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Partial Transcript: MASON FUNK:
Thank you so much for being here today. If you wouldn't mind by starting by stating and spelling your first and last names and your title.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Okay. My name is Jennifer Natalya Pritzker. My current employment is president and CEO of 20 enterprises incorporated. In the military, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Pritzker, United States Army, retired. I'm also Colonel Pritzker (Illinois, honorary) Illinois Army National Guard, retired.
MASON FUNK:
Fantastic. And only one question, how do you spell Natalya?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
N A T A L Y A. And I'll show you my driver's license if you want.
Keywords: 20 Enterprises Incorporated; CEO; Illinois Army National Guard; Lieutenant Colonel Pritzker; Military; President; Veteran
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Partial Transcript: MASON FUNK:
No, I believe you. I just knew it had an unusual spelling. Let's start by talking about your experiences in the Yom Kippur war, how they represented a real change in direction for you.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Okay. 1973, I was participating in a work study program, which, in Hebrew, is known as Ulpan. I would spend four hours a day working on a Kibbutz, which is a sort of collective farm, and four hours a day getting classroom Hebrew instruction, six days a week. In return, they gave me a place to live, food to eat in the dining hall, a couple of sets of work clothes and some other modest things. Well, 6 October, 1973, the Syrians attacked Israel, the Egyptians attacked south, crossing the Suez Canal and the Syrians attacked north from the Golan Heights. One of the first things they did is they took an outpost on Mt. Hermon, which, from the Kibbutz I was on, Kibbutz Kfar Blum. I think it was no more than about maybe 10, 12 miles and the Syrian army actually occupied that on the ground. There were Syrian ground forces within 10 to 15 miles of the Kibbutz, on the first day or two, there were Syrian MIGS flying over the Kibbutz, and there were missile exchanges from the Israelis firing at the Syrian planes. For the first one to two weeks, I slept in a bomb shelter. The Kibbutz mobilized for war. I would say within three days … This is just an eyeball observation from 40 plus years ago. I would say about 80% of the men of military age were gone, called up, going back to their units; the remaining men, and the remainder of the people on the Kibbutz supported the war effort. One, they secured the Kibbutz itself, meaning people on the Kibbutz were armed, and pulled perimeter guard around the Kibbutz. And they used assets of the Kibbutz to directly support the war effort. So trucks and tractors were used to haul supplies to the Israeli army. It's like maybe 10 miles away. The Kibbutz had a small hotel and motel that was used as a restaurant recreation center for troops coming and going into the Golan Heights. I can remember they put on shows for the troops, modest things, Israeli equivalent of a USO show. That was life for about up to about three weeks. Israel mobilized totally for war. For example, an apartment house complex of people I knew in Tel Aviv, there were anti-aircraft guns, like on the same block. They weren't there for Army/Navy Day showpiece, they were there expecting to have to possibly shoot down Egyptian planes, and the whole country was like this. Fortunately, it subsided after about three, four weeks, the United States did intervene. Mostly we flew a lot of supplies to the Israelis and we provided some advisory assistance to use some of our then new tow anti-tank weapons, which were then absolutely new. I think the operation was called Nickel Grass. For certain people, that counted as participating in a U.S. campaign. Well, the net result of that for me was I wanted to fight, but I was not equipped to fight. I was untrained. I was not equipped and I was not affiliated with any unit. If you don't have all three of those things, you better just find a hole to burrow up in, if you're in a war zone, and stay there until it's safe to come out. I was in better shape because the kibbutz was reasonably well-organized, and the best thing for me to do was just do whatever it is they told me to do. Wandering around in somebody else's war is not particularly healthy, so that's what I did. After it ended, I thought about what the Israelis and Hebrews call making aliyah. That's an immigration to Israel. Since I'm Jewish, I would have been granted Israeli citizenship just by filling out a form, and I wouldn't have had to renounce U.S. citizenship because under the Israeli law of return, any Jew in the world can have citizenship bestowed upon them at any time. It's something that they give to you, rather than you renouncing U.S. citizenship and applying for that. I didn't want to renounce U.S. citizenship, but I thought of going into the Israeli army. Well, in the six months that I was on Kfar Blum, and two months prior to that, I was at another kibbutz as a volunteer where I was working eight hours a day. I learned a lot of Hebrew, but I didn't know enough to really be a fully functioning soldier in Hebrew. Now, for example, could I understand an operations order? Could I read a field manual? Could I read the instructions on how to assemble or disassemble or maintain a piece of equipment? I wasn't up to that, at least not yet. It would have taken me another year or two just to get that far. Now, the Israelis do make allowances for people who don't speak the language because in Israel, the concept is everybody serves and they don't pay you very much during your obligatory term of service, and they don't train everybody for everything. But I found, when I decided to go back to the U.S., at least for a little while, then come back to Israel, make the aliyah, and then get inducted into the Israeli army. Well, at the time I was 23 years old, and for a lot of different reasons, I didn't go in when I was 18 or 19. I ended up visiting a U.S. Army recruiting station, and they said, yeah, we want you, because they just abolished the draft, so there was a huge demand for volunteers. On paper, I was what they were looking for. They were looking for 18 to 25, so I'm the right age. There was a whole lot less than me than there is now. I met height, weight requirements. I was in good shape because I'd been actively working. I was a high school graduate, no criminal record, no record of drug or alcohol abuse, no sexually transmitted disease. So Uncle Sam was definitely saying, I want you for the U.S. Army. I enlisted in February 1974 and began basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri toward the end of February of 1974.
Keywords: 1973; Aliyah; Enlisted; Hebrew; Israel; Jewish; Kfar Blum; Kibbutz; Military; Syrian Army; US Army; Ulpan; Yom Kippur War
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Partial Transcript: MASON FUNK:
Now the next question on the list is going to jump literally decades to the end of your military to ask you, because I know there's so much that we could talk about, but looking back, what would you call your proudest moment in your many, many years of military service?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, just serving itself. I mean, it means a lot to me to be able to identify as a veteran, because, one, it's something that you can't buy. It represents significant commitment to the country that you live in or the army that you serve in. It gives me something in common ... Well, now I've got something in common with George Washington and all sorts of other distinguished people. Happy to be affiliated with those who served in the other branches, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and so on, specifically some of the things that I'm very proud of is getting through U.S. Army parachute jump school and earning a parachute badge. One of the reasons that motivated me when I was 23 years old, I just want to have something distinctive to put on the uniform, and they would allow me to enlist for airborne and see that parachute badge was a ticket serving in an airborne unit, which meant I was on active parachute status, receiving hazardous duty pay for about two and a half years. That's another proud moment, I guess, now that I think about it, another proud moment was serving as a company commander for an Illinois National Guard Unit, Company C, first battalion, 131st infantry regiment, 33rd infantry brigade, separate of the Illinois Army National Guard. That's where I had an opportunity to apply much of my previous training experience, and they needed me. The previous company commander just stopped going to drills, so they needed an immediate replacement. I was transferred from battalion headquarters to go command Company C because I was the best qualified that they could find at the time, and the company was in bad shape. They had a lot of soldiers that just stopped going to drill. I was able to reverse that trend and increase company strength and put more boots on the ground for annual training and begin to build the company back to something that you could build on for mobilization. Eventually, they did get mobilized. We didn't get mobilized for Gulf War 1, because by this time it's 1986, but they got deactivated and re-designated, and a lot of the young soldiers that I had in 1986 went on to become sergeants and officers for the War on Terror. In that sense, I was like a college baseball coach, AAA manager that is ready to go to the big leagues on a moment's notice, but in the meantime, I'm preparing people that can be ready for the big leagues, and we're also ready for state active duty. That was very satisfying to me. I learned a lot because that was kind of—even though I'd been a platoon leader on active duty, company commander is a significant step up from that because, for one thing, you have limited magistrate authority as a company commander, soldier screws up, you can offer them what amounts to a plea bargain, article 15, instead of going to a court martial, which can result in a federal felony conviction, so that's important. You have a specialized staff that works for you. You got a supply Sergeant, you've got a mess Sergeant, so on, and you're supposed to be a mentor to the 3-5 lieutenants that work for you. It's a key position, and for anything, but the specialty officers like the doctors and the lawyers, company command is essential if you want to get promoted to Major, they're not going to promote somebody to Major or Lieutenant Colonel unless they've been a successful company commander. That was one of the jobs that … Another interesting one, if we've got a little time, was I was an enlisted soldier for a while. I was an aviation repair parts clerk for an air cavalry squadron in the 82nd Airborne Division. Our job in a DS maintenance platoon was when they would ... Helicopters in a combat zone are stationed fairly far forward. Well, helicopters won't fly if they're not maintained well, the pilot and the crew chief, they do operator maintenance, but then the next level of maintenance, doing the more complex tasks like exchanging an aircraft engine, adjusting or changing rotor blades, that's done by direct support maintenance platoon, but to provide direct support, they've gotta be right up there where the helicopters are landing and taking off. Among other things, I was on parachute jump status, I guess I could parachute in with a box of O-rings, but it was a very satisfying job because it taught me principles of inventory control and maintenance management, because to order a part, I had to know the tail number of the aircraft, the work order that it was on, which shop was going to get what part, what priority to order it on, and the priority meant I could either order it myself or the captain in charge of us would have to sign off on it, or we'd have to get the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the squadron to sign off on it. This was expensive stuff, and at the time it was cutting edge technology and, in a year and a half that I did that, I probably had my hands on every one of the 90 helicopters in the squadron. After I did that for about a year and a half, I transferred to what was then known as an Air Rifle platoon. Now, this isn't a bunch of guys with BB guns, this was an infantry detachment attached to an air cavalry troop, a group of helicopters, so that we were organic infantry, part of that air cavalry troop that could fly in and do infantry missions. If they wanted to send foot patrols out, if they wanted to seize a specific piece of terrain, they would call on the Air Rifle platoon. I did that for a while because I had originally been, when I finished basic training, I went through infantry training, but then when I got to the 82nd airborne division, they needed soldiers to transfer to other jobs because many of the soldiers who had enlisted for infantry in the 82nd were four year bonus guys, meaning by signing a four year enlistment, they were obligated to serve in the infantry. Whereas, I was only a three -year enlistment, they could put me anywhere they wanted. When I was in the division replacement center, I was offered jobs in different units, and frankly, the air cavalry unit sounded pretty interesting, so I did that for a while. Those were, I guess, two really big high points that I think had an influence on everything else. Being in the 82nd airborne division and having a critical position and keeping helicopters flying, jumping out of airplanes and then going to an actual infantry unit. If you've ever seen the movie Apocalypse Now, there's that scene where they're playing Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, basically, that's what I did. They did it in the movies. I did it, training to do it in combat. I served with a lot of people who actually did that in combat, like the tech supply officer that I worked for, he was awarded a silver star in Vietnam. He flew reconnaissance, then OH-6s, which means that sometimes he'd be hovering maybe five feet above the ground, looking for bad guys and not armed with very much, I think he had maybe a machine gun. I think he got a silver star for pulling wounded guys out under fire. He was kind of an eccentric guy, but he was wonderful to work for. That's another thing that, throughout my entire career, I had the opportunity to serve with some really outstanding people. I mean, some of the best people I ever met, I met in the Army. Now, we also had some people that were not so good, and we had guys court-martialed for all kinds of nasty stuff. The Army being such a large organization, you're gonna find everything. You're going to find people who were barely literate enough to pass the entrance exams, to people with PhDs and multiple degrees.
Keywords: Active Parachute Status; Air Cavalry Squadron; Air Rifle Platoon; Airborne; Aviation Repair Parts Clerk; Commitment; Company Commander; Illinois Army National Guard; Mess Sergeant; Platoon Leader; Supply Sergeant; Veteran
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Partial Transcript: MASON FUNK:
Why, and this is obviously a sharp shifted topic, but why do you think the Republican party of today has pivoted or positioned itself so strongly against the rights of transgender people, both in the military and throughout all society?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
The GOP, I think, is looking for a relatively simple issue that on one level, seemingly looks easy to understand that they can rally around. And if they're going to have a scapegoat, villain, bad guy—better to do it with as small a group as possible so they don't lose too many votes, one that people might not have a lot of sympathy for to begin with, and a small enough constituency that they may not have the influence to be decisive in an election. So, it sounds like, okay, well, country's not too crazy about LGBT people in general or some people, but things have changed a lot in the last 10, 20 years. In my youth, I mean, I was born in the middle of the last century, 1950, in my childhood, teenage years and early adulthood, particularly in childhood, teen years, one did not discuss any kind of sexuality outside of clinical terms, unless it was something to do with heterosexual marital sex, period. I mean, a lot of the vocabulary didn't exist or was rather obscure. Words like transgender, non-binary, cis-gendered, a lot of those words, they weren't even in use by clinicians. A man like Mr. Trump, who's about four years older than I am, to him, LGBT, but transgender in particular, seem like an easy target. Well, 20 years ago, he might've been able to pull it off. Now, not quite so easy, but still an area of controversy because there's still enough people who feel threatened by transgender people because it upsets their view of order of the universe. It takes a while to adjust to, it took me awhile to adjust to what I am. It's not easy. I can understand why these people feel concerned. On the other hand, they're passing legislation. The state legislatures that are dominated by Republicans are passing a lot of hostile legislation because there's the whole business about the bathroom and who gets to play on what ball team, but now they want to take it a step further, they want to, in effect, censor anything about LGBTQ people, and that's worse than the bathrooms, because if you deny people the opportunity to gain knowledge, then they become more fearful. Motto of the RAF (Royal Air Force) parachute school at Brize Norton is ‘knowledge dispels fear’. I think, if more people were better informed, well, just what does it mean to be transgendered? For sure, it doesn't mean some guy puts on a dress so he can harass little girls in the bathroom, that's not what it's about. It's not about waving magic wands on ten-year-olds who don't know or are having trouble with their identity, that's not what it's about. It's the recognition that LGBTQ people, the overwhelming majority of them, want mostly the same things that everybody else wants: make a decent living, have a family, live in a nice house, have friends, go to Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn't have to be a threat to anyone. If they're allowed to have a moral, normal relationship, they're not going to be looking for sexual companionship in bars, they're going to want a one and only. Because it's one thing to have adventures, but that wears out pretty quickly, and most of us look for one at a time. This is some of the reasons. For example, for the devoutly religious, it's very difficult for them to reconcile someone living in the opposite gender of what their body assigned them at birth, and it's very difficult for them to reconcile how can somebody be a child of God if they want to have sexual relations with someone of the same sex? It's a big upset, and unfortunately, too many Republican politicians, they push it on the fear and not on taking a step back and looking at, well, just who are these people? What is it they really want? And are they really a threat to me? That's what's probably most unfortunate. Here we are, we're still in a pandemic. In the last two years, over 700,000 Americans have died from microbes and bacteria that you need a microscope to see, and a degree in biology to know what you're looking at, and we have state legislatures that are focusing on whether a 14-year-old kid in Knoxville, Tennessee—does he play on the boys’ team or the girls’ team, and all he wants to do is swing that nine iron and make that putt. That's all he wants to do, and it gets so convoluted and contrary because extensively they pass these laws that restrict gender participation because they don't want women's sports being threatened. Well, wait a minute, if women need protection because they have less strength or whatever, now you have someone who has a female body that wants to live as a male, and has a female body and is willing to compete against males. Well, wait a minute. They're chasing their tails, and it's wasting time and money to things that could be better spent. And it's too many state legislatures that are doing this. It's in Texas and Tennessee and to many other states. It puts us out of sync with the rest of the world. It eats up an enormous amount of resources. I mean, do you really want the county sheriff to arrest some 14-year-old kid because they're not on the right team? We already have plenty of laws that prohibit—you can't attack, harass, rape anybody anywhere, anytime, so if a transgender person goes into the opposite bathroom, they’ve got to behave themselves because if they upset anybody, they're subject to arrest, and they should be. But if they're just going in there ...
MASON FUNK:
We all want basically the same. Those people want to go to the restroom because ...
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
They need to. It's just not that big a deal, for example, in Germany, most of the health clubs, sports places, they have a co-ed locker rooms, co-ed naked saunas, people behave themselves, they're grownups. You can look and appreciate, but don't revert your eyeballs to somebody's midsection, just be cool, even in the sauna and just get on with things.
Keywords: Anti-Transgender Legislation; Donald Trump; Fear; GOP; Homophobia; Pandemic; Religion; Republican Party; Scapegoat; Threat; Transgender Rights; Transphobia
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Partial Transcript: MASON FUNK:
Let's move on because I want to ask you about the military museum and the library—another important topic for your life. Why did you form the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and what does it mean to you? And I should just say we have not too much time. And so, if you can be relatively succinct.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, a couple of things—one, I'm a bibliophile pack rat. My personal collection reached a point where I could no longer even remotely begin to efficiently manage it. So, the best solution seemed to create a not-for-profit corporation that would properly catalog these materials so that they could be shared through an interlibrary loan network. Initially, that's all I wanted to do, is essentially run a warehouse type operation. Well, we started doing some programs, very modestly at first, then we started doing more of them. Then we realized that we have a very vital function to perform. We're a non-for-profit private voluntary organization, which supports the concept of a civilian controlled military in a democracy. In order to do that, civilians need to be informed about the military. How can they make intelligent decisions on what to vote for if they don't know anything about it? The military needs to have constant contact with the civilian community. Citizens need to be ready to be soldiers, and soldiers are still citizens. They need a place, they need an institution which will allow them to exchange knowledge so that they can be more supportive to each other, so that we don't create a society where there's an us and a them, the military doesn't become so isolated and detached that they forget why they're in uniform, and the civilians become so detached they forget they have an army. By having an institution that studies military affairs and military history, we can put in a pitch for enlightenment. Because we get virtually no funding from any government, we have autonomy that we didn't have when I was in ... I can do things here that I couldn't do when I was still in uniform and under oath. That's as it should be. Our society allows for that and we need to take advantage of it. This country spends over $700 billion a year on defense. How many people have any idea where that goes? Well, they can come here and we'll tell them. If we don't have the answer among the books and artifacts here, we can direct them to people who do, because we maintain positive networking relationships with civilian organizations and the military, because we're totally non-partisan. In my capacity as chairwoman of the PMML (Pritzker Military Museum and Library), I don't advocate for anything. Now, I'll provide the information and tools for anybody who does advocate anything.
MASON FUNK:
Pause one second, somebody came up and took a look and went back down. It would be useful to have you say, maybe summing up, state the name of the organization again so we have that on the tape, and essentially, if you could finish by saying “I started the Pritzker Military Museum and Library,” and then just give a simple answer. You don't have to recap everything you've just said, [crosstalk].
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, essentially, the purpose of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library as a private voluntary organization and non-government organization is to provide enlightenment for both the civilian community and the military community so that they can be mutually supportive in a democracy, which requires citizens to sometimes be soldiers and soldiers to always remember that they're still citizens. By providing resources for education on military history and military affairs, we can make a significant contribution. Because we're totally non-partisan, we don't take sides on any issue, we can create a forum for discussion for anybody. So, there we are. Is that what you wanted?
Keywords: Bibliophile; Civilian Controlled Military; Democracy; Military; Non-Partisan; Not-For-Profit Corporation; PMML; Pritzker Military Museum And Library
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Partial Transcript: MASON FUNK:
Exactly. What are your wishes for the future? You rightly point out that we spend $700 billion a year in this nation on the military, what do you envision for the future of the military? Well, in general, and especially for transgender members and veterans?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, that's really a difficult question because ... You're asking me what I think the direction the military is going in general?
MASON FUNK:
Where you hope it's going.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, purpose of a military is to defend against threats against the nation. Well, determining what those threats are aren't as simple as they used to be, and the threats come from many sources. I mean, this pandemic amounts to, in effect, a total war, total biological war, even if it's not against a sovereign nation. We face attacks in cyberspace, they're just as deadly or can be as deadly as Pearl Harbor ever was. We face terrorist threats. So that's going to require a rather diverse group of different people with different talents, and they're not always going to look like the folks in the John Wayne war movies. We have to make decisions on if we're fighting a cyber war, what's more important. Somebody who's an expert with computers or somebody who looks like John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima, and won't admit to being LGBTQ. Necessity being the mother of invention, the armed forces quite frankly, have always done that. It's always been a question of which group are they willing to make some concessions to? On the whole, things are better for LGBTQ people than they were, and of course, Mr. Trump tried to try to move the clock back, but I think, and maybe some of these state legislatures will have some reactionary moves, but move is going forward toward being more tolerant and accepting of LGBT people because too many large corporations support them now, particularly in the urban areas, there's more support for them. It's not the same situation as it was 30 years ago. And as I think younger people, damn near everybody's younger than I am, but as people, I would say under the age of 40 begin to assume greater positions of influence and power, I think the general trend toward acceptance of LGBT people is going to continue, but there's still going to be a lot of battles to fight deep in the heart of Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas. It's kind of interesting to note that the states that are most intolerant of LGBT people and are more resistant to anti COVID measures have more COVID casualties, more dead and sick people. I hate the masks, but again, there's sort of a linkage between all of these issues, fighting the mask, fighting the vaccines, fighting the quarantine, the social distancing, nobody likes it, but if we just take our medicine, literally, to get through it, maybe we'll get through sooner rather than later. And to me, these issues are not Republican or Democrat, straight or gay, it's what do we have to do to survive period, period. So, there we are.
MASON FUNK:
Thank you. Let's talk briefly about your parachute jump at the North Pole in 1993, it sounds like that was a high point for you.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, but that was done totally outside the Army. It was a privately organized ...
MASON FUNK:
Start by telling me what you're talking about.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
All right.
Keywords: Cyber War; Defense; Donald Trump; LGBTQ+ Acceptance
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Partial Transcript: JENNIFER PRITZKER:
What I'm referring to is in April of 1993, I went with a privately organized group that I don't think exists anymore, and we were able to negotiate with the Russians, the then newly formed Russian Federation, this is only two years after the Soviet Union fell, to make a parachute jump on the North Pole. A year earlier, we had made a parachute jump in Russia, and then we got the idea of a return engagement, so we went to Moscow, and from Moscow, we went to a town in Siberia called Khatanga, which is at about 74 degrees north latitude. That means it's all ... Let's see, that puts it about eight degrees above the Arctic circle. In April, that meant the sun would go down at one in the morning and come up about two hours later and the river was frozen, solid enough you could drive a truck on it. From there, we flew to the North Pole. We flew in a Russian airplane, an IL-76, it's a four-engine cargo plane capable of holding like a hundred parachutists or several tons of cargo, sort of equivalent to USC 141. We parachuted out of it. There were a large number of Dutch parachuters who were jumping freefall with square shoots, which are far more maneuverable. Those of us in the parachute group were all former military veterans, qualified military parachutists. We're jumping with military chutes, the Russian d5 parachute, static line. Well, that means, a freefall, you're jumping out the door and you pull the ripcord to open the parachute. Static line means you have a cord that attaches to a cable inside the airplane, that attaches to a deployment bag on the parachute, and then when it gets extended, it pulls the deployment bag open, thus opening the parachute, and those are round shoots and they're less maneuverable. Well, we were jumping in about, I don't know, 20, 25, maybe 30 knot winds, which is way beyond what U.S. training jumps would be at somewhere at about 10 miles an hour, 10 knots -- 10 knots being a little faster -- no jump, no jump today, because you can get blown off the drop zone, either in the air or once you hit the ground. Also, we're jumping on ice, the North Pole where Santa lives, it's a big ice cube, that's all it is. It's frozen water. Of course, this ice is at various depths. Some of it goes 30, 40 feet down. Some of it is just a thin layer of maybe a few inches. Then there's like a pool of cold water and then more ice, so you gotta watch that you don't land in something like that. Also, that large a concentration of ice, it's like landing on concrete. High winds, so we had people injured and dragged across the drop zone. I was dragged for a while. I had to use the Cape Wells, the release levers up on the parachute harness to detach the billowing parachute from me so that, or at least enough to collapse the air, so I wouldn't blow all over the drop zone. Then evacuation was the greater challenge. There's not a municipal airport where Santa lives, so we had to be evacuated in stages and we had to stop at various places to refuel. We were evacuated mostly in MI-8 helicopters, Russian helicopters, packed to the gills. And, at least on this operation, Russians did stuff that would give an FAA inspector a heart attack, but they're very skilled aviators and not much rattles them. They got us there and they got us back. I don't know, they got the essentials done, but under a lot of stress and a lot of risk, but we did it. This was, again, totally, totally outside anything with the military at the time. I was 43 years old. Well, about 40, close to 43, and I was in the National Guard. I was doing this entirely in civilian status.
MASON FUNK:
That's a great story. All right. I have two final questions. I want to go a little off script here, but these are not controversial so you can tell me ... The second to last question is, why is it important to you to share your story?
Keywords: Arctic Circle; IL-76 Cargo Plane; Khatanga, Siberia; North Pole; Parachute Jump; Russia; Russian Federation; Soviet Union
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Partial Transcript: JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, one, I'd like to have an opportunity to enlighten the general public that people like me are not a threat to you, and we're mostly on your side if you'll let us. Secondly, I don't want other people, particularly people in the next generation, my children's generation, my grandchildren's generation, I don't want them to have to live a secret double Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde kind of life. I want them to be able to be who they are. Being who they are, be contributing members of the community at large and just not have to waste a whole lot of time and energy hiding. I mean, some of the stuff that I used to go through, just to get dressed up, go rent a hotel room, look left and right, know who's out there, what's going to happen to me because I can remember a time if a man were caught in public wearing women's clothes, be subject to arrest. Those laws were on the books as a young adult. Of course, when I was in the Army, if it were known that I dressed this way, that would have been an immediate end to my career. I mean, immediate. “Pritzker, here are your discharge orders, we're going to accelerate clearing post. We want you out of here by sundown tomorrow, and don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.” Now, I can go into the Pentagon dressed this way. Yeah, we've had a couple of setbacks, but I think we're going to be able to correct them. But again, I think organizations like this make a difference. Also, it helps me personally, nobody can do this all by themselves, you need to have allies. You need to, if you will, increase combat power by having people on your side. You're not going to do it unless you, in some way, participate with organizations that have the capability to make real progress. Putting together that Pride book, that's not just for people who are LGBT, it's for anybody who wants to learn more. Well, who are these people? How do they live? And again, RAF parachute school Brize Norton: “knowledge dispels fear”. Thank you, Royal Air Force.
MASON FUNK:
You’ve already segued into my final question a little bit, but I would like to have you mention the OUTWORDS archive or simply OUTWORDS and talk about what you see as the value of collecting the stories of people like yourself, people we call elders, in the best sense of the word, around the country. People who are LGBTQ, who have lived obviously many decades in this movement. What do you see as the value of that?
Keywords: Acceptance; Allies; Double Life; Education; Military Transphobia; Progress; Transgender Acceptance; Transgender Rights
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Partial Transcript: JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I think OUTWORDS performs an essential function because it's building the historical record. It's identifying who these people are and what their lives were. I think it's also essential to provide the younger generation, the generation of my children, who now range from age 27 to 39, my grandchildren ages 3 to 11, what life was like before them, so that they can understand and appreciate where they are now. Things are better that I don't think they fully appreciate what progress has been made. Sometimes, they get a little impatient. Also, I think it's essential to provide context. So when they talk about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which came into being 18 years ago. Wait, longer than that. 28 years ago. Excuse me, my math is a little off, but what does that really mean?
MASON FUNK:
Start that sentence over again, when we think back to Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
When you think back to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, passed in 1993, 28 years ago. I mean, that was passed a couple of years after my oldest son was born. I'm not sure if that generation fully understands the context of what that meant, it created more problems than it solved. Well, why did that happen? So, if you get in touch with the people at OUTWORDS and organizations like them, like HRC and GLAAD, and some of the others, you can put all of this in context and say, “This is what it was like, grandpa/grandma was my age and this is what it's like now. What changed? How did it change? Why did it change? Are we better off that it changed?” We need organizations like OUTWORDS. It’s one of many organizations that have developed. I have a bibliography that's separate for military stuff, well, some military stuff in it, on sexuality and gender issues, I can't help noting that the books on transgender in the last 20 years have multiplied exponentially. I mean, when I was, I don't know, 20 years old, you had to really hunt for anything written on the transgender issue. Very difficult to find it. Now, I can't keep up with it. There are more books, more newsletters, more websites than any one person can keep up with. I do my best. I've got about an 80-page bibliography that's just a list of everything, and there's a lot that I'm missing. That's another reason why I formed the PMML because I can turn that collection over to a trained librarian that can properly catalog it, properly store it, and thus make it available to other people.
MASON FUNK:
That's great. Anything further you'd like to add. I don't want to rush you, but I know you also have other appointments too.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Okay. I don't know, I'm not sure.
MASON FUNK:
I think we covered a good cross section.
Keywords: 1993 Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; Context; Education; GLAAD; HRC; Human Rights Campaign; LGBTQ+ History Archive; LGBTQ+ History Records; OUTWORDS; The Outwords Archive
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Partial Transcript: JENNIFER PRITZKER:
One of the things why I’m supporting the ACLU in lawsuits against the state of Tennessee is the Governor of Tennessee, until I informed him, was unaware of the Barry Winchell case. Are you familiar with that? Okay. 1999, PFC Barry Winchell 502nd infantry, 101st airborne division, I think he was in the first of the 502nd, is dating a transgender, Calpernia Adams. Well, a couple of so-called buddies beat him to death in the barracks, in the very bed that he slept in, in the barracks, because they felt threatened that he was dating a transgender woman. Well, those guys went to jail and Barry Winchell died. No purple heart for getting smashed to death with a baseball bat while you're in bed. I served in that division for close to three years and I served in an infantry outfit. That could have been my outfit that something like that happened in. I don't want to see other things like it. I think the legislation that's being passed in Tennessee and Texas and places like it, it creates a climate and a culture that encourages violence against LGBT people. Well, okay. If the military is about good order and discipline and unit cohesion, why would you want a policy that creates a greater probability for disruption and violence and prevents people from bonding in a cohesive unit? There are ways of handling it. I mean, gay guys and straight guys can take a shower together because they can just go into the shower room and take a shower. Nothing else, nobody eyeballs anybody, nobody gropes anybody, just take the shower and go. That's what we have to try to work for, that mutual respect, otherwise we will not survive as a society. I think these issues go beyond Republican/Democrat.
MASON FUNK:
That was amazing. Thank you so much.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Thank you.
Keywords: 502nd Infantry; Bary Winchell; Calpernia Adams; Lawsuits; Military; Mutual Respect; Tennessee; Texas
MASON FUNK:
Thank you so much for being here today. If you wouldn't mind by starting by stating and spelling your first and last names and your title.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Okay. My name is Jennifer Natalya Pritzker. My current employment is president and CEO of 20 enterprises incorporated. In the military,
00:00:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Pritzker, United States Army, retired. I'm also Colonel Pritzker (Illinois, honorary) Illinois Army National Guard, retired.
MASON FUNK:
Fantastic. And only one question, how do you spell Natalya?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
N A T A L Y A. And I'll show you my driver's license if you want.
MASON FUNK:
No, I believe you. I just knew it had an unusual spelling.
MASON FUNK:
Let's start by talking about your experiences in the Yom Kippur war,
00:01:00MASON FUNK:
how they represented a real change in direction for you.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Okay. 1973, I was participating in a work study program, which, in Hebrew, is known as Ulpan. I would spend four hours a day working on a Kibbutz, which is a sort of collective farm, and four hours a day getting classroom Hebrew instruction, six days a week.
00:01:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
In return, they gave me a place to live, food to eat in the dining hall, a couple of sets of work clothes and some other modest things. Well, 6 October, 1973, the Syrians attacked Israel, the Egyptians attacked south, crossing the Suez Canal and the Syrians attacked north from the Golan Heights.
00:02:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
One of the first things they did is they took an outpost on Mt. Hermon, which, from the Kibbutz I was on, Kibbutz Kfar Blum. I think it was no more than about maybe 10, 12 miles and the Syrian army actually occupied that on the ground. There were Syrian ground forces within 10 to 15 miles of the Kibbutz, on the first day or two, there were Syrian MIGS flying over the Kibbutz,
00:02:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and there were missile exchanges from the Israelis firing at the Syrian planes. For the first one to two weeks, I slept in a bomb shelter. The Kibbutz mobilized for war. I would say within three days --
00:03:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
This is just an eyeball observation from 40 plus years ago. I would say about 80% of the men of military age were gone, called up, going back to their units; the remaining men, and the remainder of the people on the Kibbutz supported the war effort. One, they secured the Kibbutz itself, meaning people on the Kibbutz were armed, and pulled perimeter guard
00:03:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
around the Kibbutz. And they used assets of the Kibbutz to directly support the war effort. So trucks and tractors were used to haul supplies to the Israeli army. It's like maybe 10 miles away. The Kibbutz had a small hotel and motel that was used as a restaurant recreation center for troops coming and going into the Golan Heights. I can remember they put on shows for the troops,
00:04:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
modest things, Israeli equivalent of a USO show. That was life for about up to about three weeks. Israel mobilized totally for war. For example, an apartment house complex of people I knew in Tel Aviv, there were anti-aircraft guns, like on the same block. They weren't there for Army/Navy Day showpiece,
00:04:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
they were there expecting to have to possibly shoot down Egyptian planes, and the whole country was like this. Fortunately, it subsided after about three, four weeks, the United States did intervene. Mostly we flew a lot of supplies to the Israelis and we provided some
00:05:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
advisory assistance to use some of our then new tow anti-tank weapons, which were then absolutely new. I think the operation was called Nickel Grass. For certain people, that counted as participating in a U.S. campaign. Well, the net result of that for me was
00:05:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I wanted to fight, but I was not equipped to fight. I was untrained. I was not equipped and I was not affiliated with any unit. If you don't have all three of those things, you better just find a hole to burrow up in, if you're in a war zone, and stay there until it's safe to come out. I was in better shape because the kibbutz was reasonably well-organized,
00:06:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and the best thing for me to do was just do whatever it is they told me to do. Wandering around in somebody else's war is not particularly healthy, so that's what I did. After it ended, I thought about what the Israelis and Hebrews call making aliyah. That's an immigration to Israel. Since I'm Jewish, I would have been granted Israeli citizenship just by filling out a form,
00:06:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and I wouldn't have had to renounce U.S. citizenship because under the Israeli law of return, any Jew in the world can have citizenship bestowed upon them at any time. It's something that they give to you, rather than you renouncing U.S. citizenship and applying for that. I didn't want to renounce U.S. citizenship, but I thought of going into the Israeli army.
00:07:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, in the six months that I was on Kfar Blum, and two months prior to that, I was at another kibbutz as a volunteer where I was working eight hours a day. I learned a lot of Hebrew, but I didn't know enough to really be a fully functioning soldier in Hebrew. Now, for example, could I understand an operations order? Could I read a field manual? Could I read the instructions on
00:07:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
how to assemble or disassemble or maintain a piece of equipment? I wasn't up to that, at least not yet. It would have taken me another year or two just to get that far. Now, the Israelis do make allowances for people who don't speak the language because in Israel, the concept is everybody serves and they don't pay you very much during your obligatory term of service, and they don't train
00:08:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
everybody for everything. But I found, when I decided to go back to the U.S., at least for a little while, then come back to Israel, make the aliyah, and then get inducted into the Israeli army. Well, at the time I was 23 years old, and for a lot of different reasons, I didn't go in when I was 18 or 19. I ended up visiting a U.S. Army recruiting station,
00:08:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and they said, yeah, we want you, because they just abolished the draft, so there was a huge demand for volunteers. On paper, I was what they were looking for. They were looking for 18 to 25, so I'm the right age. There was a whole lot less than me than there is now. I met height, weight requirements. I was in good shape because I'd been
00:09:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
actively working. I was a high school graduate, no criminal record, no record of drug or alcohol abuse, no sexually transmitted disease. So Uncle Sam was definitely saying, I want you for the U.S. Army. I enlisted in February 1974 and began
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basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri toward the end of February of 1974.
MASON FUNK:
Now the next question on the list is going to jump literally decades to the end of your military to ask you, because I know there's so much that we could talk about, but looking back,
00:10:00MASON FUNK:
what would you call your proudest moment in your many, many years of military service?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, just serving itself. I mean, it means a lot to me to be able to identify as a veteran, because, one, it's something that you can't buy. It represents significant
00:10:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
commitment to the country that you live in or the army that you serve in. It gives me something in common ... Well, now I've got something in common with George Washington and all sorts of other distinguished people. Happy to be affiliated with those who served in the other branches, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and so on, specifically some of the things that
00:11:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I'm very proud of is getting through U.S. Army parachute jump school and earning a parachute badge. One of the reasons that motivated me when I was 23 years old, I just want to have something distinctive to put on the uniform, and they would allow me to enlist for airborne and see that parachute badge was a ticket
00:11:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
serving in an airborne unit, which meant I was on active parachute status, receiving hazardous duty pay for about two and a half years. That's another proud moment, I guess, now that I think about it, another proud moment was serving as a company commander for an Illinois National Guard Unit, Company C, first battalion, 131st infantry regiment, 33rd infantry
00:12:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
brigade, separate of the Illinois Army National Guard. That's where I had an opportunity to apply much of my previous training experience, and they needed me. The previous company commander just stopped going to drills, so they needed an immediate replacement. I was transferred from battalion headquarters to go command Company C
00:12:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
because I was the best qualified that they could find at the time, and the company was in bad shape. They had a lot of soldiers that just stopped going to drill. I was able to reverse that trend and increase company strength and put more boots on the ground for annual training and begin to build the company back
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to something that you could build on for mobilization. Eventually, they did get mobilized. We didn't get mobilized for Gulf War 1, because by this time it's 1986, but they got deactivated and re-designated, and a lot of the young soldiers that I had in 1986 went on to become sergeants and officers for the War on Terror.
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In that sense, I was like a college baseball coach, AAA manager that is ready to go to the big leagues on a moment's notice, but in the meantime, I'm preparing people that can be ready for the big leagues, and we're also ready for state active duty. That was very satisfying to me. I learned a lot because
00:14:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
that was kind of--even though I'd been a platoon leader on active duty, company commander is a significant step up from that because, for one thing, you have limited magistrate authority as a company commander, soldier screws up, you can offer them what amounts to a plea bargain, article 15, instead of going to a court martial, which can result in a federal felony conviction, so that's important. You have a specialized
00:14:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
staff that works for you. You got a supply Sergeant, you've got a mess Sergeant, so on, and you're supposed to be a mentor to the 3-5 lieutenants that work for you. It's a key position, and for anything, but the specialty officers like the doctors and the lawyers, company command is essential if you want to get promoted
00:15:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
to Major, they're not going to promote somebody to Major or Lieutenant Colonel unless they've been a successful company commander. That was one of the jobs that -- Another interesting one, if we've got a little time, was I was an enlisted soldier for a while. I was an aviation repair parts clerk for an air cavalry squadron in the 82nd
00:15:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Airborne Division. Our job in a DS maintenance platoon was when they would ... Helicopters in a combat zone are stationed fairly far forward. Well, helicopters won't fly if they're not maintained well, the pilot and the crew chief, they do operator maintenance, but then the next level of maintenance, doing the more complex tasks like exchanging an aircraft engine,
00:16:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
adjusting or changing rotor blades, that's done by direct support maintenance platoon, but to provide direct support, they've gotta be right up there where the helicopters are landing and taking off. Among other things, I was on parachute jump status, I guess I could parachute in with a box of O-rings, but it was a very satisfying job because it taught me
00:16:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
principles of inventory control and maintenance management, because to order a part, I had to know the tail number of the aircraft, the work order that it was on, which shop was going to get what part, what priority to order it on, and the priority meant I could either order it myself or the captain in charge of us would have to sign off on it, or we'd have to get the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the squadron to sign off on it.
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This was expensive stuff, and at the time it was cutting edge technology and, in a year and a half that I did that, I probably had my hands on every one of the 90 helicopters in the squadron. After I did that for about a year and a half, I transferred to what was then known as an Air Rifle platoon. Now, this isn't a bunch of guys with BB guns, this was an infantry detachment
00:17:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
attached to an air cavalry troop, a group of helicopters, so that we were organic infantry, part of that air cavalry troop that could fly in and do infantry missions. If they wanted to send foot patrols out, if they wanted to seize a specific piece of terrain, they would call on the Air Rifle platoon. I did that for a while because
00:18:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I had originally been, when I finished basic training, I went through infantry training, but then when I got to the 82nd airborne division, they needed soldiers to transfer to other jobs because many of the soldiers who had enlisted for infantry in the 82nd were four year bonus guys, meaning by signing a four year enlistment, they were obligated to serve in the infantry. Whereas, I was only a three -year enlistment,
00:18:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
they could put me anywhere they wanted. When I was in the division replacement center, I was offered jobs in different units, and frankly, the air cavalry unit sounded pretty interesting, so I did that for a while. Those were, I guess, two really big high points that I think had an influence on everything else.
00:19:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Being in the 82nd airborne division and having a critical position and keeping helicopters flying, jumping out of airplanes and then going to an actual infantry unit. If you've ever seen the movie Apocalypse Now, there's that scene where they're playing Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, basically, that's what I did. They did it in the movies.
00:19:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I did it, training to do it in combat. I served with a lot of people who actually did that in combat, like the tech supply officer that I worked for, he was awarded a silver star in Vietnam. He flew reconnaissance, then OH-6s, which means that sometimes he'd be hovering maybe five feet above the ground, looking for bad guys
00:20:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and not armed with very much, I think he had maybe a machine gun. I think he got a silver star for pulling wounded guys out under fire. He was kind of an eccentric guy, but he was wonderful to work for. That's another thing that, throughout my entire career, I had the opportunity to serve with some really outstanding people. I mean, some of the best people I ever met,
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I met in the Army. Now, we also had some people that were not so good, and we had guys court-martialed for all kinds of nasty stuff. The Army being such a large organization, you're gonna find everything. You're going to find people who were barely literate enough to pass the entrance exams,
00:21:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
to people with PhDs and multiple degrees.
MASON FUNK:
Why, and this is obviously a sharp shifted topic, but why do you think the Republican party of today has pivoted or positioned itself so strongly against the rights of transgender people, both in the military and throughout all society?
00:21:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
The GOP, I think, is looking for a relatively simple issue that on one level, seemingly looks easy to understand that they can rally around.
00:22:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
And if they're going to have a scapegoat, villain, bad guy--better to do it with as small a group as possible so they don't lose too many votes, one that people might not have a lot of sympathy for to begin with, and a small enough constituency that they may not have the influence to be decisive
00:22:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
in an election. So, it sounds like, okay, well, country's not too crazy about LGBT people in general or some people, but things have changed a lot in the last 10, 20 years. In my youth, I mean, I was born in the middle of the last century, 1950, in my childhood, teenage years and early adulthood,
00:23:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
particularly in childhood, teen years, one did not discuss any kind of sexuality outside of clinical terms, unless it was something to do with heterosexual marital sex, period. I mean, a lot of the vocabulary didn't exist or was rather obscure. Words like transgender, non-binary, cis-gendered,
00:23:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
a lot of those words, they weren't even in use by clinicians. A man like Mr. Trump, who's about four years older than I am, to him, LGBT, but transgender in particular, seem like an easy target. Well, 20 years ago, he might've been able to pull it off.
00:24:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Now, not quite so easy, but still an area of controversy because there's still enough people who feel threatened by transgender people because it upsets their view of order of the universe. It takes a while to adjust to, it took me awhile to adjust to what I am. It's not easy. I can understand why these people feel concerned.
00:24:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
On the other hand, they're passing legislation. The state legislatures that are dominated by Republicans are passing a lot of hostile legislation because there's the whole business about the bathroom and who gets to play on what ball team, but now they want to take it a step further, they want to, in effect, censor
00:25:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
anything about LGBTQ people, and that's worse than the bathrooms, because if you deny people the opportunity to gain knowledge, then they become more fearful. Motto of the RAF (Royal Air Force) parachute school at Brize Norton is 'knowledge dispels fear'. I think,
00:25:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
if more people were better informed, well, just what does it mean to be transgendered? For sure, it doesn't mean some guy puts on a dress so he can harass little girls in the bathroom, that's not what it's about. It's not about waving magic wands on ten-year-olds who don't know or are having trouble with their identity, that's not what it's about.
00:26:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
It's the recognition that LGBTQ people, the overwhelming majority of them, want mostly the same things that everybody else wants: make a decent living, have a family, live in a nice house, have friends, go to Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn't have to be a threat to anyone.
00:26:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
If they're allowed to have a moral, normal relationship, they're not going to be looking for sexual companionship in bars, they're going to want a one and only. Because it's one thing to have adventures, but that wears out pretty quickly, and most of us look for one at a time.
00:27:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
This is some of the reasons. For example, for the devoutly religious, it's very difficult for them to reconcile someone living in the opposite gender of what their body assigned them at birth, and it's very difficult for them to reconcile
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how can somebody be a child of God if they want to have sexual relations with someone of the same sex? It's a big upset, and unfortunately, too many Republican politicians, they push it on the fear and not on taking a step back and looking at, well, just who are these people? What is it they really want? And are they really a threat to me?
00:28:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
That's what's probably most unfortunate. Here we are, we're still in a pandemic. In the last two years, over 700,000 Americans have died from microbes and bacteria that you need a microscope to see, and a degree in biology to know what you're looking at, and we have state legislatures
00:28:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
that are focusing on whether a 14-year-old kid in Knoxville, Tennessee--does he play on the boys' team or the girls' team, and all he wants to do is swing that nine iron and make that putt. That's all he wants to do, and it gets so convoluted and contrary because extensively they pass these laws that restrict gender participation because they don't want women's
00:29:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
sports being threatened. Well, wait a minute, if women need protection because they have less strength or whatever, now you have someone who has a female body that wants to live as a male, and has a female body and is willing to compete against males. Well, wait a minute. They're chasing their tails, and it's wasting time and money
00:29:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
to things that could be better spent. And it's too many state legislatures that are doing this. It's in Texas and Tennessee and to many other states. It puts us out of sync with the rest of the world. It eats up an enormous amount of resources. I mean, do you really want the county sheriff to arrest some 14-year-old kid because
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they're not on the right team? We already have plenty of laws that prohibit--you can't attack, harass, rape anybody anywhere, anytime, so if a transgender person goes into the opposite bathroom, they've got to behave themselves because if they upset anybody, they're subject to arrest, and they should be. But if they're just going in there ...
00:30:30MASON FUNK:
We all want basically the same. Those people want to go to the restroom because ...
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
They need to. It's just not that big a deal, for example, in Germany, most of the health clubs, sports places, they have a co-ed locker rooms, co-ed naked saunas, people behave themselves, they're grownups.
00:31:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
You can look and appreciate, but don't revert your eyeballs to somebody's midsection, just be cool, even in the sauna and just get on with things.
MASON FUNK:
Let's move on because I want to ask you about the military museum and the library--another important topic for your life. Why did you form the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and what does it mean to you? And I should just say
00:31:30MASON FUNK:
we have not too much time. And so, if you can be relatively succinct.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, a couple of things--one, I'm a bibliophile pack rat. My personal collection reached a point where I could no longer even remotely begin to efficiently manage it. So, the best solution seemed to create a not-for-profit corporation that would
00:32:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
properly catalog these materials so that they could be shared through an interlibrary loan network. Initially, that's all I wanted to do, is essentially run a warehouse type operation. Well, we started doing some programs, very modestly at first, then we started doing more of them. Then we realized that we have a very vital function to perform. We're a non-for-profit
00:32:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
private voluntary organization, which supports the concept of a civilian controlled military in a democracy. In order to do that, civilians need to be informed about the military. How can they make intelligent decisions on what to vote for if they don't know anything about it? The military needs to have
00:33:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
constant contact with the civilian community. Citizens need to be ready to be soldiers, and soldiers are still citizens. They need a place, they need an institution which will allow them to exchange knowledge so that they can be more supportive to each other, so that we don't create a society where there's an us and a them, the military doesn't become so isolated
00:33:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and detached that they forget why they're in uniform, and the civilians become so detached they forget they have an army. By having an institution that studies military affairs and military history, we can put in a pitch for enlightenment. Because we get virtually no funding from any government, we have autonomy
00:34:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
that we didn't have when I was in ... I can do things here that I couldn't do when I was still in uniform and under oath. That's as it should be. Our society allows for that and we need to take advantage of it. This country spends over $700 billion a year on defense. How many people have any idea where that goes? Well, they can come here
00:34:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and we'll tell them. If we don't have the answer among the books and artifacts here, we can direct them to people who do, because we maintain positive networking relationships with civilian organizations and the military, because we're totally non-partisan. In my capacity as chairwoman of the PMML (Pritzker Military Museum and Library),
00:35:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I don't advocate for anything. Now, I'll provide the information and tools for anybody who does advocate anything.
MASON FUNK:
Pause one second, somebody came up and took a look and went back down. It would be useful to have you say, maybe summing up, state the name of the organization again so we have that on the tape, and essentially, if you could finish by saying "I started
00:35:30MASON FUNK:
the Pritzker Military Museum and Library," and then just give a simple answer. You don't have to recap everything you've just said, [crosstalk].
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, essentially, the purpose of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library as a private voluntary organization and non-government organization
00:36:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
is to provide enlightenment for both the civilian community and the military community so that they can be mutually supportive in a democracy, which requires citizens to sometimes be soldiers and soldiers to always remember that they're still citizens. By providing resources for education on military history
00:36:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and military affairs, we can make a significant contribution. Because we're totally non-partisan, we don't take sides on any issue, we can create a forum for discussion for anybody. So, there we are. Is that what you wanted?
MASON FUNK:
Exactly. What are your wishes for the future? You rightly point out that we spend $700 billion a year in this nation on the military,
00:37:00MASON FUNK:
what do you envision for the future of the military? Well, in general, and especially for transgender members and veterans?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, that's really a difficult question because ... You're asking me what I think the direction the military is going in general?
MASON FUNK:
Where you hope it's going.
00:37:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, purpose of a military is to defend against threats against the nation. Well, determining what those threats are aren't as simple as they used to be, and the threats come from many sources. I mean, this pandemic amounts to, in effect, a total war, total biological war, even if it's not against a sovereign nation. We face attacks in cyberspace,
00:38:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
they're just as deadly or can be as deadly as Pearl Harbor ever was. We face terrorist threats. So that's going to require a rather diverse group of different people with different talents, and they're not always going to look like the folks in the John Wayne war movies.
00:38:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
We have to make decisions on if we're fighting a cyber war, what's more important. Somebody who's an expert with computers or somebody who looks like John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima, and won't admit to being LGBTQ. Necessity being the mother of invention,
00:39:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
the armed forces quite frankly, have always done that. It's always been a question of which group are they willing to make some concessions to? On the whole, things are better for LGBTQ people than they were, and of course, Mr. Trump tried to try to move the clock back, but I think, and maybe some of these state legislatures
00:39:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
will have some reactionary moves, but move is going forward toward being more tolerant and accepting of LGBT people because too many large corporations support them now, particularly in the urban areas, there's more support for them. It's not the same situation as it was
00:40:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
30 years ago. And as I think younger people, damn near everybody's younger than I am, but as people, I would say under the age of 40 begin to assume greater positions of influence and power, I think the general trend toward acceptance of LGBT people is going to continue, but there's still going to be a lot of battles to fight
00:40:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
deep in the heart of Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas. It's kind of interesting to note that the states that are most intolerant of LGBT people and are more resistant to anti COVID measures have more COVID casualties, more dead and sick people. I hate the masks,
00:41:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
but again, there's sort of a linkage between all of these issues, fighting the mask, fighting the vaccines, fighting the quarantine, the social distancing, nobody likes it, but if we just take our medicine, literally, to get through it, maybe we'll get through sooner rather than later.
00:41:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
And to me, these issues are not Republican or Democrat, straight or gay, it's what do we have to do to survive period, period. So, there we are.
MASON FUNK:
Thank you. Let's talk briefly about your parachute jump at the North Pole in 1993,
00:42:00MASON FUNK:
it sounds like that was a high point for you.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, but that was done totally outside the Army. It was a privately organized ...
MASON FUNK:
Start by telling me what you're talking about.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
All right. What I'm referring to is in April of 1993, I went with a privately organized group that I don't think exists anymore, and we were able to negotiate with the Russians, the then newly formed Russian Federation, this is only two years after
00:42:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
the Soviet Union fell, to make a parachute jump on the North Pole. A year earlier, we had made a parachute jump in Russia, and then we got the idea of a return engagement, so we went to Moscow, and from Moscow, we went to a town in Siberia called Khatanga, which is at about 74 degrees north latitude. That means it's all ...
00:43:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Let's see, that puts it about eight degrees above the Arctic circle. In April, that meant the sun would go down at one in the morning and come up about two hours later and the river was frozen, solid enough you could drive a truck on it. From there, we flew to the North Pole. We flew in a Russian airplane, an IL-76, it's a four-engine cargo plane
00:43:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
capable of holding like a hundred parachutists or several tons of cargo, sort of equivalent to USC 141. We parachuted out of it. There were a large number of Dutch parachuters who were jumping freefall with square shoots, which are far more maneuverable. Those of us in the parachute group
00:44:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
were all former military veterans, qualified military parachutists. We're jumping with military chutes, the Russian d5 parachute, static line. Well, that means, a freefall, you're jumping out the door and you pull the ripcord to open the parachute. Static line means you have a cord that attaches to a cable inside the airplane,
00:44:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
that attaches to a deployment bag on the parachute, and then when it gets extended, it pulls the deployment bag open, thus opening the parachute, and those are round shoots and they're less maneuverable. Well, we were jumping in about, I don't know, 20, 25, maybe 30 knot winds, which is way beyond what U.S. training jumps would be at somewhere at about
00:45:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
10 miles an hour, 10 knots -- 10 knots being a little faster -- no jump, no jump today, because you can get blown off the drop zone, either in the air or once you hit the ground. Also, we're jumping on ice, the North Pole where Santa lives, it's a big ice cube, that's all it is. It's frozen water. Of course, this ice is at various depths.
00:45:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Some of it goes 30, 40 feet down. Some of it is just a thin layer of maybe a few inches. Then there's like a pool of cold water and then more ice, so you gotta watch that you don't land in something like that. Also, that large a concentration of ice, it's like landing on concrete. High winds, so we had people injured and dragged across the drop zone.
00:46:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I was dragged for a while. I had to use the Cape Wells, the release levers up on the parachute harness to detach the billowing parachute from me so that, or at least enough to collapse the air, so I wouldn't blow all over the drop zone. Then evacuation was the greater challenge. There's not a municipal airport where Santa lives,
00:46:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
so we had to be evacuated in stages and we had to stop at various places to refuel. We were evacuated mostly in MI-8 helicopters, Russian helicopters, packed to the gills. And, at least on this operation, Russians did stuff that would give an FAA inspector a heart attack,
00:47:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
but they're very skilled aviators and not much rattles them. They got us there and they got us back. I don't know, they got the essentials done, but under a lot of stress and a lot of risk, but we did it. This was, again, totally, totally outside anything with the military at the time. I was 43 years old.
00:47:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, about 40, close to 43, and I was in the National Guard. I was doing this entirely in civilian status.
MASON FUNK:
That's a great story. All right. I have two final questions. I want to go a little off script here, but these are not controversial so you can tell me ... The second to last question is,
MASON FUNK:
why is it important to you to share your story?
00:48:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Well, one, I'd like to have an opportunity to enlighten the general public that people like me are not a threat to you, and we're mostly on your side if you'll let us. Secondly, I don't want other people, particularly people in the next generation, my children's generation, my grandchildren's generation, I don't want them to have to live a
00:48:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
secret double Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde kind of life. I want them to be able to be who they are. Being who they are, be contributing members of the community at large and just not have to waste a whole lot of time and energy hiding. I mean, some of the stuff that I used to go through, just to get dressed up,
00:49:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
go rent a hotel room, look left and right, know who's out there, what's going to happen to me because I can remember a time if a man were caught in public wearing women's clothes, be subject to arrest. Those laws were on the books as a young adult. Of course, when I was in the Army, if it were known that I dressed this way, that would have been
00:49:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
an immediate end to my career. I mean, immediate. "Pritzker, here are your discharge orders, we're going to accelerate clearing post. We want you out of here by sundown tomorrow, and don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out." Now, I can go into the Pentagon dressed this way. Yeah, we've had a couple of setbacks,
00:50:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
but I think we're going to be able to correct them. But again, I think organizations like this make a difference. Also, it helps me personally, nobody can do this all by themselves, you need to have allies. You need to, if you will, increase combat power by having people on your side. You're not going to do it unless you, in some way,
00:50:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
participate with organizations that have the capability to make real progress. Putting together that Pride book, that's not just for people who are LGBT, it's for anybody who wants to learn more. Well, who are these people? How do they live? And again, RAF
00:51:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
parachute school Brize Norton: "knowledge dispels fear". Thank you, Royal Air Force.
MASON FUNK:
You've already segued into my final question a little bit, but I would like to have you mention the OUTWORDS archive or simply OUTWORDS and talk about what you see as the value of collecting the stories of people like yourself, people we call elders, in the best sense of the word, around the country.
00:51:30MASON FUNK:
People who are LGBTQ, who have lived obviously many decades in this movement. What do you see as the value of that?
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
I think OUTWORDS performs an essential function because it's building the historical record. It's identifying who these people are and what their lives were. I think it's also essential to provide
00:52:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
the younger generation, the generation of my children, who now range from age 27 to 39, my grandchildren ages 3 to 11, what life was like before them, so that they can understand and appreciate where they are now. Things are better that I don't think they fully appreciate what progress has been made.
00:52:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Sometimes, they get a little impatient. Also, I think it's essential to provide context. So when they talk about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which came into being 18 years ago. Wait, longer than that. 28 years ago. Excuse me, my math is a little off, but what does that really mean?
MASON FUNK:
Start that sentence over again,
00:53:00MASON FUNK:
when we think back to Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
When you think back to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, passed in 1993, 28 years ago. I mean, that was passed a couple of years after my oldest son was born. I'm not sure if that generation fully understands the context of what that meant,
00:53:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
it created more problems than it solved. Well, why did that happen? So, if you get in touch with the people at OUTWORDS and organizations like them, like HRC and GLAAD, and some of the others, you can put all of this in context and say, "This is what it was like, grandpa/grandma was my age and this is what it's like now. What changed?
00:54:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
How did it change? Why did it change? Are we better off that it changed?" We need organizations like OUTWORDS. It's one of many organizations that have developed. I have a bibliography that's separate for military stuff, well, some military stuff in it, on sexuality and gender issues, I can't help noting
00:54:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
that the books on transgender in the last 20 years have multiplied exponentially. I mean, when I was, I don't know, 20 years old, you had to really hunt for anything written on the transgender issue. Very difficult to find it. Now, I can't keep up with it.
00:55:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
There are more books, more newsletters, more websites than any one person can keep up with. I do my best. I've got about an 80-page bibliography that's just a list of everything, and there's a lot that I'm missing. That's another reason why I formed the PMML because I can turn that collection over to a trained librarian that can
00:55:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
properly catalog it, properly store it, and thus make it available to other people.
MASON FUNK:
That's great. Anything further you'd like to add. I don't want to rush you, but I know you also have other appointments too.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Okay. I don't know, I'm not sure.
MASON FUNK:
I think we covered a good cross section.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
One of the things why I'm supporting the ACLU in lawsuits against the state of Tennessee is
00:56:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
the Governor of Tennessee, until I informed him, was unaware of the Barry Winchell case. Are you familiar with that? Okay. 1999, PFC Barry Winchell 502nd infantry, 101st airborne division, I think he was in the first of the 502nd, is dating a transgender, Calpernia Adams. Well, a couple of so-called buddies beat him to death in the barracks,
00:56:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
in the very bed that he slept in, in the barracks, because they felt threatened that he was dating a transgender woman. Well, those guys went to jail and Barry Winchell died. No purple heart for getting smashed to death with a baseball bat while you're in bed. I served in that division for close to three years
00:57:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and I served in an infantry outfit. That could have been my outfit that something like that happened in. I don't want to see other things like it. I think the legislation that's being passed in Tennessee and Texas and places like it, it creates a climate and a culture that encourages violence against LGBT people. Well, okay. If the military is about good order and discipline
00:57:30JENNIFER PRITZKER:
and unit cohesion, why would you want a policy that creates a greater probability for disruption and violence and prevents people from bonding in a cohesive unit? There are ways of handling it. I mean, gay guys and straight guys can take a shower together because they can just go into the shower room and take a shower.
00:58:00JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Nothing else, nobody eyeballs anybody, nobody gropes anybody, just take the shower and go. That's what we have to try to work for, that mutual respect, otherwise we will not survive as a society. I think these issues go beyond Republican/Democrat.
MASON FUNK:
That was amazing. Thank you so much.
JENNIFER PRITZKER:
Thank you.
