The United States Army Special Forces command teams are composed of a commissioned officer, a warrant officer and senior non-commissioned officer. A model has evolved over time and is tributed with being a key component to success on the battlefield of yesterday and today.
To break down just Army Special Forces balances strategy, experience and teamwork, Creator and Host Fran Racioppi sat down with Command Sergeant Major David Waldo and Command Chief Warrant Officer Felix Mosqueda; two of the three senior-most leaders of First Special Forces Command.
From atop the Normandy Resistance Monument in Saint Marie Dumont, we broke down what it means to be a Green Beret and how the mission has evolved from the Jedburgh Teams of D-Day to today’s Operational Detachments.
CSM Waldo and Chief Mosqueda shared their priorities and vision for Army Special Forces, how the regiment is adapting in the post Global War on Terror environment, the misconception of the Special Forces mission and how they are tackling the recruiting and manning challenges needed for the next battlefield; whether that be against a peer, near peer or terrorist adversary.
Check out our conversation from the birthplace of modern Special Forces; then head over to our YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform to catch all our coverage from the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.
And don’t miss our first documentary, Unknown Heroes: Behind Enemy Lines at D-Day, the story of Operation Jedburgh available now only on YouTube.
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Sergeant Major, Chief, welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast.
How awesome is this? 
Thank you for having us.
This is the coolest spot we’ve ever done a show.
I was third-string quarterback for the Gaylord High Blue Devils. They still talk about a lot of my things back in the day. I’m used to being the after. I wish you had better guests. We’re super excited, but we’ll take it. This is awesome.
This is the spot. We’re in Sainte Marie du Mont, not far from Utah Beach here in Normandy, France and we’re sitting on the wall, which is representative of the parachutes. That’s what’s sitting between us here that our American, British, and French Jedburgh’s teams used when they parachuted into this region of France, starting the night before D-Day. These three-man teams conducted sabotage and subversion operations to prevent the Germans from reinforcing the beaches of Normandy and the monument behind us. It gives you goosebumps but the monument behind us is to commemorate those efforts.
Can you imagine the feeling that they had? We were talking before, and the way they set the show up is pretty freaking phenomenal, to be honest. With the other things that are going on. A little while ago, they had the Golden Knights and some guys doing parachuting over. You get that feeling when you’re getting ready to exit the aircraft and you get amped up. Can you imagine if you were one of those teams going into the night of day, just getting onto the ground is the first part, go under the darkness of cover. The cover of darkness to be able to do the things that they were asked to do. I do get amped thinking about the same thing.
On the opposite spectrum, being part of the Normandy French Resistance, linking up with those teams that were helping to provide whatever information, supplies, etc. The combination, and we know the rest of the history, but it’s phenomenal sitting here at the Resistance Monument.
They just built this thing in 2021. Not only are you putting it all out there but you’re doing so without the expectation of any credit. Just now we’re starting to recognize and think about it. It’s a definition of character to us, but incredibly humbling.
One of the biggest eye-openers that I’ve had now, I think we’re on day 2 or 3 here in Normandy, is that they have not forgotten. We live an ocean away, and there are so many things we could talk about here, but number one, America put two million people into Europe. We put 350,000 across the beach, right down the street. We inserted 90-plus Jedburgh teams, less than 300 people total, but they linked up with what became 400,000 French resistance fighters. These houses were here. They were here during the occupation. You said, “What was it like? What could it have been like on both sides of that?” Here’s what we know. They knew they had no choice. There was no can, there was no try. Hope was not a course of action. It was only must.
As I’m sitting here, I got goosebumps up and down. You can feel this in your belly and sitting on this very hallowed ground, but are we earning it still? You walk around and still today people are thanking you for your service and you steal from Sergeant Major of the Army Grinch and retire and how you are worth it. Now I’m going to change it to number one, you’re worth it, but damn, am I earning this? Am I still doing our part to number one honor, but earning it so that when we get the call, we can also do it? It’s pretty magical.
Sitting here early this morning, the speeches from our French hosts, what they say in their speeches to us trickles down on what you said. They’re thanking us for being here and for what the Americans and the teams did 80 years ago, as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Amazing.
Let’s fast forward those 80 years to today. We had an opportunity a couple of months ago to come down to Fort Liberty. We sat down with your boss, with General Ferguson, a great man, who spoke here today and shared some of his thoughts with us. We put together not only his long episode where we talked about First Special Forces Command and the impact of the unit, and its lineage back to the Jedburghs 80 years ago. We talked about his vision. We talked about where the regiment was going, but he gave us his perspective, which is a critical perspective because he is the commanding general, but there are another two perspectives as part of that command team.
I thought it was important that we seize this opportunity to hear from the two of you because when we look at the construct of a command team in special forces, we have the officer, the commissioned officer. We have this role of the warrant officer, which is unique to the special forces, and we also had a chance to sit down with Gary Ostrander and talk about that with Chief Ostrander, we have the senior enlisted leader who varies in their ranks from a master sergeant to a sergeant major to a command sergeant major. Would you take a second and talk about the dynamics of those three roles, where you fit in, and how your priorities align with each other?
I’ll take it first, Chief. Number one, if it’s important to my boss, then it’s super important to me. If it’s cool to my boss, it’s fascinating to me. When it gets down to it, our visions align because they don’t make a better general person. We see it. A little bit as far as a role as a Sergeant Major, there are the foundational things like talent management and non-commissioned officer and enlisted manning things that you’re always going to do.
What we’re giving the latitude because we’re not commanders is we’re able to have the flexibility to look across the formation to ensure that the message is being heard up and down the echelons. Also, bottom-up, what are we hearing? What are we seeing? What are we thinking? To make sure that we’re doing that. You’re also able to look around and find those things that are most threatening to the viability and reputation of the organization. We’re able to insert ourselves into that. Let’s get after that because that to me is a good metaphor for what special operations are going to do in the future.
We were super flexible. We’re about 70 countries worldwide and leverage partnerships. What is most threatening to our way of life, to our liberty, to make sure that we don’t get surprised in the most horrible way, and that we’re already there posture to insert ourselves there? That’s why I’m not only incredibly humbled, but that’s a word that’s going to resonate today with me. To build it with our boss and trust that with us too, that’s a sacred role that I certainly relish.
Green Berets identify the most threatening things to our way of life and liberty to make sure we do not get surprised in the most horrible way.
To double down on what the CSM said, but ultimately is understanding the commander’s vision. What does that mean? It’s understanding to be able to support that vision. That’s part of my task and make sure the staff understands that, make sure our subordinate units understand that. My role as the command chief foreign officer also is to advise and assist the commander on all things.
As the CSM said, what he thinks is important is important. What he thinks is cool is cool. How do we get after that? A lot of that comes from experience. We talk a lot about what’s old is new, especially if you look at where we’re at today. It’s how we put those practices into play with modernization and technology. That rolls downhill from my job down to the other warrant officer role you talked about. It’s also special this year that we’re celebrating the 40th birthday of the special forces warrant officer from 1984 to this year.
Some of you have been there all 40 years.
There are a couple left on active duty. You have warrant officers before the birth of warrant officers.
Close to three and a half decades worth. Close, but not that close. We’ve also seen that, to your point about what our role is as command chiefs, foreign officers, and warrant officers. That has changed for the better through trial and error. I think it gets better from here on out. Again, understanding the boss’s intent, his vision, and helping him get after that.
We have this talk and there are these terms that are thrown around. We talk about the operational force. We talk about the man, train, and equip functions of different commands. Talk about the difference between the two, where you fit into the relationship between man, train, and equip, and the operational force, and then what you learn for each of these to prepare the special forces regiment to go out there and fight these nations wars that we’re going to talk more about in a minute.
I thought we were going to get softballs coming in here, to be honest with you. We blend them right now. I’m going to go into a weird parable real quick, but I grew up in Northern Michigan.
We heard that. Are you a Michigan fan?
A little bit. National champions, Big Ten champions, all the things. We played a great game. We’d build up snow and you play a king of the mountain. When you’re trying to get to the top, it’s easy because all you have to do is get to the top. Once you get on top, you’re like, “This isn’t very fun I don’t know where the next threat is going to come from.
I’m trying to pivot all the way around. As a youngster, I found out I would accidentally slip off the mountain so all I had to do was climb back up to the top again. Now I’m certainly not saying we are ever not the top of the mountain but make no mistake about it and adversaries that are tuning in to this. We are at the top of the mountain and that’s precarious because we don’t know where the threat is going to come in. How do you do that?
We have to man, train, and equip. That’s the particular first special forces command, but we also make sure we’re globally synchronizing activities to know where that next threat’s going to come through and it’s a balance. To quote General Fenton terribly, “No one goes to the circus to see someone juggling one ball.” You have to juggle multiple balls and we got to do it right. We also especially select and train to be able to do that.
Man, train, and equip operational force. To train and equip, you have to have the manning. We very well know in the past year or two, we’ve had struggles with recruiting. That is where it starts. I think us being part of that is helping the recruitment both for the Army and special forces, special operations for SIOPCA, NSF. As the CSM said, select and train. Once we get to that, then how do we equip and what are we equipping with? It’s all part of staying relevant to what’s going on in today’s current operational environment.
What we’re seeing out there, lessons learned and this we’re a few years disconnected from, or GWOT I’ll call it. Now we need to look to that next ridge line and it’s different. That’s what we’re getting after today in regard to the training equipment. We’re seeing some significant shifts, but I think that’s where we need to go. I think that’s where we’re headed as far as the training and equipment piece. Everything starts with people, which is the manning.
I’m going to go into both of those in a little bit more detail. First, let’s start with the manning. You brought up challenges in recruiting. People will give you different opinions based on who you talk to. We’re meeting the numbers or not meeting the numbers. How do we do that? I’ll ask you guys, are we meeting the numbers, how do we meet the numbers, and what are the numbers? Let’s start there.
You mean the numbers? No. Do we always want more? You hear a lot about the troubles with today’s youth are different, but there’s this thing a while ago and I read it and it said, today’s youth, they’re lazy and they don’t take to authority much and they’re always asking why. That was written in 1938 in the Chicago Tribune. Those youth went on that the reason why we’re sitting here in this hell of a ground right now. Many people are joining the military right now. You should see the folks that are coming through the pipeline right now.
My God, is it popular right now? Is there a thing to do right now? To throw General Baudet’s name out here a little bit too. He said he joined to be something, not to do something. Now we’re getting generations of folks that are joined to be something. We got to tell our stories and people got to see it. We also have what we have and we’re going to do the best we can with it. They got the best of the business figuring out how to get that trust back with our civilians so they want to put their sons and daughters into our profession of arms.
We talk about what makes it special. I always tell people the mission is what makes it special. I think the second thing that makes us special is our people and being able to do historically what we’ve done is always do more with less. We’re able to do that because of our training pipeline. Our training pipeline is top-of-the-line, top-tier. The product that we’re getting out of the pipeline for all our regiments is bar none the best. We’re still trying and we’re going to improve it even better. I think with shortages, that’s what comes to mind as we look at the manning. We’re not going to get 100%. What the numbers look like, I agree with CSM. It’s about the quality, not the quantity. That’s where we’re at right now and that’s what we need to look at.
Green Berets have done more with less because of their training pipeline.
It’s the soft truth. Special operations force truth. What are our values? One of them is quality over quantity and we cannot mass produce. I think that’s one of the more important parts of this time. When we look at what’s going on in recruiting, we look at the force structure, we have to fall back on those values. Why do we have values? Values create culture. Culture carries through. We’re all going to come and go, but the culture of the organization started here. In these fields.
That was where that started because we cared about quality. Why did we have only 100 Americans who were part of this organization? Because there were a whole bunch of millions who couldn’t do what we were asking them to do. That has to permeate today. We cannot get nervous, we cannot run around and be scared. We have to do exactly what you’re saying. This is what we got.
What we’re going to do is make sure that we’re going to put forward the best that we have if that’s what we got. You brought up the training, you brought up the force structure. Not 80 years, but a bit less than 80 years, the structure of this special forces ODA has relatively been the same. We have our commander. We have our team sergeant. We have our assistant detachment commander. Although they’re only 40 years old, then we have our team. The guys who make up the team, be it the Bravos, the Charlies, the Echos, and the Deltas. Our Fox intelligence sergeants. The MTO of the past, is that also the MTO of the future?
It cannot be. There are some foundational roots to it. There’s a steel in the spine of what we are. Ultimately, and this is quoting all the generals right now of what our nation needs us to be. We have to figure that out. Like Roosevelt, we have to experiment and we have to experiment bravely and boldly. That’s part of the boss’s vision.
We believe in it. We expect our folks to be creative and audacious. We’re going to do just that and figure it out. What we are as an ODA, a PSYOPs team, psychological operations or civil affairs team is a core of that. We can solve problems with that, but we have to expand on that. We have to look to future capabilities and robotics and all those kinds of things. How is the future landscape looking? We’re doing that.
Again, does that mean the teams get bigger? I don’t know, but with other modernization transformations things that are happening, we need other specialists on that ODA. Not that our current ODA guys cannot do it, but now we’re asking them to do probably too much instead of being an expert on one thing. We need those additional experts, whether it be fires, robotics, etc. I think it’s a change waiting to happen. I think we’ve already started if that makes sense. We’re just trying to figure out how to get the end game at this point because it is fairly new. It cannot stay the same.
Let the function identify the form and not restrictions for mentos and those sorts of things. That’s what we’re going to do.
Let’s talk about the evolution of I’d call it warfare, but let’s call it priorities. Maybe even priority is not the right word, but maybe where our focus area has been for SOF. We take it back 20 or 25 years. From the field here in 1944, through the establishment of the regiment in 1952, the dawning of the Green Beret, we focused on irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, shaping operations left of what we call bang, left of the event.
We carried that predominantly through the Cold War. We had MACV-SOG in Vietnam, and we’re going to start telling their stories here later this year. We saw that with the Berlin Brigade, and the teams in Dead A in Berlin in the Cold War era. Then 9/11 happens. Just as quickly as those planes hit the tower, went down in the field, and penetrated the Pentagon, or attempted to penetrate the Pentagon.
It is impenetrable.
All of a sudden, we’re in a counter-terrorism fight, which then leads to a counter-insurgency fight, which we were joking about doctrine, we had to write the doctrine while fighting that war and understanding, coming to grips with what is counter-insurgency and how do we do it. For 20-plus years, we fought that, and then one day, we leave, and the war is over.
I would argue that the global war on terror is not over. It has entered a new phase because there are still those out there who seek to do us harm and are doing everything they can to do so. Now there’s this discussion about what we do with SOF because, rightfully so, SOF carried the load in the global war on terror.
Not to take away from anyone who served in any of the theaters in any unit, but SOF put a lot of effort into counterterrorism and counterinsurgency across the globe. The question becomes, now what? Where are we in that evolution? What have we learned from the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency fight to better prepare us to get back to our unconventional warfare, irregular warfare roots?
That’s a big question. That’s a big question, and it’s a solid question because sometimes you almost tend to seem derogatory when you’re like, because of the GWAD, we’re unprepared for this next thing. I couldn’t be further from I’ve never been more proud to be a product of the GWADs. Look at how we would join task forces and fuse intelligence and go after decentralized networks and all those things.
You take a lot of those foundational elements of solving dynamic complex problems and applying them. If you remember a couple of
months ago, now the Ravens kicker Justin Tucker was out there warming up. He’s kicking and he’s frustrating the Chiefs at the time. He’s kicking the ball and it’s going into him. You look at that and you see the special teams players trying to warm up what you got the folks doing. What we have to change now is we’re not going to be the primary effort.
By go, when you come in as you might have to kick it’s all a metaphor, but you have to kick a field goal that’s going to win the game or change field position with a punt. We’re in that stage now where people know that soft is good. We can turn on big problems and come to solutions rapidly, but we cannot be distracted. We have to remain humble in our hearts but with a great deal of professionalism. We’re not frustrated. People know that we’re good, but we’re not disrupting the warmups, so to speak, if that makes any sense.
I think you answered your question with an answer. You mentioned pre-911, we were always focusing on our core missions. That’s our core mission, for example. There was no direct enemy that we were focusing on. It was those missions and training day in, day out, you name them, I can list them for you. To your point, 9/11 hit. We focused on two big ones and went away for a little bit.
I think we’re back to that now where we need to go back and train on all our core missions. The focus is on certain enemies out there. At the end of the day, when 9.11 hit, we were ready. It didn’t matter what it was. We were ready. That balloon hit, and we sent our soldiers in. To your point, the counterinsurgency, because of the training everyone had done, it was a matter of time before we sneezed on it per se. I think we’re there now. We need to go back to that, reload the training, get back out, and continue to train because again, every group is still responsible for certain parts of the world.
You have to focus on all the missions because every part of the world is set up so the operational environment is going to be different. I think that’s where we’re back to now. That’s our refocus, the commander’s focus. When he lays down what the vision is for training, where we’re doing the training, and how to get after training. We’re there now and we’re seeing some effects of that based on some CTC. The training centers out there of what’s being conducted and then what we’re putting forth based on the lessons learned. \
Every global operation environment today is similar yet different at the same time.
The only thing I’d add before we go on is the foundational elements of by, with, and through and achieving relative support, those in atrophy. Maybe didn’t talk about them, highlight them, that paradigm has shifted and we talk about them, but if you ever look at old Hefe here, old Chief, when he goes back to Okinawa, he’s like the governor and being here and you see the 10th group guys, you got generational partnerships, that’s global. How did that go away? We’re talking about the right things. We’re thinking about things, the right things, and doing a buy with and through.
How do you define the next fight?
I’ll give that one a stab. We do talk about this quite a bit. Based on what technology has to offer nowadays and what we’re looking at is modernized, number one is first contact should not be human contact. It should be some tech or robotics which makes sense. What I talked about a little bit a minute ago, is understanding each global operational environment because it’s going to be different yet similar if that makes sense.
Every global operation environment today is similar yet different at the same time.
You may not need all twenty things in one operational environment. Maybe you need twelve of those things, whatever they may be. We need to be prepared. I think it is going to be truly an LSCO fight, what we’re seeing a little bit in Ukraine per se. Pre-911, that’s what we used to train. When you think about the order battle from the Soviet Union, that’s what we used to train on, it was LSCO. How do we integrate better now with the big army and the support of LSCO? The key is working with them more because ultimately, we’re now going to be in the supporting role for the most part.
It’s low-hanging fruit, but you go back to September 10th, 2001. Had I been asked that, I was Staff Sergeant Waldo on the fondest operation of the attachment that’s ever been ODA 1A2. We’re getting ready to do a training in Thailand. Terrorist-signed airplanes in the building came out of nowhere. I think the next fight is ill-defined. We can predict in LSCO and remote-advised and assist and robotics. We’re not going to know, we’re not going to see it.
We’re probably going to get a black, we’re probably going to get punched. We’ll probably get on the map and no one’s going to get off the bad matter than this force and our partners. I think the next fight to me, I cannot define it, not because I haven’t thought about it, but because I don’t know. I do know that we will be ready for whatever it may be.
Sergeant Major, your primary responsibility is the guys, is the operators and ensuring that number one, we have the best operators as we talked about and ensuring I would say equally as important, if not even more in some respects, the longevity of our guys. As we talked about with respect to the global war on terror, our guys have been through a lot. As we’ve seen a reduction in incoming numbers, we’re more relying on them. Their experience, by and large, though has been in this CT coin fight.
Culturally, there’s a big difference between back-to-back six-month deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq to we’re going to go back to a month here, two months here. Maybe we’re not going to go anywhere for a year, and we’re going to focus on training. All this comes on the back end of guys who are revved high. We talk, there’s a term operator syndrome, which I know you guys I’m sure have heard of and have talked about. When we take an operator and for 10, 15, 20 years, it’s go, go, go, go, go, and now it’s like, “Guys, pump the brakes.” How do we turn it down, but drive the culture home, keep them focused, and be ready to turn it back up when the time comes?
I think number one, that’s great, you ask what keeps you up at night. It’s what you’re talking about, 100% does that. It goes down to leading through it. We have an incredible process where we know the human beings that we have. We have to care, we have to care deeply and it all goes back to love. When you think about what separates us from our adversaries and I say our adversaries are brilliant, they’re also lethal. Do they love each other the way that our folks do? I’m talking about the love and all chaos erupts around you.
The only thing that matters is the folks next to you. That’s what matters most to them. That’s not always just the bullets flying chaos. Now we are in a little bit of a chaotic thing that we have to lead through it. Professionally we have these things now that you see where you’re standing with OMLs and everything else. Now we’re fighting against careers just to be honest. Sometimes guys, not only has the mission changed, but now the professional evolutions have changed. You lead through it and you go back to the purpose and core.
What separates the United States from our adversaries is our capacity to love. What matters most, even when chaos erupts around us, is the people next to us.
You said hard about what I’ve been able to see is when guys put together, we’re going back a little bit to the basics of putting together good training plans, it’s not just revving up and going to deploy and going back, wrestling and doing the end. E7s and E8s are putting together these long training plans to get ready for these things. They’re specializing in an ODA. Guys are seeing that because they’re seeing the purpose of what they’re doing. Then it’s starting to, we’re getting out of the draws. They’re in Pine Land. We’re getting out of those draws and we’re getting into where we’re seeing the end point.
We’re seeing the cadre in the tent there, but that’s what it is. It’s making sure people remember and believe in the purpose. We are the best folks in the world. They’re going to give you a professional buy-in all day long. What we need is that personal buy-in too. You have to personally see it. That is 100% my personal responsibility. That’s all of our personal responsibility to make sure that we get personal buy-in to go on the professional and then we’ll lead through us. That way, when the next terror does happen, then we’ll be galvanized and ready for it.
We’re ultimately responsible and assume the risk of all our soldiers being trained and ready to train before they do anything downrange. One of the things, and Sergeant Major is on this as well, is our operational force is very young and inexperienced nowadays. It’s just a fact, they’re very young. The feedback we get from those team sergeants is we need more time, more time to train. We listen to them and we’re going to provide that so they can get six months of individual and twelve months of collective training.
What that means is more training back home deployment, and then doing that rotation over and over. It gives them a head-on pillow, but also those training reps that they’re asking for because it comes from those senior leaders that are training the men and the women. We listen to that and that’s one way that we’re getting after this as well. These are asks that we get from our subordinate units and very much in the CSMs lane, but as a collective, that’s one way we’re getting after it, and I think it’s the way to go after it.
Part of leadership is providing the vision. When we sit in charge of it, they say it’s lonely at the top. I often think about that for a second. You’re like, “How can it be lonely at the top? I have all these people around me all the time,” but a leader’s job when we separate leadership and management. Management is like did somebody show up on time? Do they have all their stuff? Are they in the right uniform? That’s management, but leadership and why leadership is lonely at the top is because you have to look forward.
You have to see everything around you and then be able to take a step back, think and analyze that, and then say, “Where do I want to be 5 years, 10 years, 15 years?” That’s where great staff come into play because then you can turn around as the leader and say, “Here’s the vision. Someone to go tell me how to make it happen.” Usually, those people are way better at it than we are when we have that idea. The reason why I bring all this up is because I want to ask you both. What’s your vision for the regiment over the next 5 to 10 years?
What I see in the next 5 to 10 years. Now that’s a good one. Let me caveat all this. If I could still have an H harness in the butt pack, that’s the guy I am. What I see is a truly galvanized force in five years is going to be before it. Unfortunately, I’m at my age where you get into pump cycles, you think in 5 and 10. I just see it galvanized where we know who we are. We have this great identity.
We’re integrated with our science of affairs and integrated operationally. We’re synced globally with our different task forces. We found that good blend between the man, training, equipment, and driving operations. That’s where I see us. I see perhaps the same pride you’re seeing here with the shoulders back, the chest out. It’s awfully proud to be in special operations being here today. I see in that times 10. I’m going to stop for a second, gather some thoughts, Chief, and take it.
That is a very good question five years right around the door. The way I envision it is, and you mentioned, it gets lonely at the top. I don’t think so. I think that if you build good command teams, it never gets lonely at the top. That’s my perspective. If you continue to do that, we’re already hitting the next five years. It’s right around the corner. The CSM mentioned all the integration, the training, and the modernization. The demand signal in my opinion is still there and it’s still going to be there for SOF.
The big one that I envisioned for 5 and 10 years though is being hopefully, I wouldn’t say 100% because you can never be 100%, but being that much further along, and I mentioned earlier integration with the joint force. That’s the big Army, but also the rest of the joint force, that integration, that’s probably more 5 to 10 years, not 5 years. I think that’s key to success here in the future, understanding not just our role in support of or lead of, but everyone else’s roles. That’s a big one we’re also getting after. We’ve seen that as a potential gap based on what we’re training with now.
Remember Street Fighter 2. Remember that game?
I do remember it.
Do you remember the characters? What was your go-to character? Do you remember?
I cannot remember a single character.
I’m over here thinking like, damn, I should probably have my own vision. There’s a couple of characters. If you’re the one guy, you win, you become the mayor. If you’re the girl, you go on, you become the queen. There’s a character named Ryu. You go through and you defeat all the characters and you win. Do you know what Ryu’s celebration is once he wins? It’s him walking off seeking the next challenge. I think the vision, and this is going to be super in the platitude, and as you said, I come up with it and everyone else executes the details.
It’s a humble force of steel in their spines that is on to the next challenge, no matter what it is. You’re setting the table and then you’re on to the next thing. I think culturally, you’re not loud. You are embracing the quiet professional. We’re looking at how we need to look. We certainly have a lot more robots and things that we’re dealing with. We’re all augmented with AI and all those kinds of fancy things but at the core of it, we’re seeking managing without the expectation of credit.
Are you ready for the softball test questions?
Yes. That’s what we’ve prepared for. That would be great.
How do you like the new uniforms? This is the first time I’ve seen them en masse.
For the weather out here, they’re perfect.
I dig it. I’m walking, I saw some folks in the grocery store over here wearing this, and I went up and chatted with them, and they were French. They’re wearing the old throwbacks. I’m like, “Cool.” Particularly, I dig it. Super comfy. I think they look great. Your arms are just big.
Back to history, I’m glad to be part of it. It’s fantastic.
I think they look sharp. I like them. I’m jealous because I had the blues. We had the greens and the greens you couldn’t get on because that was like wearing a body suit. You had the blues and the blues became the uniform and that was like wearing a trash bag.
I grew up with the greens. I thought the greens were a lot better than the blues. That’s just me.
I give it a 7 out of 10 on the uniform.
[Habits form the foundation of what we do. It sets our own personal culture. It defines our character. At the end of every one of our episodes, I tie it back to this place. I tie it back to the Jedburghs of World War 2. They parachuted onto these lands that we sit in now. They had to be proficient with three things every day at the core of what they did. Those three things have permeated our special operator today. They had to be able to shoot, they had to be able to move, and they had to be able to communicate. If they could do those three things with the utmost precision, they didn’t have to focus on it because it was a habit. It just happened.
They could focus on more complex tasks, like running off these drop zones, coming into a village like this, linking up with people who look like ordinary citizens, and then planning an operation to take down a bridge or a power line or attack German encampment while they sleep. Those are complex challenges. You cannot be worried about whether I can shoot my rifle, use my radio, or move at night. What are the three things that you each do every day in your personal life to set the conditions for success in your world?
I’ll start off. Number one is I pay my rent. Paying my rent means you have to get up in the morning and do physical fitness because you cannot do any of that without being in some physical shape. To move, shoot, and communicate, there’s a physical aspect to that, which turns into a mental aspect. The more you put yourself to the grind, the more mentally prepared you’re going to be, as well as physically.
The more you put yourself to the grind, the more mentally and physically prepared you will be.
Secondly, is understanding what your job is. I’m not talking about the foundational aspect, you talked about that. That should be a
given. We’re talking about what those missions are, what you’re being asked to do, and understanding the commander’s intent. You have to understand the commander’s intent.
Thirdly is being present. Being present means leading by example. I never tell anybody to do something that I don’t do myself, but presence. You’re not purposely being present. It’s part of day in and day out, being where you need to be at the right time, right uniform. As long as I’ve been doing it, that matters. Those three things are very broad in general, but they lay the foundation to be able to pick up, get assigned a mission, and be successful.
That’s why they don’t make them any better than Chief Mosqueda, best in the business and then you go back to your command team thing. I love going to work every day. How much of a blessing it is. I can tell you guys love coming to work every day too. I guess the first thing, I’m stealing from Coach Valvano a little bit, is you have a full day, and once a full day, you brought tears and emotion, you laughed till your belly hurt and you spent some time in reflection. That’s a hard one to do every single day, but I try to have every single day full day to earn it.
The second thing and I’m very proud, finally, I get to bring in Coach Harbaugh, is he does this thing, get 1% better every single day, and it’s a rallying cry. How to do that? Do I work out every single day? What do I get? I got to do something every single day to get 1% better. Sometimes it’s like 10:00 at night, and I’m like, “I got to do something. Let me memorize some words in Google. Let me pick up my Indonesian language book and do a phrase.”
Lastly, make someone else’s day better. We all go to work sometimes and there are people that give you energy and there are some things like I want to avoid talking to these folks that they suck the energy out of you. Particularly I force myself every day to go and interact with those folks. Those are probably my three things.
Let me caveat with that. There’s a broader spectrum that covers whatever three things anybody would answer that question with. That’s a balanced work life. You have to balance whatever three things you think are important and are important with family life. With your soldier’s understanding of their situation, whether they’re single or married, which goes back to the piece you brought up earlier with the love piece. If your soldiers see you balancing those things, it makes it that much better, if that makes sense.
I thought you were going to say calf raises, bicep curls, and bench press.
That’s part of the paying the rent.
Don’t forget legs.
That’s fine. I’m not a leg guy. I’m trying to bring the culture back.
Balance work life. I love it. Chief, pay the rent. Understand your job and the commander’s intent. Be present. Lead by example. Sergeant Major, make it a full day. I love everything you guys are pointing out here. Get one percent better. Make someone else’s day better. All of those are wonderful. You made my day better.
We’re going to get you back because you got a lot of things that you got to get to over the course of the rest of the
day and tomorrow. I sincerely appreciate you both taking the time to sit down with me today to tell the story. This truly is a special place. For all of us who served in the Special Forces Regiment, this is home. We talk about Fort Liberty, but this is home. This is where it started. We sat here during the ceremony and so perfectly timed as those waves of now C-130s, but those aircraft came by with the doors open.
The stripe on them too. They had stripes on the birds too.
That, you could feel. You look up and you say, just like you started with, “What was the emotion there?” We don’t feel that because we’re not up there, we’re not doing it, and we weren’t there, but when I sit here and we look around us and we look at this monument, you cannot help to be moved, and inspired. Whatever you’re going to go off and do next, you know that you can be motivated by what happened here.
That’s well said.
Thank you for your service.
Green Beret Foundation
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