Jon Stewart (54:48):
Here’s another question, as the government and VA uncover additional presumptive conditions connected to military… Sorry.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (54:54):I’m thinking, is this related to the one you asked?
Jon Stewart (54:56):It may be, yeah. I haven’t read these. I’m not a prepared-
Dr. Kathleen Hicks (55:00):No worries, no worries.

Jon Stewart (55:01):
They handed me these right before I went out and they’re in script, which I haven’t read in God knows how long.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (55:07):It’s the bar.
Jon Stewart (55:08):
I only read things in email format. As the government and VA uncover additional presumptive conditions connected to military service, are you going to continue to advocate for the troops? Oh, that might be for me.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (55:19):Yes. Oh, that might be for you. Yeah.
Jon Stewart (55:23):Yeah, no. Here’s something… And yes, I will, obviously.
Dr. Kathleen Hicks (55:44):I knew that.
Jon Stewart (55:47):Yeah. I have to say, and I think some of my discontent is forged by my experience in that arena.
Dr. Kathleen Hicks (55:54):I’m sure. Yes.

Jon Stewart (55:56):
And I think it’s really based on the difficulty that I saw so many good people, and Kelly uncovered this in many years, and I saw so many internal documents that spoke to not political appointees and all those things, but a corruption within an institution that was hiding. I think it comes from a place of, 9/11 was the original burn pit, Ground Zero. And I saw what that did to the people who lived in that area and the men and women who fought there. And they were really the first veterans in this war. And it took 10 years to get our government to recognize that breathing on top of a fiery jet fueled burning pit might not be good for you. And the EPA said the air was clean there three days into it.
(56:57)
And when I saw the same thing happening… I mean, to be honest with you, when I went and visited Iraq and Afghanistan and I flew into one of those places, I thought it had just been attacked and it was just a burn pit. I thought it was the enemy that had bombed it. And when I found out it was our country’s own contractors and that they had sovereign immunity, like this all boils down to me believing that this system was designed to exploit the men and women that they were raising up as heroes. And it brought them home and made them fight against the very government that they had been overseas sacrificing and defending. So I do apologize. I come from a place of this… And [inaudible 00:57:46] Al Pacino, but this system is out of order. We’re out of order. This whole room is out of order. And so that’s where this is when you say, what are you getting at? I think that’s what I’m getting at.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (57:59):
Yeah. I think it’s what you’re getting at too. And I think you should be incredibly proud of the work you single-handedly-
Jon Stewart (58:07):Not proud in the slightest. I provided air support for the men and women-
Dr. Kathleen Hicks (58:11):You should be proud that you brought voice to people-
Jon Stewart (58:13):I’m more sad.
Dr. Kathleen Hicks (58:14):
To people who needed voice. Of course because it should never have taken that. Never should have taken that. Totally agree.

Jon Stewart (58:20):
And so when I look at an institution and you’re not responsible for it, but I think the questions have always for me are how can we make this machine less corrupt and more responsive to those who so desperately want to uphold the values that cause them to join in that sacrifice in the first place. And that’s my overarching thought because I think if you can figure that out, boy, they’ll be knocking down the doors to not be part of a war machine, but to be part of something that they think… You want to make this country be something that’s worth defending.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (59:05):
Absolutely agree with that. Yeah. And I think we in the defense department own a big piece of that, how to be something worth defending and so does the rest of society. And I’m not saying that as a dodge, I’m saying that because we’re going to be a small percent for all the reasons we just talked about. We’re not going to suddenly be 40% of the American public is not going to be in the military. We need to get the whole of society to recognize the sacrifice and to make sure no one is taken for granted and that there can’t be corruption that allows for people to be abused over time.

Jon Stewart (59:43):
So I think that’s a really positive place to end on in a more hopeful place. So again, I think the conversation would be in your mind, how do we begin that? What part of that, on a more practical level, can we as… Look, we’ve got really energized young people in this room listening to this conversation saying we’re actually going to hopefully be a part of building that new machine. So what parts of the system that you have identified where you think to them really not to me and not to the administration that they would look at and say, this is what you are going to have to dismantle and this is what you’re going to have to rebuild.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (01:00:29):
What I would say is there is incredible opportunity for all those students who were out here. I was a public policy student just like you were. I was by the way in the Pentagon on 9/11. I sucked in a lot of toxic air myself. I mean, I’m very proud to have served in national security, whether you’re national security, health security, public policy, environmental security, you can and you should be making a difference. And you can do that in the way, Jon, you just framed it in terms of unearthing problems, which we need. And you can do it by bringing new solutions and that we really need as well. And we need folks kind of to self-actualize and make themselves available. Volunteer, do a federal job, that’s great. A state job, a nonprofit job or just be active in your community. And for those of you who are willing to decide to serve in the military, reserve, active guard, we can make a difference if we work as a society to bridge those challenges that we’ve had in the past.

Jon Stewart (01:01:37):
Is there something in your mind… I always wonder about this. Is there a way to give the men and women in the military and their families a more equal footing to the lobbyists, to those who… I remember when they were working on one of the military bills and there were 650 military lobbyists and there’s only 535… Like each congressperson got their own lobbyists. And I thought, That’s the problem with poor people. They’ve just got lobbyists. That’s their… So I’m wondering, is there something in your mind that can help elevate the military spouses and the military families that can allow them better access? How do we democratize that access so that their issues of food insecurity and caring for their spouses and military suicide are given the same audience as we just developed a laser that shoots out of a tank’s butt, like that, those lobbyists, how do we balance that? And by the way, I’ve seen the pictures. They’re amazing.

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (01:02:51):
I think a lot of the questions you’re asking honestly are beyond DOD. And they’re beyond my writ on national security. They’re on campaign finance reform and they’re on the way in which we write ethics rules on Capitol Hill, and that is beyond my areas of knowledge. What I will say is there are support organizations, military and veteran support organizations that we listen to all the time. I meet with, the Secretary of Defense meets with, very active engagement. I do think there are great advocates for military families on Capitol Hill and-

Jon Stewart (01:03:31):Phenomenal ones. I’ve worked with them. They’re tireless.
Dr. Kathleen Hicks (01:03:36):
And they’re making real changes happen. You mentioned food insecurity before. That’s an area. Childcare. We get a lot of help on spouse licensure to make sure spouses can work even if they’re moving. Reproductive healthcare, lots of different areas where we get a lot of support from Capitol Hill. So I don’t want to paint it all as sort of not supportive of military families. I come from a military family and I feel that support and we see it certainly in the way we’re legislated.

Jon Stewart (01:04:08):
Very nice. That’s pretty much our program. Is there any final thoughts that you would like to impart?

Dr. Kathleen Hicks (01:04:17):
I really did welcome the opportunity to come. It is the 50th anniversary of the all volunteer force. I think this is the kind of dialogue we have to have. We have to be able to talk about the challenges we face as a society and certainly as a military. And we have to be getting better. I think we’re getting better, but we need Americans to come along.

Jon Stewart (01:04:38):
Very nice. And my final thought to all of you is, and that’s why I think an organization like War Horse is so crucial. It’s independent. It’s outside of the status quo, it’s outside of the system. It can have these tough conversations, but it is not owned by it. And I think we have a status quo that is making change much more difficult. Power doesn’t cede itself. And I’ll give you just an example of this. That’s something that you would never think of. When we first went down to DC to get the PACT Act going, we sat with the For Country Caucus, which was all military veterans. And we laid out, Rosie Torres and Leroy Torres laid out their case. They’d been working to this for eight years and hadn’t been able to get an audience with congresspeople. And we laid it out in front of the congressional delegation and they were very moved and they were shocked and they said, “This is amazing.”
(01:05:41)
And then they said, “But we’re kind of overwhelmed here and pretty busy. So if you guys could write it, that would really help.” The legislation. So if you’re wondering why things are the way they are, imagine a busy Congress and lobbyists that work for certain industries and those same congress people going, we’re really busy. So if you could write this, that would really help. It’s kind of how we get the laws we get. And it was interesting, we were in a room with all the VSOs and all their partners and they laid out the PACT Act of what would help fix this problem. And then I sat in that room and I watched them over the next hour negotiate against themselves for what they thought they could get. They sat in that room and they laid out a solution and then they spent the next hour cutting it down to a point where they thought it might pass.
(01:06:41)
And when I asked why, they said, “It’s money and they’ll never go with presumption. There’s certain things.” And they had been so beaten down by this system that they no longer could even dream of the ideal of helping. And when they said it was money, I said, “Here’s an idea for the money. Let’s slap a 2% war profiteers tax.” Defense contractors get 400 billion. You can leave for this part. They get 400 billion a year. 2% of that goes into a fund so that the damage that is done by our war machine to our veterans will be ameliorated by this pot of money. And they all went, “That’s an amazing idea.”
(01:07:29)
And an hour later I got a call from a VSO that will remain nameless. They said, “Yeah, we can’t do it.” Because guess who funds the VSOs. Defense contractors. So for a million dollars, they get out of paying a billion. So I think that speaks to the structural issues that we have in the country, the difficulty of entrenched bureaucracies, the incredibly talented and goodhearted and well-intentioned and hardworking people like the good doctor here who has been gracious enough to come down and listen to my ramblings. It’s a system that makes your efforts so crucial but also so difficult. So if I’m addressing those who are going to be a part of this system, it doesn’t have to be this way. This is what we made of it, but we fucked it up big. So it would be nice if you guys could fix it for us. And I’ll talk to Tom Brokaw about calling you the next greatest generation. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks. Thank you very much. Hope that was okay. It’s all quite well-intentioned.

Thomas Brennan (01:09:02):
Thank you Jon. And thank you Dr. Hicks. Your participation in the inaugural War Horse Symposium means so much to me and so much to our team. I hope that each of you in the audience today leave this conversation with a better understanding of the human impact of military service and a desire to bridge the military and civilian divide through continued conversation. Like Jon said during his remarks, “Our country fetishizes service, but we don’t know what it is.” And like Dr. Hicks said, “Journalism can help rebuild civic connections that have eroded in our country.”
(01:09:33)
Part of how you can help us improve that understanding is by sharing The War Horse’s work. You can subscribe to our newsletter and you can foster conversations. Talk to your friends and family about today’s symposium. Tell your friends about our work. Take action in your community to support local journalism. And if you’re able, donate to The War Horse so we can continue the work that you experienced today. You can help The War Horse have a bright future and you can help veterans and military families reconnect with the communities we served. The conversation starts today, but it’s up to you to keep it going. Thank you and have a great night.