speaker-0: The United States Army is built to fight and win our nation's wars. But if that's true, why do we keep relearning the same lessons every time we go to war? Our life, four titles, one truth. I'm Tom.

speaker-1: and I'm Lance. Military strategist John Boyd pointed out that armies often try to prepare to fight the last war. When you look back at history, you can see why he said that.

speaker-0: So today we're joined by my friend from class 65. Right? Oh. Hey, Command Sergeant Major retired Carl Cunningham. Welcome brother.

speaker-2: Jesus! See you.

speaker-1: Okay.

speaker-0: So we're gonna make sure that our audience gets to know you first before we get into the real topic. So where are you from in the world? Make sure you say it loud and proud. Please. And did you have plans to join the military growing up?

speaker-2: So yeah, I'm from the great state of The state that loves to let everyone know how they can spell. yeah, so from Ohio, I'm from Northeast Ohio, just south of Youngstown. Grew up on the Ohio River in an old pottery town from.

speaker-0: ⁓ You know what I

speaker-2: That's been there since the late 1700s. So it's one of the first towns in the state and being a pottery town, you know, every year they have a what's called a pottery festival. And what really got me into joining the army because, you know, being Northeast Ohio, you're not really exposed to the military. You know, so you don't you don't really see anybody meet a whole lot of people in my town was filled with Vietnam veterans. So what what kind of got me there was I was at this festival. and they had one of the high school soccer players at this goal and if you could kick past the goalie, you won like a piece of pottery. So I kicked it past the goalie and I got to pick a piece of pottery and I'm looking at it, okay, hey, what can I get? I don't really, I didn't really drink coffee at the time. was in my teens and I found a coffee cup and it had this weird picture on it and it said, United

speaker-0: No.

speaker-2: states army airborne school for benning georgia sure and i looked at it was like all this looks kinda neat and it was you know is master parachutist wings and it had the crest on it from the five ⁓ seventh and i was like ⁓ cool so i took it home not thinking anything i was just a hey dad here's a you know new coffee mug something like that to give my dad and then ⁓ The following weekend a recruiter called me and said hey you ever thought about joining the army? I'm like nope. No connection. No connection at all. And I still had the thought of the coffee mug in my head and I'm like yeah sure I'll come talk to you. So that's kind of what really got me towards the army. It like a weird coincidence.

speaker-1: Next. That's what it was. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. Thank

speaker-1: You answered part of my question so why you joined the Army but I'm also asking you what made you choose the MOS that you served in?

speaker-2: Um, so, uh, that's a lot of that was influenced by my recruiter who I'll never forget. Um, his name was Sergeant Todd Schneeman and he was a combat engineer and he, was an airborne guy. So, you know, when I told him the story of the mug, he was all excited. He had his, uh, back then they used to have, if you went to airborne school, they made like a yearbook of your class. And so he was showing me his airborne school yearbook. Did you have one of those? Yeah, they don't do that anymore.

speaker-1: I don't even know where.

speaker-2: Yeah, I mean he was a recruiter so he was using it and and so I wanted to be an MP first and he would you know It was because you know, this was back in the 1900s

speaker-0: still a stature thing back then, wasn't it?

speaker-2: You know wanted to be an MP. Well, he told me I was too short So I'm I'm 5'8 and evidently you used to have to be 5'9 to be a male MP and then females had a minimum height and Which I found out later he lied because that rule had changed before you know before do or I joined so Again, he was trying to steer me away and then I was like well Hey, you know 11 x-ray want to do the Airborne Ranger thing and he's like look Carl you scored too high the ASVAB he's like I'm not letting you go there he's like I you know I want you to do something different and so I picked 13 Fox now you know 13 Fox won the delayed entry program you know I did this between my junior and senior year high school so I

speaker-0: You

speaker-1: What is a 13-5?

speaker-2: ⁓ that's a fire support special. So it's the it's field artillery guys that sit in the fire direction center. ⁓ They do a lot of the math and they're actually, you know, wicked smart.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: Wicked smart MOS and but you know based on my scores that's what he was steering me towards so I go into my senior year high school and one of the guys in my senior class he had done the reserve like split option and he'd already done basic and so you know he was smarter in the army than me right you know so I got my first bit of Barrett's lawyer kind of advice And so I told him, I'm like, man, hey, yeah, I joined the army too. And, and I was all excited and he's like, what'd you sign up for? And I'm like, oh, 13 Fox. And he's like, bro, you don't want to do that, man. And, and so again, listening to a private, I got nervous and I started like fighting it. was like, I don't know if I want to do this. So I went back to the recruiter and, talk to him about changing my MOS and you know there's a big long story behind that don't need to get into I you know I went back up and change my MOS and what I ended up signing up to be was it was called at the time it was called 33 Romeo which was an electronic warfare intercept system intercept aviation systems repair and so it's a military intelligence MOS and ⁓ it's the only intelligence MOS that doesn't exactly do intelligence. They're like the maintainers. And so it's kind of a cross between signal and ordinance. And ⁓ I was trained on the aviation side of that. But, you know, the Army was changing in the late 90s, and they eventually combined it to where you could do tactical aviation or strategic systems. then ⁓ You know, it's now called 35 tango. That's the official title name and it's now called military intelligence, uh, systems maintainer integrator, but it's to this day, it's still part of MI and it's a signal slash ordinance type MOS to where you have to understand maintenance and you maintenance like ordinance. But you're doing signal work, like working with the communications and stuff up to the top secret level. And it's a, you know, pretty cool. had to get a TS clearance and I had to do all that stuff at maps. You know, of course they tell you the you're going to be doing James Bond stuff. You know, I mean, that's the classic line that they used to tell you at the Mephs. And that's what I wanted to do is, know, looking back, it was a good choice. You know, it's a good career choice because it opens up things for you.

speaker-0: That's our intelligence, yeah.

speaker-1: Did you know what that MOS was when you chose it? I didn't get any advice for this.

speaker-2: No idea.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-2: No one knew none of the recruiters no one Mets really knew they're just like you get a TS clearance and you're gonna do James Bond stuff I mean that was extent of what you heard. Yeah, you know that was pre-internet. I mean the internet existed but it wasn't like it is now for these kids to be able to research and really make informed decisions before they go in the military so you know.

speaker-0: That's for 17, 18 year old kids.

speaker-2: Want me to head to videos though?

speaker-0: I do! Like they're high speed!

speaker-2: Can they put those in? And yeah, mean, kids, I don't even know if people know what the laser disk is.

speaker-0: Wendya Zulu out.

speaker-2: ⁓ so ⁓ that's funny when up until about, I mean, I want to say it wasn't until 2013 or 14 is when we, they did the first Zulu for us. Yeah. So up in, up until like 2014, all ⁓ I ⁓ O S is you stayed where you are up in the SIR major and they had it broken up. There was like four different SIR major kind of things. So,

speaker-0: . you

speaker-2: like Intel analysts like that MOS proper and then geospatial guys they would become Zulu's and SAR major and then human intelligence and counterintelligence guys would Zulu out.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-2: Yeah, it will. And then mine just went you went straight to Sardar Major. So my M.O.S. was the smallest. We had like 24 master sergeants or E.A.s. And then we had, I want to say, I think the lowest it got was to like four Sardar Major slots in the whole army. And so Zulu and Outdo is where now every M.O.S. has it to where when you become a Sardar Major, any M.O.S. in that career management field. like M.I. is the 35 series.

speaker-0: the whole field. Like so for transportation it's we Zulu out at E8 and then that means that whatever specific transportation MOS we were before now we're supposed to be able to understand all of it and put it all together. So it's a it's an interesting thing that we enlist.

speaker-2: Yeah, and they just pushed it down to to eight for for our CMF ⁓ in the last few years So that's still new, know, because they're still growing pains from it But but I think it's a good thing Holistically doing it at the eight level because it'll make better star majors because they get exposed to stuff

speaker-1: I knew

speaker-0: So I pushed for it. wrote a paper at the Academy. pushed for it to go down to East seven for transportation because once you, ⁓ unless you're a line transporter, you don't really get that platoon sergeant time. And then once you get that platoon sergeant time, they must send you to staff so you can get an idea of what's going on. And if you don't tag that, if you don't get that opportunity, then you're going blind into eight and blind into the Academy and sorry, Mary, so, but. My white paper is still sitting there All right, so last question before we get to our topic How did you prepare for retirement and looking back? Do you think you prepared yourself enough you and your family enough?

speaker-2: Yeah. I'd say I knew I was just done with the army to the point where I was just ready. I don't know if I prepared well, but I will say, at that point in time in my life, I'd already been through what I still to this day think was my hardest transition. So the early half of my career, ⁓ you probably my first 10 to 12 years, I spent a lot of that in the special operations community. And so, you know, when I was a young junior NCO, I went through a selection to get assigned to a unit that honestly, I was probably in a little over my head. With the amount of experience I had and how young I was going into that community, I learned so much from very experienced senior NCOs. But it was very different type of Army and what you know we experience in the community. You know and so I learned a ton and then when I ⁓

speaker-0: operation.

speaker-2: left that world because it was busy. It was still to this day the busiest I've ever been. It was being in those assignments and the op tempo we had that early in the war. I had young kids. I had all my kids very young in the army. I was missing a lot of their childhood. When my son was four, he wouldn't call me daddy, he come sit on my lap, and he was scared of me. That's when I kind of knew I need to leave that world. I knew my kids didn't know who I was. I was not a good husband. ⁓

speaker-1: Just move.

speaker-2: My wife probably should have left me. still here after 28 years. I still have my starter wife. There you go. But you know, it was a very stressful time in life. And so I made the choice to leave that community. And when I did, I came back to an army that had changed and it was an army I didn't understand because, know, the it's in the army song, the army goes rolling along. So I was in a different type of army. Everything in the conventional army had changed and I

speaker-0: like to say.

speaker-2: You know, I didn't understand what I was walking back into and To include. Yeah, I mean everything It was you know, I don't want to say insane But it was just so different how junior NCOs carried themselves and like the expectations and things like that So but the one thing I learned working in the special operations community and the one thing that I loved about it is NCOs in that world

speaker-0: Trucks. Yeah, I know.

speaker-2: You have a huge voice because the way they treat NCOs, mean, NCOs are obviously generally more experienced in that community. You know, people go into that war at the time. All the senior NCOs I had in like the Special Forces community were very, very senior and very experienced. And so, but there was a generation of us that came up and got promoted very fast and I was part of that generation. Doesn't mean that we weren't good at our jobs and didn't understand like tactical things, but sometimes there are people who, ⁓ love that that i don't say love the outrun their experience you know they get promoted past what their experience

speaker-0: What doing? Yeah. ⁓

speaker-2: You know, it makes them capable of doing yeah I was kind of in a in a position like that where I was very capable of anything that was presented to me But there was definitely things I was lacking on the conventional army side that I didn't understand and had missed because I didn't grow up in some of those conventional units and deploy with them in that way, Yeah, and I came back ⁓

speaker-0: standards of discipline.

speaker-2: I came back into a community where I had a voice when I was in the special operations world where officers really took the advice of their NCOs. And, you know, because I had a specialty in that world, that specialty when, you know, you're, when you're doing operations. everyone's looking at you, even the other senior NCOs, because they're like, this is your specialty. You know, and it was pressure. know, it was a good pressure because, you know, and it was very prideful when you helped accomplish a mission for the team, you know, because wasn't a shooter, you know, but I was helping the shooters do the thing that they did best. And, you know, I was excited to be a part of that. But when I came back in the conventional army, you know, at that time in the army, I didn't see, I didn't see that NCOs had the voice. I definitely didn't have the voice that I had when I was in the special operations community. And I struggled with that. And so to me, that was my hardest transition was going from a place where my voice counted no matter what to a place where, and I think it was situational, the officers I had at the time and the sergeants majors I had at the time, they're just like, yeah, you're, you know, you're just a mash start. We don't. you

speaker-0: And that's another thing to leave to come into conventional as a master's art.

speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, and I like, you I went into that world as a staff sergeant. I come out as a master sergeant. And, know, I had I had sergeant majors say a lot of things to me behind closed doors, like I didn't earn my rank and and and I didn't, know, things that I can't control, obviously, you know, but it was things to kind of like, you know, as the kids say today, rage bait. Yeah. ⁓

speaker-0: suck the energy out

speaker-2: Yeah, and try to like, you know, slow me down and kind of tear some of my motivation down. But so that transition, I kind of equate to retiring because, know, as a soldier, you know, and especially like retiring as a major, it's like you have a voice, you know, you have a say in things and then you go to become a civilian and it's like.

speaker-0: Is that voice again?

speaker-2: Yeah, you're losing your voice. And so I kind of equate retirement to that. So going into my retirement process, I was just like, I'm kind of done. I'm like, I'm OK with not having a voice for a little bit. kind of like, I need to I need to relax. My daughters were in college at the time of my retirement. And so I was like, I was excited. They're becoming adults. And I wanted to really just be able to enjoy my family. You know, in my last assignment was during Covid and in Covid was really the thing that let me know that I was be okay. Yeah, I'm gonna be okay. I was at home all the time. I'm just like, yeah, I can be home all the time. Let's do this. Let's say let's end the career and you know, then the wife she was able to put up with me during COVID. So she'll be able to kind of kind of use that as my motivation going into it.

speaker-0: Okay. So you you're alright? Yeah, let's say they happen would be was your family ready for your retirement?

speaker-2: ⁓ yes. OK. They were absolutely ready. ⁓ I have three children. They're all adults. Yep. Twenty eight years. Yeah. Yeah. She she's fascinating. She was a military brat. had never lived anywhere her entire life for three years because we moved a lot during my career. It was a. ⁓

speaker-0: You have three children. Beautiful wife.

speaker-2: Like, you know, we may have stayed in the same duty station, but we moved houses sometimes. And so she's never lived in a home. for more than three years at this point. And so when we retired, know, she's like, I want to pick a place and we're buying a house and I'm never moving again. And that's what we did. know, she's now lived, we live in North Carolina outside of Fort Bragg and it's the longest. Yeah. My wife, Chris, love you. We just had our 20th ⁓ anniversary.

speaker-0: Give her a shout out. Sweet person sweet man your kids

speaker-2: I don't want to wedding anniversary because we got married in a police station hallway. A cliche type of marriage in the army.

speaker-0: There's a cop there. And it's official.

speaker-2: The cops were only there because we got pulled over on the way to the the courthouse. Yeah, because we did a legal U-turn because we couldn't find it. And ⁓ and so I was like, ⁓ I think it's back there again. This is pretty, you know, smartphone, you know, Google Maps kind of stuff. did it. We did a U-turn. Cop pulled us over and he sees this. He sees this like dressed up and he and we're like, officer, we're sorry. We're running late for getting married. He's like,

speaker-0: ⁓ You

speaker-2: ⁓ we're actually waiting on you down there. Follow me. gave us a police escort to the police station. We got married in the hallway there.

speaker-1: Today we're talking about institutional memory in the Army. Why military sometimes forget lessons between wars and end up relearning them later. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah. So let's get into the real stuff. What do you think Lance? The army loses the moment a senior leader retires that it may not fully realize it's losing.

speaker-1: I mean that experience. I mean that experience of the unit, how it's made up, the mission. I mean and being able to communicate that to your new soldiers, your new NCOs, so that in a way that they understand and can get it out to the rest of the troops. I mean just that piece of, to me just that piece of experience. and that you lose, especially if you're one of those front line units. Even in my situation, when you're in the medical unit and you lose those senior folks that have been around that know that can get you out of emergency situations. Because that's what it really, it's really like a lot of the emergency. emergency type situations and yeah, that people can say, okay, keep that calm head, flex, say this is what we can do. Even if it sounds like, how's that? Just go ahead, keep it moving. to me, it's just, it's a big experience that you lose whenever ⁓ that senior person says, all right, I'm out, peace, and they don't get a good left seat, right seat.

speaker-2: Yeah, I think about this a lot ⁓ since I've retired and you some of the jobs I've had since I've retired have been back in the government space, you know, to where I kind of still get to see what's going on. And, you know, I think how it gets lost is, you know, I think the military works in cycles and a 30 year career is just short enough to where sometimes you don't always you know, can't always bring lessons or keep lessons ⁓ back into the younger people. you know, I do a lot of personal study into where I think things that are happening right now post GWOT, which I say post GWOT because we pulled out of Afghanistan in 21.

speaker-0: which is global war on terrorism.

speaker-2: yet there they're very similar to the post vietnam army and what we went through as far as our transition there so you know in the early eighties we had a recruiting crisis you know we just seem to have a recruiting crisis recently that was pretty publicized if you paid attention to the the different services and then you know we had different skirmishes in south america in the eighties with granada and panama and things like that you had the civil war in ⁓ el salvador back in the eighties that we actually involved in ⁓ to a small extent and so all these you know I think they called them armed forces expeditions it seems like we're having those same things that were involved in right now ⁓ and so how the army transitioned then to be to I don't want to say become a professionalized army but some of the things they saw post-vietnam on how and more I'd say more I look at it from the NCO perspective you know lack of standards and discipline. order discipline. Yeah, good order discipline. They started your analysis in the early 80s, like in 81, 82s when they started implementing that stuff because of things that happened post-Vietnam. So all these kind of standards and discipline things that led to the NCO creed being invented. That was invented in the mid-80s to try to get NCOs back on a track to where...

speaker-0: they belong to some

speaker-2: Yeah, to work. Yes, they can have pride and build the backbone of the NCOs. They get back to training and doing things a certain way in a garrison type of mindset. And I think the army and all the services are going through that right now to where we have a generation of ⁓ I'd even say at this point, probably ⁓ six is in below a generation of them that came in after 9 11. Yeah, you know and so the army had had to rapidly change after 9-eleven on how it does warfighting to where Some of those people are senior leaders now at the 06 and below level to include even some e9s that are all post G watt that don't remember what a garrison army was like they didn't experience I I don't know if you'd call it the boredom The the training cycles we had in the ⁓ the garrison army the 90

speaker-0: But.

speaker-2: where everything you did in life was all about training for a particular type of battle. And it was discipline, things were dress, dress. And I think a lot of people think those things are like a waste of time or it's just some like out of touch leader, but it's, you know, the it's critical into making sure people aren't cutting corners. ⁓ making sure. inexperienced combat people aren't cutting corners when you get in a combat.

speaker-1: seeing that that's what's different in the medical on the medical side is that what we do in war is what we do every day yeah in the hospital yeah but the problem comes where it's getting those guys in the field units getting those medics and techs and all of those folks getting them yeah and and that was a that was a problem for us is like because we would deploy and like everybody that was if you remember profus everybody that was profus came in and that's what they've been doing for 365 you know every day and then you get to the guys that are in the unit that they went and did two weeks I mean it's a difference so it's just getting them ⁓ up speed because they I mean they know their jobs but they're not as quick as efficient as knowing what the latest you know techniques and things are that that were practicing in hospital so I mean that's the one thing that I was I was happy about which made our job a little easier is that we knew that what I'm doing now is what I'll be doing whenever I deploy. It's not going to change. I don't change the standards or any of that stuff. mean, we keep the same in the operating room. We keep the same standards that we did. Stateside is when we deploy because if we don't, people die.

speaker-2: And don't get me wrong. I don't want to say everything we did pre-gwad was perfect It was it was NCOs focused on character development of their soldiers in training them to be proficient now every war we're gonna go into in the future There's gonna be unique things that you're gonna have to adapt to that You can't predict that there may not be lessons learned and we had a lot of those in Iraq and Afghanistan with IDs and the different things you had to operate in the field. think the next one, the thing we're going to have to think about that we've never dealt with before is drones. You know, and like, how are you going to handle transportation, of transportation, supply lines with drones everywhere?

speaker-0: Thanks for watching. Well, just think about it. We've always had the we were always controlling the air power in every war. Yeah. But we trained because Russia at the time was an equivalent and we always thought about the airspace. But every war we've been in, we've controlled it. So, yeah, once our enemies get in the air, it changes everything. So I'm I'm I'm just going to say that every every time a new command comes in, they bring the energy and the changes that they think they need. If you take away the civilians that are part of the force and are in some of these situations and areas that can maintain that consistency, if you take that away, then you have a new command team coming in and trying new things to them that if they looked at the history or if there was some type of connectivity or some type of reference that was visible, right? Instead of just the assumption of the command. because you're too motivated, too energetic to get this on your resume. You're spot on with them. And so that's my biggest thing is where it didn't really hit me until I got to the senior level and had to work with civilians and hear them always griping and complaining about, you want to go, we're just going to wait you out. You know, and stuff like that. And they win. Yeah. Because. And so that's my biggest thing. So when the army loses senior leaders, I'm thinking command level or staff, you're losing

speaker-2: They do.

speaker-0: that snapshot of time and effort, wins and failures, and if it's not recorded well, which we can all admit it's not. a battle handoff is never as thorough as it needs to be because the person's either ready to run or the person coming in wants you out of the space so they can bring their stuff in. But anyway, that's what I don't think the Army documents it well enough. of the changes and catalogs it so that commanders and teams can come in and have strong references to build their command plan instead of, oh, I know what's wrong. The desks need to be this way. So that's my take on that.

speaker-1: The Army does have systems like the training centers, observer coach trainers, and lessons learned programs designed to capture knowledge and evaluate training. From your perspective, are those systems enough to preserve the Army's hard earned experience?

speaker-2: So my first assignment out of the academy was to a CTC and I had the, what I call the luxury of working at the national training center in Fort Irwin. And to this day I do and I say, where are you? Yeah. I say it's a luxury because it was the best conventional army assignment I had my whole career. What team are you on?

speaker-1: I was in the hospital.

speaker-2: Okay, so you're a wee wee, okay. Yeah, I mean I loved that assignment because one I love training, you know and and Well, actually the primary reason I love it. It was the most predictable on schedule Like I could play in six months out and I knew it was gonna happen Like where has anyone ever been that you get to have that the only places?

speaker-0: you they respected the calendar.

speaker-2: Yes, so if any young soldiers are out there listening to this and you get orders to a CTC, take them. Because it will be the most rewarding assignment you'll ever have. It's a lot of hard work, lot of hard work, some long hours, but very predictable schedule. Anyways, learn a lot. yeah. And so, so I like that assignment. And one thing that I learned

speaker-0: Thank you.

speaker-1: When you're off, you're off.

speaker-2: and actually your branches one of the branches it does this and i think it's the armor branch in the medical branch they have something for ⁓ the junior leaders called Project Warrior. And it's principally for officers. Like I know officers do it in, I think, all the branches to where an officer will come there, they'll work as an OC for like 18 months, and then they'll go to ⁓ a trade-off assignment, now T2Com. They'll go to that assignment and then they'll teach for like another 18 months. Well, I think armor and medical branch for NCOs actually does the same thing, to where they'll bring them there as a observer coach trainer to where you're watching rotation after rotation and you're helping coach units along and you're coaching people in your MOS ⁓ and then you go off to a trade-off assignment to then teach at a schoolhouse with those lessons learned you learn in that assignment because you're watching people fail and make mistakes every month. You know, and it was a very rewarding job because anyone that's only ever been to rotations, they get scared of the place or they hate it because they think their ⁓ OCT is being judgmental of them. Yeah. kind of easy being the OC honestly, because guess what? You're just watching it happen. know, and you can sleep in a Humvee, know, things are nice for you, but, ⁓ you

speaker-0: You get your bo- You have a beautiful

speaker-2: You're watching people go through hard things and we really do want people to succeed like every every rotation and unit I had go through there I really wanted everybody to do well, especially my war fighting function So, you know, I focused on Intel and I would help units like up to four rotations ahead of time I started contact overnight and I kind of built I kind of built a routine to where I'm helping You know helping them with lessons learned and things they need to know before they come to the rotation and then you're helping them through the rotation. So it's constant communication and you're meeting a ton of people. Like you grow your network there. So to the point of the question, here's the downside of it in a way. And ⁓ you may or may not agree with this. I could go look at call books, center of army lessons learned from the late nineties and look at the lessons learned in there. And it's going to be applicable to today.

speaker-0: I relevant,

speaker-2: It's the, you know, like after working at a CTC for a couple years, I felt like we were writing the same things over and over. And so I always ask myself the question, are we writing the same things over and over because we're not wanting to tell hard truths? Because I will say there is a bit of protection and people may or may not believe this. When units come through, we allow leaders to make mistakes. but we don't always advertise the full mistakes because you gotta give those leaders a chance to grow. And if you're too specific though, if you're too specific about what happened in a rotation.

speaker-0: The mistake.

speaker-2: Everybody's paying attention who's going through when and they may know who it is So so we write them generically enough to where it's applicable, but it may not be like the full context So that's why I tell people if you get a chance to go be an OC go Because you're gonna learn things that are valuable and you're gonna see mistakes happen That will prevent you from making them in the future that assignment I loved and I I took all those lessons learned and I applied them at my next job and we were in I think you know that's what and we had a good team and we had a good team of the right like tactically minded ⁓ sergeants majors there to really help influence real change and I got to see that happen across a division ⁓ and apply all those lessons learned so I think you know to get back to the end of the question there I think it's really gonna depend on the leader that's coming up and what they want to take out of those lessons and really pay attention to it. I don't know. ⁓ There was like three times where I saw a brigade come back through that I saw at the beginning of my time at NTC. I got to see them come back a second time. And I wanted to see if they learn from those mistakes. Now, it was different command team. That's the problem is different command. But we give them a package when they leave their rotation.

speaker-0: That's what I was about to say. You know what I'm

speaker-2: All the lessons learned are there. All they have to do is open it back up to see what they went through last time to see if they change anything. And more often than not, people don't because it goes back to the, think what you said, making their mark. know, and I think how I always made my mark is just do what the book says. Do the basics. Don't, don't try to do anything.

speaker-1: I mean, this the basics? That's what people are trying to get away from the basics.

speaker-2: Yep.

speaker-0: So the only pushback I have I agree with you a hundred percent not pushback but don't that I want to identify a challenge with that is because you still have Drill sergeant school you got to send people yeah, you still got you still got a recruit you so there's so many other schools master fitness master driver you got so many other schools that you have to find those people you know and It can be done because not everybody's meant for every school and you can also make sure and this is what I tried to do as a senior leader is when you send somebody to those schools, you give them a moment and area where they can teach, you know what I'm saying? So spread that knowledge. But the hardest thing for me when it was dealing with ⁓ Manning, right? Trying to make sure the right people go to the right places is NCOERs aren't accurate all the time. The person that's coming is not as stellar as maybe you think they are. So you have to meet these people. Then you have to properly evaluate these people. Then you have to send them where the benefits, of course, the unit first, then army, then for the soldier. So there's all that that you have to consider. And that's just an unrealistic model, consistent model that the army has because we're three successful leaders, but it's possible we could evaluate soldiers differently. ⁓ we would. And so that is that's the challenge that you have of trying to get the right people to these places. But the other thing that you mentioned, I'm talking about the army chief of staff level.

speaker-2: Whatever.

speaker-0: You can't have one army chief of staff establish this recording and managing all this information and making that a focus for the whole army. And then a new commander comes in and now all of a sudden that's priority 38. You know what I'm saying? And that's, that's the problem. It has to be something that just like the constitution has to be something that's written and stays in front of everybody's eyes that's in the absolute.

speaker-2: Yeah, doctor.

speaker-0: But even that chain, you know what saying? That's why I'm saying that's why I the Constitution because doctrine changes with command, with presidents and all that stuff. So it's it's just one of those things that the arrogance that I hate that word when it comes to leadership because I got tagged with it a lot. really? Yeah.

speaker-2: I never would said. But I didn't have to work for.

speaker-0: because but I, I, I think a lot of people forget that when you say arrogance, you're talking about a blown up balloon, right? It's somebody who thinks there's something, but the arrogance. ⁓ and the reality could crumple them easily. And so I was very confident in what I was doing. But trying to say you're coming in, you two are a command team coming in, what are the odds you're really gonna listen to the old first sergeant from 1985 and the old company commander? You may give them some attention, but after a while, because you're go-getters, you know what saying? Because you're hungry, because you've established whatever level of career you're in, you've built built a in your mind at a minimum you've built the playbook on how you're going to at least start your new command and it's going to be hard to get you to change that no matter who it is. You know what I'm

speaker-2: That's funny you say. No, it's actually it's that's a very good point because ⁓ I think we probably should listen to those people. 100 percent. I think we should. Yeah, I think we should. We should listen to retirees a bit more than we do. Agree. Because they're going to have context and they're going to have experienced things that may be coming back around that full circle of the Army.

speaker-1: We especially have.

speaker-2: So I'm in the Sarn majors association around Fort Bragg and the president we have right now his name is Joe Allen and he was ⁓ he was a retired I think he was at least a three-star. was the 18th Airborne Corps Sergeant Major at some point. He may have had another job after that, but he was ⁓ Lloyd Austin's Sergeant Major when he was the 18th Airborne Corps commander. so, he had a lot of jobs, a lot of experience. And we talk about as the Sergeant Major Association, how we can be involved. We do a lot of volunteer work and those kinds of things. And there's some of the people that bring up... ⁓ you know things we need to do with the current star majors and joe allen always says these are majors in the listening you know they're gonna listen to you and to your point though i think sometimes they should agree you know sometimes they should and and i only it's one of those things if i was still in i probably wouldn't be saying that You know, because there is ego that comes along with it. You know, and it's like, it's like you're always going to think you know more than you do. yeah, I think there's something to be said about listen to retirees and at standpoint.

speaker-0: Absolutely.

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, you all make good points. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like we just you want that continuity to be there and stay in that experience to be there and stay. But I came to which one of you said, but when you have a unit come in and then they come back and it's a whole new command team, when it's just like, you know, because a lot. Yeah, because a lot of the folks I can tell you a lot of the folks because we deal with it all the time in hospital when we would get a new command group. So we were doing one thing in hospital. This is what we need to do. This is how we're ⁓ passing our joint commission. This is what we need. mean, just to keep moving up and being more productive. And then you got, yes, and we have in every meaning you have, you have your civilians happy, military happy, everybody's happy, working great together. And then you have a new guy come in, or a gal come in and.

speaker-0: growing. priority.

speaker-1: They want to do, I this is what they see and this is what they want to do when you sit there like. No, it's because they got to, it's because they have to check something off their box that they don't have on this OER. And there's something new on this that I can get, I want to get promoted. And then they just, I mean, they blow stuff up. So then it just, it's like a chain reaction down the line when then it's like.

speaker-0: because I watched you for a week.

speaker-2: Yeah It I think the generals do it right because they have And I don't know if you're aware of this they have like a gray beard program and there's a bunch of retired generals that work for MCTP and so all the all the division in core warfighters and that kind of stuff and they come back and mentor those guys Yeah, and you know, we probably need more of that on the SIR major side

speaker-0: Thank They actually are the ones you report to. ⁓ We do.

speaker-2: You know, in especially in like the functional areas, you know, like logistics, Intel, you know, medical, definitely, because there's always going to be nuances and different things that guys experience to where they can give back. And, know, it's it's not anything that that I would have ego about. I just want to help them. I want to help them have a better time and make them be more successful with their soldiers based off the things that I had to learn the hard way.

speaker-1: I can tell you as an 06 and going up and talking to the command sergeant major about something that they're pulling that because the N cell, you my mass sergeant, they're coming to me saying, well, sergeant major said we have to, I was like, I'm going to talk to the sergeant major. And just so that I can get it out to help him understand why we're doing a certain thing or why it is extremely hard for my soldiers to do this thing that you are having these other soldiers do is because my soldiers start working at five o'clock, you know, 530. They can't do PT. They're not going to be doing PT at four o'clock in the morning. Do either some of some of the silly stuff where you... I mean so, I so it was, I mean I would always, I would always make it a point to get to know the Sar majors. I mean talk to them so that they could, I could go talk to them. They could come talk to me and we'd like, okay, I mean because if it was something that they

speaker-2: Sorry, detail.

speaker-1: absolutely were, we gotta get, know, and it's like, okay, let's figure out how we can do this. Cause I can't have everybody, cause if you want me to have everybody, then you need to go talk to your boss because now I gotta shut down. Cause I can't do my job. I mean, it's.

speaker-0: And that's another thing in the army. Everything's a priority anyway. All right. So we all came up in the Cold War era at the end where the focus was preparing to fight a large conventional war, a structured battlefield with defined front lines. Then after 9 11, the army found itself fighting wars where the front line was basically everywhere. How did that shift change the way the army trained leaders and prepared for war.

speaker-1: Well again, I can't speak on the perspective. Yeah, but on my perspective I mean from from the medical piece it was just started having smaller teams so we could get folks out there ⁓ Sooner than it we were always changing depending on ⁓ Where the fight was where the battle was what the capabilities were that the ⁓ that the opposition had. I mean, we would go for this, but it was as far as our ⁓ training when we started, that's when we started ⁓ using more blood on the battlefield. know, we started, I mean, we started seeing more of us using more blood on the battlefield, different surgical. ⁓ procedures and techniques and ⁓ devices and things that we could use. Yes, to help sustain, you ⁓ know, life when it was on the battlefield so it could get back to us so that we could.

speaker-0: speed ups. Fix.

speaker-1: Yeah, package them up and get them ready so that they could get back to either if we could get them back onto the back to the units or get them, you know, ⁓ to line stool Walter Reed and all the other places over here. So, I mean, it was it was actually I mean, it was never, ⁓ you know, fighting is never a good thing, but it was actually it was a good thing for. our community for the most far as you as far as that just that group ⁓ and didn't just ⁓ benefit the military ⁓ the things that we learned and lessons we learned in ⁓ what we ⁓ innovation and we came up with is being used out in the civilian sector now

speaker-2: Yeah, like the the the combat application tourniquet. Yeah, like that was probably one of the was probably one of biggest things that came out of it. It helps everybody. Law enforcement, fire, EMS, like all that stuff.

speaker-1: ⁓ So yeah. So the Army allowing us to ⁓ experiment and take chances and things like that, I that was awesome. So that flexibility was paramount.

speaker-2: I think this kind of goes back to the history thing we had earlier. So, you know, the global war and terrorism was a very different fight than the Russians. So we kind of had to look back, which I don't know if we did. But if you look back at how we had to fight Vietnam, guerrilla warfare, very like unconventional type things, you know, we had to go back to that route. ⁓ in the global war on terrorism and you know it changed intelligence because with the russians were counting you know we have something called order of battle where you're looking at you got a russian brigade armor brigade and it has so many vehicles and you're like counting vehicles to try to identify what's a platoon or whatever and then you go um structure right and then and then now you're looking at targeting people you know you're targeting terrorists and the whole counter-terrorist doctrine that came up

speaker-0: structure.

speaker-2: through that conflict and then now we're going back to hey you know we have an enemy in the Pacific that we may have to fight you know we may have maritime invasions we're gonna be doing what what's China gonna do so now we're back to looking at China's order of battle and having to go back to these things that's why it's important to go back and look at you know how we did those how we did that transition post-vietnam to the cold war because now you're looking at fighting an enemy that was kind of like looking at Russia before and then ⁓ I've been reading a lot of World War Two history and how we did because the army did a lot of maritime invasions in World War Two. know how do we manage logistics for that? What are medics gonna do when they're on an island and they run out of supplies? So what actions are they gonna take to try to keep people alive as fighting goes on because you don't know when people are coming. You know how's communications gonna work? We hadn't had to figure out communication. you know, radios across the islands and the Pacific.

speaker-1: communications, supply chain, I mean all of that.

speaker-2: This stuff is like nothing like the global war on terrorism. you know, it's history is such a big part of it. And then seeing if we can glean anything, like any techniques or little things out of that at the NCO level. You know, because there's stuff out there that NCOs wrote. across those different, those conflicts that, you know, NCOs can pull out and then use as they ⁓ think through. Yeah, so what they can think through in the future conflicts.

speaker-0: The army is doing stuff. The military is doing stuff because they have future planners just for the audience, just to let everybody know. We're aware of that. It's just that what we see and what we think can happen because I agree with you 100%. The problem is muscle memory is a real thing, but if you don't have an opportunity to even train on what's current, what you not using right now doesn't have a chance. You know what saying? So it's like, like you mentioned before, the next war, we're going to lose airspace. That's real. That's a real problem, right? Because not just supply chains, but talking, getting casualties from the point of injury all the way to the hospital is going to be almost impossible if we don't dominate the airspace. And you're talking about drones and then China with actual fighter pilots, know, and a ⁓ comparable level air force. That's a whole nother world. agree with everything both of you all said. The Army, the military definitely has the documents. They have the files, they have the information. We just got to make sure that it's getting out there. When you're sending these commanders or these CSMs, you're sending them to these pre-command courses and they're ⁓ getting an idea of what they're, you know, they're getting the information that they Yeah for that level there should be if we need to make sure that it's tailored because You you can't take time because of manning again You can't take the time that you need to truly prepare any level of a command team You can't because it's moving so quickly and it's not always okay Captain you are going to have a command in ⁓ three months

speaker-1: curriculum.

speaker-0: at this unit, go. And then the last minute could be, well, we're just gonna move you to the next year, right? Right down front, you know, and you know, the first arm thing is ridiculous. And it's because one problem that I've seen my whole career, especially on the enlisted side is the NCOs, your, your path to senior leadership, it doesn't always include learning what you need to learn so that you can be successful at that next. We're so good at adapting and overcoming.

speaker-2: the

speaker-0: that preparation is not as key as it should be. My biggest problem with the shift from Cold War to GWOT is the fact that I was a little bit of an old head. when it came to servicing the Army, I came in in 91. So I remember the Cold War focus and I remember literally how much time I used to spend in the barracks as a noncommissioned officer. How much time, how I used to be able as a squad leader to grab my squad and go sit in the daggone day room and clean weapons, you know what I'm saying, or do dry firing. There's so much for a squad leader, to put it in perspective, during Cold War you really had an opportunity to learn your soldiers and you really had an opportunity to build a team and that started with ⁓ tools for discipline. Right? So when I came in, already told you, I used to have to wrap my lamp cord on my desk every morning because it had to be to standard. I had to stagger my desk drawers because it had to be the standard. And what was in those drawers had to be the standard. I remember my three drawer chest inside of my wall locker. remember I couldn't put ⁓ all of my civilian clothes in my wall locker because I had to have space for the two fingers in between the hangers and all this.

speaker-2: training or permanent training.

speaker-0: No, this was my first duty station. Yeah. So when I was at Fort Riley, I stayed with three people ⁓ in a room that had a bathroom. So I was fortunate there. every morning we had to buff the room. got to the point to where we would buff it at night. Yeah. We buff it at night. And then we'd ⁓ if you had if you walk around barefoot, we was gonna fight you. So we tried to prep, you know, try to prep in the morning. But every morning we had to duff cover, two green blankets with a dust cover and the regular blanket with hospital corners, all that stuff. We had to have our shoes staged underneath our bed. We couldn't have civilian comforters and all that stuff. So when that was taken away, I understand why it was taken away, but those are tools for discipline. And when you lose those tools, it's hard to be creative to replace that.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, it just seemed like you didn't back then your NCOs would have a lot more ⁓ confidence and practice. Yeah, mean just knowing that it was just they know that this is how this this is supposed this side is supposed to be clean. They I know that they know how to do that and I don't have to go back to you know I'm not repeating.

speaker-0: And a of people forget that those what privates used to go to go through that gauntlet of always on details, always the crappy jobs, whatever. There's a, there's a method behind that because now you understand that now that humility is there in you so that when you make those senior ranks, you're not supposed to be a jerk about it. You know, say you're supposed to understand and you're supposed to convey that. Where nobody was talking to you. That's the perfect world, you know the why But that's that's the whole thing what we're talking about and so then they did all that and then all of a sudden they change the uniform another opportunities for discipline from shining the boots to Caring for your your battle dress uniform to the way you presented yourself all that stuff. We lost all of that now What is filling that space? We got the uniform back, sorta. But now... their barracks room has to be clean but unless the first sergeant gets their butt in there and the platoon sergeant gets their butt in there there was a time where the first sergeant would take all of us to the barracks you know what saying so once a month the first sergeant was in the barracks every two weeks the platoon sergeant was in the barracks and every day all day the squad leader was in the barracks so there's just I'm not saying it doesn't happen now. I'm just saying if it's not a part of the checklist, then you're going to lose it. You know, just like PMCS.

speaker-2: I mean the culture in the army's changed so much since those days and you know I remember those days and I just don't know I don't think it ever get back. it won't. can't. It can't.

speaker-0: Because society's changed with that.

speaker-1: Say hi to the kids.

speaker-2: Other than the dress uniform, I can't think off the top of my head a good way to try to do those type of things. I would always use the uniform, because you can't do the barracks thing.

speaker-0: as Not the way you want to.

speaker-2: You still sir.

speaker-1: I I think it could be done, but not to the extreme. It'd be Yeah, I mean, but like just just the general like cleanliness and I mean, because I remember my NCOs going through ⁓ barracks and stuff and coming back like they had something like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What?

speaker-0: different. Yeah, you'd be surprised.

speaker-2: You can a whole episode just like that.

speaker-0: It's not that I think we should go back to that because I do believe that's impossible, but you shouldn't have to rely on the squad leader platoon sergeant, section sergeant, all that stuff. They're ⁓ outside of the box thinking to try to come up with ways to instill discipline. There should be a checklist there.

speaker-1: So it's like...

speaker-0: and that checklist needs to be emphasized. And I know there's checklists out there. I'm saying it needs to be emphasized with a true focus.

speaker-1: discipline. want them to like you want them to learn some self accountability. They have to come back.

speaker-0: to survive and you have to

speaker-2: I that kind of starts though, and I'll say this real quick. ⁓ I think that starts with building everything around empowering those squad leaders. ⁓ I agree. And section sergeants. Everything in the army should be built around to empower a platoon leader as an officer and a staff sergeant, squad leader, section sergeant, whatever you want to call it, as an NCO. you need to, because that's like the lowest direct responsibility. You want to empower them to be a leader. I don't need to be everywhere and in everyone's behind. I shouldn't have to be. I don't have time for that. I need to focus on protecting their time to allow them to train or execute things. Yeah, that I mean it is because people love to make that hard for some reason.

speaker-1: .

speaker-0: Is it hard enough? We just talked about it.

speaker-2: And in like, OK, real quick training schedules. That was something we used to do in the Cold War. You know, we still we first came in, but we don't do that. We. The training. Yeah. Unit training management is not done well. And that's one thing that the war took us away from. Because how long did you walk? I went there because we go in that forever.

speaker-0: No, Thanks you

speaker-1: Alright fellas, during the Cold War the Army trained constantly for a war that might come. After 9-11 the Army spent two decades actually fighting wars. Yes we did. Alright Tommy, in your opinion how did those two eras shape the Army's training culture and standards?

speaker-0: This is the easiest question to answer. Everything we've talked about is how. My only thing is we shouldn't be so quick to throw away the Cold War stuff because new changes are happening. And even now, we shouldn't be so quick to throw away what's going on now and what we've done the last two decades. because the new thing is coming on. And that's, think that's all the whole conversation is the army catalog stuff. We know this, we know that there are MOSs, we know that there are additional duties, know, there are special duties that are responsible for recording things and it's getting easier to maintain that, right? The more we evolve, we're just saying that we need to make sure, my concern is, is the military making sure that all of this information is accessible not because this incoming company command team wants to do it but it's a part of what they need to do so that when they're developing their command plan that they are bringing in from all of the resources because I'm gonna tell you every company that I was in charge of every section I was in charge of every element I was in charge of I did not have months to ⁓ research and ⁓ take notes and then create how I'm going to do that next position to include PCS and you know saying I I I walked in with a little bit of knowledge and an idea and I took that and made my command plan as a as whatever level leader I am that is a an okay way of doing things as long as the NCO Corps and the officer corps have competent and capable people that can do that. Without knowing right now, I hope the command teams, I hope the Army comes up with a way of making sure that command teams know they have access to the history of these things, of these units that they're walking into, and then also make it a block to check instead of just...

speaker-1: should be a priority.

speaker-2: Yeah, if they want to check blocks, make that one. That's a good point. ⁓

speaker-0: Absolutely. And I think that will help the consistency of the units from here on out moving forward because I never in any of my command or like I said any of my levels of leadership. I never had a. ⁓ great battle handoff because either the person I was replacing was leaving, it had to go on or gone. Or sometimes you don't want two heads, know, two Kings walking around. So that's my take on that one. So

speaker-2: God. yeah i mean you make you make sound points there i think ⁓ training example i can give is when i was first sergeant ⁓ in Korea and you know in Korea you only have so long with your your people because it's it's a year they say a year but it's really 10 months right because it takes them a month to kind of get in process and then their last month they're already checked out you know they're trying to high five the next person and I hated when we over complicated things in the army and I tried to make things as simple as possible for my soldiers not to not because I was like a codler or you know I was trying to make their life easier but I was trying to make it take some of the excess off the NCO so they could focus on the training of soldiers. I remember back then we had something called the Army Training Network. And so, I mean, that was something I thought was a good resource that was never used.

speaker-0: See you. Yeah, and there's been improvements on it.

speaker-2: They weren't using it and I'm like you could go in there and and I had to teach my NCOs this I was like you could go in and you could print out the task condition standards for the things you want to train on there and I made them do their their Sarms time training plan using those documents that are on there and I basically taught them how to use the website because I'm like the army already has people that built this stuff for you like that's a resource for you don't over complicate your life and then just use what's already there to help you know plan your training and then it's up to you to execute it.

speaker-0: What you just said is exactly the fix.

speaker-2: But it was a resource there for everybody and how many of peers. That's I mean, that that's the fresh. The army can do things big picture. And I think the army does have a lot of good things that they do, but they can't make people use it right.

speaker-1: That's the question. How do you get that message out that that resource is there this is what you should be?

speaker-0: That was exactly where I was as the ⁓ school sergeant And I'm gonna tell you something, trying to build a corps is hard because there's so much you want to be able to teach them or give them access to. But there's also that time and absolutely. where do you draw the line of stepping on first sergeant, stepping on sergeant? and step in on role of platoon sergeants and squad leaders. You know what saying? There are knowns that squad leaders and every level of leadership, to include officers, there are knowns on what your capabilities should be, right? There are minimums on what your capabilities should be. That overwhelms some people. They don't even have the brain space for the

speaker-1: You saying that then then it's the commanders and those guys that should be held accountable for not making sure that that stuff is getting put

speaker-0: But at the same time I'm being the devil's advocate because at the same time you as a senior Command that has subordinate command you want to give them time ⁓ the capability to grow you want to give them the capability to fail and succeed and so You and plus you have your own ⁓ area responsibilities that you need to do. So it's like, it's one of those things that we can admit here on this couch that the Army has so many resources, has so much. catalog of everything, everything that you would want to know about the military, it's out there somewhere. And it's more, it's easily accessible now, more accessible now than at any point in the history of the military. But there's, have to make sure that there's a First Sarn that knows about that, or make sure that there's a platoon Sarn that knows about that. And then you got to make sure that the, the, the NCOPDs, professional development that's going on or the OPDs that's going on that you're being strategic about that. ⁓

speaker-1: You're talking about lot of stuff to set the unit level. It needs to be put out.

speaker-2: And you can't make them all care of the same.

speaker-0: Exactly and that's the final thing I was going to say. That's the final thing because if we could have the best chain of command in the world, we can. But the moment that soldier leaves that unit, they could easily go to the worst in the world. And that's that's what's amazing about the military.

speaker-1: That's the one thing I wish I could have been like a professional team where I could have just had a draft and just pick my people that I needed.

speaker-2: think everybody wants that. I always like the challenge of taking someone that maybe probably wasn't considered stellar and getting them to enjoy the army like I did. And getting them to understand. Because when everyone joins the military, they're doing it for whatever reason.

speaker-0: is not the same.

speaker-2: the not the same ⁓ i'd like to see people are joining the military because the running from something ⁓ but whatever gets them in there You know, when you graduate, whatever your basic school is like, you have pride. I don't care who you are. When you're that first time you go through a graduation, like everyone has pride. And at some point something causes them to lose it. know, and that's what I always tried to take somebody when I saw that they were struggling or maybe they, when I would come into the unit and they weren't enjoying the military, I would try to remind them of that time in their life. And it's like, you know, I

speaker-0: Once you put that in,

speaker-2: don't care what happened in the past to you. There was a point in time you loved this. Let's find that reason why again and then show me that you can be awesome at things. Let's do this. And that's what I'd always try to find in people. And then once I got them to that point, then you'd be able to do the things that we're talking about that are sometimes struggles in units.

speaker-0: So how do you think those two errors?

speaker-1: shape.

speaker-2: I think it was reactionary. you know, I think it was deliberate in the Cold War area because we were we were taking the culture, the army post Vietnam and trying to re professionalize the NCO Corps and get them focused on standards and discipline. But because of how America was attacked and how we entered the the GWAD, I think that became very reactionary. And we had to grow and operate so fast and multiple theaters that it caused us to, I think, lose some of our unit training management. Give and take, And I think it's gonna take a lot to get that back because, like I said before, we have a lot of 06s and below that are post-GWAT era. they're like, they're they're they're they're they're like,

speaker-0: I have no idea. and don't see the value can't see

speaker-2: The cycle of training. mean, they had cycles of training, but it was very different. Things were forced and it was different to where a company commander had power back then to where they planned training. They executed training instead of things kind of being forced on them through the GWOT areas.

speaker-0: And the army tried to go back to that while I was served matter of fact while I was a first sergeant when when the official rotations stopped going over for GWAC installations I was a Campbell they tried to bring back some of that Cold War stuff the barracks presence was one of the biggest change immediately NCOs get in the barracks you know and then they tried to recycle the ⁓ Defect where defect used to be the heart of the installation tried to do that. They tried to have ⁓ Command and staff meetings and company training meetings to where Training was being planned and being put on the calendar, but they forgot to take away the detail craziness Yeah, know saying because you can't ever have a full company. Yeah, it's just freaking ridiculous or battalion or whatever because when you're when you're slated to take over the details for the installation you're like Yeah, I can do that. But they also have you do take over the installation details, but they also throw down those brigade details that they're responsible for. And then you got units that would deploy and mess up the whole numbers. you're sitting there in formation with nine soldiers and you got 170. You know what Because half of them left at five in the morning to go freaking support a range or something. Then the other half are now tasked out. Because you talked about before about how You train as you fight. We tried to do that on the enlisted side. We tried to put people back in to the ⁓ warehouses for the supply people. We tried to put the soldiers back in the installation transportation office to assist with the heavy equipment that could be there to upload. We tried to do all that stuff, but the Op Tempo, nobody, everybody forgot to turn the heat down on Op Tempo so that you could do stuff like that. So what about you?

speaker-1: it mean you know it yeah i mean i said it all i it's it's That Cold War piece that we all got over, I feel is invaluable.

speaker-0: But also the... The transformation if you're stepping back and you're looking over it it is valuable Right because especially what you saying about the medical improvements, you know ⁓ your ability to grab Intel, know and us as transporters our ability to really get stick time, know, cuz Driving in garrison is not like driving in combat. You know say so that there's value to it I want to be the first to say that I'm not critiquing the army the current army or thinking that my army was better because you're more stealthy and more capable than I was. History shows that militaries often forget lessons between wars and end up relearning them under pressure. Carl, I know you really into history. What would be your reasoning why that happened?

speaker-2: ⁓ I think it kind of stems from what I said before to where the the cycle of you know between our wars and you know the the length of time between generations of soldiers you know it's just long enough to where by the time we get back into like another big war where those lessons could be beneficial ⁓ That's those senior leaders are gone or they're so in such high positions You know it gets to a point where you can't you don't have time when you're running the army or you're in a senior position where you can Explain those little nuances to someone it like the platoon and below level And I think sometimes that that that may be where some young soldiers get an impression that senior leaders are trying to be squad leaders You know that old joke It seems like micromanagement, but sometimes those senior leaders are really trying to impress upon things that they knew. You know, those, people were young and that's the hard part in this generation. Cause this generation, you know, they are wicked smart, uh, compared to how we were, came in because their access to information is so much better than we had. You know, like the way I joined the army, I joined off of a coffee mug, you know, so was kind of like blind going into it. And when I joined for the adventure, you know, to where kids now are sitting down and they're, know, you got the go army website and they're like studying which job is going to help you. Yeah, it's we're different people.

speaker-0: used to dig up worms. Yeah, they had information from the moment they were able to think.

speaker-2: And they're eating worms. They're methodical. I mean, they're understanding of benefits coming in. ⁓ you know, I didn't care about benefits. I was going to get fed three times a day. I knew that I had a place to live. It was the two things that I was excited that I didn't have to worry about at that age. And these kids are much smarter.

speaker-0: I eat worms, I said dirt.

speaker-1: or dirt.

speaker-0: because

speaker-1: treating it as business decision.

speaker-2: And they get and I think sometimes they get a bad rap sometimes they get a bad rap is their use of social media and You know some of the things that I see soldiers do on social media is not something that I Probably would have put on social media. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done it

speaker-0: No, it's their understanding.

speaker-2: I'm not hypocritical. think a lot of people when they become seniors in the army, they get a little bit hypocritical and act like, acted like they weren't privates or lieutenants once and they didn't do those crazy things. Yeah.

speaker-0: Miss remember

speaker-2: And I think that's the big difference. But, ⁓ you know, they're definitely smarter coming in and I think we just need to figure out how to.

speaker-0: didn't have a thousand.

speaker-1: That's right.

speaker-2: that intelligence that they have and focus it towards, hey, you chose to come in at a young age, how do we get you to want this to be your profession? Because until you decide to make this your profession and that you're gonna do this for a long time, you're not gonna study it like I did. Like I was kind of a nerd and dug into the, I became kind of a nerd and dug into the doctrine and the history and wanted to learn those things. That helped me as a more senior leader because I saw how the army transitioned before. Probably a good book to read for young people is it's called Hope Is Not a Method. And it was written by General Sullivan, who was the chief of staff during the Desert Storm area, probably when you first come in. And General Sullivan kind of led as the chief of staff in the early 90s. He led the transformation post Desert Storm. And I think people don't realize. guys.

speaker-0: It was him and Sargeant. ⁓

speaker-2: Yeah, and you know like we had more cores back then we had seventh core in Desert Storm We had second our second and third armored division like that wasn't that long ago. know I mean we're getting older but we need that old and and You know all that stuff went away all that history was lost all those units were lost in history to where you know current senior soldiers, I don't know if they even know those units existed and so That can easily happen now. Yeah. To where we get rid of a bunch. I mean, we're already getting rid of units and restructuring.

speaker-0: and making new ones.

speaker-2: And things like that. And how much of that stuff has happened in history that, you know, there were lessons we can learn from that. And so that book talks about the acquisition stuff the army did then and how they embraced technology and some of those changes. if you read that book now, again, it's called Hope is Not a Method. It's it's a lot of stuff we're going through right now as far as the transformation and how are we bringing technology into the force and training soldiers on it and those kind things. It's like reading that book is kind of like what what I'm imagining these guys are reliving right now as seniors in the Army. So yeah I think history definitely has a lot to teach us. It's just you have to embrace that as a leader. it can really help the junior leaders that kind of read into that stuff.

speaker-0: Thank you.

speaker-1: ⁓ that. I that. I mean, I agree. mean, because the soldiers are super smart. I mean, they're extremely smart. The only problem that I would have with is they weren't that resilient. mean, anytime you tried to push them past what they felt they were comfortable at, which you knew that it was like, I know you can go. And then like with,

speaker-0: You wanna be a part of this,

speaker-1: with all of the technology and changes and stuff, it's always tough to counter that. So then when you counter that stuff, then you're back to the conventional Cold War type of tactics and things that you need to be aware of and know that, okay, this is what we also need. If this goes out, this is what we have to use now. mean, because we would do some of training.

speaker-0: Yeah, combat.

speaker-1: Yeah, mean that's the type of stuff where it's like just trying to ⁓ get the soldiers now that have grown up with all of the little hand computers and I mean all of the stuff that's just I mean it's awesome because it makes them a lot smarter.

speaker-2: I'd say I'm probably guilty of that. Probably the biggest thing that I'd say has become a weakness for me is my ability to navigate. ⁓ what? Yeah, because of this thing right here and like Google Maps. It's like it's because I can see that that challenge.

speaker-0: I know the reason why though because we were raised that we had a certain amount of bandwidth And there's no need to waste bandwidth on stuff. You don't need There you go. We just start passing that stuff off like last night. I couldn't member embassy, and I'm sitting there like It's a word

speaker-2: called shelf memory. ⁓ yeah. He's like, yeah, you know that. Yeah, yeah, he's like the place, the ambassador or like the embassy. He's like, yeah. And I'm like, how are we? Yeah, bro.

speaker-1: The place where they go.

speaker-0: I had to say it with an ⁓ For me, it's real easy. It's the fact that ⁓ change is going to happen. ⁓ The world's going to evolve and we have to evolve with it. So we have to adjust. It's just we have to. what i'm sure is being done is we have to redefine what core values are what core requirements and necessities are so that we don't lose viable techniques or or or the ability to succeed when things are as beautiful and wonderful as they are so it's going to happen because in my thirty years i saw the army change we had three pt uniforms yeah we went from classic woodland bdu's to the ⁓ the city bdu's to now we're back more towards the classic bdu's you know and and the ⁓ presenting yourself has gotten back to it so there are discipline things coming back so it's it's evolving up my biggest concern is the fact that these great ideas are great ideas fairy sometimes they are the ones that completely overlook where we were, like somebody sitting in the office said, ooh, what if we change the uniform to this? But you mean to me there's nobody that sat back and said, well, let's look at it first. It was something that somebody in their heart felt we needed and determined to make a change. Why? a legacy mark, but. One of the things this conversation reminds me of is that every generation of soldiers inherits an army shaped by the people who served before them. The challenge isn't trying to go backwards or relive the past, because we don't want y'all to do that. It's making sure the lessons learned along the way don't disappear when the people who live them hang up the uniform. Because at the end of the day, those lessons were often learned the hard way.

speaker-1: So Carl, we really appreciate you being here with us today and taking the time to sit down with us and share your perspective and for being part of the conversation today. I survived another ⁓ episode with a whole lot of major energy going on over here.

speaker-0: Hey, at least we didn't put you in the middle.

speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I appreciate you having me. It's good seeing you. Glad I could come in and visit and get around.

speaker-1: All right, y'all, until next time, let's keep the conversation going.