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0:41

Hello everyone and welcome to

0:44

Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday,

0:46

October 9th, 2023. And

0:49

I'm the host of the show, Cara Santa Maria.

0:51

And this week we have a

0:53

really interesting one for you. I had the

0:55

opportunity to chat with Dr.

0:58

Lina Andrews. She is a

1:00

military analyst for the Central

1:02

Intelligence Agency, the CIA. She

1:05

earned her PhD in political science from MIT,

1:07

where she specialized in international

1:10

relations and security studies.

1:12

And she has spent more than a decade in foreign

1:15

policy, having previously worked at the Rand

1:17

Corporation and the United States

1:19

Institute of Peace. She has

1:21

a new book out called

1:23

Valiant Women, the Extraordinary

1:26

American Servicewomen Who Helped

1:28

Win World War II. Lots

1:31

of exciting things that you probably

1:34

didn't know. I definitely learned a lot

1:36

in this one. So without any further

1:38

ado, here she is, Dr. Lina

1:41

Andrews. Well,

1:44

Lina, thank you so much for joining me today.

1:46

Thank

1:46

you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to

1:48

be here. Absolutely. So we're going

1:51

to be talking about your new book, Valiant

1:53

Women, the Extraordinary American

1:55

Servicewomen Who Helped Win World

1:58

War II.

1:59

somebody who's done intensive reporting

2:02

and sort of written

2:05

about history, written about something

2:07

that's already passed, I think it's important

2:10

that we at least start by talking

2:12

about you,

2:13

the person, you, the writer, and what your

2:15

interest in this area was. And I mean, you

2:18

in and of yourself are super interesting.

2:20

You're a military analyst at the

2:22

CIA. Also

2:24

a political scientist, like

2:26

how do you get, I've actually, this might sound

2:28

weird,

2:28

sorry, I'm going to like talk

2:30

your ear off right

2:31

here at the top. This might sound weird, but with my other

2:34

podcast, The Skeptic's Guide to the

2:36

Universe, we actually visited the CIA

2:39

a couple of times and we went on

2:41

their, their internal

2:43

podcast as guests. I don't

2:46

know if I'm even allowed to say the name

2:48

of the podcast on air. So it was really weird.

2:50

We've been to the CIA twice. We met a bunch of

2:52

people there. We learned that you're called analysts.

2:56

That there were all these cool scientists. We talked a lot about

2:58

evidence based policy and just about like

3:00

science and why science matters to the CIA.

3:03

And it was really, really fun. And

3:05

I don't know, like, so I, this

3:07

was years ago now, but I feel like I, I've,

3:10

I've

3:11

enjoyed my time at the CIA, which

3:13

is a weird thing to say because most people have never been

3:15

there. You know, it's a surprisingly friendly

3:18

and open place. Yeah. You

3:20

do have to get invited. The

3:26

gift shop is great. I've

3:29

gotten many Christmas gifts from there, but

3:31

you know, it's, it's, I am a military analyst

3:35

where we are forthcoming. We love to be

3:37

because we so rarely can talk about

3:39

our work. But you know, in

3:42

this context, obviously I think

3:44

the main thing is that it demonstrates

3:47

for me that, you know, I've had this sort of lifelong

3:49

interest in understanding military operations,

3:52

both in the contemporary context and in

3:55

the past. And what I found is that

3:57

some of my best work in,

3:59

you know, the military. modern world has come from

4:01

my understanding of the past. So

4:04

the agency is fortunately one of the few places that really

4:06

respects and loves history in that way. And

4:09

so I've been delighted to work there with such

4:12

incredible people. And

4:14

if anybody can get in, I suggest they do

4:17

get in. It's a lot of fun to go. As

4:20

you said, it's kind of surprisingly

4:22

a chill

4:24

place for

4:26

all of our spookiness. I

4:30

was impressed by how many cool

4:32

nerds there were there. Yeah, and

4:35

that's what drew me to it initially because

4:37

I come from an academic background. I'm

4:39

trained political scientist. I have a doctorate in

4:42

political science and international relations in particular.

4:46

But I wanted, and while

4:48

I wasn't keen on

4:50

sticking in the academic environment because

4:52

of lots of personal reasons,

4:55

I did want to be in an environment where there was

4:57

a real respect for inquiry and, like you

4:59

said, sort of scientific process and thinking

5:02

through the way that we ask and answer questions.

5:04

And I found that, at least in the government and

5:06

in the policy world, the agency is one of the best

5:09

places for that. So I was

5:12

thrilled to be surrounded by nerds just like

5:14

me, as I'm sure you understand. Having

5:16

every in this world, in the sort

5:18

of doctoral world as well, there's a certain type

5:20

of

5:21

personality that's sort

5:23

of always wondering, like, huh, how should

5:25

I ask that question? Or how should I answer that question?

5:28

I love being surrounded by those types of people. So it's

5:30

been a really wonderful fit. And

5:32

they, of course, were very generous to let

5:35

me work on this book for so long. And

5:37

it's been a great marriage in

5:39

some ways. So I have

5:41

to ask because I feel like a lot of people

5:43

that I met that worked that

5:46

worked at the CIA either sort of came from

5:48

an academic background

5:49

or from a kind of military

5:52

background or both. But your approach

5:54

has been purely academic or

5:56

have you also worked in the military prior to

5:58

working?

6:00

at the CIA. Yeah, no. So I'm increasingly

6:03

a rare person, which is

6:05

to say I'm a civilian. I have no military

6:07

experience. I've never served in uniform. I

6:10

have a lot of experience talking

6:12

and studying the military

6:14

just based on what I did my doctoral work

6:17

on and sort of environments that I've been in. But

6:19

I am fully a civilian, which,

6:21

like I said, is sort of increasingly and unfortunately,

6:25

a little bit rare these days. You don't find a lot

6:27

of people who are civilians

6:30

and

6:30

are kind of

6:31

interested in the military despite

6:33

not serving in it. And so a big part

6:35

of my mission with this book is

6:37

to, as always been in my work in general,

6:40

I should say, is to make sure that when

6:42

I'm writing about military operations or when I'm

6:44

writing about military things in general,

6:46

I'm writing about it in a way that is both

6:48

correct and accurate and the military community

6:51

will find resonant with their experience,

6:54

but also is written for a generalist audience,

6:56

is written for people who don't have

6:58

that background who are civilians who might be intimidated

7:01

by the ranks and the brass

7:03

and the funny little acronyms

7:05

that the military uses. So that's

7:07

been a really important

7:09

thing for me is to sort of act as a translator between

7:11

the two communities. And I've always really

7:13

loved that. And so hopefully

7:16

if folks pick up the book, they'll feel like they

7:18

understand what's

7:18

going on.

7:20

Which is so, it's so important,

7:22

not just as you put it for

7:24

the sort of translational aspect, right? Being

7:27

able to bridge that divide and make sure that the people

7:29

who are reading this aren't confused.

7:31

But I think it's also probably really important just

7:34

from an accountability perspective, just

7:36

having somebody who is doing

7:38

this research who doesn't have

7:41

certain types of, I don't know,

7:43

biases or ties

7:46

is going to actually be, I would hope,

7:48

a little bit more objective as they're digging deep

7:50

into this history.

7:51

Oh,

7:52

absolutely. And I'm so glad you brought up the

7:54

point because it's actually what drew me to this world

7:56

in the first place, which is to say, you

7:59

know, I... I started in a

8:01

policy job in DC and I was

8:04

actually in a place called the US Institute

8:05

of Peace when I just graduated

8:07

from college and I was

8:09

at this place that was studying peace and conflict resolution

8:12

and conflict management and 90% of

8:14

the time that we were having these conversations there were folks

8:16

in uniform in the room and I

8:19

was sitting there thinking Clearly like

8:21

these guys are involved in conflict

8:23

resolution and peace management and war

8:25

and peace and the whole spectrum of things And I

8:28

don't I can't understand what's on their uniforms.

8:30

I don't know if they're important. I don't know what

8:32

they do You know and

8:34

for me that felt really kind of

8:37

unusual and uncomfortable to

8:40

be in a room having conversation with someone and having no

8:42

idea what their sort of background

8:44

and experience meant and so that was the motive for

8:46

me was to sort of Get

8:48

a little bit more clarity about what this world was

8:50

and once I started peeling back the layers on the onion

8:52

I found it to be one of the most interesting

8:55

sort of bureaucracies in the world Which

8:58

is not how many people think of the military, but

9:00

it really is just a very very big bureaucracy

9:02

that's responsible for

9:03

You know fighting our wars which is

9:05

an unusual mission, but in the most other respects.

9:08

It's such a big hierarchy

9:08

And so,

9:11

you know for me then when I went to graduate

9:13

school So much of what I was

9:15

doing was focused on civil military relations

9:17

and sort of understanding how we got

9:19

to a place today where Civilians most

9:21

civilians unless they know somebody in the military

9:24

or have a family member of the military Increasingly

9:27

sort of insulating themselves from this community that

9:29

is doing a lot of the hard Work

9:31

of keeping us safe and you know fighting

9:34

our wars and doing all those things So it

9:36

was a very natural evolution but one like

9:38

as you as you know that started with a sort

9:41

of feeling of not as much accountability,

9:43

but Also, just sort of like how

9:46

could I not know about this incredibly important

9:48

feature of our democracy?

9:50

Right, right And so last kind

9:52

of silly thing that I want to ask before we dive into

9:54

some of the contents of your work So

9:57

you you mentioned that you're a military analyst

9:59

at the

9:59

CIA, are you an officer?

10:02

Isn't that the title that most people have

10:04

there was officer not? Yeah. I remember

10:06

being taught that. Well,

10:08

we do call ourselves intelligence officers, which

10:13

I think is a reflection of the

10:15

larger sense of

10:18

national security mission. But it doesn't

10:20

mean in the same context, there's no officer

10:23

and enlisted, for instance, as there is in the military.

10:26

There are ranks,

10:27

of course, but I'm not like a lieutenant or something

10:29

like

10:29

that. But yes, I think

10:32

the agency shares rightly,

10:35

because we work so closely with war fighters, and particularly

10:37

in the military analysis community, there

10:40

is a shared feeling of mission and

10:42

a lot of people from one community come

10:44

into the other community. There's a porous

10:47

boundary there, which I have loved as

10:49

someone who, again, is a civilian studying

10:51

the stuff to be able to interact

10:54

so closely with folks doing things

10:57

on the operational and military side. So

10:59

we are called officers, although not in the

11:01

cool military way. We'll take away the night.

11:05

Yeah. Definitely not agents, right? Everybody

11:08

thinks we're called agents, but you're not agents. Everybody thinks

11:10

we're spies. We're not spying on

11:12

them. At

11:15

least I'm just an analyst. I

11:17

just sit at a computer.

11:20

Yet you spy on history. Let's

11:24

talk a little bit about this

11:26

really interesting work that you've done in the reporting that went

11:28

into it. Obviously, there's some

11:30

bigger conversations, but

11:33

before we even dive into any of the themes,

11:35

I would love to just get

11:38

the quick and dirty elevator pitch of

11:41

who are these valiant women

11:43

that you wrote about, these service women

11:46

in World War II? What

11:48

brought you

11:49

to this topic and how did you identify

11:52

what and whom

11:53

you wanted to explore?

11:55

I

11:58

love the elevator pitch because- I think

12:01

a lot of hopefully it resonates with a lot of people which

12:03

is to say I Spent

12:06

decades studying World War two. I thought I knew everything

12:08

about it. You know, I'm I've read every book

12:10

on the shelf I thought I understood

12:13

it and of course I knew about Rosie

12:15

the Riveter and you know, I'd read all the books

12:17

about women who broke codes or were agents

12:19

behind enemy lines that sort of thing but

12:23

what I didn't realize until Really

12:27

quite recently in my sort of broader career

12:29

is that the reality is

12:31

that the scale and scope of women's Contributions

12:34

in World War two is so much larger than

12:36

just Rosie or just the spy, you know

12:38

spies and codebreakers You

12:40

know over three hundred and fifty thousand American

12:42

women served in military uniforms in World War

12:45

two And it wasn't just the size

12:47

which is you know to give folks a sense about

12:49

the size of the today's active duty, maybe It

12:53

wasn't just how many women served it was

12:55

also what they were doing there were these critical

12:57

support and supply roles that

12:59

most people don't think of or Appreciate

13:03

as being important to combat operations, but

13:05

are really the backbone of the battlefield and

13:08

so for me, it was this perfect meeting

13:11

of one being a really interesting story about

13:13

women and to being a

13:15

really interesting story about war and Especially

13:18

this war that I've been studying for so long and sort

13:20

of understood thought I understood but had

13:23

to reconsider as I looked at it through the eyes

13:25

of women So

13:27

let's talk a little bit about what it means

13:28

to serve

13:30

in World War two Like these

13:33

women were serving in uniform. I'm looking at

13:35

this like stunning Colorized

13:37

photograph that's on the cover of of

13:40

the book. I mean these women are wearing Uniforms

13:43

there, you know standing in front of

13:49

And so talk to me

13:51

about like what does it mean to serve in uniform

13:53

were these women these were service women were

13:57

Were women allowed to be enlisted prior

13:59

to World War two? Were there enlisted women already?

14:02

Yeah, so there was, there were women

14:04

who had served in uniform. In fact, I'll

14:06

start at the very beginning. Women have always served

14:09

on the battlefield. Most of the time, up

14:12

to and including the revolution, right? But most of the time

14:14

they've served as nurses, which most

14:16

people don't recognize as a really important military

14:18

function and is a big part of the book for that

14:20

reason because I really try and outline how important

14:23

the medical community is, especially

14:26

in World War II, but has always been. So- I

14:28

didn't realize that they were actually enlisted

14:31

though. I thought that they would be like contracted

14:33

or something like that. Well, sometimes they are. And World

14:35

War II employed a mage. I mean, everybody

14:37

was involved in World War II in some way.

14:39

But the nurses were,

14:42

you know,

14:42

often officers actually, and some of them were enlisted

14:45

as well. But, you know, they, the

14:48

nurse corps has been a feature, not

14:51

necessarily in

14:54

a formal way, but certainly in an informal

14:56

way on

14:56

battlefields since, like I said, the American

14:58

Revolution.

14:59

In World War I, the

15:01

Navy for the first time opened up their doors

15:03

to a small group of women who they called the

15:06

Yeomanettes, which were

15:08

Yeoman, which is a military

15:11

term essentially for an

15:13

enlisted person. And

15:16

it was just a kind of cutesy little

15:18

name for them. And there were about 10,000 of them. So

15:20

there were women who served in World War II, or

15:23

excuse me, in World War I. There were also a group called

15:25

Hello Girls. They served abroad and they were

15:27

answering phones and

15:29

cables and doing that sort of thing. So there were

15:32

pockets of women who served in uniform

15:34

before World War II.

15:36

But it wasn't until World War II that

15:39

the military services fully opened their

15:41

doors to women across the board. So

15:43

I mean, all of the military services, Army,

15:46

Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard,

15:49

the Army Air Force, which was part of the Army at the time,

15:52

had a contract force, as you just meant, you know, as you

15:54

talked about. But they were effectively,

15:56

you know, officers in the

15:58

Air Force at that point. And

16:00

like I said, they were doing literally

16:03

every job you could imagine. I think they were

16:05

in every combat theater. They were at

16:08

one point in like two-thirds of the military occupations

16:10

available. They were laying

16:13

cables on battlefields to make sure that

16:15

the headquarters and the front lines could communicate. They

16:17

were drawing maps for forces

16:19

in Normandy. They were fixing planes

16:22

to go back to the Pacific. They were doing

16:24

kind of everything you could possibly imagine up

16:27

to and not including firing

16:30

weapons on the front line.

16:31

So that's where the sort of, that's

16:33

where the bright red line went. But

16:36

they were really,

16:36

really involved in pretty

16:39

much everything else.

16:41

I was going to ask about that because I feel

16:43

like we sometimes make distinctions in

16:46

the civilian world that might not

16:48

be, we might not be using the

16:50

right language or there might not be a

16:52

clean distinction. But one of the things that you often

16:54

hear is like women in combat,

16:57

which maybe is not as

17:00

appropriate as the

17:02

question of like

17:05

women, I don't

17:06

know, armed women. I don't

17:08

know what, you're like, the bright red

17:10

line, you made it quite clear.

17:14

So are they, were they at this point

17:16

not even trained in how to use

17:18

arms? No. So

17:21

it's a little bit of a mixed bag. And this is what I'll say

17:23

was a really big, I think a really big misconception

17:26

among civilians. And in part, again, is because of

17:28

this winding gap between

17:30

the civilian world and the military one,

17:33

which is great combat,

17:35

frontline combat is like

17:38

the guys right at who are literally

17:40

shooting at the end can see the whites of their eyes kind of thing,

17:42

right? So that tends to include things like

17:45

artillery, infantry,

17:47

you know, those sort of heavy

17:50

guns and things like that. Women

17:52

were not generally serving in those

17:54

roles.

17:55

But what we forget to take an artillery

17:58

battalion, for instance, guys who are shooting.

17:59

shooting really heavy guns at the enemy

18:02

from a

18:02

long distance.

18:05

What that, of course, those guys are fighting

18:08

the war, right? There's no question about what those

18:10

guys are doing. Artillery in World War II

18:12

is incredibly important. What people don't

18:14

realize, I think, is that up to

18:17

that unit, that battalion

18:19

of artillery, there are

18:21

an incredible number of people and forces

18:24

involved in sort of making that happen. And

18:27

in World War II, women were involved in every single stage

18:29

of that. So things like training

18:32

any aircraft artillery groups, using

18:35

live weapons in Delaware is an incredibly

18:37

important thing so that these guys know when

18:40

they go to the Pacific how to use it and women were

18:42

doing that, right? You

18:45

know, so there are, while women

18:47

weren't necessarily on the front lines, they

18:49

were certainly engaging with and

18:51

participating in a lot of the

18:53

sort of training activities, a lot of the maintenance

18:56

activities. You know, they were the ones helping to fix

18:58

the tanks. They were the ones who

19:00

were, you know, accounting for

19:02

all those tanks and making sure they were in the right places.

19:06

They were the ones who were outfitting the guys with

19:08

their munitions and making

19:09

sure that the right munitions were in the right

19:11

place. So it's not like they

19:13

were, there is, of course,

19:15

there's a distinction between the front line and everyone else,

19:18

but there is also, it's a can

19:20

at times be a very blurry line between,

19:22

you know, who's dealing with sort of weapons

19:25

and the sort of what we would call hard brass

19:27

tacks combat

19:29

operations and who's dealing with the sort of softer

19:32

side of things. And often what we found in World

19:34

War II is that line got really, really blurry,

19:36

really, really fast. And it has been that way since.

19:39

Yeah, I was wondering, you know, so you mentioned the sort

19:41

of bright red line and

19:45

the blurriness of it all. And I'm curious,

19:47

do we have a bright red line now?

19:50

Well,

19:52

you know, women can serve in every, you know, every

19:54

service and every occupation now, women can serve

19:56

in combat and have proven themselves to be very

19:59

capable in that respect. and

20:01

increasingly so as they're given more and more opportunities.

20:04

So I think in that sense, although it's

20:06

taken a really long time, women have stepped

20:09

up to the plate and shown that not only are they willing to

20:11

do this, but they can do it. But

20:14

again, that's a product, I think, of

20:17

women in uniform pushing that line

20:20

continually, war after war after

20:22

war, starting, you know, even in World War

20:24

I and before. In some ways,

20:28

you know, there was a big jump in World War II because

20:30

we saw so many women in uniform, but throughout

20:33

the 20th century, women were really pushing

20:35

the limits of that. So, you

20:37

know, I know a lot of women pilots

20:39

who were some of the first women

20:42

to get into combat aircraft, and

20:44

they had really difficult experiences,

20:47

but also really impressive experiences because

20:49

they were incredible pilots, right? You

20:52

know, women in Iraq or Afghanistan, for

20:54

instance, I think a lot of people remember they

20:56

were part of the human response teams who were,

21:00

you know, literally going into villages that

21:02

couldn't be accessed by anyone else, but

21:04

because they were women, they

21:06

were able to get access to these places. So,

21:09

you know, I think we always sort of think of women in

21:11

combat as

21:13

being centered out of the conversation about what women can't

21:16

do instead of what women can do in combat.

21:19

And what we're increasingly seeing is

21:21

the other side of the coin, what women can do when they're

21:23

given the opportunity to serve in combat. And

21:26

so I've been really delighted to watch that sort

21:28

of evolve over time, but I'm also kind

21:31

of devastated being a historian,

21:33

realizing that these first conversations

21:35

we're having 80 years ago are not being resolved. And so we're not being resolved

21:38

until my lifetime, which is sort

21:40

of bad in that way.

21:41

Well, and that kind of brings me to, I think, such

21:44

an important question because it's really easy

21:46

to sort of shrug your shoulders and

21:49

say, you know, why is it

21:51

this way? Why has it always been this way?

21:54

And, you know, why is it that the

21:56

assumption or that the policy...

21:59

was that women couldn't be armed or women

22:02

couldn't be on the front lines or women couldn't be in quote

22:04

unquote combat. And

22:06

it's easy to be like, well, because

22:08

that's how it's always been. But

22:10

ultimately, when these women who

22:13

were actively serving and who

22:15

were pushing for more and more responsibility

22:17

were asking their superiors,

22:20

why not? What was the party line?

22:24

What has the rhetoric been from the American

22:26

military historically that

22:29

said, no, you

22:29

can't? So this is one

22:32

of my favorite questions because, you know, I

22:34

talk about women in combat a lot. And

22:36

my favorite answer to give to anyone

22:38

who asks is that

22:40

you don't need to ask me what

22:43

I think of women in combat. You need to ask Dwight

22:46

Eisenhower and George Marshall

22:48

and, you know, Hap Arnold, MacArthur,

22:51

all of the sort of great generals of World

22:54

War II started out the war.

22:57

Very, very skeptical of women serving

22:59

in uniform. And Eisenhower is my favorite example

23:01

of this. He was like, we don't need

23:04

these women. You know, he's commanding in North

23:06

Africa, which is our first major combat

23:08

operation is the United States, you know, as part

23:10

of the allies. And he's sort

23:12

of like, how can I use these

23:15

women? What am I going to do with them? Maybe they can answer

23:17

phones. By the end of the war,

23:19

he is literally the loudest and

23:21

greatest proponent of integrating women not

23:24

just for wartime service, but on

23:26

a permanent peacetime basis. And

23:28

he actually comes out of his military retirement

23:30

to testify on behalf of women

23:32

serving in World War II or

23:35

serving on a permanent basis after World War II and after

23:37

his experiences.

23:38

And I think it just it sort

23:40

of is a testament to

23:42

how

23:45

easy it is to sort of go, like you said,

23:48

to what is familiar, what you know, what you expect. And

23:50

I should mention, this is also the case with people of color more

23:52

broadly. But

23:55

you know, the military commander of

23:57

the time had seen wars being fought

23:59

a certain

23:59

way. And it wasn't until

24:02

the manpower situation in World

24:04

War II necessitated a major change that

24:06

they sort of were jolted into thinking,

24:09

okay, something has to change. And it wasn't until

24:11

they actually saw women in uniform

24:13

performing so exceptionally that

24:16

they were really willing to make that flip.

24:18

And the challenge, of course,

24:20

is if you don't give people the opportunity

24:23

to fail or succeed, then you'll never know. And

24:25

we, you know, I think increasingly,

24:28

we're just not, we haven't given

24:30

people the opportunity to fail or succeed

24:33

in one direction or the other. But when,

24:35

you know, Eisenhower saw them succeeding,

24:38

he was willing to change his mind, which I think is really

24:41

the best testament to sort of

24:44

how these things should play out. You got to give people

24:46

a chance. And if Eisenhower

24:49

and MacArthur and Marshall were willing to do it, then

24:51

we should all be probably willing to do it as well. And

24:54

so is the reason ultimately,

24:56

I mean, I know it's such a simple thing to say, but the

24:59

reason ultimately of why these chances weren't

25:01

given

25:02

previously, like,

25:05

it's just patriarchy, it's just misogyny,

25:07

right? Like, just like,

25:08

there's this kind of preconceived notion that like,

25:10

women are incapable of certain things.

25:12

Yeah, I mean, you know, people forget, like the 1940s

25:15

were a very different time

25:16

in lots of ways. Some of it's really familiar

25:18

today, but a lot of it feels like a foreign planet

25:20

when you read about it. You know,

25:23

women were homemakers, they

25:25

were child bearers, they were, you

25:28

know, barely led into the manufacturing

25:30

industry at the beginning, it wasn't, but you

25:32

know, and I, this is a really

25:33

important undertone of the book, and I hope

25:35

people take this away if they read it is that total

25:38

war demands exactly

25:40

what it says, which is total war, it means

25:43

nobody gets to sit out, right? And that's

25:45

what World War Two was, it was an enormous

25:48

exercise in war fighting for the entire country.

25:51

We haven't done that since, hopefully we'll never have to do

25:53

it again, because it's a

25:55

really terrible thing to have to

25:57

do. But you know, that

25:59

in a sense, is the mother of invention, and that's

26:01

why, for the first time, women are,

26:03

I think, even considered as being

26:06

possible gap fillers. And

26:09

then, of course, they take their toe in the door and

26:11

kick open the whole thing and show that they can do so

26:13

much more than that. But at the

26:15

time, it really was... It had

26:17

never been necessary. We just didn't have

26:19

the manpower considerations

26:22

of World War II and any other conflict

26:24

before. It wasn't as global. It wasn't as technical.

26:27

It wasn't as focused

26:30

on machines

26:31

and

26:32

things that required lots of people to

26:35

man. And so it

26:37

wasn't until the demands of war really

26:39

necessitated a full total

26:42

contribution that women were even considered.

26:44

And so in that way, yes, it

26:47

was preconceived notions of what women could

26:49

and couldn't do. And it was also just like the

26:51

requirements of war changed significantly in World War II.

26:54

And we could no longer let anyone

26:56

sit out, certainly not women. And that

26:59

sort of, I think, brings us

27:01

into an important point, which is that

27:03

when you need all

27:05

hands on deck because

27:08

there is this global threat,

27:12

the doors become open to a lot of

27:14

people that from a policy,

27:16

a supremacy, a exclusionary

27:22

sort of bias, you would have

27:24

left out. And so now that you

27:27

are being more inclusive, which on paper

27:29

sounds amazing, what ends up happening

27:31

is that all of these people who were previously excluded

27:34

become a part of a club that

27:36

might not want them there. And

27:38

they're subject to all sorts of horrible

27:41

harassment and discrimination, right? So

27:44

not only are we talking about

27:46

this massive influx of women,

27:49

but also, like you mentioned, people of color,

27:51

LGBTQI individuals during

27:53

an era when,

27:56

yeah, when they were not, it was not always

27:58

friendly.

27:59

Absolutely. And you know, I

28:01

work really hard in the book to incorporate

28:05

those stories not just in like a chapter two

28:07

here or there but really at the center of

28:09

the larger narrative because So many

28:11

women of color served in uniform thousands of women

28:14

of color served in uniform many

28:16

women who are part of the queer community served

28:19

in uniform and they

28:22

as you know like had to engage in

28:26

what in a in a

28:29

Organization and a hierarchy that they respected

28:31

and that they cared deeply about

28:33

proving themselves in but also that mistreated

28:36

them very very

28:38

visibly and very openly and so

28:40

that tension is something that I really

28:42

wanted to be honest about and be clear

28:44

about Because I don't you know,

28:46

I think it's it's it's really important that

28:48

we acknowledge that part of our history but I think a

28:50

lot of people like to think of World War two as a sort of Swoony

28:53

music and violin and misty eyed

28:55

and all that when in fact, it was a complicated war

28:58

that was in some ways an accelerant

29:00

for communities of color and for historically

29:02

marginalized groups and also put

29:05

on display at the exact same time the

29:08

contradictions of the American experience

29:10

at the time So

29:11

one of my favorite stories that's we throughout the

29:13

book is that of the six triple eight Central

29:15

Postal Directory Battalion Which was led

29:18

by the incredible Charity Adams Who's a

29:20

black officer and at the end of

29:22

the war is one of the highest ranking officers

29:25

black or white in the women's Army Corps And

29:28

she's just you know, this group is the largest

29:30

group of their army women to be deployed abroad

29:32

during the war They're sorting mail, which if

29:34

anyone thinks is unimportant, they

29:36

are mistaken It's the

29:38

equivalent of a lifeline for men in

29:41

Europe in 1944 because the only way

29:43

they can be reminded of home And

29:45

they do of course incredible work. They arrive

29:47

at like a vermin infested Warehouse

29:50

and sort through six months of backlog in three months

29:53

and they can do something like 65,000 pieces of mail a day

29:56

Which blows every other

29:58

record out of the water

29:59

But Charity Adams, who's their commander,

30:02

is overseeing all this work while

30:04

simultaneously just being treated horribly,

30:06

not just by the local population, but also by commanders

30:09

in the Women's Army Corps and also in the

30:12

broader army. And one of

30:14

the stories I just will quickly tell, because I

30:16

love it, is about

30:18

this sort of, I think, puts on display this tension

30:20

really well between respect for the military

30:23

and also the challenges of

30:26

confronting the racism that she was faced with. She

30:28

was showing a general

30:30

who had come to visit, she was

30:33

doing a review of her troops, and he was for silly

30:35

reasons displeased with the review, even

30:37

though it was essentially perfect. And

30:39

he said he was going to send a white lieutenant

30:41

down to show her how to do her job, which

30:44

she outranks the lieutenant significantly. And she

30:46

turns to him in front of her 800

30:48

troops or whatever, and she says,

30:51

over my dead body, sir. And

30:54

I love that, because she's basically

30:56

saying, screw you,

30:59

but also I understand that I'm in a hierarchy,

31:01

and I respect that institution, but I will

31:03

not let you mistreat me in front of my entirely

31:06

black unit. And so to

31:08

me, it's just this perfect encapsulation of the

31:10

difficulties and that tension

31:12

that a lot of these women were facing. And

31:14

Charity Adams says it was such integrity. It's

31:16

so incredibly inspiring.

31:19

Well, and I think something that's so important

31:21

that you've done here is that you have

31:25

existed, you have researched

31:28

and written about that nuance

31:30

and about that tension. Because

31:32

as you mentioned, World

31:34

War II in a lot of people's minds is a

31:37

very romantic war, especially when they're thinking

31:39

about the European theater. It's this very

31:41

kind of like, it's the last time that everybody

31:43

was really aligned, and we were fighting for the

31:45

same cause, but really it

31:47

was much more morally and ethically

31:51

nebulous and complicated than that. But

31:53

I think we also have a tendency to go

31:55

like, well, that was then, but now everything's better,

31:58

you know? And the truth is the matter. is

32:00

that like, no, this is still happening

32:02

now. Women are still sexually assaulted

32:04

in the military. Women are still definitely

32:06

denigrated. People of color are still struggling.

32:11

You can't overtly be a white supremacist in

32:13

the military, but we've seen time and time again

32:15

that male and white supremacy still

32:18

dominates in American discourse. And there's still

32:20

people serving who are

32:23

actively aligned with certain groups and

32:25

who have this type of, I don't

32:28

know, this rhetoric, this ideology,

32:31

and it's really disconcerting, but

32:34

it's not better.

32:35

Right, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, and at

32:37

the same time, right, the secretary of defense is a black man. So

32:39

you're sort of, I think

32:42

what is so important as a historian

32:44

today, especially, is

32:47

to acknowledge that it's complicated and

32:49

it's always been complicated. And that is the sort

32:52

of beauty of the American story

32:54

is that it's not, if it were simple,

32:56

we would be in an authoritarian

32:58

state. That's when you get simplicity. You

33:00

know, there's a great quote from one of the founding fathers,

33:03

which is basically like, you know, authoritarianism

33:07

is like a fast ship. It does really well

33:09

in easy waters. It speeds along. A

33:11

democracy is a raft. Like, it's messy.

33:14

You're bouncing around.

33:15

People are getting like thrown overboard

33:17

coming back

33:18

on, but it rarely sinks, right? So

33:21

I think for me, what is

33:23

really important is just demonstrating

33:25

that these complications, these contradictions,

33:29

we can't ignore them. We have to be honest

33:31

about them and we have to learn from them. And,

33:34

you know, I think you mentioned the sexual assault

33:36

and mistreatment. It's a big part of the book as well.

33:38

I think it's really important to talk about how

33:42

women were treated in the 40s in

33:44

large part because we have come a long way on the

33:46

way that we talk about sexual assault and violence in

33:48

the military. We have a long,

33:50

long, long way to go, but we are making steps

33:52

in the right direction. And,

33:55

you know, I think part of that

33:57

is acknowledging our history and acknowledging.

34:00

acknowledging that while we still have a long way

34:02

to go, we can improve, we can change.

34:05

And

34:06

active discrimination of the sort

34:08

that we saw in World War II is

34:10

probably still exists in the military today

34:13

to some degree,

34:14

but it is not common. When

34:16

I talked to women who I interviewed, they

34:18

were sort of like, sexual harassment

34:21

was just the day. We

34:24

didn't even have language to describe

34:27

what was happening to us. If I said no

34:29

to an officer for a date, I wasn't getting

34:31

promoted. And that was just accepted. Right? Like

34:34

that was just the way it was. It was so overt. Yeah.

34:36

It was so overt. And I think that is something that's

34:39

really important for us to say because, you know, again,

34:41

World War II can sort of like, oh, you

34:43

know, how amazing, how patriotic,

34:45

how perfect was everything. But

34:47

when you talk to these women, they acknowledge that it was complicated

34:50

and that there were difficulties in

34:52

their experience, but it wasn't the only part of their

34:54

experience. And for me as a

34:56

historian, sort of reflecting that back and letting

34:58

people grapple with it today

35:00

to see where we've changed is

35:03

in some ways like

35:03

the great joy of writing this is to force people

35:06

to

35:07

think hard about those questions and come to their own

35:09

resolution on them. And I think

35:11

it's also important when we think about history

35:14

to think of history as this

35:18

constraint, as this pressure. You

35:20

know, we talk about like in biology and

35:22

in

35:23

evolutionary biology, we talk about pressures

35:25

and history had

35:28

this pressure, right? This social

35:30

pressure, this cultural pressure.

35:32

But we were the same species.

35:34

This was not that long ago. Nothing changed

35:36

about our capacities,

35:37

about our intellect, about

35:40

our, you know, functionality. What

35:42

has changed is norms and expectations.

35:46

I think it is important to remember that even though

35:49

women were fully capable then, as they are

35:51

now, and there's still

35:52

a million things that were not seen as

35:55

equals, you know, it's still

35:57

not egalitarian. This

36:01

was a time when women weren't allowed to wear pants.

36:06

We have to remember what the social

36:08

pressures on these women were and how progressive

36:10

in some ways

36:13

this service actually really was.

36:16

Yeah. Exactly as you note, it

36:18

wasn't like it

36:20

came down from on high, the heaven said

36:23

women should be able to wear pants. Like

36:25

that was the right thing. We

36:27

as a country decided, in the military

36:29

leadership seeing women struggling

36:31

to, I don't know, fix a truck in

36:34

Pearl Harbor, decided, okay, let's give her

36:36

pants. That makes more sense. Like

36:39

this is something that is not rocket

36:41

science, but it's

36:44

something that we as a military

36:46

and as a country at the time was

36:48

necessary. We pushed ourselves to make that

36:50

progress. To me,

36:53

that's exactly right. Again,

36:56

not underestimating or trying to

36:58

dismiss or diminish the many,

37:01

many instances in which women face

37:03

just extraordinary mistreatment, of

37:06

which there are many outlined in the book. So don't worry folks,

37:08

we're not like watching history here. It's

37:11

impossible to do. But also to say,

37:15

we have to be really careful about

37:17

thinking that the sky is

37:19

falling

37:21

when in fact we have made some progress.

37:23

I think for me, talking

37:26

to the women and talking to women veterans

37:28

was an incredibly elucidating

37:31

and clarifying experience. So I always

37:33

encourage people, if you know a woman veteran

37:36

or if you have the opportunity to meet a woman veteran,

37:38

to ask her her story and to really listen.

37:41

Because I think what

37:42

was really heartbreaking for me is

37:45

recognizing as I was talking to these

37:48

women that part of the reason we don't recognize the progress

37:50

that we've made is because we haven't asked

37:53

what it was like. We just sort of,

37:55

I think a lot of the onus is on

37:57

us in the sort of contemporary world.

39:40

people

40:00

to read the damn book. So, like, I think that,

40:02

you know, I'm going to be talking around things a little bit.

40:05

But I think an important conversation for us

40:07

to grapple with here as we're sort of nearing

40:10

the second half or the end of the episode,

40:13

is this conversation about

40:15

and this is an American ethics that I struggle

40:17

with very, very deeply. So

40:19

this is an accountability lens here. But

40:22

this idea that when things aren't

40:25

the way they should be when there's injustice,

40:27

when things are not

40:29

going well,

40:32

talking about it, bringing it into the light

40:34

and saying, how can we improve? How can we fix this?

40:36

Is fundamentally democratic

40:39

and patriotic? Yet, I

40:41

think that we have an ethic in America.

40:43

And

40:44

we especially, I do think

40:47

and maybe it's a stereotype, but we

40:49

definitely apply this

40:51

to our sort of

40:52

military, to our government,

40:55

to our police forces, that when

40:57

something is wrong or bad, instead

40:59

of bringing it into the light and saying, how can we make

41:01

it better? We tend to double down cover

41:04

up, ignore, pretend it didn't happen.

41:06

And I think it's super,

41:08

super important that we have this conversation

41:11

about what is

41:13

unjust,

41:14

so that we can be better,

41:16

so that we can improve based

41:19

on our study of history.

41:21

Absolutely. And I mean, I think to

41:23

your earliest question about sort

41:25

of what drew me to this field in the first place, a lot

41:27

of it is that accountability, which is to say,

41:30

you know, you can't,

41:32

there's this thing called who's guarding the

41:34

guardians kind of thing. And in

41:38

my anecdotal experience with people in the military,

41:40

and just in conversation

41:43

with people in the military, they're not

41:45

looking at the police themselves, right? Like everybody

41:47

kind of understands the contradictions,

41:50

they respect the civil military line, they

41:52

want enforcement from, you know, the

41:54

highest levels, and they want civilians to be engaged

41:56

in what they're doing. Because

41:59

they know it. That's like an ethos. That's

42:01

a real key part of the

42:03

American military enterprise is that

42:05

civilians are watching and they are holding

42:08

the military to account. That is just fundamental.

42:11

It's been a big part of how

42:14

we've operated our military forces since the

42:16

revolution. I

42:19

think that the

42:22

ethos is in some ways

42:25

a little bit reverse. It's almost like we've

42:27

seeded that territory of saying, okay, whatever the military

42:29

can do, whatever they want.

42:32

Until something goes really, really wrong. Then

42:34

we're back interested again. For

42:37

me, it's about smaller

42:40

things. How is the military using

42:42

their money?

42:46

How are they treating women and minorities? Also,

42:48

how are they treating enlisted guys?

42:51

Are they getting the benefits that they deserve? How about veterans?

42:53

How about mental health? All of these things. How

42:56

about civilians in other countries? How

43:00

are we treating? You're

43:02

exactly right. There's so many

43:04

things for us to be

43:07

concerned with about how the military behaves. What I really

43:09

appreciate about World War II is it puts

43:11

on display, and I think when you look at it through the lens

43:14

of women, it puts on display

43:16

how important that oversight is

43:19

and how civilians really, particularly

43:22

Roosevelt and the Roosevelt administration, people even

43:24

like women like Eleanor Roosevelt, were

43:27

super involved in a lot of the senior

43:29

military decisions around

43:32

and related to the Women's Army Corps because they

43:34

knew that the stakes were really high and they knew that

43:36

they were being watched and they couldn't get this wrong.

43:40

I think

43:42

I would love it if people

43:45

got a little bit more focused

43:47

on what our military is

43:49

doing, how they're doing it. Again,

43:52

anecdotally, I think a lot of people in the military would appreciate

43:55

a higher level of interest

43:56

because had it not been for

43:59

some of these civilian women who in

44:02

World War II, for instance, who took an interest

44:04

in the military, who decided to get involved, I

44:07

don't think we would have seen as successful a

44:10

force. I

44:14

think there's no harm in folks taking

44:16

a closer look at it. That's

44:18

why I do what I do. I

44:21

hope

44:21

others can think

44:23

about it a little bit as well. Well,

44:25

and I have to say, and I don't mean

44:27

to put you on the spot, but I have to say that I appreciate

44:29

kind of your candor throughout this interview,

44:32

because I can tell you from experience. I've been

44:34

a science communicator for a long time. I have a ton

44:36

of literally very

44:39

dear friends who work for

44:41

institutions that are either private public or

44:43

fully sort of government funded like NASA.

44:46

I mean, a lot of my friends are at JPL, which is like a complicated

44:49

mixed venture. But when I

44:51

would, let's say I'm going to do an interview with

44:53

somebody who works at JPL. If

44:56

I'm going to talk to them about a book that they put out

44:58

outside of their position, they'll usually

45:00

do a huge disclaimer at the beginning, like,

45:03

my opinions now are of my own and they're not of my employer

45:05

and blah, blah, blah. So now we can talk about my book. Or

45:08

if I'm on JPL campus and I'm interviewing

45:10

somebody, there's like a

45:11

PR person sitting there going like, we can't

45:14

talk about that. We can't talk about that. No, no, no.

45:16

We've

45:16

got to strike that. And like the fact that you and

45:18

I, like you work at the CIA and you

45:20

and I are just like having this candid conversation

45:23

and I haven't really heard anything cavioted.

45:25

So I'm just I'm super curious

45:27

how easy it is for you to do this kind

45:30

of press. And like, even when you wrote this book,

45:32

did you have all sorts of eyes on it being like, no,

45:34

can't write that note, can't publish that? Obviously,

45:37

I don't know if I'm going to trust what you say as an answer

45:39

to that question. But I'm curious

45:42

what the process is like for somebody who has a

45:44

job like that. Well, as a disclaimer,

45:46

these are all my own personal views. Love

45:53

it. There are two things that are happening here. One

45:56

is a very convenient fact of history, which

45:58

is that, you know,

45:59

the sort of binding

46:02

agreements about secrecy and things like that

46:04

begin related to information starting

46:06

in 1947 because of the ways that laws around

46:08

some national security information

46:11

are written. So it was a post-World War II thing.

46:14

So anything before 1947, which conveniently includes

46:16

World War II, is much easier for me to write

46:18

about as a military analyst because it doesn't

46:21

inherently fall under that

46:23

sort of bucket of classified information

46:26

that, you know, some will come after me

46:28

when looking for me. So

46:31

that's very helpful. But that's just sort of a quirk

46:33

of history. What is actually, you know,

46:35

more helpful is that, of course, you know, the

46:38

agency and the national security community has been

46:40

very involved in this in this process in

46:42

the sense that they've, you know, there were always

46:46

there, there are processes for clearing information

46:48

and things like that. And they're very generally

46:51

very robust and very clear and helpful.

46:53

And so I have no complaints about that.

46:56

And at the same time, you know, what I

47:00

think is really cool about this war and

47:02

people it kind of gets a reputation for being dusty

47:05

and old and arcane and something that

47:07

people don't really need to know about

47:09

anymore. But like everything that we've been talking about is about

47:11

World War II, right? It's not necessarily, yes,

47:13

there are contemporary corollaries to all this, but

47:16

most of the content and the,

47:19

you know, examples are World War II examples,

47:21

they just resonate because it's

47:24

a war that resonates. And so for

47:27

me, what has been it has been tricky at times,

47:29

you know, I'm not going to like comment on current policy

47:31

related to certain

47:34

topics. Right, of course, I

47:36

can't, but like, because World War II

47:38

is so relevant today, in some ways,

47:41

I can talk about a lot of things in that context

47:43

that I think people are like, Oh, yeah, actually, that

47:46

still makes sense to say, you know, women in combat, a

47:48

perfect example. So,

47:50

you know, I would love to take credit for

47:52

being like a very savvy government employee

47:55

who's able to skirt

47:57

the line, but it just turns out is

48:00

really effectively very contemporary

48:03

and very modern in some ways that

48:05

I think oftentimes people forget

48:07

and it's up to people like me to just sort

48:12

of remind the public that we can still learn a lot from

48:14

this war.

48:15

I'm actually curious, and this is just a kind of random

48:17

question that you may or may not even know the answer to,

48:20

but probably you would know the answer. When

48:22

we visited the CIA, I

48:24

remember looking at the, I'm

48:26

going to totally screw up all the names of this,

48:28

but the sort of wall

48:29

of the fallen officers

48:32

and the book that

48:34

had the names and sort of what the

48:37

individuals were serving on,

48:39

and there were some that were blank because they were still classified,

48:42

and we had this conversation about declassification.

48:46

I know that oftentimes we think in our

48:48

minds, like as civilians, we often

48:50

think that there's

48:50

some sort of specific time period, like, oh,

48:52

after so many years, everything becomes

48:54

declassified. But that's not true, right?

48:56

There are probably things about

48:57

World War II that are still classified.

49:00

Well, I mean, no comment

49:02

for sure. Right. Okay. So

49:05

that's one where we got a little tricky. I can't

49:07

talk about what is classified or not

49:10

classified at this particular moment. What

49:12

I can say, though, is you mentioned something

49:14

which is deeply important to every CIA

49:16

officer who comes into the building, which is

49:19

the memorial law. And

49:21

that, you know, is the officers who served who

49:23

paid the ultimate price.

49:24

And I always

49:26

like to point out that on one

49:28

side of the memorial wall is the stars commemorating

49:31

each of those people, some of which we still can't reveal

49:33

their identities. And on the other side is a quote, which

49:35

is, the truth shall set you free, you

49:38

know, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you

49:41

free. And to me, that

49:43

ethos is so

49:45

related to, you know, walking

49:48

through that corridor is such an important reminder

49:50

to me every day about why the

49:53

work that we do is so important, but

49:55

also why doing work

49:57

related to our history and related to the

50:00

to uncovering the truth and the full truth, the

50:02

whole story of what we've done

50:04

is so important because

50:07

the cost of it is right on the other side of the

50:09

hall. If

50:11

you don't get it right, if you don't know

50:14

the real truth of things in the

50:16

national security business and in the business of war,

50:18

the costs are quite high. And so I think this

50:21

has been, this

50:23

writing this book has been the great joy of my

50:25

life because it's been able to, I've

50:28

been able to sort of understand

50:31

the war in a really new way and understand

50:33

the truth of the war in a really new way in hopes

50:37

that

50:37

it improves our understanding of

50:39

what, how it

50:41

was won, who

50:43

was involved and ultimately, in

50:46

the context of the costs that we paid for this

50:48

war, both financial and in

50:51

lives, I think that's a really important thing.

50:53

So that's

50:55

my tap-dancy answer to try

50:58

to say, I can't talk about cost-writing arrangement. I

51:00

can say that that corridor

51:02

is like the perfect encapsulation

51:05

of why I think a lot of people in our business do

51:07

what we do. Cause the truth helps us clarify

51:10

and understand

51:10

so that we can at

51:12

least minimize the costs on

51:15

the other side.

51:16

And so whether we know

51:18

or not about all of the service women

51:20

in

51:20

World War II whose lives were lost because who

51:22

knows what is still classified,

51:23

one thing that maybe we could close

51:26

out on is a conversation about

51:28

that very cost because you do write in your

51:30

book about the fact that there were service

51:32

women in World War II who

51:34

did lose their lives in the line of duty.

51:37

And so I would love to maybe have a

51:41

reflective kind of conversation here at

51:43

the very close about those women who

51:45

paid the ultimate price during

51:47

that war because I don't know if that

51:50

is a well-known fact. Absolutely.

51:52

And I'm, you know,

51:54

there are many stories. They,

51:57

one of the things that we talked about at the beginning was the American.

52:00

score, the Army North Corps and the Navy North Corps.

52:02

And many of the casualties

52:04

that we saw in World War II were

52:06

in this group of women because they were so close

52:08

to the front lines. You know, they were like literally

52:11

miles transporting men

52:13

back to hospitals in the field where they could

52:16

do basic medical care and then

52:18

moving them further and further back. But often

52:21

nurses were among those who had

52:24

sort of the worst PTSD, did

52:26

lose their lives, did have combat

52:28

injuries. But it was wider than

52:30

that. The women of the Air Force Service pilots,

52:32

for instance, died in training crashes, 38

52:35

of them or something like that. So there are anecdotes

52:38

and stories everywhere about women who paid the ultimate

52:40

price. But the reason

52:42

I brought up nurses is because one of my favorite

52:46

and saddest stories is about

52:48

a woman named Frances Swanger, who

52:51

was part of the Army North Corps in 1943. And

52:53

she was part of the Allied

52:56

invasion in France and

52:59

went ashore on D-Day. And

53:01

she, while

53:03

she was serving abroad, wrote a

53:05

letter to Stars and Stripes magazine talking

53:08

about what a privilege it was to help

53:10

men who were fighting

53:12

the battle get

53:14

back to health and to give them a moment of normalcy

53:18

and to let them see an American woman

53:20

often in the last moments of their lives. She

53:22

writes this letter, it's published in Stars and Stripes,

53:25

and then literally hours later, she's

53:28

killed in the field.

53:30

And, you know, I think it's

53:32

a really poignant

53:34

example of, you know,

53:37

so many things about this book that I think are really

53:39

important.

53:39

One is that this is a woman who died

53:41

in combat, not just in any combat,

53:43

but in France.

53:46

And

53:47

the moment before she died, she

53:49

was reflecting on how she could

53:50

support the frontline forces

53:53

and what a privilege it was for her to

53:55

have that experience and to be able to bring that

53:57

joy to guys who were doing this in

53:59

important job. And

54:01

then she plays the ultimate

54:04

price, you know, and so I think

54:06

Frances Langer is nobody knows about

54:08

her today, very few people know about her today, at least.

54:10

But she's one of my

54:12

great heroes, because she is such

54:15

an encapsulation of what I think real, true

54:17

service looks like. And I

54:20

hope folks take a minute to Google her

54:22

to look her up. Because she's an incredible

54:24

woman.

54:25

And there are just so many, I think, examples,

54:28

we have a segment on on the other podcasts

54:30

that I work

54:31

on, Skeptic's Bed to the Universe,

54:33

we have a segment called this Forgotten Superheroes of

54:35

Science, which, you know, it's a science

54:37

show. So we're mostly highlighting

54:39

women, people of color, people within

54:41

the queer community who like you've literally

54:44

never heard of because they didn't get the Nobel Prize

54:46

because they didn't get that award. And

54:48

it's such a, it's such an important

54:50

conversation that sadly, all too often,

54:53

these individuals are forgotten because they

54:55

were, you know, marginalized

54:57

at the time, or just for whatever reason, because

54:59

society didn't didn't value their contributions

55:02

as much. And so it

55:04

is important because now is the time that we can

55:07

go back and that we can reflect and that we can

55:09

sort of situate these

55:11

individuals in a

55:12

more

55:13

respectful context, and I think a

55:15

more fitting context

55:18

to their

55:19

to the value, not just I mean, they're valuable

55:21

just because they're people, but to their contributions as

55:23

well. Absolutely. And you know, I think

55:25

like, I, I believed

55:28

a myth for a really long time in my own work that,

55:30

you know, understanding

55:32

that using identity

55:33

is a lens for which to look at national

55:35

security, and it's probably very similar in

55:37

the science context, which is

55:39

to say that, like, that's not a helpful

55:41

sub-synive lens, it's important because we care

55:43

about these stories, we care about women, we care about historically

55:46

marginalized groups, people of color, the queer

55:48

community. So we should tell those

55:50

stories just kind of on the merits, because the

55:52

stories matter, but they don't improve

55:54

our understanding of national security.

55:56

You know, that was always a myth that I believe

55:58

in myself.

55:59

problematic. But

56:02

what I have found through this work

56:04

and I am now a vocal proponent is

56:07

the simple fact which is that I understand this

56:09

war better than I ever would have

56:12

because I

56:12

looked at it through the lens of women. I wouldn't

56:15

understand the support and supply infrastructure

56:16

had I not switched my

56:20

lens slightly and put color

56:22

into this black and white photo by looking

56:25

at it through the viewpoint of women because

56:27

it totally broke open substantively

56:30

something new about national security for

56:32

me and about this war in particular. Which

56:35

I think I always had a hunch about but I never really understood

56:37

how I could conceptualize it in a way that was interesting

56:40

and I think that's also true you know

56:42

with with the science

56:44

field as well like we sort of think oh well what

56:46

is what

56:46

is identity gonna tell us about I don't

56:49

know cells and then you find actually a lot

56:52

you know. Yeah exactly. That I think is

56:56

really exciting and I hope that on your other

56:58

podcast you know there are many women of World War

57:01

two who who

57:03

were some of the best trained scientists in the

57:05

United States and were recruited for that reason.

57:08

Mary Sears comes to mind

57:09

others who were

57:11

sort of pioneers

57:13

in their field and nobody

57:15

knows about them of course. So

57:17

they did it they did it in both ways both for national

57:19

security and for science

57:20

and I love those and there are a couple of them

57:22

in the books I hope people go

57:23

sniffing around for them.

57:25

There's that crossover no yeah yeah

57:27

I

57:28

love it. So I mean I guess

57:30

I guess we've we've got our days

57:32

that we have to move on to but I

57:35

could literally talk to you for hours because there's so many

57:37

rich stories in this book that we haven't even gotten

57:40

to. Lina thank you so much

57:42

for like for a putting all of the effort

57:45

into telling these stories it's such an important

57:47

conversation to be had but B for taking

57:49

some time out of your schedule to share them with us

57:52

today on the show. It's

57:53

been an absolute delight this is fantastic

57:56

and thank you so much to

57:58

you and to all your listeners for given

58:00

the valiant women the credit they deserve.

58:02

I really appreciate it.

58:04

Absolutely. Everybody, the book is

58:06

Valiant Women, the extraordinary

58:09

American service women who helped win World

58:11

War II by Dr. Lina Andrews.

58:14

And everybody listening, thank you

58:16

for coming back week after week. I'm really

58:18

looking forward to the next time we all get together.