WEBVTT

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My name is major Kathleen Reuben . I am

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a 71 alpha microbiologist . I am an

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astronaut . I work at Nasa . So I've

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always wanted to be an astronaut ever

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since I was a little kid and it was

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definitely a big dream of mine . So why

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did I choose the Army Reserve ? Um ,

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that's a good question . And my Navy

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friends are going to get real mad right

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now . I really thought about , you know ,

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what are my skills as a professional ?

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And my area of research is in stem and

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in biology specifically . Um , and in

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biodefense and when I thought about all

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of the services , um , and really who's

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doing biodefense , that really made

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sense to be in the army domain , There

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have been some other people that have

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inspired me , my stepdad , he was an

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Army reserve chaplain . He was like ,

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wow , you know , I didn't think that

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you would do something like this , but

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this matches what you do , this matches

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the skills that you have your

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enthusiastic about it . You want to

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serve like what a perfect thing . Well

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bear true faith and allegiance to the

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same . I was really excited to

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commission in the army . Lieutenant

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general Jody Daniels for me and I was

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just a little overwhelmed , you know ,

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I want to say maybe starstruck to me

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being a soldier means that you're

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serving . It's a super interesting job

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and particularly from a stem career

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field perspective , but we're also

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learning and we're engaging our brains

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and some really interesting stuff . One

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of the coolest things so far has been

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meeting all the people in my unit .

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I've had a great time talking with

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people both in my specialty and the

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people that are doing something

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completely different . My advice for

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the next generation of leaders , people

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who want to be leaders in the army and

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who want to be astronauts um is you

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know , really think about what your

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technical excellence is , um what field

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you wanna pursue , be the best in that

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field . There will be people that will

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tell , you know , that's not a good

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idea and just don't listen to them .

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Army just does such an incredible job

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at developing leaders . And I think the

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skills that I learned in the Army

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Reserve will hopefully help me be a

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better astronaut .