Sea Control - Sea Control 479 - The Life of a Flag Aide with Major Lauren Serrano

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

Links1. "Aides Are More than Bag Carriers," by Major Lauren Serrano, Proceedings, July 2023.

Hey folks, it's Jared. Dr. Ed Salo is back as your host today. He has Major Lauren Serrano discussing what it's like to be not just an aide, but aide to the Chief of Naval Operations. This episode was edited and produced by Addison Pellerano. Here at CIMSEC, we aim to further international maritime peace and security through an exchange of ideas and the rigor of critical thought and writing. If you haven't already, please check out CIMSEC.org for new articles on the most important maritime topics. If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, check out the Write for SimSec tab to learn how you can submit articles for publication. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network,

The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimber's Men. You're listening to Sea Control, posted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Good evening and welcome to Sea Control. Tonight, we have a special guest, Major Lauren Serrano, who recently wrote an article for the U.S. Naval Institute Press website, talking about her time as an aide-de-camp. So, welcome to Sea Control. Thanks, I'm glad to be here. So, first of all, can you tell the listeners just a little about yourself?

Yeah, sure. So I'm a major in the Marine Corps right now. I am an intel officer by trade with additional specialties as a foreign area officer and an operational planner. I've been in the Marine Corps about 15 years, but I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm married to another Marine and we've got two kids and yeah, love and life. So how did you hear about the job of being an aide? So it's funny you ask. I did not hear about the job. Actually, the job found me. In the Marine Corps, it's not really a job that is posted on open billets. I just got a call from the monitor one day and he asked if I was interested. And I was kind of in complete shock because one, I hadn't ever heard of the job in the first place. And two, I was not due for orders.

I was 18 months into a three-year tour at the NSA, and I had only been a battalion operations officer for about six months, and I absolutely loved my job, I loved my command, I loved everyone around me, and I had expected to be the battalion opso for two years. And so when I got a call from the monitor that said, hey, we're screening people to go be an aide to the chief of day for operations, my immediate reaction was, oh, you've got the wrong number. Sorry, not me. and he told me a little bit about it and I just kind of remember getting off that phone call

and like what on earth like that I just kind of like not really even sure what to think about it in the first place um so that's that's how I ended up hearing about it so after he gave me that call I dug down and tried to research a bit about what it is and uh there really isn't a lot of information out there about aids and aiding especially at the senior leader level for the service chiefs. I ended up like phoning a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend and finding out who like the commandant's aide was and gave her a call. And she ended up calling me and talking to me for over an hour about what the job is, but it really took some digging to figure it out. And one of your questions that you had given me earlier was like, why did I write the article?

Part of it stems back to this is I just had no idea what an aide was and especially for a service chief and what I was getting myself into and couldn't find a lot of information about it so yeah that's kind of how it all started so um yeah I was going to ask you know what did you hear about before you got the post but I guess yeah not really much so what were some of the things that you did as an aide you know I'm a historian by trade and when and I do earlier history so I I mean, when we're talking to aides, it's kind of laying out people's suits and, you know, more those kind of things, making sure everyone has everything. But what does a modern aide do for the chief of naval operations in your case? Yeah, so much like you, my initial thought was also just like carrying around a bag, making coffee, kind of being a gopher for somebody.

And I was not interested in doing that at all. That's why I did digging to try to figure out what it was. and so one of the things that didn't make it into my article that I thought was an interesting piece about AIDS and you as a historian will appreciate this is just like the loop wearing in general I had never even heard the terms loop nation or wearing the loop like what that meant um come to find out that loop nation is just like the group of AIDS at the senior leader level that all support each other and we have a distro list for all AIDS called loop nation and um and how we interact with each other so the agulet is the loop and a little history lesson

um the agulet is tied to the stars of the person and the billet that they hold your principle so for me as a marine aid to the cno i wore the navy colors on the agulet so blue um and it had four ropes that are all glued together as part of the agulet to symbolize the four stars of the principle in which I aided for. So the main color in the agulet was gold, but then the blue was looped in it. And then at the bottom of the fancy agulet, because you have a day-to-day agulet, but then you have a fancy one that has extra ropes and stuff you put on your dress uniform. And that one has anchors on the gold part that dangles. So that agulet is unique to the aid, the marine aid to the cno um vice versa uh if you are an aid to a marine instead of having blue

laced into your gold agulet you have red instead of having anchors on the bottom of your fancy agulet like gold part that angles it's an eagle globe and anchor and then if you're an aid to a two star it's got two loops if you're an aid to a one star one loop and so on and so forth and so even just learning basic stuff like how do you even identify an aide was something new to me and then if you're an aide to the president you wear your agulet on the right side and on your right shoulder and the agulet for the president is like a solid large gold band and so it's funny I uh I was actually walking through the halls of the pentagon one time with the navy aide the president and he and I were walking side by side and my agulet was on my left shoulder where it's

supposed to be and his was on his right and some army colonel stops us and goes hey there youngsters like which one of you is wrong you know and he tried to correct us and you know hey one of you doesn't look like the other and it was a it was a kind of a funny moment we kind of looked at each other was like oh boy like and we had to explain to him you know the difference between the different an agulet and what they mean and how it means. It was a funny laugh. We all had a good time with that one, but that happened repeatedly where people didn't understand how to read the agulet. So once you know how to read an agulet and kind of know who's in the room, it'll help you identify who the aides are to so-and-so person. So if you're at like a conference or something and

your boss wants to get in touch with, you know, a army two-star something, something, and you look for the aid with the army to start agulet on the shoulder and helps you identify it so you know i i needed to learn this all from scratch from the beginning but it was really interesting it's like a whole new world of aiding so really to your question on what are the duties of the aid to the scene well you got me thinking did you have did anyone mentor you it was there like you came in like when the other end uh the other aid was finishing up or did someone just hand you a manual and say good luck there is definitely some sort of turnover um i replaced a marine pilot ironically he got covid uh during the week we were supposed to do turnover so my

turnovers were consisted of going out to the parking lot of the pentagon and getting on the phone with him trying to chat through it so it was a lot of like it was a lot of just figure it out and banged my head into the wall up at the Pentagon, I got thrown into the fire. So I took over the aid duties in the beginning of December. I also had like zero turnover. I, or not zero turnover, time to prepare. I went in for an interview on a Monday with Admiral Gilday. By that Friday, I got a call from his executive assistant that I got the job. I was to report the next Tuesday to start. I literally had like no time to really wrap my had around what i was doing it was deer and headlights kind of going into it excited but

didn't really know what i didn't know and it was december it's the middle of december and so people were about to head out for their holiday breaks and the cno was doing his first international trip the very beginning of january personal trap since covid right in the beginning of january like a month into the job so like i got thrown into the fire in like five seconds the guy i replaced wonderful marine lieutenant colonel but he hadn't done a lot of travel because he was the aid during covid so and learning how to do the international trip during covid was a whole new ball game so i kind of just had to figure it out um along the way but i didn't do it alone i have to give all credit to the full staff of the cno and other admirals general

officers and other people where the staffs are so strong. And I could have never survived on my own. They're great people all across the board. It was truly a team effort. But I got thrown into the fire. And over Christmas time, the Pentagon was pretty much empty. And it was like me and the protocol officers overseas that were working really hard and a couple other really awesome key staff members that were in the office, just kind of turning over Christmas to turn on a international trip. We went to, we went first to Naples and then we went to Bahrain and then we went to Rota, Spain and then back. And that was all within my first month as being an aide. So it was really just like thrown full throttle into the job in the beginning. And I would have gotten

fired probably in the first five seconds, if it wasn't for having some of the absolute best staff members there to, to help along the way. And I have to give a shout out to protocol officer in Naples. That was our first stop. And as soon as I got off the plane there in Naples, Courtney is her name. She's amazing. Like I got off the plane and she just like tucked me under her wing and we were up all night and she was just kind of showing me the ropes and how it works and what we're going to do and giving me the scheme and you were in the plan. And like, she was the one that made that trip happen. Not me as the aid. I just kind of helped facilitate it going. And then same thing in bahrain um we got to bahrain a couple days later and there were two amazing

protocol officers that that ran the ship kind of when we were on the ground in bahrain i learned from them so uh there's a lot of just learn along the way and that was also an interesting trip because it was it happened during the january 6th right after the january 6th thing that happened in dc at the capital and so there were so many what we call tank meetings like impromptu tank meetings where the Joint Chiefs get together and discuss issues. And so in this instance, they were talking about extremism in the military. So on that international trip, thank God, we also have amazing communicators who were able to set up sipper VTCs and phone calls from random hotel rooms along the way so that C&L Gilday could

dial in to impromptu tank meetings and all sorts of phone calls it was having to take to discuss extremism in the military. So, yeah, the staff and the others that are on the team are really what make it happen. Great. Okay, so sorry to interrupt you, but I kind of, that came to mind. But yeah, So going back to your duties as an aide. Oh, yeah. We've diverted. So number one, your job is to just ensure that the CNO is postured to do the best job he can and to focus on running the Navy.

So it's not a clear-cut billet description. myself and the other aides and the other staff members always used to say hey our job is to help the cno and run the navy however best we can as long as it's legal and if it's in support of him like we're gonna do it so i really took that to heart and so i quickly learned that things like protecting his time may not be part of my bill of description but is absolutely an essential duty of an aide is to protect the time of your senior, of your principal, and ensure that he has the time to think, the time to breathe, to PT, to respond to whatever crisis is in front of him. And so as an aide, you control a lot of his schedule on trips. And so building in time and space for him

to think was like something that quickly became one of the most important things that I learned to do as an aide. So to talk about more of the practicality of it, for service chiefs at least in the Navy and Marine Corps and Naval service, there is a Marine aide and a Navy aide to both the CNO and the Commandant and the Secretary of Navy. So all three of those have mirrored staffs. And so the aides who are both O4, so a Navy Lieutenant Commander and a Marine Major for all of them. And then one aid is usually planning a trip or event while the other one is executing it with the boss. So you kind of like leapfrog each other as you do these events. And then we also had what's called like a home team and an away team. The aides are in charge of the away

team. So whenever the principal leaves the Pentagon is really when you kind of take over the schedule and you run the event, making sure smooth coordination across the board. So when you're in the Pentagon, there's a scheduler, there's an executive assistant, a deputy executive assistant, a flag secretary, a whole bunch of support within the Pentagon. So when you're there, you're working on the trips and planning the trips. Especially somebody like Admiral Gilday, who's been in the Pentagon a whole lot. He doesn't need me to hold his bag and walk him around the building to different offices where he knows how to get to the tank building. He knows where the chairman sits. He doesn't need me to walk him to the office.

So in the Pentagon, I was doing a lot of planning and coordination for future events. And then when it actually comes time for execution, once you physically leave the Pentagon or Finji House, which is what we call the CNO's house, with the boss, you are executing the movement and coordinating with him. So you plan the whole schedule. Like what time are you going to leave the house? Like you coordinate with the pilots about the aircraft. You know, where are you going to fly into? At what time? What are the meals on the plane? Like how are we going to get there? Once we're there, who's going to greet us? Where are we going? Like what are the briefs we're getting? Like what's the timeline look like? Where's the hotel we're staying in? And I have to also give a huge shout out to the NCIS guys because they're the ones that do all of the security for all of these movements, too. So you're tied in with them working on the security plan to make sure that your movements are protected. Obviously, senior leaders and service chiefs are targets. And so they have a protective service that they travel with at all times to use the aid is working with that NCIS team to ensure that the boss is safe at all times. Um, and then you're working with the enlisted aides to make sure we have the right uniforms

and the right, uh, clothing and everything that you, that he would need for the particular trip. And then you're working with a protocol on both our end for, for gifts, as well as the other end for the, the movement on the ground for wherever you're going. Um, so you're really, you're really working with every element of the staff. You're working with the comms folk to make sure you have the right communication gear. You bring sipper wherever you go, make sure you have phones up and running. So you're working with them and you're working with the PAO team to make sure that everything's coordinated with the public affairs and the media engagements for wherever you're going.

So you're really working with every element of the staff and you as the aide is kind of pulling that in together and acting as kind of the quarterback to tie the bow on that box. So you aren't really an expert at any of those things, but you're pulling it all together. Oh, and you're running everything through legal to make sure everything is legal because at that level, like you need to make sure that where you're going and who you're meeting with and what you're doing is all in the up and up. So that's the last step before you step out the door to go anywhere is get a legal memo and legal looks over. There's an 06 that sits on the C&O's personal staff as his lawyer to run through all of that stuff. So really just working with every element of the staff. And then I'm remiss if I don't mention the Z Team. You'll hear it called the Z Team, the CAG, or the SAG, the Commander's Action Group. That's really like the senior leader's think tank. And every senior leader has a different version of the CAG, and the composition can change depending on what the senior leader wants and needs. But at least for the CNO, his CAG is run by an absolutely incredible, amazing Navy captain who is more brilliant than I hope to ever be.

I mean, just more brilliant than I'll ever be. He's so amazing. But him and his team are fantastic and they're like the thinkers and they're the ones that give you the read-aheads and the strategy behind where we're going, why we're going, what we're going to do. Oh, and I can't forget the foreign, the FPA, the Foreign Policy Advisor. There's another amazing human on CNO's staff, and she's been there for the last eight years, and that critical position advises the CNO on everything, all engagements international. So if you're going on an international trip, you have to run everything through them, and they're doing the engagement with the embassies and foreign partners and all of that. So, man, my mouth is full, and I'm just rambling at this point. But the point is, you asked what my duties are. The duties are to coordinate with each one of those people or sections for every single time the CNO leaves the Pentagon or the D.C. area and touch base with those sections to make sure that CNO has everything he needs in order to be successful in every engagement he does.

And the bottom line is you're there to take care of the boss and make sure that he is successful. And if you've done that, then you've done a good job. So that was a mouthful. I rambled a lot there I'm sorry no that was no that was perfect yeah it showed the you know the depth of the job it's you know making making the the chief's life a lot easier I guess you know one of the questions I sent you is yeah how do how do you think this experience made you a better officer and leader or how do you hope that it will? Wow. Yeah. I mean, hands down, this experience was tremendous and I will forever be a better person, you know, military officer, Marine and

American because of it. It gave me a really great appreciation for American leadership, um especially uniformed leadership and just how hard it is uh to be a senior leader and the wicked decisions that they have to make every single day and uh the stamina that you have to have to have a career of service for that long and so peeking behind the curtain really it's so humbling and it just is awe-inspiring as well to see what our nation can do when we're all together, but it really, I learned so much. I can't even, I didn't even begin to, you know, list out all the different lessons, but I guess a few of the most important ones are, are how to handle a wicked problem, not to rush to conclusions or to a decision, really stop and think because

some of those things, decisions that you're going to make, you're going to impact, you know, large amounts of people and sailors and Marines and families. And so to really sit and think about what it is you're doing is really important. And I think our senior leaders are genuinely trying to do the absolute best they can. And they're there because they want to make a big difference and they want to be leaders that have lasting impacts in a positive way for folks. It really actually hurts me when I see a lot of negativity about our senior leadership, because I think that some of our senior leaders don't get the credit that they deserve for the incredible jobs that they do that are just so hard. And a lot of times we're in lose-lose situations or, you know, it's

tough to make everybody happy. But what I will say is that our senior leaders, from my perspective, always tried to make the best decisions they could and didn't rush decisions. They wanted to make sure they made the right decisions, especially in some of the more wicked problems like COVID, Red Hill, some of the investigations that happened in the last few years. So I will always give them the benefit of my trust and confidence. And that's something that at a lower echelon level, I didn't always understand why leadership made the decisions they made or not. But now I will always give them the benefit of my trust, even if I don't don't understand it. Leaders generally want to make good policies. And sometimes they just don't

know that the policies that are in place maybe aren't the best ones or are beneficial for folks down below. So as soon as those gripes or those recommendations are heard at higher levels, I always saw senior leaders bend over backwards, just change something for the better. So another thing I learned is just how everything trickles down. And so decisions made at really senior levels of sailors. And I guess an example of this would be early on in my time, we did a trip to San Diego and met the USS Nimitz on the back end of its super long deployment. So that deployment for the Nimitz had been extended something like 10 times. It was supposed to come home before Thanksgiving. And then some stuff happened in the Persian Gulf and the SECDEF extended the

deployment through thanksgiving and then it was supposed to come home and then uh some more stuff happened in the middle east and the carrier ended up staying out there longer so long story short the carrier was supposed to come home earlier than thanksgiving and it ended up coming back at the very end of february because of strategic conflict and deterrence in the middle east and And those decisions were made at, you know, SECDEF level and seeing how that decision at the top was made for the strategic right reasons, you know, or good reasons strategically, how that impacted sailors and families. So when we were in San Diego, we flew out to the Nimitz for the last couple of days of its deployment and were on board. And I was following Sino around as he was talking to the triad on board the ship and just the other sailors and listening to what everyone was saying. And that really impacted a lot of those sailors, both positively and negatively.

Positively because they were so excited to be doing the mission and to be defending America and projecting power forward and really felt valuable at sea. But at the same time, having to miss Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then New Year's and, you know, being out at sea so much longer than they expected to be. Oh, during COVID. So they didn't get any port calls along the way either to see how that impacted their mental health, the wealth of their families. All of that was it was was really eye opening. So for me as an aide, that's something I never would have seen in a different position. And, like, I was just, like, eye-watering to see, wow, these decisions made at the strategic level can truly impact your most junior sailors. And so that's something that I take to heart and will think about as I continue my career or anything I do in my life about how my decisions can impact other people down the line positively and negatively and when, you know, hey, this may be a strategic benefit for our nation, but what is it doing to some of our Americans and our people? And then I learned, God, the lessons are just endless. Let's see what else.

It also taught me to put life in perspective. So I think a lot of people in the military sometimes don't think about what happens after the military, especially if you're what we call a lifer in career person in the military. And so getting to see what happens after a senior leader retires and they become part of what's called the graybeards is something I didn't know ever existed. But there's a contingent of senior Navy folks who have retired but still have tremendous influence of the Navy or not if they don't want to and what they do. So I got to meet most of the previous CNOs who have retired in the past 10 years or so at various events that the CNO would go to. It was interesting to see, you know, you can rise to be the most senior person in the Navy, but once you take that uniform off, you go back to being a civilian.

So, you know, it happens to us all at some point. And so reminding myself not to rush it, not to rush my career, not to rush to get the next promotion or the next thing and just enjoy the journey along the way. And C&O Gilday retired so many admirals during this time. And I went to all of the retirements and listened to the speeches and just hearing them reflect on their careers was powerful for me and humbling. And we also went to a couple of funerals that it was really insightful. So the CNO went to a bunch of state funerals. And then I think the one that impacted me the most was a funeral for a previous CNO. He'd been the CNOs back in the 80s, but he had a whole life and other career after being the CNO in the Navy.

His funeral was at the Naval Academy. And then we did a procession to the Naval Academy graveyard and buried him there. And all of the CNOs that are still living went to that funeral. and it was really powerful to, um, to see somebody who had raised, risen all the way up to be the CNO and then had a whole other career afterwards and just what he was giving back to the, to the nation. And so those kinds of events that I would have never, ever, ever been in, I wasn't even invited. I went as an aid, you know, it wasn't me, it was him, but I, that I never would have been a fly on the wall for. Um, I listened to every word at those funerals or those retirements

and just really soaked it all in. So I thought that was a special thing that I got to go to. It was a privilege to be there and something I never thought I would get out of the job. And then likewise, other places we went, we went to Congress a lot,

which is something I didn't expect to do and ended up finding absolutely fascinating. The service chiefs represent their service on the Hill and fight for the budget. And that's a big cycle every year of going through testimony and then building the budget and going out to industry and figuring out what they should put in the budget every year.

And so that was absolutely fascinating and something I've never done in my career as an intel officer and will probably never do again. But the cycle of going to the Hill, talking to congressmen and senators about things that they're interested in their districts or their states, like we went to a lot of the senators' offices who have shipyards in their states. I just never thought about that, you know, and talk to them about their shipyard and production of Navy ships and then would fly a lot of the times to those shipyards, a lot of times with those congressmen or senators, we call them CODELs, and go out there and visit the shipyards

and figure out why there's, you know, delays in production or maintenance and then go back to the Hill. And then we'd go to testimony and the CNO would testify and sit behind him at testimony as they talked about some of these, you know, very important issues. And then we'd go back to the office and need to have all these budget meetings about what are we going to put in a budget and all of that. And that was just all totally foreign to me and absolutely fascinating and a very interesting thing that I was able to be a fly on the wall for. And one of my favorite moments, I love Senator Collins. She is sweet from Maine. She's a good, happy person. And we did a bunch of office calls with her and she was always so graceful. And we went to Maine one

time to go to Bath Iron Works, which is where the DDGs are built. And those workers at the shipyard had gone on strike a year or two ago, which contributed to the delays in the DDGs being built. And Senator Collins is walking around the shipyard with us with her hard head on and talking to all of the folks there. And one of these workers at the shipyard just kind of runs up to her and was like oh ma'am you're back it's so good to see you and he picks her up and gives her this huge hug and spins her around and just like you know just talks to the senator because she's at the shipyard all the time because she recognizes that that's one of the most important things in her state and it was just really cool to see that connection between

some of our elected leaders and folks in the states that i something i just didn't i wouldn't see otherwise. Then one of the junior congressmen from Maine, too, is also a former staff sergeant in the Marine Corps. And that was pretty cool to chat with him about his leap from being a infantry staff sergeant in the Marine Corps to congressman in Maine, Congressman Gold. He's down to earth and just a great human, which gave me a whole different perspective on what leadership is, because you don't need to wear a uniform to be a leader. And I viewed our elected leaders very differently now. They also work extremely hard, at least the ones I encountered and worked with. But the impact you can make as an elected leader on the military services

is absolutely enormous. And I never thought about it before. Congressman Gallagher is another one who's a Marine. He's actually an intel officer, my same discipline, only a few years senior to me in the Marine Corps. He could have been my battalion commander had he stayed in the Marine Corps. And he got out of the Marine Corps as a captain and went and ran for Congress. And he's still a sitting congressman. I think about it often about how he could, had he stayed in the Marine Corps, he would have probably been a battalion commander right now. I think he probably would have been 06, maybe, you know, an 06 command, but instead he's a congressman. And he actually has so much more influence on the Navy and the Marine Corps as a congressman than he would have

had as an 06 and so just framing the scope of leadership is something that I've you know I'm constantly reflecting on and kind of you know revisiting as like wow okay like what's the difference between a uniformed leader and a elected leader and what kind of influence do they have and what kind of leader do I want to be what kind of leader are those around me and how do I leave my mark on the world or make it a better place than when I found it and there's a lot of different ways than just wearing a uniform so that that's something that i learned wow i am just going off on a tangent do you want me to shut up like oh no i mean it's wonderful stuff yeah i mean i think a lot of what you've been saying you know is you know really important and yeah it's stuff that

needs to be said i did have you know we will post a link to the article in the show notes but you know is there any place that you know the listeners you know social media that can follow you and you know got any more articles you're thinking of writing or i know you know you're probably gonna be busy for the next little bit getting everything situated so i love to write i've written a lot of things and i i know that there are some people in in the marine corps especially that don't view writing as positively as I think others do. I'm always hesitant to write something. I don't want people to view it as exhibitionism or, you know, self-interest. I want to be a writer when I get out of the Marine Corps, write all kinds of things. So I'm always writing something. I mean, I'm on

LinkedIn and I used to post a lot, especially when I was with the CNO, because I always wanted people to view him through the rosy eyes that I have and post positive things and get to know him as the amazing human that he is that I got to see. So I used to post a lot on LinkedIn, not as much anymore, but I still do. Happy to link up with people on LinkedIn if they're interested in chatting. And I don't know why they want to chat with me. I'm just gen pop nobody, but, you know, but happy to help somebody else out, especially those that find themselves in the position of being an aide.

I think that was actually the impetus of this particular article in the first place is that I had so many people reach out to me in the last year or so being like, hey, I'm being interviewed for an aid position. I have no idea what to do. Tell me everything. So I've kind of had this same conversation over and over with people in the last year or so about being an aid. And so that was an impetus for writing this is to kind of help those people out. So they had at least something to go off of, as opposed to me, who just kind of like walked into it, running into doors. And I mean, no, I don't want to say that my predecessor didn't give me good turnover because he absolutely did it was just also a lot of trial by error so yeah linkedin's

a good place um and i you know before we're concluding this conversation i think i'd be remiss if i don't give like a massive shout out to spouses you know seeing linda gilday and all the incredible work that she did by the cno side and her genuine passion about the navy especially women in the Navy was incredible. She started a project called Win Women in the Navy to recognize some of the trailblazing women in the Navy and just seeing what she could do as a spouse was powerful. And I think sometimes our spouses are underutilized or don't get the appreciation that they deserve. And so I want to give a shout out to her and all of the other spouses who volunteer their time, the betterment of their service member or the service in general, the unit

in which they're supporting because they're some of the most powerful people and important people that don't always hear thank you enough. So thank you to all of the spouses who continually show up. Well, thank you so much. I enjoyed listening to it and I really enjoyed the article and that's, you know, I follow you on LinkedIn and that was where I saw the article and read it. And that was what started this. And again, you know, we'll post that and want to thank you. And to our listeners, thank you for listening. Thanks so much. ¶¶