A group of three retired generals and a retired lieutenant colonel will take the stage near Atlanta on 16 June to discuss some of the nation’s most pressing issues concerning veterans and the military.
Maj. Gen. William Rajczak (Air Force), Maj. Gen. Tammy Smith (Army), Brig. Gen. Shawn Harris (Army) and Lt. Col. Maura Keller (Army) are all lending their voices to “Veteran to Veteran: A Conversation About Our Culture, Our Care, and Our Future” at The Rockmart Theatre in Rockmart, Ga.
Master Chief Petty Officer (Ret.) Mark Peterson, a Navy veteran, will moderate the four-person panel. The event is supported by Common Defense, VoteVets and Veterans for Responsible Leadership.
With many changes happening in the military and Veterans Affairs recently, the event was created to meet veterans where they are and provide refreshing, honest answers from former service members who’ve risen through the ranks of military leadership, despite gender and racial barriers.
Diversity is Strength
For Harris, a Black veteran who’s served as a senior defense official, the Trump administration’s rollback of DEI programs and policies in the military and at the VA left him shaking his head.
“They clearly don’t understand the force multiplier of diversity,” Harris told Military.com. “With DEI, the cream will always rise to the top. We are competing every day to be better, to get better. We’re competing with our teammates and ourselves. It’s not about your parents or money or any of those other things. It’s about striving to be part of the elite. That kind of drive isn’t stopped easily. The rollback on DEI says they aren’t worried about having the best leaders; it says they’re concerned about what those leaders look like.”
Harris originally joined the Marine Corps out of high school but transitioned to the Army when he was accepted to Tuskegee University and enrolled in its ROTC program.
During a long career that spanned over 30 years, Harris was deployed to Afghanistan and also Liberia during the Ebola virus outbreak, served as chief of staff to NATO in Kosovo and as a senior defense attaché in Israel.
Through all his stops and promotions, Harris valued relationships the most.
“Our people are our most important asset,” he said. “The commitment to a shared mission, working together to accomplish directives with a global impact and learning from them was the best part of the job.”
Harris also served as a mentor to young Black soldiers. While he didn’t graduate from a prestigious service academy, Harris found a way to overcome discrimination, becoming a valued leader and role model.
“I went from infantry to brigadier general by doing the work. I’m proud of that, but I’m not the only one who can do it. It’s my responsibility to open the door for others,” Harris said. “I position myself to be available, open and easy to talk with, so young people are comfortable reaching out.”
He never allowed racial stigmas to hold him back from earning several promotions.
“Those moments reflected a person and our society, not of the organization or me,” Harris said. “It made me a better leader.”
Sexual Trauma Rates Much Too High for Women
Keller, who served in the Army for 26 years, including time as a strategic analyst, said women veterans face several key issues that must be addressed, including:
- Women veterans experience higher rates of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and suicide compared to male veterans and civilian women. Suicide rates for women veterans rose sharply (e.g., +24.1% in one recent period vs. +6.3% for men).
- Military sexual trauma (MST) affects a large percentage (often 1 in 3 report assault; 71-90% report harassment), which is a stronger predictor of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than combat for many women.
- Many VA facilities lack sufficient women’s health providers; reliance on community care can involve delays.
- Women veterans are 3–4 times more likely to experience homelessness than non-veteran women. Unsheltered homelessness among women vets increased significantly in recent years.
- Employment and transition into civilian life.
“These are just a few. We need to understand that ‘one size does not fit all,’” Keller told Military.com. “We must pay attention to the issues that women veterans bring up and not discard them. Women must keep speaking up and out… and never give up.”
Following her father into the Army, Keller joined in 1978 and became a military police officer. She served as the ops officer for Dever Recruiting Battalion during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm and was the personnel readiness officer for the Army Reserve Command (USARC) during 9/11.
Keller ascended from private to lieutenant colonel in a place where women weren’t always accepted as being equal to their male counterparts.
“The military gave me opportunities I don’t believe would have been available in civilian life. It challenged me every day, allowed me to attend leadership schools and placed real trust and responsibility on me early in my career,” Keller said. “Everything I achieved came through hard work; nothing was handed to me, and that’s something I’m deeply proud of.”
When Keller enlisted at age 17, the Army was beginning to integrate women into the ranks. She was part of one of the first co-ed groups to graduate from basic training.
“There were doubts about whether we could handle the physical demands, the long hours, the deployments, or the leadership responsibilities,” she said. “I had to work twice as hard to earn the same respect, often navigating subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, biases while still delivering results for my soldiers. But those challenges built resilience, determination and empathy. They taught me how to lead with both strength and compassion, to fight for my troops and to never accept artificial limits.”
Those experiences nearly five decades ago fuel Keller’s drive today to make sure women joining the military receive fair representation.
“The most challenging part of my 26 years in the Army was having people and organizations put limitations on me because of my gender, even when I had completed the exact same training, met every standard and proven myself capable,” Keller said.
The Army veteran outlined several pieces of advice for young women joining the military.
- Prepare yourself mentally and physically. The military will push you, but it will also show you strengths you didn’t know you had. Stay disciplined, stay fit and stay curious. Keep learning every single day.
- Seek out mentors and be a good mentor yourself. Find leaders who invest in your growth and lift up the women coming up behind you. Leadership isn’t about being the loudest. It’s about taking care of your people.
- Demand respect but earn it through competence and character. There will be challenges, some unique to women in uniform, but hold yourself to the highest standards and don’t compromise your integrity.
- Remember that service is about more than a paycheck. It’s about duty, camaraderie and being part of something bigger than yourself. The skills, confidence, and resilience you gain will serve you for the rest of your life, whether you stay four years or 26 as I did.
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