and welcome to another edition of gale force i have a very special guest today colonel kevin felix welcome thank you again thanks for coming on my shelf my pleasure we've a lot to talk about and i just met you so i'll be sort of learning as we go to i mean i know a little bit about you but why don't you explain first of all why you're in belmont because you're new comer and you've only been here yes just since december since july ok so i'm a army colonel i'm here for one year as a national security fellow at the harvard kennedy school and so my family we we moved here in july picked belmont probably the most important reason is the great schools but but what we found is the great community and it's been very welcoming very warm really heavy gauge a lot of different things my enjoy the community and also it sounds like some people who are here for a short time don't immerse themselves as much so is that from from traveling around so much you've kind of learned that that's what you need to do you know what i mean the transition  you have to become very resilient and i've done it my wife's done it it's a little bit it's a learning process for my kids transition to the schools a little tough we were in south carolina for three years and so it's part of the culture all we knew was one year but so you really don't have time to wait around to meet people you've got to get out there and and and do it and so we're part of the church we're part of the community we go ice skating and we just try to get out and do as many things as we can before south carolina where were you and for how long so you were there for three years yes and before that i was in washington in the pentagon on the joint staff and prior to that i was with one hundred first  airborne at fort campbell kentucky and a year there with operation iraqi freedom as a time commander ok so when you were at the pentagon your family moved to d c yes two years there and then moved on again and we enjoyed that there's lots to do there obviously again another transition another school that's really the biggest challenge but i think my kids are growing into it to understand that the opportunity as well as the challenge and meet new friends and new community so it's it's been very positive and though it will come out later on about resiliency even if i'm sure you see it now but as they get older that's when you often see it the most i think we get so we hope that we hope it works out that ok i have said to you so tell me a little bit about what you're doing at the kennedy school so in this national security fellowship if it's a program of twenty one personnel they come from all the different services as well as some of our department of defense defense intelligence agency and even some of our national labs sandia labs and others and so these folks have come together for one year and we have a great group they're really very very tight and we do a lot of things not only socially but as well as in the classroom and it's just a great opportunity i mean the kennedy school was is it's a place of public service but it's it  really supports the military and the campus really supports the military as well and as you know the recent announcement of the return of r t so you can ask you about that and so we as a military excited about it and i know the navy is excited because they're going to lead the way on that particular at that particular location and hopefully in the future the army and other services will fall see how long was  and the military in general is really blessed by the support that we received from from all communities and some some people are concerned about the distancing between american society in the military  today and that's that can be a challenge but having military folks at the kennedy school having r t c back there now or to seize across the nation really provide some of that linkage that linkage between the military in american society is also through our guard and reserve forces and so there's folks that leave here from from belmont and deploy and come back and sometimes unfortunately they pay  sacrifices as we've seen over the last couple months here in belmont right the little bit we were talking before about the connection between military and civilians and we're talking while i was talking to you about a program where we have sponsored soldiers soldiers angels we've done a whole show a few shows on that actually it seems like from my point of view that's one way i mean in that program you send letters and packages to  soldiers that's one way to kind of at least teach your children about connection and that these are real people you know who are fighting because it does seem like we have lost you know with what happens with i think that that true connection so i see what you're saying about our o t c and on college campuses but what about the average me you know how do you think one of the challenges that we face is that military service represents really one percent of the nation so that's that we are all here force we're proud of that and i think that's a strength but it's about again that connection you described and one of the ways we do it is through our our citizen soldier our guard reserve forces across massachusetts across new england across the country and so that's a very very important part of  of the total army and and so in the past they were considered what we call strategic reserve forces but more recently their operational because we're not we don't have them just to wait for something to happen they are in gauged today right their forces their equipment everything is is on par with with active duty forces so it's it's another strength of our of our military of our nation to have that and i think that's the that's where we see the greatest connection between society and the military is through those locations and through those people and through those small towns that we need to continue do to grow that right right i agree and they say it does cut that does make sense because you do whenever something especially when there's something in the news that occurs and you see them right there is that there throughout the community they're no different they're just want to have a quality life and raise their kids in a safe place as you would expect but they they do something else and it's just kind of a you know there is sacrifice there's a lot of giving time away i've had multiple deployments and that's tough on the kids it's really tough on my spouse carol and so and she says she's terrific  has grown in strength our relationship and the strength of our family but it's tough and i left with my my youngest was three three weeks old and i was blessed to be there birth i mean some people don't even get to do that so and when you come back from from a long time away from home it gives you an unbelievable perspective you don't want to be deployed but when you come back  things just there's nothing that's really hard anymore yeah and i kind of remark to my wife as we drive through the town or throughout the area and folks get excited about traffic and trying to get somewhere very quickly and beeping horns and and and it's it's i i always wonder where they're racing to but you know people are in a hurry to do things  but after a year away from your family to yours more things are just you just have a different perspective yes and so so you give in many ways but you also grow i mean an experience like this to go to the kennedy school be part of this this unbelievable institution i think harvard is really one of our national treasures great people great attitude great support and just as they  provide the folks that are in our program with an opportunity to to hear the other side learn from others get a greater perspective about not only what we're doing in the military but also what's going on in the world  and we can make better decisions as a result of that so so that people in your in the program you're there as an educator correct and a learner both yes actually i mean we i'm i mean some classes with freshman and harvard yard i mean some classes with you know graduates of twenty two twenty four years twenty six years old and i'm in some classes with folks seniors meet and and so it's a real melting pot of experiences and one of the responsibilities that we have is to tell our story and give perspective so that the others can as you say we're not only there to learn but we're there to instruct about the perspective that we have because many of the things we talk about the folks in the classroom have actually done it and so we were there when x happened  in iraq the war in afghanistan and so i think that enriches the class and so we're we're just excited to be part of it and blessed by just hearing what they think and then being able to share our experience and are know it's not by design right i mean there's no well military thing in the military we do know the percentage of it's been seen it's somewhere around you know plus or minus but twelve percent ten twelve right thirteen percent depending  grade so but so she's she is not representative in terms of percentages but she certainly carries her weight for more than one person yes she does well and so the group of you twenty one did you say yes are you from all over all over the sink we have folks from new mexico from san diego from they came from hawaii a lot from d c matts it's it's a pretty from colorado not only from the states but also from the experiences within those states we have air force folks that work on space issues intelligence folks from the marine corps  you do you know anybody did you don't any of these people had of time i know i did not so it's but we've really clicked and what's really great about it is we have guard and reserve folks and so we're learning all about that whole citizen soldier culture one of my good friends he he just got back from iraq as a battalion commander he had his welcome back ceremony on the u s s constitution with the governor that was pretty special and the next day he did a change of command out on the north bridge and so with the you know fife and drum and it was it was very he commands the oldest battalion in the army he did so it was very very historic brought the kids you know they had to see that kind of thing oh yeah and so everyone's from all over and have your lot their wives and kids and you do stuff together we do we've put together a number of different events to try to not only have an experience for the the officers but also for the spouses so we've done some team building events we've gone to the kennedy presidential library and we've gone out to dinner i mean we've done some historic as well as some went to the u s s constitution i want to tour private tour of the ship just to bring the team together and and that's kind of the way the military works you know you instant community  air force base others live in cambridge so we're all pretty close they must be about some of your prior experience during armed forces i'm just going by  you're very well decorated well said right so i mean just a little bit because you know your you know the kennedy school i just wondered in the past how you got in how you decided to serve  some of your experience because you've obviously been doing this a long time i just i kind of had a calling to do something in the military i was drawn to you know the brochures the discipline and the fact that you can play sports and you can be involved in many things the physicality of it and one of my dear friends his father had graduated from west point and so i talk to him a lot about  was closer to home and we i would not do it any differently i mean it was it was tremendous experience and then i got out and really i had a transformation while i was there i really wanted to just serve my commitment from the academy which is five years and i thought i was going to get out and i also i wanted to be a finance officer and going to banking and during four years there was just a bit of a transformation and i wanted to put all of that leader training to use so i decided to go into the combat arms field and and we love our finance officers but this is just planes anymore but still still the airborne heritage is there yeah so it's been a terrific opportunity again this whole giving grow movement taking your family places but with that comes opportunity all that growth that's involved from from so much giving so on balance you know i would just encourage many of the the young folks that are thinking about it too long to to think a little bit more talk to your folks and and you know be happy to talk to any of them because you know i want to i want to i want to learn about them tell my story but learn about them and understand what they're thinking about your son's express and other young but i kind of tease him about that but right now they're excited about playing sports riding bikes and i've been a kid  kid and maybe someday they will i think right now their experience is the military means that i have to leave my family and that's a tough right initial you know and over time they'll i think grow to appreciate the opportunities that we've had but right now it's it's really in the moment for them and so we try to make that moment a specialist boss yeah what if someone were to sing not speaking to people w not just army service or military service but you know public service and that's you know again why i'm so drawn to this the message from the kennedy school about what they're all about it's  terrific can you tell me a little bit about the other we're talking briefly about some of your other service that you do the run oh different kind of service yes i wanted to be involved again another one of these experiences of the boston area and so i wanted to run the boston marathon having done that for twenty seven years the first and last marathon i ran was as a senior west point i ran the marine corps marathon and so then big undertaking then it is it's my mid life crisis race but but but but it really what i wanted to do it and i saw i heard about the this charity that you can you can run for and there's a number of them i don't know if it's fifteen or so and the one that i'm involved in is i think a legacy charity called them team in training with leukemia lymphoma society and so i think we have about one hundred fifty or so there abouts folks that are involved every saturday we meet out of the wellesley community center and we do our long run last saturday was our twenty mile or so now we're going to scale it back i my goal my goal is to finish with dignity and this team is going to help me through that and i did find was here you we stopped at the twenty mile point which is just the beginning of heartbreak hill right so so whilst we went through some pain to get to that point and we did two of the three hills of newton there's still one more out there for us to experience so look forward to that but so we were just raising money to help out i'm also running for one of my officers take time away yes i mean he's gone through some treatments and some real some painful experiences and his and his soldier through them with believable dignity so that's the kind of thing that that motivates you know in a big i mean when you're when you're hit in one of those hills and newton i mean you just all it takes is to think about that in the end and you realize again you put everything in perspective it's made tremendous right that's understand why i leave every saturday morning for a couple of hours and come back and groan on my way up the stairs yeah what's wrong with daddy but i want to be part of it and understand it and they like to run fine example of service from the i mean it's all service but from the largest i mean you worked at the pentagon and you're running you know in newton so every it's all service right is that  i mean the two different types of service obviously but i think it's a fantastic example to your family everybody that you you know here you are you're not actively serving right now but you're still serving well  you never know when we're going to get the call to get back in the fight and so this is a great year for what we call taking a knee you know taking a breather from deployments from those type of things and give back to your family and do it in a really positive way i mean an experience like this at the kennedy school and just really being in the new england area my kids over the last   they again the the town of belmont's been super to us here and you know this is it's really a special place and pushing square is is is another one of these special places to be able to i think my wife and i have agreed to it you know you could really you never have to leave there there's so much going on and i'm in a good time because it's really it's from the hardware store to the to the ben franklins you can do pull adi's you can she can get her hair done and then elena's and she could get a donut and then go to lunch and then go to dinner and everything else and brothers pizza and all that but it's a great place and you can grab stuff at the consignment shop for your kids to go but it's it's it's very unique and the kids are really enjoying that too it's just traveling and down through there and say hello to the folks well it's nice to hear that from someone who is a true world traveler that you can also appreciate and maybe that's why you know you have even xx your appreciation by the things that the town has to offer like you're saying everything so fast and people sort of get this flurry and overlook the very simple things that are right there so it's it's nice that you are appreciating that in our town simple simple is really good and  down on the job often as well so that's that's part of it yeah you're very it would be great we have to stop in a moment but it be great to talk to you further have you i don't know if you've gone in the high school or i don't really know i know you just i think you're really great role model i've never met you so but i'm very i don't know if moved is the right word for you really great great role model and i think sometimes i mean we've talked about this a little bit on some of the shows on here about separating no matter political views or not that people are people are people and you're doing what you're passionate about and you fantastic example and i think sometimes that gets a little bit lost i'm sure you've experienced that but the military i mean could be thought of one way but it has nothing to do with the actual person right what i'm saying yes i we will get off this train one one day and and then be even more a part of a particular community right somewhere down the road you know we will settle our team down you know raise the picket fence around the house and here and figure out where that community is where we can be engaged in the even bigger way and anyway a more sustained way and so we're looking for that to book but while we're doing what we're doing continue to emphasize to my kids that you know seek the opportunity with this and and i know you've left your old friends but you're about to be make new ones and so enjoy that as well sounds like they have been we need to wrap up but i could talk to you wait longer and i'm sure you're well i want to thank you very very much for coming would love to have you back and dot maybe i'll end up here but thank you so much for coming on my show i really really contact me at w w w dot belmont media dot org thank you and you never know when