John R. Miles

But I read that you wrote, we can't make good policy if the colleagues around us don't understand how these things work.

What did you mean by that?

And when I think about all of this, something that you are trying to bring to bear, you've been so public about this, which is very difficult given your position.

But I want to look at this from a different perspective, which is the cost of abstraction and leadership and what happens when our bodies become statistics instead of realities.

Because I think with what you were showing here, you're trying to do the opposite.

And I just wanted to acknowledge you for that and get your thoughts on how it's changed, how other people are looking at this now.

I have two related, but a little bit different questions I wanted to ask.

The first is, unfortunately, last year, my sister, who also graduated from Columbia, she went to the International Public Affairs program like you did.

She died of pancreatic cancer.

And as I've talked to members of Congress, because I'm active with PANCAN, what they've unfortunately told me is because

There is such a, the research has not been able to penetrate causing causality to improve the chances of people surviving.

There's not been a lot of policy conversations about it.

So my question is this, and it's not just something like pancreatic cancer.

It's like, how do we create better policy conversations without requiring millions of people to suffer first?

Not just here, but in other areas.

Yeah, one of the best examples I saw of that was when this was done for people who suffered as a result of 9-11 and the ongoing repercussions from that, which my sister was one of them.

So there's another area that I wanted to cover that's really important to me.

And I think a lot of people who are listening to this, and that is traumatic brain injuries.

For those of us who've deployed downrange, traumatic brain injuries are all too common.

And I just wanted to share an interesting story with you and I promise it's leading somewhere.