Page 256 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

BECOMING A FELLOW

active-duty military personnel from competing for White House Fellow-
ships in the coming year.
Charles R. “Chuck” Larson (WHF 68–69) said that as the Fellow assigned
as naval aide to President Nixon, he worked to get military personnel accepted
back into the program. “My rationale was that one of the great values of the
program was the interaction between classmates with very diverse back-
grounds,” Larson explained. “Some of our class had never had any associa-
tion with the military, and as a naval officer I learned to appreciate those who
served in such areas as the Peace Corps and the Sierra Club. My Fellowship
exposed me to things I never would have learned in the military. It broadened
my horizon and influenced my thinking. The end result was that Nixon put
the military back in after an absence of only one year. The military person-
nel that followed, like Colin Powell, would never have had the chance had
the decision stood.” Chuck did pretty well himself, rising to become a four-
star admiral in the Navy. He served as Commander-in-Chief-of the U.S.
Pacific Command and Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy.
However, servicemen and servicewomen were not the only ones who
benefited from military inclusion in the White House Fellowships. Before
becoming a Fellow, Mimi Ghez (WHF 00–01) directed a national grassroots
campaign against domestic violence. When it came time to choose her assign-
ment, she decided to do something totally unexpected and asked to be
assigned to the Department of Defense. Ghez said she never had met a serv-
iceman or servicewoman until the day of her regional fellowship interview,
when another applicant—an Army special forces officer—defied her stereo-
typical view of soldiers when he revealed that he’d hung a picture of Helen
Keller in his daughter’s room so that she could be inspired by a true leader.
“It was my first inkling that warriors come in all forms and that many of them
want peace as much as I do,” Ghez explained. “It surprised me like crazy.”
During her Fellowship year at the Pentagon, the young peace activist
visited a Marine Corps boot camp, flew in a B-52 bomber, and ducked
below the sea’s surface in a ballistic missile submarine. When she heard
another member of her Fellowship class describe himself as “a soldier, a
father, and a Christian,” she was deeply moved. When her Fellowship
ended, Ghez helped establish an advocacy group that supports the fami-
lies of servicemen and servicewomen stationed in Iraq. “[My Fellowship]
experiences gave me a whole new respect for people who serve, and I take
those experiences with me,” Ghez said.

241