Mr. Brad R. Carson was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness on April 2, 2015.  He currently serves as the 31st Under Secretary of the United States Army and Chief Management Officer of the Army.  As Under Secretary of the Army, Mr. Carson has served as a principal advisor to the Secretary of the Army on all matters related to personnel, readiness, training and equipping, acquisition and financial management. In his capacity as Chief Management Officer, Mr. Carson oversees all elements of U.S. Army business transformation and strategic planning. Prior to his appointment as Under Secretary, Under Secretary Carson served as the 20th General Counsel of the Department of the Army from January 2012 – March 2014. In that capacity, he was the primary legal advisor to the Secretary of the Army and the Chief Legal Officer for the United States Army.

Before joining the Obama Administration, Mr. Carson held a variety of public and private positions. During the Clinton Administration, Mr. Carson was selected as a White House Fellow and served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. After practicing commercial law at Crowe & Dunlevy, P.C., the largest law firm in the state of Oklahoma, Mr. Carson entered politics. In 2000, Mr. Carson was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He served in the U.S. Congress from 2001-2005, representing the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma. Upon leaving office, Mr. Carson was appointed as a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and he later served as Chief Executive Officer of Cherokee Nation Businesses, one of the largest businesses in the state of Oklahoma.   From December 2008 until December 2009, Mr. Carson served on active military duty, deploying to Iraq in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. As a United States Navy intelligence officer, Mr. Carson embedded with the United States Army’s 84th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Battalion. He worked with Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams at seven bases investigating bomb sites, caches, smuggling routes and other activities related to improvised explosive devices.  From January 2009 until January 2012, Mr. Carson served as a professor of business law at the University of Tulsa, where he held joint appointments in the College of Law and College of Business and served as Director of the National Energy Policy Institute.    Mr. Carson holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Baylor University, Phi Beta Kappa. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.  Mr. Carson also holds a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma.

our story on the Education of War reflects momentarily for purpose of demonstration,  the resume of Under Secretary Carson which does well to confirm that an education becomes pertinent to the pathway of ones professional success.  Noted in today’s video, OGTV quotes Carson’s in his speech discussing the needs of today’s Army.   Six minutes into his speech, the Under Secretary discusses the challenges the Army is currently grappling with:  Carson asks the question-Should we accept in the Army's inefficiencies, and the waste in Army recruiting process?  "Recruiting is one of the most important jobs in the Army, and is a very difficult task. Each year, the Army assesses “60,000-80,000 men and women-depending on the needs of the force. These young men and women must be special people. They must be resilient and fit, they must be soldiers of character,  they must be competent, agile, committed, and adaptive. They must be capable of forming trusted teams to form all the while representing the diversity of America". "A tall order.  Meeting these requirements have proven to be no mean feat.” according to Under Secretary Carson.  

Shifting from the U.S. Army, and just one of the challenges facing the US Army presented by Under Secretary Carson, we now turn your attention to our nation’s Historically Black post secondary institutions that have produced more African American engineers, lawyers and doctors than any other Universities in America,and where we share Johnny Taylor, CEO of the Thurgood Marshall Foundation’s take on addressing a severe and ever present challenge facing HBCU’s; HBCU relevancy.   OGTV has found in many regards, the challenges that our US Army faces are some of the same challenges faced by Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  This profound assessment and comparison we realize will create debate and even potentially ardent controversy, but at best, we trust that this bold compare and contrast stimulates deeper analysis into both institutions around these challenges.    In as much we will continue this segment with Part II  of our story, "The Education of War". 

 Johnny C. Taylor Jr. is president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), a nonprofit advocacy organization named for the U.S. Supreme Court’s first African-American justice. Founded in 1987, TMCF supports and represents nearly 300,000 students attending its 47 member schools that include publicly supported historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), medical schools and law schools. OGTV thanks both TMCF and to Under Secretary Brad Carson, and the ILW for the contribution to this first series of the "Education of War".