February 11, 2025 • 54 mins
Traci Scott, communications strategist, author and public speaker, started her broadcasting career at just 16 years old with the Far East Network (FEN) in Japan. Since then, her career path has taken her from CBS News, Capitol Hill, and the Pentagon to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and advising more than a dozen Army generals and a cabinet secretary. She joins program host Dr. Chris Meek to describe how her love of country inspired her to go to Iraq in 2003, where she served as a civilian press officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority and later wrote a book, “Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before Putting on your Gas Mask: A Civilian Chick’s Guide to Surviving a War Zone,” about how coping with daily attacks, the loss of friends, and unideal living conditions, among other life lessons, taught her how to use wit, determination and perseverance to survive. She speaks candidly about how the lessons about leadership she learned in Iraq and other areas of life led her to create and develop a non-profit, The Green Dress Project, which mentors and prepares young women from underserved communities for their future careers.
About Traci Scott: Traci Scott was only 16 years old when she started her broadcasting career with the Far East Network (FEN) in Japan. Since then, her career path has taken her from CBS News, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, she has served as a key advisor to more than a dozen Army generals and a cabinet secretary. She later decided to transition out of broadcasting, moving to Congress where she first launched a communications office for a freshman U.S. Senator and subsequently generated a similar effort for an up-and-coming political candidate. In 2003, her love of country inspired her to go to Iraq, where she served as a civilian press officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Later, she was chosen to stand up the press office for the special inspector general for Afghanistan. In 2015, Scott was one of 60 leaders chosen from 1000+ applicants to participate in the first Presidential Leadership Scholars class. This prestigious program was founded by Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Those lessons in leadership led her to create and develop a non-profit, The Green Dress Project, which mentors and prepares young women from underserved communities, for their future careers. Scott was among the first to earn a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Political Management when it merged with the George Washington University in 1996. She graduated from Howard University with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1987.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
There are few things that make people successful.
(00:08):
Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some
time to get there.
How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you?
Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek.
Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.
(00:30):
Now here is Chris Meek.
Hello.
You've tuned in this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek.
As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us.
Next Steps Forward is committed to helping others achieve more than ever while experiencing
greater personal empowerment and wellbeing.
Our guest today is Tracy Scott, author of the captivating number one Amazon bestselling
book, Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before Putting On Your Gas Mask, A Civilian Chick's
(00:54):
Guide to Surviving a War Zone.
Tracy Scott was only 16 years old when she started a broadcasting career with the Far
East Network in Japan.
Since then, her career path has taken her from CBS News, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon,
to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most recently, she has served as a key advisor to more than a dozen army generals and a cabinet
secretary.
(01:14):
Tracy graduated from Howard University with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1987 and
was among the first to earn a master's degree from the Graduate School of Political Management
when it merged with George Washington University in 1996.
Tracy Scott, welcome to Next Steps Forward.
Thank you, Chris.
Thank you for having me.
Wow.
You read that introduction.
I'm like, I hope all of that still sticks.
(01:35):
Makes you sit up a little bit straighter, right?
Yep.
Yep.
Exactly.
I try.
And speaking of sitting up straighter, we were talking before the show and I mentioned how
this is always a show of firsts, and Tracy is the first guest we've had that's sitting
on three pillows.
So she's the right height for a camera.
So I appreciate the uncomfortable stance you're in right now, but we're glad you're here.
So thank you.
(01:55):
Well, if I slide off, Chris, I'll be the first guest that is sitting on your show.
We've got 50 minutes left, so hopefully that doesn't happen.
So Tracy, I can't wait to get to one of your favorite questions.
What's your war zone?
But first you have to share your incredible background story because that's going to set
up the rest of our conversation.
And I was about to say, let's start in Japan when you started your broadcasting career
(02:16):
with the Far East Network.
But take us back a bit further.
Tell us about your childhood and how you ended up in Japan at age 16.
Right.
Well, first of all, my dad was a Tuskegee airman and it was, I grew up on military bases.
I was born in the Azores, I was born in Portugal and we moved around to different places.
(02:37):
But the thing about my dad is that he, you know, the greatest generation, you know, people
from that World War II era, they didn't talk about what they did.
So I didn't grow up knowing exactly what my dad did and who he was until towards the end
of his life.
(02:58):
And here's one of the most, it kind of smacked me in the head.
So my dad died in 2000.
And before he passed, he was living in Kansas City, Missouri, and a reporter did a story
about his life as a Tuskegee airman.
And unfortunately, I found out a lot through that story because daddy just didn't talk
about it.
And so I remember getting a call after he died and somebody was saying, questioning
(03:24):
him being a Tuskegee airman and his age.
He died at 72.
And so I turned to my mom and I was like, yeah, mom.
And she said, well, your dad was 14 when he got into the program.
And I'm like, oh my goodness.
So Chris, I want you and your listeners to imagine this.
My dad, he loved to fly.
(03:44):
He loved everything about flying.
He was living in Fort Worth, Texas.
And I just imagined him at the age of 14.
I gathered information that he took a bus.
He got on a bus by himself.
And you think about it, his stepmother probably handed him a little paper bag with a sandwich
(04:04):
in it, a piece of chicken and some foil.
And he rode through the South by himself.
He probably sat in the back of the bus too.
He had a good chance, 1940s.
And he rode by himself at any given moment from Fort Worth to Tuskegee, Alabama.
Somebody could have got on the bus and snatched him off the bus.
(04:25):
So first of all, here he is.
His dream is so big.
He's not going to let anything get in the way of it.
And he makes it to Tuskegee and he gets there and they're like, son, you're a little bit
too young.
But they allowed him to stay at Tuskegee to take classes until he was 16.
(04:47):
And so then he learned to fly at 16 years old.
Now here's the real killer.
So he goes through the whole program.
He's about ready to get his wings pinned on him.
And they gave him a physical and they found out he was colorblind just before he got his
wings.
So they had to kick him out of the program, the flying part of the program.
(05:09):
So instead of completely kicking him out of Tuskegee Airmen's Airmen program, they made
him a ground crewman.
He ended up being a ground crewman for Ben Davis, who was in charge of the Tuskegee Airmen.
And to put the bow on the story, when I worked for CBS News, General Davis came into CBS
to do an interview.
And I was like, okay, I believe my daddy, but okay.
(05:32):
So here's General Davis, the leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, standing there in front of
me.
And I said, General Davis, do you know the name Jesse Scott?
He said, yeah, I know Jesse.
I'm like, oh my gosh, here's the leader of the program.
He knew right off the bat.
And I'm like, you know, that story's like that.
(05:53):
When I hear them and when I've talked to other airmen and people who knew him, it really,
it really, that's, I hate to say it, it's after all of his glory that I'm finally like
oh my gosh, daddy, what did you do?
What did you do?
So and the sad part in that is if you look through the annals and all of the other paperwork
(06:15):
that say Tuskegee Airmen, he's not there because he washed out of the flying program.
But I sent your staff a photo of him standing next to a well-known general, General Charles
McGee, who we celebrated a couple of years ago.
And so it's like, okay, I know what you did, daddy.
I kind of have an idea.
But that's where I learned perseverance and all the other stuff that has helped me to
(06:41):
be the person that I am today.
Well, you started off that part by talking about how he was part of the greatest generation
and you just going through his entire experience.
So A, chasing his dream at 14 years old, which is unfathomable.
My wife and I, our youngest son will be 13 next month.
That's why I can't imagine him a year from now hopping on a bus during that time with
(07:02):
racial issues and to your point, potentially being snatched up.
And he also, to your point, was chasing that dream.
And so this was in the post-depression era where the sky's the limit, let's go.
And thank you for your family service and sacrifice.
And I'm glad I get the chance to tell that story again to this network so people know
Jesse.
And so they'll put a little Photoshop of him in there in the team photo for the Tuskegee
(07:27):
Airmen.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
Well, let's get back to your broadcasting career.
How'd you get your start at age 16 and what was your first story and how'd you get that
big break?
Oh, well, I have nothing but stories, but so my mom and dad divorced, but daddy was
all in my life all the time.
And when my mom remarried, she remarried back into the Air Force.
(07:51):
And so it so happened that my stepdad, Papa Sergeant Joe Jones, he was stationed overseas
to Japan.
We were living in Arizona at the time, and then moving to Japan was like a total crusher.
I was like, I don't even know where Japan is, okay.
And at the time I was 15, and we moved to Japan, and I started to get integrated in
(08:14):
high school, got busy.
And one of the girls that I knew, well, first, let me back up.
In Japan, they had what was known as the Far East Network.
And that was the network that the military services used to broadcast on.
So the Air Force had their five-minute news, the Navy had their five-minute news, the Army
(08:34):
had their five-minute news.
And so when I was in school, a friend of mine was the youth announcer for the Air Force.
So the Air Force would do their newscast, talk about all the Air Force happenings, and
then some kid would come on and say, hey, in the high school, it's prom this week or
it's homecoming, and they just kind of talk about the happenings.
So one day, her name happens to be Tracy as well.
(08:56):
So one day I went to her, I was like, how did you do this?
How are you doing this?
She said, well, funny, I'm about ready to go give it up because I got to play field
hockey.
Do you want to do it?
I was like, okay, sure.
So it was part of the public affairs department for the Air Force at Yokota Air Force Base
in Japan.
So my very first paid job was for the Air Force, for the military, working on their
(09:19):
staff.
And the best story out of this was that I would get on, just do the news, okay, here's
what's the football game is this week.
Well, the sergeant, I'll never forget his name, Sergeant Kevin Ron, he had to leave
to go to Korea for maneuvers.
And he said, Tracy, you know, I've got to go away for a few weeks.
(09:41):
We got these maneuvers in Korea.
Why don't you do the newscast while I'm gone?
I'm like, what?
A five minute newscast and technology then is not like it is now.
So I literally was like, okay, so the public affairs team helped to write the script and
I would go over it.
(10:01):
But I had to put the newscast together.
I got in the booth.
He taught me the basics of how to record it.
And back then there was tape.
You know how the reel to reel tape.
So I would record something.
And if I messed up, I'd have to take a razor blade, cut the tape, splice it together, and
(10:23):
then do the broadcast.
It took me hours, Chris.
It took me hours to put together a five minute newscast.
It was terrible.
I still have a high school career.
But then when I figured it out, I was like, okay, I got this.
So I started doing the news for the Air Force on FBN radio.
And the sergeant came back, he said, Tracy, you're doing such a good job with this.
(10:44):
Just keep it.
Just go ahead and do the whole broadcast.
I was breaking all kinds of rules.
I wasn't in the Air Force.
I was then 17.
I was 16, then going into 17.
And I was broadcasting for the Air Force.
It was like, wow.
But I learned the very basics about how to put a newscast together, the technical part
(11:05):
of it.
And then the broadcasting, my voice and all of that, I kind of just learned on my own.
So that's how my broadcast career started at 16 years old.
Did you have any interest in journalism before that?
Or was this just an accidental, okay.
Yes.
Yes.
My dad, daddy, when I was growing up, daddy used to make me watch the news starting at
the age of five.
(11:26):
And so I was like, oh, this is, but he would make me watch the news.
And as I got older and things happen, for instance, I remember Watergate and the trials
related to Watergate.
I think I was like nine years old.
And my mom was like, you got to pay attention to this.
Okay.
Okay.
I don't know what they're talking about.
Okay.
But then as I got older, and this is, this is, bear with me for this story, Chris, real
(11:48):
quick.
So daddy used to make me watch the Sunday talk shows, Meet the Press, Face the Nation,
because he and mom had divorced.
But every Sunday, daddy would say, call and say, okay, did you watch Meet the Press today?
Did you watch Face the Nation?
And I would say, yeah, daddy, I watched it.
Okay.
So what did you hear?
I was like, well, this man said this, but this man said this.
And he would say, no, sweetheart, you have to listen past what they're saying.
(12:13):
They are saying something, but they're saying something more than what's actually coming
out.
There is something behind what they're saying.
So he gave me this ear at 10, 11 years old.
I didn't know it, but I became very comfortable with politics.
So I'll put the bow on the end of the story.
Fast forward to when I was in Howard University.
(12:34):
I got an internship.
My internship was at CBS News.
Guess where I eventually entered?
Face the Nation.
And daddy was alive so he could see it.
So here, I don't think he would have ever dreamed him telling his daughter to watch
the news and then one day be a part of that.
That's awesome.
(12:54):
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Let's dig a little deeper here.
You've covered presidential elections, hurricanes, and other major stories during the journalism
chapter in your career.
What was the most intense or memorable story you ever reported on and why?
Well, I wasn't on air, but in 92, CBS had me cover the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign.
(13:19):
And I covered the Gore half of the campaign.
And there was a thing they used to call boys on the bus.
The boys on the bus, these seasoned reporters who covered presidential campaigns, they were
old hands at it.
And so the networks decided they didn't want to spend as much money.
So they got young people like me who they could send out to cover it real cheap.
So I was covering the Gore half of the Clinton-Gore campaign.
(13:42):
And that was just majorly intense.
You're with the candidate 24-7.
But during a trip to, I can't remember where I was flying.
But New York called and said, hey, we need you to drop off the Gore campaign and pick
up the Quayle campaign, Vice President running for Vice President Quayle.
And so I was like, OK, I had to figure it out.
(14:03):
They didn't give me directions.
So I'm in Florida and I got to figure out how to meet the Quayle team.
So we get on, meet up with the Quayle team, figured it out.
Right in the middle of that, I get a call from New York again.
They're like, hey, Tracy, there's a hurricane coming.
And we need you to drop the Quayle campaign and go meet Dan Rather at an airport in Florida
to be his, to work with him and be his assistant during Hurricane Andrew.
(14:27):
Now, if you remember back in 92, Hurricane Andrew was one of the most destructive hurricanes
that we had had in a while.
And so that I always have, I have a story for everything, Chris, but getting to meet
Dan Rather at a hurricane was, that was pretty crazy.
When they told you, when New York called and they said, you better meet Dan Rather, you
(14:50):
better have your butt there.
So I literally had to get a rental car and drive from Northern Florida to the Southern
part.
I was driving a hundred miles an hour.
And I thought if the police pulled me over, there's no way they're going to believe, yes,
I got to go meet Dan Rather, they're not going to believe the story.
(15:12):
But I literally did, I'm flying down the highway going against the traffic because everybody
was coming North, I'm going South.
I literally passed the police car and I'm like, oh my God, that's it, he didn't even
stop me.
And I think he probably thought, oh my gosh, if she's doing this fast to go, I'm not even
going to stop her.
So when we get, I meet Dan and I literally am with Dan Rather as his assistant.
(15:36):
And we have a producer and it's just the three of us chasing Hurricane Andrew.
And Dan is known, he kind of made a name for himself years ago when he was the anchor,
before he was anchor, for covering hurricanes.
And when we got down to the hurricane, Dan would literally, we were at a telephone kind
of a broad, an area, it was like, I think AT&T building.
(16:00):
He would go out and he'd stand out there and on the, like a section where the, that he
could broadcast from, and the wind and the rain would just choo, choo, choo, choo, choo.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
And at one point somebody said, Tracy, we need you to write something for Dan to say
and then hand him the script.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
I think I was more scared that I had to write for Dan than to go out and hand him the script
(16:27):
and this rain and wind.
So we got through that.
And then we chased the hurricane from Florida to Louisiana, which meant that they rented
a Lear jet for us to fly from Florida around the hurricane to beat it in Louisiana.
(16:49):
And when we were flying, you could look out the window and see this.
And I'm like, oh my God, what are we doing?
But the scariest moment came when we were in Louisiana and we were driving to try to
find a place to broadcast for the night.
And so part of my job was when Dan is doing a live broadcast, I was to get his script
(17:13):
together.
I was on the phone with New York.
And this is not ideal conditions.
We are out here.
It's wet.
It's nasty.
I'm trying to get the script off the printer, trying to figure out, New York is telling
me what page goes next.
And I was about ready to throw something away and something said, no, don't throw that piece
of paper away.
Then New York would call and say, put that back in, put that back in.
(17:34):
So it's just craziness.
But at one point we had Dan said, Tracy, we're going to go to a hotel.
I want you to stay at the hotel.
And then Wayne, the producer will come back and get you while I go do some shots.
And I said, okay.
So I woke up the hotel.
There was no power.
There was nothing.
The storm was just wicked raining.
(17:56):
Wayne, the producer got me and we were driving from the hotel to where Dan was doing some
standups.
A power line snapped and hit the car.
And I was like, oh my God, we're going to get electrocuted.
We're going to get electrocuted.
And he was trying to drive and not have that live wire actually hit something to electrocute
(18:22):
the car.
And I think that at that moment, I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know if we're going to
make it.
And so we did get through it and we got there and then we went through the rest of the trip.
And Dan at that time, oh my gosh, he took care of me like I was his daughter.
(18:44):
But that I think at that point, that was probably the most harrowing thing I went through outside
of when I was in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's a hell of a story.
It was great.
I loved it though.
Now it was great.
Back then, not so great.
So you made a big career change when you went to work on Capitol Hill in DC.
(19:05):
Was it a case of wanting to leave journalism or was it more that you were attracted to
public service?
Well at that time, and I hate to, it's almost like the movie Forrest Gump, when Forrest
Gump is running and he's running and then one day he stops and he's like, I'm done.
So I, again, you know, I started out at 16 and I wanted to be on air and I finally made
(19:28):
it when I was working at CBS News, they had a reporter training program.
So I went to Las Vegas and I ended up being on TV in Las Vegas.
And I had my whole life dreamed of being on TV.
And I got out there and being on TV in Vegas was fun.
First of all, it was a great place to be on TV, I had tons of stories on that.
(19:50):
But one day I had to cover, I had to cover a plane, a helicopter accident.
And it was one of these ambulance helicopters where they were transporting a patient and
it crashed in the desert.
And the one thing I hated about being a reporter was going to somebody's door, knocking on
the door of a family whose loved one had just died.
(20:14):
I hated that so much.
And one day, well, when this helicopter died, I went to go knock on the, it was a male nurse
and I went to go knock on his family's door and a lady opened the door and I said, you
know, I told her who I was.
And I said, you know, I'm sorry about your loved one.
And she said, it's not me, it's my best friend.
And I was like, okay.
I said, I don't have to talk to you, but I was walking back to the truck and this woman
(20:38):
comes out, she's like, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, and she was holding a picture.
And she said, this is my husband.
And I said, I am so sorry.
And the next thing I know, she grabbed me and started bawling on my shoulder.
I mean, just, I mean, her body was shaking.
And I said, you know what?
I can't do this anymore.
I can't.
I just can't handle all of the emotion because I'm an emotional person.
(21:04):
So I soak it up.
So at that point I said, you know, I had a master's degree from GW at that point.
And I said, I'd rather, let me start looking into politics.
The next thing I know, there was a guy running for Senate in Las Vegas, Nevada.
And I used to say terrible things about him on TV, because I used to get on the air and
(21:24):
I was like, well, there goes Congressman Sosa just put his foot in his mouth again.
He just said this.
So his campaign approached me and they said, you know, we're really tired of the way that
you trash John on TV.
So the only way we can stop you is to hire you as his spokesperson.
I was like, well, okay, that sounds good.
(21:44):
So I switched from on TV to working for, at that time it was a Senator, John Enson from
Nevada.
And like I said, I'd done politics, done the TV thing.
And now I was like, okay, let me do this.
But the one thing that, and it will go into the next story that we will discuss here in
(22:04):
a second, John used to always tell us that we had a responsibility to serve our country.
We have so many wonderful benefits as being Americans and from being from this country
and this country has done so much for us.
We need to do our part to give back no matter what it is.
(22:25):
And that stayed with me from day one.
And I know we'll get into it in just a second, but what he said about giving back to this
country really, that resonated with me a bunch.
I just want to go back for a minute here.
You referenced Forrest Gump and I'm laughing in my head as you're telling your stories
(22:47):
because he was sort of the accidental guy that was always there for every big event.
And as you're telling your stories, I'm like, run Forrest, run.
I'm telling you, that's the beauty of my life.
I'm a nobody that has seen a lot and been there.
And I was talking with some students last night and I said, I've met just about every
(23:08):
president since Jimmy Carter.
And it is just, I've been in some moments that are like, wow, I can't believe I'm watching
this take place.
This is amazing.
I can't believe that I'm here in this place.
So I'm sure we'll get to some of that as we go, but yes, it is definitely a Forrest Gump
kind of thing.
(23:28):
It was very funny.
I'm sorry you said that.
I'm like, that's exactly it.
So Tracy, you were working on Capitol Hill when the 9-11 attacks happened, obviously
September 11th, 2001.
What was that day like for you?
Who were you working for and how the attack on the Pentagon, especially, and the threat
to capital might be hit affect you?
Well, I guess we share, this is a moment where we're going to share, Chris, because we both,
(23:53):
you more so than me, were impacted on 9-11.
And on September 11th, I was working for Senator John Enson.
I was his spokesperson.
I was his communications director.
And if you will remember that day, in New York, I'm not quite sure what it, remember,
but in Washington, DC, it was a gorgeous Tuesday.
(24:15):
It was beautiful.
The sky was blue, even though it was September, it wasn't cold yet.
It was just such a beautiful day.
And I always got to the office, I worked in the Russell Building on Capitol Hill.
And my job was to get there, go through the news clips, and then when the senator came
in to brief him, if there was, we had a staff meeting and I would brief him on something
(24:39):
that was going on.
And so I usually got to the office about seven in the morning.
And I got there and just, we were all kind of, I had the TV on in the background and
was watching.
And the news reports that some dude hit the tower with a plane.
I'm like, how do you not see that?
(25:00):
And then the second plane, and it's like, okay, something's up.
And Chris, I'm amazed by what you went through, but if you don't mind, if we could just step
away for a second, what was that like for you that day?
Awful.
Yeah.
We've talked, or we'll get into it again a little more, but I've said many times on here
(25:21):
that I've worked for the majority of my career within blocks of ground zero, and it took
me 17 years to go back because I finally self-diagnosed myself with PTSD.
So I get it.
And I want to touch on the point you made or the comment you made regarding the blue
sky.
I'm working on a separate project right now regarding 9-11, which will be public in exactly
(25:41):
a month from today.
But everyone you talk to in the country, anyone that I've talked to, everyone says that day,
no matter where they were geographically, was a crystal clear blue sky.
And then there's this plume of smoke that was there for weeks.
And so I understand what you went through, and thank you for that and for sharing that.
(26:05):
And I don't even know what we're talking about next.
Yeah.
Well, again, you're right.
That whole day was just from the absolute best to the worst, just like Charles Dickens.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
And I remember when the second tower hit, the plane at the second tower, I called John.
(26:27):
I was like, Senator, I was like, you probably should get in here, there's something happening.
And he came in to the office and we were both watching the smoke engulf the towers.
And I turned to him and I said, John, those towers can't handle that.
They're not going to be able to stand.
(26:49):
In seconds, the first tower fell.
And he looked at me and I was like, oh my God, what about the people that went in to
rescue people?
And then at that time, somebody came through the Russell building and started screaming,
get out, get out, get out.
(27:09):
And I think the Pentagon might've been hit at that point or something, but it's kind
of mushy in my head.
But I remember the police officers, the Capitol Hill police were running in, get out, get
out.
There's a plane headed for us.
There's a plane headed for us.
And because John is a Christian man, he grabbed me, his chief of staff and his legislative
(27:30):
director.
Now his legislative director, Pam, was pregnant.
And we were like, Pam, don't you dare have that baby right now, because she was literally
eight months pregnant.
And the crazy thing, her husband was a speechwriter for Rumsfeld.
And she came and she's like, I've called him, I can't reach Mark, I can't reach Mark.
(27:51):
And we didn't know.
And again, the Pentagon had been hit at that point.
And so he made a stand in a circle and he prayed.
And he said, Lord, we don't know what's going on, but make it stop, divinely intervene.
Please divinely intervene.
And I remember that.
And then we later learned that the plane that was hit in Shanksville was headed for the
(28:13):
Capitol.
And so it's crazy.
And we walked outside, eventually went outside.
And it was just a mass of people from the Hill just standing.
They didn't know, we didn't know what to do.
We didn't know if the plane was headed for us.
The thing that was so scary was not knowing what was going to happen next.
(28:41):
And then we evacuated the senator, we're like, okay, so we got to get you to a safe spot.
So I knew at that point, I had to go into work mode.
It was my job to be his spokesperson.
And somebody once told me that the best spokesperson is always right near the senator and knows
what their principal is thinking and going to say.
(29:01):
So I stayed with him.
And then we had another person with him.
And then it was just the three of us.
We worked together the entire day.
And I kept getting calls from reporters.
So I had to get on the phone, as scared as I was, as nervous as I was, I was on the phone
with media.
Okay.
Yes, this happened.
I was with the senator.
(29:22):
He's okay.
He's all right.
Everything's okay.
All day long.
So I didn't have time to process everything that was going on until afterwards.
That's how most of us were.
Yeah.
And as a follow up to that, I think it was 2005 or six, I was working in a building in
Lower Manhattan.
It was one Liberty Plaza and we were at the 50th floor and that was the top floor of the
(29:45):
building.
It's like one of the last buildings on the tip of Manhattan.
And you heard this plane buzz by.
And then it buzzed by again.
And I remember calling my wife thinking that was it.
And what happened was there was a former New York Yankee who was in a small personal plane
and he just lost control of the plane and ended up crashing into the river.
(30:06):
But I had that deja vu all over again.
Like I'm on the top of this building and it's one of the things sticking out on the tip.
It's easy to find because there's nothing else down here now.
So I can relate to all of that.
You talked about what the senator said that resonated with you in terms of volunteering
and public service.
Why did you choose public service and not the military?
(30:26):
Well, of course, because of my dad's experience being a Tuskegee airman and my stepfather
being in the Air Force, they didn't want me to get in.
And I can partly understand it because when I did eventually end up in Iraq, knowing how
what I went through changed me.
(30:48):
Thank God my personality was already formed by the time I went to Iraq, because if I'd
have been 18, 19 and getting into the military, it probably would have shaped my personality
that I would have.
You see me.
I'm gregarious.
I laugh.
I love to joke.
That's just me.
I don't think I would have developed and held on to that had I joined the military at such
(31:13):
a young age.
But I just, dad, he just had a tough time.
He just had a really tough time.
And so, and of course, my mom wasn't going to stand for it.
Shirley Jones was not going to stand up for any of this.
But I, you know, the Lord had me where he wanted me to go and, you know, he guided me
(31:36):
and I kind of like, okay, God, what are we going to do next?
Your plan is better than mine, but, you know, but daddy didn't say I couldn't serve.
And he was gone by the time I went to Iraq, thank goodness, because I don't think he would
have been able to handle it at all.
So you didn't officially serve, you didn't join the military, but you actually volunteered
(31:59):
to go to Baghdad, excuse me, at the height of the fighting and bloodshed, even though,
as you said, you weren't a soldier and you weren't a nation builder or rebuilder.
Why did you think you needed to be in a war zone in the very midst of the US invasion?
Well, you know, it goes back to, I guess, service is in my DNA because of my dad.
(32:20):
And the words of Senator Enson just kept going through my head that, you know, it's your
duty to serve.
If you love this country, then you got to do your part.
And as I said in the book, I don't know how to shoot a gun.
I kind of know how to shoot one now.
And I don't know how to rebuild a country, but I have a special skill set.
I know how to communicate.
I know how to tell stories.
(32:41):
And I said, kind of in the back of my head, I also have this terrible thing where I like
to be in the middle of action.
I guess that's why I was a TV reporter in the first place.
But it wasn't until somebody reached out to me after 9-11.
I was over, this was 2003, and after the war broke out in Iraq, and I was working on the
(33:02):
House side.
I went from the Senate to the House because I was helping Nevada members.
And I was working there and remember watching Shock and Awe, the night of Shock and Awe,
when we first hit Iraq.
And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's crazy.
And then a while later, somebody reached out to me that I had met at the Pentagon.
(33:23):
And they said, Tracy, we need your help.
We need people in Iraq to help tell our story because the communicating of what the rebuilding
in Iraq was starting to be wasn't coming across.
The story wasn't getting told.
And so this person at the Pentagon said, we need your help.
Would you come to Iraq?
And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
(33:45):
And then the thing that really set me in to the point where it was like my father's determination.
I was watching, there was a bombing and one of the main people in Iraq was killed.
And I remember Ambassador Bremer lost his friend and forgive me for getting who it was
(34:06):
right now, but I'm sure somebody will correct me.
I remember turning on the news and watching Ambassador like in tears because his friend
died.
And I thought, you know what, nobody's going to want to go over there now.
And because nobody wants to go, then I have to go.
It's you know, firefighters, they go in when everybody's running out.
(34:26):
I'm not a firefighter.
I'm not a police officer, but I'm going to use some of the courage that the good Lord
gave me and I'm going to go on faith and I'll do my part.
And I hope I come home, but I just had that determination to go help where I could.
So when you deployed, you were assigned to the green zone, which was supposed to be a
(34:49):
secure US perimeter, but certainly wasn't safe there.
First describe the green zone for us.
How big was it and how often did it come under attack?
Oh my gosh.
Well, first of all, the green zone was about a two to three mile radius around.
And the reason they called it the green zone to remind your listeners is because when you
were in the green zone, your weapons were off, green off.
(35:13):
That means you didn't have to have your pistol on pistol on fire or your weapon on fire when
it was on fire, turn red.
So when you went outside of this area, and as I was there, the worse the attacks became,
the more cordoned off the green zone was.
So it had not, you have to remember Saddam Hussein had this area where he had a couple
(35:37):
of palaces.
Saddam Hussein had palaces all over the country, but within the green zone, he had a couple
of different buildings that were like different palaces, but they had this really big one.
And so in the green zone, it was like a self-contained city in this two mile area.
And we had the combat air support hospital, the cash.
(36:01):
We had the main building headquarters that we worked out of the palace, and that's where
everybody was headquartered.
And so our office in this big, it kind of looked like a mini Capitol because there was
a dome on top and it stretched out to look, so if you can imagine the US Capitol.
(36:22):
And so we had, before I got there, before they built little trailers and stuff for people
to stay in, people, different rooms that would have cots and everybody was in the same room.
And now I want to point this out to show you how rugged this was.
And again, people in the military that were out in the field had it so much worse than
(36:48):
we did.
But when I first got to, arrived in Iraq, they didn't have any plumbing that worked.
So we were in the palace, the plumbing did not work.
And everybody eventually got Saddam's revenge.
Everybody got some kind of gastrointestinal thing.
And I cannot describe how disgusting it was to walk into a bathroom where nothing flushed
(37:14):
for weeks and you had to, that's what you had to use.
But it was worse for the guy out in the field or the woman out in the field who had to dig
a hole and hope they didn't get shot while they were using the bathroom out in the field.
So there were layers of, oh my gosh, this is bad, this is bad.
But there was always worse.
And people will ask me, how did I prepare before I went to Iraq?
(37:37):
I didn't.
I didn't have any training.
And they were so desperate to get people out there right away and to get us there quickly.
They didn't train us.
They just said, here's your ticket, go.
So I kind of had to mentally, okay, Tracy, this is a war zone, you're going to probably
see some bad stuff, you might see people killed, and you can psych yourself into that.
(37:58):
But it's nothing like when you really, really face it.
And I tell people, one of the chapters in my book that we'll talk about is, one of the
chapters is, is war is hell.
When you're going through hell, keep going.
It's the Winston Churchill quote and Tecumseh Sherman mixed together.
(38:20):
And when you first get there, when I got there, it was like, oh my, okay, well, and when we
got on the bus to go from the airport to the green zone, it was about a six to eight
mile trip from the airport to the green zone.
That was one of the deadliest roads in the world.
(38:43):
And when we got on the bus, they said, don't look out the window, the curtains are down
to protect you.
Of course, you know, I did.
I'm sitting there like, what?
This is the first time I want to see what it looks like.
I got to peek through the hole.
You're not supposed to do that.
We could get shot.
But we made it.
And my first impression was, wow, it's pretty dusty here.
(39:05):
And it's, it's, it's yuck.
But when I was able to travel around the country in my work, and one of, let me back up, one
of the things that used to annoy me so much is there were reports that, that we in the
green zone that worked for the, the CPA, the coalition of provisional authorities, never
traveled outside the green zone.
I used to hate that because we had people that were going out all the time.
(39:28):
I knew I went out on several occasions to fly different places.
So that was a, that was a misnomer.
But when I flew around Iraq, what shocked me was how beautiful, how beautiful it was.
We would fly over groves and groves of, of, of palm trees.
(39:50):
And I was like, oh my gosh, this is.
And then we, as we flew up, we would fly up to Mosul.
There's this lake that was the most uncanny color of blue.
And I was like, this is the Iraq that people don't see.
That's the good part.
By the time you left Iraq, you were experiencing post-traumatic stress.
What kind of support or treatment did civilian government workers receive?
(40:12):
And was it the same that our troops received?
For me, it wasn't.
And I, again, I have to preface this.
The military member's job is to go to war.
They need every bit of support they can get.
They are in it all the time.
They're in it at a worse level than I ever faced.
(40:32):
They deserve everything, any kind of support that they can get.
But for me, when I came back, I, I didn't, I knew that I wasn't right.
And so I tried to explain to somebody, unfortunately, in the Washington area, as we're doing this
recording, about a couple of weeks ago, there was a plane that crashed into the Potomac
(40:56):
River as it was landing, and it was hit by a helicopter.
And I talked to somebody recently, and I said, you know, this is, it's terrible what happened.
But in Iraq, every day, that happened every day.
Somebody was dying every day.
And it's, you're talking to somebody, and then two or three hours later, they're dead.
(41:19):
You can only absorb so much grief before you, you just, you just stop.
You stop the grieving process.
And I told somebody, I said, you know, when you, when something happens, you get a little
numb, you may, you feel that buzz from being numb.
That was gone.
Because day after day, and I was there for nine months the first time.
(41:44):
And again, the soldiers that made six, seven deployments where they were going through
this and they're really in it, they, I give my heart to them for what they went through.
But when I came back, I didn't realize that I was bad until I was, I went down, I got
(42:06):
home around the 4th of July, which is my favorite holiday in the summer.
And I came back to DC and I wanted to go running down the mall and the Washington DC mall on
the 4th of July just to do something.
So I went for a jog.
And I heard this explode, what I thought was an explosion.
(42:27):
And I was like, oh my God, somebody has blown themself up on the 4th of July on the mall.
Oh my God.
It was thunder.
It was just a clap of thunder.
And then I was like, okay, there's something wrong.
And then sadly enough, my mom was stricken with cancer while I was in Baghdad.
(42:48):
So I had to fly home and come back.
And then she made me go back to the war zone.
And she died about a year and a half after that.
So I was hit with about as much as I could be hit with.
And I just shut down.
I was mean.
And I would have these horrible dreams.
(43:08):
Horrible dreams.
And at one point, it was the same recurring dream that I was in a plane crash and I was
in a helicopter crash.
And the helicopter crashed and we were trying to run and the insurgents were chasing.
It would recur to the point where I didn't want to go to sleep.
I was afraid because I'd have that same dream.
But when I came back home and when I realized what was going on, I didn't want to tell anybody.
(43:30):
And I think as I wrote my book, I think everybody already knew.
But what helped me was we called the people that I was with, the little group I was with,
we called ourselves the Iraq Pack.
And there was about 20 of us.
And so I would get on the phone or I'd reach out and say, hey, you guys, did y'all hear
that thunder?
Because it totally freaked me out.
And so we depended on each other.
(43:53):
But then the thing that really got me was writing.
That's why I wrote my book.
I wrote to get it out of me, to deal with the PTSD, because that was my cathartic way
of dealing with it.
So again, I didn't really have therapy and prayer.
(44:15):
I prayed a lot.
I learned to pray a lot.
And that's, I think, what helped me to heal.
The more we talk, the more similar we are.
The first chapter of my book is about my experience.
And that was my, I wrote during COVID, it's a small book, but chapter one is about my
day on 9-11.
And it was my way of putting pen to paper.
And they always talk about journaling for mental health.
And so that was it.
(44:36):
So I can totally appreciate that.
And I could talk to you for hours.
Unfortunately, we only have 52 minutes.
So without delaying any longer, let's talk about your book.
You say, quote, we all have war zones.
That's a provocative statement.
What does that mean?
Why do you ask people, what's your war zone?
When you think about a war zone, it is this thing that is so intense and so rattling and
(45:06):
so explosive, that thing that you could die from.
And so when I was at a book signing a couple of months ago, I was trying to explain to
people, well, what is your book about?
What is your book about?
And I turned to a lady.
I said, what's your war zone?
What is your war zone?
(45:28):
And I said, is it cancer?
And she said, well, yeah, I had cancer.
And I said, and you survived, right?
And she's like, yeah, I survived it.
So I start and then I kept asking people through the course of the day, they kept saying the
same thing.
And then there's this one lady who came to me and she said, she says, what is your book
(45:51):
about?
And I asked her the same thing.
And I said, when I asked her what her war zone was, she said, I'm from Israel.
And I was like, oh, God, I'm so sorry.
And next thing we know, we both were crying.
And the thing about a war zone, as earth shattering as it is, if you can make it through, you'll
(46:15):
come out better on the other side.
It's that survival.
It's the journey to survive is where the growth comes from, and hopefully you'll heal and
get better.
And that's what happened to me.
I think I'm a better person now than when I went into that war zone in Iraq.
(46:38):
And you said you've never sought formal treatment or anything like that?
No.
Again, birds of a feather.
Yep.
See, you get it.
You get it, Chris.
So before we run out of time, the title of your book is Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before
Putting on Your Gas Mask, A Civilian Chick's Guide to Surviving a War Zone.
Two questions.
First is, where can people find your book?
And the second question is, are those the gold hoop earrings you wore when you went
(47:01):
to combat?
Yes.
You can get it on Amazon, and it's Tracy Scott.
Just put in, take off your hoop earrings, and it'll pop right up.
Amazon.
I don't have the audio version of it out, but you can get an audible, and you can get
it paperback, hardback.
And yes, I did wear these hoop earrings to a war zone, and the title comes from when
(47:22):
I had to go through gas mask training, and I was so tired, and I went to put on my gas
mask, and my friend was like, Tracy, you gotta take off your hoop earrings before you put
on your gas mask.
But the life lesson is, Chris, life is a process.
Life is a process, and you have to follow the process, and you have to go through your
war zone.
(47:43):
But if you follow the process that life has to offer, and you make it through your war
zone, you will come out stronger and better on the other side.
And I think a second life lesson is always be ready to accessorize gold hoop earrings.
Well, the part I left out is when I showed up, and the generals are like, what the hell
are we supposed to do with her?
She showed up here wearing hoop earrings, what is this?
(48:06):
But I will tell you that if you read the book, all of those generals, I fell in love with
them.
I fell in love with every one of them.
And just to clarify for listeners and viewers, it's Tracy with an I, Scott, so we can get
the right Google search there on Amazon.
Tracy, we're huge fans of Dana Perino here at Next Steps Forward.
She's been a guest on the podcast.
She's a subject of a chapter in my upcoming book.
You have your own Dana Perino story that speaks volumes about her and reinforces our affection
(48:30):
for her.
Would you share that story with our audience?
Absolutely.
She may not remember this, but years ago when I was at the Pentagon, I had to go to the
White House for some meetings.
And strangely enough, the meetings were in the White House Situation Room because we
were discussing some very serious issues.
So I remember when I showed up, OK, first of all, it's the White House.
I'm intimidated.
(48:50):
All right.
Then it's the Situation Room.
I'm like, oh, my gosh, I just I just I'm glad to be here, but I'm scared to death.
And so we got into the room and I just went to the end of the table and I was like, well,
I'll just sit here and just listen.
And if they need to hear from me, then I'll just I'll just be quiet until then.
I can't tell you how intimidating it is to be in this place where how many people get
(49:13):
to go to it.
So I'm sitting in there just trying to breathe and in walks Dana Perino.
And she walked around the table, passed everyone.
She kind of said hello to a couple of people.
She came to the end of the table and she came to me.
She put out her hand.
She said, hi, my name is Dana Perino.
How are you?
Oh, my gosh.
She was already White House spokesman.
(49:34):
Everybody knew who she was.
But she came because she she must have I must have had a neon sign on my forehead.
I'm scared.
I'm scared.
I can't believe I'm here.
And she walked over and she said, hi, my name is Dana.
I'm Dana Perino.
How are you?
I'm like, but instantly it made me calm down.
(49:56):
And she she saw me.
She saw me.
And she with class came over and put me at ease.
And I will always think highly of her.
Again, she probably will never remember it, but I will remember it the rest of my life
that she was kind enough and aware that, hey, there's somebody in the room that's probably
(50:17):
she's probably scared.
So I'm going to go talk to her.
And I appreciate it for the rest of my life.
So you were in the inaugural class of the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program,
which was co-founded by both President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton.
Hats off to you, because I've applied a couple of times and gotten negged both times.
(50:37):
But that led you to starting a nonprofit called the Green Dress Project.
Yes.
Tell us about that, please.
And how can people support it?
Well, the Green Dress Project came actually from President Bush.
If you remember, years before there was some when he was president, there were some girls
on a sports team.
I think it was I can't remember lacrosse or something.
(50:58):
They showed up to the White House.
And one of the girls, they're like, we're flip flops.
And it became like a national story because these girls were flip flops to the White House.
And I was like, when I when I got in the Presidential Leadership Program, my project was just an
idea.
And I thought, what about these young girls who don't have somebody in their life to tell
(51:22):
them how to dress to go to the White House?
And then it expanded.
Well, wait a minute.
I know when I started out at CBS News, nobody told me how to work at CBS News.
My parents, they were never in the news business.
They didn't teach me.
So I created the Green Dress Project to help young girls make the transition from school
(51:42):
to the workplace or from high school to college, from high school to the workplace.
If you were working at Walmart, if you were working anywhere, if you were going to a boardroom
or if you're going to go work for a Fortune 500 company straight out of college, it helped
them to make the transition.
And so I'm not going to give you the name, the reason for the color green, but green
(52:04):
means go.
Green means you're new.
It means you're green.
You're new to the situation.
And it's based on four pillars.
It was developing soft skills, developing a financial plan, developing how to dress properly
at work and developing values.
First of all, you need to have good values when you start your work career.
(52:26):
And so it grew from there.
Now, the sad part is it's in abeyance right now.
I didn't tell you, but before I moved to where I am right now, I was living in a rental house
and the ceiling collapsed and I lost all of my stuff.
And then the attic where I had all my Green Dress Project stuff located was ruined because
(52:49):
of a road infestation.
So I've lost my entire history.
I've lost everything, Green Dress Project.
Thank goodness though, a woman has reached out to me and we're going to start it all
over again.
So there is a Facebook page, the Green Dress Project, but it's in abeyance right now until
I can restart it.
And we were supposed to meet this week, but due to some weather stuff, I couldn't make
(53:12):
it.
But thank goodness there's somebody who's interested in helping me to start it all over
again because young girls really need to know how to be prepared and mostly avoid career
ending mistakes.
And I will tell you, one of the pillars that we had to work on was social media.
(53:33):
Oh my goodness, some of these young ladies and men are putting things that will stick
with them forever.
And I had to add a new pillar based on that alone.
We helped them to figure out finances and all of that.
Tracy Scott, author of Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before Putting on Your Gas Mask,
A Civilian Chick's Guide to Surviving a War Zone.
(53:54):
Thank you so much for being with us.
It was an absolute pleasure and honor.
I really loved the conversation today.
I loved it.
And Chris, thank you for having me and thank you for being such a wonderful person.
God bless you for all you're doing.
No, thank you.
I appreciate that.
I'm Chris Meek.
We're out of time.
We'll see you next week.
Same time, same place.
Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
(54:15):
Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward.
Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time
and 1 p.m. Eastern Time on The Voice America Empowerment Channel.
This week, make things happen in your life.
(54:44):
I'm Chris Meek.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
There are few things that make people successful.
(00:08):
Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some
time to get there.
How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you?
Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek.
Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.
(00:30):
Now here is Chris Meek.
Hello.
You've tuned in this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek.
As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us.
Next Steps Forward is committed to helping others achieve more than ever while experiencing
greater personal empowerment and wellbeing.
Our guest today is Tracy Scott, author of the captivating number one Amazon bestselling
book, Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before Putting On Your Gas Mask, A Civilian Chick's
(00:54):
Guide to Surviving a War Zone.
Tracy Scott was only 16 years old when she started a broadcasting career with the Far
East Network in Japan.
Since then, her career path has taken her from CBS News, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon,
to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most recently, she has served as a key advisor to more than a dozen army generals and a cabinet
secretary.
(01:14):
Tracy graduated from Howard University with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1987 and
was among the first to earn a master's degree from the Graduate School of Political Management
when it merged with George Washington University in 1996.
Tracy Scott, welcome to Next Steps Forward.
Thank you, Chris.
Thank you for having me.
Wow.
You read that introduction.
I'm like, I hope all of that still sticks.
(01:35):
Makes you sit up a little bit straighter, right?
Yep.
Yep.
Exactly.
I try.
And speaking of sitting up straighter, we were talking before the show and I mentioned how
this is always a show of firsts, and Tracy is the first guest we've had that's sitting
on three pillows.
So she's the right height for a camera.
So I appreciate the uncomfortable stance you're in right now, but we're glad you're here.
So thank you.
(01:55):
Well, if I slide off, Chris, I'll be the first guest that is sitting on your show.
We've got 50 minutes left, so hopefully that doesn't happen.
So Tracy, I can't wait to get to one of your favorite questions.
What's your war zone?
But first you have to share your incredible background story because that's going to set
up the rest of our conversation.
And I was about to say, let's start in Japan when you started your broadcasting career
(02:16):
with the Far East Network.
But take us back a bit further.
Tell us about your childhood and how you ended up in Japan at age 16.
Right.
Well, first of all, my dad was a Tuskegee airman and it was, I grew up on military bases.
I was born in the Azores, I was born in Portugal and we moved around to different places.
(02:37):
But the thing about my dad is that he, you know, the greatest generation, you know, people
from that World War II era, they didn't talk about what they did.
So I didn't grow up knowing exactly what my dad did and who he was until towards the end
of his life.
(02:58):
And here's one of the most, it kind of smacked me in the head.
So my dad died in 2000.
And before he passed, he was living in Kansas City, Missouri, and a reporter did a story
about his life as a Tuskegee airman.
And unfortunately, I found out a lot through that story because daddy just didn't talk
about it.
And so I remember getting a call after he died and somebody was saying, questioning
(03:24):
him being a Tuskegee airman and his age.
He died at 72.
And so I turned to my mom and I was like, yeah, mom.
And she said, well, your dad was 14 when he got into the program.
And I'm like, oh my goodness.
So Chris, I want you and your listeners to imagine this.
My dad, he loved to fly.
(03:44):
He loved everything about flying.
He was living in Fort Worth, Texas.
And I just imagined him at the age of 14.
I gathered information that he took a bus.
He got on a bus by himself.
And you think about it, his stepmother probably handed him a little paper bag with a sandwich
(04:04):
in it, a piece of chicken and some foil.
And he rode through the South by himself.
He probably sat in the back of the bus too.
He had a good chance, 1940s.
And he rode by himself at any given moment from Fort Worth to Tuskegee, Alabama.
Somebody could have got on the bus and snatched him off the bus.
(04:25):
So first of all, here he is.
His dream is so big.
He's not going to let anything get in the way of it.
And he makes it to Tuskegee and he gets there and they're like, son, you're a little bit
too young.
But they allowed him to stay at Tuskegee to take classes until he was 16.
(04:47):
And so then he learned to fly at 16 years old.
Now here's the real killer.
So he goes through the whole program.
He's about ready to get his wings pinned on him.
And they gave him a physical and they found out he was colorblind just before he got his
wings.
So they had to kick him out of the program, the flying part of the program.
(05:09):
So instead of completely kicking him out of Tuskegee Airmen's Airmen program, they made
him a ground crewman.
He ended up being a ground crewman for Ben Davis, who was in charge of the Tuskegee Airmen.
And to put the bow on the story, when I worked for CBS News, General Davis came into CBS
to do an interview.
And I was like, okay, I believe my daddy, but okay.
(05:32):
So here's General Davis, the leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, standing there in front of
me.
And I said, General Davis, do you know the name Jesse Scott?
He said, yeah, I know Jesse.
I'm like, oh my gosh, here's the leader of the program.
He knew right off the bat.
And I'm like, you know, that story's like that.
(05:53):
When I hear them and when I've talked to other airmen and people who knew him, it really,
it really, that's, I hate to say it, it's after all of his glory that I'm finally like
oh my gosh, daddy, what did you do?
What did you do?
So and the sad part in that is if you look through the annals and all of the other paperwork
(06:15):
that say Tuskegee Airmen, he's not there because he washed out of the flying program.
But I sent your staff a photo of him standing next to a well-known general, General Charles
McGee, who we celebrated a couple of years ago.
And so it's like, okay, I know what you did, daddy.
I kind of have an idea.
But that's where I learned perseverance and all the other stuff that has helped me to
(06:41):
be the person that I am today.
Well, you started off that part by talking about how he was part of the greatest generation
and you just going through his entire experience.
So A, chasing his dream at 14 years old, which is unfathomable.
My wife and I, our youngest son will be 13 next month.
That's why I can't imagine him a year from now hopping on a bus during that time with
(07:02):
racial issues and to your point, potentially being snatched up.
And he also, to your point, was chasing that dream.
And so this was in the post-depression era where the sky's the limit, let's go.
And thank you for your family service and sacrifice.
And I'm glad I get the chance to tell that story again to this network so people know
Jesse.
And so they'll put a little Photoshop of him in there in the team photo for the Tuskegee
(07:27):
Airmen.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
Well, let's get back to your broadcasting career.
How'd you get your start at age 16 and what was your first story and how'd you get that
big break?
Oh, well, I have nothing but stories, but so my mom and dad divorced, but daddy was
all in my life all the time.
And when my mom remarried, she remarried back into the Air Force.
(07:51):
And so it so happened that my stepdad, Papa Sergeant Joe Jones, he was stationed overseas
to Japan.
We were living in Arizona at the time, and then moving to Japan was like a total crusher.
I was like, I don't even know where Japan is, okay.
And at the time I was 15, and we moved to Japan, and I started to get integrated in
(08:14):
high school, got busy.
And one of the girls that I knew, well, first, let me back up.
In Japan, they had what was known as the Far East Network.
And that was the network that the military services used to broadcast on.
So the Air Force had their five-minute news, the Navy had their five-minute news, the Army
(08:34):
had their five-minute news.
And so when I was in school, a friend of mine was the youth announcer for the Air Force.
So the Air Force would do their newscast, talk about all the Air Force happenings, and
then some kid would come on and say, hey, in the high school, it's prom this week or
it's homecoming, and they just kind of talk about the happenings.
So one day, her name happens to be Tracy as well.
(08:56):
So one day I went to her, I was like, how did you do this?
How are you doing this?
She said, well, funny, I'm about ready to go give it up because I got to play field
hockey.
Do you want to do it?
I was like, okay, sure.
So it was part of the public affairs department for the Air Force at Yokota Air Force Base
in Japan.
So my very first paid job was for the Air Force, for the military, working on their
(09:19):
staff.
And the best story out of this was that I would get on, just do the news, okay, here's
what's the football game is this week.
Well, the sergeant, I'll never forget his name, Sergeant Kevin Ron, he had to leave
to go to Korea for maneuvers.
And he said, Tracy, you know, I've got to go away for a few weeks.
(09:41):
We got these maneuvers in Korea.
Why don't you do the newscast while I'm gone?
I'm like, what?
A five minute newscast and technology then is not like it is now.
So I literally was like, okay, so the public affairs team helped to write the script and
I would go over it.
(10:01):
But I had to put the newscast together.
I got in the booth.
He taught me the basics of how to record it.
And back then there was tape.
You know how the reel to reel tape.
So I would record something.
And if I messed up, I'd have to take a razor blade, cut the tape, splice it together, and
(10:23):
then do the broadcast.
It took me hours, Chris.
It took me hours to put together a five minute newscast.
It was terrible.
I still have a high school career.
But then when I figured it out, I was like, okay, I got this.
So I started doing the news for the Air Force on FBN radio.
And the sergeant came back, he said, Tracy, you're doing such a good job with this.
(10:44):
Just keep it.
Just go ahead and do the whole broadcast.
I was breaking all kinds of rules.
I wasn't in the Air Force.
I was then 17.
I was 16, then going into 17.
And I was broadcasting for the Air Force.
It was like, wow.
But I learned the very basics about how to put a newscast together, the technical part
(11:05):
of it.
And then the broadcasting, my voice and all of that, I kind of just learned on my own.
So that's how my broadcast career started at 16 years old.
Did you have any interest in journalism before that?
Or was this just an accidental, okay.
Yes.
Yes.
My dad, daddy, when I was growing up, daddy used to make me watch the news starting at
the age of five.
(11:26):
And so I was like, oh, this is, but he would make me watch the news.
And as I got older and things happen, for instance, I remember Watergate and the trials
related to Watergate.
I think I was like nine years old.
And my mom was like, you got to pay attention to this.
Okay.
Okay.
I don't know what they're talking about.
Okay.
But then as I got older, and this is, this is, bear with me for this story, Chris, real
(11:48):
quick.
So daddy used to make me watch the Sunday talk shows, Meet the Press, Face the Nation,
because he and mom had divorced.
But every Sunday, daddy would say, call and say, okay, did you watch Meet the Press today?
Did you watch Face the Nation?
And I would say, yeah, daddy, I watched it.
Okay.
So what did you hear?
I was like, well, this man said this, but this man said this.
And he would say, no, sweetheart, you have to listen past what they're saying.
(12:13):
They are saying something, but they're saying something more than what's actually coming
out.
There is something behind what they're saying.
So he gave me this ear at 10, 11 years old.
I didn't know it, but I became very comfortable with politics.
So I'll put the bow on the end of the story.
Fast forward to when I was in Howard University.
(12:34):
I got an internship.
My internship was at CBS News.
Guess where I eventually entered?
Face the Nation.
And daddy was alive so he could see it.
So here, I don't think he would have ever dreamed him telling his daughter to watch
the news and then one day be a part of that.
That's awesome.
(12:54):
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Let's dig a little deeper here.
You've covered presidential elections, hurricanes, and other major stories during the journalism
chapter in your career.
What was the most intense or memorable story you ever reported on and why?
Well, I wasn't on air, but in 92, CBS had me cover the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign.
(13:19):
And I covered the Gore half of the campaign.
And there was a thing they used to call boys on the bus.
The boys on the bus, these seasoned reporters who covered presidential campaigns, they were
old hands at it.
And so the networks decided they didn't want to spend as much money.
So they got young people like me who they could send out to cover it real cheap.
So I was covering the Gore half of the Clinton-Gore campaign.
(13:42):
And that was just majorly intense.
You're with the candidate 24-7.
But during a trip to, I can't remember where I was flying.
But New York called and said, hey, we need you to drop off the Gore campaign and pick
up the Quayle campaign, Vice President running for Vice President Quayle.
And so I was like, OK, I had to figure it out.
(14:03):
They didn't give me directions.
So I'm in Florida and I got to figure out how to meet the Quayle team.
So we get on, meet up with the Quayle team, figured it out.
Right in the middle of that, I get a call from New York again.
They're like, hey, Tracy, there's a hurricane coming.
And we need you to drop the Quayle campaign and go meet Dan Rather at an airport in Florida
to be his, to work with him and be his assistant during Hurricane Andrew.
(14:27):
Now, if you remember back in 92, Hurricane Andrew was one of the most destructive hurricanes
that we had had in a while.
And so that I always have, I have a story for everything, Chris, but getting to meet
Dan Rather at a hurricane was, that was pretty crazy.
When they told you, when New York called and they said, you better meet Dan Rather, you
(14:50):
better have your butt there.
So I literally had to get a rental car and drive from Northern Florida to the Southern
part.
I was driving a hundred miles an hour.
And I thought if the police pulled me over, there's no way they're going to believe, yes,
I got to go meet Dan Rather, they're not going to believe the story.
(15:12):
But I literally did, I'm flying down the highway going against the traffic because everybody
was coming North, I'm going South.
I literally passed the police car and I'm like, oh my God, that's it, he didn't even
stop me.
And I think he probably thought, oh my gosh, if she's doing this fast to go, I'm not even
going to stop her.
So when we get, I meet Dan and I literally am with Dan Rather as his assistant.
(15:36):
And we have a producer and it's just the three of us chasing Hurricane Andrew.
And Dan is known, he kind of made a name for himself years ago when he was the anchor,
before he was anchor, for covering hurricanes.
And when we got down to the hurricane, Dan would literally, we were at a telephone kind
of a broad, an area, it was like, I think AT&T building.
(16:00):
He would go out and he'd stand out there and on the, like a section where the, that he
could broadcast from, and the wind and the rain would just choo, choo, choo, choo, choo.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
And at one point somebody said, Tracy, we need you to write something for Dan to say
and then hand him the script.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
I think I was more scared that I had to write for Dan than to go out and hand him the script
(16:27):
and this rain and wind.
So we got through that.
And then we chased the hurricane from Florida to Louisiana, which meant that they rented
a Lear jet for us to fly from Florida around the hurricane to beat it in Louisiana.
(16:49):
And when we were flying, you could look out the window and see this.
And I'm like, oh my God, what are we doing?
But the scariest moment came when we were in Louisiana and we were driving to try to
find a place to broadcast for the night.
And so part of my job was when Dan is doing a live broadcast, I was to get his script
(17:13):
together.
I was on the phone with New York.
And this is not ideal conditions.
We are out here.
It's wet.
It's nasty.
I'm trying to get the script off the printer, trying to figure out, New York is telling
me what page goes next.
And I was about ready to throw something away and something said, no, don't throw that piece
of paper away.
Then New York would call and say, put that back in, put that back in.
(17:34):
So it's just craziness.
But at one point we had Dan said, Tracy, we're going to go to a hotel.
I want you to stay at the hotel.
And then Wayne, the producer will come back and get you while I go do some shots.
And I said, okay.
So I woke up the hotel.
There was no power.
There was nothing.
The storm was just wicked raining.
(17:56):
Wayne, the producer got me and we were driving from the hotel to where Dan was doing some
standups.
A power line snapped and hit the car.
And I was like, oh my God, we're going to get electrocuted.
We're going to get electrocuted.
And he was trying to drive and not have that live wire actually hit something to electrocute
(18:22):
the car.
And I think that at that moment, I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know if we're going to
make it.
And so we did get through it and we got there and then we went through the rest of the trip.
And Dan at that time, oh my gosh, he took care of me like I was his daughter.
(18:44):
But that I think at that point, that was probably the most harrowing thing I went through outside
of when I was in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's a hell of a story.
It was great.
I loved it though.
Now it was great.
Back then, not so great.
So you made a big career change when you went to work on Capitol Hill in DC.
(19:05):
Was it a case of wanting to leave journalism or was it more that you were attracted to
public service?
Well at that time, and I hate to, it's almost like the movie Forrest Gump, when Forrest
Gump is running and he's running and then one day he stops and he's like, I'm done.
So I, again, you know, I started out at 16 and I wanted to be on air and I finally made
(19:28):
it when I was working at CBS News, they had a reporter training program.
So I went to Las Vegas and I ended up being on TV in Las Vegas.
And I had my whole life dreamed of being on TV.
And I got out there and being on TV in Vegas was fun.
First of all, it was a great place to be on TV, I had tons of stories on that.
(19:50):
But one day I had to cover, I had to cover a plane, a helicopter accident.
And it was one of these ambulance helicopters where they were transporting a patient and
it crashed in the desert.
And the one thing I hated about being a reporter was going to somebody's door, knocking on
the door of a family whose loved one had just died.
(20:14):
I hated that so much.
And one day, well, when this helicopter died, I went to go knock on the, it was a male nurse
and I went to go knock on his family's door and a lady opened the door and I said, you
know, I told her who I was.
And I said, you know, I'm sorry about your loved one.
And she said, it's not me, it's my best friend.
And I was like, okay.
I said, I don't have to talk to you, but I was walking back to the truck and this woman
(20:38):
comes out, she's like, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, and she was holding a picture.
And she said, this is my husband.
And I said, I am so sorry.
And the next thing I know, she grabbed me and started bawling on my shoulder.
I mean, just, I mean, her body was shaking.
And I said, you know what?
I can't do this anymore.
I can't.
I just can't handle all of the emotion because I'm an emotional person.
(21:04):
So I soak it up.
So at that point I said, you know, I had a master's degree from GW at that point.
And I said, I'd rather, let me start looking into politics.
The next thing I know, there was a guy running for Senate in Las Vegas, Nevada.
And I used to say terrible things about him on TV, because I used to get on the air and
(21:24):
I was like, well, there goes Congressman Sosa just put his foot in his mouth again.
He just said this.
So his campaign approached me and they said, you know, we're really tired of the way that
you trash John on TV.
So the only way we can stop you is to hire you as his spokesperson.
I was like, well, okay, that sounds good.
(21:44):
So I switched from on TV to working for, at that time it was a Senator, John Enson from
Nevada.
And like I said, I'd done politics, done the TV thing.
And now I was like, okay, let me do this.
But the one thing that, and it will go into the next story that we will discuss here in
(22:04):
a second, John used to always tell us that we had a responsibility to serve our country.
We have so many wonderful benefits as being Americans and from being from this country
and this country has done so much for us.
We need to do our part to give back no matter what it is.
(22:25):
And that stayed with me from day one.
And I know we'll get into it in just a second, but what he said about giving back to this
country really, that resonated with me a bunch.
I just want to go back for a minute here.
You referenced Forrest Gump and I'm laughing in my head as you're telling your stories
(22:47):
because he was sort of the accidental guy that was always there for every big event.
And as you're telling your stories, I'm like, run Forrest, run.
I'm telling you, that's the beauty of my life.
I'm a nobody that has seen a lot and been there.
And I was talking with some students last night and I said, I've met just about every
(23:08):
president since Jimmy Carter.
And it is just, I've been in some moments that are like, wow, I can't believe I'm watching
this take place.
This is amazing.
I can't believe that I'm here in this place.
So I'm sure we'll get to some of that as we go, but yes, it is definitely a Forrest Gump
kind of thing.
(23:28):
It was very funny.
I'm sorry you said that.
I'm like, that's exactly it.
So Tracy, you were working on Capitol Hill when the 9-11 attacks happened, obviously
September 11th, 2001.
What was that day like for you?
Who were you working for and how the attack on the Pentagon, especially, and the threat
to capital might be hit affect you?
Well, I guess we share, this is a moment where we're going to share, Chris, because we both,
(23:53):
you more so than me, were impacted on 9-11.
And on September 11th, I was working for Senator John Enson.
I was his spokesperson.
I was his communications director.
And if you will remember that day, in New York, I'm not quite sure what it, remember,
but in Washington, DC, it was a gorgeous Tuesday.
(24:15):
It was beautiful.
The sky was blue, even though it was September, it wasn't cold yet.
It was just such a beautiful day.
And I always got to the office, I worked in the Russell Building on Capitol Hill.
And my job was to get there, go through the news clips, and then when the senator came
in to brief him, if there was, we had a staff meeting and I would brief him on something
(24:39):
that was going on.
And so I usually got to the office about seven in the morning.
And I got there and just, we were all kind of, I had the TV on in the background and
was watching.
And the news reports that some dude hit the tower with a plane.
I'm like, how do you not see that?
(25:00):
And then the second plane, and it's like, okay, something's up.
And Chris, I'm amazed by what you went through, but if you don't mind, if we could just step
away for a second, what was that like for you that day?
Awful.
Yeah.
We've talked, or we'll get into it again a little more, but I've said many times on here
(25:21):
that I've worked for the majority of my career within blocks of ground zero, and it took
me 17 years to go back because I finally self-diagnosed myself with PTSD.
So I get it.
And I want to touch on the point you made or the comment you made regarding the blue
sky.
I'm working on a separate project right now regarding 9-11, which will be public in exactly
(25:41):
a month from today.
But everyone you talk to in the country, anyone that I've talked to, everyone says that day,
no matter where they were geographically, was a crystal clear blue sky.
And then there's this plume of smoke that was there for weeks.
And so I understand what you went through, and thank you for that and for sharing that.
(26:05):
And I don't even know what we're talking about next.
Yeah.
Well, again, you're right.
That whole day was just from the absolute best to the worst, just like Charles Dickens.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
And I remember when the second tower hit, the plane at the second tower, I called John.
(26:27):
I was like, Senator, I was like, you probably should get in here, there's something happening.
And he came in to the office and we were both watching the smoke engulf the towers.
And I turned to him and I said, John, those towers can't handle that.
They're not going to be able to stand.
(26:49):
In seconds, the first tower fell.
And he looked at me and I was like, oh my God, what about the people that went in to
rescue people?
And then at that time, somebody came through the Russell building and started screaming,
get out, get out, get out.
(27:09):
And I think the Pentagon might've been hit at that point or something, but it's kind
of mushy in my head.
But I remember the police officers, the Capitol Hill police were running in, get out, get
out.
There's a plane headed for us.
There's a plane headed for us.
And because John is a Christian man, he grabbed me, his chief of staff and his legislative
(27:30):
director.
Now his legislative director, Pam, was pregnant.
And we were like, Pam, don't you dare have that baby right now, because she was literally
eight months pregnant.
And the crazy thing, her husband was a speechwriter for Rumsfeld.
And she came and she's like, I've called him, I can't reach Mark, I can't reach Mark.
(27:51):
And we didn't know.
And again, the Pentagon had been hit at that point.
And so he made a stand in a circle and he prayed.
And he said, Lord, we don't know what's going on, but make it stop, divinely intervene.
Please divinely intervene.
And I remember that.
And then we later learned that the plane that was hit in Shanksville was headed for the
(28:13):
Capitol.
And so it's crazy.
And we walked outside, eventually went outside.
And it was just a mass of people from the Hill just standing.
They didn't know, we didn't know what to do.
We didn't know if the plane was headed for us.
The thing that was so scary was not knowing what was going to happen next.
(28:41):
And then we evacuated the senator, we're like, okay, so we got to get you to a safe spot.
So I knew at that point, I had to go into work mode.
It was my job to be his spokesperson.
And somebody once told me that the best spokesperson is always right near the senator and knows
what their principal is thinking and going to say.
(29:01):
So I stayed with him.
And then we had another person with him.
And then it was just the three of us.
We worked together the entire day.
And I kept getting calls from reporters.
So I had to get on the phone, as scared as I was, as nervous as I was, I was on the phone
with media.
Okay.
Yes, this happened.
I was with the senator.
(29:22):
He's okay.
He's all right.
Everything's okay.
All day long.
So I didn't have time to process everything that was going on until afterwards.
That's how most of us were.
Yeah.
And as a follow up to that, I think it was 2005 or six, I was working in a building in
Lower Manhattan.
It was one Liberty Plaza and we were at the 50th floor and that was the top floor of the
(29:45):
building.
It's like one of the last buildings on the tip of Manhattan.
And you heard this plane buzz by.
And then it buzzed by again.
And I remember calling my wife thinking that was it.
And what happened was there was a former New York Yankee who was in a small personal plane
and he just lost control of the plane and ended up crashing into the river.
(30:06):
But I had that deja vu all over again.
Like I'm on the top of this building and it's one of the things sticking out on the tip.
It's easy to find because there's nothing else down here now.
So I can relate to all of that.
You talked about what the senator said that resonated with you in terms of volunteering
and public service.
Why did you choose public service and not the military?
(30:26):
Well, of course, because of my dad's experience being a Tuskegee airman and my stepfather
being in the Air Force, they didn't want me to get in.
And I can partly understand it because when I did eventually end up in Iraq, knowing how
what I went through changed me.
(30:48):
Thank God my personality was already formed by the time I went to Iraq, because if I'd
have been 18, 19 and getting into the military, it probably would have shaped my personality
that I would have.
You see me.
I'm gregarious.
I laugh.
I love to joke.
That's just me.
I don't think I would have developed and held on to that had I joined the military at such
(31:13):
a young age.
But I just, dad, he just had a tough time.
He just had a really tough time.
And so, and of course, my mom wasn't going to stand for it.
Shirley Jones was not going to stand up for any of this.
But I, you know, the Lord had me where he wanted me to go and, you know, he guided me
(31:36):
and I kind of like, okay, God, what are we going to do next?
Your plan is better than mine, but, you know, but daddy didn't say I couldn't serve.
And he was gone by the time I went to Iraq, thank goodness, because I don't think he would
have been able to handle it at all.
So you didn't officially serve, you didn't join the military, but you actually volunteered
(31:59):
to go to Baghdad, excuse me, at the height of the fighting and bloodshed, even though,
as you said, you weren't a soldier and you weren't a nation builder or rebuilder.
Why did you think you needed to be in a war zone in the very midst of the US invasion?
Well, you know, it goes back to, I guess, service is in my DNA because of my dad.
(32:20):
And the words of Senator Enson just kept going through my head that, you know, it's your
duty to serve.
If you love this country, then you got to do your part.
And as I said in the book, I don't know how to shoot a gun.
I kind of know how to shoot one now.
And I don't know how to rebuild a country, but I have a special skill set.
I know how to communicate.
I know how to tell stories.
(32:41):
And I said, kind of in the back of my head, I also have this terrible thing where I like
to be in the middle of action.
I guess that's why I was a TV reporter in the first place.
But it wasn't until somebody reached out to me after 9-11.
I was over, this was 2003, and after the war broke out in Iraq, and I was working on the
(33:02):
House side.
I went from the Senate to the House because I was helping Nevada members.
And I was working there and remember watching Shock and Awe, the night of Shock and Awe,
when we first hit Iraq.
And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's crazy.
And then a while later, somebody reached out to me that I had met at the Pentagon.
(33:23):
And they said, Tracy, we need your help.
We need people in Iraq to help tell our story because the communicating of what the rebuilding
in Iraq was starting to be wasn't coming across.
The story wasn't getting told.
And so this person at the Pentagon said, we need your help.
Would you come to Iraq?
And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
(33:45):
And then the thing that really set me in to the point where it was like my father's determination.
I was watching, there was a bombing and one of the main people in Iraq was killed.
And I remember Ambassador Bremer lost his friend and forgive me for getting who it was
(34:06):
right now, but I'm sure somebody will correct me.
I remember turning on the news and watching Ambassador like in tears because his friend
died.
And I thought, you know what, nobody's going to want to go over there now.
And because nobody wants to go, then I have to go.
It's you know, firefighters, they go in when everybody's running out.
(34:26):
I'm not a firefighter.
I'm not a police officer, but I'm going to use some of the courage that the good Lord
gave me and I'm going to go on faith and I'll do my part.
And I hope I come home, but I just had that determination to go help where I could.
So when you deployed, you were assigned to the green zone, which was supposed to be a
(34:49):
secure US perimeter, but certainly wasn't safe there.
First describe the green zone for us.
How big was it and how often did it come under attack?
Oh my gosh.
Well, first of all, the green zone was about a two to three mile radius around.
And the reason they called it the green zone to remind your listeners is because when you
were in the green zone, your weapons were off, green off.
(35:13):
That means you didn't have to have your pistol on pistol on fire or your weapon on fire when
it was on fire, turn red.
So when you went outside of this area, and as I was there, the worse the attacks became,
the more cordoned off the green zone was.
So it had not, you have to remember Saddam Hussein had this area where he had a couple
(35:37):
of palaces.
Saddam Hussein had palaces all over the country, but within the green zone, he had a couple
of different buildings that were like different palaces, but they had this really big one.
And so in the green zone, it was like a self-contained city in this two mile area.
And we had the combat air support hospital, the cash.
(36:01):
We had the main building headquarters that we worked out of the palace, and that's where
everybody was headquartered.
And so our office in this big, it kind of looked like a mini Capitol because there was
a dome on top and it stretched out to look, so if you can imagine the US Capitol.
(36:22):
And so we had, before I got there, before they built little trailers and stuff for people
to stay in, people, different rooms that would have cots and everybody was in the same room.
And now I want to point this out to show you how rugged this was.
And again, people in the military that were out in the field had it so much worse than
(36:48):
we did.
But when I first got to, arrived in Iraq, they didn't have any plumbing that worked.
So we were in the palace, the plumbing did not work.
And everybody eventually got Saddam's revenge.
Everybody got some kind of gastrointestinal thing.
And I cannot describe how disgusting it was to walk into a bathroom where nothing flushed
(37:14):
for weeks and you had to, that's what you had to use.
But it was worse for the guy out in the field or the woman out in the field who had to dig
a hole and hope they didn't get shot while they were using the bathroom out in the field.
So there were layers of, oh my gosh, this is bad, this is bad.
But there was always worse.
And people will ask me, how did I prepare before I went to Iraq?
(37:37):
I didn't.
I didn't have any training.
And they were so desperate to get people out there right away and to get us there quickly.
They didn't train us.
They just said, here's your ticket, go.
So I kind of had to mentally, okay, Tracy, this is a war zone, you're going to probably
see some bad stuff, you might see people killed, and you can psych yourself into that.
(37:58):
But it's nothing like when you really, really face it.
And I tell people, one of the chapters in my book that we'll talk about is, one of the
chapters is, is war is hell.
When you're going through hell, keep going.
It's the Winston Churchill quote and Tecumseh Sherman mixed together.
(38:20):
And when you first get there, when I got there, it was like, oh my, okay, well, and when we
got on the bus to go from the airport to the green zone, it was about a six to eight
mile trip from the airport to the green zone.
That was one of the deadliest roads in the world.
(38:43):
And when we got on the bus, they said, don't look out the window, the curtains are down
to protect you.
Of course, you know, I did.
I'm sitting there like, what?
This is the first time I want to see what it looks like.
I got to peek through the hole.
You're not supposed to do that.
We could get shot.
But we made it.
And my first impression was, wow, it's pretty dusty here.
(39:05):
And it's, it's, it's yuck.
But when I was able to travel around the country in my work, and one of, let me back up, one
of the things that used to annoy me so much is there were reports that, that we in the
green zone that worked for the, the CPA, the coalition of provisional authorities, never
traveled outside the green zone.
I used to hate that because we had people that were going out all the time.
(39:28):
I knew I went out on several occasions to fly different places.
So that was a, that was a misnomer.
But when I flew around Iraq, what shocked me was how beautiful, how beautiful it was.
We would fly over groves and groves of, of, of palm trees.
(39:50):
And I was like, oh my gosh, this is.
And then we, as we flew up, we would fly up to Mosul.
There's this lake that was the most uncanny color of blue.
And I was like, this is the Iraq that people don't see.
That's the good part.
By the time you left Iraq, you were experiencing post-traumatic stress.
What kind of support or treatment did civilian government workers receive?
(40:12):
And was it the same that our troops received?
For me, it wasn't.
And I, again, I have to preface this.
The military member's job is to go to war.
They need every bit of support they can get.
They are in it all the time.
They're in it at a worse level than I ever faced.
(40:32):
They deserve everything, any kind of support that they can get.
But for me, when I came back, I, I didn't, I knew that I wasn't right.
And so I tried to explain to somebody, unfortunately, in the Washington area, as we're doing this
recording, about a couple of weeks ago, there was a plane that crashed into the Potomac
(40:56):
River as it was landing, and it was hit by a helicopter.
And I talked to somebody recently, and I said, you know, this is, it's terrible what happened.
But in Iraq, every day, that happened every day.
Somebody was dying every day.
And it's, you're talking to somebody, and then two or three hours later, they're dead.
(41:19):
You can only absorb so much grief before you, you just, you just stop.
You stop the grieving process.
And I told somebody, I said, you know, when you, when something happens, you get a little
numb, you may, you feel that buzz from being numb.
That was gone.
Because day after day, and I was there for nine months the first time.
(41:44):
And again, the soldiers that made six, seven deployments where they were going through
this and they're really in it, they, I give my heart to them for what they went through.
But when I came back, I didn't realize that I was bad until I was, I went down, I got
(42:06):
home around the 4th of July, which is my favorite holiday in the summer.
And I came back to DC and I wanted to go running down the mall and the Washington DC mall on
the 4th of July just to do something.
So I went for a jog.
And I heard this explode, what I thought was an explosion.
(42:27):
And I was like, oh my God, somebody has blown themself up on the 4th of July on the mall.
Oh my God.
It was thunder.
It was just a clap of thunder.
And then I was like, okay, there's something wrong.
And then sadly enough, my mom was stricken with cancer while I was in Baghdad.
(42:48):
So I had to fly home and come back.
And then she made me go back to the war zone.
And she died about a year and a half after that.
So I was hit with about as much as I could be hit with.
And I just shut down.
I was mean.
And I would have these horrible dreams.
(43:08):
Horrible dreams.
And at one point, it was the same recurring dream that I was in a plane crash and I was
in a helicopter crash.
And the helicopter crashed and we were trying to run and the insurgents were chasing.
It would recur to the point where I didn't want to go to sleep.
I was afraid because I'd have that same dream.
But when I came back home and when I realized what was going on, I didn't want to tell anybody.
(43:30):
And I think as I wrote my book, I think everybody already knew.
But what helped me was we called the people that I was with, the little group I was with,
we called ourselves the Iraq Pack.
And there was about 20 of us.
And so I would get on the phone or I'd reach out and say, hey, you guys, did y'all hear
that thunder?
Because it totally freaked me out.
And so we depended on each other.
(43:53):
But then the thing that really got me was writing.
That's why I wrote my book.
I wrote to get it out of me, to deal with the PTSD, because that was my cathartic way
of dealing with it.
So again, I didn't really have therapy and prayer.
(44:15):
I prayed a lot.
I learned to pray a lot.
And that's, I think, what helped me to heal.
The more we talk, the more similar we are.
The first chapter of my book is about my experience.
And that was my, I wrote during COVID, it's a small book, but chapter one is about my
day on 9-11.
And it was my way of putting pen to paper.
And they always talk about journaling for mental health.
And so that was it.
(44:36):
So I can totally appreciate that.
And I could talk to you for hours.
Unfortunately, we only have 52 minutes.
So without delaying any longer, let's talk about your book.
You say, quote, we all have war zones.
That's a provocative statement.
What does that mean?
Why do you ask people, what's your war zone?
When you think about a war zone, it is this thing that is so intense and so rattling and
(45:06):
so explosive, that thing that you could die from.
And so when I was at a book signing a couple of months ago, I was trying to explain to
people, well, what is your book about?
What is your book about?
And I turned to a lady.
I said, what's your war zone?
What is your war zone?
(45:28):
And I said, is it cancer?
And she said, well, yeah, I had cancer.
And I said, and you survived, right?
And she's like, yeah, I survived it.
So I start and then I kept asking people through the course of the day, they kept saying the
same thing.
And then there's this one lady who came to me and she said, she says, what is your book
(45:51):
about?
And I asked her the same thing.
And I said, when I asked her what her war zone was, she said, I'm from Israel.
And I was like, oh, God, I'm so sorry.
And next thing we know, we both were crying.
And the thing about a war zone, as earth shattering as it is, if you can make it through, you'll
(46:15):
come out better on the other side.
It's that survival.
It's the journey to survive is where the growth comes from, and hopefully you'll heal and
get better.
And that's what happened to me.
I think I'm a better person now than when I went into that war zone in Iraq.
(46:38):
And you said you've never sought formal treatment or anything like that?
No.
Again, birds of a feather.
Yep.
See, you get it.
You get it, Chris.
So before we run out of time, the title of your book is Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before
Putting on Your Gas Mask, A Civilian Chick's Guide to Surviving a War Zone.
Two questions.
First is, where can people find your book?
And the second question is, are those the gold hoop earrings you wore when you went
(47:01):
to combat?
Yes.
You can get it on Amazon, and it's Tracy Scott.
Just put in, take off your hoop earrings, and it'll pop right up.
Amazon.
I don't have the audio version of it out, but you can get an audible, and you can get
it paperback, hardback.
And yes, I did wear these hoop earrings to a war zone, and the title comes from when
(47:22):
I had to go through gas mask training, and I was so tired, and I went to put on my gas
mask, and my friend was like, Tracy, you gotta take off your hoop earrings before you put
on your gas mask.
But the life lesson is, Chris, life is a process.
Life is a process, and you have to follow the process, and you have to go through your
war zone.
(47:43):
But if you follow the process that life has to offer, and you make it through your war
zone, you will come out stronger and better on the other side.
And I think a second life lesson is always be ready to accessorize gold hoop earrings.
Well, the part I left out is when I showed up, and the generals are like, what the hell
are we supposed to do with her?
She showed up here wearing hoop earrings, what is this?
(48:06):
But I will tell you that if you read the book, all of those generals, I fell in love with
them.
I fell in love with every one of them.
And just to clarify for listeners and viewers, it's Tracy with an I, Scott, so we can get
the right Google search there on Amazon.
Tracy, we're huge fans of Dana Perino here at Next Steps Forward.
She's been a guest on the podcast.
She's a subject of a chapter in my upcoming book.
You have your own Dana Perino story that speaks volumes about her and reinforces our affection
(48:30):
for her.
Would you share that story with our audience?
Absolutely.
She may not remember this, but years ago when I was at the Pentagon, I had to go to the
White House for some meetings.
And strangely enough, the meetings were in the White House Situation Room because we
were discussing some very serious issues.
So I remember when I showed up, OK, first of all, it's the White House.
I'm intimidated.
(48:50):
All right.
Then it's the Situation Room.
I'm like, oh, my gosh, I just I just I'm glad to be here, but I'm scared to death.
And so we got into the room and I just went to the end of the table and I was like, well,
I'll just sit here and just listen.
And if they need to hear from me, then I'll just I'll just be quiet until then.
I can't tell you how intimidating it is to be in this place where how many people get
(49:13):
to go to it.
So I'm sitting in there just trying to breathe and in walks Dana Perino.
And she walked around the table, passed everyone.
She kind of said hello to a couple of people.
She came to the end of the table and she came to me.
She put out her hand.
She said, hi, my name is Dana Perino.
How are you?
Oh, my gosh.
She was already White House spokesman.
(49:34):
Everybody knew who she was.
But she came because she she must have I must have had a neon sign on my forehead.
I'm scared.
I'm scared.
I can't believe I'm here.
And she walked over and she said, hi, my name is Dana.
I'm Dana Perino.
How are you?
I'm like, but instantly it made me calm down.
(49:56):
And she she saw me.
She saw me.
And she with class came over and put me at ease.
And I will always think highly of her.
Again, she probably will never remember it, but I will remember it the rest of my life
that she was kind enough and aware that, hey, there's somebody in the room that's probably
(50:17):
she's probably scared.
So I'm going to go talk to her.
And I appreciate it for the rest of my life.
So you were in the inaugural class of the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program,
which was co-founded by both President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton.
Hats off to you, because I've applied a couple of times and gotten negged both times.
(50:37):
But that led you to starting a nonprofit called the Green Dress Project.
Yes.
Tell us about that, please.
And how can people support it?
Well, the Green Dress Project came actually from President Bush.
If you remember, years before there was some when he was president, there were some girls
on a sports team.
I think it was I can't remember lacrosse or something.
(50:58):
They showed up to the White House.
And one of the girls, they're like, we're flip flops.
And it became like a national story because these girls were flip flops to the White House.
And I was like, when I when I got in the Presidential Leadership Program, my project was just an
idea.
And I thought, what about these young girls who don't have somebody in their life to tell
(51:22):
them how to dress to go to the White House?
And then it expanded.
Well, wait a minute.
I know when I started out at CBS News, nobody told me how to work at CBS News.
My parents, they were never in the news business.
They didn't teach me.
So I created the Green Dress Project to help young girls make the transition from school
(51:42):
to the workplace or from high school to college, from high school to the workplace.
If you were working at Walmart, if you were working anywhere, if you were going to a boardroom
or if you're going to go work for a Fortune 500 company straight out of college, it helped
them to make the transition.
And so I'm not going to give you the name, the reason for the color green, but green
(52:04):
means go.
Green means you're new.
It means you're green.
You're new to the situation.
And it's based on four pillars.
It was developing soft skills, developing a financial plan, developing how to dress properly
at work and developing values.
First of all, you need to have good values when you start your work career.
(52:26):
And so it grew from there.
Now, the sad part is it's in abeyance right now.
I didn't tell you, but before I moved to where I am right now, I was living in a rental house
and the ceiling collapsed and I lost all of my stuff.
And then the attic where I had all my Green Dress Project stuff located was ruined because
(52:49):
of a road infestation.
So I've lost my entire history.
I've lost everything, Green Dress Project.
Thank goodness though, a woman has reached out to me and we're going to start it all
over again.
So there is a Facebook page, the Green Dress Project, but it's in abeyance right now until
I can restart it.
And we were supposed to meet this week, but due to some weather stuff, I couldn't make
(53:12):
it.
But thank goodness there's somebody who's interested in helping me to start it all over
again because young girls really need to know how to be prepared and mostly avoid career
ending mistakes.
And I will tell you, one of the pillars that we had to work on was social media.
(53:33):
Oh my goodness, some of these young ladies and men are putting things that will stick
with them forever.
And I had to add a new pillar based on that alone.
We helped them to figure out finances and all of that.
Tracy Scott, author of Take Off Your Hoop Earrings Before Putting on Your Gas Mask,
A Civilian Chick's Guide to Surviving a War Zone.
(53:54):
Thank you so much for being with us.
It was an absolute pleasure and honor.
I really loved the conversation today.
I loved it.
And Chris, thank you for having me and thank you for being such a wonderful person.
God bless you for all you're doing.
No, thank you.
I appreciate that.
I'm Chris Meek.
We're out of time.
We'll see you next week.
Same time, same place.
Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
(54:15):
Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward.
Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time
and 1 p.m. Eastern Time on The Voice America Empowerment Channel.
This week, make things happen in your life.
(54:44):
I'm Chris Meek.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
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