LTG (R) Flora D. Darpino engaged in mentorship with the 71st Graduate Course in a Q&A session with COL Robert J. Abbott, Director of the Leadership Center. (Credit: Billie Suttles, TJAGLCS)
Pivotal Perspective
A Q&A with Lieutenant General (Retired) Flora Darpino
On 28 March 2023, Lieutenant General (Retired) (LTG (R)) Flora D. Darpino, The 39th Judge Advocate General, delivered the Second Annual Kenneth Gray & Phyllis Propp-Fowle Lecture on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Her remarks touched on her upbringing, her career as a judge advocate, and the leaders she met along the way who had the courage to make meaningful change. To read these remarks, be sure to read the Military Law Review, volume 230, issue 4.
After her remarks, LTG(R) Darpino sat down for a question-and-answer session with the students, staff, and faculty at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. Colonel (COL) Robert J. Abbott, the Director of the Leadership Center, moderated the session. Throughout, LTG (R) Darpino shared the insights, struggles, and triumphs of a storied career. What follows is a transcript of that session.1
COL Abbott: Good afternoon, ma’am. Thank you again for being here today.
LTG (R) Darpino: It really is a pleasure to be back. I want to thank some folks that I know traveled to be here today. We have friends from Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and other places represented. I really appreciate having those faces in the audience. It helps calm me down. But then I would catch a look at General Nardotti, one of my idols, and I get all nervous again. So, it’s give and take.
COL Abbott:First of all, thank you again. The words of wisdom you provided and the powerful message you delivered today resonates with our audience and with the crowd. I know sometimes it is difficult to be vulnerable and to talk about your upbringing and some of the challenges you faced. But I was honored and I really appreciated your approach.
One of the things I thought was absolutely profound was your reference to the American dream. My question for you, ma’am, is, do you feel that the American dream is something that is actually achievable by members of this audience? Any advice for them as they pursue it?
LTG (R) Darpino:I think different people define the American dream differently. Sometimes that has to do with where you came from. My parents wanted us to be accepted, and that was achieved. I think we achieved that overall as a group. But, I think what you individually accomplish isn’t what’s most important. I think, since we are leaders, our responsibility is not inward looking as much as it is inspiring others to be able to achieve the full potential of what they are capable of. That is really what our focus needs to be as leaders. I think that if we lead correctly, we can lead everyone to be their very best. It is not easy. Some people do not react well to being pushed to be their very best. But if they know that it comes because you care about them, you really can inspire them. I have a daughter who is a fourth-grade teacher, and she has to do that with twenty-eight kids in her classroom every day. If she can do it with twenty-eight fourth graders, I challenge you to do it with the people that you have the privilege to lead, because that is what is required of great leaders.
COL Abbott:You mentioned the privilege of leadership, and I think that is a great way to put it. The Army defines leadership as influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization. What has been your most inspirational go-to throughout your career that led you to your tremendous success?
LTG (R) Darpino:First of all, I do not consider it my tremendous success. There is no way that you achieve anything as a member of Team Alone. What’s that saying? “There’s no ‘I’ in team.” I really believe you have to have your team lift you up. Maybe it’s your peers. In my first assignment, it was my fellow captains. We bonded together, protected each other, and, inspired each other to do well. It is never an individual achievement.
And I now realize that I forgot what the actual question was. [Laughter].
COL Abbott:What tips do you have to inspire and motivate our audience as they lead their teams?
LTG (R) Darpino:I honestly believe that you have to know those that you lead because you have to understand their individual capabilities. What that means is that you have to be vulnerable, because you have to be willing to talk to them in a genuine fashion. If you are just that hard piece of ice that stands before them and you are not vulnerable and they do not see you as a human being, then they are not going to share with you the things that they need to make them great. It can be something really easy that they need, but they are not going to share that if all they see is a block of ice. We’re taught to stand tall, square our jaws, and put our shoulders back. All of those things. But being genuine and making that connection with people is what really inspires them because then you know them. You know their capabilities. You know how to make them be better.
Major Olesea Roan, student, 71st Graduate Course:
Ma’am, we met when I was Lieutenant Olesea Collins. You really inspired
me. Now I want to ask what has changed after you broke the first glass
ceiling? When you spoke to us back then, I was so motivated to make it
through because I always felt like as a woman, I would not have a
chance. And now, what is the next challenge that we face as a Judge
Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps?
LTG (R) Darpino:I think the JAG Corps has great leadership. I really mean that. And I do not just mean the current leadership. It’s like I said earlier, throughout my career, I ran into great leaders that forced change, that understood that the system was not allowing people to reach their full potential. I think that as long as the JAG Corps and the Army continue to identify and assign those leaders, male, female, whatever they look like, wherever they are from, no matter how bad their Bostonian accent is, the JAG Corps will be fine. There is all this other noise out there. I’m not talking about the naysayers, but there is this other noise out there. We have got to build a new trial structure. We are going go to war with whomever. There is all this other stuff out there. But if the Corps itself, with the leadership, is strong, we will achieve our goals. We will achieve the mission because we will build the right people and put them in the right places. Then we cannot fail. I honestly believe that.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, we talked a lot about your upbringing and the values instilled in you by your parents. I found the part about always giving your best at whatever you do and being better than those around you particularly motivating. The third thing you also mentioned is that the people around you are always watching. Which of those three things focused you or drove you the most to continue to move forward throughout your career?
LTG (R) Darpino:I think they are a package deal. I am a storyteller, like a good Italian. We moved around a lot when I was young. My dad ended up being an agronomy major in college because he wanted to be a better farmer. Then he went into food processing. He worked in food processing plants. As he was promoted, we would move to a different town where he would run the factory or whatever it was he was going to do. One of these moves was to a rural town—we were always in rural places in Pennsylvania. For the first six months we lived there, not one person spoke to us. No neighbors, no one. We would be walking around and no neighbors, no one, spoke to us.
My father’s hobby is gardening. Those of you who know me know I do not have as much of a green a thumb as he does, but gardening is my hobby. Everywhere we lived, he had a huge patch to garden, because he missed having his hands in the earth. One Sunday he was out there working in his patch. Down our driveway, three town elders were walking towards him and he stood up. In his mind, he’s thinking, “Oh, my gosh, they have watched us. They have watched that I have raised my girls to be polite. They have watched that I am hard working. They have watched and now they are going to come and talk to me.” He takes off his gloves and they walk up to him and they say, “Mr. Darpino, we want you to know that we do not work on Sundays, and we prefer if you do not work on Sundays either.” My father takes a breath and just says, “That factory over there, that’s where I work. This is what I do as a hobby and to stay sane. But thank you for coming by and I look forward to getting to know you.” Eventually, having daughters that he raised right, who were polite, and being a good leader at the factory where the majority of men in the town worked, turned the tide for my father. Eventually, they did accept us. So it is the three together. He had to work harder to be considered equal, so on and so forth.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, you talk about the importance of always giving your best at everything you do. Was there ever a time when you were worried that your best might not be good enough?
LTG (R) Darpino:Anybody who knows me knows that is true. I did say of the TJAG appointment that I laid in bed for three days worried that I would fail. Then I would switch over to just raw anger, vacillating between the two. So yes, I think, and I know you all know as leaders, but that is part of being humble. If you walk into every situation thinking, “Oh, man, baby, I am going to be king,” that says something about you and it does not say anything good about you. You know you have to go in and learn that job. You know you have to trust the people around you. You know you have to build a new team. I mean, that is what the military is about. It is change, and adapting, and building new teams. You change continuously and with that is always that element of, “Oh, boy. Can I do this?” And so I cannot think of a time that I did not go into a job where I thought, “Will my best be good enough?” I just knew that it was what I had to do.
Brigadier General Jackie Thompson, Senior Defense Counsel, Office of
Military Commissions:
I want to ask this question for some of the young folks who are coming
up behind you. There are people here who think about family and what
they do in their personal lives. Now you have had such hard jobs. How
did you balance family and the Corps?
LTG (R) Darpino: Thank you, Jackie. I appreciate that. I think the honest answer is that I am not a mother alone. I hate to use the term, but I had a great teammate. Chris and I were parents together and we never viewed raising our children as my responsibility. We viewed it as our responsibility. And in order to be able to do that, we had to look at all of the tasks that needed to be accomplished and all of the wishes that we had, and we needed to prioritize what was important. And for the rest, we had to either contract it out or not do it.
For me, I will say there was a lot of guilt on occasion. My mother stayed home and she dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned the entire house every single day. I could not do that. I also could not let myself feel like a failure for not doing that, because that was not important. I think that is the hard thing about being dual military or being a single parent. It is accepting the fact that you cannot do everything and you have to give yourself permission to let some things go. That does not mean that you let your children down, or your parents down, or yourself down.
And so, I will try to get through this without crying. When I was a staff judge advocate (SJA) in Iraq as a colonel, I came back on rest and recuperation leave. It was around Christmas when I was leaving again and I felt like I was leaving my daughters. This was my second deployment. I left Chris there with girls in high school. I am beating myself up a little bit. I forget to follow my own advice. I get back to Iraq and I dump my bag out on my bunk. I find a note from my oldest daughter and what she says in the note is, “Mom, I know you feel really guilty about leaving us but you should not. You have been a great mom. We always knew you were there for us. We always knew you loved us. We always knew you would do anything for us. But you have also done the things that have made us proud to be your daughters, made us proud to have you as part of our family. We look up to you. So do not beat yourself up. You have given the best example that you could give your own daughters.” Now, I have saved two notes: the one where Chris told me he loved me in college, and that note because that was like they are telling me I have to listen; caution myself, as they say. So thank you, Jackie.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, if you look around this room, you see leaders from every Service and every rank. It is just a great collection of the future of our military. What would you say is the most powerful thing that they can take away from your comments today?
LTG (R) Darpino:You know, this is a Gray & Propp-Fowle chair lecture. I think the most important thing is that you, as leaders, really have to keep your eye open for opportunities to force change, but that is not enough. You have to have the courage to do so. You have to be willing to be the person who is going to push for that change, and know that the right people in the right jobs are going to change minds. Be not afraid to do what is right. Ask, just like—as I mentioned earlier—General Huffman asked for that battle roster. He did not know that someone was not going to take women, but he asked the right question and then he forced change. He did not ask, “Did you replace anybody?” He said, “Take your best. I know that is not your best.” Be prepared to force that change. That is your responsibility to every member of your team. Do not let them be overlooked.
COL Abbott:I think that is an extremely powerful mandate. The ability to impact change and to give everyone a voice and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be successful is important. But just as you did throughout your career, some of these individuals may run into some naysayers. When they run into those naysayers, what is your most powerful strategy to avoid getting caught up in the naysayers and staying focused on what you have to do?
LTG (R) Darpino:I feel like anybody that is of my generation could be asked that question. I am looking at folks in the audience. With the naysayers, you have to hear what they are saying, because you cannot ignore it. You have to hear what they are saying. And then, I think it really is helpful to try to understand why they feel that way. Because just to put out the hand and ignore it does not validate that individual’s being part of your team or outside your team. But if you understand why they feel that way, you then can impact change by showing them that their concerns are really not an issue.
Okay. Wow, that was convoluted. So let us just go to General Carey. General Carey knew that naysayers were out there saying that they did not want women on their team. He knew why that was; but, he did not ignore it. Instead, he sent that brigade paralegal non-commissioned officer down there—who was fantastic—knowing that that guy was going to have to either come to his office and give voice to why he did not want her, or, he was going to have to accept her. But if you do not understand the arguments that are out there, then you don’t have the ability to combat them. I think listening, but not letting them sway, is important.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, in the Leadership Center’s curriculum, we often talk about how attentive listening is a huge part of effective communication—the importance of not just listening to the words, but actually hearing what is being said. You can sit here and you can focus on what is being said in front of you. But if you are not paying attention to the details of what is being said, you may never really take away the message. I think that goes into what you were just saying. You have to hear what is being said and then make the decisions based on your best interest or the interest of the command or your client.
When you are looking at tough decisions with tough clients, we talk about principled counsel and being able to deliver those hard messages sometimes to clients who just are not interested in hearing what you have to say. I think you said it very well earlier. It was something to the effect of: “It is not the lawyer, it is the law.” What was your go-to for dealing with tough commanders or clients when you had to deliver difficult advice?
LTG (R) Darpino:First of all, I think you have to pick your moment, not pick your battles, because you have got to fight the battles that need to be fought. You cannot let something unethical slide. Those battles need to be fought, but you have to pick the right moment. I think judge advocates are extraordinarily lucky in that we have access. We’re often the fly on the wall. So, we hear those things, and then we know that we have the ability to address it because we have established ourselves as being honest, being creative thinkers, being problem solvers, that we can pick the right time. Typically, it is not, “Hey, sir, that ain’t right.” That is not what we do. That does not help us further the goal of having them do the right thing. It is very important that we find the right moment to do those things, and that’s done by being there and speaking their language.
LTG (R) Flora D. Darpino provided the Second Annual Kenneth Gray & Phyllis Propp-Fowle Lecture to the 71st Graduate Course in April 2023. (Credit: Billie Suttles, TJAGLCS)
First Sergeant Tiffany Diringer:Ma’am, what advice would you give to the leaders who are choosing people for positions where they are going to meet resistance and to ensure that leaders know that they are putting the right people in the right places?
LTG (R) Darpino:I am not so sure that my advice would be any different than advice I would give a leader when they were going to work for a tough boss. I will tell you this. I do not know if we have all heard the saying, “Every SJA needs an SJA.” You always need that person you can go to for advice. There have been occasions when somebody was going into work for a really tough, tough commander, and they would get that phone call. It would be from somebody who had already served with that person, and they would say, “Okay, this is the way it works. You walk in the room, you say something, and immediately they scream at you. All they are trying to do is to see if you are a scared rabbit. If you are a scared rabbit and you run away, you will never succeed with that guy. So, when they start to scream at you, you need to stand really tall and say, ‘I don’t think it works that way, sir. Here is what I think.’”
I would submit that you really have to handle this inequity-in-leadership challenge in the same way. You would have to say to that leader, “That’s a command where there have not been women before. I would not be surprised if they hit a lot of resistance.” It is your responsibility to make sure they know you understand that, that you are there when they need you, and that there is this back channel that they can always call when something happens. You need to be their backstop, even if you are not going to intervene, because they do not need your help, they just need your support. They can handle themselves, but you need to be there for them when they need you. That is what I would do. I hope I answered your question.
LTG (R) Flora D. Darpino and her husband, COL (R) Chris O’Brien, stand next to the newly unveiled display box in the regimental mess at TJAGLCS. (Credit: Billie Suttles, TJAGLCS)
Lieutenant General Stuart W. Risch:Many may not know that when General Darpino was TJAG and General Pede and General Wilson and I were one stars, she came to us and asked a question: “It seems like mentorship is not all that it should be within our Regiment. Should we start a formal mentorship program?” All of us were adamant in saying, “Absolutely not. It has got to be informal. People have to gravitate to the leaders that they want to come to.” Fast forward to where we are right now, I hope you all realize we are starting a formal mentorship program. Well beyond her time, she understood that.
Ma’am, in light of that, I’d ask you along the mentorship lines, especially in an environment where you may have been the only woman there, what was it like? To whom did you go to for mentorship? And, to tie it back to diversity, equity, and inclusion, who were those diverse leaders for you and the non-diverse leaders as well? Then, how did you flip the script when you were the leader seeking to be a mentor for others, as well?
LTG (R) Darpino:I guess he’s the big guy, so he gets to ask the really tough questions now. [Laughter].
Thank you, Stuart. You are correct. I had one female boss my entire career, and that was only for about eight months. So I only had male bosses. Some of my bosses, like General Odierno, were as big as a doorframe. His mere presence in a room commanded respect. You know, the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, same sort of thing. So I cannot emulate them because, well, I’m not going to go there. But, I can look at what they do as leaders. I can say that is what I think works. For example, General Odierno and General Austin are both incredible at making eye contact. That is something that I can do.
I do not think mentorship necessarily means that if you do not have mentors, you will not be successful. If you are introspective and you think about who you are and you look for attributes that you think will work for you as a leader. I cannot really say that I had mentors because I did not. Now, I did have Chris O’ Brien, but I did not have any senior mentors. It was based on that that I thought that it was my responsibility to help others. I had to find people that I saw promise in and I had to make sure I helped further their career.
What does that mean? It means each of you is a talent scout. You find those people that have great potential and then you help them reach and achieve that potential. It also means—and, I hesitate to say this—that there are some times where people need to be coached that maybe this life is not for them. That is a more delicate conversation, but it’s another important form of mentoring. Perhaps they are a great, great attorney, but this moving every two years and changing jobs is not what they want. I think you always have that responsibility to find those people, make sure that you help lead them to greatness, and continue to be a talent scout.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, very similar to that last comment about being a talent scout; other services call it sponsoring. In the Army, we’ve often called it being a champion for someone or being that voice in the room. When you’re looking for those individuals to champion and to be a talent scout for, at what point do you capitalize the conversation to get their name out there or to put their name before other leaders who may not otherwise recognize their talent? Or, is there a point that might be considered too far?
LTG (R) Darpino:I have never asked for someone to work for me. I have always been given whoever the JAG Corps sends. What I thought was important throughout my career was to get to know people and find that talent. If I continued to surround myself with people that were potentially like me and that I liked, I was not going to grow as a leader either. And so, I never asked for someone to work for me. But, throughout my career, when an opening was coming up and I knew someone who I think is really good for that job, I feel I have a responsibility to say, “You are starting the Leadership Center. I think maybe you ought to look at this guy, Abbott.”
COL Abbott:There are a lot of questions on that still, ma’am. [Laughter].
LTG (R) Darpino: Maybe I would say, “You have got to look at Abbott. You have got to look at Martin. You have got to look at Dunlap. These are folks that have that skill set.” That is my responsibility. As a leader, you have a responsibility to make the organization stronger. And so you must do that.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, obviously, the topic of our discussion today has covered a lot of bases, but the primary focus is diversity, equity, and inclusion. You talked about some of the extremely impactful decisions and advice you have given to your clients to further women in combat, to improve the foxhole for persons of color, and basically, to give everyone the same opportunities. Is there anything you’d recommend we particularly focus in on with our efforts, be it women in leadership positions or persons of color moving through the ranks? Or, is it just keeping that eye open for talent and making sure we put the right people in those jobs?
LTG (R) Darpino:I think that is a tough question. Thank you for that one. It is such a balance. It really is such a balance. Leadership itself, I mean. Some people believe you are born a leader. Are you born a leader? Can you learn to be a leader through training? There are all these debates surrounding the subject. I truly believe being a leader is about caring. It is about caring for the people that work for you. It is about caring for the mission. It is about trying to care about people’s success: your clients, the people who work for you, and your peers. I’ve always been the person who would prefer to be in the background making sure other people succeed. Being in the spotlight has always been dreadful for me. I do not like it; I get nervous.
Right. Where is this coming from? Where is this going? I think it is a balance. You really do have to figure out how to make sure that the right people are given the opportunity to succeed. Again, that goes back to knowing them. There are going to be some people out there who, because of their background, whatever that may be, have had to work so much harder than those around them and they really deserve to have that chance. You see them getting overlooked even though they have worked so hard to get where they are. If you know their talent, then you absolutely do have a responsibility. That goes back to caring about people and caring about the organization because you want everyone to be the best they can. You want to give them their opportunity. You also want to make sure that you are cultivating leaders for the future and not picking the same team every time. And so are the guys—you know I say, guys, I’m from the Philly area, so that means men and women—whose hand is going up all the time. What about the person in the back who’s a little quieter, but gosh darn it, they are good. Come on. It is your chance. I think it is a balance.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, I have one final question for you: since you have left the JAG Corps, what do you miss most about it?
LTG (R) Darpino:Oh, I think that that’s a pretty obvious answer. It is not the stage. No, it is all of you. That is what it was always about. It is always about the people. No matter what grade you are, no matter what you do, it is the people. I walk in this place and I am seeing lieutenants walk by, I am seeing majors, and I am like, “Oh, my God. I miss this.” I miss the talent. I miss the conversations. I miss my teammates. That is the hardest part about walking away. I do not necessarily miss the legal work. I do to some degree.
It is a team. I have been part of one of the greatest teams for thirty-plus years. Then, suddenly, they are like, “Go home to your husband. Have a good time.” Take advantage of this. Take advantage of that. We were, this weekend, with friends of ours that we made in the Basic Course. I mean, seriously, they are the ties that can never be broken.
COL Abbott:Ma’am, thank you so much for joining us today and spending the majority of your day with us. It’s been an honor.
Notes
1. This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.