#165: America's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threat - Retired US Army Inspector General Lt. Gen. Leslie Smith

The biggest threat to America today is too often the one we think about the least. Nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare has been around for decades and the effects of an NBC attack on the homeland or American interests abroad is a very real scenario. Retired Lt. Gen Leslie Smith https://www.ausa.org/people/ltg-leslie-c-smith-usa-ret spent a career in the Army as a Chemical Officer. He served as the Chief of the Chemical Branch and Commandant of the United States Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear School. He was the first Chemical officer to serve as the Commanding General of the United States Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and the first Chemical officer to serve as the Army's Inspector General. He is now the Vice President for Leadership and Education at the Association of United States Army. https://www.ausa.org/ With reports looming about Russian willingness to use NBC weapons in Ukraine, and Iran’s constant desire to acquire them and put them into the hands of terrorist proxies, Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ sat down with Lt. Gen. Smith to discuss the real threat America faces. We broke down the history of America’s Chemical weapons programs, their use in various stages of conflicts, the implementation of international prohibitions, how the US Army prepares for NBC threats, and what we learned about their modern day use through the COVID pandemic. Lt. Gen. Smith also shared insight into the important role the Inspector General plays in maintaining standards and accountability within the Army, as well as the role AUSA is playing in supporting soldiers both active duty and post-service. Watch, listen or read our conversation from the Association of the United States Army HQ and don’t miss the rest of our AUSA series. Highlights 0:00 Introduction4:00 Importance of chemical warfare7:30 The likelihood of chemical warfare8:22 Anthrax on 9/1111:45 Will anyone use NBC weapons14:07 The lessons of COVID-1916:18 Joining the Army19:55 America’s projection of power22:22 The role of the Army Inspector General27:36 Do Army Standards Matter31:11 Have we lost the mission?33:18 Maintaining the Army36:50 The role of AUSA39:26 Daily Habits Quotes “The Germans used it, and the Americans were not ready to go.”“That’s what CBRN stands for: Could Be Right Now.”“At the higher levels, it’s all about building coalitions of people.”“We don’t know what’s next, we just have to be prepared to deal with the situation.”“The leader has to be at the decisive point.” “When you have boots on the ground, it sends a signal.”“ A leader’s presence only matters when you are present.”“What leaders do is talk about what needs to happen in organizations.”“We have to make sure that the soldiers trust us, the nation trusts us, Congress trusts us, our leaders trust us and the things that we do.”“Inspector generals are training multiple generations of leaders.”“Every leader is responsible for enforcing the standard.”“Climate beats strategy.”“Everyone is looking for their sense of purpose.” The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by University of Health & Performance, providing our Veterans world class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs. 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. The Jedburgh Podcast and the Jedburgh Media Channel are an official program 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?

  The biggest threat to America today is too often the one we think about the least. Nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare has been around for decades, and the effects of an NBC attack on the homeland or our interests abroad is a very real scenario. Retired Lieutenant General Leslie Smith spent a career in the Army as a chemical officer. He served as the chief of the chemical branch in Commandant at the United States Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear School. He was the first chemical officer to serve as the commanding general of the United States Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence, and the first chemical officer to serve as the Army's inspector general. He's now the vice president for leadership and education at the Association of the United States Army. With reports looming about Russian willingness to use NBC weapons in Ukraine, and Iran's

• 0:47Fran Racioppi?

  constant desire to acquire them and put them into the hands of terrorist proxies, I sat down with Lieutenant General Smith to discuss the real threat America faces. We broke down the history of America's chemical weapons programs, their use in various stages of conflicts, the implementation of international prohibitions, how the US Army prepares for NBC threats, and what we learned about their modern-day use through the COVID pandemic. Lieutenant General Smith also shared insight into the important role the inspector general plays in maintaining standards and accountability within the Army, as well as the critical role AUSA is playing in supporting soldiers both active duty and post-service. Watch, listen, or read our conversation from the Association of the US Army Headquarters and don't miss the rest of our AUSA series.

• 1:29Fran Racioppi?

  The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by University of Health and Performance, providing our veterans world-class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs. 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.

• 1:54Fran Racioppi?

  General Smith, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Good to be here, brother.

• 1:57Fran Racioppi?

  It's great to be back at AUSA. So thanks again for hosting us. We were just here like, I don't know, 10 days ago with Sergeant Major.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm feeling a certain kind of way about that, you know.

• 2:06Fran Racioppi?

  You're a little jealous?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  No, no, I just, you know, I was the 66th Inspector General. He was only the 15th Sergeant Major of the Army. 66 above 15. But I understand you guys have a prior relationship.

• 2:18Fran Racioppi?

  I got it.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  I know. This thing is all about relationship. It's good, man. It's all good.

• 2:21Fran Racioppi?

  But you are each first, though, because he was the youngest.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  He was the youngest.

• 2:25Fran Racioppi?

  SMA in the Army. And you were the first chemical officer to ever be the-

• 2:30Speaker 01

  How strange is that?

• 2:31Fran Racioppi?

  IG, so.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  I mean, what? How does that happen?

• 2:33Fran Racioppi?

  Well, we gotta, we gotta talk about how that happened.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Okay, we, yeah, we got a lot to talk about.

• 2:37Fran Racioppi?

  You had a really great career. And we talked about so many times, especially on this podcast, we talk about special operations. We talk about Green Berets, the impact our special operators have. But we haven't really had a chance to start to dig in to some of those other branches that are critically important to our national security strategy.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  You don't think chemical officers operate with special operators?

• 2:55Fran Racioppi?

  No, I do think so. I just think that we often-

• 2:57Speaker 01

  We don't talk about it.

• 2:58Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, we don't talk about it and then we forget it until we get into a conflict and everyone goes, where's my NBC mask?

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:04Fran Racioppi?

  And then you realize, wait, there's probably way more than just that mask that goes on here.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  You're absolutely right.

• 3:10Fran Racioppi?

  So a little bit about you commanding at every level, including being the Chief of the Chemical Branch and the Commandant of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19Fran Racioppi?

  You were the first, as I said, the first chemical officer to serve as the IG, but also as the commanding general of the Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence. So a bunch of firsts there.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  And then one more, too.

• 3:31Fran Racioppi?

  Which?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I was in charge of the Army's 20th Subrany Command.

• 3:34Fran Racioppi?

  Oh, you had to do a little bit more work. Ah, okay, okay. So, yeah. So we got firsts all over those.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  It was all good.

• 3:41Fran Racioppi?

  And now you're the Vice President of Leadership and Education at AUSA, the Association of the U.S. Army. So first off, sir, thank you for your leadership and thank you for your service.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  You're welcome. Thanks for having me, huh?

• 3:51Fran Racioppi?

  But we gotta start with, what is chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear? Why is it important?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Why is it important? It's about the defense of those systems. So if- You remember back in the day, World War I, the Germans used it and Americans were not ready to go. So we had to stand up for brands called the Chemical Warfare Service to learn how to deal with that. First, we were using offensive. You remember the 4.2 inch mortars that we used to have back in the day? A lot with the infantry. Because chemical guys used to be the mortar men for the infantry guys before they became mortars as part of infantry. So it's a great story. So that's how it started back in 1917 during World War I. The Defense thereof and the Office of Use initially.

• 4:33Fran Racioppi?

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• 5:13Fran Racioppi?

  This is near and dear to my heart.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Fran Racioppi?

  Because you can't find this on Google.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:17Fran Racioppi?

  My grandfather was in the Army Corps of Engineers.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 5:21Fran Racioppi?

  He was a lieutenant.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:23Fran Racioppi?

  And his job was the development of mustard gas.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  No way.

• 5:27Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  I got a great story, great story about that.

• 5:30Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  So you know, the engineer regiment, that's where the chemical corps came from.

• 5:33Fran Racioppi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  First, engineer regiment, gas and flame. Now the engineers are like, oh, no, no, no. But when you become the commoner, you get a chance to see behind the scenes. You get a chance to go downstairs and see all the artifacts associated from there. We even have a Mickey Mouse mask that's downstairs at Fort Linnwood. It was for little kids to be able to put on masks in the United States just in case something happened. But anyway, yes, we came from the engineer regiment. First engineer regiment, gas and flame. And we, back in the day, in the 60s, they used to put mustard stains on soldiers. So they would know what it felt like, really.

• 6:09Fran Racioppi?

  I remember my grandfather, they had a, an ex- Explosion in the plant.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 6:14Fran Racioppi?

  At, I think it was at Edward's Arsenal, if I have my.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 6:17Fran Racioppi?

  Facts correct.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:18Fran Racioppi?

  And a lot of folks were injured.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:20Fran Racioppi?

  But this was, you know, rudimentary R and D.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:22Fran Racioppi?

  You know, early stages.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Of development.

• 6:24Fran Racioppi?

  Development in these.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  So was he a biologist, a chemist or something?

• 6:27Fran Racioppi?

  He was a chemist.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Really?

• 6:28Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. So he went to U R I, University of Rhode Island.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:32Fran Racioppi?

  And he was a chemist.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  He was a chemist, so he was mixing things.

• 6:35Fran Racioppi?

  Yes.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Uh, cool.

• 6:36Fran Racioppi?

  But we, so, I mean, let's think a bit about NBC warfare.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:40Fran Racioppi?

  You know, and the evolution of it. So you talk about how World War One, we know the Germans had employed it.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:45Fran Racioppi?

  Then we go off in nineteen seventeen.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:48Fran Racioppi?

  Create kind of the first origin of this.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Chemical warfare, so, yeah.

• 6:51Fran Racioppi?

  And then we get into World War Two. We didn't see a lot of it.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 6:55Fran Racioppi?

  In World War Two, but World War Two brought nuclear technology.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:59Fran Racioppi?

  To the fray.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:00Fran Racioppi?

  And it ended with, you know, our attack on Japan.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:02Fran Racioppi?

  And then we go forward into Korea, Vietnam. There's an argument in Vietnam, you know, was Agent Orange and some of the other.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:09Fran Racioppi?

  Um, chemicals that were used there.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:12Fran Racioppi?

  Some by us.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  You wanna know what chemical folks did?

• 7:14Fran Racioppi?

  Yes.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  They did a lot of, uh, you remember the smoking flame?

• 7:17Fran Racioppi?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Of the, uh, five fi- flame field expedients?

• 7:20Fran Racioppi?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Uh, the clearing of the herbicides, that they became tunnel rats too. A lot of chemical officers, chemical soldiers did that mission too. So, uh, what I used to always tell the troopers, like, hey, we gotta do sometimes the things that other people don't wanna do. So it was, it was an interesting task, a mission. As I mentioned before, when you become a commandant, you get a chance to see the history of every one of the commandants that came before you. I was number twenty five of that timeframe. And it's, it's just amazing story.

• 7:46Fran Racioppi?

  Well, and we've seen since that point in time, other countries.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:51Fran Racioppi?

  Use chemical weapons.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:52Fran Racioppi?

  We've seen Bashar al-Assad.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:54Fran Racioppi?

  Who's in Syria, uh, Saddam Hussein.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:56Fran Racioppi?

  Who's in Iraq. When you think about, you know, being the commandant, when you, and you look back at the history and the evolution of chemical warfare.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:03Fran Racioppi?

  What's your assessment of it? And where are we today? And what's the likelihood that this is something that could come back?

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I think the challenge is, is that there's always things adapting and with the new technology that exists. There are different types of systems and processes we won't talk about on this net that could be perceived as not. Not being chemical, but chemical warfare like, or biological warfare like. I mean, so if you think about anthrax, you think about all those type of things. What are some places that you could grow or operate in it? Where you would see it to not see it today, but you could see it tomorrow. That was the biggest concern where we had those anthrax attacks around September 11. Yeah, around that timeframe, we saw the the mail that it came through. Yeah, so that's another story because my unit was around the Pentagon in that timeframe.

• 8:49Fran Racioppi?

  So I mean, talk about that for a second.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 8:51Fran Racioppi?

  Because that that is one of the prevalent examples, you know.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:54Fran Racioppi?

  And people, you know, compound that with the September 11 attacks. And then there was the theory that, okay, all this is connected. Is this the start of a broader thing?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Well, it was an interesting piece because I gotta give you a little bit, little background. So I was in the Pentagon 90 days prior to September 11 happen. I was in the in the army staff, no, joint staff. Uh, doing my great thing, doing international negotiations, which I don't know if we have time to talk about that today. Uh, in Geneva, so I've been there many times. So I go to Fort Polk, now Fort Johnson, Louisiana. Now, you've been to Fort Polk before, haven't you?

• 9:26Fran Racioppi?

  I've actually not been.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  You've not been to Fort Polk?

• 9:28Fran Racioppi?

  No.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Fort Johnson?

• 9:29Fran Racioppi?

  I'm from Boston.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Really?

• 9:30Fran Racioppi?

  Way too far south for me.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Okay, we gotta fix that, brother.

• 9:33Fran Racioppi?

  I'm not on that.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  But most of the time, most of the time, well, the they do rotation sometime now with the heavy star focus in that location.

• 9:40Fran Racioppi?

  They used to do that.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was very good for them based off the mission set. But anyway, uh, so we show up to this location and, uh, Fort Polk, now Fort Johnson. We call it 90 90, 90 degrees with 90% humidity at 6 o'clock in the morning. You will walk outside, you're like, oh, my gosh. But it was great, great preparation, where we get ready to go.

• 10:01Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So so 9 11 happens. I'm a battalion commander, think I'm the man. The DCG for uh, for Forces Command comes comes down, who just had me visiting that day. Brings all the leaders in and says, hey, I don't know when it's gonna happen. I know it's gonna happen. And the good thing about it is I grew up as a captain in the 82nd. Now, I've heard some of your stories about that, some of those same things at Fort Bragg, now now Liberty. Um, that we had a different mindset. So in that battalion of, you know, 500 troopers, we had a platoon that was all. Always on lockdown. The stuff was packed. It was ready to go. They're like, sir, why you gotta do it? September 11th happened. We were ready to go. But let's fast forward a little bit. So we get a task of saying, hey, we think there's gonna be anthrax attacks in and around.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Because we saw with some with some of the mail things. And the the country was reeling at the time, if you remember, no one knew what was gonna happen next. Then the Pentagon got hit too, right? So they were saying, okay, we need to have, who's gonna be the defense of the the Pentagon? Army stood up and said, we will. General Keen, I never forget it, says the army will defend the Pentagon. People are, whoa, how are you gonna do that? They brought the 82nd up, troopers with, you know, troopers with the weapons, because we used to have weapons outside of the Pentagon. The security you see today did not exist. So we get there. So we have these things called biological detection systems, bids, that they put on every corner of the Pentagon. This is rudimentary. So we're trying to figure out where is the wind blowing? How is this gonna happen?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  So you had troopers sitting in there. So you got the defense of of the DC area is something that's done now, but we didn't, we didn't think about it. We flew five C5s from Alexandria Airport to Andrews Air Force Base in the middle of the night. I thought I would never see it. We're driving down. Have you ever remember those Godzilla movies? You would see the little trucks driving down in the cities? I would never thought that it would have happened. And then I show up in my fatigues and everything. Everybody's like, what are you here for? I couldn't tell them. And I think about that often, but we were ready to execute those tasks. And the missions because of how we prepared our unit to do what we needed to do. So it was, it was a, it was a tough time for not, because our bases, our installations used to be open.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  But automatically, they were shut down by kids, schools, the the buses were being escorted by the second ACR with with a gun truck in the front and the back. They were like, what is going on? I mean, they're little kids, but it's like, things change overnight.

• 12:22Fran Racioppi?

  When we think about this, you know, you think about this evolution, you've talked a lot about. And one of the first things you said was that, you know, our and our NBC capabilities are very defensive in nature. When we look at the threat, you know, we we mentioned here actors like Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, neither of one of which were in power anymore. But let's fast forward and think about someone like Vladimir Putin.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:45Fran Racioppi?

  What is the propensity, do you think, to use that? And what's the biggest threat to the US right now? Is it a nation state or is it a terrorist organization getting there?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yes. And the reason why I say that, because you never know the calculus of individual. A nation state or in a nation state is tougher than a rogue actor, but on both sides. So our job, the corps job, really the army's job is to be ready to defend against whatever happens. One of my, my bigger concerns is that if it doesn't happen, people's like, well, it's not gonna ever happen. But that's what CBRN stands for. Could be right now. So the job of the chemical officer is first to be a good soldier, a good leader. And then so people understand that, hey, I could soldier, but I'm gonna show you how you survive and all these other pieces and parts from there. Yeah.

• 13:27Fran Racioppi?

  And then how, how do we get our forces to think about it and think about this capability more than the what year when they're, when they're cleaning their map?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. You, as a leader, again, you have to get the, the trust of the, you know, chemical officer, NCO normally are in the G3, S3 shop. So they're learning how to do all the other projects. So you're a special project officer. I used to love doing that because you had visibility. People used to laugh, hey, you have to do the USR. Like, yeah, but I know more about the unit than you do. So I learned a lot about organizations, learned about leadership. Because I was right next to the commander, right next to the three, and I had a chance to see what those things are. And then once you get the trust and they know that you're not gonna do stuff just for stupid, you got to make the case. And so the higher you go, the easier it comes because at the higher levels, it's all about building coalitions of people. So I was comfortable doing that even at a young age.

• 14:20Fran Racioppi?

  True. What did we learn from something like COVID where, you know,

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:23Fran Racioppi?

  And now you're very last week, we're seeing that, you know, even the CIA has, um, and said, yeah, look, we think it was made in a lab.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:31Fran Racioppi?

  And so although we understand, and there are people out there who may believe that it was a willful act to release COVID into the environment. But however COVID started, what it does prove to us is that you can create a virus in a lab.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 14:45Fran Racioppi?

  You can release it.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Yes, you can. Yeah. What it tells us is, is that we don't know what's next. We just have to be prepared to deal with the situation. Then as leaders, we have to be thinking about, if you think about it as a threat of the battlefield or not, that one office, you said, you do it once a year. Just like you, you know, how you grew up in special ops. Okay, what's the threats that I'm not thinking about? What are the things I gotta be able to deal with? And it's a risk analysis. Thing you gotta talk to commanders about because they can't carry everything all the time. So what is the risk that we want risk to the force, risk to the unit, risk to those things?

• 15:16Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, I remember watching the invasion into Iraq in two thousand and three. I mean, I was in.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  I was a battalion commander, yeah.

• 15:22Fran Racioppi?

  But I remember, you know, go watching multiple times that it was coming over.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:27Fran Racioppi?

  The reporters who were embedded with the invasion force that, you know, they were donning gas masks. There was the threat of weapons being used by Saddam Hussein's army.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was another similar point. Our battalion was deployed during that timeframe. And, you know, as a leader, many times you have to go where you think you need to be. And so I told my two star boss, uh, because we were supporting the port operations. I said, hey, sir, I need to be forward because I was the only chemical battalion in theater at the time. I'm like, if something goes bad, I gotta be farther forward to X, you know, to be able to support my guys. Because we had guys from supporting every division, every formation to do what we need to do. But I need to be forward where the, uh, the core tack and the other, other units were to support just in case something bad goes down. It's like, okay, Roger that. Me and my star major are on the road, uh, traveling north. Because as you know, the leader has to be at the decisive point.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I saw, uh, General Austin at his retirement ceremony last week. But we both saw each other on the plane flying November nineteen ninety. I'm like, I guess I know where you're going. It's like, I guess I know where you're going. Like, yes, sir. We both going to the same place. And then we, we jumped off that next year.

• 16:36Fran Racioppi?

  Wow.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:37Fran Racioppi?

  Talk about the army for a minute.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Right. You talk about, you don't want to talk about me, but you.

• 16:40Fran Racioppi?

  I do want to. That's where we're gonna go. I probably talk about the army.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:44Fran Racioppi?

  I want to know.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  How does it happen?

• 16:46Fran Racioppi?

  How does it happen? Because, yeah, that's true. Because in, in nineteen eighty-three,

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:51Fran Racioppi?

  you commissioned from Georgia Southern University as a field artillery officer.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a great story.

• 16:56Fran Racioppi?

  Well, the first question we got to ask there is, why'd you want to go in the army?

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Uh, because my family always served in the army. My, uh, my dad was in the army, Korean War vet. One of his uncles was the 11th Airborne Trooper. Uh, and it's funny, my dad died when I was five. So I didn't understand all the things that he did. Um, but I knew they were something that I wanted to do. And so have you ever heard of a place called Mount Bay, Mississippi? No. It was, uh, founded by freed slaves. Uh, Isaiah Montgomery and a couple of other gentlemen. It was a great location to go visit as a kid. So I always knew that I was, my last name was Smith. Hey, my uncle was an entrepreneur, had another who taught, uh, who's a dean at a college, uh, Alcorn State. Uh, and several others that, that did, you know, different things. They either the teachers, educators, or business people.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  And it's, it was, it was a great environment as a kid growing up. I'm from Atlanta, so I, I always knew I wanted to serve. So I served in the army for 35 years. My brother, who's five years younger, served in the army for, uh, for four years. My sister was in the Marine Corps for, uh, for four years. Her husband too. Now my youngest daughter is a, is an army doc. So she's like, she took it to the next level. I was like, okay, do your thing. So Georgia Southern, that's another story. I didn't know Georgia Southern existed because I'm from Atlanta. And so I went there because a good friend of mine said that you, you should go down here with me. So I went there with him and they gave me, the RTC guys gave me a deal I couldn't refuse. What was the deal? The deal was that we're gonna make you a lieutenant in two years. Like what? What do you mean?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  So, so I'm 17 years old and they said, they said, hey, you come and you join the Georgia Army National Guard. So I was in the guard for four years. Uh, we're gonna make you a lieutenant in two years. So I became, it's a simultaneous membership program. So as a freshman, I'm hanging out with the junior RTC guys. So I had to grow up quick, you know? So, you know, you're 17, you think you got it going on, but you see the 19 and 20 year old, you're like, oh, I gotta raise the level of my game. So I, I was in the Georgia Guard in a field artillery unit. That's why I got a commission as a field artillery officer in, after my second year. But I didn't graduate until 1985. So I was in the guard for four years. I learned a lot about what it meant to be a soldier in a field artillery unit. Then a lieutenant in a field artillery unit.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Then I got commissioned and during that timeframe, you probably remember this, but the Reagan buildup. All of us who got, many of us that got branch chemical officer. Were in the, from the Armored Reserve and the National Guard, all of us got sent to Germany. He built up Germany. He brought, I was the first chemical officer they had in 10 years. I'm like, ooh, can we touch him? Can we touch him? So I was in the air defense unit, 13 kilometers from the border. So they, we, we brought all these people in location. So Reagan says, okay, you want to do this? We're gonna, we're gonna bring, so we had two cores. We had, I mean, it was a bunch, you know, four star generals all the way down. So it was, at, at least two, and everything else that goes with having two cores in Europe. I mean, it was powerful.

• 19:51Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  And so Reagan says, hey, can you deal with this? Check and then mate.

• 19:55Fran Racioppi?

  You know, we just had the opportunity when we were at D-Day, episode released about a week ago, actually now, to sit down with Command Sergeant Major Jeremiah Inman. He's the Command Sergeant Major for US Army Europe, Africa.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:09Fran Racioppi?

  And we had a great conversation with him, sitting on the, at Point du Hoc.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 20:15Fran Racioppi?

  In one of the, in one of the gun placements.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  You mean like Point du Hoc?

• 20:18Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah, no, the other, right, I know the story, I, you say, yeah, yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:21Fran Racioppi?

  It's, it's phenomenal.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:23Fran Racioppi?

  And, you know, we talked about that forward projection of power.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:26Fran Racioppi?

  And how important that is for the army and how important it is for the national sense of the US.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:31Fran Racioppi?

  And when you look at our presence in Europe, although it's been significantly reduced, especially from, you know, the Cold War era, we haven't left.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:40Fran Racioppi?

  And it's still a critical component.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  It is.

• 20:42Fran Racioppi?

  Of our ability to maintain, you know, we can call it the status quo. We're gonna, we certainly talk at length about

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:48Fran Racioppi?

  the challenges to that today.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:50Fran Racioppi?

  But it is really important.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  It is. I think, in, in as many ways you can do it, but when a soldier especially shows up on the ground, when you have boots on the ground, it sends a signal. A plane can fly over, a ship can drive through, but when you have boots on the ground, soldiers interacting with the, with the people on the ground, it changes the atmosphere. It's the engagement of talking to people, learning the language, eating the food, hanging out. It really changes the culture of what it means. I have, I have many sayings, but here's one of them. Here's one for you. A leader's presence, P R E S E N C, only matters when you're present. So when you're There and they know who you are. It matters. That's why those soldiers being in Poland matters. And you never know how it comes up.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  So one of the people, one of my coworkers that I'm working with on a book. That's another story, maybe for another time. Her brother is in Warsaw, Poland. And then she told me that they had brought in some families in from Ukraine. And she says, yeah, we know they got soldiers on the ground in Poland. And I'm like, how you know that? Because everybody tells them thank you. That's what I'm talking about. That's why this presence thing is important. And there's many ways to do it, but when you have troopers on the ground, either in exercise or for a station, it matters, not only to our nation, but to the world.

• 22:09Fran Racioppi?

  When faced with a challenge, Green Berets adapt, overcome, and keep moving forward. Now's your chance to stand with them. Join the 1952 Society with a monthly gift of just nineteen dollars and fifty-two cents to provide critical medical devices for wounded, ill, and injured Green Berets. Your support fuels their recovery, helping them return to duty or continue serving their communities. A Green Beret's mission never stops. Neither should our support. Join the 1952 Society today and stand with those who stand for us.

• 22:40Fran Racioppi?

  Let me ask you about being the Army Inspector General.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't jump far forward, but okay.

• 22:46Fran Racioppi?

  I gotta get to it because I think it's really important when we talk about the army presence and we think about what is our army there to actually do.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:55Fran Racioppi?

  Right. And now I think that that's an important question that we sit today because we hear so much talk. The Army, the military, for twenty-plus years, we were at the forefront of the news cycle.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:06Fran Racioppi?

  We're not now, but you would probably argue it, I would probably argue as well in the same position, that we are at more risk today as a nation than we've ever been.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:15Fran Racioppi?

  Both from foreign external actors and internal domestic actors. And so we need to be thinking about our army. We need to be understanding where our army is today, the lessons from the past, and how are we going to learn from those lessons to shape the army of the future? And the Inspector General is a big part of what that looks like.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  You want to know the story about becoming Inspector?

• 23:35Fran Racioppi?

  I do.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a great story. I never forget it. So, you know. Well, you're the commanding general of any location, but I was the commanding general of Fort Leonard Wood. So you got a driver, you got an aide, you got a chief of staff, you got an enlisted aide that could, where you take care of you, you know. Cause you change your uniform sometime three or four times a day. I was an aide, so. So you know, you know, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So you get a phone call from GOMO that says, the chief of staff of the army would like you to do blah, blah, blah, blah. In this case, the chief of staff of the army would like you to become the deputy inspector general. You're like, what? It's not really a question. It's not, oh no, you have a choice. You could either take it or retire, right? So that's how it works. And so I see Gerald Allen, I'll never forget this, he was the vice chief of staff of the army at the time, we were at a function in December.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  And I said, hey, sir, who did I piss off to go to this job? He said nothing. And I just, like, no response. No response, he just looked at me. I was like, oh, okay, I guess I keep moving. But what I found out later was, uh, what leaders do is talk about what needs to happen in organizations. And so the trade out commander, uh, God rest his soul, Gerald Cohn told me, he said, look, we need to change the culture. Uh, and then you also found out that whoever the three star is, has a lot to do with who the other one is the deputy. So, uh, Dave Quantock was, uh, was coming in to be the inspector general, he says, I want Les Smith as my deputy. I'm like, really, really, come on, Dave. But anyway, it blew my mind, I had no idea all the things that the inspector general does.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Most people think it's about investig- investigations only, right? Senior official investigations. As a deputy, my nickname was Darth Vader. Cause I had to call them on my peers on the phone that says, you're the subject of an investigation. That's no fun, right? But now, first I would never lose my job over somebody else. And many of these investigations don't provide any substantiation at all. And many of them are just investigations because you gotta look into what those things are. The problem is, is those that are, are the published, that are, that come out from, from a negative perspective, cause that's what you see. When you become a general officer, SES, it's all in paper. Unless the guys, most of the time not, unless they're high level senior listed people, there's not investigation. So, as a deputy, I was just.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  For doing all the background work, but the IG does investigations, assistance and inspections for that 1.2, 1.3 million soldiers and civilians, right? There's two ways of looking at it. One way is to be reactive. One way is to be proactive. I chose to be the proactive person when I became the Inspector General. So I spent most of my time talking to leaders about how to stay out of trouble. And those who listened did well. Now some did not, uh, because the, the standard is a standard and we have to make sure that the soldiers trust us, the nation trusts us, Congress trusts us, our leaders trust us in the things that we do. Uh, and it's, it's not personal, but it has to be done to the standard. And, you know, we have the schoolhouse where we train IGs.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Cause IGs work from four star level down, but they all get trained as at the IG school at Fort Belvoir. Uh, and they, they learn how to do the efficiency effectiveness to support commanders.

• 26:43Fran Racioppi?

  You mentioned standards.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:45Fran Racioppi?

  I had a chance, uh, I think it was last year, but the episode came out last April or so.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:51Fran Racioppi?

  Uh, to sit down with the current Sergeant Major of the Army.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:54Fran Racioppi?

  Mike Weimer.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:55Fran Racioppi?

  And he has very strong opinions that he shares in our conversation about standards.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:02Fran Racioppi?

  They've even reintroduced the blue book.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And who, who developed that? Von Steuben.

• 27:07Fran Racioppi?

  But that, then that, but that there, it was in the army, but then it went away for a while.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  I know, but who developed it? Von Steuben. He was the first effective Inspector General. Did you know that?

• 27:16Fran Racioppi?

  No.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:18Fran Racioppi?

  No, and Sergeant Major Wyman, uh, Weimer did not tell me that.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's okay. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I was, I was like, when he came, I was like, yes. Way to go, sir. So that's a, we could tell that story. So Washington, General Washington was having a problem with standards in his force. So he brought oppression, oppression in to help with the standards. So he came in and says, no, you cannot use the bathroom in the same place where you sleep. That's where standards about latrines, standards about how you eat, how you dress, how you fire. He came and brought those standards and that was a precursor to the non-commissioned officers for our army.

• 27:54Fran Racioppi?

  Which is the biggest differentiator between our military and everybody else.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Hands down.

• 27:58Fran Racioppi?

  And they're they're enforced those standards.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:01Fran Racioppi?

  When we think about standards, you know, we think about where the army is today. A lot of people, you know, are out there publicly and you can go to our YouTube channel and look at the comments and I'm actually often shocked and yet appalled at times about the amount of comments that we get about people who distrust our army and distrust our government and distrust the standards.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:21Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. And when we think about the evolution of standards, I always felt, and I can only speak for my personal opinion, but when I was in the army from two thousand three to two thousand sixteen, that standards existed.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Fran Racioppi?

  And I think my career in the infantry and going into special forces proved that you had to meet the standard. That's what we talked about. But when we look at the army today, has the standard changed? And where are we when we look at standards in the army today?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  I think standards exist. They still exist. It has to be enforced, just like when you and I both were there by leaders. So, good thing. I got to back up a little bit. So, I told my IGs this, and it really, really applies across the board. Inspectors generals are training multiple generations of leaders. Right? So, as a young captain, do you remember when we used to have the U LAC down at Fort Bragg? Where they they took all the equipment after he got inspected and it got locked down? You probably remember that.

• 29:18Fran Racioppi?

  No.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Cause so, so one of the brigade, the DRB, they would go through an inspection and the equipment got locked down. So, I'm a young company commander. So, I see these leaders, NCOs like, wow, you know, NCOs like, oh, here I am. I'm the man. I'm like, who, who are these guys? I find out later that they're inspector general NCOs. So, their training, they they take my equipment, they inspect it, they make sure everything is squared away. And then I got smart and says, I don't want to wait until the inspection time, but then they tell me what was right and wrong.

• 29:51Fran Racioppi?

  Right.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  So, I go see them before the timeframe. So, I get trained as a young captain. Little did I know, twenty years later, twenty-five years later, that I would be the deputy inspector general, then the IG. But I got trained of, hey, use the IG before something happens. Let's see what the standards are because they're. Repository of many of these standards because they got all this background stuff. They have this whole enterprise all the way back up to the Department of the Army. That can help you see what those inspections were in the past. Uh, what are some of the tools that they've sent across other units? And that's what helps us across the board. But when it comes to standards, every leader is responsible for enforcing the standard. As soon as we walk away from one, allow it to not be met, we've established a new standard.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  And frankly, that applies in my viewpoint outside of military too. If we allow our people to be treated a certain way and we don't correct it, we've established a new standard.

• 30:44Fran Racioppi?

  When I work with athletic teams.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 30:47Fran Racioppi?

  And companies, we talk about standards and the upholding of standards a lot. And I'll tell, I'll go into the locker rooms.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 30:54Fran Racioppi?

  In athletic teams and I'll tell them, you know, if your locker is a mess.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:59Fran Racioppi?

  Or your locker room is a mess or the weight room is a mess.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:02Fran Racioppi?

  That's the standard you set. And so if we're having, so oftentimes they'll, they'll bring me in and they'll say, we have a performance issue on the field. Okay, let's go to the locker room.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's go see it.

• 31:11Fran Racioppi?

  And let's go to the weight room. And then you often see, well, the locker room's a disaster. There's weights on the floor, there's trash on the floor. And the very first thing we start talking about is why'd you walk by the trash?

• 31:22Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:22Fran Racioppi?

  Because if you are a senior and you walk by the trash, well, so do the juniors, the sophomores and the freshmen.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  You establish them.

• 31:29Fran Racioppi?

  So the first step of that is you, you have to enforce it.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Right, which in turn, it turns into the climate and the culture of the organization. Right? So climate beats strategy all day, right?

• 31:38Fran Racioppi?

  Yes.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  All day, every day. And twice for lunch.

• 31:41Fran Racioppi?

  I want to ask about the culture because you, you brought it up. The Army and Sergeant Major Daley and I had this bit of this conversation last week too. The Army has a job.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 31:51Fran Racioppi?

  The Army's job is to.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Fight and defend the next war.

• 31:54Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. That is inherently a difficult job.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  It is.

• 31:57Fran Racioppi?

  But it is also a job that we really, I believe, shouldn't sugarcoat.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 32:03Fran Racioppi?

  In order to fight and win our nation's wars, we have to develop a culture of warfighters. Who at the end of the day are willing to take a life.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 32:12Fran Racioppi?

  And possibly give their own in defense of the nation. Yet we have seen over time a bit of softening in the messaging around the culture of the army. Have we forgotten that we're warfighters at heart? And in order to be an effective warfighter, that has to be the message. You have to be willing to go out there and violently execute a very difficult mission.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we had to tell the story about what the mission of the army is, but all of the missions of the army. I mean, the 150 plus jobs that exist and you know, there's no frontline real life. It's all together. And so folks got to understand what what that task is. I mean, supporting defend that constitution means that. So yeah, we need to be upfront with people, but we just need to tell people, young people, what what are the options and opportunities that exist for our job? Because everybody can't be an infantryman, even if they want to be.

• 33:03Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  You know, everybody can't be a special ops guy because you got to have everything associated to support them to do that task. So let's talk about all of them, but everybody's got to do the mission. I laugh because my daughter had to learn how to fire a an M4 and a nine millimeter. And she hadn't fired one of those before. And she went to the field, she's like, Dad, like, you know why you're doing that? Because they treat them like medics. So when they become docs, they can have an appreciation for what that means. So I think the other part that we have to do is is talk about not only the task, but what's the purpose of the task? What's the purpose of the mission? How does it support that special ops guy? How does it support the infantry guy that's doing the mission and the task that needs to happen? I had a great platoon trainer. He traded us, trained us like infantrymen back in 1986.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  We were digging foxholes. We're like, why are we doing that? Because you're going to be with them. You're going to operate with them. I want you to be able to speak, look like, walk like, talk like, and hang with, because that's how you you get the respect.

• 33:59Fran Racioppi?

  You had a 35 year career.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:02Fran Racioppi?

  And through that time, you saw the army ebb and flow.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:05Fran Racioppi?

  And you saw, you know, a heightened, uh, public perception of the military as we went into the Gulf War in 91. As we went into Afghanistan, we went to Iraq, but you also saw the interwar periods.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 34:19Fran Racioppi?

  In your opinion, what do we need to be doing now to rebuild the army?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:24Fran Racioppi?

  Build the army? I don't like using the term rebuild because the army evolved.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  How about maintain?

• 34:29Fran Racioppi?

  Maintain.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:29Fran Racioppi?

  What do we need to be doing now?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Fran Racioppi?

  And what's that? What's the next threat?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I will tell you is tell your story, not my story, but tell your story. Cause I think the great, the big be all you can be, which I'm glad we, we should have never left that one. But that's a, that's a nice story.

• 34:45Fran Racioppi?

  I agree with you.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  You know, be all you could be. We all became who we are because of our service. And that's what we need to tell young people. So I teach leadership at Georgia Southern where I went to school. And I don't talk to the ROTC guys. I mean, I talk to them when I'm visiting, but I talk to the College of Business. Every class, there's one or two young people that says, how can I do some of that? And I don't always tell them, just during the military, I said, well, let's find whatever your purpose is. Right? So everybody's looking for a sense of purpose and we found our sense of purpose in our military service. So some people, that's right. Some people could be Boys and Girls Club. Some people it could be, uh, teaching an industry at school, but we have to help young people find their purpose. And that in turn, cause every generation and I, these, I think, I don't know if COVID did it or what did it.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  They all want to have a sense of purpose in life. And again, I think this is a great way to have a sense of purpose. That's why I'm here at USA is to help talk about that purpose because those are 122 chapters, which are across the, the world. They're embedded in our communities. They're telling those stories. You know, if you get one person like my, our high school ROTC person, I didn't know this, but he says, hey, you ever thought about joining the National Guard? What would have happened if he hadn't talked to me back was out when I was a senior in high school? Where would I be? I don't know. Georgia Southern. That guy says, hey, I got this great deal. But if we don't have the conversation, we know what won't happen because they won't know. We owe it to young people to talk about what those options are and how they exist.

• 36:13Fran Racioppi?

  I think it's important too, as we see the GWAT generation retiring.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:18Fran Racioppi?

  That everybody remembers they need to be proud of their service.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:23Fran Racioppi?

  And they have a story to.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 36:24Fran Racioppi?

  And you know, what I don't want to happen, and I don't think we will, but you know, I think that there's, there's a lot of polarization in society right now. Around this is that we. End up like we did to some extent, I don't think it'll be as bad, but after the Vietnam War. Where you have folks who don't want to talk about their stories and don't want to share those experiences. Because I think, as you said, getting out there, talking about it, talking about things that went well. And also things that didn't go well. Will motivate that next generation to reduce that interwar lull that we may have.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the it's incumbent on all of us to talk about those things, but again, not, I call it the one over the world thing. It's about, hey, going to Germany was great. You know, South Korea, I took my family there. It was our best assignment, you know? And that's true, it was our best assignment. My wife didn't want to go, but it was great. You know, my kids were eating, you know, strange stuff that you they like, what? I'm not, but it was stuff that you learn. It was cultures that you understood that families and friends and people that we know from around the world. My kids are are international people. Because they understand and they have an appreciation for all cultures, respect for all cultures. And they understand what that means, you know, I had to bring one of my nephews up here to DC, grew up in Orlando.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Didn't know anything, brought him to DC, his mouth was like, boom, like, look, man, let me explain to you. But if you don't grow up in other, except in one space, this is all you know. So we owe it to young people to see what those things are, what those options are.

• 37:58Fran Racioppi?

  You brought up AUSA.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:00Fran Racioppi?

  In your role, leading leadership.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:03Fran Racioppi?

  And development here, what do you focus on?

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Everything. So if you think about the mission, he was saying is a support for the soldier. Jack Haley, one of our vice presidents, got three of us, me, Dan Daly and Jack. Jack is like a logistician, he does the big conference, he does all the pieces and parts.

• 38:21Fran Racioppi?

  That thing's huge.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 38:23Fran Racioppi?

  I never signed.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's where it's supposed to be. It's AUSA, the army's big, right? AUSA's gotta be big, we gotta be bad. But I provide the content. So you think all the speakers, all the panels, the senior executive roundtables, we do hot topics. So we take what the army machine leaders are talking about, and then we amplify it during the year. Because you know how long it takes for a message to get down to the force? About eighteen months. We reiterate it again. We just had one on installation. The enterprise of the information, hot topic now, but it was on the enterprise. But anyway, it had to do with logistics enterprise for the nation. And so we brought all these. You had the DLA director here, the G4 that was here. And you had the Army Interior Command.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  So it was a great topic. Over 200 people showed up because everybody is trying to figure out how the infrastructure as it ages, how we're upgrading. So we're ready to execute that next task because we're not going to have a year to build up like we did for nine 11.

• 39:17Fran Racioppi?

  Right.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Or even for 2003 because it's not going to be that way anymore.

• 39:20Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  So that's what I do. And that's why I took the job here is because I teach leadership with Georgia Southern. The Center for Leadership that we stood up is teaching leadership back to the Army. Stuff that we learn, helping guys to understand why your presence matter. How you build trust in organizations, what's purpose look like? And it's great. And I love doing what I do every day.

• 39:38Fran Racioppi?

  Well, I got time for one more question for you and we're going to hit that leadership piece.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 39:42Fran Racioppi?

  I want to ask you about habits.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:45Fran Racioppi?

  Because I think habits are critical in leadership. We were talking before we started about the origin of the Jedbergs. And when I think about the Jedburgh mission and the three man teams that parachuted behind enemy lines starting the night before D-Day. They were given very general guidance.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:00Fran Racioppi?

  Win at all costs.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:02Fran Racioppi?

  But I think they had to do three things and you've heard of these three things, certainly in your military career. But they had to do three things effectively every single day that had to become routine, second nature.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 40:11Fran Racioppi?

  If they did these three things, then they could focus on the more complex task.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:17Fran Racioppi?

  That was at hand, which was defeating the German army. But they had to be able to shoot. They had to be able to move and they had to be able to communicate.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:23Fran Racioppi?

  They couldn't think about it. They just had to do it.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:26Fran Racioppi?

  Instinct. What are the three things that you do every day in your world to be successful?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Physical training, reading and engaging.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  But I gotta tell you a story and I was talking about this the other day. You know what a toring pinhead, toring pinhead is and a cotter pin?

• 40:41Fran Racioppi?

  Yes.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I had a non-commissioned officer tell me that. The reason why I am where I am is because of great non-commissioned officers. And Dan Daley reminds me of that all the time. But the point is, in the multiple, we check toring pinhead and cotter pins. That was the standard on Monday. If on Friday it wasn't squared away, we released all the soldiers. You know who fixed the toring pinhead and cotter pins? For your listeners, a toring pinhead slides down, the cotter pin goes inside. If it doesn't work, then if you, when you need to tow something, you can't do it because you don't have a cotter pin. It seems very simple, but if you have attention to detail, you understand what the standard is, and the leaders are enforcing the standard, then you could do the other things. It's blocking and tackling. Washington commanders, great, they lost this weekend because they couldn't do the basics. They have four turnovers.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  You don't win games that way. That's the same thing with us. If I don't exercise every day, I don't look like the leader I'm supposed to look like. I don't have the confidence and the people don't have the confidence in me, right? And then if I'm not thinking about what's happening in the world every day, then I can't communicate that. And then lastly, if I'm not engaging people, understanding how they're feeling. The only way to have a finger on the pulse of people is by spending time with them, right? You can't feel the pulse this way. You gotta be here, right? For your listeners, don't go around and touch your people. But you gotta know what's going on, right? How you doing today? You know, like when I walked in, y'all like, who's this guy coming in to see you? You know, last week when Dan was there? I do that all the time. This is during the Pentagon. I love doing the Pentagon. Can you imagine a tall, bald-headed three-star stopping a, a major in the hallway?

• 42:12Speaker 01

  They're like, oh. But you gotta engage folks, right? And you gotta, and so all those guys are now colonels and generals. They're like, thank you, sir. I appreciate you for talking to us because sometimes they are not seen. That's how you find out what's happening within your organization. That's what we gotta do as leaders every day.

• 42:29Fran Racioppi?

  Those three are great. The basics.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  The basics.

• 42:32Fran Racioppi?

  The basics. P T, reading and engaging those around you, I think all of that.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how you keep your finger on the pulse.

• 42:40Fran Racioppi?

  Well, General Smith, I appreciate you taking a few minutes to sit down with us this morning on this early on a Monday.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 42:46Fran Racioppi?

  We got a week ahead of you. And I sincerely appreciate all the support that AUSA has given to myself and my team and the hospitality here over a couple of episodes. And I very much look forward to continue to build the relationship.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got people to talk to. We need to be on site. There's some places and things I think we need to do together.

• 43:03Fran Racioppi?

  I'm all about it. Okay. Get you involved with Green Beret Foundation.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Right to that.

• 43:06Fran Racioppi?

  A lot of synergy.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Will I be able to do a halo jump, tandem jump somewhere?

• 43:10Fran Racioppi?

  Hey, we know the Golden Knights, don't they? They've been on. You listened to the episode, so let's get them in here and make it happen.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Right to that.

• 43:17Fran Racioppi?

  All right, brother.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Thanks a lot.

• 43:21Fran 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 Beret Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Rycho. 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, X or 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 Forces and their families. Thanks for joining us on this episode.

• 44:06Fran Racioppi?

  How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.