Lawrence Korb addressed the Service Women's Action Network's
Truth and Justice summit. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Korb served as Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Reagan administration. Discussing the transitions that he has seen. He said a post-Viet Nam revelation came to him: "Without women it was clear we were not going to have the quality of volunteer military we needed."
Korb spoke at length about the need to include more women in the higher levels of military, and sounded frustrated. He was a participant in an effort to compile a list of qualified women for appointment who were subsequently passed over for promotion, including a female Air Force officer who was also an astronaut.
Korb tied the advocacy efforts of the gathered folks to the larger progressive movement referencing the work done on "Don't ask, don't tell" repeal. Progress is slow, but it is doable. "We started working on gays in the military in the 1980s."
Hearing Korb discuss the need to defend the right of sexual assault trauma victims to obtain an abortion on a military base, you realize how far right the GOP has lurched. Korb once worked for the Reagan administration. Can a person who holds such views even find employment in a Republican administration these days?
Korb's closing message to attendees: keep up the pressure, you are succeeding, you are helping survivors, your work is helping the country.
This is the second of a series of posts, the first is here.