If she’s being honest, Tracy Walder never imagined a life for herself as a CIA counterterrorism staff operations officer or as a special agent at the FBI. In fact, if she had thought too long about saying yes to those opportunities, her life would have looked much different.
But she did say yes.
The shy, thoughtful girl who was once bullied by her peers stepped into the unknown on a path she never imagined.
“I think a lot of times, if we veer from whatever path we thought we wanted, people get a little jarred by that,” Walder shared in an exclusive interview with Farm Journal’s PORK ahead of her leadership keynote at National Pork Industry Forum.
It was the 1990s and terrorism looked a lot different than it does today, she says. College graduates were not actively pursuing careers in counterterrorism because it wasn’t in front of their face like it is now with popular TV shows such as Quantico, Covert Affairs, FBI and Homeland. People around her struggled to understand how she could join the CIA when she had always wanted to be a history teacher.
“Instead of people asking me ‘How?’ (which is a more important question), a lot of people were asking me ‘Why?’” Walder says. “I think we almost get stigmatized by that question of why. It causes us to not go down that path we were thinking about and just continue on the one we were on. I believe we must actively fight against that mindset every day.”
That’s one of the most important lessons she took away from her time at the CIA – that it is possible to overthink things and get too deep into planning and asking questions.
“Sometimes you just need to do it because asking questions becomes this crutch for us to not do the thing,” Walder explains. “I’m not saying we should be careless or reckless. I’m not saying we should not research things before we do them. But I think you can only plan for so much. You can only ask questions for so long before you we just need to get into it and do it.”
Much of her work in the CIA was like that. It was reactionary based on the situation that had arisen at that moment in time. She wasn’t always able to ask questions, she had to make decisions and move forward.
Meeting a Terrorist
Walder grew up in Southern California where her dad was a college professor. Although she says they weren’t ‘millionaires by any stretch,’ she had no idea what the world in dire straits looked like.
“I remember serving a tour in Afghanistan. When I came face to face with a terrorist for the first time, my first question was ‘Why did you become a terrorist?’” she says. “I knew that he was a radical, but his answer really changed my perspective.”
What he said didn’t absolve him of his behavior, Walder clarifies. He was a terrorist who killed people. However, his response opened her eyes.
“Talking to him about why he became a terrorist was a very pivotal moment for me,” she says. “He grew up in a country that we would label as a fragile or a failed state, meaning they’re not meeting the needs of their people. He was orphaned at age 7, had completely unchecked hepatitis and was living in a storm drain. A member of al Qaeda found him on the streets and offered him food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and as a result, this individual felt very beholden to them, and that’s why he became a member of al Qaeda.”
This life-changing conversation helped her identify for President George Bush at the time how to stop this threat from the ground up, rather than from the top down, Walder says.
Although she doesn’t remember feeling scared in her roles at the CIA and FBI, she admits there was one time when she did wonder how the situation would pan out for her in the end.
“In your 20s, you feel invincible,” Walder says. “I understood the job was risky – I’m not stupid. At 47 now, I don’t feel so invincible. I see the risks involved in what I was doing, but at the time, I don’t remember ever feeling scared.”
What She Almost Didn’t Put in Her Book
Moving on from the CIA to the FBI was a hard decision for Walder.
“I wish I had a sexier answer, but I was sick of being overseas,” she says. “I loved the CIA. There wasn’t any ill will or reason that I left. I was obviously and still am very passionate about the counterterrorism mission. I felt that the best way to do that work in the U.S. was to become an FBI agent.”
After 17 weeks of training at Quantico, she moved to the Los Angeles field office in the Santa Ana resident agency. She worked the very first Chinese economic espionage case in the U.S., white-collar crime cases like health care fraud and big arrests.
She was used to being the only female when she was at the CIA and had zero issues working in a male-dominated field.
“The FBI was a very different story,” Walder says. “I think we look at the gathering of intelligence as a bit more female. I think we associate law enforcement, like breaking down doors and arresting people, as a very male-dominated career. The number of struggles I had being the only female was not pleasant, and unfortunately, at the time, the FBI had no way to report or communicate any of that.”
It was a difficult time in her life. But it’s also when she realized she could help change the dynamic by going into education. She left the FBI, got her master’s degree in education and became a high school history teacher. She created a class on national security, foreign policy and law enforcement for girls to try to get them into those careers.
While writing her book, The Unexpected Spy, someone sent her an email about a 19-woman gender discrimination lawsuit at the FBI from Quantico.
“The head of Quantico at the time was an individual who made my life miserable when I was at Quantico. I did not join their lawsuit,” she says. “I found it interesting, though. To date, it’s the largest gender discrimination lawsuit ever against a federal agency. I almost didn’t put that I was an FBI agent in my book, so I guess it’s a fun fact I’m giving you because it’s really painful to talk about what happened.”
She’s since moved on from teaching high school and now teaches criminal justice at Texas Christian University. In addition to teaching, she serves as the National Security Contributor for News Nation – the only former CIA officer who’s doing that.
“It may sound silly, but representation does matter,” Walder says. “When people see a female who’s had the experience I have talking on these issues, we start to normalize it a little more.”
She says the most important lesson she wants to convey to her students is simple.
“You are your biggest obstacle, so don’t be the one to tell yourself ‘no,’” Walder says. “You’re never going to get the yes if you don’t even try.”
Want to learn more about Tracy Walder’s experiences as an ‘unexpected spy’ in the CIA and FBI? Watch the entire conversation with Walder on The PORK Podcast here or anywhere podcasts are found.
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