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Brigadier General Rebecca Halstead · Five Questions for a General

• 0:03
  Speaker A: You're listening to Five Questions for a General, a production of the modern Morris Institute at West point. I am Dr. Charles Feint, the team lead for this podcast series which features interviews of senior military leaders conducted by specially selected and trained West Point cadet hosts. These exchanges produce timely, relevant, and inspirational insights for professional development of leaders at all levels.
• 0:25
  Speaker B: Welcome back to the Five Questions for a General Podcast. I am Cadet Olivia Hansen, your host and today's guest is retired Brigadier General Rebecca Halstead. General Halstead, welcome to the show.
• 0:36
  Speaker C: Thank you, Olivia. Great to be here.
• 0:38
  Speaker B: And before we start, can I ask what brings you to West Point? Ma', am.
• 0:41
  Speaker C: So I work with Thayer leadership. I'm delivering a keynote tonight to one of our clients. Okay, yeah.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: General Halstead, I think a good place to start is with your origin story. Long before you were the senior commanding General for logistics in Iraq or the commanding General of the Ordnance center, you first made the decision to serve. Why. Why did you decide to join the army? And why did you attend West Point?
• 1:03
  Speaker C: Well, I didn't have my eyes on the military at all because I grew up in a very small town in upstate New York. My dad was an IBM engineer and my mom was a dental hygienist. My dad had served in the Air Force for four years as an enlisted man. So I had seen his uniform and I'd seen my great uncle in the Navy, but that was really all I knew about the military. So my dream was to be a physical education teacher and go to a civilian College. But in 1976, probably it was in the spring of 76, my mother read in the newspaper that the government, the president had just said, we're going to let women go to the military academies. So there was an article in the local paper and my mother was reading it, and she said, this sounds just like you. And I looked around the room and there was no other you in the room but me. So I'm one of four kids, but I was the only one there. So anyhow, so she. She read the article and I'm like, mom, you know, I love sports. I've. That's. I live to be in the gym. I want to be a physical education teacher. What makes you think Army West Point? I know nothing about it. She said, well, just based on what they're looking for, they're looking for an all around student, an all around person. You know, you're good at sports, you're good at your academics. I do a lot of church activities. I was active in the community, very small community, but so I Just told my mother, okay, if you think that's something I should look into, let's look into it. And I did that to please my mother, but with no intentions of really following through. But then we went through the process, as you well know. Right. The letters of recommendation and all my teachers were so excited about it for me. My guidance counselor, everybody was excited but me, and everybody thought I could do it but me. I just didn't see that in my potential. So I did everything I was supposed to do. And then in my senior year in the spring, when I heard from West Point that I got accepted, and I truly thought it was a mistake, it could not be true, but it was. And so that's why I came to West Point. After I got here, I was pretty certain that if I survived that I was only doing my five years, and then I would be a civilian again. Never, ever, ever thought I'd stay a minute past five years. But in those five years, as you know, you have the opportunity to be, you know, a platoon leader and then a commander. And I got a chance at a second company, actually. So I had two company commands, and I just fell in love with my soldiers. I fell in love with serving. I fell in love with all that. I. And I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave. So I stayed for 27 years. But I. So I ended up being a coach in a way, right? Not a. Not of women's sports. But I think what I. What I didn't realize as a young student in high school is that what I. What I was attracted to was coaching, you know, was training, was helping people find the best in themselves. And. And so I think that played out very well in the military because that's what we do as leaders. So we call my mom the Renaissance mom, because, as you can imagine, there weren't many mothers in 1976 that wanted their daughters to go to a military school.
• 4:16
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 4:16
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker B: That's amazing.
• 4:18
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 4:18
  Speaker B: You were class of 81 at West Point, and West Point first admitted women in 1976. Looking back, what stands out to you about your experiences as one of West Point's earliest female grads?
• 4:29
  Speaker C: You know, that's hard to know. What stands out the most? I think, number one, I'm very proud to be in the second class of women. What I like most was our model was strength as 1 81. And so we, the women were very close to our male classmates. We had heard a lot about the integration of women with the class of 80, and they were not Nearly as accepted, I don't think, by their classmates, at least not openly then I think now very much different. And so I think there was, like, this feeling amongst our class that we were going to be one. And we. Even though, you know, you had to have the door open if there was a man and a woman in the same room and all those things, we weren't going to keep that from letting us know each other, you know, because you can come very reclusive, you know, you go, like, well, if the men won't want us to even come to their rooms, that they have to have the door open. Because when that. Once that door is open, then the upperclassmen go, oh, we can go in here and haze them, right? And. And we kind of, at least in my company, and I was in H3 for all four years, we just decided, okay, let the upperclassmen come in, harass us, haze us, do whatever. It's a game. But we're not going to not know each other and be friends. And so I think we were very. We were very much together as a class from day one. But when I think about those times, I think sometimes I felt lonely. I mean, I missed my friends from home. I missed my dog. You know, I missed visiting my family, because in those days, you know, my family could come down and visit for short periods of time. But even the first time they came, we were supposed to have our cadet time off, and they took it all away from us. And so we could see our parents on the sidewalk, but we couldn't see them say hi. So I can remember seeing my grandparents and my parents for the very first, like, visitation weekend, and somebody had done something and messed up, and so they took all of our privileges away. And it was heartbreaking. Like, I. I just remember kind of being sad and feeling isolated. But sometimes during those times is when you become your strongest too, you know, your faith becomes very strong. So, I don't know, I think a little bit the hardest for me was maybe just a bit of isolation because I'm a very outgoing person. I love people. I love to. You know. And all of a sudden you have four answers, you know, yes or no, sir, no excuse or sir, I don't understand. And you can't talk when you're in the hallway. And it is for a whole. In those days, it was for a whole year. And so it's kind of isolating. And that's probably my most negative memory. I mean, yes, there were a lot of men that were very much in your face saying, I'm going to run you out of this man's army if it's the last thing I do. And I kind of believed them. I just figured, I don't know how long I'm going to get to stay, but eventually they're going to run me out. But I did real one day in formation when a male upperclassman was very close to my face. His voice was very low. So if you yell and scream at me, it doesn't affect me. I just. I would pretend I was back at home. I'd be hearing my prom song or thinking about my boyfriend, or I could just blow it off, right, if they're yelling and screaming at me. But when they get up close and you can feel their breath and their words are like you. You have to kind of lean in to even hear. And they're very deliberate about what they're saying. That put the fear in me. And he was just like, I'm going to run you out of this man's army, you know? And what I realized at that moment was there were so many men that wanted us to quit, and I wanted to quit. I was right with them. I mean, I hated it. I wanted to quit every day, right? And it hit me at that moment that if I quit, they win. So I'm not going to quit. I might fail. I might get kicked out for academics. I might mess up. Who knows? But I'm not just going to quit because they don't want me there. And I think that sort of stick to itiveness stayed with me the rest of my military career. If I don't meet the standard and you got to kick me out, okay, to meet the standard, kick me out. But I'm not running away. I'm not going to let you bully, bully me into leaving. And I think that served well, because then you also realize you got to earn everything and you. You have to put in the hard work. And that was just my attitude.
• 8:39
  Speaker B: Did that attitude you had the experience that you had as a woman at West Point, continue into your army career when you were outside of the West Point bubble?
• 8:47
  Speaker C: Well, I mean, once you got into the. Onto the. What we call the real Army, I went to. I went to Italy, and I was at a very small, remote base, and we were responsible for the safety, security, and storage of nuclear warheads. So I kind of went from one isolation bubble to another. Right. Only two women in the whole unit myself, and then a major, and then later a young specialist. We had another woman. And then the major left and another lieutenant came in, so. But when you talk about a company of a couple hundred, you know, you have many women around. And it was Italy, and I didn't speak the language, and I wasn't, you know, they didn't send us to DLI for. Even though I had a. An Italian infantry platoon that worked for me for security and I had to work with the Italian carbonari, the police. You just had to learn the language on your own. I didn't feel that I'm going to run you out of the army. There wasn't any of that. There was more of the. Oh, so you're a West Pointer, like, you know, right?
• 9:49
  Speaker B: Yes, I know.
• 9:49
  Speaker C: You know, ring knocker. I got my ring knocker. You know everything. You're better than the other lieutenants. There's just that perception out there that we all actually think that and that we act that way. So a matter of fact, when I got to Italy, I did not have a cadet sticker on my car. I didn't wear my ring. As if they weren't going to know I was a West Point grad, right. I realized very quickly that it wasn't going to last. So I proudly wore my ring every day since. So it was more, you're a West Point grad, You think you're better than us. And I'm like, like, I'm not like that. I've got to earn my way, and I think so. It's just a matter of same thing as a cadet, you know, I'm going to work hard and be the best that I can be. Maybe one sometime I'll surface to the top, and other times I'm not going to be. I'm going to be second, third, or fourth, but I'm always going to give it my best. And that attitude in the army serves you well because you just have to stay humble. You don't, you know, it's hard work and you don't always get it right the first time, but you got to earn people's respect. You can't just demand it. So. So I'd say yes. My attitude kind of remained the same in the army right until I retired. I want you to respect me for Becky Halstead, not any other credential that I have.
• 10:58
  Speaker B: General Halstead, you've often said the first person you must lead is you. As a sophomore at West Point, I am a team leader for the first time. I have two plebs that I've just gotten this week, and I'm having trial by fire learning how to lead them. What was the hardest moment in your army career when you had put that principle of leadership into practice and lead yourself before you could effectively lead anyone else.
• 11:22
  Speaker C: Well, I, I am just a firm believer that you have to lead yourself every day, all day, 24 7. And there are a lot of moments when you don't feel like doing that right. But that takes a lot of discipline. So, you know, you learn a lot of wonderful values here at West Point. I mean, my foundation was here. I mean, I'm in my foundation at home too. Don't get me wrong. My grew up with very strong values, but it was all reinforced here. But when you sit here and you memorize Scofield's definition of discipline, you're hard pressed to ever forget that. So for me, discipline and that definition. And I used to do a lot of leader development on General Patton because discipline was really huge with General Patton too. You know, he was a soldiers general, but he demanded it of himself as well. So that whole first person you must lead as you is just what I saw in other people was the leaders I admired were the ones who led by example. You know, they didn't ask you to do something not willing to do themselves. So when you're leading your young plebes, you know, you've been there, you got the T shirt, you did it, you were a plebe. And they need to understand that, you know, you've already done that and you're there to help them do it successfully. You never want them to fail. They might fail, but you don't want them to fail. If a person in a leader position enjoys seeing somebody fail, then they're not a leader. And you do see that sometimes. You see cadets who love to haze and they love to run, just like some of the ones I, you know, I'm going to run you out of this man's army. They're not true leaders because they, they're hoping I fail. A true leader is going to do everything they can do to help you be successful. And whether you're successful or not is going to depend on, on, on yourself, right? And then how you're being trained and taught and coached. So you're going to be frustrated by your plebs and you become a lieutenant, you'll be frustrated by your soldiers. Because we all come from different walks of life. And you know, you mentioned to me earlier, you know, you're a woman of faith. You came from a very strong foundation. I came from a very strong foundation. I came from a family of faith. My grandmother was a Pentecostal missionary you know, so that was. That was our foundation. So I already came to West Point with a lot of those values. But people come to the army, come to West Point, they don't have those values. They're going to be learning them here, and they're going to be learning them from you. And so you have to kind of remember that. And you're going to be part of their leadership journey. So don't be frustrated by it. Just know that, hey, God put you in that position to help them be the best they can be. They may or may not be successful, but you're going to do your best to try to help them be successful.
• 14:04
  Speaker B: You mentioned just now about some leaders abusing the standards that we set. How do you distinguish between a demanding leader who makes an organization better by upholding the standard and a toxic leader who uses standards as an excuse for bad leadership?
• 14:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, so, you know, I tell everybody, never apologize for high standards. Be demanding, but not demeaning. And you can still have fun. And you should be having fun even while you're working hard and striving for excellence. But there are so many people that hold standards in terms of we got to be number one, the number one company or number one platoon, and they hold it over people's heads, and then if they're not, they blame everybody but themselves. And so everything's about numbers and data. So I encourage people to put faces on the data, right? So anything we accomplish, when I see a number, I see a statistic. I should also be seeing faces of the people who made that happen. And, you know, I was. I was a logistician in the army when we're in combat in Iraq. And I'm being briefed every day, twice a day, two hours of data. That data represents soldiers in the heat, under fire, on the road. You know, some scared, some hungry, some tired, some all. They're the ones accomplishing that mission. They represent the data that's on those charts. And so I don't. I don't ever, as a leader, want to forget their faces. So that's important for leaders to do. And we should never hold data over people's. I'm going to give you a bad rating or I'm going to fire you, or I'm going to, you know, not recommend you for promotion. I mean that it is a way of motivating people to raise the standard, but it should be held over them. Right. There are quantifiers for performance, and that's important. But what should drive people is accomplishing the mission the most Efficiently and effectively way as possible. There's more than one way to accomplish a mission.
• 16:02
  Speaker B: How would you describe your leadership philosophy and has it changed since the time you entered the Army?
• 16:08
  Speaker C: So I just did a whole hour and a half on leadership philosophy with a corporate client. I did not write my leadership philosophy until I was a battalion commander because really, I never knew about a leadership philosophy until I went to the command force to be a battalion commander. I don't know if it was just new in the army or what, but that was the first time I'd ever heard about it, ever saw one. And when we went to the pre command course and heard about. About having one and writing one, I thought, what a great tool. So I sat in my office in Hawaii. I was a battalion commander in 25th Infantry Division. I sat in my office, and I just was nice and quiet, and I thought, okay, what, Becky, are the most important values to me? And you know how our offices are. Love me walls, you know, so you see family and friends and soldiers and every unit you've been in for the last 16 years on the wall. Brings back a lot of memories, a lot of lessons learned. So I just started writing values that were important to me. I had about 25 values down there. Well, I like acronyms, and I really wanted a leadership philosophy that was an acronym. And when I'm looking at all these words, I have, like, no words to start with a vowel. So, like, it's pretty hard to get a word without a vowel. So I start playing with them, and I go, I could use this. I could use this word, and they mean all these. And so I played around with it, and all of a sudden, the word steadfast just presented itself. Soldiering, training, excellence, attitude, discipline, faith, family, friends. Right. Accountability, safety, and teamwork. So I was like, that's it. That's it. I've got it. And I sat there, and I will admit I was feeling kind of, you know, very accomplished. But I do realize, especially as a person of faith, that any good idea I've ever had came from God. Didn't come from me, thank goodness. And so I'm sitting there, kind of feeling proud of myself, and I look up on the wall, and there is on the wall a framed print that my mother had given me 15, 20 years before that. And you probably have heard of this before, but a lot of people will take your name and they'll put a Bible verse to it.
• 18:13
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 18:13
  Speaker C: So there it was, Rebecca. Steadfast and faithful. First Corinthians, 15:58. And I was like, wow. Like that didn't, that steadfast didn't come from me at all. That came from God. And then how many years ago did my mother give that to me? And it just, it just, it was like the neatest moment in the world. I kept that the same until I retired. And I think the reason why I was able to keep it the same was one, I think it was God inspired. Two, I'd had 16 years in the army, so you know, I'd been a, you know, a company commander, I'd been an iron major. And so I had quite a bit of experience to rely on in reflection to come up with the values most important to me. And so it just remained the same. And to this day I have soldiers, leaders who write me and say, ma', am, I still have steadfast leadership. I might, you know, they still have my leadership philosophy. And you know, and these are, these are kids that are now retired or, you know, they're the senior non commissioned officers or some are even brigade commanders and generals. And that's a neat feeling, that sharing that was so effective and touched a lot of lives. But it wasn't me, you know, I was just the instrument. Right. The only time I changed it was when I got out of the army and I started doing this work on leadership in the corporate sector. First, the S&STEP S stood for soldiering, and obviously that doesn't work for the corporate sector. So I, I think I, so I changed just a few of the words. It's still steadfast, but it had to be relevant to what I do today. And it's still relevant to the way I lead myself today, but it's also transferable. So that's the only time I changed it.
• 19:53
  Speaker B: That makes sense. Yeah. You've mentioned several times that you're a woman of faith. How has your faith informed the way you lead and the way you interact with face to face with soldiers?
• 20:02
  Speaker C: I think that leadership is the fusion of your heart and your mind. And so when you're making decisions and you're leading others and you're helping to develop others, you have to use both your heart and mind. And there's nothing that touches both of those more than faith. Right. And they have to be in the right places, both of them, in terms of your priority and your focus and your love for others. And really serving is you got to serve before you can lead. And so I just think it's, it's just always been an integral part of me. Now, don't misunderstand. I Have had many peaks and many valleys. I have not gotten it all right. And do you learn from those moments? Absolutely. But when I look at my life in terms of, you know, pushing 70 years, the foundation, the constant has been my faith. And when I have messed up, I could always go back to my faith and go, it's okay, Forgiveness, start over, do whatever, make amends, and keep driving on. So it's just helped me get through the valleys and then hopefully on the peaks, it's kept me humble. Right. Because I don't think leadership is about a rank. I think leadership's about what's on the inside. And when people today, they ask me, well, what did you do in the army? I said, well, I was a soldier. I was a logistician. I never answer. I was a general, and that's a rank I wore. Am I proud of that? Sure. I mean, it was exciting and, and it was a lot of responsibility. But most importantly was that I was a soldier first. Faith has just been, has been my anchor. It does provide all the answers, but it's not always in the moment. Like, I don't know about you, but you can sometimes go back, you look back and you go, I now understand, I now understand why I went through something. I didn't understand it at the time, but my faith, my faith said, God is in control. He's in front of you. He's with. He's not gonna go. You're not gonna go through anything without him. So just knowing that helped me to push through things. But sometimes it's years later before you figure out why you went through something. I'll give you an example. When I was in high school, I told you, I want to be a coach. So who do you think my mentor was? I coach, right? Small town, same coach for softball, same coach for basketball. So my coach, she was my world. I lived in the gym, I played racquetball, I played all these sports. But she was tragically killed my junior year while I was applying to come to the academy. She died one week after she wrote her letter of recommendation for me. So when I went to have my interview with my senator, you know, those letters are close hold. You're not supposed to get them or see them. And so he said, well, aren't you. You from that small town where a coach was killed? Because it was a very, it was a very publicized tragedy because she was doing a 12 person jump, parachute jump, and someone pulled their shoot too early. It hit her, knocked her out. So she was never able to open her chute and so she was obviously killed instantly. But so it was pretty big news. And I suggest that was my coach. I said, matter of fact, there should be a letter of recommendation in my packet from my coach. Now that's in the days before everybody had a computer, so everything was handwritten. Okay, Just to give you an idea. So about maybe a week or two weeks later, after I had had my interview, a big old packet comes to my house. And that senator had his office send me all my letters. And then there was a letter from my coach. Now, at that point, I had already decided I'm not going to. I'm not even going to college because I kind of gave up. You know, my. My life was a light switch at that point. And when she got killed, I turned the light switch off. I didn't. I didn't want to live. I didn't want to. I didn't care about school. I just didn't care about anything because for me, I felt like my life was over. And then I read her letter, and her letter of recommendation talks about how much she believed in my potential, how much I was having opportunities that she never had as a woman. I mean, all these things just, in a two page letter just jumped out and the light switch went back on. And thankfully I had not checked out of the net so long that I, you know, missed my opportunity. And so the light switch went back on. And I knew from that moment, you know, that this was the right thing. But I never understood the purpose of her, of that tragedy and her death until I was a general in Iraq and I was visiting one of my soldiers who had just been through a horrific ambush. His buddy was killed. And he's like, why, why, why, why, man? Why did my buddy get killed and not me? And he was on his last convoy and he volunteered and. And I just looked at him and was like, we will never know why. We will never know why. But here's what I do know, that you cannot give up on life. Because if you give up on life, because, you know, we have horrible problems with PTs and soldiers that come back and they've lost their buddies, feel a lot of guilt. I said, don't let that guilt drive you to suicide. Do not do that. Because here's why. If you do that, number one, the enemy wins twice. They killed your buddy and now they've killed you because you took that act. Don't let the enemy win twice. And the other thing is, I gotta really believe if your buddy was. If the tables were turned, your buddy would do Everything to live for you, not die for you. That's what we do as soldiers. You know, we carry that flag and we carry it into battle, and we live for each other. Yes, we're willing to die for each other, but more importantly, we're willing to live for each other. And it was like in that moment that I was talking to him that I realized the significance of my coach's death. And that's what, 30 some years. But that's when God kind of revealed that to me, that there was a reason I went through all that. And now I'm able to help my soldiers get through their trauma of losing their buddy in battle. So, long story, but those are things that shape you, and that's how faith played such a part in my life.
• 26:09
  Speaker B: It is really amazing how God works.
• 26:11
  Speaker C: It is, yeah. It's crazy.
• 26:14
  Speaker B: General hall said you now have decades to watch people lead, from cadets and junior officers to general officers and corporate executives. If you could give today's West Point cadets and young army officers a few leadership principles to carry with them for the rest of their careers, what would they be and why?
• 26:33
  Speaker C: In no particular order. I'll just give it away. They're coming to me. Number one, never stop learning. Never stop learning. You know, I gave my. My mom and dad, who are 90 and 91, when I gave them their first cell phones, my mother was like, I am not using that. And then I taught her how to text. I am not texting. And she. She will text me two or three times during this interview. We have to be willing to learn new things. I tell people, the day you stop learning is really the day you die. That's. That's. You stop living. So. So never stop learning. Never stop being grateful. Thankful. Because no matter what you're going through, I guarantee you, you can look left and right and somebody's going through something far worse. We can become very self absorbed with our own problems and our own challenges and, and forget to be helpful to others. And so don't allow yourself to become self absorbed. And that goes to the next one, which is stay humble. Don't count your awards. Don't count all your promotions. I was counseling up one of my majors once, you know, because I believed in counseling and coaching every quarter. He said to me, ma', am, now the oer, you still call them oers?
• 27:48
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 27:49
  Speaker C: Okay. The OER you gave me, is that going to keep me from being a battalion commander? It wasn't even a lieutenant colonel yet, you know. And I said, well, hang on a second. I said, I, I don't know if this will keep you from becoming a battalion commander. It's going to be, it's going to be a series of your performance reports, you know, and it's going to be the manner in which you have performed that's going to determine that one isn't going to make it for you and one isn't probably going to break it for you unless you did something illegal. But I, I think you're focused on the wrong thing. I mean, it's good that you want battalion commander, but you need to work at being a great major right now. Because here's the deal. Because then he said, because if I can't be a battalion commander, you know, then I'm like, I'm not the man I was meant to meet. That, that, this, that's the important part of this. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no. That's. Don't, don't, don't do that to yourself. Because God has a plan for all of us. And some of, some of us, it might not be battalion command, but you still could be the man or the woman you were meant to be. And so not everybody has that upward projection. Not everybody gets promoted, not everybody gets a command. So you have to stay humble and what you are given. Do the absolute best that you can do with the best outcomes and develop others. And it's okay if the people that you developed surpass you. Like, to me, that's kind of the greatest joy. I remember one of my colonels became a one star, and then he made it all the way to four star. You know, we were peers for a while. And I'm just like, I couldn't be more proud of him than, you know, than if he was my brother. We have to have joy for each other. Even if somebody beats us, we should be happy about it. So, so stay humble. We really. I wish humility was one of our values in the, in the military, because I don't think we talk about it enough. And one, that's because I'm not going to sit here and say, I'm a humble person. Right?
• 29:41
  Speaker B: That's.
• 29:41
  Speaker C: That kind of defeats the purpose. But I think it needs to be taught because otherwise the opposite happens. We're in search of the next top block. We're in search of the next award. And I mean, I will candidly tell you, if you asked me to sit here and write down every award that I. That's on my officer record brief, I would get it wrong because it didn't mean that much. To me, I just felt like, you know, I could look at that and go, okay, well, I successfully commanded a battalion. I successfully commanded a brigade. I didn't really feel like there was much to them. Probably if I didn't get one, maybe that I would feel differently, but I. But I couldn't. I couldn't actually tell you what I earned or what I received, I should say, because it didn't matter that much, Would be far more important to me is the people who would tell you that they learned the most about leadership when they worked for me, or that they became a better leader because they worked with me or for me. That's far more important. So. And let other people tell your story. I know you're interviewing me, and I kind of telling my story, but, you know, I didn't ask to be interviewed. You guys came out to me, right? So I think I'd rather someone else tell you an accolade than for me to tell you an accolade. I'll tell you stories. You can determine the rest. And the last one, I guess, would be be yourself. And I failed at that pretty miserably. We try especially women, and especially in those days, you know, in the 70s, you know, you were rough around the edges. To fit in, you know, you had to be one of the guys. And maybe. Maybe I had to, to survive. I don't know. I didn't try it any other way. I just tried to. I tried to be as rough as I could, as tough as I could, as gritty as. But I know I said and did a lot of things that I wish I hadn't because I wasn't being true to myself, true to my faith. And so I think I would tell people, be you. God created every single one of us differently, and we need to be who he created us to be. And so, you know, I did definitely get some of those things wrong. But in hindsight, I would say I'd have been more who I really know I am. True to myself.
• 31:41
  Speaker B: Ma', am, knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self?
• 31:46
  Speaker C: Be true to myself.
• 31:47
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 31:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think we'd have to end up on that, right? We go right back to that one. Because when you try to be something or somebody that you're not, you can't do it. I mean, it's. It's stressful, it's hard. It's. It doesn't make any sense, really. But, you know, when you're in an organization where, you know, you stick out like a sore thumb, you're Kind of trying not to be noticed, right? And of course, I. You're not very tall either, but I know five foot one and a half, you know, and everybody's always sizing you up. They're either sizing you up because you're a woman or sizing you up because you're short. And they immediately just go like, well, she can't do that.
• 32:22
  Speaker B: That.
• 32:22
  Speaker C: You know, when I went to air assault school, I was like, she can't do that. She's. First of all, I was old. I was in my 30s, which. In the army, that's old, right? I was like, you're crazy.
• 32:31
  Speaker B: You're.
• 32:31
  Speaker C: You know, you're 34 years old, and, you know they're gonna eat your lunch. There's only two women in the class. And, you know, but I. I ended up graduating second in the class, and it was a Ranger that beat me. But I tell everybody, I didn't even know we were in competition with each other, because I was in competition with myself. Enough. Run the 12 miles the fastest I've ever run it, and then the next time I run it beat my time again. I'm not. I was not competing against whoever was running by me or whoever I was running by. I just knew I needed to get to the finish line and I needed to do the best time I could do. And so, you know, maybe that's, you know, more guidance for. For others. It's just that measure yourself up against yourself and keep trying to be better, better, better. And I. I think if a younger version of myself, it would be to do more of that and less comparing myself all the time to others, and also to not be defensive, you know, but it was hard to not be defensive, you know, when everybody in the room gets asked their opinion but you. Yes, let's see how it's kind of hard to not have that get to you, you know, And I, Most of the time, I was the only woman in the room. You know, I was the only woman battalion commander in the 25th Infantry Division. I was the only woman brigade commander in the 10th Mountain Division. I was the only woman commanding general in Iraq. But eventually, you just kind of go, it's all about earning respect. Some people will listen, some people will not. Some people will ask your opinion, some people will not. But what I really owe is the people in my lane that I'm in charge of to make sure those things aren't happening in the lanes I'm in charge of. Right. Like, so everybody's opinion matters. Everybody gets a vote.
• 34:09
  Speaker B: General Halstead thank you so much for your time today and for this great discussion about logistics, leadership and perseverance. On behalf of Colonel Patrick Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin.
• 34:28
  Speaker C: Well, thank you very much.
• 34:30
  Speaker B: Thank you.
• 34:30
  Speaker C: I will add that to my collection. You did a great job.
• 34:35
  Speaker B: Thank you very much, ma'. Am. Thank you for spending your time with me today.
• 34:39
  Speaker C: You're welcome.
• 34:44
  Speaker A: This has been an episode of Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute of West Point. If you like what you heard today, please download, like, subscribe and share this podcast to help us reach an even larger audience. All statements in this podcast represent the personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.