My peers are all in sensitive jobs - at the C.I.A., the National Security Council, working for the Department of Defense. They can't stand up for me in public.

It's part of the reason I decided to speak out now. This was the tipping point for me. If it's O.K. for [David Petraeus ] to campaign for a job in the administration, then I'm going to campaign to get back out there, too.

Sometime ago, I teamed up with a former Marine attack helicopter pilot. We were both frustrated by biased coverage of women in the military and said, let's form some kind of nonprofit entity where we can start highlighting the prevalence of bias in the media.

I don't have the advocates. I don't have a good old boys network. Part of what I want to do is to create a good old girls network.

Imagine what Ivanka Trump life has been like? She's been eaten alive by the media. I have empathy for that.

[Fighting for equality for women] that's what my mission has been for the last years.

[My kids] were very young at the time and didn't realize what was going on. We told them that mom made a mistake and people want to talk about it in the news so they're outside our house.