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- [00:01]
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Special operations training detachment sot d west.
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B
Burrow team coming at you from ntc off the radar. This is off the radar. I'm your host, captain connor mang, an observer coach trainer for special operations at the national training center. In this episode of off the Radar we have the opportunity to talk to Burrow07, the OIC of AOB West Saadi. Joining us today is our co host Keegan, one of the OCs for the SF field team. Hey, welcome to off the radar. This is Captain Connor Mang, one of the OCTs here at Burrow Team. Today we're going to have a Great discussion with Burrow07 as well as another OC from one of our SF field teams, Keegan. I'll ask them to go ahead and introduce themselves. Starting with you Keegan.
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C
Hello, my name is Keegan. I'm an SF Captain here at NTC working with Burrow Team, sir.
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A
Yep. Hey. So My name is Major Matt Song. I am the Burrow 07 out at AOB West. I am the AOB West OIC. AOB west falls under the Special Operations Training Detachment which is headquartered out of Fort Polk, Louisiana with the parent unit at USASOC over at Fort Bragg. Previous to this I was at 1st Special Forces Group for my field grade and 03 time.
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B
Great. And those that may not know, here at NTC the different teams that follow certain disciplines or Moses have basically a 07 and 40 element. 07 is usually the OIC and it's usually a post KD. For most teams it's a post KD lieutenant colonel that's already done battalion command. But for Burrow Team it's a post KD Major who's done company command. That's correct sir, yes.
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A
So for Burrow Team is a little bit unique within the Operations Group Enterprise, the adjacent Critter teams. So like your Tarantula, Scorpion, Cobra. So they are aligned functionally and they provide the observer controller trainers for battalions and brigades that roll through. But the 0 7s and the 40s. So the OICs and the NCs are all post battalion OICs or OC, sorry officers and E7s or sorry CSMs as well.
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B
Yeah. And you're new to the seat? That's correct sir, yes. How are you liking it so far?
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A
Good. So I was here for a year as a 03 and so basically that was the exercise control officer in charge basically role playing as a SOTIF or Sujitif J3 kind of running the scenario. Running the scenario very down and in right would be the best way to describe it.
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B
And so for perspective, interested audience, the officer side, I think you spend a year as the 03 and then the norm of the progression is then you take the seat as the zero.
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C
Correct?
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A
Yeah. So for interested field grades who are looking to come to Sat D, it's a two year assignment for 04s and then a one year assignment for 03s. For the 04s, you'll do a year on exercise control and then you'll spend the next year after that as the actual overall oic. Essentially, I guess the best way to kind of to split the responsibilities, one is very down and in with the exercise itself and running the exercise and then the other side is more of a what you would think of as like a traditional OC observer controller type role and coaching their rotational units as well.
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B
Right. And so you and the 40, which is the senior enlisted on Burrow team, kind of make the team of mentorship for usually what's the aob? Correct. During a rotation.
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A
Yes. And every once in a while we do fleet up to a SODIF or a battalion sized element, but that's one or two rotations every year. The preponderance of the rotations are all at the AOB level. Okay.
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C
Okay.
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B
Keegan, you're new to the team as well. Kind of briefly discuss where you're at on Burrow and then kind of your responsibilities.
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C
Right. So I'm coming out of the seat up at first group as a detachment commander and company executive officer. My role here is an observer coach trainer for SFODAs that come through rotations. So I have a field team of two NCOs and myself. We usually get an augmentee and together over the course of the two week rotation we observe, coach and train rotational units that come through.
- [05:06]
B
Awesome. Right on. Okay, for those that are listening today, we're going to kind of talk. This may become sort of a battle rhythm for the Burrow team and off the radar. But every few rotations we'd like to kind of give our feedback for those that are either coming here in the future or may have been here in the past about some of the lessons learned that we're receiving from higher echelon as well as as a team of ocs. Kind of what we're seeing on the ground, trends, either improvements or sustains from RTUs. That being SF Civil affairs and PSYOP as well as Rangers when we get them. And I will say these, these ars go really in depth. There's a lot to them. But we're going to try and stay very general, just to kind of spur the discussion. And if you have more interest in some of the things we're talking about, please feel free to reach out to us here on borough team off the radar. But Keegan, if you want to kick us off with the first topic that we're going for.
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C
Thank you, Connor. Yeah. So today we'll begin with trends that USASOC has seen at the ctcs, specifically National Training center out here in California for Special Operations Forces units coming through. So big thing, we see some issues with fundamentals, specifically sustain and medevac. Now, sir, what have you seen over the course of your tenure here and what are these trends that we're finding out at ucasoc?
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A
Yeah, so we'll scope this up to kind of talk where these trends are coming from. So U.S. army Special Operations Command, so they've got a lessons learned department that run rotational surveys at all the combat training centers. So that includes the ones that are at jpmrc, Hawaii, Alaska and grtc. And they collect that and they produce essentially two reports a year. They're called semi annual reports and they roll up lessons learned and trends by warfighting function for this year. For the most recent RTU trends that were published by usasoc, what we determined or what we found were that rotational units generally do shoot and move very well, but struggle with the sustain and the communication part, specifically with the sustainment part. What we see as a huge issue, and it's something that we've seen across our conventional forced brethren as well, is that there's a fundamental lack of a development of a medevac and care plan past the initial golden hour. So we're talking prolonged field care type objectives. This is a really big topic and I know that the GRTC podcast has several, have done several episodes on this specific topic. But the things that we see that units need to do like in the immediate, is to train on prolonged field care objectives at home station. And then the two kind of big highest return on investment type training that they can do are blood type and titering for their units, like getting a roster, being aware of how to do blood transfusions, so finding IV sites and how to set up the actual vamp kits themselves. And then this is actually on the 18 deltas. But learning and understanding what tourniquet conversions are, those seem to be the two highest priority type training tasks that are tangible that RTUs can do before they come out here and are things that they can immediately add as a part of their training plans.
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B
Sir, I want to Go back to something just at the beginning when we were talking, some of the people listening may not be familiar with. We sometimes call it like the Big Five.
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A
Yes.
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B
Being your shoot, your move, your communicate, your medicate, and then your survivability or sustaining. I won't say that's like the lens that we look at all of the RTUs at, but it's definitely something that we use to provide mentorship. So that's what you're referring to, right, sir. When you talk about the sustain and Medicaid or medical.
- [09:36]
A
Yeah, so when we talk Big Five, at least, and it's Big Five is a little bit different depending on what unit you talk to. But within Special Forces, within first SF Command, the fundamentals of the Big Five are shoot, move, communicate, medicate, and sustain. And those fundamentals are the same fundamentals that we focus on at the National Training center and also at the Joint Readiness Training center, too, really, just to make a plug for the Special Operations Training Detachment. So we prepare our units for lisco, and the way we do that is through doctrine. So FM3.05. You're also often Lisco Handbook. And it's informed by the training objectives and some emergent ttps that we try to cycle back into the training. But it's really focused on planning, which is a fundamental, like good habit for good units and then focusing on the Big Five.
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B
Yes, sir. We spoke last week actually with Wes, Captain Weston Rich, he was the former host of off the Radar about that kind of dichotomy where RTU sometimes come here with the expectation that they're going to train some of their PMT tasks and things that they want to do specific to where they're going to deploy for purpose versus what we actually do here, which is train and prepare for lisco. I know Colonel Gonzalez spoke on that when he was out here a few weeks ago. That's his primary focus. And so kind of, albeit that's our primary focus, it's not always, you know, hey, we're going to do cool tasks that you may see when you go forward on as a SIFRI or as a CAD or psydet. It's more focused on what do you need to know and be proficient at for war. Can you speak on that a little bit, sir?
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A
Yeah. So I guess we can start with why we focus on the fundamentals. So, and this depends on commanders, training guidance and training objectives. But typically most commanders, because there are so many variables and things to prepare for, most guidance from commanders is to train for your hardest day in Order to train for your hardest day and to prepare for it. Really like the only things that you can control are those fundamentals. So, so again coming back to planning and then the big five that we said within the CTCS there are some constraints that we have to work through, right? So there are terrain issues here sometimes, sometimes we're limited to partner force or just the amount of people that we can fill the terrain here. So we call it the slant limitations. I think there are some misconceptions about how much or to what degree of free play is possible here as well as what effects are truly demonstrable to the joint force. And then what our value is to really the primary training audience is the brigade, vice, the division. So because of that I think there are some units that come through that have some frustration about like what they receive in training. But I think what makes the National Training center so valuable is that you can kind of think of these as like sparring rounds. So let's start with home station training. So if you go to home station training, you're operating or you're training in terrain that you're very familiar with, right? Let's say JBLM as an example or joint base solution. McCord usually the threats that you're resourcing or putting into these types of training events are linear, they're not free thinking enemy. And then the training is single mission or single met focused. And then also it's resource intensive. So your unit has to pay money for you to train at home station or to bring in special enablers for you to train at the National Training Center. And the JRT is the same, These are resource training events. And you're in an environment that's dynamic, it's complex in that there are multiple things going on within the environment. There are big units that you are training alongside and that includes not just companies and battalions, but we're talking about brigades and divisions. And then it's also a resourced event as well. So for things like space based capabilities, aerial capabilities or ground, terrestrial ground capabilities, they all exist here. And it's another plug for why units should try to come out to train at the National Training center. Because the multi domain capabilities that Ghost Team has, which is the multi domain Critter Team as we like to call it, has unmatched resources as compared to any other training center. And that includes grtc, GPMRC and Alaska as well.
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C
That's really good. Now sir, looking back at ucsoc, lessons learned and trends, what are we seeing in regards to the SOF CFI3?
- [14:38]
A
Yeah, I think generally units do soft CFI3 very well. So soft CFI3 stands for special Operations and Conventional Force Integration, Interdependence and Interoperability. Units generally do that really, really well. And part of that, the reason why they do that is because they start planning early together. And our command, so United States Army Special Operations Command tells units to integrate early and often. So there are generally no issues with soft CFI3. What I do see as some possible areas to improve. So one thing that we see in terms of a paradigm shift for our soft units is that when special operations forces come here to train, they realize that they don't have all the requisite fires capabilities that they might have had enjoyed while during the global war on terror. And so what they see is that these niche precision capabilities, and that includes not just fires but non lethal effects as well, are at the division and core levels and that they must now compete for those resources which they may not have had to before. And by competing for resources, what I mean by that is they're now going after targets that the division and the Corps care about. So these are what you would call like your high payoff targets, things like your A280 systems, long range precision fires or whatever it else that the land Component command or the division is detailing or would would want for us to, to go after.
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B
Yes sir, I, I even breaking it down into more simpler terms, just from my time here watching some of the ODAs and mission planning and seeing AOBs as they go through what you're talking about, about understanding the competition that exists within their brigade, their SODIF or even at the division level, to put it even more simply, that sometimes it's even just timing right where EXODA will see a HVT or an HPDDLE target, but it may not make sense to prosecute it at that time. And so you're saying, you know, that's part of the learning curve here, is we're not just destroying everything. We talk a lot about threshold of violence and when do we break that? I know we talked about it at Burrow Team a few weeks back on like how do we actually define what that means and when does that get broken? And so I think I've seen through my own personal lens, like a lot of teams and a lot of units, RTUs are learning the timing of it and how those competing resources you're speaking of really start to, I don't say put restraints on your planning, but they do, they do matter because they will have long Term effects when you're actually having eyes on a target, but you can't prosecute it because X reason and understanding why and sometimes not just because of a scenarioism.
- [17:36]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things. So if you crack open the RSOFT and LISCO handbook, really, it details, it describes RSOFT forces as kind of two things. So in lisco, we are seen by our commanders as essentially operational pathfinders. So we are the eyes, ears and teeth for the joint force. And then that is also relevant in terms of transformation and contact in that we are also the eyes, ears and teeth, if you will, for a lot of these initiatives that we are being directed to integrate as a part of our training. One of the things that's also important is the way that RSOF units and brigades have been fighting, have been fighting in what we call convergence windows, which is a relatively new operational tenet and without cracking open 3, 0. Essentially, convergence is a confluence of effects both lethal and non lethal at specific points in time. And so these are directed windows by hire. So usually, I think it's usually at the CJTF level that they direct when all their finite resources will be allocated against the decisive or the main effort, if you will.
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C
And so critical to that is providing good communication from the unit on the ground, the unit of action, up to the end user, often the brigade or the division.
- [19:08]
A
Yes. So part of that is that units, especially for soft units, if they want to target and compete for these resources, have to find a way to understand when these convergence windows are and nest their operations within those. It's almost like being out of position if you're not within a convergence window. Out of position, meaning if you were tasked to go to a certain blocking position and to sit there as part of a bigger operation, not being nested with the convergence window has just as much significance as being out of position as if they were physically out of position. Now you're out of position in terms of cognitive and temporally, if that makes sense.
- [19:49]
B
Another thing I heard during the conventional force suspension of battlefield effects, which is essentially just a pause kind of in the scenario, soft doesn't really take part in that, but we did take the opportunity to conduct some more extensive ars. A lot of what I heard from the senior mentor to the AOB and then some of the field teams to the ODAs and even the side Ed was just knowing how to talk big army, like conventional army turn, like understanding ops graphics, knowing how to talk and kind of convey your higher commander's intent. And sometimes I think maybe we lose sight of that in sof. But I think this is a great opportunity here at a CTC where you're going to get a real, actual life brigade combat team that's going to have real people. It's not constructive, and they'll have ops graphics, and they'll have GTACs, and they'll have, you know, terrain models where we're going to have to understand and be able to speak with our brethren that aren't sof. Is that something you've seen as a trend here, Sir?
- [20:55]
A
I think the bigger important point in all of that is that we are a part of the army and the Joint Force. And so part of being part of the army and the Joint Force is also understanding how our echelons fight. So kind of another trend that I think is important to kind of come back to. And I think I'm answering your question. Just I'm going about it kind of in a different maneuver. But essentially, we as SOF need to understand how brigades, divisions and corps fight because they fight differently. We have to open up doctrine and read that to understand where perhaps why it is that a brigade commander may not be paying attention to what SOF is doing. Like, yes, it might be important to him, but it's not important because the alligator that is closest to his boat will always be, like, he's got an enemy at his doorstep that he needs to focus his brigade staff and battalions on in terms of synchronizing, combining. Combining arms and all that to attack and defeat. Right. That is his sole job in Lisco. For divisions and corps, it's a little bit different because they're about shaping, and that's where, like, there's a. There potentially is a natural touch point for special operations forces, both in the deep and in the rear areas as well.
- [22:14]
C
Yeah, yeah. So that, I mean, pretty important to all that is being able to communicate our message, the things that we see, the things that we want to attack down at the unit of action level, the Odas, the cydats, the CAT teams that are out there up and back to the brigade and the division.
- [22:34]
B
Right.
- [22:35]
C
And so I think we're seeing some issues, like sometimes our widgets don't talk with theirs. But bigger than that, right, there's the enemy out there who has more technology than we've ever had to fight with, at least in the last 20 years, to find, fix, and then potentially finish our SOF elements that are out trying to attack them. What are we seeing by the way of digital force protection and communications for these teams?
- [23:00]
A
Yeah. So again, going back to what SOF doesn't do well or is a point of improvement is digital force protection and communication. So a couple things that I think are worth hitting in terms of observation. So generally for rotational units that come through, especially on the soft side, there is a lack of understanding in how the enemy can, can target us. There's a lack of understanding in mitigation ttps for signatures, both thermal and electromagnetic, or maybe they're just not getting enough reps at it. And then what I think that needs to be done in the future is more baseline training at home station to include things like doing using spectrum analyzers at home station, understanding what your own footprint looks like as opposed to outsourcing it to someone else or a different entity or enabler, like say a SAD A or an ew. Folks, I think it's now the electromagnetic spectrum and how we deal with that is like the 21st century camouflage. So camoing up and building fighting positions, that's a skill level one task, meaning every soldier does that. I think we're getting to the point where I think soldiers need to start understanding how waves work, what the difference between amplitude frequency is and what the significance is when certain signals are detected in a battle space correlated with their understanding or the enemy's understanding and how we may fight, because that may then expose potential disposition of units and or intent for the enemy commander or like our commander, if it's the enemy targeting us. Something that we've been trying to coach very heavily is not necessarily providing the perfect solution or the perfect widget for communication. What we've been trying to work on is trying to look at communications a little bit differently than how, I guess we're trying to push a paradigm shift for forces. So think about digital force protection in terms of collection analysis and then an enemy response. So collection being there's different ways that the enemy could collect on you, right? So there's ground based collection, there's aerial collection, there's space based, and then something that you have no control over is their equivalent of national technical collection. When we get into the analysis portion, really what we're asking ourselves is are we a signal of interest? Like are we worth dedicating additional resources for the enemy? Because resources are finite. Resources are finite for us and it's finite for the enemy as well. And so it's about crossing a certain analytical threshold so that analytical threshold can be ascertained by understanding or making an assumption or at least a good guess as to what the enemy's attack guidance matrix Is like what are their pre planned targets? And part of that comes back to information preparation of the intelligence, preparation of the battlefield as well. And then lastly, as part of the analysis and part of the collection piece is are we concerned about direction finding or content exploitation? And it depends on what your mission is. I think we're so focused on protecting the actual signal itself that we do not think about that. At the end of the day, what's important for technical units is where the source of that signature is coming from. Because if that source can be found via if it can be direction found, then that's good enough for targeting.
- [26:59]
B
Yes.
- [27:00]
C
I think the communications in particular is where we're finding that Venn diagram of military art and science kind of meeting where we get this technical science. We get the art, especially when we're looking at large scale combat operations of how, when and why these teams need to come up and get on the communication spectrum in the first place. And I think culturally across our organization, we've got to think about how do we actually give good guidance and intent, let those teams operate, minimize the amount of times they need to come up to communicate and the team has to understand on the ground, hey, I'm going to come up outside of comms window because I have met the criteria to do that.
- [27:45]
A
Yeah. This is another good selling point for focusing on the basics and something that's been brought up by a number of our gray beard role players. So retired 0605E9000 type that after they retire. One of the ways to give back to the force is by working as contracted role players. One of the things that's been brought up multiple times is that the military decision making process and working through things like working groups and some of these staff integrating processes are a hedge against contested war fighting functions to include contested understanding, contested logistics and contested communication. By doing good planning, having a good operations process, you're minimizing the touchpoints that are needed to downtrace units and that you're producing a good set of orders that is clear, understandable and is succinct enough for it to be passed through low probability of intercept or low probability of detection type systems like your 137. So if that information can fit into a text file that's really small, that's about as succinct as it needs to get vice these huge PowerPoints with ConOp and pictures that we're trying to pass down, which are very bloated in terms of what they're trying to communicate, brevity and reporting Brevity and reporting.
- [29:10]
B
Yes, sir. Kind of a shameless plug here. So I think I'd be interested to see kind of Keegan, in your kind of opinion, sir. So the last rotation we had, um, I thought that the unit, the AOB that was here, did a phenomenal job with communicating with their conventional counterpart, mainly to the fact that they had an LNO that was. They didn't stick somebody up there that was like a problem child or somebody was like, well, he can't, you know, go out into the box because he's broken. They stuck somebody up there that understood what that AOB commander wanted and also had already a private previous relationship with the Brigade Combat Team leadership. And I think we saw that on many occasions being fruitful for them because they were able to relay intent or they were able to relay what they were doing. Like you were kind of saying, like, sometimes it doesn't seem like maybe that Brigade Commander's really concerned with what you're doing. And that seemed like the case. But in reality what was happening was they just had really good communication with the Brigade Combat Team's leadership because of that lno. We talked about that in a previous episode about the importance of that. But I just, I. I thought they did a really good job when I was watching them as an AOB with emplacing the right people, not only at the Brigade Combat Team, but also at the sodif, because I believe they. They put some of their. Let's see, it was their jtax, or maybe it was one of their controllers for friars. But at every echelon that they could, they in. They in place people, the right. With the right knowledge and kind of skill set to be able to communicate. And so there wasn't gaps. I know we've seen that work at different varying degrees of success, but I thought they did a really good job with that.
- [30:53]
A
Yeah, that's a really good observation. And the last rotational unit in particular used a lot of digital systems. That helped to a certain extent. But really what I think, and that we haven't seen from previous units, because I think the investment for rotation units in good LNOs has kind of dropped off a little bit. And I think part of that has to do with a lot of rotation units dependence on digital mission command systems. I think the reason why this rotation unit was so successful with good LNOs was because they invested the right people, even though it came with potentially the cost of having good people leave the unit for a certain period of time. And so investing that was the right investment. So There was a lot more return on investment from those from that particular LNO set than having them stay, maybe stay at the AOB to help out, rounding out their battle rhythm or their specific staff processes.
- [31:53]
B
Yeah, I think it's come up pretty much in the last two or three interviews that I've done. But I think it all kind of really starts at ltp when units come out here to participate in LTV prior to the rotation, kind of identifying who's going to be the right personality to say, hey, maybe this is the guy we want at the brigade talk, and maybe this is the guy we want at the SODA headquarters or working with the sotif. I will continue to push that because I think the value in it from talking with Captain Rich and other people, other 07 and 40s, the LTP's investment on your success here, it's proven like it's not a theory. It is 100%, in my opinion and in a lot of people's opinion, like kind of where the framework starts for success. I wanted to segue to something that we had in front of us. So one of the things that soft does not do well at ntc, it says conduct CA operations. Me being a Civil affairs officer, I get a little, I don't say emotional about that, but it definitely makes me curious as to why. What is CA doing or not doing here that's kind of creating that trend.
- [33:06]
A
Yeah. And you know, I think part of this is, part of this observation is not doesn't just fall on the rotational units. I think part of that is also how we employ them within the scenario. So that's our rotational design problem. But I think with CA teams and companies that come through, at least with between the Special Operations Task Force or at the battalion at the company level, I think there's somewhat of a lack of understanding in how to employ these niche capabilities. And then also there's a little bit of a stovepipe and lack of integration between the AOBs and the SODIFs. And part of that is understanding mission command systems and cross loving those. It's LNO integration and then just having and relying on good information sharing.
- [33:59]
B
I think a lot of it also comes down to knowing as sof, what other tribes of SOF do as well. Which again, shameless. Plug for SA D. You're going to see that as an oc, wherever you're at, if you're an OC or in the OP section, like you're going to see and understand and learn. I mean, I've learned so much just being here about SF and PsyOps being a CA guy, but I think you're right on the money, sir.
- [34:21]
A
Yeah, I think part of that is training together earlier before rotation or training regularly as a part of home station training is really, really critical because it's not just understanding the capabilities, but it's also building the organizational connective tissue. So, like, you're going to work with the folks that you like, right? You're going to build genuine friendships and working relationship that is critical to interoperability moving forward, whether it's on a deployment for real in combat, or somewhere at a national training center.
- [34:52]
B
Yes, sir. Yeah, I think most, most RTUs here and Keegan, you might be able to speak on this. I think most like ODAs probably come here and say we've worked with CA before, so we understand. Oh, definitely kind of the capabilities. It's just in this setting like you were talking about where you have like Ghost Team, that's throwing a lot, like you were saying, a lot of technology at you, a lot of more restraints than you probably saw on deployment or even like a training exercise where kind of what you were saying. So working together prior to and understanding each other's SOPs and just like unit chemistry and building that before you get here definitely helps.
- [35:29]
A
I think what we see with units is there is so much information out here and so many things to do. There are so many tasks that the units, CA, PsyOP and SF have to rely on each other to accomplish all of that. It doesn't just fall on one particular tribe. It's all the tribes together. And that covers the whole breadth and width of the battlefield geometry, whether it's in the deep area, whether it's in the close area, or whether it's even in the rear area as well. Because that is important and it's important for the division and for the Corps as well.
- [36:01]
B
Yes, sir.
- [36:01]
C
I think what we're seeing is actually a pretty honest look at what real world would look like if we had to stand up Special Operation Task Force. Right. In case of lisco, we would just be bringing people together and they'd have to figure it out on the fly.
- [36:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [36:16]
B
This, this upcoming rotation 25 11. I don't know if you want to explain, sir, but it'll be a little different just based on kind of the Tay Con and opcon that we've created to. I'll let you explain it, but it's going to create a new kind of challenge for all three soft branches, if you care to kind of explain.
- [36:35]
A
Yeah, so this upcoming rotation will be a little bit unique from other AOB level or company level rotations. So this is the first rotation that we'll be executing that will have multiple company rotational units. So we'll have an AOB Special Forces Advanced Operating Base here, we'll have a CAA company headquarters and then we'll have a PSYOP company headquarters along with a PSYdet as well. And then we'll also have a substantial RedSoft footprint as well. So there's a lot of different players and we at the HICOM for this particular rotation will play the Special Operations Task force or an O5 headquarters. The reason why that's significant is because each of these company headquarters are separately opconned to the SODIF, meaning that the J3 who will be really tired at the end of this rotation is responsible for providing mission guidance to each of these units and that they all each have swimmers lanes and responsibilities and tasks within this LISCO environment.
- [37:39]
B
As to the previous kind of scenario where they were all OPConned under the AOB, is that correct, sir?
- [37:46]
A
Yes. And so the reason why that's significant is because the AOB commander would then have the responsibility for answering RFIs or questions about CA civil affairs operations or psychological operation type messaging where now it's very clear there are clear lanes between all of them and that now it's about coordinating between each of those elements as well. And then not just coordinating amongst the three tribes, but it's also coordinating with the brigade as well that will be out fighting.
- [38:20]
B
I like it. I think it playing Devil's advocate. It sets the conditions for a lot of stove piping. However, if it's done correctly, it also sets the conditions for a lot of crosstalk and a lot of communication which is what we, we want to see them do. And I think you kind of hit on that sir, with, with them having three separate kind of lines of effort and three separate headquarters that are going to do their own mdmp, their own planning, their own mission command and technically their own execution of operations independent of each other, however integrated.
- [38:53]
A
Hopefully yes, because there will be some things that we will force up at the SODIF level. So we will force certain integrating processes, certain working groups, but then ultimately it's down to the units in terms of how they exchange the information, whether it's regular touch points through LNOs or whether it's frequent link ups to each other to exchange information or they digitally do. So there will be some challenges that will come out from each of those and the hope Is that there will be significant lessons learned that will be captured that we can then provide back to the force as well.
- [39:35]
C
So shifting gears a little bit, these rotations, we're looking at about two weeks each. And we see a lot of units come out here. They kind of treat it like a sprint as opposed to a marathon. I think we've seen trends saying that we have issues with fighter management. What effects do you think that's having and what should units do to prevent that?
- [39:57]
A
Yeah, by fighter management, what we really mean is the Air Force's term on essentially how pilots are taking care of themselves and their formations. What we commonly see here is that because the rotations are short sprints, commanders and then key decision makers will just, I hate to use the word just ranger through or try to ranger through the 10 days as much as possible. But what we typically see is within the first 72 hours, they'll come to a grinding halt because maybe they're not eating correctly, they're not hydrating as much as they should. It's a new environment. They're stressed, they're certainly not getting enough sleep. And part of that is folks must understand that in order to provide clear and concise guidance, they have to be operating at near optimal levels as possible. Now, it's not going to be. It's a war environment, so it's not going to be perfect. But they have to know, they have to understand what their red lines are so that if they have to take an operational pause to rest or eat or sleep or anything or drink water, that's also very critical in that regard. I think this is also a good plug. What we haven't seen units do that I think they should be doing is going back and making regular touch points with their. Their human performance or mental performance type. Folks that work within the HPW or
- [41:34]
B
like a Thor facility almost.
- [41:35]
A
So, you know, these are P11s soft particular programs, but the army has equivalent programs as well. Yeah. The reason why they're significant and the reason why they're so helpful is because they are able to provide you things like oura rings, things that can measure biometric data that you can use on a regular basis to understand, hey, what's the optimal level of sleep? What is your activity level like on a regular basis? What is your quote, overall resilience look like? Or what is your overall stress level? So when you do get stressed, you understand where those red lines are. So if you're someone that's normally high strung, that's something really important to know. Because if you're then put into a high stress situation. You might be at the risk of redlining or maybe crashing out or something to that effect. Or if you know that you, or if you've learned mitigation techniques on how to say, optimize your heart rate variability or your breathing or your eating or sleeping, perhaps you can mitigate being high strung to a certain extent or you can optimize your performance for that. But I do think that it's really important that we tell units that there are resources available for you guys to tap into and either you can bring them out here or do that prep work ahead of time. Because the other thing, with an environment like the National Training center, you're in a theater opening LISCO environment, meaning you are, you've been told that you're deploying and it's on short notice and that the consequences for winning and losing are enormous.
- [43:17]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:19]
B
I think it also plays into planning a little bit. Something I was thinking about if I was an rtu, if I was going through rotation here as a CA team leader, if, you know, like, the terrain out here is brutal, the weather out here is, it can zap you in a matter of hours. So I think it makes you and your equipment, it's a lot more deliberate on like, hey, if we're going to climb X ridge or we're going to go up X terrain feature, like that's going to cost us a lot of calories, a lot of water. If it's worth it, it's worth it. But that needs to be part of our analysis. Like, hey, do I want to drive my vehicles in that pass where we're probably going to lose some tires or do I want to take a look
- [44:00]
C
at risk versus reward?
- [44:01]
B
Absolutely. Yeah, we've seen, I've seen that firsthand. You know, units try and go in some pretty austere environment and it's great, you get some great fields of fire or great view, but then you have no ability to sustain yourself or you know, medevac because you're, you're just toasted. Yeah, it's, it's a real thing out here for us as OCS as well. And I think that's one of our main responsibilities is making sure that we're, we're of level, sound mind, rested and hydrated and most of the time to be able to make the right decision if we see the rtus kind of making weird choices based on their fatigue levels. But it's a real thing out here.
- [44:36]
A
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And everything that you just Talked about are timeless principles. Meaning you can take these principles and you can go to any other future conflict theater. You can take this back to the Middle east and you may have to make some changes based off of the environment, but the principles themselves will remain the same.
- [44:58]
C
Yeah, these units got to get out there and they can't control a lot, but they've got to minimize friction points. Right. And fighter management we're seeing is leading to these decision makers making decisions that necessarily probably don't have risk versus reward measured out effectively and it's causing other issues to.
- [45:20]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think the bigger point about fighter management is that it's a controllable because it's your own person. There are certain things that perhaps you can't control. Like you can't control the operational schedule, maybe hires pressure, or what the enemy is doing. But things that you can manage at your level are like, are you eating, are you sleeping, Are you drinking enough water? Are you taking deliberate rest periods? Are you doing things like Tabata squats to make sure that you are mentally awake and aware during key periods? Or do you know when you're. When you get really, really tired so that you don't make key decisions during that time period? As an example. So if I'm a morning person, then I should probably front load a lot of my key decisions towards the morning timeframe when I would probably be the most optimal in terms of mental performance, just as an example. Those are a couple of those things.
- [46:10]
B
Yeah, that's great insight, sir. We appreciate kind of talking through some of these lessons learned and some of these trends that we've seen here. I want to give you a chance to as the 07, as the 07 of Burrow team, to kind of give your plug. Keegan, you're more than welcome to add, but I feel like part of our audience that listens to this is either people that have been here as past boroughs or have been to NTC as a soft rotation. Or maybe it's somebody that is thinking about, hey, I don't know how I feel about Fort Irwin and going out to the desert. Being here now for almost two years. Right. Or close to it, kind of. What would you give somebody as your pitch for SAT D?
- [46:54]
A
Yeah, so it's no surprise. Working at the Special Operations Training Detachment, whether it's at Fort Polk or the National Training center is tough. These locations are in austere places where the city life is not necessarily great, but it's definitely an assignment that I'm really glad that I was assigned to and part of that is because there's an incredible network of talent that's out here, both in the big army and then on our side as well to include the role players. I have learned an incredible amount being out here. For the captains that come out here, it's an incredible opportunity because you get your intermediate level education venue of choice and then you get an automatic re entry to
- [47:44]
B
usersock.
- [47:44]
A
I think any unit within usasak obviously with caveats. And then for the non commissioned officers it counts as a SWIC tour. Instead of three or four years, it's down to two. And so if you're trying to get back to a unit as quickly as possible, this is the place to do it. And you learn so much being out here because you're exposed to everything good, bad or indifferent. And then you're also seeing all the crazy cool technology and innovation concepts that our army is trying to leverage in a large scale combat environment. So this is an incredible testing ground and an incredible laboratory. I think the other thing about location is that you are in the middle of everything. So we are being at Fort Irwin, we're about two and a half, three hours from Los Angeles, about two and a half, three Hours from Las Vegas. It's probably another 30 to 40 minutes down to San Diego. So as long as you are okay with maybe driving a little bit, you are able to go to some incredible tourist and food destinations. And some of these areas are also world class in terms of like outdoor recreation stuff to do as well. So you're near Big Bear Sequoia National Forest close to Yellowstone. There's an incredible like if you're, you are wrong. If you are not traveling every weekend or every kind of like they have no scheduled activity that you've got. So this is an incredible opportunity for development for officers and NTOs. And I, and I just ask the folks that are in the marketplace to seriously consider coming out to the National Training Center.
- [49:26]
B
Yeah, I mean I'm not ashamed to mention that I picked to come out here. It was my first choice in the marketplace place. My wife's family's close to here. But I also, for legal reasons, that
- [49:35]
C
was my first choice as well.
- [49:36]
B
Yeah, yeah, it was like you just said, sir, I think it was. I just, I wanted to try something new. I'd never been in a desert environment. I'd also never been in a CTC around a fairly mechanized kind of community. That's kind of what 11th ACR leans towards. So it's really cool to see some of the larger vehicles out in the box doing their thing. It's just a lot of new things for me. So development for me was. It was awesome. And then you kind of hit the nail on the head. There's so much to do. If you're willing to drive a little bit and you know, got in and out. That's not.
- [50:15]
A
Oh, that too. Yeah. I can't forget. In and out, in and out.
- [50:17]
B
I guess if you go to JRTC then you have whataburger, whatever they. That's true. That's in Texas.
- [50:22]
C
We're not sponsored by In N Out,
- [50:23]
B
but they have fantastic In N Out. If you want to throw us, throw us a sponsorship, we'll take it. Keegan, you got any, any plugs for. For SAAT D?
- [50:32]
C
Yes. So last year before I came here, last 12 months I was a company executive officer and I can say in one rotation I spent more time outside than I did in 12 months as an exo. The time was great there, but here, getting it back to being tactical and I have an opportunity to see the breadth of of the Special Forces regiment come through, learn the new tactics, techniques and procedures that we are fielding and understand how we're going to be employed in large scale combat operations. It's just an opportunity that I could not have gotten anywhere else except for maybe jrtc. Yeah. Great.
- [51:10]
B
Well, hey sir, appreciate you being on the podcast. Look forward to having you. Like we'd said at the beginning, think we're going to try and make this a. Maybe every quarter or every few rotations we'll come back and see. Maybe just talk about the same trends and if they're still there then why aren't they being fixed? And maybe there's new trends that we're seeing, but I think it's valuable for those that are listening to kind of hear the truth from our team, Borough team about what we see and what we're doing as a team to help address it. But then also kind of what USASOC and the bigger army is also shifting towards to make us a better fighting force. But appreciate it sir.
- [51:50]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for your time. This is really important and this is as ocs, part of our charge is not just to put on world class training, but it's also to inform the forces as well. So really thanks for the work that you guys are doing.
- [52:07]
B
If you are interested in being a guest on the off the Radar podcast or have a topic you'd like us to cover, please contact the off the Radar team@offtheradarpodcastteammail.com Thank you for listening to off the radar, where RSoft prepares for conflict like subscribe and share on your listening platform.