Four months prior to the invasion of Iraq, I found out that the George W. Bush administration was selling the war to the American people based on a lie.

I was attending the 1st Marine Division birthday ball in Primm, Nevada, where a former U.S. Central Command commander, recently retired, was our guest of honor. 

Prior to the festivities at a closed door meeting in a large, empty conference room with the division's officers, he shocked many of us when he said, "Marines, there is no ongoing WMD program in Iraq, but you are going to war anyway."

He paused, and with an exasperated look on his face, said gravely, "The administration is cooking the books on the intel about WMD in Iraq." 

If you know us, then you know how involved we are in promoting positive civic engagement and working as election poll volunteers!

In 2022, we helped launch a nation-wide non-profit non-partisan public awareness campaign called Vet the Vote - which recruited more than 63,000 election poll workers from the military veteran community!

Joe was featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and helped set up this interview featuring our local Charles County, MD election director.

Check it out here!

Joe was asked to contribute to this CNN Opinion article on the state of American democracy.

Full article here.

Kate was the commanding officer of the only all female unit in the Department of Defense when she faced gender bias head on. In this talk, Kate explains how segregation at bootcamp lays the foundation for sexism in the Marine Corps, to the detriment of men and women. Called too tough for the Marine Corps, Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano made headlines in June 2015 when she took a stand and confronted systemic problems of gender bias and lowered expectations for women. She fought back and became a national figure by speaking out against discrimination and advocating for higher expectations for women in the military. A 20-year career Marine and combat veteran, Kate has written extensively on the cultural challenges faced by service women, the change to official policy that opened all military jobs and units to women, and the need to de-segregate Marine Corps recruit training. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Kate uncovered 40 years of data on gender bias in the recruiting and training of women in the Marine Corps. She did root-cause analysis and made significant changes at the Marine Corps’ East Coast boot camp that greatly improved female performance. When she challenged the leadership about changing the status quo, they fired her from command. Here are her thoughts - published in The NY Times.

Full article here.