, it costs a lot of money, move soldiers. But for whatever reason, 82nd airport division had experienced once this program set forth. Right? So I'm there about a year at this time and I probably had 10, 12 females. Transfer into seventh group outta 82nd that had been, uh, experienced a lot of sexual trauma. it's called the Expedited Transfer Program through the Blue Sharp Program. And the stories they told were horrific. Uh, one, one girl, um, had, uh, been dropped at a party out of the lake on Fort Brag and probably 18 men from that, their, her unit, um, had what they wanted to do with her. Somebody had videoed it and she was like a lifeless body. And she watched, she didn't even know that that happened to herself. And so she, she transferred over. That was probably my most devastating case cause she was very stoic. She was an intelligence soldier. Um, and she was just so, so sweet. And her husband also transferred with her really great couple. Um, and she was just, I had to testify, I had to go with her to testify. So I'm an assault response coordinator. So I went, um, I coordinated with lawyers, I coordinated with judge advocates, the local community commanders. I was like the focal, like the center point where everybody could come, bring all their information and have coordination. I would tell people who go talk to and help commanders understand what their responsibilities and opportunities were. And, um, I was a victim advocate at the time. I, I was a sole worker of about who around. I didn't have an advocate yet. And, um, like I would have to be in the courtroom basically sitting right next to these women or men and listening to their stories testifying. But the part that was the most disheartening was the crowds that would show up and just like be non-believers. And they didn't believe anything. They have no idea what was going on in the case and the details. And, um, they were, they were sad when you will see a, a human being. Their life is shattered and broken and you're the only thing standing between them and suicide and or, or productivity in their life and recovery. That's the part that I love the most is being able to help them. And the support that I received from seventh grade. Okay. Again, I was married to a se, a special forces guy, and I had been married to him at that time, probably 12 years. And I knew a lot of the men in seventh group just because of him, my ex-husband. And so I could reach out to them and we're all in leadership positions. Cause we've all grown up now, we're all grown up, we're all in leadership, like for sergeants and sergeants. And I would call and I would say something like, Hey Al, hey Randy. Hey so and so. I, I have this situation. I need this person to be given these, they need some extra time off, or they need to not work with this person. Or just be careful. They don't want anybody to know whatever the case would be. And they'd be like, Felicia, you got it. No problem. And the resiliency that the women were experienced because of the support in Seventh Boot, even though these men didn't care about sex assault, when they received a victim, they took very good care of them. So I was very, very, happy when a lot of the women that I would work with would be like, I am so glad I'm here. Thank you. My first sergeant's taking care of this. I feel very comfortable. I'm happy. I'm seeing the resource, I'm getting, the resources that I need. And um, you know, it was long rows for them, but after 18 years I was already burned out, or 18 months I was already burned out between the court cases, the traveling, listening to the horrifying stories. But I was very rejuvenated and my faith in, in the goodness of men and women was restored when I was able to do those things. And I have a lot of support to do it. So I think that the environment really helped me to do that for women. And I also think that I was able to kind of open and shed light. Open eyes and shed light on, on this. people's lives are broken by sex assault and sexual trauma. if I did any good, it was helping my peers understand what they can do, what the requirements would do, and what they could actually help people get better from it.

Randy: 28:33

I don't, I don't think she ever called me and said, Hey, Randy, I got a problem with, didn't have that relationship back then.

Felicia: 28:40

No, we didn't. But, but it set the stage for us to have a good relationship later, right?

Randy: 28:45

Yes.

James: 28:46

And I'm sure Randy was completely, as, welcoming and inviting as you described there when you came to him first time with a problem, but that's also another story.

Felicia: 28:55

Yes.

James: 28:58

No, actually my first question goes to that you described, I think, well, and, uh, compellingly that when you started the Sharp program and were trying to, raise awareness that you didn't meet a lot of interest amongst the, other soldiers. Mm-hmm. And they just, for their various reasons, you know, didn't wanna pay attention to this topic. How did you go about systematically building awareness, building, you know, support? Was it personal relationships? Was it just the, you know, command structure of the military? How did you try to build support for the program?

Felicia: 29:33

So all of those things combined, it was very much a, a planned effort, uh, a campaign, so to speak, before I got started. Um, When I sat, oh, so there was a group psychologist, actually he's the one that hand picked me. He said, we, in this particular unit with these black, masculine, um, you know, the, the, the atmosphere there, it's very family oriented. So if you're in it, like the brotherhood, if you will. So wives had a lot more, credibility in some ways. And so he also told, like prior to picking me, he, he was, he profiles for Snapchat now. So he said, um, it needs to be a wife of a spouse and she needs to be pretty and it needs to be a woman. Men are not gonna go with that. Um, and, and the kind of men that teams would give up. Again, this is special forces guys. There's not a lot of men that a special forces guy is gonna listen to that are not special forces, and they're not gonna pull'em off from a team. They're too valuable. So it does need to be a woman and it doesn't need to be a spouse. And I know this sounds crazy, but it does. She doesn't need to be pretty, she can't be hideous. The guys like me. I hate to say it, you know, I'm a, I'm a spouse, I'm an active duty soldier, and I'm not hideous. So, and I, I know it sounds brutal, but when, when we're talking about, you know, trying to get through to people, you gotta know what they're looking for. And I put that bill very well, is athletic, well known in community. I have my own reputation on top of my husband and I being well known in the community. So it was very concerned in that. And I was told that very early on. most women may have found that to be, discrediting. I really didn't care. I was, whatever I'm here, I'm gonna take advantage of whatever I can take advantage of. Again, I'm an opportun and

Randy: 31:17

I felt it went like this. You think I'm pretty Say it. No, no. I, I know that I, I know the psychiatrist you're talking about. I'm still good friends with him. And, uh, and he's, he's, he's amazing. He, he's really intuitive. And, uh, I didn't know I, this is the first time I've ever heard that story, and, and that didn't surprise me. But, I think it's also effective that because I can see from the force, the people I know and the force who were in involved in problems, they could get really angry and mad. But the fact that you're a wife of another operator would probably diffuse that too. Because, because, you know, double protection. Yeah. Because there's just a lot of, you know, type A personalities running around there. And the fact that you have, uh, and your husband's not a small person either. Wasn't a small person either, so.

Felicia: 32:12

yeah, he could bench like 500 pounds and he was very aggressive. Sorry, James, go

James: 32:16

ahead. No, no, it, no, it's good. It's, it's so interesting from an outsider's perspective to hear some of the thought processes and the environments that you're operating in. You know, I'm IMS struck on the one hand, listening to stories about how the military behaves. It seems to be a confluence of circumstances. This is what we need of the individual's interests, when the person has interests and can express them, and also their aptitude. Sometimes it seems to me like the ultimate merit driven, egalitarian organization, you succeed because of exactly how you perform over time and other times it seems like there's totally, random factors that influence your outcome. And I'm always balancing between those two. What is it, you know, is it the ultimate merit organization or is it, just circumstance and, and, and luck?

Randy: 33:06

Well, I think in her case, I mean, I think in everyone's case it's, it's a little bit of luck, but you, she didn't have to accept this job, right? She could have said, no, I don't wanna do that. And gone a different way. She didn't know she's gonna get raided higher by a higher ranking person. She didn't, she didn't even know who was gonna rate her. You know, she took it because there's new opportunity she wanted to change. And I think that's really important about the military at all. I took a job, I took a job in Columbia and everyone said, you're going nowhere, but you know who, you know, who raided me? A colonel and a general. And, and I got three of those in a row. And next thing I know I was a sergeant Major. because you know that that counts. And no one actually thought about that. And no one told me, they said, you're gonna go outta the brotherhood. No one's gonna take you back in. So, And, and, but I looked at it and I was like, everybody who had this job got promoted to start a major. I was like, those are just fluke. I was like, every single guy though was like, fluke. I was like, okay, well I don't care. I like that job. I want it and I want a new challenge.

Felicia: 34:07

So to your point, Randy, yes. what they're looking at is scope. he was rated by a colonel and a general, that scope of where they're doing things and operating in has a broader picture and therefore it's got more weight to it because it impacts more people, more operations and, and it's international, right? So that is much more difficult than just being on a team and just going to the range every day or every other day. So that scope is different. that's why people who work for a higher, uh, ranking officers generally get promoted more because the scope and what they're doing is different. The scope of what I was doing, I was being ready by colonel. Um, but the scope is this. I'm trying to bring awareness to prevent sex assault, which is a brand new initiative that was congressional mandated. And I'm also doing it at the onset of this program. Anybody that knows anything, getting a program started is much harder than maintaining one. And also I'm doing it in a, in this environment. So, so James, I'd like to throw this at you too. When I left Seventh Group, cuz I have been in Yuasa, uh, which was a special operations community for, at that time, I don't know, 12 years. 10. 10. I was there for, in seventh grade for seven years when I left and I went to the conventional army. Completely different, completely different. The conventional army. It would take me a while to explain the differences. But when you have highly trained, highly intelligent operators, you have to come to them with a certain mindset. You have to bring your, your, whatever you're trying to do in a certain appealing aspect to those people. Cuz they're very intelligent and they'll see through the crap and they'll be quick to tell you, I don't care. Get outta my face. Now when you go to a conventional unit, soldiers are conditioned, it's not that they're not intelligent, but you have masses instead of specialized areas. Right? So it's like a general practitioner versus a neurosurgeon. it's just two different worlds. When you have a ton of people that are very intelligent, the campaign has to be broadened a certain way and, but the army at large during this entire time, cuz I didn't come out of seventh group until 2017 and, uh, it was about 2012, 2013. So during that time there was huge campaigns. Absolutely mandated. And it wasn't like I am this person that's trying to convince these special forces operators to listen to you. In the conventional army, it's the commander said, you will attend this training. You will do the certification. You will live by these rules and laws, and that's the end of it. And if you do something differently, then you're gonna be subject to, you know, military justice. So there are two different things. When I came out of Seventh Group and I went to a, my first, you know, conventional unit, which was in one 73rd, the Sharp program was a kind of run of the mail thing. It's like spreading peanut butter or butter across bread. It was all encompassing. It was all there. Whereas in Seventh Group, I had to manage that campaign better in the conventional army just. Commander says it and it therefore it is so, but that changes things too. Um, whereas I could use my influence and my, they knew I was working for the group commander, then I could walk into an office and have a conversation with a commander and sergeant major, or for sergeant, um, right away. Like I could just walk in and say, Hey, can I sit down and talk to you? There was, it was a much more fluid environment and they understood just by the implications of me being there, that there was something that they needed to listen to by the time that I left that job. I think I left that job after 18 months. So it was probably 2013 when I went to be a first sergeant and, and I, um, about, about 18 months I was already burned out. Um, it was just, uh, it was a lot of, it was a lot. Um, so, but there's a culture there. There was a culture that, that doc pal, the psychologist knew, had to happen. Like I needed to have. Um, roots within the community because if I didn't, then they weren't gonna listen to me as much as they did. And with special forces guys, you can't shove it down their, their throats, they won't eat it. I know that sounds bad, but they're very type A and if they don't wanna hear it, they'll just tell you to get mad. they're special forces guys. I don't know how to explain it. Their mentality, their who they are, how they think, and so, but once they embrace it and they believe it forevermore, that is part of who they are. I will say that. Mm-hmm. Um, and I had a lot of success with a lot of my peers that way, um, and influencing others that I would say, you know, wouldn't have taken it so well. But because of the, the way that it was. Also personality matters. Who, who you are and how you present things matters. If you come with a doom and glue and everything's horrifying. But if you can come in and say, Hey, let's talk about sex today, you know, it's different. It's, it's how you present it too. So if it's not palatable, they're not gonna be it. And so then I go to be a command sergeant major. I get promoted to, to Sergeant Major. I lead seventh Special Forces group and I go to, Fort Bli for a year of training to be a sergeant major. And then I get selected while I'm still in school to be the first female male sergeant major in the one 73rd and brigade out of Vicenza, Italy. that was my first time I was scared about being the first female something, cuz that was pretty significant. And I had been, by this point I was divorced, so I was alone. Well I have two dogs, but um, and then I go to Europe, which I'd never been. And I terrified. I didn't know at the time, but I was terrified. And one of the first things that happens to me, probably within six months of being there, was one of my first sergeants was drinking at a, a social, a commander's house, a social, and was my, probably the, it was the supposedly the top first sergeant. His wife was there, everybody's spouses were there. The other sexual assault coordinator from that brigade, the civilian lady was there and he sexually harasses her and thinks it would be cute to smack me on my butt five times in the night. Oh my God. And I'm the first female command sergeant major to be in that brigade. And I was mortified. I was terrified. And when I say terrified, I'm not a very scary girl. Like, I don't get scared. I took out airplanes for a living. I was, I lived, I've lived with a Special forces operator for, you know, 18 years. I was so scared that I, I, I didn't know what to do. I called my fellow Mass Sergeant Major at the time. And he was like, he's done. You have to do something. This is what we're talking about. What would you do if it was one of your female first sergeants? And, cause I did have a female First Sergeant that worked me, and I was like, you don't understand being a command sergeant Major as a woman is totally different. And he's like, if you don't do it, why would anyone other women do it? You were this job. So I find myself in this conundrum, cause I did not wanna say anything. I didn't wanna shed that light on myself because even though the Sharp program was, very up and, and running and it had been in place for, uh, quite a few years, there's still that cultural thing where, oh, she did something. It, what does she do? And, there's two things. I called my, my next level sergeant major above me. and I was like, listen, Sergeant Major, this is what happened. I wanna remove him from his position. I don't know how to do this without, and he was like, fraud. Rodriguez is my last name, so they call me Rod Short. For short Rod, you have to make a, a sharp complaint. You have to press, you have to make a, a report, you have to report this. I was like, I can't do that. I am so scared. I'm the first female SAR major here. This is the 173rd Airborne Brigade who had raco was made past this song's a bit been made about this brigade. It's got a very prolific reputation and history and I'm actually a little emotional about it right now, and he's like, you have to do this. He's like, you have until tomorrow to make this report to, to sharp representative and otherwise I'm gonna do it. and it's better for you to take charge and own that and be empowered by it and show other women that you can do it. Oh, also at this time, I was selected to go there unknowingly because women were going to ranger school and we now have women that are rangers that were gonna be embedded into this unit. And so they wanted a female leader that would be there. To kind of act as a, an example mentor and to a mentor and to kind of be available, you know, with this integration of women into the Ranger race. and so he's like, what are you gonna do if one of these rangers come to you? And she's been harassed, you, assaulted by her teammates? And it was just, it was one of the toughest decisions. And I didn't regret it until, about a year later in April, and I'll get to that. So I made this complaint. Come to find out, you know, there was already another woman who had made the same complaint on the exact same night, same instance of, I ended up, you know, this, this master sergeant got the movements position. I never spoke of it. Nobody knew what happened, so in Europe, we fell under, the commands that were in Germany. So what I did it, what I knew was gonna happen, I didn't realize how far reaching it was gonna be all the way to the four star General in Germany. Every. Every SAR major knew about it. they would get reports on all these sex assaults and my name was on there and they're like, oh my gosh, we've just met her. And so as much as we wanna say that it's kept private, it is not. I experienced that myself. Luckily I also have like a, I don't care kind of attitude. Like, Nope, I'm good. Uh, they're like, really? I'm like, yeah, it's not as previous as Reg, just as you think, but it's goes against the tenants in which we stand for. And they're like, oh. And of course, my rough and tumble nature, they already kind of met me at this point as I was a little more rough and tumble then than I am now. and every time I went somewhere to see, you know, other people in Europe, you have to kinda travel to see your other commands and you know, a sustainment community is small there, but it, it's small in Cubans but it's wide and reach. So I would have to travel to go see other sustainment, um, leaders and, Everywhere I went, I, ok. They come me to the side like, oh my gosh. So they cared. But I was like, why do you even know? How do you know it's not your business? Mm-hmm. But it was, it's not kept quiet there. As much as we wanna protect it, culturally speaking, it's not kept quiet. Everybody in command above you knows about it. And there are well-meaning people. They are, they want to help, but they're also nosy. And that's something that a victim who is traumatized doesn't want. And I wasn't traumatized. I was annoyed. so there's that piece, a year later, right? So again, we have a reprisal act in inside of the sharp program, which means commanders can't retaliate against people who make complaints. Now when you're talking about sergeants major and colonels and generals, there's the formal, what you see out front, and then there's the behind the scenes thought processes that go on. And Congress had a hard time really getting to that, which is why they kept taking away authorities from lower level commanders and putting it at colonels and generalist levels for certain things because we unintentionally hold things against people. I was having a lot of problems in my, in my, not my unit, but with my higher level commander. my battalion commander and I were sustainers and we had a, a, a brigade commander that couldn't stand sustainers and didn't understand sustainment. He came out of range regimen. He'd never worked with women, never worked with women, and he's a full colonel. And I'm the first female star remainder. And I have a great relationship with my fellow peers, my other commanders, and I'm, I'm a ta, I'm a trash talker. And so he sees that as bravado. He sees that as inflated ego, and I'm just having to good time with my peers. Right? He did not like me. So in April I had to get my, annual kind of counseling where you sit down with your, your leader and you get your evaluation and you talk about, you know, good, bad or different, right? And I go in there and I'm very apprehensive, I'm terrified of this guy. And I'll say Hayden because he thinks he knows all of these things and he's very intelligent and he's very, very, you know, forward, thinking. But he's really dumb when it comes to women being in the military, the sharp program and just, just, he's just crazy. He's a, he is a one star now and, you know, we left him good terms, don't me wrong. He didn't understand my, my life and how I come from and what I've done. And, and he didn't understand where, and so he says to me, he's like, you know, I just gotta talk to you about this, you know, the, the sharp complaint from last year. And I was like, cuz he had just took it over when I had to make that complaint. And I was like, yes. He's like, I read your, sworn statement and some of the things that you said in there. I just can't get on. I just can't, I don't understand it. My first sergeant had been trying to say like, kind of trying to flirt with me and I was like, I don't feel like that I'm Latina. I don't, I don't do that. Culturally, that's not appropriate from a professional standpoint. It's not appropriate. he just had a hard time that I had thrown in that I was a Latina in there and I was like, okay. He was like, you know, I just, I feel like this, this was, he basically told me that he felt like I had created this environment where this first sergeant thought it was okay to, to, to approach me what he did and, and do the things he did. And I was like, absolutely sir. I wish I could have done things differently too. I wish that I hadn't had anything to drink cause I was, had been drinking so I didn't wanna drive so I didn't have to leave. So I stayed in that environment and that's how come was able to come once and I was like, I wish it would've done a ton of things different, you know, hindsight's 2020, but what you really ended up doing. Was, blaming the victim, which is what happens all the time. Like you did a bunch of things that you could have done differently that caused this to happen. He never once said anything about that guy, about the, the guy. He was, he retired after that. But he, I mean, at this level on paper, he can't do anything to me because it's reprisal, but he's still thinking that way. After I had that conversation with him and I was like, I wish I would've done things differently. Like, I wish I would've done, you know, made different decisions or not even went, because I was like, I was the first star major. Like, I was terrified of what was gonna happen to me. after that, then he was like, okay. So she sees some things from my perspective, I'm telling him your night and day difference. He treated me like he was always very with me. After that, he's like, Hey, major, how you doing? He was very, very approachable and he actually had decent conversations with me. He wasn't such a jerk. all of our interactions from that moment forward, I have zero doubt in my mind that that commander, held that against me up until that conversation and when he heard what he wanted to hear, then he was okay with people and their unknowing biases, their lack of education, do it whether they need to or not. And in his case, he couldn't do anything to me and it made mad Until that conversation, I have zero doubt. And if I'm a command search major with 20 plus years, I think I had 22 years at that time. And it happens to me. I can't imagine what a sergeant or a, an E two or an E three goes through when she has no real voice cuz she's junior in the ranks and people use what they have to pressure them into not doing it right. So that's my kind of take on it. I hope I've asked some of your questions even though I don't think you got ask them all.

James: 49:11

No, we can keep going. And I think it's interesting and there are still more things to talk about. yeah. Fears between horrifying and interesting and just sort of, yeah, you can recognize it. I see. And I've talked about this with Randy on previous episodes, parallels between what you described in the military and what I saw in business, which makes sense, right? They're just organizations filled with people who bring all of their, uh, foibles, with them. So when you talked about the difference in bringing new topics and training to special forces soldiers versus the rest of the military and the need to convince them, I recognized some of what I saw in running a global compliance program when I was dealing with scientists and engineers. Those people were smart. You could not fool them about anything, and it didn't matter that the c e O was behind you and was fully supporting your new compliance initiative or whatever it was. If you couldn't convince them that it was rational and good for them in some sense that they understood it, they just weren't gonna do it. I know it's different, but I sympathized with your need to take a different approach with, uh, your different audiences. And then when it comes to the topic you were just discussing about people's bias, uh, how they respond to a person who raises an issue, no matter how well founded that issue is, it's extremely common for there to be a natural impulse to not just blame the victim, but to be mad at the person for creating somehow trouble. It's not your fault you didn't do anything. You did what the organization actually wants you to do and expects you to do, because otherwise it doesn't improve. But nonetheless, management's response is, you bastard. You know? Um, I can't tell you how many times Yeah, how many times we would have a complaint raised and we tried to keep the name of the complainant, anonymous from management because the first instinct was always, well, who, who made that complaint? And they want to go after the person who made the complaint. It's like, wait, that's, that's not how this works. So that's right.

Randy: 51:07

We'd love to hear what you think, so please comment on the show with your thoughts. We read all of your comments.

James: 51:12

Thanks for joining us, and thanks for subscribing. See you next time.