#209: Delivering Lethality, Survivability & Mobility - XVIII Airborne Corps Joint Innovation Outpost Colonel Tom Monaghan

Speed of innovation will be the deciding factor on today’s battlefields. The technology soldiers need to survive and win cannot take years to field. For generations, one of the Army’s greatest challenges has been closing the distance between the soldier who identifies a need and the acquisition system responsible for delivering the solution. At Fort Bragg, the XVIII Airborne Corps is attacking that problem head on. Colonel Tom Monaghan https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-monaghan-32513523b/, has a mission - build the Joint Innovation Outpos https://pit.army.mil/about/jiop/t - putting soldiers, acquisition professionals, industry, funding, testing, and Army program offices together to accelerate the development of solutions. No red tape. No delays. No endless discussion about contract vehicles. Just lethality, survivability, and mobility. Colonel Monaghan joins Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ to discuss the theory behind the JIOP, Dragon’s Lair, artificial intelligence, and why some of the Army’s best innovations are coming directly from soldiers closest to the problem; including counter-drone and unmanned systems. For Monaghan, the leadership philosophy behind that mission is just as important as the technology: provide clarity, listen to the soldier, and solve problems. The JIOP is proving that acquisition does not always have to begin thousands of miles from the operational force. Sometimes the person with the answer is already standing on the drop zone, sitting inside the vehicle, or carrying the equipment that needs to change. Innovate. Accelerate. Dominate. The Joint Innovation Outpost is building a model designed to ensure that when America's soldiers identify the battlefield need, the Army can move fast enough to solve it. HIGHLIGHTS: 00:00 Introduction 1:58 Welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast 3:10 Building the Joint Innovation Outpost 5:52 Closing the Gap 8:10 Army Acquisition 12:11 Soldier-Driven Innovation 16:57 Prioritizing Battlefield Innovation 17:01 The Immediate Response Force 18:46 Dragon’s Lair and Accelerating New Ideas 19:22 Why Army Innovation Takes So Long 21:02 The Smartest Generation of Soldiers 23:28 Turning Soldier Ideas Into Battlefield Solutions 26:15 Artificial Intelligence and Human Decision-Making 27:28 Cost, Technology and Scalability 31:14 Innovate, Accelerate, Dominate 32:12 Measuring the JIOP’s Success 33:09 The Future of Army Innovation 34:25 Solving Problems 35:04 Three Things Quotes “We concentrate on anything that improves soldier lethality, survivability, mobility.” “We imagine a world where we close that time gap. We actually get rid of that valley of death.” “The normal process that I just talked about, that should have taken three to five years.” “There’s always a human in the loop.”“No piece of software is going to answer every question available.”“From an acquisition perspective, we always say cost, schedule, and performance. You never get all three.”“Solve problems. Support the soldier. Get them what they need.”“There’s nothing I can’t fix in five minutes with a phone call that you mess up. So just go out there and try.”“My superpower as a leader is to provide clarity.” The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by OneBrief https://www.onebrief.com/; enabling military leaders to make innovative, informed and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman command wins wars. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast https://www.instagram.com/jedburghpodcast/ and the Green Beret Foundation https://www.instagram.com/greenberetfoundation/ on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform https://pod.link/1558608802, read on our website https://greenberetfoundation.org/the-jedburgh-podcast/, and watch the full video version on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jedburghpodcast as we show why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge.

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

• 0:01Fran Racioppi?

  Speed of innovation will be the deciding factor on today's battlefields. The technology soldiers need to survive and win cannot take years to field. For generations, one of the Army's greatest challenges has been closing the distance between the soldier who identifies a need and the acquisition system responsible for delivering the solution. At Fort Bragg, the 18th Airborne Corps is attacking that problem head on. Colonel Tom Monaghan has a mission: build a joint innovation outpost, putting soldiers, acquisition professionals, industry funding testing, and Army program offices together to accelerate the development of solutions. No red tape, no delays, no endless discussion about contract vehicles, just lethality, survivability, and mobility.

• 0:46Fran Racioppi?

  We discuss the theory behind the GIOP, Dragon's Lair, artificial intelligence, and why some of the Army's best innovations are coming directly from the soldiers closest to the problem, including counter-drone and unmanned systems. For Monahan, the leadership philosophy behind that mission is just as important as the technology: provide clarity, listen to the soldier, and solve problems. The GIOP is proving that acquisition doesn't always begin thousands of miles from the operational force. Most often, the person with the best answer is already sitting on the drop zone, inside the vehicle, or carrying the equipment that needs to change. Innovate, accelerate, dominate. The Joint Innovation Outpost is building the model designed to ensure that when America's soldiers identify the battlefield need, the Army can move fast enough to solve it.

• 1:31Fran Racioppi?

  The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by OneBreed, enabling military leaders to make innovative, informed, and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman command wins wars. Follow the Jedberg Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform, read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube as we show you why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge. Colonel Monahan, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks, Fran. Great to be here.

• 2:00Fran Racioppi?

  And thanks for inviting us here to the Joint Innovation Outpost at 18th Airborne Corps. Before we came in here, and we're going to explain this room, we're going to talk about what you're doing here, you had me out here in the streets of Fort Bragg this morning for a four-mile ruck march.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  It's a great way to start a day, right? Every day, PT, think through the day, check on my soldiers. So you jumped right in at 06:30 this morning and kind of were a part of what we call the beginning of one day here at Fort Bragg.

• 2:27Fran Racioppi?

  You got to set your mind right.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29Fran Racioppi?

  And I think when we look at being effective leaders, always what we come back to is like, what are those grounding foundational things? And that has gotten away from me over the last year, two years, as I've scaled my security company, built the podcast. But I guess I have to thank you for the opportunity to strap the ruck on 35 pounds this morning and get after it, so.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think we set any speed records, but it was two older guys getting out there and just getting after it this morning.

• 2:57Fran Racioppi?

  I was watching the one group of guys in the ruck run, thinking to myself, I remember those days, and then realizing, maybe I could or could not hang with them, but I would at least give it a go.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, we could have. Tomorrow.

• 3:10Fran Racioppi?

  Tomorrow?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, no, I got to leave. Anyway, thank you so much for spending the time with us, coming down here. This organization that you found yourself in charge of here over the last year, now coming up on a year, was kind of the brainchild of Lieutenant General Anderson, so the 18th Airborne Commander, 18th Airborne Corps Commander. And we were able to sit down with him a couple of weeks ago, and immediately, I think we were maybe 10, 12 minutes or so into the conversation, and he said, "You need to go down to the Joint Innovation Outpost. You need to see what they're doing, because this is changing how the Corps, the Army, and the Joint Force is approaching warfare today. The battlefield is evolving at rapid pace, faster than we've ever seen."

• 3:57Fran Racioppi?

  And so was required, in his mind, was the creation of this. So in your words, being here for a year, this organization, as we walk through it today, there's a number of folks here, but there was a time where you were standing here alone and unafraid with a mission to go build this thing. So what is the Joint Innovation Outpost, and why is it so important now to the Army and the Joint Force?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Great question, Fran. So kind of backing up the origin of this whole story, I didn't inherit an organization. I had to stand it up and then lead it. So I was down in Orlando, Florida, in command. I got a phone call from the Pentagon that said, "Hey, you're going to go to Fort Bragg." And I said, "TDY? No, you're going to PCS there in three weeks. You have no money, you have no people. Go find General Anderson, talk to him. He has a huge problem set and a huge mission." So I drove up here, sat down with General Anderson, read through the campaign plan, and said, "Okay, I understand your mission, your vision, and where you've identified gaps. And I think I can build an organization and help a process along to help fill some of those gaps."

• 5:02Speaker 01

  So through the campaign plan, we built a funding profile, I hired the right people, convinced the Army to turn this into an actual organization. Now there's a CSL, Command Select List, Lieutenant Colonel, myself, and a couple capability leads that are helping the Corps address problem sets, helping soldiers take ideas that they have to solve their own problems or solve Army problems, and put a little bit of RDT and E-type funding behind it to get it going, and then tie that into the Army's overall PAE structure, Program Acquisition Executive structure, so that if it's something that the Army could use to solve a bigger problem, they know that there's some great

• 5:44Speaker 01

  work going on down here at the 18th Airborne Corps, where soldiers have kind of gotten after it and provided some input.

• 5:51Fran Racioppi?

  Well, it's important to define the problem set. And we spend preponderance of our time on the show talking about the other end of the spectrum, right? Where the rubber meets the road, right? Where the putting, you know, putting guys out there into the field, into the operational force, what are they doing? But what are they doing it with? And what are the things that they need to effectively combat today's enemy? And that problem set has what's been put to you. And so when you look at having to stand up this organization, what you're trying to do is flatten those lines of feedback from the operational force.

• 6:35Fran Racioppi?

  And so can you talk from your perspective about how are you taking the information on what soldiers need in the field and then translating that into the acquisition process?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, first thing we do, we concentrate on anything that improves soldier lethality, survivability, and mobility. And that could be anything from a different type of frangible round, better body armor, better pouches, to mold sensors in the barracks. You know, you can't deploy a fighting force if they're not healthy. Some holistic health, other options there. So all the things the soldiers are kind of thinking through and building themselves, we then pull in the appropriate program office that may be working on that or may receive the Army's requirement to work on that. We imagine a world where we close that time gap. We actually get rid of that valley of death. We have the individual or soldier or the team or the unit that owns that problem or that actually developed that operational need, and we tie them in with the industry

• 7:28Speaker 01

  partner who may provide a solution, and tie the program office that may build that solution, and tie the funding in that may fund that solution, and we put them all right behind us here in the Joint Innovation Outpost. We have them work through that problem set and develop actionable courses of action. It could be we buy it, and they directly employ it, or we develop a test case or a test set, and we pull Army Testing and Evaluation Command in, or we take the information we know and we transition all the information that we learned out on one of the ranges here and directly dump that into a program office, and then picks that up and starts to build it out for the mass Army. So we get rid of that gap that's existed since the dawn of the Army.

• 8:10Fran Racioppi?

  Well, let's talk about acquisition, like in general, for a minute. So you started your career as an armor officer.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 8:19Fran Racioppi?

  And then somehow found your way into the acquisition corps, which we're not going to make fun of, because even though we could make fun of tankers before, we're going to make fun of the acquisition corps, because I was in mechanized infantry, so I could do so with my brothers in the tanks, although I did have a couple of those fired like directly over my head, and that is, although a powerful act hurts you in the morning.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  It does.

• 8:42Fran Racioppi?

  The acquisition process, we've heard everybody talk about the military act, the Department of War acquisition process. I mean, everyone from the President down to the new private who comes in and goes through CIF to get their equipment has some opinion about how Army acquisition works. So. Can you explain how Army acquisition actually works? If, or maybe that's, that's a thesis paper for like NPS, but how is Army acquisition supposed to work?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  So it is a pretty, is a very robust series of processes. And that's probably the problem set for a good reason. So doctrinally, there's an operational need generated from something, either a unit or a white paper or a problem set that comes up. And that's translated to one of the requirements writers, the requirements writers draft it. They do research. The requirement is then approved that an Army requirements process in the Pentagon. Then it'll get actually pushed down into ASALT where they'll assign it to a program office. Funding is assigned to it. That all takes time. And honestly, if you're building a new tank or a new helicopter, that's the appropriate process.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Cause the right resources, the right data, the right people need to get assembled and put on that long process to build that new piece of equipment. And those are what we call like ACAT one programs. But for the ACAT two and below, we can kind of tailor and shorten that process and not skip the steps, but combine the steps. And that's what, again, what we're trying to do here, and we are doing here in the joint innovation outpost, where everything I talked about, instead of those sub-processes, starting and ending, and transitioning to different stove piped organizations in the Army. We just kind of pull them all together here and put that requirement writer or requirement generator with the soldier. Putting a couple of the vendors that can help inform the potential solution with those two individuals.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Putting the program office again, with those individuals. So just by putting everybody together, and I learned that when I, when I worked some of the JTAC programs at SOCOM. One hallway, operator comes in, I have this problem. It goes right down to the acquisition department. They talk about potential solutions. It goes right down to the J79 resourcing department. And then it goes to the field and we start developing prototypes and actions and products and push it right out to the force. That doesn't work for every big program in the Army, but we're trying to attack it that way.

• 11:07Fran Racioppi?

  When you say ACAT two and below, what kind of stuff are we talking about?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  I'm talking about uniform items, backpacks, body armor, boots, some weapons to tank, M1 tank, striker, et cetera. Now, I like to say here, one, we're never going to build a tank or a helicopter here in the GIAP, but we may develop a piece of equipment that goes on one of those platforms that makes it better. Or we may give that platform owner, the platform, the PM office, some critical information on how to improve one of the systems. Case in point, there's a bridging system that's in the Army. So one of the soldiers in third ID developed a Kraken bridge actuator. And it's just a button to oversimplify it. But in the schematic of the, of the vendor, they never thought about not getting out of the cab as an issue.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Right? Soldier could always get out of the cab and unclip this, this bridging device. Soldiers like while they're fire, I don't want to get out of the cab. So I need to develop a remote actuator to, to release the bridging mechanism. So that was a case where we took a big platform and developed a piece of equipment to enhance that capability.

• 12:11Fran Racioppi?

  How are you getting that feedback? Because I mean, there's, there's a lot of folks out there. I mean, you've been in, in platoons, like, you know, every private has a good idea.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  No, that's great. We kind of call that the four doors of entry into the GIAP. So you have soldier derived solutions. And there's a website where they can go on there from across the Army and say, I have a great idea. Or I have a problem and I need some help solving it. Or hey, I have located this piece of equipment. We should use it. So that, that's one way in. We have core commander directed technical innovation objectives. So General Anderson said, this is my big problem set. Put together a team and go work on that. And we, we have four of those as well. Then we have, we call other directed activities where the Army might call us up and say, hey, we, we have a problem. Or a PM may say, hey, we have a problem. Can you help us put together a unit to test this?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Or here's a new cup. Can you get some feedback on this so we can improve the color, improve the handle? I'm using the cup as an example. But then another interesting one that we didn't think of at first, industry now has a conduit to come directly to one single point of entry and say, I have something that solves one of your problems. And kind of a story I'll tell you, this was pretty powerful. So I know a lot of people in industry and they'll come and say, hey, check this out. Piece of equipment, we'll flip through some stuff. So we had a counter drone round that a company let me know of 556. Not a different platform, not a different weapon system, just a projectile that loads right into an M4 magazine, fires out of a regular M4. Said, are you interested in this?

• 13:46Speaker 01

  And part of the counter drone, counter UAS problem set, we said, yes, can you show it to us? They came to Fort Bragg, they demonstrated it. We said, we need some more information. We brought it out to a range. Soldiers from the 82nd fired it, couple of other units fired it. It has now been successfully transitioned into the PM for ammunition for the Army. Has a potential program of record. The Marine Corps just bought, I think 400,000 rounds of it. And it's actually being utilized in some additional operational tests. That whole story took about six months. The normal process that I just talked about, that should have taken three to five years to go through the requirement, the adjudication, the testing. But because of the GIAP, because of the industry partner bringing it in here, a little bit of seed money with a couple of test events,

• 14:30Speaker 01

  it's actually being actioned right now.

• 14:33Fran Racioppi?

  And how's that received like upper echelons, right? When you go to the strategic level, because this, because this is operational level headquarters here. So there's a lot of folks in the Pentagon who probably feel like, hey, we own acquisition. We own innovation. We own the pipeline to get things into the field. So how are you bridging the relationship with those folks to actually make it happen?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  So doctrinally and situationally, doctrinally, the joint innovation outpost and potential other joint innovation outpost like entities at the other cores are tied into the pit, which the pit is actually tied into ASAL. And that's what they call the six plus two paradigm. So you have the, the six PAEs and then the pit is one of the derivative kind of units under it. So we are tied in organically into the acquisition structure. So any of those devices, like the 556 round I just talked about, when we immediately, when we first start doing work, we immediately contact who we think the program office may be, who owns the requirement, who owns the, the project or who might receive it. So we can get their feedback because some of the problems soldiers have talked about.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  I'll call the program office and they'll say, hey, we, we have kit. Would you like it? We can adjust the fielding plan or we didn't announce that we're going to deliver this yet, but we'll come down and actually do some testing with you. Situationally, I had, when I first got here, I had about two years to stand up this joint innovation outpost. In about 90 days, some of the other Army senior leaders, the three core commanders, the chief of staff of the Army then, the undersecretary of the Army, they all flew down here for a brief. And they said, okay, this is a different way of doing things. I would like to potentially give you some work and see if we can accelerate some of those ACAT two and below programs to get them into the field faster.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  So overall, I think overwhelmingly support, positive support, because we do try to bridge gaps and bring in all the different aspects of those different organizations that were part of that overall acquisition process. We're not trying to stand up something new that cuts off other organizations. We just want to bring all those assets together, dev comm, ARL, ASAL, et cetera. Put them all together in one building for a specific project or a specific problem. Fix that problem or address that problem and then break and go back to where we're, we're from.

• 16:57Fran Racioppi?

  How are you prioritizing what you're focused on?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  So here specifically for the 18th Airborne Corps, the main mission and problems that they have here is time. And it's tied to the immediate response force mission that the 18th Airborne Corps has. So that's the priority number one. And General Anderson sets that. So when we have good ideas that come up through those four doors, the soldier derived solutions or industry provided solutions, fits within that IRF category, it's an immediate priority. We bring it right up to the, the CG. I talked to him about it and we'll attack that problem set. The other way we prioritize things here at the 18th Airborne Corps, we have this very deliberate innovation process that we use, and it's the Dragon's Lair and Scarlet Dragon series of events.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  So the divisions within the Corps have about a, it's about a year cycle where internally they'll nominate different projects that soldiers have shown their command groups. And they'll culminate here, right here in this room. As a matter of fact, last week we had Dragon's Lair 12 where 10 projects were presented. And they attacked and addressed specific problem sets within the Corps' footprint. And we selected number one, all 10 of them were great projects. And all 10 of those projects are going to have a path forward. Either we'll do some work here in the joint innovation outpost or we'll, we'll send it over to a PAE to look at. But the winner, I was able to do a micro award of $12,000 to buy a couple of prototype articles for further testing on the spot right there.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  That has never been done before at an operational command. There's never been an acquisition officer with the appropriate authorities from delegated from the AE at an operational command. I have constraints and limitations, but I have the ability through an ADM to execute projects of $50 million and below on behalf of the Corps commander and on behalf of the Army and ASAL.

• 18:46Fran Racioppi?

  So in effect, it's an incubator.

• 18:50Fran Racioppi?

  Of ideas as well.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Correct, it is.

• 18:53Fran Racioppi?

  Where you're able to bring additional resources in to these ideas, war game them, and then identify what highest probability of success or path to a path to acquisition and incorporation into the force.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if you think about it this way, you have the operational commander who can put emphasis and set the priority with the immediate resourcing arm of the army to be able to take a prototyping effort and actually push it forward, and that hasn't existed before.

• 19:22Fran Racioppi?

  That brings up my next question. Why did it take so long for us to come up with an idea of an organization like this?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  So that, pretty interesting question. I don't think it took long. I think innovation is cyclical. If you go back to, a good example, World War II, M3 Shermans had a problem getting through hedgerows. So if you remember your history, so the tankers there actually put together hedgerow cutters, welded them to the front of the tanks and actually pushed through the hedgerows during D-Day invasion. That was grassroots innovation back then. There was probably a material person who purchased the iron, you know, who purchased the welding torches and put together the maintenance crew to help weld those devices there. Same concept here. It's just we forget about the lessons learned. So that's another thing we're doing here. We're trying to codify the processes, codify the lessons learned.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  So this was a, and again, we've gone through different, as an army, ideas, Army Futures Command, some other dev comm type activities, and this is just another iteration, but maybe I'm jaded, but I think the army finally got it right. It's not just lining up the operational need with a bunch of individuals who can execute good ideas. It's making sure they also have the appropriate authorities and enough resources to just get things going. That's the other thing I bring here. The authority and about $25 million a year of hard DTE to focus on those specific priorities for this corps commander.

• 20:45Fran Racioppi?

  Do you feel like more now than maybe in the past, we as an army are embracing that soldier input and creating mechanisms for soldier input and how we do things at a higher level?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think our soldiers now are the smartest soldiers we've had ever. They're coming up with ideas and they're coding and they're putting together devices and they're welding at a rate I never saw when I was a second lieutenant. And we can harness those products or those potential products. And instead of taking all the time in the front end to do developmental activities, we can get a head start on some of the ideas. We can fail fast with some of their ideas, but still take the concept that they thought of and kind of throw it out to industry to get a potential better product or more robust product. So I want to harness that and I want to champion that through the course priorities and through the IRF mission and see what we can get out of it.

• 21:43Fran Racioppi?

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• 22:15Fran Racioppi?

  Well, I mean, the collective is always going to be greater than the individuals. SMA Weimer, Sergeant Major of the Army, talks about this idea of compliance to commitment. You know, you come in the army and you have a, it's compliance. Why do I stand in formation? Why do I cut my hair? Why do I shave every morning? Why do I make my bed? Hold the bag above my head? Well, because somebody, the drill sergeant told you to. And when you leave basic training, the sergeant told you to. But then as you progress through your career, why do you do it? Well, you do it because it's the right thing to do. You do it because it promotes discipline, because working out keeps you fit and your mind and your body right so that you can solve more complex challenges in your day. And so you

• 22:57Fran Racioppi?

  do it because you're committed. And when we look at the force today, you know, we have this demographic of young soldier, young soldier, young officer who's coming in, who has answers to the questions that we never had. We didn't have cell phones at the start, or they were the Nokia flip phones and the little brick, right? And so we didn't have that wealth of information at our fingertips all day long. So when the captain or the lieutenant said, you know, go do this, you said, well, why? Well, because I told you to and I'm a lieutenant. You know, oh, okay. Well, I gotta go do it. So now I feel like when you're having conversations with soldiers and young officers, it's much more of like,

• 23:43Fran Racioppi?

  well, no, sir. Look, it says right here that you're not right. And so maybe we do it this way. How are you incorporating the ability of every person in the formation now to go out and find rapid solutions and then escalate that up?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's interesting. Like, again, I think that soldier derived solution online portal that we have and we utilize on a daily basis is one of the key foundations for that, to, you know, to address that, where soldiers are out in the field, coming up with problems and say, hey, I put this device together myself in the dirt at a training exercise and it kind of solved the problem I had, or solved the unit's problem we had, or addressed it. Take a look at this. That's kind of some of the things we see at the Dragonslayer competition. It derived from a, I was on drop zone X, or I jumped this piece of equipment. A great example, the 82nd was jumping $20,000 drones and breaking most of them. So the PM for

• 24:43Speaker 01

  all the UAS and counter UAS stuff, their task, their requirement was to build drones. It wasn't get drone from the box to the battlefield. It was to build a drone. We just don't have that type of requirement fidelity. So the soldiers said, we need a delivery system that can keep the drone safe. That's not a Pelican case because I'm not going to strap that to my leg. You know, it's not in my load plan for my Bradley or my Humvee. So they just on their own, built a Mali capable soft case drone case with a 3D printed like foam mesh case. They jumped it a couple of times, said it works, brought it through their dirt lab, through the GIOP, cut a contract. Now it's in production. I

• 25:27Speaker 01

  bought, I think, 3,000 of them and put them out into the force. So now it's a piece of basic inventory at BII for the 82nd to jump their drones. So that is a great example of a soldier coming up with a problem in the field, in the dirt, coming up with an actionable solution and then using the power of the innovation process that this corps established and the GIOP and the acquisition department that's here to be able to put something in the field within a year.

• 25:53Fran Racioppi?

  Wow. Yeah, we've never seen it, things move that quickly before.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And here's another interesting thing. You had asked me this morning on our short walk, who works in the GIOP? How many people? And I said, it depends on the question you're kind of asking, because I have about 20 acquisition professionals between military, DA civilians, and contractors. But there's also the core operational data section. So there are army coders that are addressing problems at the tactical edge with the support of the GIOP and the acquisition cell here to get after some of the problems. And that's something you and I never saw in our early years where they've come up with their own problem set and a solution set, and they've developed an app or a piece of software to address it. And then that scales up through the Scarlet Dragon exercise where they're

• 26:41Speaker 01

  implementing that homegrown solution into the daily activities of an operation.

• 26:47Fran Racioppi?

  How are you integrating AI into, I mean, I feel like when we talk about AI, it's a broad term. So we almost said we have to distill it down and every day someone's like, well, AI this, AI that. Like, AI has to augment and supplement an activity. And I think too many times in our discussions about AI, people are like, well, AI can do that. Well, AI can do what? As you look from the position of the GIOP, where are there areas where you're finding the ability to incorporate AI?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  So what we concentrate on from the acquisition cell, let's hear the operational acquisition detachment. We see some of the problem sets the core comes up with. And we look for software tools or products that help incorporate AI type devices for targeting, decision-making, but there's always a human in the loop. So that's the one thing we try to remember. No piece of software is going to answer every question available. So what we do with our, with the core and with the core staff is we help them figure out what tools we can purchase. We can test with them or test for them that help enhance their decision-making capability.

• 27:59Fran Racioppi?

  There's an expense to all this. You talked about the $20,000 drones that are breaking, you know, and then now as we look at the current conflict, you know, we're, we're shooting million-dollar missiles at $2,000 drones. They realize we don't have a choice. We're going to do that all day long. I mean, you know, you target a warship, like we're going to shoot whatever the minimum is required to get, to bring down that capability. And if it's a million-dollar rocket, it's a million-dollar rocket. But one of the things that you've got to focus on here is finding solutions to things that are, you know, have kind of three characteristics, cost-effective, technologically forward and scalable and adaptable. So how do you weigh all those things? Because, you know, how often do you get all three?

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Great question. Again, so from an acquisition perspective, we always say costs, schedule and performance. You never get all three, which is the most important right now for this current situation. And everything we work on, that's going to be different. Sometimes time is a requirement. When we started kicking off real-world operational support, time was the requirement. So we went after what works now. What can we afford now? What can we integrate now? What's interoperable with the systems we have? And how can we push it forward as rapidly as possible? Sometimes it is scalability. Sometimes it's about affordability. It just depends on the, on the problem set we're trying to solve.

• 29:20Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. And that's a leader decision.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 29:24Fran Racioppi?

  I mean, that's where the operational commanders have to come in and provide guidance.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  So yeah, that, and that's another great aspect of why I'm here. I don't just go out and buy stuff for the core. I'm also an advisor to the core commander. So when they're going through some type of decision-making cycle, called in to provide like, what could we provide, what could we go after, what's available? Again, another good story, one of the unit had a communication problem. So they put together this entire MDMP white paper. Hey, if I had some pieces of equipment, issue, discussion, recommendation. I said, so you just need some, some additional radios. Is that your problem set? And the answer was yes. Those types of radios were already available in the inventory. And I was able to redirect them from another location within 48 hours.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  So that's the other power that this acquisition cell brings. It's just the advice of what's materially ready right now and available, but it just might not be at this post.

• 30:20Fran Racioppi?

  Sometimes people don't know until you ask either.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 30:24Fran Racioppi?

  You know, I mean, I, if I remember as a detachment commander, as a platoon leader, like you're so far removed from acquisitions, you just see stuff show up and somebody says, hey, see if this thing works or, you know, do you like it? But I think that as you go further in your career, you kind of start realizing like, well, you know, I can just ask and maybe somebody has it.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  You're a hundred percent right. When I was a young captain in the three shop, but third brigade 101st airborne, I was issued a government purchase card. We were getting ready to roll out the door. Our brigade commander said, Tom, items that coincidentally improve lethality, survivability and mobility. We have some targetry problems. We have some body armor problems. I need a sniper MTT. I need the following thing. So I had no idea there was a, there was an acquisition cell, acquisition department assault. I was a young captain then. So I literally went out with a credit card and purchased some of these things. So you're right. I didn't know who to ask. I just went and bought. So that's another key thing I do here is inform.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  This is available. This is the program office. What I bring to the fight is a rolodex of, of battle buddies who are colonels across the army who are building great things with great teams. And I can bring all that information into the core commander to help make a decision on what they can get right now to meet the immediate need of the 18th Airborne Corps.

• 31:45Fran Racioppi?

  Well, I think that's the call to action to the core leadership, to the company and battalion level leadership, I would say, within 18th Airborne Corps is that, you know, there's a resource here that you can call, you know, and you're not calling the third floor of the Pentagon, you know, and talking to somebody who is in an office there who deals with, you know, some strategic procurement five years down the road. You're talking to an O6 at an operational level headquarters who is informed on the challenges and can sit here and talk to you, sit across the, the table from you and talk to you about the challenges.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Correct. A hundred percent. And right behind me, you see the mantra innovate, accelerate, dominate. Those aren't in a series. We might innovate here, or we might take a piece of equipment that's already in the inventory and accelerate it with some testing, or just through mass, I'll be able to pull a bunch of gear in from another location, from another, at the right time.

• 32:43Fran Racioppi?

  You're hitting the year mark here. What do you, if you look back, you've come a long way for sure, since you're kind of given this task, but what do you see as the biggest success that you've had so far?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  The biggest success in my mind was when I started getting direct soldier feedback saying, this is exactly what I needed. Or it might've worked. It didn't work, but at least we got it in the time we needed it. You know, my peers, the, you know, the commanders of the 18th Fab, first brigade, 82nd, they're calling back and saying, thanks. You're here. You're listening. It's somebody we can talk to at least. You're a resource. That's the biggest win here. I've shown that there's value. I've provided capability. When I say I, it's the, it's the team here. Like they're a bunch of great Americans in the acquisition department that's here.

• 33:29Fran Racioppi?

  You said they gave you about a two-year window to stand this thing up. So over the next year, where are you looking to take this? What's your, where do you want, next August, where do you want this organization to be?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  So I want to use this organization at the 18th Airborne Corps that codify the innovation process and kind of make a doctrine to show that this works and this should stay in the acquisition process. Again, we're not going to build tanks and Bradleys and helicopters, but we may make them better. But there are some things that we can attack and tackle at this level that solve problems for the army. And I think this should be a permanent piece in some form or fashion at every core headquarters. Doesn't need to be exactly the same. Every core is different. You know, the 18th Airborne Corps has a time problem. You know, 12 hours or less, they're, they're blown out the door. First Corps has a space problem with, with the PACOM AOR and Third Corps has an additive manufacturing spares,

• 34:24Speaker 01

  repairs problem with their, their Herculean task force with all the, you know, tanks and Bradleys. But having the acquisition expertise at the core headquarters can at least inform the core chain of command and core command group of what's available. It actually reduces costs because we might not duplicate of actions. It improves the communication across the army because we'll know what other cores are working on. We'll know what different acquisition cells are working on. And we can nest resources and make it more efficient, I believe.

• 34:56Fran Racioppi?

  What's your guidance to your team?

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Solve problems. Support the soldier. Get them what they need. Inform them on what options are out there. And just attack. There's nothing I can't fix with, in five minutes with a phone call that you mess up. So just go out there and try. And I check on them every morning. Like, what do you need from me? Servant leadership. Are you good? How can I help you? Because there are things I can do with one quick phone call that they think is like, oh, I didn't want to bother you, but it's, it's easy. O6 to O6. Hey, we're taking care of this. But just attack problem sets. Be problem preventers for the soldier. That's my goal to them.

• 35:35Fran Racioppi?

  All right. Last question, test question. You kind of got ahead of me in the very beginning and you, you started talking about it. But we've got to form habits. You know, great leaders form habits. They do certain things every day that allow them to be successful. If we think about being soldiers, the things like shoot, move, communicate. If you can shoot well, you know how to talk to each other and communicate well, you know, and you're physically fit and you can move around the battlefield. Well, you don't have to think about those things when the time comes to employ that activity. So you can think about the more challenging tasks that come your way on any given day. So what are the three things that you do every day to set the conditions for success in your world?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  So first off, I think success for me, my superpower as a leader is to provide clarity. So that's what I need to be able to provide to the team that's here. How I do that personally, I wake up and I drink a cup of coffee. And I go do PT. That's number one. I get internal clarity, right? Like cleanse the mind, sweat equity, whatever we used to call it. And you joined me today. So I appreciate that. And then I have a nice conversation with my wife. I talked to her about some stuff, kind of level set my personal life, think about things we're going to do. And then I look at my daily calendar and I kind of, I kind of walk through the day, like combat, think through the day and go, okay, 09 I'm doing this. This is how I think it's going

• 36:58Speaker 01

  to go. This is what I need to be ready for. And I do that all the way through 1700, 1730. I make a couple of notes and now I have clarity internally, personally, and professionally. And then the fourth thing I do is I walk in here and I walk into the bullpen and I check in with the team and I say, like I, like I just pointed out, what do you need? Here's where I think it's going to go. By the way, you're coming with me at 09. I need this from you. You're here, you're there, you're doing this. All good. So I've given them the clear direction of where they need to go. And then we execute the day and then we wrap up. So that's the three things, three plus one, we'll call it because the team is part of that.

• 37:37Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  You know?

• 37:39Fran Racioppi?

  We've never heard someone quantify clarity like that. So I like that. I think that's really important. I mean, that's what our job is as leaders. And if our team isn't clear on what our expectation is and what we want from them, what that end state is, the commander's intent, it's very difficult for them to go out there and do that. If they do have that clarity, then we almost get to take a bit of a step back because they're going to go out and do great things, even in the absence of some guidance sometimes, maybe sometimes too great of things.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Well, then I ask them a question, what do you need from me? And I get a lot of great feedback. Like now that I've given them clear guidance. And I said, what do you need from me? Sir, I need you to sign this document so we can execute that contract in that amount of time that you're asking for. So that's great feedback I get. Again, I roll back to think through the day, figure that out, have that conversation, provide clarity, get feedback, execute.

• 38:31Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. If you're deliberate with yourself, then it's going to translate into the rest of the team. And you've got a no fail mission here.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  No fail.

• 38:38Fran Racioppi?

  So, well, I appreciate you taking the time, welcoming us here. I mean, this place is awesome.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Thanks Fran.

• 38:43Fran Racioppi?

  This is, I think I did stop by here when it was in its previous form, but the renovations they've done in this building are incredible. The work you guys are doing is setting the conditions for success for not only 18th Airborne Corps, but the Army and the SOF integration. We've spent a lot of time in our conversation with General Anderson and General Ferguson at U.S. SOC and, and then the operational level commanders that currently with 18th Airborne Corps and the conventional Army is greater than it's ever been. And that comes down to the systems that are backing them up. And a lot of that stuff's coming through here. And so I appreciate everything you're doing on a daily basis, you and your team.

• 39:24Fran Racioppi?

  And thanks for the PT this morning and the welcome here. And we look forward to following up with you and learning more as you continue to grow this organization over the next year. So.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Thanks for coming Fran. You're always welcome back. We'll add miles or add weight to the ruck next time you're here. And maybe we'll do the ruck run.

• 39:41Fran Racioppi?

  There we go. Yeah, I'm in.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  All right. You heard it. Let's do it.

• 39:44Fran Racioppi?

  Awesome. Thanks.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks a lot.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  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 Beret Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Richopkin. 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 Jedburgh 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 Jedburgh Media Channel and the Green Beret Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of US Army Special

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Forces and their families. Thanks for joining us on this episode. How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.