Foreign Area Officer in Iraq and Southeast Asia

[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is the Spear, the story of the profession of arms, a production of the Modern War Institute at West Point, brought to you by the west point class of 1984. Welcome back to another episode of the Spear. I'm your host, Dr. Charlie Feint. And today's guest is Lieutenant Colonel retired Andre Rivier, a former foreign area officer. Andre, welcome to the show. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Thank you very much, Charlie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Andre, you're back at West Point and you were a cadet here back in the day. Can we start with that with an origin story on you? Why did you decide to join the army and why'd you come to West Point? [00:00:31] Speaker B: Well, hey, good question, Charlie. I started off as a immigrant to the us. I grew up in the UK and Europe and as I moved to the US I wanted to be viewed as purely American. There's always a bit of a maybe a doubt in an immigrant's mind if are you really Americans? I figured joining the army is the way to do it. So I enlisted when I was 17 and six days I went to the recruiting station. Joined the army very early on, still in high school as a reservist, went to basic training before my senior year of high school. I was not the world's best student. Didn't think I had the grades for the academy. The plan was active duty army for a couple years and then do something different. My chain of command at my unit were very supportive of me. When I'd mentioned to my commander that I considered going to West Point immediately, she brought me in to see the battalion commander who brought in one of the majors in my unit who was a graduate and French, was one of the admissions committee. And they made some phone calls, all black box, some nepotism. Who knows what happened. But I got a letter a week later saying, you're into West Point. So I had, I did take the test and all that, but it was very much in from my unit. And I tell a lot of folks the best way to West Point. Unless you're. If you're not an all star student, if you're not a recruited athlete, join the army. It's the backdoor in for folks like me. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Well, what did your parents think about that? You come to a foreign country and you immediately join their armies as soon as you can. What did they think about you becoming a soldier? [00:01:50] Speaker B: They thought it was a terrible idea. They were not big fans. My dad was. My family's Swiss. My dad was in the Swiss army, which is an all conscript force. Being an army officer is a bit like being a hall monitor. From a social equivalent. Not for everyone. It's changed. But at the time, it's not a job you do if you have options. So they kind of see it as, they saw it as sort of really a very poor choice of careers, you know. But I said, hey, money for college, you know, I can go get my degree. Okay, that's okay. You go to college, that's fine. In retrospect, they love it. So now that it's all said and done, they're very happy by the way things worked out. But as a 16, 17 year old, I did not have much parental support. Now my mom did sign the paperwork at the recruiting station, so I did get. She did do that. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Well, I imagine it worked out okay. You had a long and distinguished career in uniform afterwards. [00:02:31] Speaker B: I wouldn't call it distinguished, but long maybe. But yes, I, my, my, my parents changed their tune after they saw that I enjoyed it and they saw that I could. I remember I deployed to Kosovo, my first deployment out of West Point. And you know, my father, being European, living in Switzerland, he saw that as a very noble deployment and that really changed his mind on the US army versus the Swiss army and our function. I ran into some friends of the family who were working OECD at the time in the Balkans, and they reported back that they were doing great things. So it kind of, I think the Balkan deployments were very well regarded by the Europeans and that really changed my parents mind on the military. And really after that, they were supportive when I considered separating as a captain. They were actually encouraging me to stay in. [00:03:17] Speaker A: So big sea change on that one. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I got a degree, got me, you know, motivated and so it's, it's a good thing. And I, I, I have my daughter here looking to attend one of the academies, hopefully West Point, and we'll see what happens. It's her choice, but I love to see my kids do the same thing. It's been a, it's been a great experience. And you do four years, you do 20 years, you do 30 years. It's, it's a great experience. [00:03:38] Speaker A: So how far out of West Point before your first deployment in the Balkans? [00:03:41] Speaker B: Graduated in 99 in May, went to IOBC. You know, now it's, I think they've changed the name to Bolic, but infantry Bolic Ranger School got to my unit in, I want to say February of 2000, and we got deployment orders about a year later. So I was able to extend this platoon leader. In fact, it was a very good deal for me. I got to hand pick my platoon. [00:04:03] Speaker A: Wow. [00:04:04] Speaker B: Because my company sent one platoon, I was sort of selected as the platoon leader. The first sergeant picked a platoon sergeant, and then we handpicked our people. It was a phenomenal first deployment. [00:04:13] Speaker A: That's very interesting, having the opportunity to pick your platoon. I can't think of anybody that I've ever talked to had that opportunity before. [00:04:20] Speaker B: It was great. It was a phenomenal life all star. I've led some great soldiers in my life, but that one platoon from 3502 infantry, we were just, it was just the best soldiers. I mean, all of my squad leaders were tabbed. That's not like a requirement, but they were all tabbed. We had, you know, our PT score average was like 290something. Again, these aren't always. This isn't the only measure for soldier, but just some really solid, very good soldiers. [00:04:43] Speaker A: What did you and your platoon sergeants select for? What were you looking for in this, this hand picked platoon? [00:04:47] Speaker B: Well, first and foremost, motivation. You know, do they want to go to the Balkans? I remember I had one of my favorite team leaders, he comes to me, he says, hey, sir, can you order me to go with you guys? I'm like, this is a volunteer only. We're not taking. No one's ordering you to go. And he goes, sir, just work with me. Can you order me to go? I'm like, you're in. You want to go, you got to volunteer. He goes, no, sir, order me. I'm like, all right, sergeant you ordered to go to Kosovo with us. Got Roger that. Thank you, sir. Anyway, a couple weeks later, I see his wife. She comes up, she's got tears in her eye. There you are. You're the one who made my husband go after he begged you not to go. You ordered him. You ordered him. And I'm like, okay, all right. But that was it. So, you know, motivation to go. Just good soldiering. I wanted guys who. And my platoon sergeant played a bigger role than I did. To be honest, in selection here, I certainly weighed in on the squad leaders. My platoon sergeant weighed in on everyone else. And we kind of worked down. We chose squad leaders we liked, but guys who could, who were motivated, who were able to lead well, who were. I wanted guys who could think well. Like, I've never liked the. I've liked. There's room for everyone in the army, But I love the guys who can think on their feet and be flexible in the way they thought and executed. You know, I like to test them with ambiguous situations where you can go one or two ways and watch them think through it. And I've always valued that in my. In my NCOs, NCOs who can, and officers who. Who can think flexibly. There's not just one answer, there's more than one answer. What's the best way to approach this? And that's what we look for. And again, physical fitness, all that counts as well. Probably too much, but that all. A guy with a 300 pt score was always the Army. It matters. [00:06:21] Speaker A: I think in the infantry, that's a totally appropriate screening criteria. [00:06:24] Speaker B: It's probably too much, but still. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Andre, how old were you when you came to the United states? [00:06:29] Speaker B: I was 10. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Okay, so you have a lot of memory of being in Europe then before you came over? [00:06:35] Speaker B: I do, yeah. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Had you been outside the United States much in between the time that you came to the United States and when you were deploying to the Balkans? [00:06:42] Speaker B: Really not, no. I wish I did more of that as cadet, but. But not much. In fact, I think I visited Europe a few more times seeing my grandmother and. But beyond that, it was. I was very happy to be in America. Happy to tour America. Didn't really have any interest. I took US history at West Point versus world history. Given a choice. So. [00:06:59] Speaker A: So this is your first time in uniform overseas? More or less. Okay. With this handpicked platoon and around that time period, 2001. This was pre 9 11. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Right before 9 11. Okay. I was there for 9 11. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Amazing. We need to talk about that here in just a minute. So that was kind of the mission happening, right? [00:07:16] Speaker B: It was the mission, yes. And we were the only folks. My company was taking direct fire every so often. We were the only folks taking direct fire. So everyone came to visit us. We had every. And I'm not going to denigrate Congress, but every. The end of every month, beginning of next, all the congressmen came for their two month tax free break. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Oh, 100%. [00:07:33] Speaker B: So we had a lot of congressmen for 31st, the first, and then they all went away and then. But yeah, we had a lot of. A lot of interest at the time, you know, that the Kosovo was the. This is the Macedonia insurrection is what we were dealing with. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:44] Speaker B: This was like the fourth or fifth Balkan War. We were very good at this by this point. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:48] Speaker B: So we were. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Was that considered a combat zone? [00:07:50] Speaker B: No, it wasn't. We had folks with purple Hearts and no. No combat patch. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was at that point, no combat patch, no CIB eligibility, but we did have folks not in my. My platoon, but we had folks injured mainly by landmines. [00:08:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:02] Speaker B: Who were then given Purple Hearts with no. With no combat patch. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Okay, that's. So that's technique, I guess. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah, they've modified that since. But at the time, that was the. That was the rule. [00:08:12] Speaker A: I remember that everyone was trying to get on those Balkan deployments because they were the only thing going for the conventional Army. [00:08:18] Speaker B: It was a phenomenal first deployment. And I think what I liked about it the most, Charlie, was, you know, deploying later to Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, there was no. The learning curve for a lieutenant was very, very steep. You know, you made a mistake, you might die, somebody may die in your command. I mean, you can make mistakes. It happens. We all make mistakes. But there was a brutal learning curve. The Balkans. I made lots of mistakes. And you could recover from them. And you learned on the fly because, you know, there were shooting. But it was. It was more of a. I think to some degree it was shooting just to shoot people shot in the air just to show us they're still there without really shooting to kill. So you could do dumb things. And lieutenants are entitled dumb things and not have a lethal consequence for it. [00:09:02] Speaker A: What was your headquarters over there? [00:09:04] Speaker B: We were attached. So I was attached from 3502 to 2502, and then we were attached to 3rd Infantry Division over in Camp Monteith. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Okay, all right. And you mentioned that you were there for 9, 11. What was that like for you and your troops? [00:09:18] Speaker B: Well, that was a crazy day. So the morning, if you know, it's different time zone, but that mid morning or so or later in the day, we get a call on the radio saying, hey, we're going to go to threat condition, like Delta minus something. I'm like, what does that mean? So everything but. So, you know, when you lock and load your rounds, we're going to bring out your M2 or 3 rounds. At the time, we didn't carry our 40 millimeter rounds, so we're going to bring out 40 millimeter to you. You're authorized to use. To do. Actually shoot more often. We had a very set ROE that was modified, and that made no sense, like, why? And they're like, just do it. All right. So we're sitting around, we're lock and loading rounds, trying to figure out what's going on. At that point, we were capturing people who were crossing back from Macedonia. Our job at that time was to interdict former Macedonian combatants who were coming back into Kosovo and ensuring they didn't bring Weapons across to ensure we were processing them. So I remember we were. I was supporting this mission as a lieutenant and we'd interdicted two Macedonian Albanians right as I we arrested them. Hands in the air. Hey, sorry, what happened to your country today? And I'm like, what happened to my country today? He goes, you didn't hear? You guys were attacked. I'm like, okay, really? So we go to a local's house, this gentleman who we worked with, and he went to and we knew him well, sat there on the radio, listened to Albanian radio. My interpreter was interpreting about the 911 attacks. And so actually I will say I got to with some pride, fire one of the first shots in the post 911 timeframe. So we had these two folks we captured. One was a lieutenant colonel intelligence from the Albanian National Liberation Army. And we told him, hey, go back, cross the border. Go talk to Commander Sokol, who's a commander of the nla. This Macedonian Albanian army. Expel Al Qaeda. I know you have Al Qaeda folks training you because there were this Al Qaeda units there training. I said, you need to capture killed, Bring them to us. Get him out of the country. And they actually went back, Commander Sokol immediately. Maybe other people did the same thing. I'm not just saying I did all. But they went back, crossed the border and they expelled these folks. And they were later captured in Bosnia. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Oh, amazing. [00:11:11] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know my role in that whole thing. I maybe tell up a little bit, but I was able to send folks across the border to go essentially try to interdict the Al Qaeda training teams in Macedonia very quickly. [00:11:23] Speaker A: That was such an interesting time. I think a lot of our listeners may have trouble understanding that this is pre smartphones. It's almost pre Internet. The Internet existed, but we didn't have access to it. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Oh, like AOL dial tone, right? You know what I'm talking about. [00:11:38] Speaker A: I was in the Republic of Korea when 911 happened. And in my entire company, we had two Internet connections. One was on my desk and one was in the company area. So of course we had CNN and everything else, but we didn't have this immediate access to the Internet and all the world's wisdom and knowledge. So it was hard to get information. And there was a lot of miscommunication and a lot of uncertainty. So your vignette about not Even knowing that 911 happened rings really true with me because I can see how that could happen. [00:12:05] Speaker B: It's crazy. And I will say that I really appreciated how much we were beloved by the Albanian people in Kosovo. And we still are. I take my daughter to an Albanian restaurant in Geneva, Switzerland sometimes and they'll give me free food, just say thank you. And these guys were infants when the time. But I think they really came together. And I was impressed by how much the people there were really sympathetic to the Americans. [00:12:28] Speaker A: After the attack, we had a similar situation. I was in the 2nd Infantry Division. My wife and I were assigned there in the town of Huijeongbu. And the post we were on was Camp Essayons doesn't exist anymore, given back to the Koreans. But the day after 9, 11 and the day of, while we were getting the news, because there's a big time difference there. Koreans would come up to the gate and leave us gifts. They had a big chain link gate, vehicle gate in the front, and they stuck bouquets of flowers all through that. I got messages from my Korean friends. Tell me about how much they hate terrorists and things like that. A lot of goodwill happened right away. [00:13:06] Speaker B: It was incredible to see that. I mean, I think the US was, we were a very loved country at the time. It's kind of hard to describe for those who weren't there. Being overseas. Post 9, 11 there was, and I'm, you know, this is, this is a Muslim country, right? This is coast Albanians are at that point were about 80%, you know, Muslim. And there was no sympathy with the, the attackers. It was entirely with the U.S. how [00:13:29] Speaker A: were you communicating with the locals while you're there? [00:13:31] Speaker B: I actually learned a bit of Albanian at a time. I've always loved languages and this is maybe why I became a fail growing up in Europe. I like languages. I, I learned a bit of Albanian enough to communicate some, some, you know, basic things. To have a, have a very basic non political conversation, to give commands and all that. And that was part of it. We had interpreters too who were great. But I really did enjoy the people there. I still love the Albanian people I meet. I go out of my way to see them in Europe, where a lot of them live. [00:14:00] Speaker A: When you run into Albanians either overseas or here in the U.S. do you speak to them in Albanian? [00:14:05] Speaker B: I got four or five words. That's what I remember. That's about it and not very well. I can say a few greetings and the rest is all. I learn languages quickly and I forget languages quickly. So I had it when I needed it and now it's. [00:14:15] Speaker A: What's the reaction when you speak Albanian to them? [00:14:18] Speaker B: It's greatly appreciated. I think we, as English speaking Americans, don't Appreciate the value of language, especially when there's a language and ethnicity are coming together. And ethnic Albanians, to them, it's a big deal. You've learned their language. It's a sign of I care about you, about your culture. Again, not everyone's this way, Right. English speakers were a bit spoiled. You go to Paris, speak French to a Parisian, they don't feel the same way, maybe because they're used to it. But I think if you're talking about a niche language anywhere in the world, be it Albanian, be it Thai, be it Indonesian, you know, be it Dari in Afghanistan, Arabic and Iraq, people really appreciate the fact you've tried even a few phrases, for sure. And in fact, I did that even I did encourage my whole career as an infantry officer. I encourage my soldiers to learn a few things. Hello, goodbye. Stop, I'm going to search your room. You know, a few basic phrases. You need read license plates in Arabic. Right? All these skills are important to communicate information, to do your job, both as a soldier, also to have a little bit of a relationship with the people. [00:15:18] Speaker A: You mentioned how ubiquitous the English language is. Again, going back to the time we had in Korea back in 2000, my wife and I were learning to read the Korean Alphabet, which is actually pretty easy. As, you know, Hangul, the Alphabet is a super easy thing to do. One of the ways we'd practice is the subway maps in Korea. Little pocket sized thing. On one side it was Korean, on the other side it was English. So we would, we would look at the Korean, sound it out, and then flip it over to make sure we got the place name right. [00:15:45] Speaker B: That's right. [00:15:46] Speaker A: And we were at Seoul station looking at the Korean side of the map. My wife was standing beside me, we were both looking the same thing. And a very helpful Korean man came over to me, pulled the map out of my hand, turned it over to English, put it back in my hand, patted me on the shoulder and walked off. [00:16:02] Speaker B: That's great. [00:16:02] Speaker A: It was hilarious. He thought he was helping me. I was like. But whatever. But yeah, it's really interesting how even to this day, the couple of words that I remember to speak to the Koreans, how they react to it goes a long way. [00:16:16] Speaker B: And again, we don't think anything of it. When someone comes to us and speaks they're from wherever in the world and comes to Times Square and speaks a few words of English, you think nothing of it. In fact, we often were judgmental. Hey, your English is kind of crappy, but I mean, for everyone else, it's a big Deal. And I think that I have to. I love the fact that West Point still has foreign language being a mandatory course. And I think every officer, every soldier should try to learn a few words wherever they're going, be it Korea, being it Iraq, Afghanistan, you know, Syria, anywhere you are. Learning a few words goes a long way just to understand and communicate, but also just to communicate that you care about the people you're dealing with, that you care enough about them to learn a few basic words. And that's all it's saying. I care about you enough to. I spent a bit of time learning about you. [00:16:59] Speaker A: Before you came to West Point. Did you have some foreign language proficiency built up already? [00:17:03] Speaker B: Just high school Spanish and a little bit of French as a kid. But, you know, we not, not, not good French at all. In fact, you can ask my French professor at West Point. I was not very proficient. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Well, but you built. You went on to build some considerable proficiency in a number of different languages. And one of the ways we measure that in the army is the dlpt, the Defense Language Proficiency Test. And I understand you, you took the DLPT in quite a number of languages, didn't you? [00:17:28] Speaker B: Taken in 10 languages, I think I passed in six. So. But I used it as a metric. So, for example, with Arabic, for example, going to Iraq, I had my lieutenant and I, we had a sort of a bet who can beat the commander on Arabic. And we all took the test before we deployed and we got back and, you know, it was a good experience. We all got, you know, 1, 10 plus 1. But it was at least enough to work on something with sort of a metric to succeed. The DLPT is a flawed test, but it's better than nothing. And it's a great way to. It's just a goal, right? And it's just a nice thing. You make money out of it. I mean, you can learn to a certain level. I love the fact that SOCOM has been paying soldiers at a 1:1 level. I think I wish the rest of the army would do the same thing, give you like a very achievable metric. 22 is hard to reach, but a 11 is doable for most soldiers in most languages. [00:18:14] Speaker A: That's pretty amazing that you and your soldiers can work up to that level of proficiency, especially being self taught. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Let me clarify that, Charlie. That made the DLPT harder to hear. So DLPT 5 versus DLPT 2. Ask first group about the change from the Indonesian DLP 2 to DLPT 5. A 0 plus in a DLPT 5 is not unimpressive I'll put it that way, versus a 0 plus on the old DLPT. 2 for Indonesian. Maybe you didn't study very hard. I'm just going to say it. [00:18:41] Speaker A: Well, I'm certainly not judging anybody. I took the DLPT in Korean and got a 00. [00:18:46] Speaker B: That's a tough language. Tough test. [00:18:50] Speaker A: All right. Eventually you parlayed your language proficiency and your affinity for foreign cultures into a job as a foreign area officer. But I imagine there was some more to your career before that, between the time you left the Balkans and the time you decided to go be a fao. So what happened in between that? [00:19:06] Speaker B: Well, I was an RI for a short time. I went to Florida FAO to be an instructor there for a short time. I really spent the time I was there trying to get back to deployable unit and ended up going back to command the same unit I was a lieutenant in. I had a general officer. General Anderson really went out of his way to get me pulled back to the unit. Branch was not happy. Infantry branch at that time had a light mech imperative which I was decidedly not following. My branch chief made that known that I was a bad officer. But the three star had a. Or that time the one star had a voice. But I went back to command and started in the deployment cycle for Iraq. I did two tours to Iraq with them, one as a company commander, one as sort of a special staff officer. But I really, at that time, I think what drove me to be a fail, it was never in my radar before this. I liked languages, I liked people. I liked learning Arabic and Albanian and I liked the people I dealt with. But I think I wanted to. Let me back up a second. I was a bit struck by how little understanding we had of the broader sociological society, things that are happening under the curtain. Right. So, you know, we're in Iraq talking about killing AIF and all this stuff, you know, politics. But I think we were missing a lot of the dynamics of the Sunni Shia divide. And I was there for the beginning when Samara Moss, of course was blown up and what was it, 2-06-06. And I think that we didn't appreciate. I certainly a lot of our leaders I dealt with weren't appreciating the Sunni Shia issues. They were taking place in Iraqi culture and how dealing with Iraqi security forces, our partners, how that shaped things, how, you know, where the ideology that was brought by AQI and the other groups, how it was impacting the average person. And I think for me, I was sort of, I thought I could do More good, so to speak, as a fail. Trying to help shape the narrative both before you deploy, but also in general understanding and helping give understanding to the leadership about what we were dealing with in a broader sense. I'm not here to argue about, you know, a rock, right or wrong, but we as a uniform force, how we handled the situation, I think left some room to be improved. Right. And I think this is what I want to do as a FAO to, to help to improve that situation, ensure that we came into conflicts in every level, understanding the people we're dealing with, understanding the social systems that we were affecting. If you want to overthrow a regime, if you want to, you know, remove Republican Guard from, from Iraq or, or IRGC from. From Iran, what are the dynamics, helping prop them up? Who are the opposition? Who are your allies? Who are your enemies? Who are the people in the middle? The vast majority. And how do you keep them in the middle or on your side? That was the piece which I think we weren't doing a good job and I felt that was my calling was to assist with that. [00:21:42] Speaker A: So what kind of things were you doing when you were on the ground in the moment to help mitigate that? [00:21:46] Speaker B: I think for me, I did a lot of product and that sounds bad. I guess it's the army officer Solution, make a PowerPoint slide. But I really worked with my. This is before we had company intel sales, which became a thing later on. But, you know, I was very big on building up that knowledge on the ground, winding it down, finish patrol. I had our fire support officer sort of lead this effort, you know, as battle captain start to really track the intelligence and not just here are the bad guys, here are the good guys. But let's understand which tribes are thinking what, why are they thinking this? Who can we, you know, where can I spend our effort? Who are the folks who are harboring the bad guy, so to speak? We call it AIF at the time. But who's harboring the aif? Who is our friends? And if you're our friend, how do we keep them our friends? Right. We had a whole big Shia enclave who were friendly, but how do you don't just take them for face value, how do you keep them on your side? So I think that was a big question and I've really tried to work with is really understanding the human dynamics of our battle space and then also educating. I had a great first sergeant and we solved it the same way, but ensuring we had at least one leader on the ground in each platoon who really understood that too. Some folks just want to kick indoors. [00:22:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:53] Speaker B: God bless them. There's a need for that. But some folks are just. Some of our NCOs are just. And some of our younger soldiers are great at this. And we're trying to identify those folks and put them in positions where they can impact that. And we did a lot of that as well. So it's a small level stuff. We're not changing anything in the big level, but trying to make my battle space better than when we got there by understanding and then when we had replacements, ensure they had the same detailed knowledge about which tribes were where, what they felt, who were our friends, enemies, who were our neutral people, and how do we keep them on the right side or right? [00:23:25] Speaker A: You left the Balkans, you came back to the United States, you were a Ranger instructor. [00:23:31] Speaker B: Yep, yep. Florida phase. Yeah. [00:23:33] Speaker A: You were a Ranger instructor down in Florida. And then you went off to your advanced course before command. [00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah, advanced course, then Florida phase. Got it and went right back to 101st. And I spent a short time as brigade battle captain and right into company command. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:23:48] Speaker B: And I had two years as a commander and then I spent a bit time afterwards. I sort of helped out with the next deployment. I deployed ahead of time for my brigade, kind of did some. We were kind of working on the fusion with JSOC at that time with the Baghdad fusion cell concept. I worked there a bit, trying to build that network up, try to get everyone together, getting everyone rolling together. And then I went off to be fao. And again, I really love the infantry. I do want to make sure that it was a very close call. I had some prayerful moments to decide whether to be FAO or say, infantry. My brigade commander, Colonel Todd Ebel, God bless him, he's a great, great commander, went out of his way to keep me infantry. He actually helped line me up a job as a. Well, I want to say it was a Netherlands exchange officer that he found. So I was very much given opportunity to stay infantry and keep doing some work overseas. But at the end of the day, part of it was just the deployment cycle, to be honest. I talk about noble purposes, but just the time. You remember the time Charlie. It was a year on, and then it was come back, maybe two weeks of leave. Then it was beginning the workup cycle again. Just brutal. Jrtc, you know, nice in the field. Just there was no rest. And I will say that was part of it, too. Just a bit of family time. [00:24:52] Speaker A: That's completely understandable, especially the time periods that we're talking right now. 06 to 09 or 10. It's pretty sporty in Iraq. [00:25:00] Speaker B: It was crazy. It was a lot rough and it was just lack of manpower. The Army, I mean there was such a demand for combat power. It was a tough time. [00:25:09] Speaker A: And young officers about your age in your year groups, they, they were, they were getting tired, they're getting broken, they're getting killed. And I remember the army was executing some pretty extraordinary measures to try to keep people in. Oh yeah, double below the zone promotions two years early. [00:25:25] Speaker B: We had that going on. [00:25:28] Speaker A: I was already a major. I missed out on this. Oh, I mean. But yeah, they were doing that. So it doesn't surprise me that you would make that decision for your family to branch out especially into something that it already seems that you have some pretty good proficiency and potential in. [00:25:42] Speaker B: It was enjoyable. And yeah, at the time we had 100% to major for my year group. They wanted, I mean there's such a shortage of people. They wanted folks to stay and get promoted and the army threw money at us. The army did a great job trying to, you know, obviously I stayed in for full career, so, so it worked on me. But there was great effort to keep people in. [00:25:58] Speaker A: When did you first find out that FAO was a thing? [00:26:00] Speaker B: You know, I, I don't even know to answer the question. I just sort of knew about it. I had friends and I, I was looking for something to do that was interesting and I, I had no real FAO mentor at the time. I didn't really know any FAOs. So I had kind of considered some functional area requirements and I remember reaching out to FAO branch directly and they were very supportive of giving me information on it and what it would involve. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Explain a little bit for our audience who might not be familiar the difference between branches and functional areas in the Army. [00:26:27] Speaker B: So a branch is your. It was 16, I guess now 17, I guess you had special forces. There's 18 or so core branches. That's your basic thing you do in the army, which is your, you wear on your, on your lapel, your branch, you know, captain of Infantry. Functional area is traditionally a secondary specialty where you had, you kind of went back and forth but is now for. And things are changing with the army. But it was, it became a full time thing. You went to functional area. So I was, you know, career field Management Field 11 Infantry Officer 11 Alpha. When I became a FAO I still had Captain infantry but I was now Functional Area 48 and I was now managed my infantry took my file, burned it, you know, whatever they did afterwards here. And I was transferred to Functional Area 48, Operations Support Career field. And at that point, I'm measured against other operations support officers. I'm promoted with other officers in my career field. And it's different. Right. So a lot of functional areas have a different command requirement. So the infantry most, you know, core areas have a very clear command position requirements. Get promoted with fail or a lot of other functionalities. Command's less important. All jobs are important, so to speak, not just your key developmental positions. It becomes every job. So you're not really on this sort of command. You're doing a variety of different jobs. You're not so tied to a career timeline. You're not so tied to certain metrics you have to achieve to make the next rank. [00:27:47] Speaker A: When you were in Iraq with the 101st, did you also take some time to learn Iraqi customs in the Arabic language? [00:27:54] Speaker B: I sure did, yeah. So I spent some time learning Arabic. I like to practice it. It was actually great because we were in a very difficult area as a commander, and I was able to. Often we couldn't bring interpreters because of too high risk for them. So often it was a chance for me to get out there and speak as well. And frankly, for me, Charlie, I love being a platoon leader. I like command a little less. I'm a bit more of a do it myself kind of guy. I'm not one to sit behind a rock and give orders on a radio. I prefer to be out in the front. And you don't need a bunch of captains running around a rock. You know, my lieutenants didn't appreciate that learning language, being able to communicate, gave me a reason to be out there with them. You know, I remember knocking on doors with an engineer squad saying, we're going to, you know, blow up this bridge. You need to evacuate. I could do that Basic linguistics. And it gave me a reason to be out there, you know, plus, it was great to talk to people. It was, you know, people knew me for learning a language. I didn't. I wasn't fluent, but I could certainly communicate with people again. I also encouraged my soldiers to learn a language, too. We had a checklist for all soldiers. I built a whole language system for my company. We had every soldier to learn certain things, such as basic, you know, stop, I'm searching your house. You know, please go in the corner and learning how to read a license plate on a key skill. If you've got a car driving away fast and you want to have a Apache interdict you should probably learn what the license plate says besides just white bongo truck moving west. It's always a white bongo truck, right? It's a rock. But reading the plate, hey, the plate number is so and so. And you know, we had some basic skills. I had higher skills for the NCOs and for the team leaders and for the platoon sergeant platoon leaders. We had higher skills built like a company test. [00:29:20] Speaker A: How did your soldiers react to that? [00:29:22] Speaker B: You know, it all depends. Some guys thought it was awesome, some guys thought it was a waste of time. But hey, orders are orders. I had a phenomenal first sergeant, he was supporting it. Platoon sergeants two enthusiastically, one reluctantly, but escorted it once the platoon sergeants were on board. You won the battle. Like, I don't like it. They all passed the test and they said it. I watched them clear rooms and they're saying, you know, they're, they're giving commands in Arabic. Stop vehicles. They're saying, you know, Ogaf, you know, and they're pulling out. They're reading license plates and. Which I appreciated. And getting clear intel reports. Hey, I got a suspicious white bongo. Here's the, here's a license plate. That's great. Pass that to aviation and see what we do. Follow it. [00:29:59] Speaker A: And for our listeners who don't understand the difference, we refer to the numbers that we use in the English language as Arabic numbers. And they're based on Arabic numbers. But Arabic numbers look way different. [00:30:09] Speaker B: They do. [00:30:10] Speaker A: And if you don't know what they are, then it's just a bunch of squiggles. [00:30:13] Speaker B: If nothing else. Read a license plate. I'm serious. You want to task a drone or a helicopter to go follow a target, read the plate. There's a lot of trucks look very similar in this world. A whole bunch of Hyexes and bongos that are colored white. Yes. Running around there. Hard to give an aviator instruction to follow a white bongo through a city without some better instructions. [00:30:32] Speaker A: 10 Hilux, you're just going to blow up everything. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:30:36] Speaker A: All right, so after those deployments, you come back and you go through the process of applying for and becoming fao. Can you describe to our audience what the application process was and what your training was for this? [00:30:49] Speaker B: Sure. Well, the application has changed completely. At the time it was much more of a, it was more of a set day. Everyone in my year group agreed in the same day to go to a functional area or state based branch. It's more of a rolling process now. The key thing was being branch qualified with, with good oers. I'm not sure what the definition of good was. I'm sure that it depends in the year. But you know, good oers in your branch qualifying position. So again, as a commander, you finish at least one year successfully. You had decent oer. That was, that was a requirement. You had to pass a. The, you had to get a GRE score. You had to pass the, what's that language proficiency test you used to have DL. [00:31:23] Speaker A: D lab. [00:31:23] Speaker C: D lab. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Had to get a good D lab score. It was part of it too. A few tests you had to take. You know, PT test. Photographed the whole army board file and went up there into a black box. And they selected FAOs. At the time, FAO was pushing hard for people who were taking hard to fill assignment areas. So within FAO they had trouble that time filling South Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East, East Asia. If you put down South America or Europe, you were less likely to be selected. So there was value. And I called branch. They told me that, hey, listen, if you put down anything but Europe or South America, you're a luck. You put down Europe. 50. 50. So I mean, that was part of it too. Choose a region that, that was in demand for fao. [00:32:07] Speaker A: I applied for FAO out of Korea. I really enjoyed my time there. As a company commander in 102nd MI for 2nd Infantry Division, I had the Linguist company. So everybody in that company except for the officers and the supply sergeants was fluent Korean. That was their job. [00:32:24] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:32:25] Speaker A: 98 Golfs, I think was. It was the MLS of the time. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Smart soldiers too. [00:32:28] Speaker A: Smart soldiers, very talented. I love those guys. I'm still in contact with a lot upstanding, but I never had any proficiency or, or aptitude for it. I did pretty well on the D lab, but when I, when I applied for it, I got offered Sub Saharan Africa, if I remember correctly, because nothing else is like my, my scores and aptitude and ability. A lot of people already come in knowing one of these languages. They were like, hey, we'd consider you. It wasn't even a hard acceptance. We'd consider you for Sub Saharan Africa. And it's like, ah, that doesn't really sound like a lot of fun for me. So I went and did other things, but always had a lot of respect for those guys. So you got picked up for the FAO program. What was your training pipeline? [00:33:09] Speaker B: The training program for FAO is great. It was a long time not getting oer, so it does make it hard to get promoted to, to major. But you know, they, they are cognizant of that when they select you, they want guys who can make major. I went to dli, Monterey, California, which is wonderful. I mean I love this dive and the diving there out of this world. And so my, my life consisted of learning Thai language for about eight hours a day and then diving shore dives after, after school in a beautiful place. It was a phenomenal assignment. Just wonderful. Wife in class with me. They, they fail as your wife. Learn if you want with amazing or your spouse with you if you want to. So it's a great class. Languages are different. Like instructors are local. So I learned Thai. Thai instructors are. It's a friendly, friendly culture. My friend learning Russian, different story, a lot of tears. But DLI was great. I need to get past through a two, two at least. But three, three was the goal. After a year of language and the languages are different length, I actually had a chance to do a few months to kill. They had me do Tagalog for three months as well. So I came out with two languages at a DLI at a passing level. But Thai was my control language. [00:34:15] Speaker A: Well, Thai is interesting. That's a completely different Alphabet, right? [00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah, Thai is very different. And so I get to learn the Alphabet, learn as a tonal language too. So tones matter. And so it was a tremendous challenge as a 30 something year old man to learn speak Thai. But anything else, you have a year to do nothing but learn Thai. You still dive apparently and dive. I mean it's optional. But it's a great year. DLI could not say enough good things about dli so I finished Thai and then I do a bit of Tagalog as well. I passed the test and I'm sent to foreign staff college, which was a wonderful experience. So I went to staff college in Thailand, the Royal Thai Army Command General Staff College. An ILE equivalent at the time that it gave me full credit for US ile, nice. But I go there. So I go to Thailand. I spend six weeks in a course for foreign students. I'm in a class with just foreign students with eight countries including the US So including a Chinese student. Got students from Korea, from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, India. And we're just learning military dialogue like any other language. There's a whole different way to speak, of course. And then I go to Thai staff College and 288 students in a big building drinking water from fire hose. I thought I could speak Thai until my first day of class. And it was just, it was crazy. Instructors calling me all the time, come up and speak about American, American things. But What a great experience, Charlie. What a great way to learn. You know, we traveled around the world. I went to China with the Thai army staff college, visited Beijing, got a briefing from, you know, places Americans can't go because I'm with the Thais. Just a phenomenal experience and really learning how people think. And I'll say for my Feiyo friends know, I've been very much pushing. There's been a push to shorten the Feijo training timeline. And I get it. I understand the reason why. But they're looking to cut that foreign CGSE component because it's long, but, you know, it's a great experience. And by the way, you're out there with people who don't speak any English, who have no chance to visit the US and you're the American. Every year, there's Americans in these foreign staff colleges who are representing America to them and all the things they want to know about America. They've watched movies, they've seen Black Hawk Down. They want to know if the real army's like that. And so they ask all kinds of questions about what life's like, what the American Army's like, and you can answer them and really have that interaction. So just the greatest experience. And if anyone is listening, who has a chance for any reason to go to foreign staff college, could not recommend it more. [00:36:32] Speaker A: What proficiency level did you have in speaking Thai when you came out of the defense languages? [00:36:36] Speaker B: Well, I came with a 33 and ended with a 3. 3 size. You can go. But I was tremendously more proficient afterwards. I could speak, you know, fluent Thai. I could ride an op, order in Thai. I could do anything I needed to do. I mean, there's. There's always room for improvement. I remember being asked to explain how to prepare an mre, and that being a little bit challenging. Some of the words to for, you know, I didn't even quite know, but you get very good at the language by a sheer year of immersion. I dreamed in Thai, you know, I'd go to bed and think and tie. It was all. You really get into the language after a while. Immersion is the way to learn a language. Well. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Was your wife similarly engaged in the culture while you were over there? [00:37:11] Speaker B: She was. We had young kids at the time, so she was out there. And there's a bit of an American bubble. And the advantage of being in a staff college versus an embassy, like later assignments is, you know, there's a. You get an American and foreign bubble. My wife's friends were Australians, Americans, British. You're not really speaking much. She's out there doing it, but not like me having to do it every day again. And that's the issue with embassy assignment. Same thing. You get in a bubble where people speak English, you're not forced to speak the language. [00:37:38] Speaker A: So is the FAO pipeline just getting selected and go to DLI and then [00:37:42] Speaker B: some type of emergency. So there's four parts to it. So DLI is number one. At some point you gotta do a week long FAO introduction course, which is a blockcheck, and you go to foreign Staff College or some type of in country training. Now it's called In Region Training irt. And finally you get a master's degree. So you have to get a master's degree in international Relations or regional studies with a focus on your region. So I went to Yale. Of course, you were with me at Yale the year after me. Being a FAO is a great way to get into Yale. They certainly couldn't get in off the street, but they offer a full scholarship. You go there, you have to do the two year program in a year and a half. So you have to kind of accelerate, focus your classes on Southeast Asia, in the region. I learned Indonesian over there for a course. I took some great classes. And once you finish your grad school, your master's degree, now you're a qualified fao. My first assignment was as an attache head to go to JMAS and Security Cooperation course where I spent another six months training with the army on assignment skills. So really it was really a four and a half year pipeline time I started being a FAO until I finished the FAO course, the Language Staff College, Grad School, JMass, DIA. The Security Cooperation course. [00:38:49] Speaker A: J Massa joined military attache. [00:38:50] Speaker B: Attache school, Yep. And then we had to do the Security Cooperation Management course too, so. And then I had to do defensive driving, counterterrorism, all the sort of living overseas courses, which was a lot of fun. So yeah, four and a half years pipeline to really get from, from an infantry officer to a fully qualified Fayo going to an embassy. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Why did you decide to go to Yale? That's a pretty significant investment. It's not a cheap school. Why did Fayo invest that in you instead of sending you to Georgia Tech or something like that? [00:39:18] Speaker B: You know that they pay the same. They have a sort of set amount of lane and they've changed the rules on it. Use, like high cost, low cost, medium cost. But really the difference was Yale met the difference, got it, and so they offered. So army paid what it was like 30,000 a year, 20,000. It was nothing huge. And Yale met the difference. I had a scholarship from Yale to go there, so part of it was a scholarship. And I will say that all schools are good. I think Yale was great for our job. Again, I had a lot of classmates who were State Department, who were CIA, who were foreigners. I think half our Yale class were foreigners. So, I mean, I'm talking about drone strikes. Sitting next to a Pakistani military officer who's got strong opinions about drone strikes in western Pakistan. It was a great chance to meet different people. And still when I travel the world, when I fly to Japan and I got a few hours at the airport, I call one of my classmates who's helped meet me up, go get fish at 4am True story. You know, in the fish market and in Tokyo, I've talk to my classmate in Turkey all the time. It's a really cool network. And I think for being a fao, there's a lot of great schools. But Yale was perfect for me. [00:40:18] Speaker A: My experiences were very similar. I don't know if it was the same for you, but I had reservations before going there. I wasn't sure how I'd be accepted. You and I went significantly later in life than a lot of our classmates. [00:40:31] Speaker B: We did. [00:40:32] Speaker A: And we were both combat veterans. [00:40:33] Speaker B: Yep. [00:40:34] Speaker A: What were your thoughts about Yale before you went there and did anything change while you were there? [00:40:39] Speaker B: No, I think I really liked the people there and I think you and I had the same experience. Yale did a great job building a class. They had a little bucket. So you and I both were competing for the military bucket. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:48] Speaker B: So we were just, you know, pool of two, pool of one, select one. Right. Another bucket was Peace Corps. Other buckets were, you know, folks in development studies. Other folks were foreigners. So it was a very developed to be a very well rounded class. And we have talked about it there. We had some great classmates who were very different people who were coming from Peace Corps development backgrounds. And I think we also. They. They have. They learned about the military. They, they. A lot of folks thought the army was a bunch of baby killers in uniform running around their, you know, bayonets and their, their rifles. And I think it was a great chance to learn about. We all have the same goals and still great. A lot of great friends. Right. We talked to all very focused on Yale, certainly on sort of public service in different ways to do public service, be it being a member of it Japanese foreign ministry in the US Be it being an American military, being a member of USAID or State Department or a ngo. Everyone's trying to do what they thought was the right thing. And it turns out that we all have sort of the same goal, right? Being an army officer or being at work for an NGO supporting women's rights overseas. We are trying to make the world a better place. That was the bond I think we all had. [00:41:52] Speaker A: I think you'd agree with that 100%. Many ways to serve, and the way that you and I do is one of many. [00:41:58] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. [00:42:00] Speaker A: And I appreciated the way that Jim Levinson ran the program over there, had it set up. Like you, I'm still in contact with a lot of my classmates. One of. One of the women that was a year behind me was the ambassador's aide in the Philippines when I was stationed. That was kind of like my. My last overseas assignment, and she got us access to the. The ambassador and just great. Had a great time with her and her husband doing karaoke, experiencing Filipino cut culture. [00:42:28] Speaker B: You got a video of that, Charlie, if you're karaoke, anything you put on the air. [00:42:31] Speaker A: I love me some karaoke, but I'm terrible at it. So my wife and my daughters have to carry the karaoke. [00:42:37] Speaker C: Very good. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Very good for our family. [00:42:39] Speaker B: But Keith's girlfriend, Asia, family. [00:42:40] Speaker A: The way that we do it. At my house, we have cadets over pretty regularly. The first time they come over the house, they have to do karaoke and play an instrument. And it's a no judgment zone, because, as you know, because you went to school here, a lot of cadets have a lot of hidden talents that they'll never talk about unless you make them do it. Well, I wouldn't do this otherwise, but I see your piano over there, so let me bang this thing out real quick. Or they have. Everyone loves to sing. We had the Polish platoon of cadets because there's a lot of Poles here. Had the Polish platoon over. I'm like, hey, guys, here's the rules. This is an icebreaker. We're gonna do karaoke. Here are all the instruments you can play. And they insisted they didn't know any American pop song. It's like, I don't believe you. We're honored by you guys. So country roads put on. And everybody knows that. And what a great culture experience. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Karaoke is huge. This is a fail. You got. I'm a terrible, terrible singer. Anyone who knows me will attest, but you just have to try. [00:43:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:34] Speaker B: And you do it one time, they know not to ask you again. We've learned our lesson, Andre. But I'll tell you this is maybe me being a bad fail, but I, you know, some general officers came out all the time to visit us overseas and the aide reach out, hey, the gentleman doesn't want to do karaoke. I'm like, oh, really? Because he not. I'll make sure that general does karaoke at that point. Yeah, you got to do it. It's part of the cultural experience, especially for senior officers visiting region. [00:43:58] Speaker A: And again, it's no judgment. [00:43:59] Speaker B: No, no judgment. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Wants you to be good. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Not at all. No, you just get out there and [00:44:03] Speaker A: do the cultural thing. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Sing badly and, you know, be upfront. [00:44:07] Speaker A: Well, before we move on to talk about more of your experiences as a fao, would you recommend a school like Yale to either people who are in the military looking at grad schools or for veterans? [00:44:18] Speaker B: 100%. 100%. Yale is a great program. I'm very active in the Yale Alumni association right now in Texas. I'm also involved in West Point association, but it's just a great school. They're all very good. I think all these schools, they're all very good programs. The key thing is they care about the graduates. But Yale was exceptional. I still hire a lot of Yale interns for my. Had a pipeline of interns for my company I run, renting them in for summer work. So yeah, they're very good. My friends who went to Johns Hopkins thought it was great too. Georgetown, great school. I won't say anything good about Harvard, but other schools are all good schools. [00:44:52] Speaker A: I think we're contractually obligated to badmouth Harvard and Navy. [00:44:56] Speaker B: I think so too. So other than Harvard and Navy, you can't go wrong. [00:45:00] Speaker A: Okay, great. So at this point in your training pipeline, you are done with grad school at Yale and you go on to JMass after that. [00:45:06] Speaker B: JMass and also the security cooperation course. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Can you talk about those briefly? [00:45:11] Speaker B: Yeah, J Mass was great. J Mass is actually a school which people tend to downplay, but it's really how to be diplomatic. And they're teaching. A lot of guys who are. A lot of 06s go there, who are submariners, who are aviators coming out of the fleet, coming out of the Air Force, who are learning basics of working overseas. I won't ruin the surprise because there's a lot of scenario exercises there, but you do some SERE training. You do things like learn how to take pictures, learn how to deal with media questions, a lot of great role playing. It's a very well run course. I really enjoyed it. Again, I think it's great My wife was in it too. They have a course for spouses. They overlap a little bit at one point where again, not to ruin surprise, we're taken hostage as a group by a bunch of. And in practice our sear skills where our wives all watch on video. [00:45:53] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:45:53] Speaker B: So it was actually a very well run course. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Being a military attache is different than [00:45:58] Speaker B: being a FAO there. So as a FAO is a general qualification to run billets overseas. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:05] Speaker B: An infantry officer could take a FAO billet without a problem. I'm really getting into some HRC weeds right now. JMS is the qualification to be an attache. And at the time we had what was called the scam o Security Cooperation Management Overseas course was a qualification via Security Cooperation Officer. But FAO was sort of how the army allocates those billets. But a infantry officer, you know, colonel who goes to JMAs and can go fill an attache billet fully is fully qualified to do so. And there's various qualifications for different billets, there's different schools. Certain countries have high threat driving training required. Some schools have. And it changes all the time. Some kind different schools, different requirements. But you sort of qualify in a joint level for the these assignments through a course like JMAS or through whatever pipeline is attached to JMAs. [00:46:51] Speaker A: Did you have a favorite course or program when you were in grad school? [00:46:54] Speaker B: Oh, good question. I think it depends on the teachers. You know, we had some great teachers. I really enjoyed the courses that involve thinking and talking as a group about things from a different perspective, frankly. I loved our Introduction to Global affairs course, to be honest, because it was all of us together forced to talk about different issues every day. There's nothing else. I enjoyed a lot of classes. There's nothing. I just thought was a wonderful, wonderful course. The one I will say that I thought was actually. I will take that back. The international law was. I took that to law school was just a phenomenal course. And I cite it all the time. I think I had the course law at West Point. But international law is such an important or transnational law as they call it. There is such an important course and as a FAO now working in business overseas, it's a whole different set of law. And I think that was the best course I took very, very, very hard because Yale Law is no joke and I'm not a lawyer, but what a worthwhile course. [00:47:48] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of great programs there and you mentioned a lot of great students. I also remember talking with some of my Pakistani classmates. We had. I think we had Two. [00:47:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:47:58] Speaker A: In my year. And we had some very interesting conversations about the Haqqani network. Very different perceptions on what that organization did and is and who they're run by. So a lot, a lot of exchanges on that. [00:48:10] Speaker B: 100%, I think I'd say one thing, and this is probably not popular advice, but I think as a West Point graduate going to a military run grad school like NPS in Monterey, probably not the best way to round yourself out. Having been an academy grad, you sort of live in a bit of a bubble here, to be very frank. And grad school being getting out there out of the bubble and talking to folks from different positions, different viewpoints, different sides is very helpful in any job. If you're coming out of any regular school, you go to nps, that's great. But I think for us being educated at sort of the West Point environment, then going to Yale was wonderful for broadening those horizons, for sure. [00:48:47] Speaker A: I have one core memory of you. You and I were friends in grad school. You helped me out. You're a year ahead of me. I remember you telling me that you were going to learn Indonesian while you were there. Now you're doing a two year course in a year and a half already and you learned Indonesian on top of it. And I remember we were in the macmillan center and I was walking by on a way to class or something. I don't remember what it was, but you were in there with a group of Indonesians. You were giving them a briefing in Indonesian after just having learned it on your own that semester. It was pretty impressive. [00:49:18] Speaker B: I appreciate that. I mean, Indonesian is a very easy language to learn, as Asian languages go. But yeah, it was a great course there and I really enjoyed learning there. And I actually had a chance. Yale sent me to Indonesia for a summer at Yale's Expanse to go sort of, I to do some, write some papers about U.S. policy. But really I was just traveling and talking to people. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:49:34] Speaker B: And I loved that was a great trip because I was taking, you know, trains and buses, getting with the people and really just sitting down next to some person on a train and having a good conversation and really practicing my language, but also understanding, you know, what regular people think. We get in this sort of bubble of elite, so to speak. I wear elite loosely, but this sort of diplomats and sort of, you know, everybody's a son of somebody and everybody's wealthy and we're all kind of, we're all sort of Western educated. And that's a different world than the kind of man on the street, so to speak. And I loved that. Was a great trip because A, I'm talking to just people and all their questions and talking Indonesian with people. And B, just a great chance to really practice the language, really the speaking language. Right. How do you talk to people? Just the different ways to register your tone based on different people's status. It was a great experience. And that was, I think, one thing that you can't beat at the Yale experience was that summer overseas and really learning how people think in the country, not just how elites think. [00:50:32] Speaker A: What was your first job as a fully qualified? Fail. [00:50:35] Speaker B: Best job in the army I ever had. I was our attache and security cooperation chief to the eight countries of the southwest Pacific, so based in Fiji, covered Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Tatanga, Nauru, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands of Vanuatu. Just a phenomenal, phenomenal job. Best I had, period, full stop. Very lucky to have that job. It's now been diluted. My job is now like four jobs that added more people, unfortunately. But it was great. [00:51:01] Speaker A: And you were able to go with your family? [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yes, so my family lived in Fiji with me, which is less nice than you might think. We lived in sort of the port city part, not the tourist area part. My wife didn't like it much, to be honest. I was deployed and I was traveling for like six to seven months out here because I had to go to Papua New guinea every month, had to go to Tonga every month, had to go to Solomon's, Vanuatu, different countries, but it was just a great job. And you're dealing with. At that time, Fiji had a military dictatorship. Papua New guinea had a very messy democracy. Tonga had a monarchy transitioning to democracy. They had troops in Afghanistan, tiny countries like Nauru and Tuvalu dealing with climate change issues, dealing with naval issues, bringing in naval vessels, sitting there, trying to talk to a navy commander about bringing a ship into a port, learning about air force issues, learned all about Runway capacity, learned about. I learned so much about so many things even I had. We were like, I was a NCIS port inspector or NCIS NCIS MWR inspector. I got certified as a Coast Guard port inspector. So I just travel and I go to someplace like Nauru. Again, Nauru is in the middle of nowhere and I'm inspecting the port for the coast Guard. I'm inspecting the MWR facilities, dive, dive companies for ncis. I'm doing consular interviews for the consular office. I'm doing my defense thing. I'm going out on a police ocean going vessel too, because The US Were paying for their fisheries, and I'm doing the fisheries patrol with these guys. I'm meeting the president under the ambassador's auspices. It was a phenomenal job to do everything, to be really a whole of government in one person for these tiny countries. I really, really enjoyed that job. [00:52:35] Speaker A: How long did you have that assignment? [00:52:37] Speaker B: Three years. [00:52:37] Speaker A: Okay. And was that considered a good assignment in Fayo? [00:52:43] Speaker B: I made it a good assignment. I mean, any assignment's good or bad. So I was actually got some awards. It was really easy to do if you take it seriously. Any job, there's no bad jobs or good jobs. I think people saw it, you know, that they fail. Career track was like, hey, go someplace with a big embassy like the Philippines. Learn from the bottom. But I think over there, just being out there, you're meeting everyone out there. I'm meeting four stars. I'm meeting from the US Government. I'm meeting all the senior leadership. I'm advising directly to their offices about things to do. And these are countries no one knew anything about. Nobody in even Pac Fleet knew much about Tuvalu. And so you're able to provide advice directly to high levels versus if you're someplace like the Philippines. A lot of folks have a lot of experience there. So it was very good. I did very well for me in my career. I certainly got promoted out of the job and got good evaluations, got some awards for it. [00:53:28] Speaker A: Where'd you go after that? [00:53:30] Speaker B: I came back to the US For a short time for some training and then went to Laos after that. [00:53:33] Speaker A: Wow. And Laos speaks Lao, Right. [00:53:37] Speaker B: Which is similar to Thai. I could learn. And I actually. Some money. I got some. The attache corps sort of spent some money getting me certified in Laos. But it was similar enough to Tai. I could do that very quickly on my own. But that was a phenomenal assignment, too. I really enjoyed Laos. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Well, what was interesting or attractive about Laos? [00:53:57] Speaker B: Laos is very much a living in the Cold War. And so if you think about the history of the US And Laos, Right. We were in Vietnam in a big way. We had a sort of, at the time, a clandestine operation, Laos that became well known. We ended up putting some effort into Laos in order to deal with the various groups there. And we ended up sort of latching onto an effort to arm and deal with the Hmong folks there. We had a whole agency operation out of Udon. We sent Air America folks in to go provide support. A lot happening there. Well, we went away. The US probably, to be frank, didn't treat our allies very Nicely sends them back. But the war continued. So to this day, they're still among separatists fighting in this one mountain there. And Laos is convinced the US is still behind this. Right. So we're dealing with the Cold War still on as far as they're concerned. So we're dealing with a lot of that suspicion. But Laos is a country which is just. It's very traditional. They're very independent, they're very proud, they're very laid back about everything. Tell us some stories over drinks at some point with you. But they're just a very laid back country about everything. They're anti American, but in a friendly way. And it's also a bit of the most Eisley of Asia, right? You have North Koreans there, you have Russians there, you have Chinese there. Everyone's there in Laos. It's sort of the place everybody goes. And so a lot of stuff happening, a lot of interesting things happening on the ground in Laos, I'll put it that way. [00:55:19] Speaker A: I love the Moss Eisley reference. I can just see that in my head right now. You in a center of scum and villainy overseas, doing great things for America. [00:55:29] Speaker B: There's a lot of very odd people in Laos, I'll put it that way. Who are there? Expats who come there and just sort of set up shop. But what a great place. And my wife loved Laos too. It's very friendly. I love the country and you know, it's. It's small, it's undeveloped, but they're very traditional. You want to go see, and I tell anyone to visit. If you want to go see old Southeast Asia, go visit Laos. Beautiful, friendly people. Very traditional, very. You get out in the wilderness in Laos, there's people who are just living like they're in the Stone Age. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Wow. [00:55:58] Speaker B: It really is that way with a few. And by. By choice, not because of lack of opportunity, just live in the mountains and [00:56:03] Speaker A: a simple way of life. [00:56:04] Speaker B: People go hunt for, you know, hunt and gather and plant some. Some local food and kind of like living away from the government. I don't tell anybody. Don't speak any Vlao, don't speak any English. They speak AKA or Hmong or something and just live in the hills and do their thing. It's a very cool place. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Where did you go after that? [00:56:22] Speaker B: I went back to the US And I gotta be careful what I say here. But I went to a unit in San Antonio which supported special operations missions. Ended up deploying to Afghanistan with them and enrolled as a FAO sort of and then I guess I can't talk too much about this job, but it was a interesting deployment and interesting mission. [00:56:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:56:40] Speaker B: And I finished my career working there, working very hard to expand our ability to work with allies and partners overseas. [00:56:48] Speaker A: Thinking back over the entirety of your career, but especially your time as a fao. [00:56:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:53] Speaker A: What were some career highlights or some big takeaways for you from that experience? [00:56:58] Speaker B: I think it's really important to be able to speak to policymakers in an intelligent, succinct way by email, by voice, by PowerPoint slide. You have very little time to explain to people what's happening in these countries. And I think the human mind, and certainly the military mind. Right. We're taught at West Point and we're raised to think very decisively about things, to think in a very black and white way. And the world tends to be a lot grayer than maybe we see it as. And I think being a fail is explaining very quickly in a way without overwhelming them to our policymakers first, knowing what's happening and then being able to explain that quickly and effectively. You know, here is a good policy decision you can make in this country vis a vis this. Here's how we can engage the Papua New Guinea Defense Force. How engage the Lao government in a way which is positive, constructive, not going to cost taxpayer a lot of money. This is important, you know, knowing our objectives, our broader US Policy goals, military and otherwise, and then being able to explain quickly how do you handle that policy, how do you deal with these countries? How can you, General so and so or Secretary so and so quickly affect this in a positive way. That's an effective fail. Knowing what's going on, communicating clearly to both the host nation and to our government, what's happening. And I've seen a lot of failures to understand and I think there's, you know, we don't expect the newly assigned four star in US Foreign Pacific to understand anything about Tongan society, but you have to be able to teach him very quickly what he needs to know, and not just him, but his staff in a very clear, concise way. If you can do that well, that's the most important fail skill. You can be the expert, but if you can't communicate that effectively to your own side, you're not really doing very much for anybody. Communicating, understanding, communicating quickly and coherently is a critical skill. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Andre, what advice would you offer to someone looking to follow in your footsteps to Fayo? [00:58:54] Speaker B: That's a great question, Charlie. I'd say first of all, just talk to foreigners. Often and so I think the biggest regret I have from my time at West Point, if I could change one thing about myself as a West Point cadet or even later on at army courses, is really spend time getting to know the foreign students. Everyone at West Point, everybody at every army course you go to, is an elite soldier, elite officer. They're not just johnny on the street got picked to go to school, right? These are great people. My classmates from West Point, I got one of my classmates the Prime Minister of Cambodia. I have classmates. Our general officers are senior businessmen in their countries. I have classmates who've fallen their sword trying to promote anti corruption measures in their country. Whenever you go to course, I think oftentimes we army students, we often judge, hey, this guy, he's a bit of a weirdo, doesn't speak English well. He wants to go eat his weird fish stuff in the corner. These are great people to know. And now in my post army career, I've talked to a lot of foreign graduates of West Point on army courses who are my main contacts overseas, who also can do what I like to do is be able to communicate both to their country and to an American audience. So yes, number one is to talk to foreigners at West Point, really get to know them, really appreciate, learn their stories. Number two, I'd say is just learn a language, any language. And if you're deploying overseas, learn how to learn a language. It's important. Learn how to learn. If you can learn how you learn, we all learn differently. To teach yourself something, that's another important skill. And third thing is just be curious, you know, really get out there and be curious about the world. Like keep asking questions. Don't just take, you know, learn how to think in the gray a little bit. FAO's got to be comfortable in that gray area between, you know, black and white. The last thing I'd say is just know your basic branch. I mean, you have to be a good base branch officer. You have to bring something to the table. When you go to wherever you are, Thailand, Laos, Papua New guinea, they want to hear your war stories. They want to hear, you know, something you, you know, I've been a. I dealt with this issue before. I had a Humvee breakdown in the middle of nowhere. Here's how we fixed the issue. We ran out of pol. We couldn't call for fire because we couldn't communicate at this point, you know, I couldn't side our mortars because the ground was too muddy. You have all these stories you can tell. This goes a long way, it's building credibility. It's having to say, so be a good base branch officer. And also with a big army, I mean, be able to communicate with the big army. The army doesn't really know much about FAOs. You have to be able to be a good infantryman first or a good aviator first. Last thing I'd say is to stay in shape. It's honest, a big deal nowadays. But, you know, you go overseas, you get a lot of good food, you have to go out drinking at night. No one tells you to do pt. You go see that credibility. If you go see a visiting general and you're pretty out of shape, they'll judge you for it. Maybe not listen to your advice. It's probably not a good thing we do in the army, but we do it. We're a very judgy culture, so definitely stay in shape. As a fao, being a fail, just be fit. That goes a long way. At least appear fit and nothing else. [01:01:38] Speaker A: I think a lot of that is good advice for any leader. Stay in shape. [01:01:41] Speaker B: Yep. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Talk to foreigners, know your job. And especially for people that are out there operating largely independently or with a perception of independence, I think that that perception that you mentioned is very important. Goes a long way. Also. 100% part of being able to communicate effectively is. Is the messenger. [01:02:00] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Did you shave today? Do you have a haircut? How does your uniform fit? All these things matter. And we could say that they shouldn't, but they do. [01:02:07] Speaker C: They do. [01:02:08] Speaker B: If you're a commander, a patrol base, whatever, in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria, wherever. And you have a visitor come in. Look the part, you know, you wanted him to take away one thing, the visiting general to take away one thing. Make sure you communicate that point clearly and make sure you're a credible messenger. To your point, it's for everybody. Right. It's not a good thing we do that way, but we are, as an army, we judge by appearances. And it is what it is. It's not going to change. [01:02:33] Speaker A: It absolutely matters. So, Andre, you mentioned that you're back here at West Point. Why are you here today? [01:02:37] Speaker B: Well, my daughter is. Hannah is considering attending. I want her to get her chance to really see the school up close in person. She's been here before, of course, but I want to really give her. Now that she's finalizing our decision process, I wanted her to really get a chance to see in n out, you know, good, bad and ugly, what West Point's like, what the Army's like. [01:02:55] Speaker A: How do you Think it's going. [01:02:56] Speaker B: I think she's enjoying it. You know, I've encouraged to go to Coast Guard, but she really wants to go to West Point. So, you know, good advice. But I think she's been really good for her. And I think, you know, on the way here, we visited with a family member of one of my soldiers who was killed in Iraq, and, you know, let her really see all sides of the experience. I think I wanted her to understand, you know, being in the army is not about just going to a pretty school with a pretty uniform and marching around and having fun traditions. It's about being part of something bigger and being responsible for human life and being responsible for your soldiers and for foreigners and being ready to handle that. And I think this is what I think she's taken away very well from here. [01:03:38] Speaker A: Well, Andre, we're going to get you on for the rest of your trip, but I wanted to turn the microphone over to you for closing thoughts. Anything that you want to revisit or last thoughts you have or anything else you think is important for our audience to understand. [01:03:51] Speaker B: I would just say that cultural awareness is key for everyone, not just FAOs. I mean, if you're an aviator, maybe it's focused on your weapon systems, but if you're anyone on the ground, army officer, infantry, special forces, engineer, armor intelligence, military police, even logistics, dealing with anyone who's a foreigner really understand, try to understand why they think the way they do. It's not just about different words, different language. It's about different way of thinking. And if we can all in every position in the army where you're working with foreigners, whether you're trying to clear stuff out of a, you know, Kuwaiti customs or dealing with, you know, a foreign police force, just trying to understand why they think the way they do and understand what their motivations are as a person goes a long way. I think we do a good job training for that, but keep working on that. It's not an easy skill. The army trains engineers, trains black and white thinkers. That's great. We want decisive thinkers who can make good decisions quickly in combat. We're very good at that. But it's also important to be able to think a bit more slowly and carefully about how foreign people think. Understand your own biases, understand their biases, and try to find a way to work together. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Andre, you're retired now. So what does someone who took the DLPT 10 times and passed do in retirement after all that experience? [01:05:12] Speaker B: Well, I kind of fell into a defense consulting company, a company Called Defense British Asia, which helps American and foreign companies make defense sales in Southeast Asia. And you know, I have teams overseas in these countries in Philippines, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, for other countries as well, doing great things. And I think for me, the FEO skill set still applies. I'm dealing with foreigners, I'm dealing with Americans. I'm trying to really bridge the gap of communication. I find one of my clients, an American defense company trying to make a sale. They have to understand how people think in Vietnam and vice versa. Vietnam wants to acquire U.S. equipment. They have to understand the U.S. process. And my teams do that on the ground. But how do we bridge that process? Hence Defense Bridge Asia. To bridge that in a way which is ethical, we have to operate in an ethical environment. We're very big on compliance with Foreign Corrupt Practices act and also being a company which is trusted by both locals and American business. So those Thayo skills very much apply. Those West Point learned skills very much apply. I do spend a lot of my time, to be honest, doing contract law. I had to take some online courses on how to read and write contracts. AI has been helpful, but I wish I did more law classes back in the day. A lot of time doing accounting, making sure our accounting is straight. Running a company, you tend to delegate the fun stuff. And like in the army, right? Company commanders are doing PowerPoint with their guys, route in the field shooting. Same, same. But yes, it's been a good experience. And a lot of my folks, I pass or work with my company. So guys contacts of mine on the ground overseas are now working with my company. Classmates at West Point, Yale are contacts of mine overseas. Got an Air Force Academy grad on my staff leading our team in Thailand. I got a guy, a former Marine lieutenant colonel leading our team in Philippines. It's same thing, really. The same different day, same thing. But working across cultural boundaries to help come together to achieve great things. [01:07:00] Speaker A: Andre, one last question. Army families move around just as a matter of course. Every one, two, three years we're moving. But you all had some extraordinary moves. [01:07:09] Speaker B: We did. We did. [01:07:10] Speaker A: And some places that could be hard, difficult, especially for families. What was that experience like for your family? And do you think it benefited your family in the end? [01:07:20] Speaker B: You know, we had some great jobs. We didn't think we liked Laos was not. I was supposed to go to Myanmar actually. Laos was a change, and we were, you know, limited time to move, had to lose money in our house because we had to move so quickly. But my wife loved Laos. You know, we really enjoyed it. It's funny now that I'm retired. I've lived in San antonio now since 2018, since we moved there for my final army job. And when I was a fao, we always kind of feared the assignment manager. It was like, oh, where are we going to go next? You know, what's the plan? You know. And I actually kind of miss my wife and I kind of miss being told where to go now that I go anywhere. I almost kind of miss that. That's the one thing I miss from the army is sort of being told to move every so many years. So I think just open mindset. There are better places than others, but you don't quite know. And we've often these obscure countries where you're really living away from a lot of comforts and support are the most wonderful assignments for FEOs across the board. I've got friends who are sub Saharan Africa FAOs who just had some great jobs in some really places you wouldn't think would be so great. Just loved it over there and vice versa. I had a good friend of mine was assigned to Korea and Italy and you know, challenging assignments, believe it or not. Korea, Italy, I think great places. But working the embassies there just for a variety of reasons were very hard. [01:08:37] Speaker A: I see. [01:08:38] Speaker B: So you don't know. Just go there and do the best. You may love it. You never know bloom where you're planning type of thing. Exactly. I love that. Great, great phrase, Charlie. [01:08:46] Speaker A: Well, Andre, on behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern War Institute, really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And please accept this rare and coveted Modern War Institute coin as a symbol. [01:08:59] Speaker B: Don't have one of you. Charlie, thank you very much. Add it to my collection. Thank you. Outstanding. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Charlie, thanks for having us here. [01:09:15] Speaker C: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spear. The Spear is produced by the Modern War Institute at West Point. What you hear in each episode are the views of the participants and don't represent the position of West Point, the Army, or the US Government. Be sure you're subscribed to the Spear on Apple Podcasts Stitcher or your favorite podcast app, where you can also give the podcast a rating or leave a review which helps us reach new listeners. And if you aren't yet following MWI on social media, please find us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Thanks again for listening.