Many of us spent the weekend reflecting on the memory of the men and women who have served our nation in the military and who did not return home alive or whole. I attended a very moving service at Harvard's Memorial Chapel hosted by the Harvard Veterans' organization. Col. Everett Spain led us through a litany of Harvard men and women who have paid the ultimate price for freedom - from the Revolution to Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Across the nation, parades were held, speeches were given, wreathes were laid and flags were flown. It was altogether fitting and proper that we should do so in their memory.
Now that the Memorial Day weekend has passed, it is time to turn our attention to the veterans who remain with us, many of whom are struggling to find the right place to serve and to work when their time of service as active duty military has come to an end. I am working closely with a large number of men and women in this category. I will use this space in The White Rhino Chronicle from time to time to draw your attention to specific veterans, and in doing so, ask you to work with me in exploring opportunities for these men and women to find their next place of service in the private sector, social sector or government service.
Today, I pleased to make you aware of a gifted U.S. Army veteran who is transitioning out of the Army and into the Private Sector. I have asked Colonel Dowd to tell part of his story, so that readers of The White Rhino Chronicle might begin to grasp his unique qualities that could easily be translated into a leadership role in a business.
I asked Colonel Dowd to select several stories that describe leadership challenges he has faced during his Army career. I am pleased to share those stories with you today.
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Fort Rucker Training Battalion
I commanded a helicopter training
battalion at Fort Rucker, Alabama from 2003 to 2005. During that time, we flew more helicopter
hours than any battalion in the Army and, for the vast majority of our
operations, flew safely and effectively.
We did, however, endure a challenging four-month period during the
summer of 2004. At this time, were well
into the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and the Army had been forced to change
some of its assignment policies.
Normally, I would have a cadre of instructor pilots (IPs) for whom this
was a third or fourth assignment, having thoroughly honed their skills in the
field. It was important to have senior,
experienced IPs because a new flight training regimen called for students to
conduct the bulk of their training in large, complex combat aircraft rather
than in small, simple trainers. This put
a premium on instructor experience since he or she would fly “single pilot”
with raw recruits. In 2004, because of
the new assignment policy, we began to receive IPs for whom Fort Rucker was
only their second assignment, their first being combat in theater. This created two problems: first, the new IPs were inexperienced and
second, they were used to the frenetic, harried pace of combat in which
everything has to be done extremely quickly.
This resulted in a spate of accidents, most minor, but three of which
resulted in significant damage (but thankfully, none in deaths). As the leader I had to develop a way to cope
with an inexperienced cadre while at the same time maintain the demanding pace
of training, training that had to be of particularly high quality since many of
the graduating students were going directly to combat. My staff and I developed several approaches.
The first step was to make a concerted
effort to convince the new pilots that their new environment did not require
the urgency that their recent combat experiences had demanded. I personally met with each of my pilots on a
regular basis to assure them that, though it was important to use our time
wisely and move our students through training as efficiently as possible,
timeliness did not have the “life or death” nature that it did when they were,
for example, conducting medevac missions or airlifting supplies into a battle. If training got behind, no lives were at
risk, no missions would fail. Driving
this home took repeated and constant coaching.
Second, I decided to forego training my
own set of students for a time and instead begin a “quality control” program
during which I would ride in the back of randomly selected training flights. This was a bit of a sacrifice for me as I
found that I enjoyed teaching young men and women the science and art of
flight. (In fact, over the course of my career I found that, a bit to my
surprise, the thing that came to me most naturally and for which I earned the
most positive feedback was teaching. I
returned to the United States Military Academy to teach in the mid-1990s and
then taught senior officers at the Air War College, as discussed below.) The purpose of these rides was to coach my
pilots directly, encouraging them to slow down and reduce the risks they had
been taking. My intent was not to look
over their shoulders to critique every aspect of their instruction, but instead
to help them set a focused, measured pace.
Obviously, I was not able to accompany every flight, but the knowledge
that I was out there among them, encouraging them to resist the temptation to rush
to meet every timeline associated with the flight training, seem to make a
difference.
Finally, while coaching and quality
checks were good, what my IPs really needed was additional training. However, there were no funds or aircraft
allotted for training IPs beyond the generic instructor pilot they
received. This training was designed
mainly to prepare IPs to instruct aviators in the field, which was in some ways
much different from training students at Fort Rucker. In the field, they would work with
experienced aviators to hone their existing skills, while at Fort Rucker they
instruct brand new students who know nothing about flying. My IPs needed specific training tailored for
the unique challenges presented by Fort Rucker training.
My requests for additional training
time for my inexperienced IPs were turned down.
There was simply no additional
funds for allowing this. We developed an
innovative approach, taking time and
funds “out of hide” to develop a “green platoon” or training organization
through which all first-time IPs would progress before being allow to train
students. This required careful
planning, a thorough review of available resources, close coordination with maintenance
personnel, and a readjustment of student-to-instructor ratios throughout the
battalion. In the end, we were able to
carve out a first-class training organization that gave my IPs the additional
training they required.
These measures were effective. The battalion’s safety record improved
quickly and dramatically. The Army often
fails to quickly adapt to changed circumstances, institutional inertia and bureaucracy
encouraging a reliance on the “tried and true”.
This was a good example of bucking that trend, as my staff and I were
able to quickly develop an effective solution to a significant problem by
circumventing normal channels and being imaginative with the resources was had
at hand.
Afghanistan
After
attendance at the Air War College, I knew that would be sent to either
Afghanistan or Iraq. One of the positions that interested me was
“Advisor, Minister of Defense, Afghanistan” and I volunteered to fill
it. I prepared by taking the Air War College’s Arabic elective (I
knew that Farsi was a better choice, but the closest the AWC had was Arabic)
and I also studied Farsi through the Rosetta Stone program. I spoke
to many who had served in Afghanistan and developed a long list of books and
websites to study in preparation for this deployment.
Upon arrival in
country in June 2008, I traveled from Bagram Air Force Base to a base in a
Kabul suburb, arriving in the dead of night after an hour-long, surreal trip
through the Afghan countryside. Every aspect of my initial
experience in Afghanistan was disorienting: the terrain, the
language, the extreme heat (117 degrees was the high that day), the food, the
odors, and so on. But my discomfiture was just beginning. I
soon discovered that the position I thought I was going to fill had long been occupied.
Instead, I was going to a position that had been vacant for some time, even
when other qualified Colonels had arrived in theater. I soon
discovered why.
My new job was to
be the primary advisor to the Chief of the Afghan General Staff and
their only four-star general. While my US two-star general boss was in
theory his advisor, I was to have daily contact the Afghan general,
communicating the US general's advice and recommendations to him. A
Tajik in a largely Pashtun Afghan government, the Afghan general’s incumbency
in this highly visible position acted as a counter-balance to the powerful Pashtun
Defense Minister. My Afghan general was the quintessential Mujahidin:
a protege to the famous Massoud, the "Lion of Pansjir", he had
fought the Soviets and the Taliban with cunning and charisma. He had a
reputation as a superb tactician, knowing the men and terrain of Northern
Afghanistan like no other. He was bold, aggressive, dynamic, a guerrilla fighter
without equal. His men adored him and
his leaders trusted him.
Unfortunately, he was wholly unsuited for his
position. He had no education beyond
some high school, no formal military training, no travel beyond Afghanistan,
and no experience with large organizations. As the Chief of Staff of the
Afghan Army, he was expected to build, train, and lead into combat a force that
had more than 100,000 soldiers and airmen (the Afghan Army Air Force was also
his responsibility) and that cost the NATO allies billions of dollars. He
was a superb small unit leader but had none of the management or grand strategy
skills that would be required. He had
resisted the counsel of his previous advisors to empower subordinates, develop
and publish a coherent schedule of his activities, develop long-range plans and
communicate them to his leaders, develop and stick to budgets, instill and
monitor supply accountability, assign manageable tasks with reasonable and
feasible timetables and then hold subordinates accountable for achieving them,
and so on. These all flew in the face of
his instincts and experience. Empowered subordinates might turn on him,
long range plans make no sense in a world where getting through the winter was
the main order of business, published schedules could be compromised, and clear
communications left no room for necessary obfuscations. In fact, the
Afghan Chief of Staff came to see his US advisors mainly as a source of special
favors, such as landscaping for the defense ministry grounds and a private gym
for VIPs, and not as a source of wisdom for how to run a large and growing
Army. My two-star US general, also relatively new to his position,
decided that he was going to change this. And this was the reason
that the position of the Afghan Chief of Staff’s advisor had remained
vacant: those arriving before me had maneuvered away from what was
likely to be an impossible job. It was
left to me to fill the only position left vacant at the end of the annual
summer turnover.
My boss told me of his plan to
“turn the Afghans around.” He wanted me
to turn aside unnecessary requests and, at the right moment, aggressively push
on my Afghan the reforms necessary to succeed in a
position of such responsibility. He
instructed me to, for the first two months or so, make myself part of the
Afghan inner circle. I was to travel
with him wherever he went and by whatever conveyance he used, whether it be by
battered pickup truck or ancient Russian aircraft. I was to dress as he did, moving about
without all the normal US protective gear.
I was to learn his language. In
the end, I was to earn his trust and confidence. These
I did and more. I traveled with him to the “roof of the world”,
a pasturing area for nomads in an extremely remote area on the Chinese border
where I must have been the only American within 500 miles. I helicoptered with him into an outpost under
besiege by Taliban as he flew in to rally the troops, encouraging them to hang
on until reinforcements arrived. I rode
with him on the dangerous “Ring Road”, joining him in braving IEDs in unprotected
vehicles. I picked up Farsi, achieving a
200-word vocabulary that was growing daily.
I worked hard to earn his trust by living the way his staff lived,
taking the same risks and enduring the same conditions. But I failed to win my Afghan general’s
trust. There were several reasons for
this.
I was markedly different from my
predecessor. He had been a short,
instinctive, aggressive, vocal Marine officer who had been an infantryman and a
combat veteran. The Afghan general was
able to relate him in ways that he could not with me, a tall, thoughtful, relatively quiet Aviator
who had not before seen combat. The
Marine had also delivered for the Afghan general, obtaining funds for landscaping
improvements to the ministry’s grounds. In
accord with my boss’s orders, I was not aggressively pursuing approval for his
requests, which now included laundry facilities and a VIP gym. Then, when I began to share with him our
thoughts on how he might improve his inept, corrupt staff that was failing to
help him execute his unbelievably heavy responsibilities, I could see that he
became increasingly uncomfortable with me.
Crisis came when, while en route to a NATO conference on allied strategy
in Afghanistan, my boss tried to communicate the strong sense that major
changes in his staff’s operations were required. He countered by stating that the problem was
actually with his US advisor—me!—and that he thought it best that I be
replaced. This stunned us both, but
turned out to be a very clever and effective gambit. The Afghans are nothing if not survivors. Though my boss initially resisted this
blatant deflection, he was forced to make it by his boss, the NATO four-star
general, when the Afghan four-star appealed to him directly.
Why would I include such an
episode in this narrative? While it
appears on the surface to be an episode of failure, it represented one of the
most important and useful experiences of my life. It has made me a better person and a better
leader. To this point, though no
“water-walker”, I had never before come close to failing in an Army assignment.
Before, no matter how difficult the circumstances, I had always succeeded,
always accomplished my mission, and certainly never been fired. This was a humbling and traumatic experience
that, in the end, taught me some good life lessons. Coping with this difficult experience taught
me perseverance and resilience. It drove
home Kipling’s famous verse that reminds us that we should “… meet with Triumph and Disaster; And treat
those two impostors just the same.” I
leaned on my faith that had long taught me that things are not always fair in
an unfair, fallen world. It also made me
more tender towards subordinates who struggled; perhaps in the past I had been
hard on those in difficulty, jumping to the conclusion that success inevitably
results from good honest effort. Taking the sting out of this episode, my boss
gave me one of the finest efficiency reports I have received. While he was forced to remove me, he believed
that I had done extremely well in an impossible position. He saw my commitment, effort and drive. He confided in me that it has been, in
retrospect, an impossible situation and that he knew that others had shied away
from tackling this difficult assignment.
In the end, though a painful chapter in my military career, it made me a
better man and Soldier.
Air War
College Faculty
After returning from Afghanistan,
the Army assigned me to the Air Force’s Air War College (AWC) at Maxwell Air
Force Base. I was assigned as a member
of the faculty and taught a variety of subjects, including leadership and grand
strategy. During this two-year
assignment I had several challenging and rewarding experiences.
Having recently returned from
Afghanistan, I was regarded as the resident “subject matter expert” on the
conflict there. At first, this surprised
me. Surely at this respected educational
institution there would be academics with expertise in this area or at least
other service members who had recent, relevant experience. It turned out the civilian faculty members
had no Afghanistan expertise or experience whatsoever and, though the Air Force
did have officers on the faculty who had recently been to Afghanistan, their
jobs had not given them daily, close-up experience with the situation on the
ground there. So I become the de facto expert. This brought with it some interesting
challenges. When our grand strategy
course got to the modern era, we needed someone to present a two-hour lecture
on the history, politics and culture of Afghanistan and the NATO strategy
there. That duty fell to me. I researched, wrote, and rehearsed this
high-profile presentation for several weeks.
Given that I was an inexperienced instructor and lacked some of the
lofty academic bona fides possessed by my colleagues, I was concerned about how
my lecture would be received. By all
accounts it was a tremendous success, as evidenced by the immediate reaction,
the written peer and student reviews, and perhaps more importantly by the fact that
this lecture came to be in great demand.
In the next six months I was asked to present it to a church group, a
trade group, an AWC alumni group, and at a 50th anniversary reunion where the
guests of honor included Vietnam War POWs.
Based partially on the success of this lecture, I was
asked to spearhead the Air War College’s inaugural Grand Strategy Program, a seminar of
hand-picked officers who would pursue a more in-depth and rigorous exploration
of the history, development, and application of Grand Strategy. The AWC is organized into small 10-12 person
seminars that work together through a standard AWC curriculum. Over the past few years there had developed a
demand among some students, many of whom had already earned advanced degrees,
for a more demanding, more flexible course curriculum. A civilian professor and I worked together to
produce a pilot program loosely based on Yale’s famous Grand Strategy
Program. We developed a challenging
reading list, recruited professors willing to provide instruction above and
beyond their normal course loads, invited a series of interesting guest
speakers, and required the students to produce a series of much more demanding
and extensively researched essays. The
inaugural AWC Grand Strategy Seminar was a huge success, based on feedback from
participating professors, AWC administration and the students themselves.
Also while at the AWC, I led two Regional and Cultural Studies
(RCS) groups overseas. The RCS portion
of the AWC curriculum requires small groups of students to study a particular
region of the world to better understand its culture, economy, politics and
defense circumstances for six weeks.
Then, after this period of study, the group would travel to the region
for two weeks to study the subject first-hand.
These trips can be particularly challenging since each group must
arrange its own travel, lodging, and itinerary.
This is not a big deal in some of the so-called “tame” regions such as
West Europe or South America, but can be quite daunting in such areas as my
choice of West Africa, where grinding poverty and a lack of development present
perhaps the most complex challenges of all RCS trips. On my first trip we visited Ghana and Sierra
Leone. On the second, we visited Liberia,
French Guinea, and Sierra Leone. The
obstacles we overcame there were extreme weather conditions, exotic illnesses,
complex travel arrangements including UN helicopter, ferry, overland convoy, small
propeller plane, and privately owned skiffs for hire. These trips were designed to produce groups of
senior officers who better understand the intricate and subtle folds of the
political and cultural terrains of these regions and who have the confidence
and savvy to cope with the challenges posed by some of these areas. It was extremely satisfying for me to guide
these students as overcome all the obstacles they faced.
I include this story because, as
noted above, it turned out I am pretty good at teaching. Though I do not necessarily relish public
speaking, I find that can face this challenge and succeed. Many
of the students I taught at the AWC had been working at the tactical level for
the first fifteen or so years of their careers.
They had been working so hard and pursuing excellence so vigorously that
they did not have the time to consider the big picture. I enjoyed tracing the arc of some important
theme through history, helping the students to understand how seemingly
disparate events and historical figures interacted and the mistakes military minds make
in mistaking tactical battlefield success for victory in war. Forgetting that success in war is the
exertion of the will on the enemy, not necessarily capturing this or that
landmark and not producing a certain number of casualties.
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I am grateful to Colonel Dowd for his service to our nation. I am also struck by his extraordinary moral courage in being willing to do the right thing even at the risk of his own advancement. If you know of a company that could use this kind of passion, integrity, decisiveness, flexibility, creativity and energy, please contact me so that I can put that company in touch with Colonel Dowd. He would prefer to keep his family living in the Southeast U.S., but will consider other appropriate leadership opportunities.
Contact me at: achase47@gmail.com
Al Chase
