In September 2019 we introduced you to the Eisenhower Series College Program (ESCP). Though we are approaching life as we remember it pre-COVID, travel limitations significantly limited the ESCP from visiting colleges and universities, interacting with audiences often unfamiliar with members of the U.S. Military. It is our hope at WAR ROOM to bring you a glimpse of what some of those presentations might have looked like via A BETTER PEACE.
In this first episode of academic year 2021 our podcast editor Ron Granieri is joined by War College students and ESCP members Rebecca Connally, Aixa Dones and Adisa King. In their conversation they share their personal thoughts and experiences as career military officers and leaders in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. They try and tackle the question of how well either the armed forces or American society as a whole have lived up to their stated values of diversity, equity and inclusion. They discuss where they have seen success and failure and what the path looks like going forward.
Sometimes people are more focused on quantity, vice opportunity, and I think what’s first and foremost important is that we need to focus on opportunity. Does the opportunity exist? And as of 2013, when it comes to a gender side of the house, opportunity exists for women no matter what.
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COL Rebecca Connally is a U.S. Army officer with over 22 years of active service. She has a bachelors degree from Texas A&M and a law degree from Syracuse. Colonel Connolly has advised commanders on the law of war and rules of engagement in combat operations as well as prosecuted federal cases in military courts martial. She also served as a military judge at Fort Hood from 2013 to 2016.
LtCol Aixa Dones enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1994. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001 with a degree in criminal justice and was commissioned as an officer in the United States Marine Corps in 2002. She has experience in signals intelligence and human resources and has been a part of humanitarian efforts in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and combat operations in Iraq. She has been selected to assume command of 4th Recruit Training Battalion, Parris Island, South Carolina in July 2021.
COL Adisa King graduated from the United States Military Academy in 2000 as an infantry officer. He has served in mechanized, airborne, and air assault units in the United States and Korea, and has multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq where he most recently served as a task force commander and senior adviser to Iraqi Army commanders. He has served in the Senate liaison division within the DoD Office of Chief of Legislative Liaison in Washington DC, and as the military aide to the Secretary of the Army.
Ron Granieri is an Associate Professor of History at the U.S. Army War College and the Editor of A BETTER PEACE.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, U.S. Army, or Department of Defense.
Photo Description: Future U.S. Army Soldiers take the Oath of Enlistment during the Air and Sea Show at Miami Beach, Florida, Sept. 17, 2019.
Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Lara Poirrier