Ben Derrick hosts a podcast discussing the experiences of CSM Jeff Dawson who transitioned from an ODA to an administrative role. CSM, who served from 1981 to 2004, emphasizes the emotional challenges of leaving a team and the importance of maintaining a sense of purpose. He highlights the need for accountability, the concept of "skirting the gray," and the significance of mental health support. The conversation also touches on the unique challenges faced by National Guard Special Forces, the importance of public education about their contributions, and the role of nonprofit organizations in supporting them.
Ben Derrick 0:00
Music.
Welcome to the soldier fund podcast, the platform for untold stories from the National Guard Special Forces community join us as we delve into the lives of these elite warriors and the journey of our non profit dedicated to supporting their courageous mission to free the oppressed worldwide. I'm your host. Ben Derrick, let's dive in. TSM, we've officially rolled over into our two How
Speaker 1 0:39
about that. It's astonishing, isn't it? Well, the truth
Ben Derrick 0:43
is, I think we could probably have a 10 episode series here. We could just take, you know, an hour per year, and maybe even stretch out 20 further than that, 20 episodes, the stories that you're telling, and just the fascination I've had and conversation I've had around those green light teams. It's just almost hard to comprehend the mess that you found yourself in there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1 1:07
suppose that it was, but it wasn't really a mess, you know. And I really didn't have a choice. I got stuck there, and nobody told me why I was there. They said, Well, this is a weapons team. And I thought, Well, cool. I like shooting weapons. That's fun. I never heard of those in SF before. You don't see those publics anywhere. And sure enough, I found out what it was. All right,
Ben Derrick 1:29
today in this episode, I really love to navigate towards, just because of your lengthy and spectacular career, I'd really like to navigate towards that transition of stepping off of an Oda and what that meant to you as a soldier, your interaction with the army at large, with the bureaucratic side of the machine, a lot of different ways we could go in this conversation, but I'm just eager, not only to get your perspective, but frankly, sir, to capture your perspective behind microphone for those soldiers that have come after you that have experienced that exact transition. So where do we begin?
Speaker 1 2:06
Well, my guess would be so I was on an Oda from 1981 till 2004 after our second deployment on the ODA, I was eligible for e9 and I didn't, didn't know that I would make it. There was a couple guys in front of me, but after that deployment, they they moved on. I don't know what their thoughts were. So I made e9 Well, of course, at that time, I had to leave the ODA. So after 23 years, or 24 almost. You know, I had to leave the ODA. And that's a really from, I would imagine, from a National Guard perspective, that's a real tough thing to do. I mean, we've been together a long time different. I mean, teams do turn over, and I've worked with a lot of different teams, but to move on to more like the administrative training side of the house, it's pretty tough, because you can remember, though, for example, a company Sergeant Major still has pretty much control over that B team, even though he's not, he is and he isn't right. You got a Master Sergeant runs the B team, but that's his B team. So he's still kind of on a team. The situation, though, is is you find yourself when you move on like this, your job becomes a lot more lonely. You know what? I mean, you don't have that support group all of all those guys that you went to Afghanistan or Iraq with, or you trained with month on month in and you're now thrust into a new job. In my case, I was become in charge of the training detachment, which I did for shoot four years, and I found it was a really rewarding job. The interesting thing about the training detachment, at least in Mississippi, is it has no officer, so Sergeant Major runs it, which is not a problem. Except, you know, I mean, that's not a problem at all, except you're the guy that gets held accountable when the Humvee Bender gets broke or anything like that. But anyway, so what are you thinking specifically? What do you want to know about that transition? Other than it's just, it's not where you want to be, but at least be there to help.
Ben Derrick 4:43
Well, that is the essence of it. I feel, I feel that, you know, we don't discuss enough, and this is just my take, so I could be wrong about this, but I feel we don't discuss enough the emotional component of transitions in career, and I'm not talking about going victim or crime or spill. Of milk. But there's an emotional component here that as I sit with soldiers inside of the HPW program, it's very palpable. And I don't know that there's a lot of people talking about it, you just experience it as you go through and you hope you survive. You uniquely did go through that, and did survive, and continue to appreciate an impeccable reputation inside the unit, so your voice in describing that process from an emotional standpoint would be incredibly value, I think, for our audience. Okay,
Speaker 1 5:30
so I will say this, it's a lonely transition when you have to move on past your team, right? But there's two things on your side that there should be on your side, on the man side or soldier side, going forward. First of all, you are still a part of that that team. You're still part of that entire group, the battalion, the company. You're still a part of that you still matter to them, and what you do matters to them. You know, you didn't make e9 and start. You know, my job now is to sweep out the place. No, you know my job and the training attachment is to, is to, is to build SF soldiers, right? And analyze, you know, analyze what needs to be done. So correlate that with being on a team. What we do on a team is we do the very best we can. We make the very most out of whatever mission or operation, or you name it, we make the best of it. Same thing with that transition. You know, you're still an SF soldier, you're still serving the community, you're still serving the unit, and you make the most out of it, right? That's your goal. You have to have a goal. And every time you change the job, you identify what has to be done, you identify what the intent of that person above you what they want you to do, and you have
Ben Derrick 7:02
to set goals, yeah. So the the intensity may lower, but the influence expands, right? So it is, it is actually a trading of one modality for the other exactly make, making it to that modality is a challenge in and of itself. So no reason to hang your head low. Now you have the opportunity to affect the formation in a different way with a different skill set, one that if you made that rank, you've obviously, you've obviously grown your ability to sit in that chair. You won the position, you won the seat, right?
Speaker 1 7:37
That's right. And what you bring to the table is you bring that 24 years of experience on an ODA, when I was working as three in Afghanistan on special projects, I brought that I could talk to the team guys. They knew who I was. They knew they knew they knew that I understood what was going on right and, you know? And there was a relationship between me and them. It wasn't that. And I've seen other other units with guys in positions of responsibility that came from whoever right had no idea what these odas, these guys were doing on the ground. You know what I mean? You bring that to the table. And I think, I think that's something that's a post 911 thing, right? Post 911 we started having commanders, right combat experience, Sergeant Majors with combat experience. We understood, we understood what the teams were doing and how they were doing it. We understood their difficulties. We understood what it meant not to get their shipment of lickies and CHEWIES and things like that, even if it comes down to that simple of a level. You know and know when to say no and no one to say you need a resupply of this right now. Well, no, we're good. Like, No, you're not good. I'm supposed to know better than that.
Ben Derrick 9:04
Let's dig into that for just a second, because I definitely agree. And have heard this sitting in this podcast studio, actually, that G watt did change things, and it changed how the commander thinks I would love to hear how your time on that Oda is lengthy as it was, in his specifics, as you can get to how that affected your leadership, meaning at a very tactical, practical level, what was top of line for you, as you were in this position helping Green Berets become better, more effective Green Berets,
Speaker 1 9:35
I suppose, from my perspective As a Sergeant Major, they were Command Sergeant Major. I think you have to, you have to dive. You kind of have to chop this up a little bit, okay, you know, there's that Staff Sergeant Major that's with that with battalions, right? I talked about that already in so far as, hey, I know what's going on out there. And, you know, I'll take. Care of you, right? It's just me to them. It's more like, I'm not in charge of them. I'm just there to make their life easier. Then there's the company Sergeant Major, right? And he draws on all those experiences to maintain and to supervise and mentor those seven e8 he's gotten that company right? His priority, his priority is a the commander and his mission and the men, right? He's a little bit more about mission than he is if he was a CSM, right? As a CSM, my commander knows what he's doing, right? It's his mission. If we're going to discuss, or if we're going to have an issue about the mission, it'll be between me and him, right? Once he pushes the button. I'm kind of like that, just like back when the day, when I was a team sergeant, right? You know, I'm that guy that's going to go, you know, do you understand what you're doing? Do you know where you're going? Do you know what you need? And that is the role of taking care of the individual soldiers. So it's a little different at different levels, in my mind, at least, you know, I think, I think is this, I think it's a CSM at the battalion level. You are the last, last enlisted guy going higher, that knows every one of his teams. He knows every one of them. And he gets, when you get the group, he's looking up and out. He's looking all you know. He's looking at battalions. He he's not looking at teams anymore. He may go visit them, but he doesn't know what all is going on. I mean, I, I know that most team guys, as a CSM. They, they look to me to take care of things. But I was also the bag man. I was a bag man as a company Sergeant Major. You know, I was a guy that, if the old man said, That guy needs to go, whatever reason somebody does, he go, Sergeant Major, go get him right, right? I was also the guy, I tell you. They tell you the story about the navy seals that jumped their $50,000 rental into the Panama Canal. No, but I sure hope you're about to I'm going to tell you so me and the boss are driving to goosa galpa, and this is what the company, Sergeant Major ale gets calls about he, they call him first, and I, and this is I was trained this way by a battalion CSM and seven call me first when that shit hits the fan so that I can smooth it out. So they called me to go, Hey, Sergeant Major, we have no problem. What's that? They said, Well, we parked our our Land Rover in front of the apartments where we're staying, and somehow it jumped in gear and went into the causeway, and now it's under 30 feet of water. I'm like, what I said, Is there any sensitive items in that vehicle? They go, Well, yeah, there's radios. And I said, well, then you best be Navy Seals and dive your asses into that water and get them out. About that time, my company commander Sean looks over. He goes, what just happened? I said, let me get off the phone here. I said, I'll talk to y'all later. And I told him, he goes, son of a I said, shit happens. Man, you can't help it. We just got to mitigate the loss. But anyway, that was the thing I learned as a senior NCO at the e9 level, was that you draw it on your experiences, right to make good decisions. And at these different levels, you become more about protecting the men.
Unknown Speaker 13:41
I'm not saying you don't burn them if you have to, but a lot of times you protect them. This brings up
Ben Derrick 13:47
a really interesting question for me to just to talk about your decision making process, obviously, you had to refine that over a long period of time. Is this like a gut level thing? Do you have a paradigm that you're operating with. What is your decision making process as you could articulate it?
Speaker 1 14:06
Well, it's a little bit more than a scientific, wild ass guess, maybe, maybe, maybe not quite as far along as the mission. MDMP, I won't say I've always pulled decisions out of my ass, but that did happen quite a bit. I've never had a hard time making a decision. Okay? And I always told, I always told, I told, I always told team sergeants this. I said, you're in a situation, right? You better make a damn decision before somebody makes it for you, because that'll happen if you don't. You've got a bunch of a personalities right there. They better know who's running the show and who's and if you can't make the damn decision, then maybe you need to find a new job.
Ben Derrick 14:50
So this is one of the most interesting parts about the SF community. For me, the this idea, you'll obviously recognize this quote skirting the gray a. Um, how do you learn how to skirt the gray? As an SF soldier, there seems to be a line that moves there a little hard to determine.
Speaker 1 15:08
Well, you know, that's, that's, you call it skirting the gray, right? I'll tell you something. If you got a piece of paper there, you can draw a box, right, and you draw that box, and in Special Forces, if you're, if you're, if you're inside that box, your head is in the box and you don't see anything. So you have to think outside the box, right? So what is outside that box? Well, rules are outside the box. Policies are outside the box. Opinions are outside the box. So all those things don't always matter. That's the gray, right, right, right. So now you draw a circle around that box. You encompass the things that I just talked about are outside the box, but inside the circle. Okay. Now outside the circle are treaties, sofa agreements, laws, host nation laws. These are things we cannot break. So there's a fine line skirting the gray, as you say, that's outside the box, but inside the circle. I don't know if you ever heard that before, but
Ben Derrick 16:22
I haven't that's really, really well explained. It certainly helps me understand how multiple soldiers, multiple multiple GBS in the same situation could come up with an infinite number of solutions to that situation, none of which would necessarily be more or less correct, but using a different path based on the box and the circle,
Speaker 1 16:44
right? I've always told men, if you're going to break the rules, only break one at a time.
Ben Derrick 16:54
That seems like a great rule, because
Speaker 1 16:56
shit will snowball quickly. I have to tell you the truth, though. I'll tell you. Have to tell you the truth. Ben, that's not my I learned that back in 2000 I don't know, six or seven, a two star General at the time, use effect commander got up and briefed the new graduating kids, and he explained, this is what you're going to do, and this is how you do it, this. This is where you will be. Your brain. Better not be in the box, but it better not be outside that circle. So just like I told you, I take care of men. I take care of men that don't screw up. I expect them not to screw up if I get involved something bad has happened, or it's just been one of those Murphy days, right?
Ben Derrick 17:43
As a leader, you have to be prepared for those for sure, part of the question that begs for me in your explanation is the application of accountability. Now, I know we're getting into a little bit more modern sense of what that word might mean, but applying accountability in this kind of system can become difficult, right? If you're if you're asking someone to think and operate outside the box, and then you visit them with accountability, that can be a little bit jarring. Now, I've never seen a Green Beret mishandle that accountability, but it can. I would assume it could be very difficult at your position to figure out when to apply that accountability. Well,
Speaker 1 18:21
I think you're well, it's my opinion that you apply there has they have to be accountable for their actions with respect to everything they do. Okay? Now, the guy who steals $15,000 worth of my equipment the battalion level, his accountability is going to be. His ass is in a bind. He broke the law. He stole Okay, so we're gonna hold him accountable in the meanest possible way. Sure to kick him out of the unit. He's gonna be in trouble, blah, blah, blah, all kinds of charges and whatever. Now then there's the other guy. So you got a young e5 leaves the Falk because he's got to go to it some damn school, right? Comes up to the airport and has a damn flash bang in his bag, a flash bang, okay. He's an e5 complete dumb ass, you know, accountable? Yeah, we're gonna, I say, I'm gonna tell his team Sergeant when I once I get his ass out of trouble. I'm saying, when he gets back, you smoke his ass. He's not gonna get a he he'll remember to check his bag for, you know, smoke or not, flash bangs next time. That's accountability too.
Ben Derrick 19:42
So they're varying degrees. Yeah, yeah, oh,
Speaker 1 19:44
absolutely. And the thing about it is, is, if we can keep our accountability in our own house, that's another big thing about SF, if we can keep our accountability in our own house, then we won't get hauled on the carpet by. All those others units out there that say, Oh, these SF guys are always getting away with stuff. And I don't, we never do because I can tell you any CSM and Commander is not gonna let anybody get away with nothing. That's right, because we do have, we do have some fairly crazy shit happen. I used to work crazy shit, because it's almost crazy shit every time. You wouldn't think it would happen, but it can, and we try to keep that in house. And I think that's why they think, Well, these guys never get in trouble. Oh yeah, they do. We're just more responsible to our soldiers, because accountability has two prongs. Okay, okay, the first prong is to the guy you're going to hold accountable, right? The second one is to all the dudes around him that go, Oh, he did it and got away with it. Maybe I can do something like that too. Has to be comparative to whatever else everybody else has done. You know, it's just justice, and if you don't ensure that there's accountability, then your whole system will go to hell. Does
Ben Derrick 21:07
this fall in line with the phrase that I hear a lot is finding a solution at the lowest level possible. That's the goal, to prevent accountability from having to escalate. Okay,
Speaker 1 21:19
yeah, exactly it is. If I got a team sergeant that you know has a problem, that's why you don't jump the chain of command, right? I don't, I don't want, I don't want you going around me as a company Sergeant Major and telling the CSM some crazy shit, because then, oh yeah, you just opened up a goddamn can of worms, brother. And on top of that, if it's kind of like I told you about the phone calls, you know, it's, it's your problem, you solve it. If you want my advice, call me during Ben normal business hours, and I'll be happy to give it to you.
Ben Derrick 21:53
Normal business hours. Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 21:56
No, no. And it never worked out that way. But, and I never said that either okay, because I wouldn't be that guy. But I believe you. I mean, I thought it, but I didn't say
Ben Derrick 22:06
it. I was leading into asking this question about the the current state of the formation. I believe you have still have your finger on the pulse of how things are going inside the SF community, lot of existing relationships, and this, this question is mostly for guys that are still getting after it, that that have relationship with you, or know of you, just to start rolling out the advice that you would give them if you were able to brief them, you know, at McCain or at Shelby or someplace you were able to sit down and say, Hey, I'm going to download as much wisdom as I can to you in the next 30 minutes, what would that conversation be like?
Speaker 1 22:44
Well, that's a real, that's a real broad question. Ben, it is, it is, but it's one that I've used before. I don't I rarely talk for 30 minutes. I always had a commander that could do that for me. Anyway, I think it falls into, you know, some really simple things. As I said, Never, never break, but one rule at a time, do the hard right thing rather than the easy wrong thing, right and always avoid the three W's. You're scared. Yeah, be aren't you? I tried to solve that. It's simple, the three W's. One of them is an alcoholic, alcohol, right? Women, whiskey and women, that's the three W's. So that's my advice, go forward, do great things, man, there
Ben Derrick 23:45
is a difficulty, though. And as you said, They're They're simple, but I would say back to you, sir, they're not easy. So it is the application of those principles that get men twisted around the actual it is.
Speaker 1 24:00
It is that application. However, nine times out of 10 when you have people that have that problem, they do get twisted around that axle. It's because of women, whiskey and women, I guess, like, you could label me a misogynist. I don't know. I'm just telling the like it is. I mean, I can't change man for what man is, especially when you got a bunch of type A meat eaters out here, you know what I'm saying, and I, and I've met some great women like we that battalion has some great women in it. Now they're great, but, I mean, and they should be there, they really should, but, but that I'm not talking about them, you know, I'm talking about all the things that happen. I mean, that is another thing we draw on our experiences as a team sergeant. You know? What happens on the team? Stays on the team. And that is because. Because a good team may break some rules, but you never hear about it. Now, as far as what I would tell those guys, you know, I never really gave a lot of advice. I felt like, you know, they've came a long ways. Now, if I'm, if I'm a spot check your advice, you know, you know, it's like going into a mission, mission planning brief or a brief back. You know, I sat there. It's their plan, unless they're doing something crazy. You know, I'm not there to tell them how to do their job. They come down this road, they got to know how to do that. If those guys don't know how to do that job, then they need to be replaced. The nation's security can't be risked upon and this is where you get into the whole national guard versus active duty. And the situation truly is the National Guard. Odas go out there and when, when we used to work, pre 911 they would, you know, always treat the National Guard. Oda differently. They really would, you know, they wouldn't do certain things with them or put them certain places, you know. But as time went on, we become less and less that citizen soldier and are held to the same standards as the active duty side. So we have to know our jobs. I realize the difficulties, of course, being a National Guard soldier for many years, having a full time job and trying to be part of an ODA, or be in charge of an Oda. It's tough. That was that'd be what I had to do. My medic would have to stay certified, you know, my engineers would have to stay certified. And it would take work. You'd have to go to language training sometimes, because it doesn't cookie cutter fit into that two week at every year. So circles back around to where it's all about what the SF soldier needs to be. And I'll be honest with you please. And I'm not the only person who has this opinion. I would if I ever heard one of my soldiers say, Well, I'm just National Guard, I tell you what, that would burn my ass more than anything else. You're an SF soldier first, and don't you ever claim to be less than that. And you say, Well, I'm just National Guard. I'm gonna go, I gotta go home and build uh, dog houses or some shit or pump gas. No, it's the same standards, the same accountability. And we owe it to our leaders to ensure that our guys are that accountable, National Guard or otherwise, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. If you can't be an SF team sergeant or National Guard Oda and you have to work an additional 10 hours a week for your ODA, if you don't have time for that, well then you need to move on. We all worked hard. We all worked hard to wear that green hat. And if that green hat don't mean enough for you to step it up, then you need to walk away.
Ben Derrick 28:21
Well said, sir. Well, this opens the door for me to discuss, because part of what we're doing here, through the soldier fund nonprofit, is attempting to educate the civilian population on exactly that tension that the standards, as you put and I think correctly so, the standards are exactly the same, but the job is different. The way to go about doing the job is different. What has to be balanced? As we ended our last episode talking about balancing family, balancing civilian career, balancing military career, this is a difficult thing to juggle, not and I understand what you're saying is what the soldiers signed up for, but my belief and proposal is that if we could have more people in the general population that understood this and could support it without having to go through the DOD to allocate that to a soldier and to a soldier's need, it feels like that is a noble task, and that this nonprofit could actually have a formation of its own that stands beside the soldiers, as we've adopted the mantra that you guys have two is one and one is none. So why would I not want a rich civilian that could donate money towards that individual and that Oda to ease some of the burden present? Because he is a National Guard Special Forces Green Beret, I
Speaker 1 29:41
think, I think it's absolutely a noble task. I really do a noble goal, and I absolutely would wish you the best of luck. The situation truly is, you have to break it down in what was pre pre 911 and post 911 pre 911 we were, I mean, pre 911 i. Yeah, we're all civilian soldiers, you know, we all, we all, we all had jobs, and that created difficulties, of course, because me, we're traveling 500 miles to drill on average, and so, you know, the unit tried to make it easy that he could, just like when you went to Montana, that was a on mute as it wasn't orders, was on munis, making it easier for the guys to get together and meaningfully train, like four or five days. But back to your point. Post 911 comes along whole new chunk of challenges. Okay, we get all these deployments. Guys are gone, they're home two years. Guys are gone, they're home two years. You know what I'm saying? I do so work becomes more difficult for them. I mean, it's harder for them. I mean, a guy like me, who's a guy who's an entrepreneur, or a guy that works on his own, his business is done, he can come back and try to rebuild it, you know, but after a while, you find out you just can't do it anymore. Guys were contractors and things like that, house builders and, you know, things like that, just couldn't be there anymore. And of course, there was a lot of I will tell you, and this is, this was what was said. A lot of the civilian employers didn't support these deployments, you know, as someone told me, they said, Well, you know, I have to have so many workers, and so now I got to find somebody else to replace Joe. And, you know, and it makes it harder for me, and I'm going to lose money. And this is my reaction to that, and it's kind of in line with what your task is. That's where we have to. We have to educate the public about what it is that Joe does, what it is that Joe gives up. Okay, you know, Joe's down here on the ODA in Grenada, Mississippi. They're going to deploy to somewhere in Upper slabovia, right? It's dangerous. It's not necessarily combat, but it's dangerous. Can be dangerous. Can be deadly. Joe has to go down and train for three months to get certified to deploy. Right? Then he has to leave his family for six months. And this is a guy that didn't go on active duty. This is a guy, that man is like me, I got out because I wanted to have a family, you know? Well, he gives that up to go to that and deployment leaves his family and all that, you know, maybe, maybe lose his family for God's sakes, right? And then he comes back with whatever amount of baggage he brought back from slobovia, right? And early on in 911 without the adequate tools to deal with the stresses of life, right? Those are the things that we need to educate the public about, because Joe spent the last six nine months of his life with his 10 or 11 guys doing whatever Joe does, right? And there's a lot of stressors in there. I think that guy that told me I don't know what I'm going to do without without Joe, that find somebody else. I just don't support this kind of stuff. He's not thinking what life is like for Joe. Thank you. He's not focusing on it. And the normal public, the problem you have Ben is how many people serve nowadays, less than one in 100 What about those 99 out there? What do they think about Joe? Do they know about Joe? Do they know what Joe gives up? You know, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to that 99 out of 100. You know, they thank me for their service, and man, I I'm all about it. Hey, man, thanks, you're welcome. Hey, you don't have to thank me, thank my wife, thank my kids for letting me be gone. You know, thank you for all the extra ammunition. You know that I didn't mean to throw that in there, so I was trying to be serious. But they say those things, but if they really mean them, you know, it's more than a thank you. It's a recognition. I just don't know that leaders in this era are really doing a good job of making sure the public understands that. I mean, yeah, they have homecoming deals and what a yellow ribbon and all that. But that's really not, that's not, that's not what that's about. Do they invite local employers to those Yellow Ribbon events? Do they do? They do. Make the time to try to pull in these organizations to educate them, the VFW, the American Legion, do they spread out their tentacles and try to make something out of this like you have? No, I don't, I don't think they have. That's just my opinion, and I might be chastised for that by some of those people that are leaders now that don't like what I said, but that's fine. I've never, never stopped me, but it never stopped me before. So why would it stop me now?
Ben Derrick 35:30
Let's not start new habits, right? Yeah, for me, I appreciate this level of conversation, because as a civilian, I think I can say more freely than you perhaps could. I do want to hold the civilian accountable, because we should be aware. We should understand the world is a very small place these days, and part of the responsibility, as we've said very openly in this podcast, rests with the GBS, that they have become the silent professionals and a lot of that I understand and have a deep respect for. It's very admirable, however, it makes the calls a lot less known. So I believe what entities like the soldier fund, and there are many others out there, but this one is focused specifically on the National Guard Special Forces community, that entities like ours can be that amplifying voice can explain the issues. Can spin up a podcast to interview incredible Americans like you and hear your story and hear your perspective, so that we can point resources towards the next generation of Green Berets, because the next generation is right now, I've got two guys I'm talking to on a regular basis in language school right now, headed for god knows what, as the global theater begins to pick up, and I think for us, for the civilians that are listening to this right now, it isn't a matter of should we, it's a matter of how much, of course, We need to engage this mission. My goal would be, and just to say this publicly behind microphones, since the opportunity has opened up, my goal would be for every Green Beret, for every man on an Oda that they know that there's a civilian backing them in all kinds of support, and even financially. And then, as we grow this, then we can even get further and further, as you well know, out to our support guys, because what's an Oda without the support behind them to back those guys as well? This is a difficult life, and I think this, the civilians out there that catch a wind of it can get a vision of pouring support behind these elite individuals that have run towards the fight, I agree
Speaker 1 37:42
with that. I absolutely do, and I'll tell you something, don't ever let anybody tell you that it's out of our lane or out of your lane. You know, other units probably don't do that. Do they? That doesn't matter, because this is a special forces unit. We've always done things a little bit outside the box.
Ben Derrick 38:12
Okay, that's right, and
Speaker 1 38:14
you're not the first guy that has done this kind of thing and cultivated those relationships, actually, in Special Forces. It's been pretty darn common that we would have celebrity shoots at Fort Bragg and things like that, and all sorts of things. And, I mean, it's, it's a great thing. And I do think that, I do think that National Guard Special Forces, as opposed to the active duty side, has them have a much more difficult road to trudge, because honestly, you know, they come from Ben the bastard Step children, right? The bastard step children from active duty, the bastard step children from the state. And look where they are now. I mean, so here's the thing, you know, our deployments, yeah, we did Afghanistan, some guys did Iraq, all that, but they kind of dried up. But things changed, and now they're fully utilizing these SFA, OBS, B teams and a teams, and so if, because they've all got they, they've all seen that, we've all got that accountability, and we stack up next to the active duty, and we can sustain the fight however, we are in active duty. And then there's that two years and three months. There's that coming home with that baggage. You know, I can tell you dude from driving down a road in the hot side of Afghanistan. A week later, sitting on my porch, that's a hard pill to swallow. It's a hard pill to swallow. And the fact of the matter is, that's what I'm talking about, and that's what you're talking about, that's what you know, the mental health aspect of it, right? Maybe the monetary help aspect of it, you know, monetary helps a great thing, as long as it's directed properly, right? That's right, the mental health aspect is probably the biggest, the biggest, the biggest hurdle
Ben Derrick 40:36
for all these guys, and it's the thing we least want to talk about, isn't it? So
Speaker 1 40:39
absolutely is. But in the National Guard, I'm not saying active duty don't have the same problems, but there's a heck of a lot of mechanisms for them. What does the National Guard have? The VA, that's right, I'm not knocking the VA. I love the VA. But you know, there had been some times where the state of Mississippi had hired full time like nurse practitioner, counselors and stuff, and they were available, like at Camp McCain and but I mean, other than that, one of the guy so that's where I think organizations like yours can come in, if they're well organized, properly ran, you know, and you know, have a reasonably strong board, and they have a business plan which it sounds like yours does, exactly which sounds like yours does. So I got to give you credit for that. And I give credit to all the guys that that that come up with this. You know, that said, Hey, this is a good idea. We need to do this.
Ben Derrick 41:42
Well, it's been, it's been scores of individuals. There's no one man behind this effort, that's for sure. So the problem is too large to try to address with one person, right? Or any bureaucratic solution, for that matter, it is.
Speaker 1 41:54
But if there was a couple guys in every battalion that did that, that'd be a hell of a start, with it.
Ben Derrick 42:00
That's where we're headed, absolutely, absolutely. So I would be remiss if I let you jump off this podcast without asking you. And this is, this is brace yourself. This is going to be completely opinion based, all right, which I've I don't think you'll struggle with at all right, but with the current temperature in our world, with the military, war shutting down, wars potentially spinning up, what do you see as the future of the SF community in what's going on in the world today? Well,
Speaker 1 42:35
I think the future of special forces, from the ODA to the ODC in the world we live in today, if they're properly used, Green Berets, that is, as force multipliers, the builders of, you know, the builders of surrogate forces, right? I mean, all those J sets we do. There's a reason for that, whether it's Bulgaria or wherever. I'm building capacity in those countries with those people. And then when the time comes that ISIS is moving into Senegal, I've got guys that have been down there and trained these Senegalese units, and can go down there and conduct, advise and assist, or whatever you want them to do. That's where I see the meat and potatoes of special forces that is foreign internal defense, you know, UW, you name it, given the gravity of like this peer to near peer war, well, I can only tell you that I spent several years training for a near peer war. And actually we had a near we had a we had a plan to execute a mission on like d minus three or two or one way, way back behind the enemy lines, whatever, what enemy lines is, say the forward line, whatever, other words, in bad guy land, we had the capability to execute that mission. That is what a lot of these other guys are gonna be. These guys are gonna have to learn that direct action, you know, strategic reconnaissance, I will tell you, though. And I don't know if you've noticed this, you probably haven't, but it seems like everybody wants their own special forces. Now, at one time, it was Army and the Navy, and now the Air Force has all these different Special Operations units. I'm like, Well, what do they need those for? I don't know. I digress, but that's what I see happening, and I see the importance of having special forces trained to do that job. Yes, you know. And that includes the National Guard. Think they're a very important component of that. I mean, I know this much from the time when I was a CSM, going forward, we sat at the table when we were talking about strategic, you know, strategic things peer to peer, near peer operations. And we had a place at the table. So that means we better be ready to operate. And that includes every one of us, which comes back around to your job, or what you perceive as your job, you know. So I need these guys to be ready to go. I can tell you, there's guys out there, even myself, that after a certain amount of deployment, you know, time and coming back, it was a good number, a long time before I was ready to go back, or would it would have gone back and see, there's no other mechanism. There's no There's no mechanism. What's the mechanism for resilience in the state of Mississippi? What's the resilience training look like? Fantastic question. So if you want to talk about what we're going to do in the future, you better talk about how we're going to maintain the force. And you know, I hope I've not said anything in this interview, that that that has has offended the active duty side. I mean, I love them. I was active duty. I mean, they're great guys. They're great people, great people to work with. You know, I never had an issue with them. And but be a National Guard is a tough Special Forces, especially, is a tough thing. Our leaders need to understand that, because I would say, Look, I'm trying to retain this guy. I got this guy here. We're getting ready to go to Africa. The ODB needs the radio operator. This guy works for Harris. Are you kidding me? Well, he didn't go to his PME school. I said, I don't care. This is a guy that controls satellite stuff for for the civilian world, and you don't want to take him, you want to put him out. Well, there's a rule that says, like, okay, man, stop it. The higher levels need to understand what it means to be supposed to forces. And I'm tired, because they would say, well, here, those guys are just special, right? They're special we have to take care of. Well, it costs a million dollars to train one. Don't you think that's special? Don't you think that? Don't you think that deserves a little special consideration, just like what you're doing, don't you think we should try to fund that. I don't want to lose that guy, especially if he's the right guy. That's right, and they usually are all the right guy. That's why I try to protect my men, because, man, they don't come cheap.
Ben Derrick 47:54
Well, you truly are a soldier. Soldier, sir. Well,
Speaker 1 47:56
I appreciate that. I mean, I like to think I was at one time now I'm just an old fat man, but that's fine.
Ben Derrick 48:05
Well, we all end up there, I guess. Well,
Speaker 1 48:06
we shouldn't. I mean, that's no, I have to go see my doctor tomorrow. I know that's going to be a real nightmare. But hey, I just have to go down there. And yeah, I know. Okay, fine. I will comply. Well,
Ben Derrick 48:22
I'd like to close this interview, if I can start by doing something extremely uncomfortable, but I've committed to it while I have you here in front of me, and I've been given the privilege to have this conversation, I am deeply grateful for the sacrifices that you made over a very long period of time, as well as your family, to do incredibly uncomfortable and necessary things you are a barrel chested freedom fighter and a great American. And for all the civilians listening that wish they could get in this conversation and say, Thank you, I do offer that directly to you. CSM, thank you for your time in the Special Forces community and all that you have meant to it. Ben, it was
Unknown Speaker 49:03
my privilege.
Ben Derrick 49:07
Thank you for tuning in to the soldier fund podcast. If you're inspired by the stories of these elite citizen warriors and want to support their mission, visit us at the soldier fund.org your contributions help us to continue to back the Special Forces soldiers of the National Guard as they fight around the world until next time, stay committed to stand with those who serve you.