Journal Entry - A Long Time Coming
The JBad CA Team
So, when does a journal become a memoir? I’m not sure either, but I’m certain that this span between journal entries is blurring the line. Honestly, I’ve written a couple of times without completing anything and then deleted everything after reading it later and deciding it wasn’t what I really wanted to say. Yes, I’ve been fighting the battle of journalistic honesty of what is more appropriate for a public journal: The emotional subjectivity of the moment or the rational objectivity of retrospection. Looks like I’m going with the latter. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I really want out of this weblog.
Do I want to be political? Well, yes and no. I have political leanings that vary from Left to Right based on the subject-matter, but my journey being chronicled here goes so far beyond politics. What I’ve taken on here is as much a spiritual journey as a career move and a statement about what I think we as the wealthy of the world should be pursuing: Moving beyond the hollow promises of material gratification into self-actualization by using our considerable mental and physical resources toward building a just and equitable world.
Do I want to recount the details of my story as it unfolds? Yes, of course. It’s really the only part of this that most of my friends and family find interesting. One cannot expect their passions to be shared by everyone, and I tend to lose my audience pretty fast when I wax philosophical for too long. And then there is the increasingly skeptical view of the Army toward war bloggers. We’ve been officially warned now not to post pictures on the internet. I can guarantee that nothing that I’ve posted could reasonably be construed to violate operational security but I have to be careful not to reveal too much of the specifics about what we’re doing here. It’s too bad really. We’re doing some very interesting things. Building roads, schools and power facilities – it’s the good news that doesn’t get told nearly often enough. Most importantly we’re building relationships and trust and understanding between cultures that have for too long not had enough of either.
The world is too small for isolation from the changes we might fear.
Do I want to increase awareness of Civil Affairs and our mission? Yes, but…I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m equally interested in pointing out the serious flaws inherent with the current order of battle within our organization. There are things the military is very good at and there are things it wasn’t designed to do. Yet, we are doing them and will find ourselves taking on more and more of those unconventional, non-kinetic responsibilities as we continue to wage war against the causes of chronic instability, extreme poverty and gross inequity. We have to establish real competencies in the areas of international development. We must devise standard doctrine, protocols and IT/Communication systems with our brother and sister organizations in the United States government as well as with the international and non-governmental organizations that share the battle-space. We have to assert our unique role within the military as the bridge between the civilian world of development and the constructive aspects of the military. The Civil Affairs community has to come into its own. In my short time here, it has become clearly apparent that the Civil Affairs branch isn’t taken seriously in the Special Operations community or the military establishment as a whole. And it should be no shock, as its own policies, recruitment standards, operational readiness and curriculum attest to the fact that it doesn’t take itself seriously either. There are some clear changes that must take in order to build the collective competencies needed to face future challenges and to develop the respect and prestige that our unique mission deserves. I will be writing on this particular topic at length in the future. In fact, it’s a prime candidate for my future Master’s thesis.
The Last Four Months of My Life
The last four months have witnessed many ups and downs, many changes, reversals of fortune. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far is to not get to upset whenever something changes that isn’t to your liking because it will most likely change six more times before actually coming to pass, so its best just to sit back, watch and wait and hope that the final outcome is to your advantage. Of course politicking, posturing and strategizing are all part of the game. But nothing is more important than maintaining a positive, steady mindset. I wish I could say that I was able to do just that the whole time but in fact, I’ve had some really bad days (ok, weeks) here where I had begun to think I had given up my life and my family for so long to contribute in some meaningful way to the rehabilitation of a society only to sit behind a .50 cal crew-served weapon while other people with the rank but not the motivation, interest, temperament, conviction or dedication did all the things I thought I had been trained to do. At one point as I sat in the 130 degree sun manning yet another gun turret I was forced to come to terms with the fact that this may end up being my only contribution and that it was going to have to be enough for now. That at least my sitting here was preventing someone else’s son from having to be here that didn’t want to be. I’ve had days where I felt as if my age and experience were so overshadowed by the rank on my chest that I feared it was insurmountable; that it was unrealistic for me to ever believe that I would be allowed to perform any task beyond the typically thoughtless and menial tasks I was currently being assigned. There was a point where we were having days on end of down-time and for the first couple days I sat around like everyone else feeling a little sorry for myself. It was then I realized that my real challenge was going to be doing whatever it was I was going to be allowed to do as best as I could with the kind of attitude that I would find inspiring if recognized in someone else. I had to transcend or be miserable for a year. It was my choice.
I started teaching myself everything I could get my hands on about Nangarhar, the NGO’s here, development concepts, current and proposed projects, studying the previous team’s documentation, anything to make myself more valuable; invaluable. Immediately things started to turn around. I brought up the idea to USAID to help them when I had downtime, which turned into an official liaison role that is working out marvelously and breaking new ground in civil-military cooperation. I essentially created a role for myself, stepped into it and got to work. The change has been astonishing and I’ve made some good friends through my work with USAID; friends that I think will play a role in the next step of my journey. When I left to come here people would ask me “What will you do when you come back?” and I would say “I don’t know what’s around the corner, but that’s the exciting part. I do know that this year will reveal the next step to me.” It has started to do just that. I am gaining confidence every day and I have a clear vision of what things we can improve upon. I’m discovering ways to use my personal strengths to effect positive changes, both within the organizations I am a part of and within the community. A saying that I love keeps coming up in conversation: “There is no limit to what can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit.” It’s my mantra; the creed for all “underlings” out there with good ideas. I speak with people daily who are one degree removed from ambassadors and generals; two degrees from the President himself. It’s on me to come up with “infectious” ideas. If they are truly good ones, they could easily find themselves incorporated into U.S. development policy. It’s not likely, I know, but it is possible. Never underestimate the power you have to influence positive change.
I’ve settled into life at the PRT pretty well. All things considered, we have it pretty well. We have air conditioned rooms, electricity and pleasant-enough grounds. I wake up every morning, put on some music, grind some coffee and fetch breakfast for myself from the dining facility and bring it back to the room for some quiet time. If it’s a mission day, we get up around five or so, I eat breakfast on the hood of one of our Humvees while we wait to roll out and either discuss the upcoming mission or read from one of my books once everything is prep’d and ready to go. There’s a lot of waiting in the Army. It’s always a good idea to bring a good book and a headlamp for overnighters. If it’s a non-mission day I usually get into the office around 8 or 8:30, take care of the menial administrative things and then get to work on the fun, more important stuff. I’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to have some input on some of the new software tools we’ll be using in the near future. I can’t say much more but what I’ve seen these applications will be critical in the maturation process of civil-military cooperation and data collaboration with both internal and external entities.
Room for Improvement
I have to say there have been many unpleasant surprises in regard to process development, strategy and toolsets considering we’re four years into this adventure. I’m amazed at how ad-hoc things are run both locally, but more importantly from higher commands both civilian and military. The problem is essentially continuity and lack of standards and measurements. We arrived here to find that the previous team had reinvented processes and procedures to their liking from whatever the previous team had put in place. A quick scan through the file system proved that this was occurring at each rotation and I can attest that it happened again once we took over. We did our own process reengineering, threw out the old team’s tools in favor of our improved versions and carved our own wheel so to speak. Needless to say, this happens at every PRT for every rotation and to compound the problem, it happens in between rotations when high command authority rotates in and out. We can’t get around rotations but so, so many of our continuity issues could be resolved by simply having standard software and communications solutions that are taught prior to entering theatre during the ridiculously long two-month mobilization training. The discontinuity of leadership brings with it disjointed, short-term goals with no overarching theatre-wide phased implementation plan. Commanders both local and on up are judged solely on short-sighted criteria that causes them to pursue short-term projects that can be completed within their tenure oftentimes so that the follow-on command can’t take the credit. I can just see myself getting dragged into someone’s office and chewed out for saying it but its true. The fault lies in the lack of a systematic series of metrics to produce accurate measures of effectiveness. Leadership problems are exacerbated by Civil Affairs Command recruitment policies that prevent what the military calls “ascension” into the officer ranks in the Civil Affairs branch, which means that those with the desperately needed private sector, professional experience that wish to bring their expertise to the fight cannot get commissioned directly into Civil Affairs. They have two options: Receive a commission in another branch and wait a minimum of a year to be promoted and then branch-transfer to CA, or do what I did, forgo the commission and join the enlisted ranks. Having been through that route, I can safely say that it’s not a viable, realistic recruitment avenue if CAPOC wants to bring in real, competent civilian experience into their ranks. The stated reason for this policy is to ensure military experience from other branches in the CA officer ranks and that is indeed important but this leaves no alternatives for attracting new civilian competencies and expertise and without that balance, the unique objective of Civil Affairs to have expertise in both the civil and military arena is severely obstructed. Combine this policy with the high attrition rate being experienced as pre-911 reservist using Civil Affairs slots as a field-officer “pasture land” leave in droves over fear of combat deployments and the result is a drastic shortage of officers. So far, USACAPOC has seen fit to fill these gaps by allowing anyone with the rank to take a two-week PowerPoint class and assume CA commands without the appropriate level of training one would expect of a Special Operations branch. Higher command fills their gaps but at great cost to both competency and reputation as they field more and more unqualified, unprepared leadership. Meanwhile, on the enlisted side of the equation, the Army is happy to take any 18-yr-old with no job experience or military background and allow them to go directly into Civil Affairs enlisted positions. One might expect this wouldn’t be an issue; that lower-enlisted would be expected to fulfill menial task that would not require civilian-sector competencies and this is often what happens. But if that were the intent, why would they continue to send them through an intensive thirteen-week AIT (Advanced Individual Training course) that focuses solely on teaching the civil-military operations skill sets? In some cases the ranks are so thinned out that the 18-yr-old fry cook ends up actually getting to perform the duties of his M.O.S. (Military Occupational Specialty) and conducts Civil-Military Operations in theatre which is good, but when you think that someone with a Masters degree in Economics and ten years of civilian-sector experience cannot contribute their expertise to the fight without agreeing to the same salary and status as the inexperienced fry-cook, its clear that attracting competency is not a serious concern of our high command. Recruitment and training policies have to be drastically overhauled to meet the demands of the 21st century battlescape. It’s a compelling topic and a challenge which I intend to explore in much greater detail in the future.
So, when does a journal become a memoir? I’m not sure either, but I’m certain that this span between journal entries is blurring the line. Honestly, I’ve written a couple of times without completing anything and then deleted everything after reading it later and deciding it wasn’t what I really wanted to say. Yes, I’ve been fighting the battle of journalistic honesty of what is more appropriate for a public journal: The emotional subjectivity of the moment or the rational objectivity of retrospection. Looks like I’m going with the latter. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I really want out of this weblog.
Do I want to be political? Well, yes and no. I have political leanings that vary from Left to Right based on the subject-matter, but my journey being chronicled here goes so far beyond politics. What I’ve taken on here is as much a spiritual journey as a career move and a statement about what I think we as the wealthy of the world should be pursuing: Moving beyond the hollow promises of material gratification into self-actualization by using our considerable mental and physical resources toward building a just and equitable world.
Do I want to recount the details of my story as it unfolds? Yes, of course. It’s really the only part of this that most of my friends and family find interesting. One cannot expect their passions to be shared by everyone, and I tend to lose my audience pretty fast when I wax philosophical for too long. And then there is the increasingly skeptical view of the Army toward war bloggers. We’ve been officially warned now not to post pictures on the internet. I can guarantee that nothing that I’ve posted could reasonably be construed to violate operational security but I have to be careful not to reveal too much of the specifics about what we’re doing here. It’s too bad really. We’re doing some very interesting things. Building roads, schools and power facilities – it’s the good news that doesn’t get told nearly often enough. Most importantly we’re building relationships and trust and understanding between cultures that have for too long not had enough of either.
The world is too small for isolation from the changes we might fear.
Do I want to increase awareness of Civil Affairs and our mission? Yes, but…I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m equally interested in pointing out the serious flaws inherent with the current order of battle within our organization. There are things the military is very good at and there are things it wasn’t designed to do. Yet, we are doing them and will find ourselves taking on more and more of those unconventional, non-kinetic responsibilities as we continue to wage war against the causes of chronic instability, extreme poverty and gross inequity. We have to establish real competencies in the areas of international development. We must devise standard doctrine, protocols and IT/Communication systems with our brother and sister organizations in the United States government as well as with the international and non-governmental organizations that share the battle-space. We have to assert our unique role within the military as the bridge between the civilian world of development and the constructive aspects of the military. The Civil Affairs community has to come into its own. In my short time here, it has become clearly apparent that the Civil Affairs branch isn’t taken seriously in the Special Operations community or the military establishment as a whole. And it should be no shock, as its own policies, recruitment standards, operational readiness and curriculum attest to the fact that it doesn’t take itself seriously either. There are some clear changes that must take in order to build the collective competencies needed to face future challenges and to develop the respect and prestige that our unique mission deserves. I will be writing on this particular topic at length in the future. In fact, it’s a prime candidate for my future Master’s thesis.
The Last Four Months of My Life
The last four months have witnessed many ups and downs, many changes, reversals of fortune. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far is to not get to upset whenever something changes that isn’t to your liking because it will most likely change six more times before actually coming to pass, so its best just to sit back, watch and wait and hope that the final outcome is to your advantage. Of course politicking, posturing and strategizing are all part of the game. But nothing is more important than maintaining a positive, steady mindset. I wish I could say that I was able to do just that the whole time but in fact, I’ve had some really bad days (ok, weeks) here where I had begun to think I had given up my life and my family for so long to contribute in some meaningful way to the rehabilitation of a society only to sit behind a .50 cal crew-served weapon while other people with the rank but not the motivation, interest, temperament, conviction or dedication did all the things I thought I had been trained to do. At one point as I sat in the 130 degree sun manning yet another gun turret I was forced to come to terms with the fact that this may end up being my only contribution and that it was going to have to be enough for now. That at least my sitting here was preventing someone else’s son from having to be here that didn’t want to be. I’ve had days where I felt as if my age and experience were so overshadowed by the rank on my chest that I feared it was insurmountable; that it was unrealistic for me to ever believe that I would be allowed to perform any task beyond the typically thoughtless and menial tasks I was currently being assigned. There was a point where we were having days on end of down-time and for the first couple days I sat around like everyone else feeling a little sorry for myself. It was then I realized that my real challenge was going to be doing whatever it was I was going to be allowed to do as best as I could with the kind of attitude that I would find inspiring if recognized in someone else. I had to transcend or be miserable for a year. It was my choice.
I started teaching myself everything I could get my hands on about Nangarhar, the NGO’s here, development concepts, current and proposed projects, studying the previous team’s documentation, anything to make myself more valuable; invaluable. Immediately things started to turn around. I brought up the idea to USAID to help them when I had downtime, which turned into an official liaison role that is working out marvelously and breaking new ground in civil-military cooperation. I essentially created a role for myself, stepped into it and got to work. The change has been astonishing and I’ve made some good friends through my work with USAID; friends that I think will play a role in the next step of my journey. When I left to come here people would ask me “What will you do when you come back?” and I would say “I don’t know what’s around the corner, but that’s the exciting part. I do know that this year will reveal the next step to me.” It has started to do just that. I am gaining confidence every day and I have a clear vision of what things we can improve upon. I’m discovering ways to use my personal strengths to effect positive changes, both within the organizations I am a part of and within the community. A saying that I love keeps coming up in conversation: “There is no limit to what can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit.” It’s my mantra; the creed for all “underlings” out there with good ideas. I speak with people daily who are one degree removed from ambassadors and generals; two degrees from the President himself. It’s on me to come up with “infectious” ideas. If they are truly good ones, they could easily find themselves incorporated into U.S. development policy. It’s not likely, I know, but it is possible. Never underestimate the power you have to influence positive change.
I’ve settled into life at the PRT pretty well. All things considered, we have it pretty well. We have air conditioned rooms, electricity and pleasant-enough grounds. I wake up every morning, put on some music, grind some coffee and fetch breakfast for myself from the dining facility and bring it back to the room for some quiet time. If it’s a mission day, we get up around five or so, I eat breakfast on the hood of one of our Humvees while we wait to roll out and either discuss the upcoming mission or read from one of my books once everything is prep’d and ready to go. There’s a lot of waiting in the Army. It’s always a good idea to bring a good book and a headlamp for overnighters. If it’s a non-mission day I usually get into the office around 8 or 8:30, take care of the menial administrative things and then get to work on the fun, more important stuff. I’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to have some input on some of the new software tools we’ll be using in the near future. I can’t say much more but what I’ve seen these applications will be critical in the maturation process of civil-military cooperation and data collaboration with both internal and external entities.
Room for Improvement
I have to say there have been many unpleasant surprises in regard to process development, strategy and toolsets considering we’re four years into this adventure. I’m amazed at how ad-hoc things are run both locally, but more importantly from higher commands both civilian and military. The problem is essentially continuity and lack of standards and measurements. We arrived here to find that the previous team had reinvented processes and procedures to their liking from whatever the previous team had put in place. A quick scan through the file system proved that this was occurring at each rotation and I can attest that it happened again once we took over. We did our own process reengineering, threw out the old team’s tools in favor of our improved versions and carved our own wheel so to speak. Needless to say, this happens at every PRT for every rotation and to compound the problem, it happens in between rotations when high command authority rotates in and out. We can’t get around rotations but so, so many of our continuity issues could be resolved by simply having standard software and communications solutions that are taught prior to entering theatre during the ridiculously long two-month mobilization training. The discontinuity of leadership brings with it disjointed, short-term goals with no overarching theatre-wide phased implementation plan. Commanders both local and on up are judged solely on short-sighted criteria that causes them to pursue short-term projects that can be completed within their tenure oftentimes so that the follow-on command can’t take the credit. I can just see myself getting dragged into someone’s office and chewed out for saying it but its true. The fault lies in the lack of a systematic series of metrics to produce accurate measures of effectiveness. Leadership problems are exacerbated by Civil Affairs Command recruitment policies that prevent what the military calls “ascension” into the officer ranks in the Civil Affairs branch, which means that those with the desperately needed private sector, professional experience that wish to bring their expertise to the fight cannot get commissioned directly into Civil Affairs. They have two options: Receive a commission in another branch and wait a minimum of a year to be promoted and then branch-transfer to CA, or do what I did, forgo the commission and join the enlisted ranks. Having been through that route, I can safely say that it’s not a viable, realistic recruitment avenue if CAPOC wants to bring in real, competent civilian experience into their ranks. The stated reason for this policy is to ensure military experience from other branches in the CA officer ranks and that is indeed important but this leaves no alternatives for attracting new civilian competencies and expertise and without that balance, the unique objective of Civil Affairs to have expertise in both the civil and military arena is severely obstructed. Combine this policy with the high attrition rate being experienced as pre-911 reservist using Civil Affairs slots as a field-officer “pasture land” leave in droves over fear of combat deployments and the result is a drastic shortage of officers. So far, USACAPOC has seen fit to fill these gaps by allowing anyone with the rank to take a two-week PowerPoint class and assume CA commands without the appropriate level of training one would expect of a Special Operations branch. Higher command fills their gaps but at great cost to both competency and reputation as they field more and more unqualified, unprepared leadership. Meanwhile, on the enlisted side of the equation, the Army is happy to take any 18-yr-old with no job experience or military background and allow them to go directly into Civil Affairs enlisted positions. One might expect this wouldn’t be an issue; that lower-enlisted would be expected to fulfill menial task that would not require civilian-sector competencies and this is often what happens. But if that were the intent, why would they continue to send them through an intensive thirteen-week AIT (Advanced Individual Training course) that focuses solely on teaching the civil-military operations skill sets? In some cases the ranks are so thinned out that the 18-yr-old fry cook ends up actually getting to perform the duties of his M.O.S. (Military Occupational Specialty) and conducts Civil-Military Operations in theatre which is good, but when you think that someone with a Masters degree in Economics and ten years of civilian-sector experience cannot contribute their expertise to the fight without agreeing to the same salary and status as the inexperienced fry-cook, its clear that attracting competency is not a serious concern of our high command. Recruitment and training policies have to be drastically overhauled to meet the demands of the 21st century battlescape. It’s a compelling topic and a challenge which I intend to explore in much greater detail in the future.
7 Comments:
That's one of the most interesting posts I've read on a milblog in awhile. Thanks for showing a spotlight on the CA world. I was wondering about the lack of continuity. Is it really because a prior CA team's methods don't work for yall (or another CA team) or is it a case of each group wanting to re-invent the wheel? Did yall have a set of standards in place before deployment but then changed it after arriving in country? If so, wouldn't that likely be the case with ANY set of standards?
Thanks for taking the time to write all that. It was very informative. THANKS for serving!
I wonder if someone could create some long-term goals that have short-term milestones that would be achievable during one rotation, to give credit for achievement but provide that continuity toward a bigger result.
GREAT POST-- I think the combination of political, emotional, etc. makes for the more interesting reading-- I don't think you have to choose one point of view. Don't be too perfectionistic about what you post-- we just want to hear what you're doing, what you're feeling. Love you.
As much as I enjoy the personal narrative, I'm even more interested in the philosphical and societal aspects of your journey - and journal.
I'm looking forward to your Master's thesis and beyond. And to hanging out and talking about all this stuff. And cartoons, and beer, and all that jazz.
Good to hear you are hanging in there. As I am about to make CPT I wish that I could trade ranks with you. You would do so much more with it than I can.
May God be with you old friend. I am looking forward to your safe return.
What a very refereshing, interesting read. I overheard a fellow soldier last weekend on an ftx disparage the whole CA branch, belittling the mission. "They kiss babies, or something.." And it honestly peeved me. Stumbled on here and that just reminded me. From reflection, I will say CA is doing the most important mission in the Army right now. While I'm sure I haven't had much play with the rest of special operations, for the most part I find the most disparaging remarks from those OUTSIDE special operations. The CA mission isn't too far removed from "run-of-the-mill" special operations (if there is such a thing). But there's a lot of ignorance in the "regular" Army, from my token expereiences. Either way, interesting stuff.
You have support here from the other half of CAPOC.
I too, would consider branching it if it were available to fresh LTs. As it stands, I'm going the Big Bang route, and just found out I branched Armor a few days ago (it was my first choice, after all). While it was the most competetive this year, I still wonder if the option was available for CA upfront (and active), would that have changed my choices. Second thought, I probably would have still been in the Big Bang crowd. I'm oh so simple, I know.
Anyway, interesting.
Excellent blog!
I just wanted to speak to one point regarding direct appointment in to Civil Affairs branch for officers. While discussing the difficulty for qualified civilians to do their part in CA as an officer. Granted, it isn't widely advertised, but it is entirely possible to be directly appointed in to the CA branch as an officer. (I joined Army CA this way.)
With a degree, and related civilian experience one applies for direct appointment through Human Resources Command- St.Louis. There is plenty of paperwork and an appointment board but still very doable. Nevertheless, I have read of only one other officer to join Army Civil Affairs the way I did but surely there must be more…
Mr. Deis,
Please, please do tell me more!
I'm currently in the process of filling out my paperwork for a Direct Commission. I was looking at having to branch-transfer to Signal Corps or something else, do a year or two as a 2LT only to transfer back as a 1LT.
If you could please email me at steve@fortunateson.org, I'd like to get some more information on this process from you. I've talked with *many* military folks on this, including several full-bird CA Colonels and I've never heard of this. I could use your help.
I'm glad you like the blog - really appreciate the feedback.
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