#153: Deter, Defend, Defeat - US Army Europe-Africa Command Sergeant Major Jeremiah Inman (80th Anniversary D-Day Series)

The United States Army invaded Europe in 1944 and has never left. America’s forward projection of its military was instrumental in the stabilization of Europe and the establishment of the world order that has existed since the end of World War II. A critical piece of American power is US Army Europe-Africa https://www.europeafrica.army.mil/; a command responsible for over 37,000 soldiers, 104 countries, 10 units and 9 garrisons. Over 70,000 US military personnel operate across Europe and Africa in either permanent positions or deployed in support of national security objectives. To explain why US Army Europe-Africa is so important, Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ sat down with Command Sergeant Major Jeremiah Inman https://www.europeafrica.army.mil/Who-We-Are/Leadership/Leaders-Article-View/Article/1503769/command-sergeant-major/, the command’s senior enlisted advisor. Sergeant Major Inman breaks down the command’s mission to deter aggression and provide stability in some of the world’s most complicated and dynamic regions. He explains the magnitude of the command’s responsibilities; and also shares his biggest leadership lessons learned from his time in Ranger Regiment and how they prepared him to lead no matter the challenge. Join our conversation from the bunkers of Pointe Du Hoc in Normandy, France. Follow us on social media https://www.instagram.com/jedburghpodcast/, read the full episode on our website https://greenberetfoundation.org/the-jedburgh-podcast/, then head over to our YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jedburghpodcast channel or your favorite podcast platform https://pod.link/1558608802 for all our D-Day Coverage including our first documentary Unknown Heroes: Behind Enemy Lines at D-Day, the story of Operation Jedburgh https://youtu.be/-2lpDtw4NXM. HIGHLIGHTS 0:00 Introduction 1:42 Welcome to Pointe Du Hoc 3:20 The mission of US Army Europe-Africa 4:10 Guidance to the force 4:40 Joint exercises 5:00 The differences between Europe and Africa 6:22 Supporting Ukraine 7:23 Developing young NCOs 8:49 USAREUR-AF Lines of Effort 12:02 The Next Fight 12:52 The role of the Combat Training Centers 14:23 Special Operations & conventional force integration 14:47 Sergeant Major’s lessons learned 16:30 Daily Habits for success QUOTES “Our vision is to get up, show up and be ready to assist our partners. Continue to train and maintain that combat readiness in the event we do have to get into something.”“If we can continue to train and work with our allies and partners now, when we do have to fight, we’ll already have those sets and reps and be a much more lethal force.”“The young NCOs now are so much smarter than I’ll ever be.”“We’re only empowered if our officers empower us.”“We just got to be ready for anything. You don’t know what that next fight is.”“Colonel Ralph Puckett’s like ‘I didn’t go to ranger school to be better than the next guy, I went to ranger school to be better than myself.’”“When you show up, show up. Be present. Get after it. 100% and then some.”“Physical training, marksmanship, battle drills, medical training. Then we added developing leaders of character. I think that’s kind of how I’ve been my entire career, is after those five aspects.” The Jedburgh Podcast and the Jedburgh Media Channel are official programs of the Green Beret Foundation. https://greenberetfoundation.org/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Fran Racioppi?

  Welcome to the Jedburgh Podcast. I'm the creator and host, Fran Ruchopi. Each episode, I speak with transformative leaders, visionaries, drivers of change, and those dedicated to winning, no matter the challenge. The Jedburgh Podcast is founded in the lineage of the Special Operations Jedburgh Teams of the Past and is an official program of the Green Beret Foundation, supporting our nation's US Army Special Forces and their families. The United States Army invaded Europe in 1944 and never left. America's forward projection of its military was instrumental in the stabilization of Europe and the establishment of the world order that's existed since the end of World War II. A critical piece of American power is US Army Europe-Africa, a command responsible

• 0:43Fran Racioppi?

  for over 37,000 soldiers, 104 countries, 10 units, and nine garrisons. Over 70,000 US military personnel operate across Europe and Africa in either permanent positions or deployed in support of national security objectives. To explain why US Army Europe-Africa is so important, I sat down with Command Sergeant Major Jeremiah Inman, the Command's Senior Enlisted Advisor. Sergeant Major Inman breaks down the Command's mission to deter aggression and provide stability in some of the world's most complicated and dynamic regions. He explains the magnitude of the Command's responsibilities and also shares his biggest leadership lessons learned from his time in Ranger Regiment and how they prepared him to lead, no matter the challenge. Join our conversation from the bunkers at Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, France.

• 1:25Fran Racioppi?

  Follow us on social media, read the full episode on our website, then head over to our YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform for all our D-Day coverage, including our first documentary, Unknown Heroes: Behind Enemy Lines at D-Day, The Story of Operation Jedburgh. Sergeant Major, welcome to the Jedburgh Podcast.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

• 1:46Fran Racioppi?

  We're literally in a gun bunker at Pointe du Hoc.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Roger that.

• 1:49Fran Racioppi?

  We made you walk through the field, but I told you it was going to be worth it because just over our heads over here is the cliff. And the cliff... Cliff that these Rangers 80 years ago scaled on the morning of June 6th, 1944, which is tomorrow morning.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. Yeah, walking through the field made me feel like a real soldier. So I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to not sit behind a desk.

• 2:09Fran Racioppi?

  I was reminding you of the other days, but I think one of the, one of the most amazing parts about walking through this is the craters are still there.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:17Fran Racioppi?

  From all the bombardment that, that we had and then, you know, the heroism of those guys as they, they scaled those 90 foot cliffs and then took this area. It was really, it's so impactful.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, going to protect people who can't help themselves. You know, it's a great, great honor to do that.

• 2:31Fran Racioppi?

  So one of the biggest, I think, parts of our military lineage, past and present, was something that started 80 years ago with D-Day and then with the full, the continued advance into Europe and then the culmination of World War II. But that's America's forward deployed US Army presence. You're the Command Sergeant Major for US Army Europe and Africa. Two very different geographical combatant commands, two very different geographical areas, two areas where I had the fortunate opportunity to serve. But there's also a tremendous amount of responsibility in there. Can you talk for a minute about the mission of US Army Europe, Africa? And why that forward positioning of our army forces

• 3:14Fran Racioppi?

  has been a staple of the strategic US national security policy for the last 80 years?

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Sure, they are quite different environments or mission sets for the continent of Africa, continent of Europe are different, right? Eisenhower had the foresight to leave forces in Europe in the event something would happen again. And that's kind of what's going on right now. Primary mission is to deter, but if necessary, defeat, you know, enemies.

• 3:39Fran Racioppi?

  When we look at the force structure that's still in Europe, specific to the army, I mean, we've got Belgium, Germany, there's, I just do the math this morning. The website's showing 42 different installations of some sort, whether that be, you know, a base or a housing installation across Germany. I mean, that's massive Italy, Poland, Black Sea, Balkans, 41,000 soldiers. I mean, that's an incredible presence that we've maintained. When you look across that force structure, what's your guidance and what's your vision for them every day?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Our vision is to get up, show up and be ready to assist our partners, continue to train and maintain that combat readiness in the event we do have to get into something.

• 4:20Fran Racioppi?

  One of the most important, I would say, activities that US Army Europe, Africa is a part of is the exercises. And there's exercises, and we think about African Lion, we think about the NATO Joint Force exercises that occur. Can you talk about the importance of those exercises and what the objective of them is?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  We are a learning organization, and we've learned over the years that we're not going to fight alone. Right? So if we can continue to train and work with our allies and partners now, when we do have to fight, we'll already have those sets and reps and be a much more lethal force.

• 4:53Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. Talk about the differences between Europe and Africa.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  So Africa is, Africa is great, right? Fifty-four countries, we cover down on 53 of them.

• 5:01Fran Racioppi?

  Unless there's a coup on a certain day and maybe they...

• 5:04Speaker 01

  We may have won a couple of those over the last few years, but they weren't our fault. I just want to make sure that's clear. But you did talk about African Lion, right? So that's five different countries in Africa, 27 partner nations involved with this exercise. Some things I can't actually mention, but we've never done them before, but we were able to do. And this time we included NATO. Right? So we're starting to get, humans drew the boundaries, but there's no boundaries in terrorism, you know, or evil. So that was probably the best African Lion we've had since we began the process.

• 5:34Fran Racioppi?

  Well, and I think you just said it there, and when we talk, when we think about Africa, and we think about the enemy in Africa, we do think a lot about terrorism. Yet, when we talk about Europe, we're, and we never thought until a couple of years ago that we may see another land war in Europe. And here we are today with the Russian incursion into Ukraine several years later, and that's still going on. And front and center is US Army Europe, Africa as part of that, that fight and the enablement of getting and preparing the Ukrainians to be able to defend themselves. But that's a very different, that's a very different enemy, and that takes a lot of different training and a lot of different skill set and often weaponry to be able to do that. How is US Army Europe, Africa preparing the forces and kind of having that conversation

• 6:19Fran Racioppi?

  about, hey, we've got two very different enemies, but we got to prepare the same forces?

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Right. I think if we go back a few years, you know, Russia went into Georgia. Uninvited, right? And in 2014, they went into the Ukraine uninvited and annexed Crimea. So this war isn't just two years old. This has been going on for years and we've developed a partnership with the Ukraines back in 2014 to start training them in Lviv in Ukraine. And then when the war kicked out, we brought them over to Grafenwehr to continue the training. Because if you look at their forces, the majority of the folks leading platoons are sergeants. That's their fighting force right now. So we've been able to develop this relationship over years of partnership to assist them with what they're dealing with right now.

• 6:58Fran Racioppi?

  Well, let's talk about the sergeants and the NCO corps. One of the, we know, and as an American military structure, in any of the components, that our NCO corps is what separates us from every other nation in the world. When we talk about the development of the next generation of NCOs, the post GWAT generation of NCOs, what are you looking for?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  They're crushing it. You know, just like every generation before, they've stood up and accepted the fight. You know, that the young NCOs now are so much smarter than I will ever be. Innovation, you know, thinking outside the box to do certain things, setting up their own 3D printers to make stuff. I mean, phenomenal leaders, phenomenal. Our NCO development's gotten a lot better over the years, right? Our courses have improved with stuff. And now we're bringing our partners in to attend a lot of our courses as well. I went to the Sergeant Majors Academy a couple of weeks ago and I ran into a Malawan female. I met her in 2017. Now she's going through our academy and going back to Malawi to be a Sergeant Major Academy instructor in her country.

• 8:03Fran Racioppi?

  And so if we talk about the enablement and passing those skills, I mean, I'm an SF guy. So, you know, our, our whole idea is how do we train others to solve their own problems in the future?

• 8:14Speaker 01

  The big part of it too is we're only empowered if officers empower us, right? If they're going to hold us back and not let us assist, then we can't assist. And we're seeing that in some places, but it's getting so much better. I held a conference of European Army's NCOs in Albania a couple of weeks ago. Fully stood up, ran, led, educated conference. And I met with the CHOD, I met with the land forces commander, and they let Sergeant Major run everything. It was really good to see.

• 8:42Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the advancement. When we talk about advancing our partners, you know, I think that's one of the critical components. There's four lines of effort at US Army Africa, Europe. I want to ask, ask you about them, kind of define them a little bit. The first one is set the theater. What do we mean by set the theater?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Go into a place, get it set up for follow-on troops if we have to do something. If you remember a few years back in Liberia, they had Ebola breakout. So CTAF, which is, you know, one of our subordinate commands, went down to Liberia. General Williams was actually the commander, set up the theater to bring in medical assistance training, and that's what set the theater basically means.

• 9:17Fran Racioppi?

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• 9:49Fran Racioppi?

  The second one is combat credible forces for two GCCs.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really more than that. I think we're supporting, supporting FAKOM and CENTCOM as well at this time. But it's just continuing to train. You know, we're bringing the rotational forces over for nine months. They train extremely hard. They have time to do expert training. They have time to go to JMRC and run through our CTC to do simulated combat operations. Few things we've done too is 42, Stryker Squadron from 42, drove from Grafenwehr to Poland to conduct a multinational live-fire exercise.

• 10:25Fran Racioppi?

  A long drive.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  It was awesome. We've also had our fires folks drive from Grafenwehr to Estonia to do the first shorehead live-fire.

• 10:33Fran Racioppi?

  A lot of road clearances involved in that one, huh?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yes, we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot over the past two years.

• 10:39Fran Racioppi?

  Number three is interoperability with allies and partners.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  You know, like I mentioned earlier, just getting to know the people you're going to fight with later. You know, we're never ever going to fight by ourselves again. You know, the last couple of campaigns that I've been in, you know, a lot of our planners are Australian or Austrian or Turkish. You know, it's a team effort to fight combat.

• 10:58Fran Racioppi?

  How important are those relationships? Because one of the force multipliers, I think, that we have in the special forces community is the fact that we build these relationships all over the world with indigenous forces. And as our NCOs and our officers progress in their career, well, so do their counterparts.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:17Fran Racioppi?

  And so when you're a lieutenant and you're working in a foreign country with another lieutenant or sergeant, and then one day you're a general, they're a general, they're sergeant major, how important is that trust that's built?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  I think if you look at my boss, right, General Williams, he did the G3 job here. He did CTAF in Africa for two years. He went to NATO land forces and did land forces commander. And he's back and he still knows a lot of these people. So those relationships are super important.

• 11:46Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, well, it's trust. It builds that trust. The last line of effort is modernize the force. And that's something we've been talking with all the commanders and sergeant majors across different regions of the army and different departments even.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:00Fran Racioppi?

  And we talked a lot about it with the sergeant major of the army as well a few weeks ago. How do we modernize rapidly and what are we modernizing to?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  That's a very good question. Modernizing to the future fight is where we're trying to get after, right? I talked earlier about the young NCOs and soldiers with their 3D printers being very innovative and coming up with solutions to fix problems. We bought a lot of off the shelf stuff. If you get to spend any time with 2CR, they've got some pretty good products that they've been developing and using. A lot of electric type activities, but I think that's how we're going to get after, you know, modernizing the force.

• 12:32Fran Racioppi?

  How do you define the next fight?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  We just got to be ready for anything. You really, because you don't know what the next fight is, you know? I didn't see myself going back to Afghanistan for 20 months. I thought I was done with that, right? But, you know, life gets a vote.

• 12:45Fran Racioppi?

  You were the Sergeant Major at JRTC.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:48Fran Racioppi?

  And a lot of the component commanders have put a renewed emphasis on the CTCs and the Combat Training Centers and the importance of them and how do we really get our forces of all forces, not just conventional forces? Because often we think about NTC and we're like, well, that's where fourth ID goes. I mean, I was in fourth ID. Sure. So I remember going there. It was August and you couldn't touch the Bradley. But those centers have advanced so tremendously over the last 10, 15 years. Talk about the importance of the CTCs and how they're being leveraged across the Army to prepare for that next fight.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  That's a great question as well because we also use the Center for Army Lessons Learned, capturing all the stuff that's going on with us, you know, in our current theater of operations. We started bringing in drones, purchasing off the shelf drones and giving them to Geronimo to go attack the conventional forces to see how they reacted to it.

• 13:42Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  And they, of course, obviously started to adapt to it after we crashed about 15 of those things. So. And the other thing about the CTCs, you know, if a unit's doing really well, we can turn it up a little bit, right? To make it a little more challenging. If they're not doing as well, we can turn it down a little bit to adjust their learning process.

• 14:00Fran Racioppi?

  How quickly are we taking what we're seeing happen out in theater and then converting that back in into the, the training?

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Months. Yeah, we had a dedicated team here to help wrap that stuff up. I think they do two CTC conferences a year and our team's going over and helping assist with, you know, adjusting the, the fight, the fake fight so units can get stronger.

• 14:21Fran Racioppi?

  One of the biggest topics that we talk about with leaders across the Army specifically is the relationship between special forces, special operations, we'll broaden it and say special operations, and the conventional force. You've served in both. You served in Ranger Regiment and 175 and then, and then you've served a bulkier career in the conventional forces. Talk about the relationship between the two and how when we look at the next fight, we look at the peer to peer fight, it's different than the counterterrorism fight was.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:48Fran Racioppi?

  And the ability for SOF to work cohesively with the conventional force is more critical now than ever.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You probably dealt with that early off in GWAT. We were pretty separate, right? And we didn't talk to each other until you needed assistance in a QRF.

• 15:03Fran Racioppi?

  That was about it.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Or we found some bad person we couldn't technically go get, right? So establishing LNOs in the cells, coming together at the first meeting, not 10 meetings into a planning process, to make sure everybody's dialed in tight. They've gotten a lot closer.

• 15:17Fran Racioppi?

  What's your lessons learned?

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Lessons learned?

• 15:20Fran Racioppi?

  You've served at every level of command and you have a tremendous remit right now. And everybody's, you said that there's a younger generation who's bright, they're motivated, they're ready to get after it. But you're the guy they're looking up to. What's your wisdom that you're imparting in them after, after your career?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  How much time do we have? I've been in the army like 37 years, so I've probably forgotten more than I've learned. But no, I'd share something. So Colonel Ralph Puckett recently passed. And while I was at the infantry school sergeant majors, we had a lot of discussions about Ranger School, you know, and general integration. And the folks are arguing in the room about it. And Ralph Puckett's like, I didn't go to Ranger School to be better than the next guy. I went to Ranger School to be better than myself. So I wish I would have learned that as a young private. And I probably would have been a lot better soldier and sergeant major. The other piece of advice is like, when you show up, show up, be present, get after it 100% and then some.

• 16:14Fran Racioppi?

  All right, test question. Last question.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  No math?

• 16:16Fran Racioppi?

  No math. No math. Well, we've got to count to three, but I'll do the count. Habits form the foundation of, of success. Or when we look at successful people, whether they're in the military, they're in government, they built a business, name it. They always come back to their habits. I always tie this question back to the Jedbergs of World War II. They had to do three things that you're very familiar with, that they had to be able to shoot, move and communicate at a proficient level. So that when they parachuted in, starting the night of June 5th, 1944, and then linked up with French Resistance, they didn't have to think about, how do I use my rifle? How do I communicate on my radio? You know, how do I move through night? They focused their attention on the complex task of disrupting the Germans' abilities to reinforce these beaches. What are the three things that you do every day to set the conditions for success in your world?

• 17:02Speaker 01

  That is a totally loaded question. If I could just go back to 1988, showing up in Ranger Regiment, right? And we had the big four. Physical training, marksmanship, battle drills, and medical training. And then we added, you know, developing leaders of character. I think that's kind of how I've groomed my entire career is after those five aspects, right? So you got to be fit enough to get to, through, and beyond the objective, right? You got to be a good marksman, right? So you can kill the enemy. You need to understand the battle drills. In the event a leader above you goes down, you need to be able to take that squad or that platoon to continue the mission, right? And then medical training. You need to be able to fix yourself so your brothers can fight, or be able to assist a fallen comrade. And then,

• 17:47Speaker 01

  of course, leaders of character, right? That's what we need to get after.

• 17:50Fran Racioppi?

  Remain physically fit, be a good marksman, be able to medically take care of yourself and your buddies, know your battle drills, so you know what you got to do when the time comes, and be a person of character.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 18:01Fran Racioppi?

  I think all leadership starts and ends with character, too.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:04Fran Racioppi?

  I agree with you there.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  I think we had the opportunity to meet the veterans coming off the airplane the other day. And you talk about character, right? You talk about why it's important for us to come back and do this remembrance every day, or every year. I've got a great uncle buried in Lorraine Cemetery. I was able to find him a couple of years ago. I brought my dad over and he was able to go pay respects to his uncle, right? Because if we forget this, something terrible can happen again. So I think it's very important.

• 18:30Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is a sacred place. We've got to remember it. Sergeant Mayor, I appreciate your time.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Thank you, Fran. Appreciate you.

• 18:36Fran Racioppi?

  Thanks.

• 18:43Fran Racioppi?

  American Jedbergs went on to form the foundation of the United States Special Forces and the Special Activities Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Thanks for listening to the Jedburgh Podcast, an official program of the Green Bay Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Richelieu. Join us next week for a new episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out on YouTube for full episodes, highlights, and other long and short form content. If you like what you heard, give us a like and leave a review. Follow the Jed Burke Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, extra threads. Send your comments and inquiries to [email protected]. As former members of Special Operations Forces, the Jed Burke Media Channel, and the Green Beret Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of US Army Special Forces and their families. Thanks

• 19:27Fran Racioppi?

  for joining us on this episode. How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.