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The story of our country's 
relationship with Afghanistan. 

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Didn't end when the 82nd 
Airborne Commander walked up, 

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the ramp of a C-17 and and flew 
out of Kabul. 

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And then August of 2021. 
There was something like eighty 

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or eighty-five thousand Afghan 
evacuees who wound up here in 

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the United States and that was 
the big challenge. 

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How do we keep the faith with 
these people? 

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How do we We help these folks 
out who, who many of them spent 

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years of their life? 
Standing alongside our brothers 

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and sisters in arms, putting 
themselves In Harm's Way to 

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achieve the goals that we were 
working towards there in 20 

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years in Afghanistan. 
Welcome to the ones. 

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He a podcast. 
Your host today is mr. 

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Rob Boudreau, once the a is a 
product of the Civil Affairs 

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Association and brings in people
who are current or former 

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military diplomats development 
officers and field agents to 

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discuss their experiences on 
ground with a partner. 

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Nations people and Leadership, 
our goal is to inspire anyone 

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interested in working the last 
three feet of Foreign Relations.

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The contact, the show, email us 
at see a podcasting at 

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gmail.com, or look us up on the 
Civil Affairs association 

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website at www.wrc.org. 
I'll have those in the show 

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notes, we're joined today by 
Major Jimmie, Johnson and steps 

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are and Greg Shaffer. 
Major Jimmie. 

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Johnson is a marine Manpower 
officer in civil Affairs. 

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Officer in 1021 and 2022, 
immobilized, in support of 

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operations, allies. 
Welcome with a civil Affairs, 

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Detachment from the main course,
for civil Affairs group, in the 

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civilian career, who practices 
law with the Department of the 

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Navy's office of general counsel
in Norfolk. 

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Virginia steps are great. 
Schaefer enlisted in the Marine 

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Corps in 2009. 
From Evansville Indiana, you 

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spent his first five years on 
active duty, in the inventory, 

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with diplomas to several 
countries including Afghanistan 

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and Yemen transitioning. 
To the reserve component in 

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2014. 
It laterally moved to civil. 

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Errors and completed his 
bachelor's and master's degrees 

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in Justice law and public 
policy. 

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Since then he has provided see a
support the several 

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multinational exercises around 
the world and mobilized in 2021 

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for operation allies. 
Welcome, all the participants 

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today would like to note that 
all of their views are stated in

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their personal capacities and do
not necessarily represent those 

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of the United States government 
or any of its agencies or 

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components gentlemen. 
Welcome to the podcast. 

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Thank you very much for having 
us. 

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And I'm very glad to be here. 
I'm excited. 

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Excited to be here too. 
And it's nice to have the 

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Marines taken the podcast over 
for a change. 

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Good stuff. 
So, major Johnson, tell me how 

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did a bunch of Marines end up 
doing civil Affairs activities 

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for the Army on a base full of 
Afghan evacuees and Rural 

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Wisconsin. 
It was a huge project that we 

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got involved with and had the 
honor and the privilege to 

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support just to give you a 
little bit of context and help 

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the listeners understand a 
little bit of how the work that 

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we were doing as a part of 
operation allies. 

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Welcome. 
To evacuate US, Government 

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Personnel private citizens but 
then also tens of thousands of 

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Afghan civilians from Kabul and 
in August of 2021 to fly as many

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people as or possible out of 
Hamid Karzai International 

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Airport. 
And of course we all do the very

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setting photos and videos of 
that effort including the loss 

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of 11 Marines and Navy sailor 
and one Army soldier during that

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evacuation of her the back end 
of that. 

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Ian was, what do we do with all 
these folks that have now gotten

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out of Afghanistan, been given 
humanitarian parole, or some 

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other form of legal status, in 
the United States and ended up 

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being thing between 75 and 85 
thousand Afghans who were 

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brought to the United States on,
very short. 

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Notice, how do we take care of 
those folks? 

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How do we do right by them? 
And that's where we make the 

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transition from operation, 
allies Refuge the evacuation, 

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operation to operation. 
Allies, welcome. 

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Oh, aw. 
Which was the care and 

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resettlement. 
Operation, weight w was a uf's 

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northcom defense support to 
Civil Authorities Mission disco 

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to support the Department of 
Homeland, Security, to operate a

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tree, settlement sites at 
military installations across 

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the United States. 
So these were places to house 

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care feed but also educate and 
and provide Social Services 

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support to these tens of 
thousands of people who were on 

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their way to making a new life 
and in the United States, the 

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Marines initially had two pieces
of that were one at Fort barfoot

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and another at Camp up. 
Sure Quantico in our civil 

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Affairs, Detachment was 
mobilized a little bit late in 

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the game to get out and support.
Oh aw the first half Ganz reach 

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the United States at the end of 
August in 2021 in our 

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mobilization date was 1 December
and we were initially deployed. 

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To Quantico. 
But by the time we got, there is

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very very close to completing 
operations, most of the 

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population of the camp at 
Quantico had been resettled. 

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And so, what do we do with this 
group of civil Affairs, Marines,

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who are on five-month orders to 
support the Marines piece of? 

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Oh, aw. 
The answer was actually to 

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reassign our civil Affairs 
Detachment out to the Army's 

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task force, working at Fort 
McCoy. 

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Boy, Wisconsin. 
So we packed up our bags and 

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flew from Quantico out to 
Wisconsin in the dead of winter 

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between the end of 2021 and into
January of twenty two, we felt a

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little bit like we would have 
been in some ways better 

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prepared to actually deploy to 
Afghanistan and do civil Affairs

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in Afghanistan. 
We were to deploy to Wisconsin 

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but it turned out to be a really
great opportunity to work with a

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very good group of army, 
soldiers, DHS civilians, other 

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civilians. 
And across the interagency and 

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across the alphabet soup of 
ngos, who were doing that work 

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at Fort McCoy. 
When we arrived, there were 

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still about 10,000 Afghan 
evacuees. 

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The term we use is guests for 
Afghans who are in base with us.

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We steer clear of the word 
Refugee that has pretty 

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particular legal connotation 
that goes along with it. 

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And at that point, we're helping
these people to start 

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transitioning to the next phase 
of their life. 

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So we like using the word guest 
of the United States government.

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We were very fortunate to work 
with a group of army leaders who

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were very familiar with the 
Civil Affairs. 

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Discipline, the task force, 
Commanding General Brigadier, 

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General, Andre Carter and her 
Chief of Staff. 

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Colonel Scotty lynnae, both Army
reservists who had a background 

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working either in or very 
closely with a civil Affairs 

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forces. 
The guidance that we got from 

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the see Gene from Chief of Staff
was pretty much just Ooh, civil 

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Affairs. 
And that's perfect. 

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We were able to get in and take 
that maneuver space. 

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That they gave us to do a good 
estimate of what the situation 

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was in the Civil environment and
then start racking and stacking.

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Our priorities was like a really
professional golfer who's been 

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looking for just the right 
pitching wedge. 

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You know that they've been 
missing from their bag when we 

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got there. 
We're very warmly welcomed and 

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we're put to work immediately. 
Okay. 

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So you deployed as the 
Detachment Commander is that 

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correct? 
I was Quantico was about 18 

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Marines total, and we split up 
10 of us went to Joint Base 

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mcguire-dix-lakehurst in New 
Jersey. 

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And then I took a group of eight
Marines to be a Detachment - 

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going to Fort McCoy, the chief 
of staff had set up a very 

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active, female engagement team 
and we integrated, those Soldier

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to turn it into a sort of - 
reinforced Detachment and that 

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worked like gangbusters. 
So we had a very robust capacity

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and then by linking up are cool 
trained and very experienced 

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civil Affairs, Marines with a 
lot of really motivated Savvy 

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thoughtful army soldiers, who 
had been doing the work for 

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several weeks. 
We were able to get really, 

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really good coverage to the task
force, and being the best 

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vehicle for a lot of the ngos 
and interagency Partners. 

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At the camp, who needed to do 
Outreach with the guest 

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population. 
We wound up working very very 

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closely. 
And even integrating some of 

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those interagency and NGO 
Partners into our civil Affairs 

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teams. 
Basically be some additional 

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augmentation to where we're 
really ending up. 

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Sending Swiss army knife teams 
out where it's Marine civil 

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Affairs, Specialists Army, 
female engagement soldiers, 

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Department of Homeland Security,
NGO, immigration and 

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resettlement, specialist it 
wound up being a really really 

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good combination on. 
Top of all that it was me and 

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staff sergeant Shaffer. 
We had a very very Very light, 

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Detachment headquarters as sort 
of the G9 civil Affairs cell 

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within the Task Force 
Headquarters. 

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I spent a lot of time going to 
meetings and less time out in 

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the field than I would have 
liked but that was sort of the 

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bargain that I made so that I 
could give my team leaders the 

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time and see room to work with 
the guest community. 

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So that's what our scratch-built
civil Affairs. 

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Detachment looked like it's 
tough as you mention a couple 

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quarters in the gym. 
If you will see you had the HS 

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folks and Asthma Gio's. 
Any other particular 

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organization. 
The kind of stick it on your 

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mind is having a really 
important role that tied into 

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what you all were. 
We're looking to accomplish. 

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Yeah, absolutely. 
And I'll anchor down on VHS for 

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just a moment and talk a little 
bit about disco defense support 

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to Civil Authorities. 
That is not a common Marine Core

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task. 
And so, it took a little bit of 

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adjustment for us to plug into 
it when we deploy, or even when 

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we do humanitarian, Ins we go 
abroad, right? 

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We're expeditionary and 
character, but here the need was

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so great that we are deploying 
to support domestic Civil 

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Authorities. 
In what is essentially a 

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humanitarian relief mission in 
the Homeland. 

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Even within disk allies welcome 
was an oddball typically for a 

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hurricane Disaster Response, 
FEMA is the lead Federal agency.

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They are leading the way and 
typically US Army. 

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North forces are providing 
support to FEMA as Interval 

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agency here, the Department of 
Homeland Security was the lead 

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and everybody was supporting 
them and so it was a little bit 

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of a new process for our DHS 
colleague to be serving in that 

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role. 
And it was a learning process 

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for us to be supporting them, 
but it ended up working out very

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well. 
We at Fort McCoy, had a DHS 

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coordinating official, who was 
our boss? 

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Everybody in the task force from
the dod side from the 

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interagency side rolled up to 
that. 

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DHS Federal Coordinating 
official. 

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There were other interagency 
partners on Deck, Department of 

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State, had the point when it 
came to coordinating 

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resettlement for the guests, to 
help them get on to the rest of 

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their lives and Department of 
State was using contracted a 

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support to do that work. 
It was something I was not 

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familiar with, but it made a lot
of sense. 

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We actually had a bunch of 
non-governmental organizations 

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who had been contracted to 
support the oaw mission in 

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different respects. 
So for instance, And the 

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International Rescue committee 
and the International 

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Organization for migration since
were contracted to support 

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Department of State and 
processing the resettlement and 

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that was just great. 
These were the old pros from 

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Dover. 
Some of them had come out of the

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field, all over the world 
working in some very challenging

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environments, to come and do 
this work. 

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And so brought just a ton of 
expertise a ton of experience to

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that work and really made it a 
lot better. 

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In addition, we had contracted 
out the US Conference of Of 

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Catholic Bishops to provide 
Social Services for the guests, 

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but also just kind of morale 
welfare and Recreation. 

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There were even classes that 
USCCB was able to set up and we 

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were sort of running, kind of a 
mixture of daycare and Day 

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School for the children who were
at the camp with us, so that it 

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wasn't just the green, Suitor 
soldiers and Marines having to 

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do that work, right? 
We're good at moving stuff 

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around. 
We're good at getting a lot of 

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people housed and fed and taken 
care of, but providing the human

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touch. 
It was excellent to have the 

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support from the NGO 
contractors. 

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In the task force, that was a 
huge value added for the work 

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that we were doing. 
Are you mentioned a couple? 

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I'll call him unicorn aspects of
your mission. 

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So you're performing a mission 
on us soil and humanitarian, 

231
00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,200
contact. 
Something that as you pointed 

232
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:54,800
out, our kind of outliers in the
way we think of civil Affairs 

233
00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:59,000
activities. 
So receiving a mission is Broad 

234
00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,900
or flexible. 
If you will is go do civil 

235
00:13:01,900 --> 00:13:03,800
Affairs. 
What did that mean? 

236
00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:08,300
For your Detachment in terms of 
mission planning civil prep of 

237
00:13:08,300 --> 00:13:09,400
the bat? 
Little space. 

238
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,100
What were you looking at to get 
yourself prepared once you hit 

239
00:13:12,100 --> 00:13:13,700
the ground. 
Yeah. 

240
00:13:13,700 --> 00:13:16,500
I'll talk about Fort McCoy just 
because we wound up spending 

241
00:13:16,500 --> 00:13:19,000
most of our time there by the 
time we got into Quantico. 

242
00:13:19,100 --> 00:13:20,900
It was very few guests left 
over. 

243
00:13:20,900 --> 00:13:24,100
And we really kind of took that 
almost as our pre-deployment 

244
00:13:24,100 --> 00:13:26,900
training to kind of get our 
heads around, just the 

245
00:13:26,900 --> 00:13:28,600
experience of the guests 
leaving. 

246
00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:31,000
Kabul their first few months, 
you know, bouncing around 

247
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:35,500
between bases and stations 
overseas on their way to the oaw

248
00:13:35,500 --> 00:13:38,500
camps, all over the US with 
those few. 

249
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:41,000
Excessive of work in Quantico 
behind us. 

250
00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:43,700
We had a pretty good idea of 
what these folks have gone 

251
00:13:43,700 --> 00:13:45,900
through. 
What, some of the problems were 

252
00:13:45,900 --> 00:13:48,300
that they were facing. 
And so we were able to, you 

253
00:13:48,300 --> 00:13:50,600
know, I won't say hit the ground
running important koi, but at 

254
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:53,800
least get a good free. 
Mph route, March Pace. 

255
00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,400
I think that was very helpful to
have that behind us. 

256
00:13:56,700 --> 00:13:59,400
The other thing was we took a 
week to just be here. 

257
00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:03,000
Get our team's out into the 
neighborhoods working with the 

258
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:07,000
guests and also introducing 
ourselves to both the uniformed 

259
00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:09,600
and the civilian leadership. 
Ship that we're working in 

260
00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:12,600
support for several months 
before we arrived and that week 

261
00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:16,900
was kind of a luxury that I 
thought we needed to have in 

262
00:14:16,900 --> 00:14:20,500
order to make an informed 
judgment about what was going to

263
00:14:20,500 --> 00:14:24,100
be our primary focus of effort. 
And I'm happy to talk about what

264
00:14:24,100 --> 00:14:26,500
we came up with. 
Before we do that let me ask 

265
00:14:26,500 --> 00:14:28,100
you. 
Did you have a particular 

266
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,200
philosophy or approach just 
recognizing that this mission 

267
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:34,300
was being carried out on our 
home turf with a lot of folks 

268
00:14:34,300 --> 00:14:38,200
paying attention, what was 
shaping your leadership for your

269
00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:41,100
test? 
Yeah, The Guiding Light was 

270
00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:44,900
respect empathy and 
understanding. 

271
00:14:45,300 --> 00:14:48,700
I think often times when we as 
Americans think about people 

272
00:14:48,700 --> 00:14:52,000
coming here to our country for 
the first time, we think about 

273
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,100
it, most like they won a lottery
ticket, right? 

274
00:14:54,300 --> 00:14:57,100
We're proud to be Americans. 
We love our country were True 

275
00:14:57,100 --> 00:15:00,700
Believers and there was some of 
that with a lot of the guests 

276
00:15:00,700 --> 00:15:03,600
that we were working with. 
There was a recognition that 

277
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:06,800
there were going to be 
opportunities open to them here 

278
00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:08,500
in the United States that they 
may not have had. 

279
00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:12,300
Had if they had kept on, living 
their lives in Afghanistan. 

280
00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:17,600
But along with that was the way 
the decision was made for them. 

281
00:15:17,700 --> 00:15:23,100
These very often were leaders in
Afghanistan, civil leaders 

282
00:15:23,300 --> 00:15:27,000
Business Leaders, military 
leaders who were forced to flee 

283
00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:30,500
what for many people had been 
very successful professional 

284
00:15:30,500 --> 00:15:34,100
lives of service to their 
country and were forced you know

285
00:15:34,100 --> 00:15:36,500
for fear of their life to come 
to the United States. 

286
00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:41,500
And so the Guiding Light I say 
for us was to just to be mindful

287
00:15:41,500 --> 00:15:45,400
of that and to be sensitive to 
the kind of common trend for 

288
00:15:45,400 --> 00:15:47,600
many of the guests who we were 
working with. 

289
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:53,000
And to the extent that we could,
I will say 99.9% of the time, 

290
00:15:53,100 --> 00:15:56,800
our colleagues in the task 
force, had a similar attitude 

291
00:15:56,800 --> 00:15:59,900
and understood and appreciated, 
the that commonality in the 

292
00:15:59,900 --> 00:16:02,900
experience of the guests. 
But I think that it was often 

293
00:16:02,900 --> 00:16:07,500
times helpful to have us there 
as sort of The Lorax, right? 

294
00:16:07,500 --> 00:16:10,900
We speak for the Is everybody 
else's job is to support the 

295
00:16:10,900 --> 00:16:16,100
guests. 
Our job is to try to articulate 

296
00:16:16,500 --> 00:16:20,400
the needs of the guests 
population to understand the 

297
00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:23,000
impact and effect. 
That what the task force is 

298
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:25,700
doing is going to have on the 
guests population and try to 

299
00:16:25,700 --> 00:16:29,600
make that work more effective. 
And so, it was very, very good 

300
00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:33,500
to have a G9 elements sitting in
the Task Force Headquarters 

301
00:16:33,500 --> 00:16:37,300
whose sole purpose is to be the 
advisor on the state of the 

302
00:16:37,300 --> 00:16:41,200
civilian population. 
S population and to provide 

303
00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:45,700
advice and Counsel on what is 
going to be the effect of our 

304
00:16:45,700 --> 00:16:48,300
military operations, on the 
guest population. 

305
00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:52,700
And I'm using bar doctrinal 
civil Affairs, phraseology to 

306
00:16:52,700 --> 00:16:55,700
describe that in this kind of 
Oddball environment. 

307
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:58,800
But that was the approach that 
we took, we were not conducting 

308
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,600
kinetic military operations but 
we were Movin, big trucks 

309
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:04,200
around. 
We were moving, lots of people 

310
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:06,599
around. 
We were doing a flavor of 

311
00:17:06,700 --> 00:17:09,400
military operations, 10 or 15. 
Years ago, we might have called 

312
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,000
it military operations other 
than War, right? 

313
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:16,700
And so just because those 
operations were focused on 

314
00:17:16,700 --> 00:17:21,000
curing for a civilian population
that didn't make it any less 

315
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:24,800
important to have someone there 
providing insight into the Civil

316
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:26,900
environment. 
I think of anything it was more 

317
00:17:26,900 --> 00:17:30,000
important and we're very glad to
be a provide some of that 

318
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:33,600
Insight. 
Yeah it's definitely a paper if 

319
00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:35,200
I could bring you into the 
conversation. 

320
00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:38,400
Can you tell us what was your 
role in the detachment? 

321
00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:43,000
Certainly my role in the 
Detachment was to manage civil 

322
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:46,200
information. 
I also wound up dual hatting 

323
00:17:46,300 --> 00:17:50,000
later on in the mission and 
supporting some of the messaging

324
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:54,600
out to the guests population and
with this major Johnson and I 

325
00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:57,800
actually had a conversation 
right before we went to Fort 

326
00:17:57,800 --> 00:18:00,900
McCoy of having me as a 
dedicated civil information 

327
00:18:00,900 --> 00:18:03,200
manager. 
And he asked what I thought 

328
00:18:03,300 --> 00:18:06,200
about using the stability 
assessment framework is kind of 

329
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:11,300
a framework to Build and conduct
assessments and figure out how 

330
00:18:11,300 --> 00:18:14,400
we can best affect population. 
And I had just been to the Civil

331
00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:16,300
military. 
Planners course not even a year 

332
00:18:16,300 --> 00:18:19,200
before that. 
And my initial reaction was no, 

333
00:18:19,300 --> 00:18:22,200
we're going to be trying to kill
a mosquito with machine gun 

334
00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:25,400
without approach. 
It's too robust and it looking 

335
00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:26,700
back. 
I kind of laugh at myself. 

336
00:18:26,700 --> 00:18:30,400
I stopped my thought about it 
and realized that we could take 

337
00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:34,600
a modified approach with the 
stability assessment, framework 

338
00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:38,400
and Taylor, and craft it to suit
our needs at Fort. 

339
00:18:38,700 --> 00:18:42,700
And so it m on tonight, I always
give you credit for thinking of 

340
00:18:42,700 --> 00:18:45,200
that before. 
We got out there you never know 

341
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:47,000
what you're going to be walking 
into. 

342
00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:51,000
But on the data side, at least 
having a general idea of the 

343
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:52,600
story. 
We wanted our information to 

344
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:55,500
tell and how we wanted it to 
drive action. 

345
00:18:55,800 --> 00:19:00,300
I was able to start looking into
different systems that I could 

346
00:19:00,300 --> 00:19:04,100
use to digitize some of this and
automate. 

347
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:06,500
I don't know if you want me to 
get into specific tools and 

348
00:19:06,500 --> 00:19:08,100
techniques without now or if we 
want to. 

349
00:19:08,500 --> 00:19:11,200
Hold off on that a little. 
Yeah, we'll get into that in 

350
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:14,100
just a moment, but one of the 
things major Johnson brought up 

351
00:19:14,100 --> 00:19:17,500
earlier talking Doctrine and 
complicating hard. 

352
00:19:17,500 --> 00:19:21,700
See a test, it sounds like soft 
skills were really kind of a 

353
00:19:21,700 --> 00:19:23,400
critical aspect of what you're 
doing. 

354
00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,600
So perhaps separate from the 
Sim, what were some of those 

355
00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:28,700
soft skills? 
You think we're most important? 

356
00:19:29,300 --> 00:19:32,800
Yeah, with soft skills, but a 
lot of times were doing our 

357
00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:35,500
drill weekends. 
We'll put together these 

358
00:19:35,500 --> 00:19:39,000
training scenarios and I've 
always advocated for Role 

359
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:43,200
players in your training 
scenarios even if the focus of 

360
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:47,800
the training is not civil 
engagement assessment because it

361
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:51,100
allows you to kind of get reps 
on treating people. 

362
00:19:51,100 --> 00:19:55,200
Like people treating everyone 
with dignity and respect and 

363
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:58,500
understanding that, you know, a 
few weeks or months ago, they 

364
00:19:58,500 --> 00:20:02,500
were in a horrible situation and
jumped on a plane not knowing 

365
00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:05,400
where everything was going to 
take them and and they were kind

366
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,300
of putting themselves in in our 
hands. 

367
00:20:08,500 --> 00:20:10,900
Trusting us to make sure that 
they were taken care of and 

368
00:20:10,900 --> 00:20:12,200
their families were taking care 
of. 

369
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:16,800
And so, approaching engagements 
from a human first perspective, 

370
00:20:16,900 --> 00:20:20,400
trying to make sure that 
people's needs were being taken 

371
00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:23,800
care of. 
I would say, it was probably the

372
00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:28,800
biggest soft skill, not only 
because it kind of bought us 

373
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,500
some trust with the population, 
but also it would allow our 

374
00:20:32,500 --> 00:20:36,000
engagements to get a lot deeper.
We would encourage the Marines 

375
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:40,400
and soldiers regularly, when 
offer Sit down and have tea with

376
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:42,400
the families. 
Learn a little more about them. 

377
00:20:42,900 --> 00:20:45,300
And it's something that's 
preached in our school house and

378
00:20:45,300 --> 00:20:47,700
it certainly proved true here. 
You know, we'd have a 

379
00:20:47,708 --> 00:20:50,900
conversation. 
We do our engagement and then 

380
00:20:50,900 --> 00:20:53,700
they invite us in 40 and we'd 
find out 10 times. 

381
00:20:53,700 --> 00:20:56,300
As much information, we sat down
to have tea with them, learn 

382
00:20:56,300 --> 00:21:00,800
about their family, then we 
gather during the the proper 

383
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,200
engagement that had happened. 
Three minutes before that, 

384
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:05,200
right? 
In terms of soft skills, I would

385
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:09,500
say that's number one and then 
the and soft skill. 

386
00:21:09,500 --> 00:21:13,700
Is that the outside of the box 
thinking when you encounter 

387
00:21:13,700 --> 00:21:16,600
issues and are trying to come up
with solutions to them, one 

388
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:18,900
thing that came up while we were
in there was covid that was 

389
00:21:18,900 --> 00:21:21,800
about the time that the Omicron 
Jerian had started spreading 

390
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:25,600
across the country and there 
were quarantined Barracks that 

391
00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:28,000
you wouldn't want to go into 
without any kind of protection. 

392
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:31,300
And so we had Marines or working
with Medical Teams to get us 

393
00:21:31,300 --> 00:21:34,500
full PPE so that we could make 
sure that we were serving the 

394
00:21:34,500 --> 00:21:37,900
entire population and not those 
were outside of the quarantine 

395
00:21:37,900 --> 00:21:40,700
barracks. 
We had situations, where Marines

396
00:21:40,700 --> 00:21:45,000
would recognize that kids didn't
have activities and by working 

397
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,300
with some of the ngos to get 
them coloring books, or games 

398
00:21:48,300 --> 00:21:52,600
that they can play that, that 
would keep them from exploring 

399
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:55,800
Mischief in other areas, right? 
So, the two soft skills, I 

400
00:21:55,808 --> 00:21:59,000
mentioned, first that cumin 
first perspective, and then just

401
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:01,500
being creative and thinking 
outside the box, really helped 

402
00:22:01,500 --> 00:22:06,100
us but stuff, I think tying in 
those soft and hard skill 

403
00:22:06,100 --> 00:22:08,600
aspects of being a effective 
civil affairs. 

404
00:22:08,700 --> 00:22:12,100
Marines, you both have the 
benefit of serving in a reserve 

405
00:22:12,100 --> 00:22:15,500
capacity so you both have 
civilians careers and skills you

406
00:22:15,500 --> 00:22:18,700
can rely on made you God said, 
if you could talk for a moment 

407
00:22:18,700 --> 00:22:21,800
about some of those things that 
you've seen from your civilian 

408
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:25,100
career, that translated, well to
operating effectively, as a 

409
00:22:25,108 --> 00:22:28,900
civil Affairs Marine mobilizing 
United States for my particular 

410
00:22:28,900 --> 00:22:31,800
background of being a department
of Navy office of general 

411
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:35,000
counsel attorney. 
We are the guardians of fiscal 

412
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,000
law. 
So there's a thing called the 

413
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:41,300
anti-deficiency ACT Which is 
designed to protect the power of

414
00:22:41,300 --> 00:22:44,500
the purse, the Congress holds 
and there's a rule under the 

415
00:22:44,500 --> 00:22:48,600
anti-deficiency act that 
prohibits the Executive Branch 

416
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:52,600
from accepting voluntary 
services or goods from an 

417
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:56,600
outside entity without some kind
of authorization from Congress. 

418
00:22:57,300 --> 00:23:00,700
And now there's a lot of there's
authorizations out there, but we

419
00:23:00,700 --> 00:23:04,500
did not have one laid down in 
particular for operation allies,

420
00:23:04,500 --> 00:23:07,900
welcome, I'm sitting in a 
meeting and a new charitable 

421
00:23:07,900 --> 00:23:10,800
organization. 
Is trying to get in and provide 

422
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:12,900
some services to the guest 
population. 

423
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,600
Very helpful to have that 
perspective and say we one of 

424
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,500
the real lawyers to come in here
and take a look and make sure 

425
00:23:18,500 --> 00:23:20,800
that we're going to do this the 
right way. 

426
00:23:21,300 --> 00:23:22,900
And that's really what it comes 
down to. 

427
00:23:23,100 --> 00:23:26,100
And so I think having that 
background in perspective was 

428
00:23:26,100 --> 00:23:29,700
helpful to just be another set 
of eyeballs on the work that we 

429
00:23:29,700 --> 00:23:33,100
were doing to try to everything 
in line with the rules and 

430
00:23:33,100 --> 00:23:36,400
regulations that govern us 
whenever we're doing any kind of

431
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:39,600
military operation. 
And I like You kind of tie that 

432
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,000
back into the authorities which 
are going to dictate the 

433
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,100
military's ability to execute 
any Mission. 

434
00:23:45,100 --> 00:23:47,400
So it's really great 
perspective. 

435
00:23:48,100 --> 00:23:50,400
That's on Schaefer. 
What are your thoughts on that? 

436
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:54,900
What I learned in graduate 
school with Statistics and 

437
00:23:54,900 --> 00:23:58,600
research methodology knowing 
that I was going to be taking a 

438
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,800
very heavy data approach to this
and that I wanted to try to 

439
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:04,900
automate and streamline as much 
of the reporting and data 

440
00:24:04,900 --> 00:24:08,100
analysis as I could those 
fundamentals. 

441
00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:11,400
Tremely, helpful. 
And then beyond that, the work 

442
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,100
that I've done is a program 
manager and a consultant. 

443
00:24:14,500 --> 00:24:20,100
I had a really kind of keen 
sense of what are the data 

444
00:24:20,100 --> 00:24:22,000
points. 
What are the kpis? 

445
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,300
What's the information major 
Johnson is going to want to see 

446
00:24:25,700 --> 00:24:28,700
that can help him drive action 
in the camp. 

447
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,900
And so from the very beginning 
of it using this ability 

448
00:24:32,900 --> 00:24:36,400
assessment framework, I was 
working backward. 

449
00:24:36,900 --> 00:24:38,600
Actually all the way to that, 
right? 

450
00:24:38,700 --> 00:24:41,100
Knowing that I would want to be 
capturing stability and 

451
00:24:41,100 --> 00:24:43,700
instability factors on a 
quantitative and qualitative 

452
00:24:43,700 --> 00:24:48,300
perspectives, I needed to 
understand how is the data going

453
00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:50,300
to be coded in the system that 
we used? 

454
00:24:50,300 --> 00:24:53,400
What's that going to look like? 
And then walk my way backwards 

455
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:57,100
from that to actually build 
those surveys and assessment 

456
00:24:57,100 --> 00:24:58,800
reports that our teams would 
use. 

457
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:02,600
So that everything would pop out
correctly and save me, tens of 

458
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,700
hours every week trying to get 
the data straight. 

459
00:25:05,700 --> 00:25:09,700
And so just having a general 
understanding Standing of how 

460
00:25:09,700 --> 00:25:13,300
data Works, how to analyze it, 
helped a lot. 

461
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:16,800
And then, for my time, as a 
program manager, I learned a lot

462
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:21,200
about Microsoft Excel, which I 
feel like most listeners right 

463
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:22,800
now. 
Probably just turn the podcast 

464
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,300
off because nobody likes to talk
about Excel. 

465
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:30,700
But what was really powerful was
having a general idea of what 

466
00:25:30,700 --> 00:25:34,100
Excel could do? 
No, I'm not saying that I knew 

467
00:25:34,100 --> 00:25:36,200
how to do everything that I 
wound up doing. 

468
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:38,500
But I had a general idea of what
it could do. 

469
00:25:38,700 --> 00:25:42,600
And I spent, you know, maybe 
five ten hours with some Google 

470
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,700
searches and watch YouTube 
videos with just a general 

471
00:25:45,700 --> 00:25:48,700
concept of what Excel was 
capable of, and I was able to 

472
00:25:48,700 --> 00:25:51,500
use that to build a dynamic 
dashboard that. 

473
00:25:51,500 --> 00:25:56,300
Also captured action items that 
we needed to accomplish which it

474
00:25:56,300 --> 00:26:00,500
without this probably would have
taken 20 to 30 hours a week, 

475
00:26:00,700 --> 00:26:03,700
just to collate the data and 
analyze it to figure out 

476
00:26:03,700 --> 00:26:06,400
insights. 
I was able to do this by 

477
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,500
downloading the data poppy in 
the dashboard. 

478
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,800
And it would pop out results and
15 seconds. 

479
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:16,000
And so the power there is that 
we went from keeping myself busy

480
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:20,300
analyzing the data to being able
to focus on what the issues are 

481
00:26:20,300 --> 00:26:24,300
with underlying problems are 
that are causing those issues 

482
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,700
and then work with teams on 
creating solutions to help 

483
00:26:27,700 --> 00:26:29,900
address them. 
So I would say that for my 

484
00:26:29,900 --> 00:26:32,300
civilian career that was really 
what I brought to the table that

485
00:26:32,300 --> 00:26:36,200
helped us go from doing the job 
well to doing it, great. 

486
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,500
Where was the data coming from 
the teams? 

487
00:26:40,500 --> 00:26:44,500
Had through their phones, access
to an application that we use to

488
00:26:44,500 --> 00:26:47,000
submit these reports? 
And so they would go out into 

489
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,500
the community conduct civil 
engagements assessments. 

490
00:26:50,900 --> 00:26:54,700
And these might be three-minute 
conversations, these might be 

491
00:26:54,700 --> 00:26:59,200
three our conversations, right? 
And they would typically take 

492
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,900
handwritten notes. 
It's kind of rude to be on your 

493
00:27:01,900 --> 00:27:04,600
phone, in front of someone 
jamming information and and then

494
00:27:04,900 --> 00:27:07,300
after they would finish the 
engagement students, Since they 

495
00:27:07,300 --> 00:27:10,700
would go into this application, 
fill out the survey report 

496
00:27:10,700 --> 00:27:14,900
which, you know, it was kind of 
backwards built so that the data

497
00:27:14,900 --> 00:27:16,500
would come out the way that we 
needed it. 

498
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,500
And then as they submitted, that
it went into a secure 

499
00:27:19,500 --> 00:27:24,100
cloud-based system. 
So that from the interagency 

500
00:27:24,100 --> 00:27:28,100
operations center where my desk 
was at any time of the day I 

501
00:27:28,100 --> 00:27:31,600
could log in and download the 
most updated information. 

502
00:27:31,900 --> 00:27:35,500
What is really great about this 
tool is that it also worked in 

503
00:27:35,500 --> 00:27:40,100
low and know, no connectivity 
environments and so it's cell 

504
00:27:40,100 --> 00:27:42,600
service was on and off there. 
And so if they submitted a 

505
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,700
report and there wasn't cell 
service, it worked in the 

506
00:27:45,708 --> 00:27:49,800
background, once there was 
connectivity, it would batch 

507
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:54,900
submit every five minutes, which
gave us the ability to see data 

508
00:27:54,900 --> 00:27:58,000
coming in and almost real time 
throughout the day. 

509
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,700
And normally, we didn't need to 
see that, you know, on an 

510
00:28:00,700 --> 00:28:03,500
hour-by-hour basis. 
But maybe if there had been a 

511
00:28:03,500 --> 00:28:06,600
recent implementation or 
intervention that we had done, 

512
00:28:06,900 --> 00:28:10,100
And we were curious to see what 
those impacts look like. 

513
00:28:10,100 --> 00:28:13,200
You know, thinking measures of 
Effectiveness, we did have the 

514
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:15,700
ability to on kind of a 
minute-by-minute hour-by-hour 

515
00:28:15,700 --> 00:28:18,400
basis, see what was going on in 
the community. 

516
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,000
That's awesome and you're 
talking about something that a 

517
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,300
lot of military professionals is
unheard of the idea of being 

518
00:28:25,300 --> 00:28:28,600
able to collect us, objectively 
obtained information. 

519
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,500
But in real time get that up to 
decision makers. 

520
00:28:31,500 --> 00:28:35,400
That's, that's terrific. 
So what were you doing with the 

521
00:28:35,500 --> 00:28:39,000
data as it's being Processed you
talk about how was a time saving

522
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,000
measure? 
What would those key outputs 

523
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,800
that you're looking to obtain 
from the data, the key outputs 

524
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,300
that we were looking to obtain 
were resilience? 

525
00:28:49,300 --> 00:28:53,000
He's and grievances or 
instability factors and 

526
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,800
stability factors and there was 
a lot of thought that went in on

527
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,600
the front end of this trying to 
predict what would be the big 

528
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,600
topics that we would see, is it 
going to be food clothing 

529
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:09,500
medicine? 
All services time that we had 

530
00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:13,700
spent at Quantico, gave us a 
finger in the air, at least what

531
00:29:13,700 --> 00:29:17,700
we thought we might run into. 
But this was not a system that 

532
00:29:17,700 --> 00:29:20,700
was created and then just stayed
static. 

533
00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:23,700
The entire time is as 
information would come in. 

534
00:29:23,700 --> 00:29:26,300
And we realize that there were 
some areas that we had missed. 

535
00:29:26,300 --> 00:29:30,300
I had the ability to go back 
into the system and add new 

536
00:29:30,300 --> 00:29:34,400
topics so that are collectors 
could easily tag the report as 

537
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:36,200
it needed to be to allow for 
that easy. 

538
00:29:36,700 --> 00:29:40,200
Isis again, because of the way. 
The data was captured, we were 

539
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,500
able to analyze Trends really 
easily. 

540
00:29:42,700 --> 00:29:45,000
So you would ask what were the 
things that we were looking at? 

541
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,500
They said stability and 
instability factors. 

542
00:29:47,900 --> 00:29:51,800
We had some filters built into 
this so that we could see week 

543
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:55,200
over week or day over day, 
whatever time Horizon we thought

544
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:59,100
was appropriate, we could see 
clothing issues are on the rise 

545
00:29:59,100 --> 00:30:03,800
or food issues are going down or
medical care has spiked. 

546
00:30:03,900 --> 00:30:08,200
And then we could dive in to the
Native data behind that because 

547
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:09,600
quantitative data is great, 
right? 

548
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:13,600
It tells you what direction to 
look qualitative data is what 

549
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,700
really gives you that underlying
story and helps you understand 

550
00:30:16,700 --> 00:30:20,800
the Nuance of the situation. 
And, you know, for example, 

551
00:30:21,700 --> 00:30:23,600
they, I'm gonna give a 
hypothetical example. 

552
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,200
This is not some do something, 
I'll jump in and take a crack at

553
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,800
it. 
Ladies and gentlemen, we're 

554
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,600
going to split the episode here.
So come back next week for the 

555
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,400
exciting conclusion. 
Thanks for listening. 

556
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,100
If you get a chance, please like
And subscribe, and rate the show

557
00:30:40,100 --> 00:30:41,900
on your favorite podcast 
platform. 

558
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,200
Also, if you're interested in 
coming on the show, or hosting 

559
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:49,400
an episode, email us at, see, a 
podcasting at gmail.com? 

560
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,900
I'll have the email and see a 
association website in the show 

561
00:30:52,900 --> 00:30:55,900
notes. 
And now most importantly to 

562
00:30:55,900 --> 00:30:58,400
those, currently out in the 
field, working with a partner, 

563
00:30:58,700 --> 00:31:01,900
Ins people or leadership to 
forward us relations. 

564
00:31:02,300 --> 00:31:03,700
Thank you all for what you're 
doing. 

565
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,000
Stay tuned for more. 
Great episodes one. 

566
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:00,100
See a podcast. 
Ins people or leadership to 

567
00:31:00,100 --> 00:31:03,300
forward us relations. 
Thank you all for what you're 

568
00:31:03,300 --> 00:31:05,200
doing. 
Stay tuned for more. 

569
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,000
Great episodes one. 
See a podcast.