You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense and foreign affairs.

My name is Ryan Evans, I'm the CEO of War on the rocks.

In this episode I talked to Jim McPherson, the Undersecretary of the Army. Jim's an old friend of mine and we talk about how the Army is dealing with the

COVID-19 pandemic as well as the Army's modernization efforts.

Jim of course, your background is a bit more blue than green.

Could you tell us about yourself?

Well, that's very true.

Okay, I'd be happy to. So I started out in the Army, as a matter of fact, a long, long time ago.

A draft was still going. My draft number was marginal, but more importantly, I had spent a year of undergrad and incurred the usual

heavy lift of loans for school, nothing compared to what undergrads go through today, but at that time it seemed fairly heavy.

And so I decided that I'd look for other alternatives, maybe somebody else to pay for my

undergraduate education.

And believe it or not, talked to a professor where I was going to school

and he recommended I go on the service for three or four years. Get the GI Bill, capture some credits

while I'm on active duty and so down I went to the recruiter's office and the first

office I worked and walked into was Army and they captured me.

So in the Army I went for three years, a little over three years, stationed at Presidio, San Francisco,

which is now a national park, Pouss on South Korea, and ended up with the First Infantry Division

of Fort Riley, and got out, as I had planned to went back to school and

during my active duty time I got about a year or so worth of credits and so I

graduated early and decided to go to law school.

It was my first year of law school, incurring debt again,

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