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Religion, Politics, and Military Service | Julie Roland, Former Navy Lt. Cmdr. · Follow the Leighder

• Leigh/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leader. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and joining me from New York this morning, howdy, is Julie Rowland. Welcome. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Hi, thank you. Thanks for having me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Oh man, y'all prepared to be humbled. Listen to this bio. Julie Rowland is a former Navy Lieutenant Commander and helicopter pilot who served for over a decade, including deployments to the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf. Thank you for your service. After her service, oh yeah, high achieving legal professional, she earned her JD with a 4.0. Okay, all right, let's go girl. And recently completed a Master of Laws at Columbia University with honors. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Thank you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Now, you are working in New York Assembly's District 73 in Manhattan as the district director. You have a lot of experience in your community too as a dedicated community leader and advocate. You've held leadership positions in organizations such as the Truman National Security Project. You also have done a number of writing on topics ranging from military policy to children's advocacy and publications. Wow, thank you so much for, like I said, your service and for continuing to give back to the communities around you. Can you talk about your initial call into the Navy? Was that from family? Was that something else? But what brought you into the Navy, Julie? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Thanks, I think I had a, my path to the Navy was not traditional, let's just say that. I grew up in Berkeley, California. My mom was a poet and a yoga teacher ⁓ and by all accounts a hippie. She dressed up as a peace sign for Halloween when she was seven and the kids threw eggs at her. she was also product of the 60s. She probably would have been a conscientious objector, but she also was fiercely patriotic, just the kind of patriot that thinks patriotism comes with a healthy ghost. criticism, skepticism, sometimes a dismantling of a country's But that is because if you love this house, you want it to be the best house it can be. ⁓ And so I was raised watching the West Wing, starting when I was about five years old. And I just had this really idealistic sense of patriotism. And also at a young age, a passion for leadership and teamwork and just service in general. And so when I was a teenager, I'm in high school. We were living in Baltimore by then. Annapolis was not far away. So the Navy is in my peripheral vision. I did a summer seminar there and they said the magic words. They said leadership, teamwork, service, see the world and free college, which honestly I think is what gets a lot of people to join the military is the financial, the economic incentives. ⁓ But I thought, gosh, know, a lot of what a lot of the things they're saying that's. That sounds like me and I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I know I care about service and all these other things. And so this seems like a pretty foolproof way to give back to my world or that's what I thought at 17. So I applied for ROTC and that's what I ended up doing. I went to the University of Pennsylvania. The Navy paid for me to do that. I did Reserve Officer Training Corps while I was there, going on active duty every summer and training with the Navy. And then the day I graduated college, I commissioned as an officer. So that's the long short of it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, I mean, like you said, it's definitely not traditional, but a lot of people, you know, I've talked to so many folks who, know, families, generations of service, but there's a ton of people who go into the service because ⁓ it's just kind of different from what they know. And that element too, like you said, your mom being the hippie out of Berkeley. And ⁓ again, that patriotism, that healthy dose of criticism is a beautiful way to word that. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: When you served, you served in the South China Sea and you served over in the Persian Gulf, you did get to see the world. What were some of those things that you learned abroad ⁓ that shaped the way you saw military service and the United States as a state, as a government? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: So I did deployments to South China Sea, Persian Gulf, but I'm doing Navy deployments. So most of my time I'm actually just on a ship in the middle of the ocean. I'm on an aircraft carrier, though I have done port calls in Singapore and Dubai and Bahrain. ⁓ And it is interesting coming, pulling into port because when you are seeing the world with 5,000 Americans, which is what happens when we arrive. in Dubai, you know, we pull into a port and it's 5,000 Americans descend into a city. It's a unique way to get to know a place. ⁓ And it's interesting to see how people respond to a ship like that coming in, just this massive American presence that appears all at once. So that is interesting and I'm happy to talk about, you know, those moments, but I don't know that they're totally reflective of like what, you know, I'm not, it's not a. a cultural immersion when you arrive by aircraft carrier when you're traveling. ⁓ But really beyond what I learned from being in ports and seeing the world that way is what I learned being on the ship ⁓ and being in the sky as a helicopter pilot. And so on the ship, what I learned in terms of what the global, you know, what the world looks like, what the global community looks like is because the ship is full of people from around the world. Yes, the military is American troops, but a lot of people use the military as a path to citizenship. because it provides an opportunity for upward social mobility and there are folks joining from often for that reason as a part of it, you get folks who are often from immigrant populations even within the United States. And so it's just an incredibly diverse place. I don't think that there's almost any job you could ever get out of college where you're going to come face to face with people who have so many different backgrounds in every way, every religion, every part of the United States, but all over the world using the militarized apathetic citizenship. just having all of my perspectives expanded by the conversations with other members of the Navy was one way that I just feel like my entire perspective expanded. ⁓ And then also you see as you travel, like as you fly, don't see borders and oceans blur into oceans and we have names for all these things on maps. But I think in a lot of ways, flying both over land and over sea, I at least have seen it more as a global community and seen the ways in which we don't really stop and start as countries. It's funny when I was watching the Artemis 2 footage and hearing all the feedback from the astronauts. They clearly, they're significantly higher in the air than I was getting, but there is a sense of when you see the whole world from above, like when they're looking back at Earth, they're like, we are all one. And, you know, I can't even imagine what that feels like, but you do get a sense even, I mean, I have flown in a helicopter from San Diego to Michigan and, you know, flown up the Mississippi River. But when you start in San Diego, you're starting at the Pacific Ocean and you watch as the ocean comes to beach, comes to dunes and the desert, and then becomes farmland, you fly up the river, and like seeing just the earth change like that. I think you get a different sense of how connected we all are, which is, I think, an ironic lesson to learn when you're technically in the war business, and when patriotism theoretically is all about the team spirit of the country you're in within its borders. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: But actually I felt that my experience in the Navy really expanded me way beyond my borders. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And you know, you're not the first person to go do something like what you did. read ⁓ stories about when I was in Wallen's Seminary, I read stories about pastors and missionaries who would leave the United States during the 1800s, 1900s and, you know, go to all these foreign countries and try to evangelize and bring Christianity to all these places. But a lot of missionaries would get there and they saw that these communities already had temples or structures or they already had systems in place. it like almost relativized like ⁓ that missionary trip. there was a good number of missionaries who returned from these global missionary trips being like, I don't think we actually need to have, like, I think they're good. Like they already have their own systems. Like, ⁓ I'm glad they got to know Jesus is like a Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: I'm Leigh/@followtheleighder: topic, it's interesting that that effect is you're just not alone in that at all. And I think that's a really beautiful kind of way that the military does show. And also when you hear interviews from folks who have advanced through the ranks, particularly officers, they do talk about war and military in a drastically different way than I think a lot of like civilians who haven't served, see almost like more pro-war, you know, let's go fight, rhetoric coming out of folks who maybe haven't served or were just a different, but the further you go up, the less you actually want war. Like you've seen both the destruction and you've also seen the humanity. So. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Absolutely. think people who have been to war are and have had the harrowing experiences of combat are going to be the most important advocates to listen to because they're bringing back that experience and they know that this is not something that should be done lightly, that the toll is so great that both, you know, they see the humanity, sure, and hopefully, but that the toll, you know, on our troops is so great. Like these deployments are painful even when we're not at war. They're long and arduous and you're away from your friends and family and you know there's a sacrifice even in that and so it's just ⁓ I think really understanding like what is at stake and and the micro of that of like what it means for every individual who is who's in that situation you know it is it is felt that much more intimately ⁓ and so yeah it makes sense to me why the the veteran voice is ⁓ hugely important on it and is often, yes, think, exercising more restraint about how the military should be deployed. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and talk about your service. ⁓ You know, we talk about on this channel quite a bit about the intersection of religion and politics and ⁓ what that looks like either in history, currently, etc. When you served, did you engage or interact with your chaplains or what did it look like for your personal faith while you served? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yeah, I love that question. That makes sense, you know, come from you. ⁓ I did interact with religion while I was serving. I'm Jewish. So being Jewish already made me somewhat of an anomaly. At one point on one of my deployments, I talked to the chaplains on the aircraft carrier and I asked, how many Jews were on board? Did they know? They said they thought there might be two. ⁓ And two out of five thousand is not, I mean, that's... That's incredibly small. That's smaller than the national, I think that's smaller than the national average. And they said that they knew a chaplain who was a rabbi, but he was not on board. In the end though, ⁓ it culminated in me leading a Passover Seder on the aircraft carrier on a deployment. I asked the chaplains if it would be okay if I organized it and I wrote my own prayer book basically for the event and I prepared the food and I set the table. Could I lead? a, you know, Passover event, like a meal that we call the Seder. And in the end, they helped me market it to the ship and to invite anyone who was curious. And we ended up, you know, it was a beautiful service that I mean, I was basically playing rabbi, but I led the service and the chaplains when they saw it were so impressed with the turnout and how it was that they called the captain up on the walkie talkie. The captain came down. He was so impressed. He calls the media team. So I have pictures from this. Otherwise, I wouldn't have any pictures, but the media team captured it. But that was an amazing thing to be on deployment, leading my own religious service in that way, and getting to share that with commanders of aircraft squadrons and things like that. So that was really cool. But separately, I would go to Chaplain Services on board if I was free when they were being held. To me, was really, I was curious. It was an interesting. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: break from the monotony of deployment and what the normal days might be. at a minimum, it's an interesting exercise, almost like taking an English class, where we're looking at scripture and then having a discussion about the themes and the morals and values that are in there. And I loved listening to what the sailors had to say. I loved hearing what the chaplain had to say on it. So I had those experiences too. And even in flight school, I actually befriended my chaplain. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: He played the drums and when I discovered he played the drums, I would meet with the chaplain and we would jam. And the day that I got my wings of gold, like the day I became a pilot, after months of jamming with the chaplain and one other pilot who played trumpet and piano, I played guitar, we performed at our winging ceremony. It may have been the first and also last time that... There was live music performed by pilots in the chaplain at a winging ceremony, but that was also amazing. We did that in the chapel. ⁓ And so anyway, these are just a couple moments that stand out to me. But yes, I think that they all, what they illustrate is that having the chaplains there creates this beautiful break from everything else that you're kind of doing. There's a very regimented, like, know, tactics forward way that we approach. much of what we do, but because that's there, you get to fill that emotional and spiritual side more. And even if it's not your religion, like having that outlet, just create space within the confines of the military to, ⁓ you know, fill your cup in other ways. And so I was very grateful for having that. ⁓ But I am also, yeah, now I look at as a veteran at what's going on with ⁓ religion in the military and it does not, it does. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: It does not reflect what my experience was there. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Now, and first of all, that is amazing to hear about that story and your leadership. Thank you for doing that. ⁓ And I'm sure your community loved that and that's really cool that you were celebrated. I am sorry to hear that it came from a problem though. mean, and that is the nod of like those chaplains maybe should have had a better idea. And you know, it's... There's a lot there, but I'm glad they wound up celebrating it and it did go well. And of course you should have been celebrated for taking the lead and that is what leadership does and advocacy. And so thank you, yeah, the, go ahead. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Well, thanks. I'll just, sorry, if I may, I just want to say like, I appreciate that. And for me, it was, it was maybe a product of just there aren't a lot of Jews on board. But I, I thought the entire thing was wonderful and a testament to who was on board, even if they weren't Jewish, they were curious and eager to participate with, you know, with, with an open mindedness that was wonderful. So in the end, you know, that, that was really the takeaway, but thanks for. you know, giving me credit. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and here's the thing, because you're talking about you've covered some huge ground, right? You've talked about seeing a globe without borders. You've talked about working with people from cross cultures, like on ships where you can't just leave and go your separate ways for a while. Like you're working together. ⁓ Can you talk about what that diversity looks like? How does it come together? How is it? ⁓ a problem like Hegseth says and we need to have this unity that almost looks more like conformity or what does diversity look like in teamwork? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Well, you've nailed it. I mean, you're saying it already. I am so in favor of DEI programs in the military. I think they're wonderful in general. I think that the argument that has been made against diversity is one of unit cohesion. But I think unit cohesion has been used historically as a form of exclusion for, like we've seen this forever in the military history. For a long time, they didn't want to integrate African-Americans into the military. And they said they claimed that doing so would be a threat to unit cohesion. Well, guess what? In the end, they did integrate and the unit was better for it. And then the same thing happened about having women join the military. They did the same thing with the LGBTQ community. And just over and over again, unit cohesion is often, I think, a way to mask what is often animus. or ⁓ a closed mindedness towards the other. And in reality, the proof of concept that, the only proof of concept I've ever seen is that when people who are different come together, even if they came in with preconceived notions, once they're together, that's the thing that can really challenge whatever your stereotype or bias was coming into it, that meeting someone who's different than you and approaching them with compassionate curiosity and realizing, ⁓ wait, you're actually not what, the media suggested you would be or what those leaders, their rhetoric suggested you might be. One personal anecdote is when I got to flight school, one of my first friends in flight school had never met a gay person before. And I had never met someone who had never met a gay person before. And I identified as queer. And so I was just one of his first queer friends. Now he's an advocate for the LGBTQ community. I think he was like, oh, well, just, never met you guys. You seemed scary, like whatever. And and that's my friend now. But we're just coming from such completely different worlds. And so the issue though, is that when you have leaders that are giving rhetoric that is so inflammatory or talks about diversity is such a bad thing or talks about specific groups in certain ways, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: It is, people are impressionable. And so there are studies that show that one of the worst things that can happen to unit cohesion is to have people already be biased against the people who are coming into the unit. Whereas if instead you had a rhetoric of inclusivity, if you had strong DEI language in the beginning, you're setting the table actually for people to approach those interactions with a greater open-mindedness that then leads to more successful results. So it's kind of, you know, it is very impressionable and how we talk about it is important. So I think not only is Heg-Seth wrong, but unfortunately he creates more of a risk of this self-fulfilling prophecy that if, you know, like when people say not without attitude, you know, it's like with his attitude, we are dooming ourselves to be ⁓ less able to maximize all of the benefits that. DEI can bring to a place. And then I'll just add that as a former division officer who led divisions of sailors who came from everywhere, I mean, what I saw were people who came from all over, from all different socioeconomic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, from rural Kansas to Chicago to Puerto Rico. they were. on a mission together and we're working together and we're laughing together and succeeding together and we're, you know, like, it was just a, it's a beautiful thing when you see it happen. And yeah, all I have seen is beauty that comes out of ⁓ people from different backgrounds coming together and working together. And it pains me to hear, you know, like to me, I'm like to speak. poorly about it, you must have been so afraid of it that you've never tried it. You haven't embraced the possibility because it's actually, I think for the people who do, it's incredibly enriching. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you for that. And I want to sit there for a little bit. You moved from the Navy into law. in the civilian world, you're out, but can you talk about, you know, the military is a world. You're on a Navy ship, you're in uniform, you speak a different jargon, you have a handbook that tells you how to live your life. So there is that, but are there similarities between civil society and the military in America? Culturally, like, ⁓ what are some concerns that you saw in the military or some other patterns in the military that you are kind of worried about as you look? ⁓ again to the civilian world. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: What are patterns in the military that I see in the civilian world? Is that the question? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, sort of. you know, for example, like the religious rhetoric we just talked about, Hegseth, just a second ago, but now, you know, as is the rhetoric, some of those you don't see the same sort of chaplaincy that you got to experience. ⁓ Some folks who look at that and say, ⁓ that's just confined, you know, that's a military thing. I don't think so. Can you talk about ⁓ Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: ⁓ Uh-huh. Leigh/@followtheleighder: what that looks like, ⁓ seeing trends in the military and your fears or concerns in domestic civilian society. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yeah, it's an interesting question. think sometimes what's happening in the military is a precursor to whatever we're about to see in the world at large or the country at large. And sometimes the military is the one that's late to the game and is responding later to what's happening culturally ⁓ in the US and that is responding to that. for instance, integration is a great example in terms of ⁓ integrating black soldiers in, I think, know, World War II is a time when this really is happening. ⁓ And it's happening in the military out of necessity before it's happening in the United States. Like, we haven't hit the civil rights movement yet, but I think, you know, because of a necessity, an operational necessity, they're like, we need all the men we can get. And so there, we see integration happen in the military sooner. They lead the way. I think people come home from war. and they have an experience of, a minute, I don't understand racism in the same way now because I just had this experience serving alongside my fellow man and I actually don't see him as anything other than my brother in arms. And so I think that's an example where people coming home from that war helped shift culturally where we were at with racism and race relations in this country. And that's a good thing. What's bad is that it started because of the necessity of war, but. you know, we see this proof of concept again. When people are working together for a mission, they realize they're not so different and, you know, human's a human and we're gonna rely on each other and count on each other all the same. But on the flip side, in terms of the LGBTQ community, the military was late to that game. I think it was only after culturally the U.S. had gotten to a place where I think it was far more normalized to see queer couples together. that then finally in 2011, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed. that was far more normal, like I would say, though homophobia still exists and is still a problem in terms of right now what our military leadership is saying about it. That was an example where I think the military kind of waited for the country to get somewhere. And we see this in other areas too. marijuana is getting legalized state by state. And the military is only now beginning to think, ⁓ could this be a good thing, you know, like for our troops or should we stop, should we stop disqualifying people from joining the military because they've used marijuana? This is like in the last year, this is a new proposal of maybe, you know, weed offenses shouldn't be a thing that we disqualify someone who wants, who is able-bodied and ready to serve and wants to serve their country. Let's not disqualify them for that. That's an example of the military, think, finally catching up. to where the country is at. So it can go both ways. But in terms of like Hegseth rhetoric about religion, that is something that ⁓ I am watching with horror as ⁓ he has kind of revolutionized these Pentagon prayer services. And I think, yes, if people are tuning in for the first time, they may think that this was normal military tradition, but what they're seeing is very indoctrinating language. ⁓ Hegseth has been bringing in Doug Wilson who is pastor of a white Christian nationalist church and he's And he himself is offering prayers at these prayer services that are incredibly violent in their language And are calling basically for Armageddon referring their reports that commanding officers Either reports that commanding officers are using language of like Trump being the anointed one. So I think what's scary is that I don't think we are hearing that language in the same way at large yet, though Trump did post a picture of him as Jesus that he said was him as a doctor. But I do think that we're seeing this Armageddon language is happening more so in the military right now. But I think what it means is if in a place where everyone has taken an oath to defend the Constitution, if this establishment clause that would ordinarily make us say that there should be a separation of church and state. If we're seeing that happen in the military in this place that should be beholden to the Constitution, what does that mean for the rest of the country? And I think ⁓ seeing threats to our Constitution occur in a place that theoretically should be holding that document sacred ⁓ is a very suggestive of maybe what is to come and what we're not far from as civilians. and realizing that we are not separate from the military, that that is our leadership too. And whether or not we are, you know, active duty members, we are contributing taxpayers and this is our country. They reflect us as well. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Well, and like you said, this blurring of church and state is very concerning because that's not our constitution. That is not that was very much intended. You could almost you could argue that, you know, the separation of church, not even that phrase, I know that that gets controversial, but having a secular government is American, like it's as American as apple pie, right. And ⁓ it's a different we still cannot Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yes. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I was trying to compare militaries and military chaplaincies and you can't. ⁓ There's nothing, Sweden is another secular society and they don't have the same sort of cultural Christianity that the United States has. It's like, they do, but the way we have it is so intense. And... ⁓ Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: trying to compare. Yeah, there's a reason they made it the First Amendment. They were like, this is the first thing we're going to put in the Bill of Rights. We really want to make sure. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, talk about as you're seeing it now in as a lawyer, ⁓ you worked like I mentioned earlier for the Truman National Security Project. Can you talk about some of your legal work ⁓ and what are concerns red flags you're seeing? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Sure, so for a little bit of, to clarify, I my timeline, I went to law school while I was active duty. When I was on shore tour orders, I had relatives when I was deploying what felt like a lot of free time because I was no longer on ship all the time, know, gone for months out of the year. So I realized, okay, I've got some free time. A lot of my friends were, the Navy was advising them, this is a good time to have kids or get a master's degree. didn't want have kids at that time. And I thought if I was going to go back to school, really the degree I wanted was a law degree. So I took the LSAT and I found that University of San Diego had a part-time program. So I was taking classes at night and often going straight from the Navy in my flight suit to law school. And in the end, I finished in two and a half years and graduated law school while I was still active duty. And then I, instead of taking, so I haven't taken the bar because I was still active duty when I got out of law school thought. Might be crazy to study for the bar and be active duty. I don't have to do that. But I knew that I I had figured out how to juggle the Navy with school. So I rolled right into this Master of Laws program, which was started remotely at Columbia. But I was taking 5 a.m. classes on Zoom. And then as soon as class was over at 8 a.m., I go to work for the Navy, you know, put my flight suit on. So. In the end, I transitioned out of the Navy halfway in this Master of Laws program and graduated just a few months after. So I still haven't taken the bar because right away then I actually, while I was still in this Master of Laws program, I took this job working for the assembly. So that's been the timeline. So I haven't practiced law, but I have through 2022 until getting out of the Navy was studying the law deeply in my free time. ⁓ And also while I did that, I I juggled a legal internship with the Legal Aid of San Diego. I was their pro bono intern over the summer. I was a pro bono clerk for the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law and a federal benefits consultant for them as well. All of this while I was active duty, just doing it in my free time because it felt so important. ⁓ So. In the end, I graduated law school with a criminal litigation concentration, but really by the end of law school, I'd found my way to children's advocacy. And then my master of laws is in global business law. But that was an attempt to kind of bridge the gap between my foreign policy experience that I'd gained from the military with my legal background. But what I'll say really is that getting this crash course in the law made me realize the extent to which most people don't know. much about the law. You know, we in the military are swearing this oath to defend the Constitution. I don't know how well people know what the Constitution says, but certainly how many people have taken constitutional law as a semester doctrinal class in law school where you're reading all of the court cases that really get into what does the language of the Constitution mean and how do judges interpret these gray areas. And so really, like the first flag is just that When we are talking about the fact that we hope troops disobey unlawful orders or that we hope that they uphold their oaths to the Constitution, we really need to acknowledge that is a difficult thing for any American to know. Most Americans probably don't really grasp the significance of every word and what they all mean, let alone the 18 to 25 year olds that make up so much of our enlisted ranks too. The pressure to put on an 18-year-old to be able to tell what is constitutional or not in a moment and have to put on them that distinction, that it falls on them to make that distinction, that is a huge burden. And when you realize that, that's when I think it clocks how much of a problem it is that our highest leadership is blurring the Constitution or outright like. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: going against it, doing things that are clearly against the Constitution, that puts these junior sailors, junior soldiers in a possible situation where they have taken an oath to defend the Constitution, but also to follow orders of the officers above them. And if the officers above them are giving mixed signals at best about what the language is and what that means, how to interpret it, and what right and wrong is, that's... you know, that's a scary possibility for where we would be. And so that's the first flag. And then it's like, yeah, there are all of these flags happening of ways in which our leadership is doing things that are questionably constitutional to include, you know, this war. Like, did the president have the authority to do that? Does he the power to continue it at this time? You know, and like, so even that question. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: but also the Caribbean boat strikes that were happening in the fall and continue actually to be ongoing. Like, those acts of war? What are those falling under? These are questions we don't expect. We shouldn't expect the 18-year-old to be able to have the nuance of, which is why we really need to have oversight of these leaders who are creating circumstances that are putting junior enlisted and junior officers in possible situations. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, is important. It's such a good point to put that pressure on them because in a lot of ways, we know post-Germany that just following orders is a pun. That's not an excuse. On the other hand, the neuroembog trials were for high-ranking officers. Those were for people who knew and had discretion and had discernment and had... Intent and and knew the handbook the manuals all the things what we're talking about And what is the great unfortunate misfortune? historically in militaries is that folks who are on the front lines are folks that are expendable to the state unfortunately and ⁓ That are not the ones that they want to even have like how do I want to say this? They don't want a lot of questioning. It's what I is they don't want this idea of, oh, we're going to question, there's no democracy when it comes to missions or very little. And that's why we have to trust our leaders to act with responsibility, with temperance, with discretion. And right now, it seems very reckless, chaotic. Even the energy of it just feels destabilizing. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yes. Leigh/@followtheleighder: the massive swings and changes that we've seen in leadership in the last year at the Pentagon level, ⁓ which is really upsetting too, because he's claiming these are DEI, to your point about DEI, he's claiming a lot of this is DEI, this is woke, but you know better, you know what the military looks like as a meritocracy. Can you talk about ⁓ kind of how, like you were saying earlier, that these comments about DEI are not just wrong. ⁓ Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: I don't know. Leigh/@followtheleighder: but you can't just get ahead because of certain things. Can you talk about what it looks like to have standards, to have points and the different ways that folks rise through the ranks? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Sure, so how it used to look is not how it's looking right now though technically I think the handbooks probably look the same we are not seeing it being you know we're not seeing tradition norms customs or the rules being applied the way they used to be so it theoretically should be a meritocracy there are benchmarks that exist you're paid certain things for certain ranks at certain months that you've been in you are looked at for promotion there are ways to speed that process along here and there. There's like spot promotions that can happen, especially in the lower ranks of the enlisted. All of that is like doctrinal that exists. There's like textbook rules for that. ⁓ But we've already seen ⁓ that statistically the percentage, let's just say of women that come in at the earliest ranks dwindles by the time that you get to the higher ranks. if it's 25%, these numbers are not exact but. something close to like 25 % women in the enlisted ranks at the E1 to E3 level, the early enlisted ranks. But by the time you get to the E7 through E10 or like, same thing, certainly at the highest officer levels, that number tends to go to, I think, single digits. I think it's close to like 7%, 9%. And so already there was lots of, you know, like, fair concern of why is that happening? Like that could just be retention issue. Maybe the women are just getting out because they don't want to stay in. They're having families. I don't know. But I think the reason, you know, studies have shown that a lot of the reasons that women are getting out are like inherently sexist issues, whether it's childcare issues or sexual assault and sexual harassment claims, you know, bad culture like that. These are the kinds of reasons that they claim are why they're getting out. But also we know that representative leadership matters. So as long as you only have 7 % women at the top, when you're coming in and you don't see that pathway to success, that's another reason that you might get out and you also maybe lack the mentorship that you need in the same way. We see similar drop-offs with minorities of all kinds within the military that as diverse as the military is at its lowest ranks, by the time you get to the upper ranks, it becomes basically white and male and often academy bred. So it's especially white men who went to the military academies or like at the top of the, you know, admirals and generals. So for a long time, the military was trying to be self aware about this, looking at these statistics and creating DEI programs to try to say, well, if it's a really meritocracy, these numbers don't seem to add up. Like, how can it be that you know, the white men from the academies, are they really all just the best officers? Or is there something systemic that's the issue? And I think they, you know, assumed there's got to be something that's wrong within the system. And they so they started attacking bias and different things. But now all of the DEI programming has been slashed. You know, like the first day that Hegseth became the Secretary of War, the first thing he did was dismantle all of the DEI programs. I remember the day my commanding officer comes in and goes. So listen guys, you know, there's no more DEI programs. Don't worry, we still care about everyone just the same. And it's like, well, those are nice words, I suppose, but also how can you care about everyone the same when the programs that are meant to find the holes and fill the holes of how people can fall through the holes, when you've dismantled those programs, how are you looking out for everyone? So immediately that becomes a problem. And now you see the evidence of mass purging. of like statistically, the statistics are showing, heads up this firing women and people of color at a disproportionate rate and often without any explanation of what they've done. And so I have written op-eds about this, but like I would argue that it's either racial or sexist animus, or it's an assumption that people who look different or belong to these different identities that Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: it's an assumption that they're just gonna be less loyal. I think we see a lot of things that show that this leadership is looking for pretty much blind loyalty. And like you said, for the people who are at the front lines, they don't want them questioning orders. So a lot of these people who are being fired without any obvious cause, did they challenge an order or does Hegseth just think they're more likely to because of potentially racist or sexist ideas? We don't know. But it's a problem that we don't know, that we don't know why these people are being fired. It's also a massive amount of people to be firing, especially in the middle of a war. That level of the disruption of leadership is a terrible thing to have. We shouldn't have that. You want people who are seasoned leaders in their roles holding those roles. Like he's firing the chief of staff of the army, but also the head of the chaplaincy, the head of training and indoctrination. So there's those roles. And then it's also people who he relieved an admiral who we do know who was a black admiral, but also did have, I think, challenged the legality of the boat strikes in the Caribbean and now he's gone. And so, you know, whether it's that they're challenging, whether it's just the optics, you know, and actually there are so many statements collected that ⁓ the president cares a lot about the aesthetics of the troops. He has said that he likes his. is people out of central casting and has refused to even be in photographs with ⁓ veterans with disabilities or ⁓ active duty members of color. He's looking to pose next to G.I. Joe, so there's also just that completely arbitrary, machismo vision of what someone in the military should look like. So for all of these potential motives. what we're seeing is whatever meritocracy this was is only as good as if these top bosses like the way, like you and the way you look when you are on your way up. Otherwise, you know, you are unlikely to last long. And so I think what it's going to have is a chilling effect on speech, you know, like people are going to be less likely to want to challenge if they value their job and need the finances or want, you know, want to stay in it, like the work. But it's also going to be probably incredibly hurtful to recruitment, incredibly hurtful on retention, and recruitment plus retention, that means readiness, and that's national security. Like DEI has direct impact on national security. If we make this a more difficult place for anyone who's the least bit different to be, doesn't matter what kind of meritocracy we are in name, we are gonna lose talent. We will hemorrhage talent. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And it's it's why like I have loved being able to go back through military history and see all the different voices and faces that made things happen for American military missions, battles, ⁓ negotiations. We're talking like I mean, we're it's it's inspiring. On one hand, like, yes, it gives me like the quote unquote feels. But it also like throws me into this very pragmatic, like, no, this is how we get through things is together is like having different, that is, it's not even, I don't want to go into the, I'm like frustrated with having to go into the public square and like defend and justify so many people's existence when there is so much evidence that without these people's existence, we would not have been able to do what we've done so far. and the American military. And I'm not here to go down the rabbit hole of like conquest and American imperialism. I'm just talking about having a functioning military, securing borders, national security, those things. And again, those come from the efforts of all of us. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: ⁓ 100%. Yeah, and I think that's part of why we're also seeing an effort to erase that history because any of us who know the history or any of us who have experienced it ourselves, it's self-evident. But if they can remove all, you know, take off plaques, the contributions of women, the contributions of people of color, you know, like, then it's harder to point to that evidence and say, at, no, look, we've done this before. And they want... It seems like they want to avoid that conversation and remove, yeah, they're hoping to hide the evidence. But yeah, this is again why I say the more we can throw people together, the more we create these, you know, it's a proof of concept every time. And we build the argument together that it's successful, you know, it's the proof of concept within itself. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and this will probably be the last big question and then we'll wrap up. ⁓ Can you talk about, you mentioned earlier not putting, being reasonable about our expectations of 18 year old troops, not putting people in positions to make very weighty, heavy decisions about what is constitutional in the heat of Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Thank you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Let's talk about kind of post service, seeing a lot of things in the headlines too, particularly like Senator Mark Kelly and the where it's going with the Hegseth and where veterans are allowed to speak out politically or, you know, freedom of speech. Can you talk or explain to folks what is going on there and sort of your perspective on Senator Mark Kelly and Pete Hegseth? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yeah, totally. Huge, huge important issue. First of all, people who are active duty are giving up their freedom of speech voluntarily, in part when they take the oath. ⁓ Being a member, being an active duty member means that you can't, you can't use your uniform when you're making partisan remarks, there are limits to what you can say, which is why veteran speech is so important that once you're out of the military. Now you get the opportunity to say more. You can be partisan if you want, you know, you can speak out, like, and that is so valuable because you were, you know, you were honoring your commitment to that organization and not trying to ruffle feathers while you're in it to make that strong, keep it ideally secular, keep it nonpartisan, keep it neutral as it should be. But then when you get out, yeah, go ahead and do whatever advocacy and activism you want. Now they're trying to argue that that's not That's not the case, which already the premise is a horrible one. that premise should be thrown out immediately. The idea that we would not want to hear from our veterans is just crazy to me. we, I mean, we covered this already in this conversation. The voice of veterans is so important because they have a unique and intimate knowledge of war, of combat, of foreign policy, of all of these things, of the internal workings of the military. And so who better to advise us and offer perspective before we contemplate engaging in conflict abroad, but also how we should structure the military, how we should train people, like veterans can look back on their time and give us the best feedback. They should absolutely have a seat at the table. We should amplify and elevate their voices. So with that in mind, like the idea of the idea that veterans should have less speech than civilians, that's. That's crazy. I veterans, technically they are civilians again. they, know, constitutionally they fall under that. But, ⁓ but again, yeah, we, we should be doing our best to try to listen to them and instead we're doing the opposite. So what we're seeing with Mark Kelly is that he is being made, they're trying to make an example out of him, but a number of veteran lawmakers in their capacity as veterans made a video where all they did was simply restate what is the rule. which is that you should disobey an unlawful order. They stated the law, they recited it. And immediately the president fired off tweets where he accused them of treason and sedition and threatened that they should be hanged. And the idea that literally just reciting what the current laws of our country are, that that is treachery. that that's treacherous, that that is an act of sedition worthy of hanging. Even if he's joking, you know, like it doesn't matter for the president to suggest in any way and use his platform to suggest that like, what patriotism is that? It should be patriotic to recite our laws and our rules, you know, like if anything, it certainly shouldn't be an act of sedition. But by doing that, you know, like I think most courts have Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: clearly said like this is they're on a war path, this is a witch hunt and it's completely unfounded and you know like the odd, like the audacity of Pete Hegsup to do this is I think the general consensus and yet it's an exhausting thing to go through the labor of these you know they are instead of having an army instead of demonstrating this like coup you know that we normally would see it they have flanks instead of lawyers. and they're lawyering up and making it incredibly painful to speak. So even if they're unsuccessful in court, which they should be because there's no legal, justifiable, know, like their case is based on nothing. Nevertheless, they're making it incredibly painful to do anything that, to speak in any way that they don't like, which is, and what's amazing is that this isn't even the thing that, the fact that they don't like what he said. means they don't like him just reminding troops of the law. That's what they are afraid of that. know, like they're really kind of showing their hand here by indicating that because they're willing to go out of their way to make it so painful to even say what the law is, that's how afraid they are of troops knowing that they have a duty to disobey unlawful orders. Like that that feels threatening to them, that they would have loyalty at all in question by critical thinking that is in fact the rule. So anyway, could have the chilling effect on speech, certainly. Who wants to go through the legal battles of fighting and administration that is, clearly, they have an entire Department of Justice to do their bidding, to go after their enemies. So. If you can get in trouble for simply stating a law, imagine how much trouble you can be in for saying the things I'm saying on a podcast like this. And, you know, this is a Senator. Mark Kelly was an astronaut. I mean, he is a fighter pilot, veteran, astronaut, Senator, and they're coming after him. Like, you know, we're all toast. And so I think they are, yeah, they're trying to set an example. And the worst thing that could happen is that it works. And so we do need to continue to speak out and we have to really have the backs of people who are speaking out to make sure that they are supported and not alone because when someone's speaking out and they're the only voice, it's easier for them to be targeted. But if we're all, you know, more united in our messaging and just, you if we're all reminding the troops, it's harder for them to single anyone out and make an example. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Well, thank you for that. And thank you for sharing again, ⁓ your military insight and your legal insight, your advocacy insight ⁓ throughout this episode. has been, my goodness, so rich with information. I really appreciate you. And I'm glad you're online. I'm glad you're here talking about this. Julie, can you tell folks where they can learn more from you, how to follow, where they can go? Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yes, ⁓ firstly, thank you so much for this conversation. Thanks for all you're doing. ⁓ Yeah, if folks want to follow with me, I'm on Instagram, J-Y-R-O-L-A, Jirola. And I'm also on TikTok, which is just Jirola for the number four U, the letter U. ⁓ And, you know, I think those are the main places to you can find everything else that I do there. But I also I'm a weekly contributor on the fulcrum. So you can look for my column there. But if you follow me on Instagram or TikTok, you'll get, ⁓ I always link to those. So that's the best way. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right on. Well, that's very cool. I didn't know about the fulcrum thing. I knew that you were contributing to publications. I didn't know you had a weekly column. That's really rad. Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: It's pretty new, but it's exciting. Yeah, I think there's a couple other places you might see me soon, but I don't want to jump the gun. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right, right, right. Gotta wait till the ink is dry first, but absolutely. Well, folks, thank you so much for listening today. Can y'all let me know in the comments what y'all thought about this episode? I really enjoyed it. And Julie, please come back, because there were questions as we were talking. I was writing down that I was like, we're not going to cover this hour. But I would just love your perspective on. Like I said, Julie Roland, Former USN Lt Comm: Yeah, exactly. I would love to be back anytime. Leigh/@followtheleighder: See you folks, there we go. Alrighty, well folks, don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. You know the drill. My name is Lee. This has been another episode of Follow the Leader. Until next time, see ya.