Write that the military saved your life. What do you mean by that . Guest i think the military plate and a currently Important Role in my life where some of the most important types of my life have not been when i was wearing a suit that was when i i was wearing the uniform for this country. I was first introduced to the military system actually when i was 13. I was sent to a military school. I i had a mandatory year in military school, and i got into some issues, some challenges and when i was younger my mom was threatening to send the way to militaryy school ever since i ws eight years old and every year she said i will send you away at a cap on blowing her off. The first time i felt handcuffs on the wrist was when i was 11. My mother noticed i was intentionally hurting people that actually loved me. So i i could oppress people that could care less about me. Finally one day she said im going to send you to military school. And honestly i thought she was getting or exaggerating. And then finally i realized she wasnt and she sent me to a mandatory School Military school. I hated every minute of it when it first started. I remember the first, those first days of their here i ran away multiple times, five times in the first four days of military school. I also noticed the longer i stayed i began to fully understand what it was that there tied to teach me, and also what it was my mom was trying to teach me. And the fact that we do live in an interconnected environment and how everybody was doing in my unit mattered to have my unit as a whole was doing. When it actually finished high school and i had a chance to go on, festival scholarship offers and do other things, i decided the thing i wanted to do, the thing i want to spend my life on, i wanted to lead soldiers and so thats what i made the decision that it wanted to the army. So for me the decision to go into the army was both a continuation of the fact that i had this level of service both the fact they would help pay for college and that wasor very helpful, but theres also this idea that i felt a debt of gratitude because it i felt lit was the introduction of that at a really crucial time in my life that really helped make the lot of the difference that ended up happening like i was living. Host what was your role in the 82nd airborne . Guest iso i was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and i i had a few different roles. My findable and it gives them was i was director Information Operations for the first grade in the 82nd Airborne Division. Thats a long way of saying that everything we had in terms of information ops, psych ops, psychological operations, that we had within our entire area of operations which was what we call rc east which is regional command east, the entire Eastern Region of afghanistan, the border where pakistan and Afghanistan Border each other. R. I was director of Information Operations for that so at the time when i was, my last assignment winners leaving afghanistan we had about 1700 paratroopers that were under our command that we were responsible for your it was an amazing and an aweinspiring experience. Host wes moore, have had you changed after that first year inng military school as a what, a 12yearold . Thirteen years old. I would say the big thing that changed for me was there was this introduction of leadership. What that means, what it meant and the role that it played in my life. Where i felt like military school gave me a a chance to in the way it was a remake of identity. That was important. It was a chance to rethink my role and myy space within sociey but also i think some of the other bigger things that happened was there. Was this vey intentional introduction of leadership, that matters. Sometimes when people say about military school they say yeah, we need to send you to military, unique discipline. They will do pushups and wake up early. You will do pushups and you will wake up early. All those things are real and true, but thats not what made the experience useful for me. The thing that made the experience useful for me was this introduction to leadership. It was this idea they are very much going to introduce you to leadership early and in a very deliberate way, where they will put in charge of something. After the initial basic training for Police System whatever his they will putut you in charge of something. Relatively early and relatively small. Its not because thats what youre cap is. Its because they want you to get a taste. They will put you in charge of a hallway and they will say okay, you are in charge of the solvent or youre in charge of the dumpsters or in charge of whatever. Keep it clean, will congratulate you if its dirty and we will help you. One thing, then you be promoted and then you move onto the next thing. Maybee now you have a couple cadets or soldiers under your command and then you move up and then you move up. So theres this gradual responsibility about the way they try to teach leadership frameworks that i think are not only useful and important for me but also it was something that really gave me a taste of what was actually important. Like i knew going in that we the people was important to me. I knew going in that whether it was in the case of leading cadets or c leading soldiers ori think about the work we do now, being able to be part of the process, being able to be the person whoto can help shape the direction of organizations and execute on things, that something that we can really important in my development and i think both the frameworks on what it meant and how to do it but then also the introduction of the necessity in my life was something the military help to foster. Host more, how did you become a Rhodes Scholar . Guest truth is that i actually think about that experience quite a bit because the first time i had a real conversation about the Rhodes Scholarship was actually when i was interning with the mayor of baltimore and he was a former Rhodes Scholar. It was the last thing my internship and he called into his office. In fact, i have a picture up there thats in my office. In that picture hes standing there pointing to a picture on his wall. Understand them hurt was not the type of guy who had camera people what are following him around all the time. Thats what he did. But on that day, on the folly of my internship kurt schmoke kolbe and then he said have you thought about Rhodes Scholarship . He knew my grades, extracurriculars. I told him i heard about it but hadnt really thought about it. The picture he took that is now sitting in my office is in pointinghi to the wall of something. The thing hes pointing at is his rhodes class and where he was in this picture. That was a month where he first told me about the Rhodes Scholarship and told i should consider it. He gave instructions of people i should talk to about it and i went and it did just that. I went and talked to certain people. I had people who helped with my essays and health about how do i address my lifes journey in a thousand words for the Rhodes Scholarship application . And i loved that story and its important because writer in my office is the picture of my rhodes class. Ims very clear that that pictue happen if thatr picture didnt happen. So it was an experience that i will never forget one where literally i think our plane flew off less than two weeks after 9 11 where the nation in the world had just changed immeasurably at the same time that i was having this experience where my entire officer to expense was shaped very much so by 9 11 especially for the fact thatfi i was in the military. A chance to sit International Relations in place where i was one of only a few americans studying. So it gave me a chance to truly study International Relations with people in your classroom from brazil and china and nigeria and argentina. Getting a chance to really understand how all these dynamics take place amongst some really remarkable people who would become some of my best friends. It was a very special experience i give ape lot of thanks to kurt schmoke and many others really help to light that path for me and of the realize they can be real. Host what is your view about taking money from the Cecil Rhodes Foundation and what did you tell the overview board . Guest one of the last questions, the last question asked in my interview was because i spent time in south africa. Im also africanamerican. I know our history in this country really well. One of the last questions i was asked by the person was chairman of the board, he said, listen, you have been to south africa. You are africanamerican. How can you a accept this money knowing the history, knowing how he made it and know the lives that were lost in order for them to make that money . And i f thought about it and i paused and i said, i know a few things for sure. One was that when cecil rhodes was creating this scholarship, he did not have me in mind to be sitting here as a finalist for this scholarship money. And he is probably turning in his grave repeatedly knowing that either ass a finalist for his scholarship. The other thing that that shows we will progress means and what progress looks like. The fact that something that was not at all intended for me, that i have an opportunity to not only stand here and utilize it but also have a real obligation to make sure youre doing something with it. The other thing i do know is that, that it was my ancestors who fought and who bled and to build, and who are able to build it in a way that created a pathway for me to be in that seat at that moment, who were able to sacrifice into dream for the world that they didnt see but to dream and fight for one that hopefully one day that i would be. And for me to have the opportunity then to be there in that seat, for me to have an opportunity to then take the privilege of that seat, then to go out and as a rhodes said, go out in the world a fight that fight, itf felt it would be disrespectful to them not to. And so understanding that particularly when you look at the history of cecil rhodes, looking at the history of its that even just southoo africa bt the entire Southern African region and the damage that he did to the people there, forced own personal benefit to the point that at that time he was the wealthiest man in the world. Its not lost on me. Its also not lost on me the obligation that i now have to you, the benefit that were fought long and hard for me to be able to have to use that now to make sure that we can create a more just and a more fair world. Host wes moore, where did you come up . Guest i spent part of my childhood growing up in maryland, part of my childhood growing up in the bronx. I called billy to places home. One is baltimore. Actually where i live now even though i was born a little, actually closer to the d. C. Area, and in new york were spent a lot of my childhood after my dad died. So my dad was a radio personality down in baltimore in the d. C. Area, and one day he was complaining about his throat and was saying how his throat was bothering him. He couldnt sleep. He went to the hospital the next day and as he went to the hospital he was wearing ragged clothes, had a beard and a lot of assumptions made about my dad when he walked in to the hospital that day looking for help. When my mom finally made it to the hospital to come join him they asked her questions Like Companies your husband prone to exaggeration next they gave him instructions to go home and rest and if it got worse than to come back. Five hours after they released him he died. Thats when we are living out in maryland. My mother had a really difficult time with the transition at that point and finally called a prepared, my grandparents, who were living in the bronx. My grandfather was a minister in the south bronx and my grandmother was a schoolteacher in the south bronx, and the house was barely big e enough fr them but they figured out a way to make it big enough for all of us. We ended up moving up there, and then at that point after we moved up there thats where i spent a good six, seven years of my childhood before itt ended up going to military school in pennsylvania. A lot of my childhood was a lot of moving around. But the thing that i do that no matter where we moved to, i i d a remarkable loving family who i was blessed to be able to say, with what they had, they really tried to provide for us as best as they b could. It was something i always felt growing up. Host from your firstlw book, the other wes moore, my father was a kid i ballers have to beingg hospital with a simple instructionsns to get some slee. Same hospital was t now preparig to send his body to the morgue. My father had entered the hospital seeking help but his face was unshaven, his clothes to shall become his name generic, his address not in an affluent area. The hospital looked at him, and sold them with ridiculous questions and basically told him to fend for himself. Now my mother had to plan his funeral. Why do you think those assumptions were made . Guest race. Actually i think, its really one of the heartbreaking things and i think about it a lot both where we are now and also when people say, well, at what point in your life did you know or did you understand the impact of race . As you just listed out it was literally at this point that come at its always point when people are treated differently. When ire think about the many systems that we have in place in our society whether it is our Health Care System or our education system, whether its thinking about Environmental Justice or educational justice. Its impossible to talk about these things without understanding the role that race plays. Its impossible to understand these things without understandable that systemic racism plays. Because it is not lost to me and will never be lost to me the fact that had those factors been different, that had been mentioned before, there wouldve been a benefit of the doubt it was given, benefit of the doubt been given we would not have had the same type of results. This is something that i know is not just anecdotal. Theres a data that continues to reinforce the fact that race is one of the most predictable indicators for life outcomes across several layers, across life expectancy, across education, across maternal mortality, across mental and physical health. L and so the thing that made that real in my case, in the case of my father, and a case of thinking about my Family History is this idea that i know its inescapable to not understand that race, the impact of race, has in all of this. Host who was the other wes moore . Guest the other wes moore is a young man who i heard about actually the same time i i was getting gray to head off to england. As the baltimore sun, my hometown paper was writing an article about this local caterer just received this Rhodes Scholarship and they were k writing about my background, about my childhood. They were writing about the fact that just ten years ago i had handcuffs on my wrists and now ten years later i was getting ready to go to england on a full scholarship and what the journey was like. But around the same time they were also writing about an armed Jewelry Store robbery and this armed Jewelry Store robbery was a botched robbery where four guys came in and the first to ask which of the the Jewelry Store they had guns and they can anybody on the ground. And then the next two guys walk into the Jewelry Store. When they walked in they pulled out malice. One guy with the gun and one guy with a mouth went to the left and one guy with a mallet and one with the gun went to the right. They were Walking Around smashing out jewelry cases. They were taking out watches and necklaces. They got about 400,000 worth of jewelry that day, and one of them said lets go, all four of them ran out side to the parking lot to onere of people inside te store that day was an offduty Police Officer who was moonlighting as a security guard. Ff he was a 13 year veteran with the baltimore policeer force. He was a threetime recipient of Police Office of the year that he was also a father of five who just had triplets. And the reason he was working that it was because it was his day off from the police force and it took on a second job to make extra money for his family. And when he ended up, when you left the store, he got up off the ground and he drew his weapon and he ran outside to see if heto could stop the guys in getting away. And when you ran outside he started using extra cars and vehicles given softcover but what he didse realize that one f the vehicles he was kneeling next you with one of the vehicles the guys were in. And a window rolled down and he was shot three times at pointblank range and hela was killed. That ended up being a wealthy National Manhunt for those four guys, 12 days, all four khizr khan. They were captured and tried and convicted and sentenced for the crime was a guy whose name was also wes moore. The more i learned about this crime, the more i learned about this tragedy, oftentimes the newspaper articles from the more i knew there were questions i wanted to ask. So when do i just decided write him a note, and the first note of voting was, like, hey, my name is wes moore. I wrote you at the Correctional Institution where i knew what he was at the time. Still is to this day. About a a month later i got a letter back from the Correctional Institution from wes moore. That one letter was fascinating to me. All states come too he was alluding to, and that one letter turned into dozens of letters and dozens of letters turned into dozens of visits. I have now known wes moore for over 17 years. He is now in year 20 of his life sentence. Income his older brother and two other guys were there there the day of the crime. D and so thats who he was and that initial letter really turned to do something that changed the way