My Diversity Moment with the Military

Two weeks ago, I was in Arlington, Va., giving an Asian Pacific American Heritage Month speech at the national headquarters of the Army National Guard.

Who else is mandated by law to celebrate diversity at the workplace like those within the federal government?

But at the Army National Guard, it’s more than lip service because over there people seem to know diversity is an essential part of its core mission.  And, on top of that, they know it really works.

When they introduced me to the man in charge of the event, I expected a typical military guy, especially when they said his name was Col. McCray.

Turns out the name was not as it sounded, and wasn’t a typical European-American name of Scots-Irish descent.

Rather the name was Macaraeg, as Filipino a name as it gets.

And it belonged to Col. Roy Macaraeg, the Army National Guard comptroller, the money manager of the National Guard who oversees a $16 billion-dollar budget.