The Sherpatudes

Here is a list of epigrammatic tips inspired by the most recent Red Bull Rising post. It's a mix of maxims regarding organizational analysis, knowledge management, and working in a tactical operations center ("TOC").

Behold, the "Sherpatudes":

1. Continually ask: "Who else needs to know what I know?"

2. Continually ask: "Who else knows what I need to know?"

3. Never speak with complete authority regarding that which you lack direct knowledge, observation, and/or suppressive fires.

4. Never pull rank over a radio net.

5. Let the boss decide how he/she wants to learn.

6. Let the boss decide how he/she wants to communicate.

7. "I am responsible for everything my commander's organization knows and fails to know, learns and fails to learn."

8. Know when to wake up the Old Man. Also, know how to wake him up without getting punched, shot, or fired.

9. The three most important things in the TOC are: Track the battle. Track the battle. Track the battle.

10. Digital trumps analog, until you run out of batteries.

11. Always have ready at least two methods of communication to any point or person on the map.

12. Rank has its privileges. It also has its limitations.

13. Let Joe surprise you.

14. Don't let Joe surprise you.

15. The first report is always wrong. Except when it isn't.

16. The problem is always at the distant end. Except when it isn't.

17. Exercise digital/tactical patience. Communications works at the speed of light. People do not.

18. Your trigger finger is your safety. Keep it away from the CAPS LOCK, reply-all, and flash-override buttons.

19. The warfighter is your customer, and the customer is always right.

20. Bullets don't kill people. Logistics kills people.

21. Knowing how it works is more powerful than knowing how it's supposed to work.

22. Cite sources on demand. State opinions when asked.

23. Work by, with, and through others. It's all about empowerment.

24. Do not seek the spotlight, Ranger. Let the spotlight find you. Then, make sure to share it with others.

25. Both the Bible and "The Art of War" make this point: It's never a mistake to put oneself in someone else's boots.

26. Humor is a combat multiplier. Except when it isn't.

World Leader Pretend

FORT IRWIN, Calif., Sept. 27--A U.S. Army brigade is like a corporation. It has a Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.), a couple of senior vice presidents, and a whole herd of junior vice presidents. Each of the junior vice presidents is responsible for one function throughout the organization: Human Resources, Market Analysis, Operations, Supply and Maintenance, Information Technology. There are also senior-level specialists, who may be equal to junior vice presidents: the Corporate Attorney is one. So are the Environmental Safety Director and the Media Spokesperson.

When a business doesn't have the expertise it requires to be competitive, it may hire consultants from outside the organization, or it may partner with other businesses that share similar goals. In mil-speak, these are "enablers." These are mostly civilian personnel, and include civil engineers, anthropologists, law enforcement practitioners, and diplomats. Some wear uniforms, but most don't.

Part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) experience at National Training Center (N.T.C.) is to learn to work with these new team members.

"I just got a tip from the [Human Terrain Team]," the executive officer tells the brigade staff during this morning's first meeting. The H.T.T. is made up of anthropologists and other academics, who can do research into local cultures and attitudes. "When you go into these Key Leader Engagement meetings with Afghan leaders, you always count heads. Then, go in with one less. It's subtle, but that way, you're not outnumbering them at their meeting, in their country."

Today is the third day in The Box for the brigade, and the first day of a 3-day "targeting cycle." In the business world, targeting might be considered "strategic planning"--identifying objectives, and allocating resources to meet those objectives. Through a series of expert subcommittee and committee meetings, a list of possible goals is developed, a consensus reached, and a set of proposals is made to the CEO.

Yeah, I know: Sounds sexy. And dramatic.

For purposes of the training exercise, the targeting cycle at National Training Center (N.T.C.) has been abbreviated to three days. Normally, a cycle might last a week or two--maybe even a month. Each day at NTC, however, there are meetings and more meetings. Then, there are meetings assessing the results of the last three days' efforts. Then, the cycle repeats. Some soldiers quip: "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again." Others liken every day to "Groundhog Day."

One of the topics of today's targeting meeting--the meeting after the first meeting--is a regionally influential strongman, with his own troops, the local peasants in his pocket, and a sizable income coming in from the poppy fields. The question is whether he can be influenced to support the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ("GIRoA"), and how. Give him money or jobs? Give him a political position?

"He's looking for validation of his position," says the HTT leader. "He's either going to get support from the Taliban, or he's going to get it from us."

There are other options, of course, but the participants in this particular meeting attempt to focus on the kinder, gentler, and less-lethal side of counterinsurgency (COIN). You know: "Speak softly, and carry a big carrot."

Diana, one of the U.S. State Department personnel, reminds those in attendance that the devil you know may be better than a power vacuum, particularly when the bad guy is the only source of jobs in the region. "When your kids are hungry and you don't have anything to eat, the bad guy is better than no guy at all."

"Besides," she says, "we need to find out why he doesn't want to play. It might be something very simple--maybe we killed a member of his family and never apologized. Or, it may be very complex--but we need to ask."

After the meeting, the brigade lawyer shakes his head bemusedly, "I wonder how many [business] people back home in Iowa would be comfortable in sitting around a conference table trying to decide whether or not to whack the guy."

He is only half-joking. This isn't personal. It's business.

The View from Here

FORT IRWIN, Calif., Sept. 26--Regardless of size or type of unit, the Tactical Operations Center ("TOC") is the nerve-center, the hub of activity, the reptilian brain of the organization. Working in "current operations," the staff tracks where people and equipment are, what they're doing, and to whom they're doing it.

Twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, working in the TOC is simultaneously thrilling, infuriating, and boring beyond belief. The TOC is like a casino, in that there are no windows. "The sun never sets in the TOC," the brigade executive officer likes to say.

Reports constantly go up, down, and sideways through the TOC. Calls and contacts go out seeking more information, more detail, more ground truth. "We're driving the war from this building," the S3 Operations officer reminds his crew. "But it's the battalions that own the battlespace."

It's like playing a party game of "telephone" while simultaneously assembling a jigsaw puzzle and juggling parrots.

And at least one parrot is always on fire.

Some people love this TOC stuff. Others hate it. The latter are the guys who would be out there doing it, taking it to the streets and to the bad guys, rather than working in the air-conditioned dome, sorting through problems and moving pins around on a map.

It takes all kinds to run an Army, of course. We're all pins, one way or another.

For the next 14 days, the operations staff of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) has set up shop on the first floor of the two-story "Igloo"--a newly constructed, dome-shaped permanent building at the National Training Center (N.T.C.). The layout resembles something like the bridge of Star Trek's Starship Enterprise. There are three or four video screens across the front, depicting maps and real-time video feeds and message traffic.

A battle "captain"--the position is rank-immaterial, and can be held by a captain, major, or seasoned non-commissioned officer (N.C.O.)--keeps an eye and ear on what's happening. Located up close to the video screens, multitasking "radio-telephone operators" (R.T.O.) send and receive communications via radio, telephone, e-mail, Blue Force Tracker (B.F.T.), instant- or text-messaging.

The battle captain sits on a raised platform one step up and back from the "battle desk," in order to be able to take it all in at once. Around and behind him, there is a constantly changing collection of people from other organizations and staff functions, a combination "peanut gallery" and "Greek chorus."

Even in a digital age, technology can't replace the value of embedding a knowledgeable inter-organizational liaison, someone who can answer quick questions about unit status, capability, and location. The same time, these liaisons listen in on TOC traffic, and call their respective organizations with the latest news and heads-ups.

Like a fisherman floating on a favorite lake, if you sit in the right place and watch the water, you can see the physical ripple and flow of communications throughout the TOC. The report comes in here, it should go there and there. Now, watch to see where--and if--it goes. Sitting in the back of the room is where I do most of my "knowledge management" mojo, eavesdropping on multiple conversations, making connections, putting the question over here together with the answers over there. People in the TOC ask themselves a never-ending question: "Who else needs to know what we know?"

Sometimes, I am hindered in my eavesdropping efforts. The operations sergeant major attempts to keep the TOC as quiet as a library, and periodically yells at everyone, regardless of rank, to shut the heck up and take all conversations outside of his TOC. Lucky for me, he is stymied by the igloo's poor acoustics and the staff's chatty good humor.

For example, a bulletin board on which "significant actions" ("SIGACTS") are to be listed goes missing. Spartacus starts asking loudly, "Where is the SIGACT board? Somebody took the SIGACT board!"

Pilz, for some reason, is hanging around the battle desk. "We'll need to log that as an incident on the SIGACT board," he tells Spart, "after we find it, of course."

In another corner of the room, one of the wargame referees is whining about the brigade's prohibition on civilian "gut-truck" food vendors in the training area. "That's kind of jacked-up," he says. "Because, No. 1, you're simulating being on a FOB, and you'll have that kind of stuff available in-country. And, No. 2, that's how these guys make their money. They come out every rotation."

Man up, sir. Embrace the suck. The 2-34th is an infantry brigade combat team, not a tasty stimulus package. We're the "Red Bull," not the "Red Burrito!"

There's real lessons-learned stuff to be had, trolling around the conversational airwaves. One battalion, for example, repeatedly calls in emergency medical-evacuation ("MEDEVAC," pronouced "med-evak") request, specifying "red smoke" will be used to mark the landing zone for the helicopter. The TOC staff repeatedly have to validate whether or not the mission is a real emergency, or one that's occurring within the NTC's wargame simulation. "Someone tell them that red smoke is for real-world emergencies only," says the Battle NCO.

Immediately below my perch, a young liaison officer (L.N.O.) from one of the infantry units is schooling the brigade S4 (Logistics) staff on how to use its computer systems to track supplies and equipment. Granted, the kid is some sort of quartermaster savant, but it's a little bit like having a 6th-grader fix daddy's computer. Daddy should keep up with the 21st century, if he doesn't want to get left in the dust.

Just then, the Army laser-tag sensing equipment worn by the brigade information officer starts beeping--indicating he's now a simulated casualty. It's an obvious malfunction--no one has fired a weapon in the TOC, but he looks around, bewildered. Maybe it's a simulated heart-attack. Or spontaneous human combustion.

Another wargame adminstrator walks over with a God-gun to reset the officer's system. "It's all these fluorescent lights," he says. "Working in the TOC will kill you."

Staff Meeting of the Living Dead

FORT IRWIN, Calif., Sept. 25. It is the first day of a 14-day operation. The regular crowd shuffles in. It is the first brigade staff meeting in The Box, and soldiers are already talking in monotone--deliberate and slow. One word ... in front ... of the other.

The "embedded historian" concept, along with my repeated now-you-see-him-now-you-don't appearances, has gotten me a figurative seat at the Red Bull table. Actual seats and tables, however, are at a premium. Competing rumors have it that either the unit forgot to request office furniture, or that the contract fell through. Regardless, for the first couple of days, it pays to B.Y.O.C.--"Bring Your Own Chair."

Someone notes that the Combat-Trainers (C.T.), the referees who administer the war games at NTC, seem to travel with their own folding stools. They've obviously seen this kind of thing before.

The mood in the room is a mix of the tiredly upbeat and the beat-down. The executive officer (X.O.) looks around the room, and fails to get a lot of eye contact. "I can see that the commander's guidance about working in a nap cycle is going to be key today," he says.

The staff is struggling for balance and rhythm. The National Training Center (N.T.C.), after all, is designed to distill the experience of deploying into a combat zone into two weeks. Since June or July, the brigade staff has been running at full tilt. You want to get punched in the arm? Quote that old war-chestnut about how "deployment is a marathon, not a sprint."

Compounding the stress, there have been precious few days off to fall back, regroup, and rethink the fundamentals.

The calendar for the next two weeks has filled up fast. First, there's a complicated 3-day cycle involving multiple committees and subcommittees, through which the sausage of Counterinsurgency (COIN) is made: "We should work with this guy, not this guy. We should help build a water treatment plant here, to win hearts and minds." That sort of thing.

There are sure to be plenty of pop-up targets, too: Meets-and-greets with local leaders, interviews with roleplaying press, the more-than-occasional simulated mortar attack.

Sleep management is a constant leadership problem. Everyone wants to be important, and to be there when things go down. A couple of die-hards, however, are already working way beyond their 8- or 12-hour shifts. It's a macho thing, good enough for two weeks of Annual Training, but not good for the long haul. In few days, in the middle of few garbled sentences, a couple of near-incoherent briefers will be told to leave and get some sleep. Fuzzy thinking in the TOC will get the wrong people killed.

The group-think this morning, however, is good-naturedly disjointed. In the absence of deliberate enemy actions this early in the "war," the exchange of information devolves into a series of pre-game platitudes. It's the Army equivalent of a football team reminding itself to "move the ball down the field", and "don't let the other guys get any points." Still, it's good to hear--gets the juices flowing. "Let's win this one."

Says the operations officer: "We've got to focus on our battle rhythm and our process."

Says the XO: "We need to make sure that everybody on staff, down to the lowest level, knows what's going on."

Says the communications officer, who has just noted the upcoming real-world visit of a real-world general officer: "Remember when they said that everything was right in front of you? How many times has the actual FORSCOM commander visited a rotation in The Box? I bet that's the day we get the personnel recovery mission!"

Everybody stops. The communications officer has just floated a particularly paranoid theory, that the three-star general in charge the U.S. Army's Forces Command would somehow be kidnapped as part of this field problem. People are tired enough that the wild idea starts to make sense. It's just crazy enough ... to be ... true?

The deputy brigade commander--a full-bird colonel--ducks his head in the door. The XO asks what he needs.

"Nothing," comes the reply. "I was wondering how long this meeting goes. Wrap it up."

Red Bulls Get Exclusive Sneak Peak at 'Restrepo'

CAMP RIPLEY, MINNESOTA--More than 50 leaders and staff of the Iowa Army National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th "Red Bull" Infantry Division attended an exclusive sneak-peak of the documentary "Restrepo" Sunday, June 27.

The Sundance Award-winning film, which depicts how one company of U.S. soldiers conducted counterinsurgency operations in the hotly contested Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, opens in theaters nationwide from now until early July. While previously shown in special screenings on active-duty military bases, the Red Bull "Restrepo" event uniquely offered an opportunity to Army National Guard soldiers in a pre-deployment training environment.

The audience comprised much of the brigade's Headquarters and Headquarters Company (H.H.C.)--the non-commissioned, warrant, and commissioned officers who will lead and support the unit during its deployment to Afghanistan later this summer.

By repeatedly embedding with the same platoon of soldiers in 2007 and 2008, film co-producers Sebastian Junger (author of the books "War" and "The Perfect Storm") and Tim Hetherington (author of "Long Story, Bit by Bit") sought to document the emotional experience of U.S. soldiers in combat.

In discussions that followed Sunday night, Red Bull soldiers combined the terrain, conditions, and strategies depicted in "Restrepo" with their own experiences, expertise, and expectations. (Approximately 60 percent of the brigade's soldiers have deployed at least once before.) Here are some highlights of their reactions:

"We have to remember that we, as staff--the decisions that we make and help make, are going to put other people in these situations."

"Never once did it seem like the captain [in the film] asked the elders what they wanted. It seemed like U.S. troops came in and made promises, but never asked the village what they wanted. Some higher somewhere apparently made the decision they they needed roads, and never asked."

"We tell [Afghans] that we're going to make them rich, and then we can't pay for a damn cow?"

"It's important to realize the separation of what these soldiers went through and what we may be going to. As a lieutenant or platoon sergeant, I might live [in the way depicted in the film]. But if you're on Bagram [Airfield], when you're living in a B-hut or CHU or whatever, remember that there are guys out there living in the dirt, burning their own crap, looking for a hot meal every once in a while."

One soldier wished that more soldiers could have taken part in the special screening, including lower-ranking ones. "The time is now. A lot of soldiers aren't taking it seriously yet. This would open a lot of eyes."

At the same time, other soldiers expressed concerns that family and friends might worry that the film represents conditions in Afghanistan nationwide, rather than a particularly gritty pocket. "Every one of us will see a different piece of the puzzle, a different patch of ground, have a different story to tell. In other words, our mileage may vary."

For a few moments, however, thanks to the producers of "Restrepo," Red Bull troops were able to walk in other soldiers' boots--before they travel to Afghanistan themselves.

The Mayor of Faux FOB-istan

No one elected the Mayor of Camp Ripley, Minn., but he sure seems to think he can abuse the goodwill of the people he serves.

Many units are mustering at the National Guard base in order to support the training of approximately 3,000 troops of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division (2-34 B.C.T.) One of the ways they're helping is in logistics--issuing billets and barracks, feeding soldiers, moving and sorting large loads of ammunition.

The Mayor isn't technically part of the brigade. He's only helping the brigade.

Problem is, he seems to spend more time and effort on trying to put people in their places, than he does providing them places to live and work. Given a job that that would seem to require an attitude of servant leadership, he neither leads nor serves.

For example, the Mayor acts put out when tired soldiers drive up after a 12-hour convoy to ask where they're supposed to sleep and eat--"You're the third person to ask me that." He brusquely berates a young officer for asking for a key to her barracks--"you're only a SECOND lieutenant," he tells her, "I can't trust you." That same officer is tasked with securing our unit's most-secret workspaces. He puts off one visitor by saying, "Actually, I was going to chow now. Come back in an hour."

Rule No. 1 about customer service: It's about serving the customer. That's something for our unit should remember, given the possibility that our own logistics personnel will be performing similar missions in Afghanistan.

To top it all off, The Mayor bumbles around driving a rather easily identified personal vehicle--a yellow Camero that looks like something out of the Transformers movies. One can tell at great distances whether he's on the job or not. I've noticed soldiers of all ranks already avoiding the office when his car is parked outside.

I asked a buddy in a different unit about The Mayor. "You mean The Snake Charmer?"

It seems that The Mayor had been exploring various training sites on Camp Ripley, when he came across a snake in one of the small tin shacks soldiers sometimes use to sleep in. These are 20-by-20-feet structures, and almost look like goat or hog pens. Soldiers even call them that.

So, the Mayor finds a snake in one of the buildings, and tells the Camp Ripley staff to remove all the wildlife from the training site before he takes temporary possession of it.

When Camp Ripley employees respond, they find the snake right away.

It's a toy snake! It's a rubber snake!

Charming story, no?

Forming and Storming as a TOC Staff

A couple of new guys showed up last drill weekend. Funny how a year ago, we were all talking about building the team, locking people in place so everybody could learn their individual jobs. Now, only a few months out, people are still getting moved around, assigned and re-assigned.

Everybody's friendly, and there have even been a couple of introductory gut-buster laugh-ins around the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) already. That's a good sign--a good potential dynamic for later on downrange, from what I can tell.

It's hard to come into a unit, to figure out what's going on, or even to identify "who's my daddy" and "who's who in the zoo." The new guys even spent a couple of hours trying to draw an organizational chart, to help them visualize their respective administrative food chains. The exercise turned into something akin to a Dilbert cartoon.

(I feel their pain. When I got here, I was assigned to one staff section, but attached to another. Years later, I found out that, on paper at least, my position actually reported to a third, somewhat dormant section. I didn't even know we had an "Information Operations" staff. If they have anything to do with fixing the radio, the photocopier, or the coffee machine, I'm their guy.)

There are four phases through which a team must evolve to achieve levels of high-performance: "Forming, storming, norming, and performing." Within the brigade TOC, we're still at the "forming" stage, although you can occasionally tell that people are becoming frustrated--with the fast operational pace, with the the dawning reality of deployment, with each other.

Cue Billy Joel: "There's a storm front coming ..."

We didn't tell the new guys about the "forming and storming" stuff. Instead, we also told them that joining the Brigade TOC parallels the Five Stages of Grief: "Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance." We also showed them the Army field manual that describes how the brigade staff sections are organized.

Organizationally, the staff sections (sometimes also called the "'S' shops") all answer to a primary staff officer and/or non-commissioned officer (N.C.O.). When someone refers to the "S1-actual," for example, they're talking about the primary staff officer responsible for personnel and administration issues. When they refer to the "S1," they might be talking about the same individual, or the whole section that works for him or her.

For easy future reference, here's how the staff sections break out:

• S1: Personnel
• S2: Intelligence
• S3: Operations
• S4: Logistics
• S5: Formerly civil-military officer (C.M.O.)
• S6: Communications
• S7: Information Operations (I.O.)
• S8: Fiscal
• S9: Civil-military officer (C.M.O.)

Side note: When using Hollywood callsigns over the radio, you can also pretty much determine who the first four primary staff designators are. As I've mentioned before, "Ryder" is the brigade callsign. So "Ryder-1" is the brigade S1 (Personnel) officer; "Ryder-2" is the brigade S2 (Intelligence) officer; and on up until "Ryder-6." By tradition that pre-dates the S6 (Communications) position, the "6" is the commander, so the scheme breaks apart a little after that. My wife wanted to know where the "Household-6" moniker came from, so there you go.

The staff officers and their sections all work for the executive officer (X.O.). There are also "personal" staff officers and NCOs, who work directly for the commander. These include, but are not limited to:

The Chaplain: The commander's right-hand man (or woman) on moral and religious issues.

The Brigade Judge Advocate (B.J.A.): An Army lawyer, commonly referred to as the "JAG," for "Judge Advocate General."

The Public Affairs Officer (P.A.O.): The commander's adviser on dealing with the media, and official unit spokesperson.

The Command Sergeant Major (C.S.M.): The highest-ranking enlisted soldier in the organization. Looks out for the troops.

Of course, in reality, things don't break out that easily. Breaking down the walls among each function, the brigade staffs also come together in various ad hoc, cross-disciplinary teams. An "Information Operations Working Group," for example, might include representatives from the S2, S3, S7, and Public Affairs sections.

You might even see a JAG there, just to keep things interesting.