Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the arrival of the official party, honors for Admiral Rogers, and remain standing for our National Anthem and invocation. The National Anthem will be sung by musician first class Daniel Smith, Navy Band Northeast. Please join him in singing the National Anthem. At the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we so gallantly Commander Douglas E. Rosander, Naval War College Chaplain. Let us pray. God in heaven, as we gather this day, we come from many nations, many services, and many backgrounds. With anticipation and expectation, we now begin a course of study and pray that it will provide not only personal satisfaction and professional expertise, but also enhance national and international peace and security. Thank you for those who have brought us to this point in our careers so that we may continue our growth. Thank you for families, friends, teachers, mentors, and leaders. And Lord, please watch over those who serve today in harm's way and be near to their families and loved ones who await their safe return. Now please bless this occasion and continue your care and watch over each person and their loved ones. Amen. Please be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, on the stage this morning are Dr. Tim Garrell, Deputy Director College of Distance Education, Captain Richard Lebranche, Chair, Joint Military Operations Department, Dr. Michael Pavkovic, Chair, Strategy and Policy Department, Dr. David Cooper, Chair, National Security Affairs Department, Professor Tom Calora, Dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, Professor Thomas Mangold, Dean of the International Programs and Maritime Security Cooperation, Ruer Admiral Retired Jamie Kelly, Dean of the College of Operational and Strategic Leadership, Dr. Tim Schultz, Acting Dean of Academic Affairs, Dr. Louis Duncan, Provost, United States Naval War College, Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, Director, National Security Agency, Chief Central Security, Ruer Admiral P. Gardner Howe III, President of the United States Naval War College. Will the senior class, members of the Naval Command College and College of Naval Warfare, please rise. Captain Derek Westman, Director of the Naval Command College will present the 47 nations represented in our Naval Command College. The nations representing the Naval Command College class of 2016 are Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. They will be joined in class by members of our College of Naval Warfare, which includes students from the United States Air Force, Air National Guard, Army, Army National Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and civilians representing the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Senior Leadership Development Program, Department of State, Defense Contract Management Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Special Operations Command, U.S. Maritime Administration, Department of Homeland Security. Please be seated. Will the intermediate class members of the Naval Staff College and College of Naval Command and Staff please rise? Captain Mark Turner, Director of Naval Staff College, will present the 53 nations represented in our Naval Staff College. The nations representing Naval Staff College Class 2016 are Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Columbia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Tomei and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, United States and Vietnam. They will be joined in class by members of our College of Naval Command and Staff which includes students from the United States Air Force, Air National Guard, Army, Army National Guard, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy and civilians representing the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Defense Contract Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. Marshall Service, Department of Energy, Department of State, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, U.S. Special Operations Command. Please be seated. On October 6, 1884, Secretary of the Navy, William E. Chandler signed General Order 325, which began by stating, A college is hereby established for an advanced course of professional study for naval officers to be known as the Naval War College. The principal building on Coaster's Harbor Island, Newport, Rhode Island, will be assigned to its use and is hereby transferred with the surrounding structures and the grounds immediately adjacent to the custody and control of the Bureau of Navigation for that purpose. The college will be under the immediate charge of an officer of the Navy, not below the grade of commander to be known as the President of the Naval War College. He will be assisted in the performance of his duties by a faculty. A course of instruction embracing the higher branches of professional study will be arranged by a board consisting of all members of the faculty and including the President, who will be the presiding officer of the board. The course of instruction will be open to all officers above the grade of naval cadet. Commodore Stephen B. Luce has been assigned to duty as President of the college. It's been 131 years since that order established in the Naval War College was issued. In that time, the college has adhered remarkably to the basic mission and core values envisioned. Here to share with you a brief history of the Naval War College is Professor Stanley Carpenter, Naval War College Command Historian. The Naval War College owes its creation to the vision and persistence of one man, Stephen B. Luce. Almost a century and a half ago, Lieutenant Luce was assigned to the Naval Academy faculty. There he realized that his branch of the service was not providing training or education in key professional areas. The Naval Academy had no text for seamanship, so Luce wrote it, and it stood as the U.S. Navy's standard for 40 years. As he rose in rank and widened his experience to the command of seven different ships in peace and in war under sail and under steam, Stephen Luce saw other inadequacies in the Navy's professional preparation for its officers and men. As a commander of a fleet division, he saw that there was neither a procedure to exercise naval tactics nor a unit assigned to examine experimental tactical ideas, so he created both. At the same time, he saw that there was no preparatory training for enlisted recruits, and he established the U.S. Navy's first recruit training station in Newport on Coasters Harbor Island in 1883. Then when he rose to rear admiral and commander of the Navy's North Atlantic Squadron, the most senior active-duty billet, Luce turned to implement a long-standing goal. Since his combat service in the 1860s, he had realized that there was no place in the Navy to study the most important and the central issue for a professional officer in the armed forces, war. His age, like ours, was a time of rapidly changing technology. Then as now, the main focus of professional life was on technology and science, on metallurgy, on applications of electricity, on the chemistry and physics of weapons, and a host of related matters. Luce fully recognized and appreciated the importance of all these matters as fundamental to success in modern warfare. But he saw more clearly than others that these were only the means for success in solving a broader problem that most officers ignored, the issue of war itself. As Luce repeatedly pointed out, war is the central issue around which the professional of arms exists, and there was then no existing institution where a naval officer could study it. Thus, Stephen Luce persuaded a reluctant Navy department to establish a Naval War College in October 1884, making the name of the institution into a constant daily reminder to students and faculty as to the purpose and focus of its work. In creating the college's first faculty and curriculum, Luce established the approach that has been repeatedly renewed, refined, and reaffirmed over more than a century in seeking to understand war in its broadest dimensions. It is a major area of study, but one that few undertake then or now, and it requires original research and new thinking to understand how wars begin how wars are fought, how wars end, and how wars can be prevented. The highest aspects of this professional subject involve understanding governmental management, finance, decision making, logistics, campaign planning and tactics, international relations, and grand strategy. The analytical tools for such study lay in approaches with which most naval officers of his time were unfamiliar. The social sciences with politics, history, management, and international law, as well as understanding the roles of other services and their approaches to war. To the study of these matters, Luce added a new tool for broad analysis, war gaming. Then in its infancy, Luce foresaw that the college's game boards could become the key tool that linked the broad analysis of political military issues with the burgeoning developments of current and future naval technologies. So he empowered Lieutenant William McCarty Little to innovate and develop this area. With Luce's concept for the college's focus, the Naval War College began to make a wide range of contributions that has earned it a widespread reputation during the more than a century and a quarter that is followed. The student body gradually widened. Soon the college had its first students in the Navy, officers from Sweden in 1894 and Denmark in 1895. Most famously of all that, the college's contributions, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan's lectures on naval history provided the basis that created an understanding of naval strategy. Eventually published in book form, Mahan influenced naval thinking around the globe. Captain Charles Stockton published the first attempt to create a code of international law for naval operations. And within a decade, he became the focus for international discussions and a basis for the modern law of naval warfare. Meanwhile, the college was making other contributions. Officers here played a key part in creating the country's first contingency plans for war, some of which were used in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Also, in the early years of the 20th century, Naval War College was the principal engine behind the creation of operational naval doctrine and the innovation of an operational staff to support flag officers at sea. In addition, the college was the wellspring for the long-term movement that eventually led to the creation of a chief of naval operations in 1915 to advise government leaders and give the Navy professional uniform leadership. Following the First World War, Naval War College students and faculty who looked critically at naval operations and in the light of the arms limitations treaties began to think innovatively about the future operational use for submarines, aircraft, and amphibious forces. Continuing through the 1930s, they made significant contributions to the development of war-planned orange that was used in World War II. As Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz later recalled, the Naval War College had examined so many different possible scenarios and possible courses of actions for a war in the Pacific that he and his colleagues were surprised only by Japan's employment of kamikaze aircraft. Admiral Raymond Spruitz, the victor of the Battle of Midway, returned to the Naval War College for his fourth tour of duty here in 1946 and established the college's direction as it entered the Cold War era. During that period, much thought was devoted to issues of nuclear weapons and multi-national cooperation. More recently, the college contributed substantially to some of the thinking behind the maritime strategy of the 1980s and the conduct of the Gulf War in 1990-91, as it did in helping to create the maritime strategy for the 21st century in 2007 and the updated revision in 2014. As entering students here at the Naval War College today, you now become part of this heritage. It is a heritage that stands as a personal challenge to each and every one of us, both to those of you who are coming to the college today for the first time and to those of us who have spent decades here. In 1903, Admiral Luce returned to the college and addressed the student body much as we are doing today. His words in 1903 ring as true today as they did more than a century ago. But rather than me tell you this, I believe I see Admiral Luce approaching now himself. Mr. President, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor to speak to you today and one that I highly appreciate. If you would permit me, I would like to say something about the aims and objects of this college. Although called a college, this institution differs from all other seats of learning. A moment's consideration will show why this must be so. As its name implies, the principal object of the college is the study of the science and art of war. Now, war is a very large and comprehensive subject and it would be the height of presumption on the part of the college that we want to take to teach officers of mature years any branch, whatever, of their profession, even the most elementary. All that the college can do, all that it professes to do is to invite officers to come to it and to offer them every facility pursuing the study of the highest branches of their profession. Faculty and class alike occupy the same plane without distinction of age, rank, or assumption of superior attainments. All are pursuing one and the same end, the advancement of their profession. We speak habitually of the science and art of war. As a science, it recognizes certain general principles which are just as applicable today as they were in the time of the great Athenian Admiral Themistocles. A strict adherence to those principles has not always ensured victory. It is true. But a violation of them, either through ignorance or neglect, has almost invariably led to defeat. Military writers have been careful to warn us that although war in its most extended sense may be called science, yet it is not an exact science. As an art, war is governed by rules which vary from age to age. Art, it has been well said, may be learned, but it cannot be taught. This is particularly true of the art of war. It cannot be taught, accepting insofar as one may teach oneself, and it is to offer every officer the opportunity of teaching himself that the college doors are open. That war is the best school of war is one of those dangerous and delusive sayings that contain just enough truth to secure currency. He who waits for war to learn his profession often acquired his knowledge at a frightful cost of human life. Change, continual unremitting change is the law of the universe. Stagnation means atrophy and death. It is not enough for us to keep abreast of the times. This college must be in the very front rank an advanced guard of progress. To obtain some perception however dim of the future we must study the past. This teaches us that the civilization we now enjoy was brought about by war. The proud position we as a nation now occupy was rendered possible only by wars and future problems in the destiny of man will be worked out through the instrumentality of the sword. There is no escaping it. We are no apologists for war. Heaven forbid. We simply regard it from a common sense point of view as one of the many evils flesh is heir to. War is a dreadful skirt we all admit. It is a relic of barbarism. We admit everything that can be said against war but after all has been said. No student of history however superficial can deny that through that same dreadful scourge ultimate good has been brought about. It has been so in the past and as far as human discernment can go it must be so in the future. However war may in certain instances be averted but mark this well. It can be averted in one way and in one way only and that way is to be fully prepared for it. That is the meaning of this college. It is an instrumentality for the prevention of war by being prepared for it. To be prepared for war is the role of the naval strategist. To be in the right place at the right time and with adequate force means success by check mating your adversary in the first few moves. Campaigns have been won without firing a shot simply by skillful strategic movements. It is the business of this college to study all the various problems of war as they may affect this country. Now it is quite unnecessary to explain to such an audience as I have the honor of addressing that the college itself has no power whatever to act nor authority to formulate naval policy. Its aim is simply to invite officers to meet together to discuss questions pertaining to the highest branches of their profession and to enable each one according to his own inclinations to prepare himself for the highest and most responsible duties that can devolve upon a naval officer. But one thing must be borne in mind. At the firing of the first gun proclaiming war the so-called inspiration of genius may be trusted only when it is the result of long and careful study and reflection. If attendance here will serve in any degree to broaden an officer's views extend his mental horizon on national and international question and give him a just appreciation of the great variety and extent of the requirements of his profession well then this college will not have existed in vain. Thank you and good luck. Ladies and gentlemen the 55th president of the United States Naval War College Brewer Admiral P. Garner Howe III. This is a quiet crowd. Good morning everyone. Admiral Rogers, Provost Admiral Barrera, Admiral Verma, Admiral Weisskopf distinguished guest faculty and students of the Naval War College class of 2016. Greetings and welcome today to the convocation ceremony. It is not easy to stand up here after in the shadow of one of the greatest naval leaders that the U.S. Navy has ever had but I'm going to give it my best shot. To begin what I'd like to do is just acknowledge again I think the exceptional performance of Commander Ty Limeran, United States Navy Reserve who created Admiral Luce for us today. So he's off stage but he can hear us again if you'll please join me in just appreciation for his rendition. So welcome to the convocation ceremony of the oldest institution of its kind across the globe. One which I'd argue is not just the oldest but also the most prestigious and the most professionally relevant. The term convocation is defined as quote a ceremonial assembly of members of a college or university unquote and we here at the Naval War College follow this time honored academic tradition for an important reason. This ceremony serves as public recognition of the shared intellectual journey that we are about to begin together. Now each of us have arrived at this point by very different paths. The cut and color of the various uniforms and suits that are in the audience today provides evidence of the many military services the agencies and the nations that comprise our unique college. We take pride in the fact that the military, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of this gathering is unmatched on almost any campus in the United States and yet from such diversity will arise today one entity a company of professionals with a common goal and a common purpose specifically to develop as leaders in the service of our nation. So in my capacity as the president of the United States Naval War College it is my honor and my duty to declare the 2015-2016 academic year officially in session. Now we're gathered here along the shores of the historic Narragansett Bay home and the birthplace of the United States Navy. It is a place of endless opportunities and endless rewards and I can state with certainty that the year of study that you'll begin today will be a watershed event in your personal and your professional life. While you will not be billed for tuition or books or supplies at this college you will be asked to contribute your most precious commodity and that is your time and your intellectual energy. Today's ceremony begins our academic year and provides us all, students and faculty with the opportunity to reaffirm the task at hand that is the intellectual component of your development as a leader a leader ready to lead in a Navy military at war should such circumstances arise. We are not here to produce the next generation of academic scholars or researchers we fully acknowledge we need scholars and researchers to do so and we have world-class faculty to do so but we should never be confused about our primary mission and that is to develop you intellectually as leaders that are capable of leading in a complex operational environment professional war fighters who will work hard to prevent war but are prepared for it if it comes. The main engine of this intellectual development is our world-class faculty they will uphold the highest standards of academic rigor and they are committed to providing the very best possible learning environment for you. They will provide guidance and mentorship as each of you engage with our widely praised and often emulated curriculum of strategy and policy, national security affairs, joint military operations and electives. They will set conditions for success in this intellectual journey but the rest is up to you. I'd like to offer two additional challenges for you to consider, for you to address over the course of your study here. First, I challenge you to refine in your own mind or define, if you have not already, what it means to be a professional, what makes a profession stand apart from other organizations, what it means to be a member of the profession of arms. Clarify in your own mind the nature and the sources of our professional military ethic and of your own personal ethic. Determine how closely they align and if they don't, understand where they don't and why and what are the implications. And we'll talk a bit more about professionalism later today. Find that challenge you to use this time to improve your readiness as a leader, not just in Garrison but as a leader in crisis, in conflict and in combat. Now my own personal experience indicates that while training got me ready for the tactical employment as a junior officer, it's only reflection that will get you ready for operational employment at more senior levels of responsibility. Building ethical frameworks and the mental resiliency to lead effectively in ambiguous situations, to lead effectively despite personnel losses and damages. You will not get that through training but rather you can get it through reading and thinking deeply about such experiences and others and sharing these reflections with your professional colleagues. Now I didn't do this in my war college experience. Don't make the same mistake I did. So whether you are a student, a spouse or a family member, I encourage you to embrace the opportunity to get all you can from your year here at this historic Naval War College in this wonderful city and in this beautiful part of the United States. I'm sure you will join the legions of those who have preceded you and eventually look back with great fondness on your memories and your time here in Newport. So to the students, congratulations again. I, the staff and the faculty look forward to setting on this intellectual journey with you. So now it's my distinct privilege to publicly recognize one of our most distinguished graduates. This is the 20th time that we have presented the college's Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award since it was established to recognize the accomplishments of special graduates who built upon their Naval War College experience and went on to assume positions of senior leadership and national prominence. These alumni serve as inspirational role models for you, our current students and for future students. It was first presented in 1996 to our distinguished graduate alumnus General John M. Shalikashvili, who was then serving as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Your program includes a list of the others that were so honored over the years. This year's award goes to Admiral Mike Rogers. As you can see from his complete biography in your program, he's won numerous awards for both operational expertise and academic scholarship. He's a native of Chicago who earned his commission through the Auburn University ROTC program, 1981. Originally designated a surface warfare officer, he was selected for re-designation to Cryptology Now Information Warfare in 1986. And over the course of his career, he has excelled afloat and ashore in operational and in staff assignments. After becoming a flag officer in 2007, Admiral Rogers served as the director of intelligence for both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and for the United States Pacific Command, and most recently served as commander U.S. Fleet Cyber and 10th Fleet. He assumed his present duties as commander U.S. Cyber Command and director National Security Agency Chief Central Security Service in March 2014. In addition to being a skilled operator, he's also a distinguished scholar. He's an honor graduate of the National War College and a graduate with highest distinction from the Naval War College's own College of Distance Education back in 1992. He's a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar 21 fellow, a Harvard Senior Executive in National Security Alumnus and holds a master of science degree in national security strategy. His professional and personal achievements clearly serve as an inspiration to all Naval War College students past, present, and future. Sir, if you'll join me, center stage. Admiral Howe will now present the Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award for 2015 to Admiral Michael S. Rogers. The President, U.S. Naval War College takes pleasure in presenting this certificate to Admiral Michael S. Rogers, in recognition of his exceptional service to the nation, the Department of Defense, and to the U.S. Naval War College. He's hereby designated as the year 2015 recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award. This award recognizes the recipient's unparalleled dedication to duty, unwavering sense of personal and professional integrity, and his insatiable intellectual curiosity. These traits, which formed the bedrock upon which the U.S. Naval War College was established over a century ago, have been instrumental in enabling this Distinguished Graduate to set a standard of excellence which all future graduates should strive to achieve. Presented this 17th day of August, 2015, signed V. Gardner Howe III, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, President, U.S. Naval War College. Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning.  It's a great day. This is the start of 10 months that, for many of you, you will find to be something that will change your career and change your life. Before I get started, I add my respects and greetings to the many seniors previously recognized by the President. I thank you all for being here today.  If you're a spouse? The reason I ask you to do that, I want to start out by thanking you because your spouse wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for you. It doesn't matter what nationality you represent here today. Every one of us knows that if we have donned the cloth of our respective nation, we have chosen a path that demands much. It demands much of ourselves, but perhaps hardest of all. It demands so much more from those who love us the most in our lives, our spouses and our children. And so for the spouses who are here today, I simply say thank you for what you put up with every day.  I want to thank you for your willingness to leave your homes, to leave your parent nation, to come to a place for many of you that you will find is very different. To speak, to spend a year immersed in a language that for many of you are native tongue, I thank you for your willingness to do that. Your nation has made a significant investment in you and we here, all of us in this convocation, will be the lucky beneficiary of that investment over the course of the next 10 months. I want to also start by saying thanks to you for the journey that has brought you to where you are in your professional and personal lives. And to thank you for your willingness to share that with this broader group over the course of the next 10 months. This 10 months is a laboratory in many ways. It will bring you together with a group of world class academics. It will bring you together with nations that span the globe. It will bring you together with multiple services. It will bring you together with both active and reserve individuals within that uniform structure. It will expose you to individuals from across governments. This is a great laboratory to learn. And you will get from it exactly what you put into it. I found this in my own professional life to really be a seminal event. I did it by distance education. But the thought was the same. And for me, I found this truly to be a professionally changing time in the 34 years that I have spent in uniform to date. I found this an event that challenged me that made me think beyond my own comfort level. I started this in what would be the junior class straight out of three years of sea duty as a first warfare officer, Grenada, Beirut, El Salvador. I mean, I thought I was pretty hot stuff rolling off that first sea tour. I thought I could have driven that. I was on a 9-63 when they were new. And quite frankly, I thought I could have driven that thing through the eye of a needle. There was no combat systems problem on that ship I couldn't deal with. And I had a lot of confidence. And yet, when I came as a lieutenant to this environment, I thought to myself, Rodgers, you have got to get your head on. Because it's a whole lot more than just being a good operator. Training teaches us to do. Education teaches us to think. Training is about the how and the what. Education, the focus of your next 10 months, is about the why. And to ask yourself, why is the world the way it is? Why is it that drives and shapes this environment that we all operate in? And how do I exist and deal as a maritime professional, if you are a maritime professional, a professional in whatever service or career you're in, about how do I live and work in a world of amazing ambiguity? As you become more senior, the journey increasingly is about two things. Dealing with risk and dealing with ambiguity. And now I find myself as a four-star senior in the United States Navy and in the Department of Defense of the U.S. structure. And every day I think back to the lessons I learned through the Naval War College about how do I think about risk and how do I think about ambiguity and how do I use that to drive ahead in the two mission sets that I'm responsible for? Cyber and Signals Intelligence. And I have never forgotten that time in Newport at the college here. And I've never forgotten the value that it gave me. Now for many of you, the next 10 months will offer amazing opportunity, there's amazing challenges. But I ask you to keep two things in mind based on my experience so you take it for what it's worth. The first is remember this journey and our profession is a marathon, it is not a sprint. So do not forget that this 10 months is also an opportunity for you to recharge yourself. For many of you you will be rolling off very demanding operational tours you will have been away from your families for extended periods. This is an opportunity for you to recharge so you can sustain this pace and you can run through the tape all the way at the end of the race however long that race is.  So do not feel guilty about getting some time with your family about getting some good PT and about sustaining yourself because trust me we're going to get more than our money's worth out of you over the course of this journey. I don't think there's any doubt in anybody's mind about that. The second thing I always thought was even as you're trying to recharge yourself step back from your comfort zone and from what you know and ask yourself what can you learn. I consciously during my time thought to myself so I know this merit time and the surface stuff but man there's a whole lot more out there that I need to get smarter about and I consciously thought to myself what are the opportunities for me to learn whether it's the electives you opt to take whether it's how you spend your time this is all about learning and let there be no doubt in your mind I'll speak to the Americans in the audience particularly those in the United States Navy we aren't doing this and you're not here because we want you to have a nice 10 months in Newport. You're here because we view this as a strategic investment for the future of our service and our nation and there is an expectation for each and every one of you about how you will both gain insights during the next 10 months and how you will then employ them in the course of your career. There is an expectation let there be no doubt about that but it's a great opportunity. I would also remind you we are blessed to have over 65 countries represented they are our guests and I remind all of us who are here as Americans in our society be good hosts reach out to your foreign counterparts get to know them and understand them ask about their families their cultures their societies the journey that has brought them to this time in this place if the events of the last 15 years in the post 9-11 environment have taught us anything it is that no nation even one like the United States with amazing economic strength military strength political stature in the world around us no one nation and no one nation is going to be able to by itself work its way through this incredibly complex and diverse problem sets that we are dealing with in the world around us today we are not going to kill ourselves we are not going to kill our way out of this we got to think our way through these problem sets we got to ask ourselves so what do we need to do to get to those end states that interest us and that at its heart is an intellectual process that starts with thought and that's really what this 10 months is all about I congratulate each and every one of you for the journey that has brought you here as I said you are not here by chance make the most of your time during this 10 months then realize you'll get out of it what you put into it but you have been put in an amazing laboratory there is more experience more knowledge more expertise and a broader set of perspectives from societies that span the globe from multiple races ethnicities religions there is so much to learn here because as you gain more seniority as you do this longer and I would argue that's not unique to the United States but as you do this longer and longer you will find that this laboratory that you are in here in Newport increasingly is the nature of the world that you will be dealing with and living in every day in your professional life so Newport in this 10 months really represent an amazing opportunity and you also have to acknowledge that we are doing it you are doing it in a great place Newport is an amazing city a long maritime history by American standards very short compared to many of the nations represented here we are a relatively young nation approaching 240 years but you are here in an area where it all started for us as a nation where our original 13 colonies began Newport Rhode Island being one of the original 13 so an amazing history here I urge you to get out and about and see it and with that I look forward to seeing where the journey in life both professionally and personally will take many of you I am sure there will be times we will run across each other and I hope you will say hey I went to Newport and was a war college graduate just like you sir because I would love to hear about the journey and how you found the experience but thank you very much for the service that has brought you here one last thought I would share with you and it took me a long time to learn this lesson and it really came home to me when I was at the war college and then later on in my career when I went to the national war college it doesn't take a uniform to serve I take great pride as I am sure to do the majority of you here who are uniformed individuals it took me a long time to realize that service comes in many forms and you don't have to wear a uniform to serve something bigger than yourself and many of the people you are going to meet every few months every bit is dedicated every bit is professional every bit is motivated and have sacrificed in their professional and personalized every bit as much as you have and yet they don't do it wearing a uniform they do it serving the nations working in the government in other ways don't underestimate what they bring to the table and what you can learn from them they have an amazing perspective and they look at problems sometimes a little differently in a way that really can provide valuable insight with that I wish you only the best in the journey of life wherever it takes you I thank you for your service that has brought you here again to the spouses as I started I just can't thank you enough we put you through so much and you are the power that keeps us going it took me a long time in my career to remember that frankly I was one of these type A hard ass guys who just couldn't get enough of work it was like a drug to me I just loved it the hours the time away the time forward the time at sea couldn't ever get enough of it and I tended to take my family for granted thank God I have a strong partner I will celebrate my 30th anniversary in a couple of months my wife finally said to me when I was a captain Michael your children and I love you very much but if you keep up this path when it's all over you're going to be alone because we can't live like this it took me a long time to really stop and think about that so I would urge all of you don't make the mistake that I did for a long long time thank God I've got a wife who is very dedicated speaks your mind and really brought me up short so thank you all very very much thank you Emma Rogers thank you again for your remarks today and your ongoing service to our country ladies and gentlemen in the moment you've been waiting for we will now sing together the service songs or him of our nation's armed forces we sing these songs based not on the seniority of the service but upon the population of each service here at the war college the words for each song can be found in the back of your program we ask that each military and civilian service member veterans and family members please stand as their service song is sung please remain standing until the completion of all service songs well Captain Andy Norris senior Coast Guard advisor and all Coast Guard veterans staff faculty and students please rise alright belt it out Coast Guard well Colonel Paul Muller senior Marine Corps advisor and all Marine Corps veteran staff faculty and students please rise well Paul Murphy senior Air Force advisor and all Air Force veteran staff faculty and students please rise Colonel Thomas Goss senior Army advisor and all Army veteran staff faculty and students please rise well Admiral Rogers Admiral Howe and all Navy veteran staff faculty and students please rise ladies and gentlemen please rise rise or remain standing for the benediction. Let us pray. Lord of heaven and earth, for these men and women, a new voyage is now underway as they start a rigorous and challenging academic year. In the days and months ahead, I ask for each person present here, for faculty, staff and student, that you grant them clarity of thought and expression as they wrestle with new ideas and difficult concepts. For the students and their families, may this be a year of new friendships and unique opportunities. In the midst of readings, examinations, papers, seminars and discussions, help us to remember that what we learn here will influence not only our own lives, but will also help safeguard liberty, peace and freedom around the globe. Please grant wisdom and strength this day and every day through the one who saves. Amen. Please remain standing for the departure of the official party.


Now I'd lived in a basketball bubble my entire life so I had heard the urban legend of how insanely intense Kobe's individual workouts were. So since I was on camp staff, I asked him if I could watch one. He said, sure, I'm going tomorrow at four. I said, but Kobe, we have a camp workout tomorrow at 3.30. He said, no, I'm going at four a.m. And I get to the gym probably a little after 3.30. And I step out and it's pitch black outside, but I can see that the gym lights are already on and I can faintly hear a ball bouncing and sneakers squeaking. I slither in the side door. Kobe is already in a full sweat. He was going through an intense warm-up before his scheduled workout started at 4 a.m.


More cellular energy is like having more money. When you have more money, you can do more things than you have more choices. When you have more cellular energy, you can do more things and you have more choices. And the lack of cellular energy is what causes disease. Aging and mitochondrial health. Now, as you and I think both know, disease should not be a part of normal aging. And you agree with that, I'm sure. Aging does not need to equal declining, but people seem to associate the two of them together. And you and I are here to tell them that's not necessary, right? That's absolutely true. So let's talk about some of the research. Certainly, I've written a lot about it and you're on a bandwagon about it. Mitochondrial health is really critical to aging properly. What is your own research showing about this? A lot of people are starting to hear more and more about mitochondria. Those of us that are in the more science-based community are well aware of it.  They take the food that you eat and that is then converted into glucose and then the glucose is transported into something called ATP, which is cellular energy. Now, this isn't just energy you need to run to the grocery store or go on a hike, as I know you do, Dr. Gundry. This is cellular energy that propels everything that happens in your body.  And I tell people, more cellular energy is like having more money. When you have more money, you can do more things and you have more choices. When you have more cellular energy, you can do more things and you have more choices. And the lack of cellular energy is what causes disease and aging and decline. Because when you have these mitochondria, because they're generating everything that keeps you active and alive, when you have fewer mitochondria or you have damaged mitochondria, they are not able to function properly. So it's like trying to drive your car with a flat tire. It doesn't work very well. So think of your damaged mitochondria as flat tires on your car. Now, the good news is all the cells in your body, including all the components like mitochondria, are constantly changing. So whatever situation you're in, whether it's good or bad, it's not permanent. And that's why you need to take charge of your health so that if you are in a chronic condition right now, whether it's cancer or heart disease or Alzheimer's, it's not a death sentence, but you do need to provide your body and your mitochondria with what they need so they can regrow and start propelling your health back in the right direction. And you're gonna find out why algae is the most number one powerful, simple, effortless way to do that. So back to the mitochondria. So there's this fascinating, or as I say, organelle, they generate all the energy, but they're very difficult, it's very difficult for nutrients to get into the mitochondria because they are the only cell in your body that has two membranes. All of your other cells have a single membrane. It's called a lipid membrane, which is a fancy way of saying fats. And the mitochondria has that too, but they have a second inner membrane that is impenetrable by drugs, by most antioxidants, except the ones we're gonna talk about that's found in algae.  And the reason why the mitochondria get damaged is because the mitochondria have their own DNA. Yes, you have your 22,000 regular nuclear DNA, but the mitochondria have their own, and there's only 37 of them, but those 37 control all the other 22,000. They control all the cellular communication. So when your mitochondria DNA get damaged, it's a slide down to the oblivion of disease. You and I have talked about algae on several occasions. How did you get interested in algae in the first place? I know. It is pretty crazy, but I've been doing it now for 13 years and I couldn't imagine a life without algae, honestly. So I'm actually Canadian. I've lived in Boston 30 years. And I mentioned the Canada thing because I have an MBA and I was doing international business. And 15 years ago, my younger sister who I'm very close to who lives in Canada, she developed breast cancer. She's fine, by the way, she did recover, but when she was preparing for her chemotherapy, her oncologist told her, didn't suggest, but told her she needed to change her diet to an alkaline diet because it would be important for her healing. They didn't tell her what an alkaline diet was. So my sister called me, Big Sis, who I could do anything, right? And I said, I have no idea what this stuff is, but I will find out. And it turned out to be a plant-based diet, which I know is right up your alley. And it was the phytonutrients and the chlorophyll that have been proven to build your immune system. And she wanted her to have the strongest immune system possible because chemotherapy is pretty rough on your immune system. So I dug in, found food for her to eat, one's not to eat. And she did go through chemo and she completely healed. In fact, I saw her last week in New York and we were celebrating yet another year of being cancer-free. And in the process of helping her, I started learning about plant-based nutrition. And this was 15 years ago. And you know, nobody was talking about plant-based nutrition 15 years ago. And I'm just a very passionate person. And I thought, somebody needs to get this word out. I don't think your books have been published at that time or maybe I wouldn't have pursued it. But I thought, I'm gonna do something. I have no idea what. So I went back, I gave up my corporate career, I went back to school, studied nutrition for a year. And then I taught plant-based nutrition. I put my own curriculum together, taught it at hospitals and corporations. And this is what truly led me to algae. Because I'm sure as you have experienced, I was spending all my time teaching to people the importance of eating more vegetables. Although we both know that there's some downside to that like in some other place. So what I got so much pushback, people were saying, oh, they're too heavy to carry home from the grocery store. They take too long to cook, to eat.  So I thought, okay, I have to find a way to get the nutrition of vegetables into them without any work. So I went back and started reading all the things that I did at Deeper Dive and what I'd found for my sister. And when I got to algae, that's when the miracle happened because it's the most nutrient dense food in the world endorsed by NASA. Having a thousand times more nutrition than any other fruit or vegetable endorsed by the United Nations as the answer rural hunger because there's the highest protein in the world. There's 100,000 studies documenting the health benefits that's been used safely for 60 years in Asia. And the only problem with algae it seemed was there wasn't a very high quality version of it in North America and nobody knew what it was. So I saw the science. I thought I'm going to dedicate myself to getting algae into the world and I'll do whatever it takes to get there. So I have taught myself science. I'm actually applying to get a PhD because I know so much now and I've got a school. I think it's going to give it to me. It takes a little bit of work but my joy is helping people learn how to be healthy, learn how to correct their health, how to prevent disease with something so effortless and easy, all you have to do is swallow them to come in little time. This is, I forgot the most important part, the thing that made vegetables easy is they come in these little tiny tablets. This one's chlorella. This one's spirulina. I should explain the difference between the two of them. But if you took 10 of these, 10 spirulina and 10 chlorella, spirulina we call energy bits, chlorella we call recovery bits. We'll explain the difference in the reason later. But this will give you each tablet gets you the same nutrition, oops sorry, as an entire plate of vegetables. And all you have to do, and I chew them but most people swallow them, there. I just had a plate of vegetables. How easy is that? So now you can get all of the nutrition, all the chlorophyll, all the protein, all the 40 vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients effortlessly. And when I tell you some of the other medicinal benefits related to brain health and cancer, you'll start to see that it's more than just nutrition.  It's beyond nutritional insurance. It's your health insurance. And now I can't claim that I created this. It's mother nature at her best. But I will tell you, we grow it and preserve it using the most careful processes so that you get the maximum benefit from it. Because algae was the first life on earth four billion years ago. And it just needed someone to help the world understand what it was and why it works so well. So it's pretty amazing. Tell our listeners, is there a difference between seaweed and algae and microalgae?  I don't want to have sushi every day. Right. Well, it's a great question. And I think I'm the only person that's helping people truly understand what they are. So first of all, algae is a food. It's its own food category, because it's technically not a plant. It's not a fruit. It's not an animal. And within the category called algae, there's two main types, macroalgae and microalgae. We're going to talk mostly about microalgae. But first, let me confirm what macroalgae is. It is that stringy stuff that you mentioned that washes up on shore, also known as seaweed. And it's called seaweed, because it's only in the sea. Now, it's still good for you, because it has lots of fiber and iodine, because it comes from the ocean. But there's virtually no nutrition in it. Very fibrous, no nutrition. Microalgae is the complete opposite. It has virtually no fiber. In fact, spirulina has zero fiber, because it's technically a bacteria. But it is the most nutrient-dense food in the world. And even we have a quote from NASA that even confirms that. And the reason why there's so much nutrition in it is because they're so microscopic. You can get like a million cells on the head of a pin. So when you consolidate them into these tablets, you start to understand why there's so much nutrition in there. Now, unlike seaweed, the macroalgae, which is only in the sea, microalgae is everywhere. It's in the lakes, the rivers, the streams, the soil, your swimming pool, your aquarium. And there are, unlike macroalgae, there's only a few strains of macroalgae. There's tens of thousands of strains of microalgae. Now the two main categories are blue, green and green. Now what I want you to know is that one strain of blue-green algae is called spirulina. There's other strains. So if you read about a blue-green algae closing your beach, they're not talking about spirulina. And by the way, more algae gets a bum-wrap, because algae only shows up on your beach because it kills bacteria. So somehow toxins have gotten into the water and you can't see them, but they're there. And algae is the cleanup crew. And it's very visible and absorbs all the toxins and it kills the bacteria. By the way, it's also the cleanup crew in your body. So it's not just the beach, it's everywhere. So when you read about spirulina, it's A number one, not from the ocean. It's not toxic. So same with chlorella. This is a picture of a chlorella farm and this is a picture of a spirulina farm. We grow ours in triple filtered spring mountain water in Taiwan. Taiwan is the gold standard for growing algae. So A, it's a food. B, it's not from the ocean, the spirulina and chlorella. So we grow it in triple filtered spring water. We air dry it without high heat, which we're gonna circle back to because again that preserves the enzyme superoxidismates, which has been known to protect your mitochondria. And then we press them into these little tablets that we call bits because they're literally bits of nutrition. Nothing else in them, just one ingredient, one calorie, 40 vitamins and minerals, they're ketogenic, they're vegan, they're raw, they're paleo. It's quite remarkable. So algae is a food category and the two algae do different things. But I just wanna show you one more thing. We sell them in these large bags and there's so much nutrition in each bag of a thousand tablets. It equals 551 pounds of vegetables. Think about that. That's about 50 grocery carts of food. And but the tablets don't require any cooking, cleaning, mixing, nothing. And they never go bad. We have expiry date of about three years and they actually never technically go bad. So it's, I call it very efficient nutrition. Since you're talking about spirulina, but you also make chlorella, what, wait a minute, isn't it algae and algae and algae? Come on. Well, it's like it's a food category. So just like a banana is not like a cantaloupe or green arugula is certainly not like cabbage. So algae is a category and then the two main ones that most people know about are spirulina and chlorella. So what are they? Well, spirulina, as I mentioned, is a blue green algae. So we pack a jar in a blue and there's two pigments. That's why it's called a blue green. And we're gonna talk about that blue pigment later on because it has very powerful healing benefits for your brain and for prevention of cancer. But the main thing that people know spirulina for is its energy, which is why we call ours energy biz. How does it give you energy? Well, first of all, spirulina, as I mentioned earlier, is a bacteria. It does not have a cellulose wall. Why is that important? Because that means there's nothing for your body to have to break down to get access to the rich nutrition that's in there. So that's number one, very rapid absorption. Bioavailability is key. It's not just what you eat. It's what you absorb. Number two, spirulina has the highest concentration of protein in the world. And it has 18 of the 20 aminos, including the nine that your body can't make. So it's a complete protein. Why, and the protein, the aminos are individual. Most animal protein is all bound up and can take days for your body to break down called collagen and what's called peptides, which are clusters of aminos. But algae, the aminos are individual. Again, why is that important? Because it allows your body to access all those rich aminos instantly. And then because spirulina is loaded with B vitamins that convert the aminos into energy, this is what gives you energy in the moment. It's also a vasodilator, which opens up your blood vessels and brings more oxygen and nutrition to your body. It also has very high iron, which brings more oxygen to your unit. But it's mostly the rich aminos, zero effort for your body to break down. So you actually get energy back from not having to work at digestion and then the access to the bees and the aminos. And the energy you get, it's just quiet energy. It's not like a stimulant because there's no caffeine, chemicals or sugar in here. Again, one calorie. So there's no rush and there's no crash. The best way to describe how you'll feel is you just feel awake. That's it. Like you had a great night's sleep or a walk in the fresh air.  And I mean, I do eat real food, but I couldn't imagine life without algae, especially spirulina because it's so nourishing. And again, if you're in the, as I am intermittent fasting group, I don't eat until one or two. And, but you know, a lot of people, it's hard for them to do fasting because they get tired and hungry. This gives you the nourishment. It's loaded with omega threes and essential fatty acids. So you don't have to take a fish oil anymore. And I don't recommend that anyways. So it doesn't interfere with your fast.  So it's very much a morning afternoon or a pre-workout. So that's the energy you get in the moment. And we're going to, you know, circle back a little bit because we talked about the mitochondria at the very beginning. So there are nutrients in the blue, in the blue-green algae, the spirulina, that speed up the production of ATP. And we can dive into that a little bit later because it's a bit geeky. But so you get long-term energy from the mitochondria protection. And you get instant energy from the immediacy of the digestion of the amino acids from the B vitamins. And that's quite different from chlorella. I had an Instagram post in a YouTube video about how it's probably a good idea to get a lot of our protein from plants rather than meats. And I got a lot of pushback that plant protein is not absorbable. It's not digestible. And that you have to eat meat because that's the only way you can get protein. And help our listeners understand that at least with algae, with spirulina, that may not be the case. Absolutely. And I think everyone has a point of view. And it reminds me of that graphic. I'm sure you've everyone seen it of, there's an elephant in the room and there's a number of people with blindfolds and each one of them have their hand on a different part of the elephant.  And so when it comes to nutrition, everyone has a filter that they read information from. And there is some balance, some fact, but there's also your perspective. So people who are vegan, they're mixing different beans and rice to get a complete protein. But when it comes to algae, it is a complete protein. It has, as I said, the 18 of the 20 aminos. In fact, it has more collagen and more aminos than even collagen powder. So anyone who's taking collagen powder, you can don't have to take that anymore. If you take at least 10 to 30 of the spirulina tablets a day, it also replaces a multivitamin, a fish oil, a Coke U10, and we can dig into that later on. So the fact that it's a complete protein, number one, the fact that it's 99% bioavailable, number two. And in fact, if you chew it, it gets into your bloodstream almost instantly, maybe about 10 minutes if you swallow it because it just takes a while to get into your system. So it absolutely has all the nutrients. In fact, we get a lot of pushback ourselves on the B12 because spirulina has all of the Bs, including B12. And people say, oh, it's an analog, it's not a real B12. Well, we did some research and it is the real B12. So I want to assure people of that and we can send anybody who wants the science about that. So this is from Mother Nature. She, I tell people, you know, when you take individual supplements, it's sort of like listening to a single soloist. When you eat algae, at least ours, because it's raw and untreated with heat and all the nutrients are preserved, it's the orchestra. It's like the Boston Symphony Orchestra. All the components, the factors, the cofactors, the enzymes, the coenzymes, the protein, it's all blended in this perfect, it's like eating at a thick-star dining in your restaurant from a nutritional perspective. It gives you everything that your body needs. And if we have time, I'll dig into the fact that it's no surprise to me because your mitochondria actually evolved directly from algae. I know when we started, you mentioned that algae is a great source of superoxide, desimutes, SOD. Are there other things that algae contain that help our mitochondria that are kind of unique to algae rather than other food sources? Right. Well, glutathione is another one of those nutrients that can get into the mitochondria to stop the free radical damage. And glutathione is also hard to find in food, in any kind of quantity that offers medicinal benefits. So, and a lot of people are getting glutathione drips. In fact, we're going to an IV drip conference in two weeks. And the thing about, and the drips are terrific, but the downside of the, in this case, the glutathione drip is the glutathione has a half-life. That means how long it lasts in your body of like about an hour or two. So you get a lot of people do it after they've been out late at night and they want to clear out their liver. Glutathione, by the way, is also a great detoxer. But spirulina and chlorella, a particular chlorella, and I need to circle back to explain what chlorella is because we did talk about spirulina. So glutathione is very detoxing, which helps your cells to function properly. And it also can get into that inner membrane to stop free radical damage. So, and once again, your body makes glutathione for you from the moment you're born, and then it stops or slows down after the age of 30. And so once again, just with like, with the superoxidismutase, you stop having that antioxidant protection that you had in your early years. And again, this is why I feel that this is, to me, the reason why people are getting you disease. It's a combination of not getting proper nutrition from other foods, having too many toxins in their body, which we'll address when we talk about chlorella, but also not having the mitochondrial protection from antioxidants that they used to have made for them for free. And there are no other sources that are as concentrated of glutathione or superoxidismutase as algae. The other nutrients you wanted me to, I think I'd like to mention are chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is also a nutrient that can get into the inner membrane of the mitochondria to stop free radical damage.  Studies have shown that when you take chlorophyll and you are exposed to red light, it could either be red light therapy or sunlight, that chlorophyll gets into the CoQ10 molecule, which is what's called a transport molecule in that geeky electron transport chain. Anyways, it recycles the CoQ10 molecule and generates ATP for you without food. Pretty amazing, right? And chlorophyll is a fat-based pigment. So again, we talked earlier about the cells having a membrane that's made of fats, and that's why you need vitamin E and vitamin A and vitamin D and omega-3 to keep your cell membranes healthy because healthy membranes allow nutrients in and toxins out. Well, chlorophyll, because it's a fat-based pigment, does the same thing. So when your cell membrane is healthy, it allows nutrients to get into the mitochondria, and then at the same time, you get the double hit that the chlorophyll protects the mitochondria from free radical damage. So it's a win-win. And then the other one that's able to get in there is a little bit of a super-oxygen, I'm trying to think of this one. Chlorophyll- Phycocyanin. Phycocyanin, thank you very much. Oh yeah, can I go down the rabbit hole of Phycocyanin because it's my favorite topic right now. Yeah, I think this is a cool topic that most people at number one have never heard of. Well, never, never, never know about it. And this is what, again, brings me such joys. So what is Phycocyanin? Well, first of all, I want to spell it for you so that when you have time, you can Google it and see that everything I'm telling you is true. So Phycocyanin is the blue pigment in spirulina. Again, it's two pigments in spirulina, Phycocyanin and chlorophyll. And it's spelled P-H-Y-C-O-C-Y-A-N-I-N. So this blue Phycocyanin only found in spirulina and only found in raw spirulina, so ours because we don't use high heat or frozen spirulina, but everybody else, all the other algae companies, they use high heat to dry their algae.   So what I'm about to tell you, and this will blow you away, but it's all science-based, it can only be found in either R-Algae or any algae that's raw. So what does Phycocyanin do? I'm gonna hold up a sheet and I'm gonna let you read it. It kills cancer cells. Pretty crazy, right? So how does it, well, first of all, I'm showing you a picture and I'll send you all the links to this and all the science references. What I was showing Dr. Gundry was an experiment that was done in a research paper. They took cancer cells and put them in a Petri dish and dyed them purple. And then they added this blue Phycocyanin to the Petri dish.  And it went from a dense Petri dish of cancer cells to virtually none. In just 24 hours, cancer cells gone. And what stuns me is the amount of Phycocyanin that they used in this test. One of our tablets has 4,000 times more Phycocyanin than they used in this test. So in fact, the chemotherapy, that's why I want you to Google Phycocyanin and cancer treatments and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Because one of the ways that chemotherapy companies know find out whether their treatments are actually working to kill cancer because they use the Phycocyanin in their treatments is they measure something called cytochrome C.  Remember I mentioned the CoQ-10 that's, I call these things transport molecules, they're sort of like a shuttle bus. You know when you're at the airport and some of these airports are huge, you need to take a subway or a shuttle train to get to your gate. Because even though you're at the airport you can't get on the right shuttle train to get to your gate, you aren't getting on any plane. So in this thing called the electron transport chain where the electrons like the relay rays get passed from one to another, there's two of these little shuttle buses. The earlier one we talked about was CoQ-10 which was between stations, I think one and two. And this one is between three and four. Now in a healthy cell the phycocyanin speeds up that transport molecule so that the electrons can get to the end station and that generates more energy, more ATP. But in a cancer cell or something, they call them zombie cells also known as a senescent cell. These are cells that have duplicated so many times there's nothing left in them but they don't die and they don't leave. They're sort of like someone who worked all their life went into retirement but refuses to go and comes to the office and kicks over garbage cans and makes a big mess, that's a senescent cell because they're inflammatory and they mess up, they damage all the residents cells near it. So in a cancer cell or a senescent cell that blue phycocyanin, instead of speeding up that cytochrome C, it kicks it out, it boots it out and that cytochrome C molecule targets the cancer cells or the senescent cells and kills them. There's another way that the blue phycocyanin works powerfully in the cancer world is that it has what's called anti-angiogenesis properties. What does that mouthful mean? Well it means, angiogenesis is the growth of blood vessels and so anti-angiogenesis means the interruption of that and what happens with cancers and tumors is they basically hijack your blood vessels and re-route them to feed the cancer or the tumor and the blue phycocyanin found in spirulina if it's raw, like ours or frozen, stops that process. It stops the re-routing of the blood vessels to the tumors and we didn't even know that. We were told, we found out about this because there's a group, an organization, a nonprofit called the Angiogenesis Association. It's based here in Boston, Dr. William Lee, L.I. Good friend of mine, yep. Yes, he's probably been on your show. He's a great guy and he called us and said, did you know that your phycocyanin has anti-angiogenesis properties? We're doing a big conference, please come and Bill Gates was there and Bill Clinton and anyways, that's how we found out about it but the fact that the blue phycocyanin can kill cancer cells and is proven to do that and is used by the chemotherapy companies is amazing but nobody's sharing this with the rest of the world and who wants to go through, A, who wants to get cancer and by the way cancer cells are in your bodies, as you know, all the times but if you have a strong immune system and strong mitochondria, we'll get to the immune system in a minute because that's what Chlorella does but if you have strong mitochondria and a strong immune system, it can manage these cancer cells so they never take over but of course in these days, this day, nobody has strong mitochondria and strong immune system so we're like sitting ducks. So if you start taking spirulina like ours or frozen, if you can find it, it's very expensive and messy, you can get access to the blue phycocyanin proven scientifically to kill cancer cells. I'd say that was pretty important stuff and you don't ever have to advance into these late stages cancer or get chemotherapy and at the same time, algae is also the most alkaline food in the world and that started me on this entire journey and there's a German scientist named Otto Warburg, W-A-R-B-U-R-G who won a Nobel Prize in his German back in the 30s and he discovered that cancer cannot exist in an alkaline environment and the perfect alkalinity for your cells is 7.1. That's on a scale of zero to 14 and so it's dead center and when it's more alkaline, that indicates there's more oxygen in the cell that the cell is allowing intrudes in and toxins out and communicating with each other so algae in addition to killing the cancer cells and feeding the membranes healthy fats, if it's chlorophyll, it also provides that nice, rich alkaline environment to even just prevent the cancer from taking hold. So it's pretty crazy. All right, so I know I asked you about chlorella and I distracted you so let's get back to chlorella and why is that different than spirulina and what properties does it have? Yes. Well, chlorella is a plant. Spirulina is a bacteria, no cellulose wall. Chlorella does belong to the plant kingdom and there's a couple important things you need to know about that. So first of all, because it's a plant, it has a cellulose wall and in fact it has the hardest cellulose wall in the plant kingdom. And so that hard cell wall does two important things. The easiest one for I'm sure people know about is that it has fiber. So it feeds your gut biome, it feeds your healthy bacteria, what they need to create the short chain fatty acids that are important for your health. By the way, 80% of your immune system is in your gut. So at the same time that you're building your gut biome, you are supporting your immune system. Number two, that hard cell wall attaches to toxins. I don't know if I mentioned, but the average adult in North America has about 700 toxins in their system, whether it's glyphosate or molds and our immune systems simply weren't built to sustain that kind of toxic load. So because chlorella pulls out toxins, it's called chelating. It pulls out all the heavy metals, glyphosate, molds, alcohol by the way, lactic acid for those athletes who are listening so people take it after a workout. So it chelates them and pulls them all out of your body. So A, the fiber feeds a gut biome, B, the hard cell wall attaches to toxins. Now chlorella is big claim to fame is it has the highest amount of chlorophyll remember spirulina has the highest protein in the world and also lots of essential fatty acids. Chlorella has fewer fatty acids, but rich in chlorophyll, 500 times more chlorophyll than arugula and 25 times more than liquid chlorophyll. A lot of people are taking liquid chlorophyll, which I applaud, but if you could get more chlorophyll from chlorella and at the same time get protein and 45 minerals, why not? And chlorophyll is important for a number of reasons. First of all, the chemical composition is almost identical to your hemoglobin.  And so if you've noticed as I do, my arugula goes yellow after about day three. So chlorella because it has so much chlorophyll I mean 500 times more chlorophyll than arugula you are building your blood and when you have healthy blood you're gonna have a healthier body, healthier organs, healthier everything. That's number one. Number two, as I mentioned, chlorophyll is a fat-based pigment. So it heals the cell walls just like an omega-3 would or vitamin D or vitamin E. So it's very, very healthy for your cell wall. And chlorella also has all the nutrients that your immune system need to work properly to build all those killer cells when you are faced with an invader of any kind whether it's COVID or anything else. So in general, because of the chlorophyll which builds your immune system and cleanses you, chlorophyll and chlorella are considered a wellness algae. Oops, I'm gonna just, sorry, drugs something. I'm gonna show you a picture of our bag of chlorella. So there's a thousand tablets in there. So chlorella we call ours recovery bits because it helps you recover your health. So I came up with a fun analogy that might help people understand the difference between the two of them because most people take the spirulina in the morning because they're hungry and tired and they want nourishment and they want energy for the day. And I speak at, give lectures at large hotels as I know you do. It dawn on me, well, that's sort of like room service. So, you know, cause room service comes in and gives you all the food that you need for the day and you're out the door. So think of spirulina, which we call energy bits like room service. It gives you everything you need for the day. And then it dawned on me because chlorella is a wellness cleansing algae, takes all the junk in your trunk and gets rid of what you don't need. That's like housekeeping. So I think spirulina is your room service and chlorella is housekeeping. And if that's still, you want some other analogies and we haven't talked about brain, which I will in a minute because there's so many mitochondria in your brain, there's 2 million per cell in your brain is the most sensitive to damage mitochondria. And because spirulina has that superoxide dismutase and the blue phycocyanin, which heal your brain and is also loaded with fats. Think of spirulina as brain food.  And I tell people, well, where do you think the fish get the omega-3 from? Yep, they get it from algae. But they know that it's brain food. Well, so is spirulina. Spirulina is brain food. So if you have any, and we'll talk about this in greater detail in a minute, any brain issues, that's what you want spirulina. And chlorella, because of the chlorophyll and the pulling up the toxins and it's been used for IBS and Crohn's disease. It's very healing to the gut. It's a gut related algae. So spirulina for brain, chlorella, which we cover, cover bits for your gut. Now, I wanna point out that there's something called the vagus nerve that joins the brain with the gut. And there's communication that goes down from the brain to the gut and up from the gut to the brain. So when you heal one of these organs, it naturally and automatically heals the other one. So maybe you might start with brain as your focus, but you're gonna find that your gut is working better. Or maybe you'll start, because you've got issues, your brain will start functioning better. So they're very connected, but they do completely different things in your body. And most people we recommend you take the chlorella before bed because that's when your body goes through a detox or repair cycle. So we want you to have that best repair. It also stimulates peristalsis, also known as bowel movements. So, but you can take them anytime of day with each other, by themselves with food instead of food, but a minimum of 10 spirulina tablets in the morning and a minimum of 10 chlorella tablets before bed. 30 is better, but we'll get people started at anything. Dumb question. Can you take too much of these things?  It's a very great question. I get asked all the time and the answer is no. Why? Because algae is food and ours is, well, I should put a caveat. There's never too much of ours that you could take because other companies that may not be growing them as carefully and there could be binders in there that are toxic, you just don't know but I will speak on about ours. Absolutely not. I don't even, I don't tell people anymore how much I take because it throws people off. I eat a large amount of this algae, spirulina and chlorella. I chew mine, I eat them with sea salt or sometimes I add pistachio nuts, which I know you know have very low lectins and oxalates.  So don't worry about that. It just shows that the chlorophyll has made its way through your colon and it's absorbing toxins and you want it to do that and it's absorbing, remember it kills bacteria just like it does on the beach. So it's killing bacteria in your colon. Really great way to prevent colon cancer. So, but there is not anything, and I have, I've taken them every single day for 13 years and actually it was my birthday a couple of days ago. I just turned 67. Congratulations. So I'm no spring chicken and I don't use Botox. We didn't even talk about skin or beauty, but I have virtually no wrinkles and because it's rich in collagen, it protects your elastin, it's alkaline so I don't have any blemishes or brown spots or anything. So ladies and gentlemen who are looking for a natural food-based way to improve your beauty, retain it, preserve it, I'll tell ya, you can't go wrong with spirulina and chlorella. It's, that's why we actually have a second brand of spirulina because we found to help women feel more comfortable with it and we call it beauty bits. It's identical to energy bits, we just package it in early packaging. That's the one I have on my countertop. You mentioned several times brain health and let's go there. So we got great skin, we've got great poops, we've got green poops. Are there actually any clinical trials with spirulina or chlorella on brain health? Absolutely, we just did our own. So first of all, I wanna share with you a great book that I would recommend called Brain Energy. It came out in November by Dr, it's written by Dr. Chris Palmer. He is here in Boston, I know Chris and he's a psychiatrist at the Harvard Medical School and his book was revolutionary because in it he documents how all brain issues, anxiety, depression, Alzheimer's, post-traumatic stress disorder, everything is due to damaged mitochondria, everything.  And there's endless tens of thousands of studies talking about brain health. So I thought, well, you know what? I wanna do my own clinical trial to test this theory out because I know the research has shown that supraxidismidase and all these nutrients found in algae do help the mitochondria. So we did a small clinical trial of our own back in February. We worked with a nonprofit group called The Gray Team, they're based in Florida and their goal, their purpose for existence is to stop the suicide rate of military veterans, which is that at a heartbreaking 35 to 50%. Just let that sink in, 35 to 50% of military veterans are committing suicide. That's unacceptable to me. So we had met the group a number of times and they're trying all sorts of interventions. So they said, well, let's do an nutritional one.  And we also connected them to something called WAVI which measured their heart rate and heart rate variability and sleep patterns. And all we did was give them a pouch of our spirulina tablets, 30 tablets every day for 30 days. We asked them not to change anything else, no extra exercises, no change in sleep, nothing. Just take 30 of these tablets a day.  But after 30 days with the first brain scan, by the way, I want to back up, these veterans had been discharged up to 15 or 20 years because they'd had brain issues. So these were conditions that they had been living with. Well, we had someone with MS for a long time. They were willing to try anything. Of course, it was just food. But so when we did the brain scans, the brain, the way the EEG works is if there's all, in this case, it was all blue. I think I have a picture. It showed that the brain was inflamed and no activity. And with inflammation, that's when you have damaged mitochondria. 99% of inflammation is in the mitochondria. 30 days later, all they did was take 30 tablets. Inflammation gone, completely gone. And the MS person, their shakes went away. They slept better. One of the individuals whose data we have, they had something called the heart rate variability which shows your ability to respond to stress. They had a 50% improvement within 30 days, which is almost unheard of. So we're getting the right, the findings written up in the paper probably won't be ready till next year. Dr. Dominique DeGestino is helping us with that. He's very deep in the science and NASA and keto world. And I've known him for a long time. So we're pretty, we were thrilled that we saw these results from our algae. So it just gives me more encouragement to do more things for people. We had a customer, 85-year-old customer write us who had Alzheimer's. And he said, you know, he couldn't even figure out how to work the microwave and he couldn't find his way home. And his wife got him on the energy bits and actually the chlorella, the recovery bits. And within 24 hours, he was able to function again. And I can send you these actual testimonials. People email us almost every day. We had another woman who was 85. She was incontinent, couldn't sleep, had no energy. Within 48 hours of taking the, you know, the two algae tablets, I think she was taking 30 days. She wrote us and said, well, today I took my grandson to school. I watched his basketball game. I went to my friend who was at the nursing home. I wait for a three-mile walk. I had so much energy, I came back and I cleaned out my garage. I painted my kitchen. And then at five o'clock, I sat down and had dinner because she'd only had the algae tablets. And she says, by the way, my grocery bill has plummeted because she didn't need food anymore. And, oh, I forgot the best part, she now does CrossFit. 85 years old and she's doing CrossFit. That's my girl. So I just wanted to assure you and your community that this isn't smoke and mirrors. It's just the needs of your body and most of those needs are dictated by your mitochondria. And your mitochondria are affected directly by what you eat. And it responds well to the best, to certain nutrients like glutathione, super oxidized dismutase, chlorophyll, and the phycocyanin. But those nutos for right there aren't found in any other food and they aren't made by your body after the age of 30 and they aren't in anybody else's algae unless it's frozen. So I tell people, I never eat alone. I always eat with my mitochondria. So when you understand that carbs create the most free radicals, processed carbs, that alone will start you on the path to having less mitochondria damage.  You have to give it some care and attention.  Just give it a little TLC and now you know about these nutrients. You are, I'm trying to empower you so that you can make your own choices. And the great thing I like about algae is again, when people are trying to make changes in their life, it's so hard to make a change.  It's not a trend. It's just nutrition that your body and your mitochondria need. It's the key that opens the door to great health. More amazing episodes just like this one. Watch now by eating all day.


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