043 - Ashley’s War - Remembering Army 1st Lieutenant Ashley White
Release Date: 06/16/2021
Glorious Professionals
recently visited HQ for a book signing and party. Before the big ruck, Jason and Emily talked with Michael about the search for happiness and his new book, . Michael is an author and journalist who wrote and . Writing books takes him around the world to wild places to learn about physical and mental health and how we can live better. He lives on the edge of the desert in Las Vegas and rucks often with his wife and two dogs. Links: Learn more about
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Jason and Rich discuss risk and leadership with , former Delta Force Commander and author of the books and . Pete Blaber commanded at every level of one of the most elite counter-terrorist organizations in the world during most of recent history’s most significant military and political events (Panama, Colombia, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq). In 2006 he retired from the military and transitioned from leading elite combat teams around the globe, to leading elite corporate teams for one of the world's largest and most innovative Biotechnology Companies. Links: Learn more...
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For this Memorial Day episode of Glorious Professionals, Jason & Emily are joined by Will Ostan to discuss his work as a wounded warrior advocate, the problem with the term “disabled veteran,” and how you can get involved to help better the current veteran benefits system. William J. Ostan is a medically retired U.S. Army Major and combat veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the Founder and President of Arc of Justice, a nonprofit organization that advocates for wounded warriors still on active duty. Will is currently spearheading the Wounded Warrior Bill of Rights...
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Jason and Emily are joined by Cadre DS and Mocha Mike to discuss the first-annual GORUCK Games that took place at the recent Sandlot JAX Fitness Festival. The GORUCK Games are a competition of grit worth $50K in prize money. Special Forces training tests athletes across a broad array of activities to ensure well-rounded strength, agility, and endurance. GORUCK harkens back to those roots in a 2-Day competition of grit that features an obstacle course, rucking, weighted challenges, running, sprinting, jumping, rowing and sandbag work. Links:
info_outlineGlorious Professionals
Jason and Emily are joined by Cadre DS and Mocha Mike to discuss the first-annual GORUCK Games that took place at the recent Sandlot JAX Fitness Festival. The GORUCK Games are a competition of grit worth $50K in prize money. Special Forces training tests athletes across a broad array of activities to ensure well-rounded strength, agility, and endurance. GORUCK harkens back to those roots in a 2-Day competition of grit that features an obstacle course, rucking, weighted challenges, running, sprinting, jumping, rowing and sandbag work. Links:
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“My advice is to always find a way to take a good step forward.” To kick off 2022, Dr. Mike Roussell joins Jason for Episode 054 focusing on nutrition. Dr. Mike consults on health, nutrition, and performance for a range of clientele from professional athletes, to celebrities, to Fortune 500 executives. “With a passion for nutrition rooted in sport,” he is a speaker, podcaster and author who breaks down complicated nutrition ideas and principles to easily digestible, immediately actionable steps. While he is a “diet agnostic” Dr Mike lays out early his six pillars of...
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“The lessons you learn at GORUCK events, they’re applicable to everything in life.”
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“Everyone wants someone to care about them right? And that is what we are trying to do.”
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Malaika Underwood joins Jason and Emily for a very friendly Episode 051 to talk about her athletic career and the future she hopes to see in youth and professional sports. Born and raised in San Diego, playing freely with neighborhood kids, Malaika says baseball -- not softball -- found her and became a lifelong love. The conversation covers a lot of ground in sports from large personalities to the history of softball, and throughout there is a love of the game and appreciation for the power of team sport.
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Episode 050 is a conversation Jason and Emily had with Jaala Shaw about Afghanistan, recorded on Friday August 20th. Jaala lived outside the green zone as a State Department Fellow and Specialist teaching at Kabul Education University and working with teachers and students in the public school system in Kabul from 2010-2012. Her role was to develop relationships with an understanding of history and culture and she has maintained strong ties to the region.
info_outline“If you’re the best, nothing else matters.”
Episode 043 remembers and honors 1st Lt Ashley White Stumpf with some of the people who knew her well: Brian Porter, Doug Baker and Molly Donahue. Ashley served as a member of a Cultural Support Team (CST) attached to a Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan. She was killed during combat operations in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan on October 22, 2011 when the assault force she was supporting triggered an improvised explosive device.
The story of the CSTs is eloquently told in Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield by Gayle Lemmon. This episode is more about telling the personal stories of Ashley’s life, how she touched everyone she met, and how her relentless spirit lives on through them.
Brian, Ashley’s recruiter at Kent State, recalls how Ashley insisted on a home visit to make sure that her folks and family understood and supported her in what she was already determined to do. Doug details how they enlisted and “grew up” together at Kent State as part of a tight-knit group of diverse friends. He describes Ashley constantly encouraging her team and growing into a confident leader, at home in both a sorority house and on the ROTC training field. He shares how despite her small size she consistently proved herself, and even bested him, in training -- overscoring on PT tests and going above and beyond in the gym -- forever changing his ideas of what women are capable of. Molly served with Ashley in 6th Platoon at Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) in 2010 and relates how “Little White” proved herself to herself first and foremost, and also left a lasting legacy with whom she served.
Ashley was commissioned in the U.S. Army as a Medical Service Corps Officer after graduating from Kent State in 2009. “She wanted to help people,” says Doug. She was assigned to the 230th Brigade Support Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, North Carolina National Guard, Goldsboro, NC. She volunteered to be one of the first CSTs serving in Afghanistan and was the first killed in action. She was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and the Combat Action Badge. She is survived by her parents Robert and Deborah White, twin sister Brittany and her brother Josh of Alliance, Ohio, and her husband Cpt. Jason Stumpf of Raeford, N.C.
Links:
- Ashley’s War by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
- History of Cultural Support Teams (including the recruitment poster)
- Ashley White 5K at Kent State
- Learn more about GORUCK
- Glorious Professionals podcast website