#206: Building The World's Best Special Operators - USAJFKSWCS Command Team MG Jason Slider, CSM Jeff Bochey, CW5 Gary Ostrander

Every Green Beret, Civil Affairs soldier, and Psychological Operations soldier starts somewhere. Before they can operate in the world’s most complex environments, they have to prove they can think, adapt, lead, and perform when the standard is uncompromising. At the U. S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School https://www.swcs.mil/, the mission is simple to say and extraordinarily difficult to execute: build the world’s best special operators, then continue making them better. In this episode, Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/ travelled to the center of the universe, Fort Bragg, NC, to sit down with the command team responsible for that mission: Major General Jason Slider, Command Sergeant Major Jeff Bochey, and Chief Warrant Officer 5 Gary Ostrander https://www.swcs.mil/About-Us/Command-Group/. Together, they lead the organization responsible for assessing, selecting, training, and educating the next generation of Army Special Operations Forces while ensuring today’s operators remain prepared for tomorrow’s fight. The battlefield is changing rapidly. After more than two decades dominated by counterterrorism, SWCS is adapting its training for large-scale combat operations and peer adversaries capable of contesting American forces across every domain. That means integrating robotics and autonomous systems, preparing operators for the digital and information fight, and understanding how artificial intelligence can enhance the force without allowing technology to replace mastery of the fundamentals. But modernization also raises a harder question: how much can we ask one operator to do? As new capabilities emerge, SWCS has to determine what belongs in the baseline skill set, what requires specialized expertise, and how to give operational units new capabilities without adding another burden. From the development of robotics expertise to the evolution of Psychological Operations and information warfare, the institution itself has to adapt as quickly as the battlefield. We also examine the relationship between SWCS, 1st Special Forces Command https://www.army.mil/1sfc, and USASOC https://www.army.mil/usasoc, and why lessons from operational formations must move rapidly back into the schoolhouse. Training cannot prepare soldiers for the war we just fought. It has to produce leaders who can arrive at their teams on day one, contribute immediately, and adapt to a fight none of us can completely predict. Technology will change. The enemy will change. The battlefield will change. The standard cannot. The responsibility of SWCS is to ensure that whoever earns the right to join Army Special Operations has the competence, character, discipline, and adaptability to carry its legacy into whatever fight comes next. Highlights: 0:00 Welcome to the Jedburgh Podcast 4:25 The Mission of SWCS 9:36 The Army Special Operations Center of Excellence 11:40 Staying Humble & Evolving the Force 16:45 Defining the Standard for Lethality 19:27 Preparing for Large-Scale Combat Operations 24:51 Collaboration Across Army Special Operations 29:21 Robotics & the Future of Warfare 36:12 Psychological Operations & Information Warfare 40:09 Recruiting the Next Generation of Special Operators 51:39 Warrant Officer Recruiting & Retention 52:29 Preparing Special Operators for Their Hardest Day 56:07 Technology Without Losing the Fundamentals 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.

• 0:02Fran Racioppi?

  Every Green Beret, civil affairs and psychological operations soldier starts somewhere. Before they can operate in the world's most complex environments, they have to prove they can think, adapt, lead, and perform when the standard is uncompromising. At the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, the mission is simple to say and extraordinarily difficult to execute. Build the world's best special operators, then continue making them better. In this episode, I travel to the center of the universe, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to sit down with the command team responsible for that mission. Major General Jason Slider, Command Sergeant Major Jeff Bochey, and Chief Warrant Officer Five Gary Austen.

• 0:44Fran Racioppi?

  Together, they lead the organization responsible for assessing, selecting, training, and educating the next generation of Army Special Operations Forces while ensuring that today's operators remain prepared for tomorrow's fight. The battlefield is changing rapidly. After more than two decades dominated by counterterrorism, SWIC is adapting its training for large-scale combat operations and peer adversaries capable of contesting American forces across every domain. That means integrating robotics and autonomous systems, preparing operators for the digital and information fight, and understanding how artificial intelligence can enhance the force without allowing technology to replace the mastery of the fundamentals. But modernization also raises a harder question. How much can we ask one operator to do?

• 1:28Fran Racioppi?

  As new capabilities emerge, SWIC has to determine what belongs in the baseline skillset, what requires specialized expertise, and how to give operational units new capabilities without adding another burden. From the development of robotics expertise to the evolution of psychological operations and information warfare, the institution has to adapt as quickly as the battlefield. We also examine the relationship between SWIC, First Special Forces Command, and USASOC, and why lessons from the operational force must move rapidly back into the schoolhouse. Training can't prepare soldiers for the war we just fought. It has to produce leaders who can arrive at their teams on day one, contribute immediately, and adapt to a fight none of us can completely predict. Technology will change, the enemy will change, the battlefield will change, but the standard

• 2:13Fran Racioppi?

  cannot. The responsibility of SWIC is to ensure that whoever earns the right to join Army Special Operations has the competence, character, discipline, and adaptability to win whatever fight comes next. The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by OneTrue, 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. General Slider, CSM Boucher, Chief Austender, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Thanks for having us, Fran.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 2:58Fran Racioppi?

  Thanks for bringing us back. All right, so let's start there because we're here in the Special Warfare Museum here on SWIC's campus, which has come so far since my days here. We were here a couple of years ago, so Chief was on the show. He's a YouTube sensation now, by the way.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  That's right, I've heard.

• 3:14Fran Racioppi?

  You know, you're in the presence of greatness.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yep, well, I'm looking forward to living up to the standard he's already set, yeah.

• 3:20Fran Racioppi?

  Millions, millions, millions of views.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:25Fran Racioppi?

  From some of his comments, there's YouTube warriors out there who are looking for him, and there was a lot of folks out there who had never seen a CW5.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Before I took command, Gary Austen is the first CW5 I've ever seen, 36 years of service. Yeah, so I'm... It's a great privilege to be in my company, sir.

• 3:44Fran Racioppi?

  He is truly a unicorn, and what I said to all of those people is that they didn't have a coffee pot in their organization, so they wouldn't be able to see a CW5 hanging out by the coffee pot pontificating everything that should be right in the universe.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. Appreciate it.

• 4:00Fran Racioppi?

  Yes, anytime. We've known each other a long time. But it's great to be back here, and special thanks to Roxanne Merritt, who runs the organization as the director and the curator. She's standing back there, but always so welcoming to us and our team to open up the museum, and so we love coming here, and thank you for allowing us to continue to use this every time we ask.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 4:25Fran Racioppi?

  We're going to talk about SWIC. So we're at, we kind of have a little bit of an inflection point because, sir, you're, Gary's also coming out of his role, and so we almost have an opportunity to kind of reflect and think about where the organization has come from over the last couple of years, how your vision for the organization, and be able to think about where was it, where's it going, and where's it going to be in the next couple of years. So we came earlier today from USASOC headquarters where we were able to sit down with the command team there, General Ferguson and CSM Waldo. Always a pleasure to sit down with them, that they're so good. But the command team was able to talk about the importance of this organization because this is where it starts.

• 5:09Fran Racioppi?

  And a few minutes ago, we had the class, the guys that just graduated, the 18 X-rays who just graduated from selection, and are getting ready to go now into the U.S. Corps and doing the SUT, and I got to tell you, I was jealous. I was absolutely jealous looking at these guys going, I can't, they have no idea the journey that they're about to embark on, and I would do anything to be one of these guys. So for you, sir, as you look at SWIC as an organization and kind of where it stands today, and not only the schoolhouse but the Center of Excellence, how do you define their mission, the mission of the schoolhouse, and what it's here to truly do?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I appreciate that. You thanked us, but thanks for also being here and giving us an opportunity just to talk about not only the organization but the phenomenal people that are part of the Special Warfare Center and School. And just to note, you brought up Roxanne Merritt. So Roxanne reminds me not just how far any one commander or command team has brought the organization, but back in 1951, the Psychological Warfare Center and School was established in Fort Riley. It was brought here to Fort Bragg in 1952, and Roxanne reminds me that it was established at maybe the most inhospitable piece of terrain here on Fort Bragg.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  It was brack, it was swampy, it was brackish, et cetera. And you go right outside this museum today, and you can see the entire SWIC campus, right? And you talked about the 18 X-rays. Jeff may talk about, probably he was out running our dens this morning with a bunch of candidates in brown t-shirts and black shorts. So this is a fantastic job, and what Roxanne Merritt does and continues to do for the organization, making this museum, it's not just for visitors, but it's actually part and parcel of how we educate, indoctrinate, and keep the history alive for not only our new special forces candidates going through the pipeline, but also our veterans in gray

• 7:11Speaker 01

  beards that remain attached to the organization. So it's a great place to have this discussion. I think that, in short, we build the world's best special operators and we make operators better. Most fundamentally, building the world's best special operators, that's our Special Forces Qualification Course, our Psychological Operations Qualification Course, and our Civil Affairs Qualification Course. And most of that, if not all of it, resides inside of our First Special Warfare Training Group. We also make special operators better, and so routinely throughout their career, they'll come back for professional military education at our Non-Commissioned Officer Academy, at our Warrant Officer Institute, or one of the many advanced courses that we have, whether

• 7:56Speaker 01

  it's Free Fall in Hume, Arizona, Combat Dive down in Key West, or Range 37 with building snipers and breachers here on Fort Bragg. So we do a lot, but fundamentally, it's about producing the world's best special operators.

• 8:12Fran Racioppi?

  CSM, when you look at the role that SWIC plays in the development of our leaders, and I say leaders in place of operators, because we're going to ask these guys, these young folks we just talked about, are going to go through the Q course here over the next year, year and a half, two years if they're 18 deltas, but whatever they come out as, whether it be Civil Affairs, PsyOps, or an 18 series, they're going to lead from day one. And so when you look at the ability of SWIC to produce leaders, what are you looking for out of them when they leave here?

• 8:48Speaker 02

  So I think the things that we're looking for out of them to be leaders are the same things that we've always looked for. From the moment where they come into the organization, when we started training them and preparing them for any of the A and S's that they go to, and once they pass through that gate, they have all the attributes, all of the skills necessary for us to shape, to turn them into those leaders. And throughout the different qualification courses, what we do is we give them the tools, we give them the sets and the reps through training and everything else, so they can develop all those skills while learning their craft in either Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, or Special Forces, so that by the time they get to that culmination exercise, they can demonstrate all of those things, and we can certify, put our stamp

• 9:32Speaker 02

  of approval on them, and say that they're capable of leading inside of our force today.

• 9:38Fran Racioppi?

  One of the important parts of SWIC kind of large is the doctrine side of things, being able to understand what is, and defining the core tasks for our various organizations, and then putting together that doctrine that then drives how we conduct operations. Chief, when you look, when you think about the development of the Center of Excellence, because that, it's kind of been there, but I think when we've termed it center of excellence is newer. You know, what is the role of the center of excellence? That's different from the schoolhouse.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say looking at, we are the Army's Special Operations Center of Excellence. It's just like other centers of excellence, the Maneuver Center of Excellence is down in Fort Benning. You got Aviation down in Fort Rucker. From the center aspect, we look at doctrine, training, leader development and education. How do we communicate with the operational force to understand how the environment is changing? What tasks that we may have within courses? And look, compare that to the operating environment and either modify or change the way by which we are teaching. That can be including technology to create the baseline, but adjusting on the fly, if you will.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  How do we rapidly innovate to be able to deliver that baseline capability for the operational force? That's a very, really good relationship that we established here recently of having a biannual conversation with the operational force. Right? Take a look at what we're currently teaching. Some of those core tasks been really good throughout the 20 years of GWAT. But the environment, our NDS prioritized adversaries are different in the sense of we're competing with them on the battlefield. How do we reevaluate and reassess training to be able to rebaseline the quality of the product being delivered to the operational force?

• 11:42Fran Racioppi?

  So we tend as coming out of special operations, we tend to at times put ourselves on a pedestal. You're laughing because you know that. And we do, right? And you know, and you can say, oh, you know, we can listen to the ballad of the Green Beret and you know, and it doesn't matter how long you've been out, you know, you still pump your chest up and go, ah, you know, I'm three men, right? And the reality is, is we have to remain, especially from where you sit, extremely humble and extremely introspective to be able to start to understand what's actually working, what's not working. And we've seen every year, it seems like, oh, well, the Q course now does this or, you know,

• 12:25Fran Racioppi?

  or the, or selection now does this. And we've seen 21 day, 28 day, 14, you know, it's like, it's always changing. How do you keep the force and the SWIC organization humble? So that we don't have people who come in and they go, well, we do it great. Yeah, look at us. We know we're soft. We do it great. And continuously build a culture where innovating and looking at what we did with a critical eye to do it better.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. I'll say a couple of things and Jeff, Gary, maybe you have some thoughts, but I'll add on to what Gary said about back earlier this year, probably the winter in January, February timeframe, Brigadier General Joe Worthing and I got together and we had this exact discussion. And what that solving this problem of, you know, hey, we've got lessons learned coming out of Eastern Europe. Now we have lessons learned coming out of the, the Middle East that are current and relevant. How do we thicken the communication, the relationship between the operational force? And the, the center in school to make sure that, you know, the skills, knowledge and abilities

• 13:32Speaker 01

  that we're building into these Green Berets are still relevant once they arrive, you know, to the operational force. So now what SWIC and First SFC are doing is formally coming together twice a year. And, you know, line by line, reviewing the tasks for each phase of the qualification course and asking the question, is this still important? Is this still relevant? Is it more relevant than something else that we're not doing? And we've had two iterations of that, and that's really what's driving this kind of continuous improvement that you're talking about. It also helps us to stay current because we're learning things from global conflicts, you know, every single day.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  The other thing that I've observed is there were these unexpected intangible benefits that occurred when our two headquarters and staffs and commanders started to more frequently get together. Not just twice a year, right? But all of the work that occurs between those two events, when the generals come together to make sure that we're, we're kind of pointed in the right direction.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  I think how do we remain humble? That's hard to do. Everyone goes out to Camp McCall and you walk underneath those pine trees and it's easy to get inundated with all of the things that you've done to get to this point. It can build you up a sense of confidence in your abilities and your capabilities. And you go out to the operational force and you demonstrate all of those things. I, I think how we bring those cadre back, how we onboard them, how we take the skills and relevance that they bring from the operational force and combine that with onboarding them for any of the committees that they go to

• 15:18Speaker 02

  is how we remain relevant, it's how we remain humble, it's how we were able to continue to critically look at what we're doing and if we're doing it the right ways. So we're providing the operational force, the soldiers with the right skills and capabilities.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  I think, you know, as to your point, Jeff, just pulling off that a little bit is being humble, we may drift. And in the sense of when you went through SFAS or when I went through SFAS, the standard may have been one bar. And over time, you know, there's a perception where that standard may drift. Is it more difficult? Do you have to carry more weight? Do you have to move farther? Less work to rest ratio type of events? And so sometimes in that humility, we have to look back and say, what was the standard?

• 16:12Speaker 03

  And rebaseline ourselves and we can't just be so bravado and, you know, as you said, we're soft. We don't do anything wrong. We do need to look back and say, all right, well, we have a challenge. We need to be able to produce and deliver. And if we're not able to do that along the production line, where are the challenges? And we have to look at that. And so we've done that recently by not changing any of the standards, but rebaseline and looking at areas that we could improve.

• 16:47Fran Racioppi?

  When standards is a conversation that I feel like is front and center eternally.

• 16:57Fran Racioppi?

  We've been really lucky on the show to be embraced by the SMA, by Sergeant Major of the Army, Mike Weimer. And we've been able to sit down and talk about standards, you know, and talk about what does it mean to be a warrior? And had him and he had on Ranger, the 70th Ranger Regiment legend, Rick Merritt was on. And was able to really break down like, this is what the Army is looking for when we define a warrior. Well, that culture has to permeate within this organization too. And as first question that I asked General Ferguson and CSM Waldo was lethality is at the top of the list

• 17:38Fran Racioppi?

  of what we do in the Army, in the Department of War, and specifically in this organization of use of SOC and the subordinate commands. When youth are looking at the standards that will need to be upheld to bring somebody into this organization and we put lethality at the top of the list for the end state of what we need them to be thinking about, how do you define the standard?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Well, I, I think, you know, not to be redundant here. I think that in the work that we're doing with the operational force, I just talked about First Special Forces Command and SWIC coming together, you know, routinely. One, to maintain our humility, right? Having the courage to ask ourselves, are we doing the right things? Are we doing things right? And then making decisions where we find gaps or where we do improve. The critical thing that the operational force has done is to define baseline lethality for their units of action. And so they've done that for an ODA, they've done that for a psychological operations detachment, and they've done that for a civil affairs team.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  That then became the lens, right? For us to look at all of our training, whether it's in the qualification course or in the advanced course, and really have a thoughtful but focused discussion that was rooted in a standard. Now more broadly across what we do inside of SWIC, we have well-established, you know, defined standards for training. But I think that's been a catalyst really for making sure that a Green Beret that graduates from a qualification course today has a set of skills, knowledge and abilities that are relevant. And he can immediately contribute to the ODA that, that he becomes a part of.

• 19:29Fran Racioppi?

  I think defining lethality at the tactical level has helped kind of drive some of that.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:35Fran Racioppi?

  Because even if we go back two years and we were having kind of those conversations and this large scale combat operations thing was like, it's kind of here, but like it wasn't, and it was on the horizon. And we're like, well, one day we'll have to deal with this. Well, that day is here. You know, in a lot of respects, that day is here. And what we've seen over the course of the last now five, six months where we've been, you know, engaged heavily in the Middle East. I mean, we spent as soft 20 plus years on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. And we really were front and center in a lot of that with our conventional Army folks. And we were like, yeah, we kind of have like a Navy and an Air Force and they do some things. Well, no, large scale combat operations put those guys front and center.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:20Fran Racioppi?

  And I've said, you know, multiple times, the work that they've done over the last six months has been absolutely incredible. And you know, even, and I only see what I watch on the news. We're actually really fortunate. Next week, we're going to DC to sit down with the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy. And Secretary of the Navy to talk about like all the things that they've been doing over the last 10, 20 years to get them to the point of true lethality for what defines our Navy today. But does and is going to have an expanded role in large scale combat operations with lethality as that number one end state. In your view, what is Army Special Operations Forces role in large scale combat operations?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Can I go back and I want to riff off your point about your session, your podcast with SMA Weimer. You mentioned that his emphasis is on building warriors. And so I'll say, I want to riff on that a little bit. I'll turn it over to Jeff and Gary. But I think our, you know, likewise, I here at SWIC, right, we're building individual soldiers. Joe Wertham takes soldiers, puts them on teams, and then he trains and makes those teams proficient in more collective tasks, right, collective training. Our focus in the qualification course is building warfighters. The next war will come. It'll be fast. It'll be complex.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  It'll be lethal. That requires tough, realistic training. That's more than just days going to the range. That's days and weeks, living and operating in the field. That's honing your field craft. That's being really comfortable, living out of a rucksack, you know, being dirty, being hot, being cold, being in the mud. That's reps and sets of tactical movement and patrol base activities, you know, while accounting for being in constant contact with the enemy via visual, thermal, or electromagnetic means. That's practicing, advising,

• 22:26Speaker 01

  assisting, and fighting alongside of and in irregular or partner force. So on this, this issue of lethality, you know, every decision that we make, right, in the preparing and qualifying Green Berets is rooted in the principles and fundamentals, and also the training standards, right, of very basic things, right, of shoot, move, communicate, medicaid. But it's the combination of those things, right, that builds the endurance, the resilience, the adaptability, and the grit. It's not only expected of a Green Beret, but I think, you know, between the three of us, you know, it's our moral obligation, right, to every soldier that we graduate from SWIC.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's absolutely important that we provide all those young soldiers that are coming through the course, a chance to, one, learn what it is that we expect of them, and then demonstrate all of those tasks. So we can build upon those tasks. By the time they get to the culmination exercise, whether it's Robin Sage, or something else, they demonstrate all of those things individually and also collectively to a degree, so that we can show and prove the capability that they have there. And as we're doing that, going back to the earlier point of conversations with First SFC and the lethality tasks, it's constantly looking at the training that we're doing and what we can do to bridge the gap

• 23:51Speaker 02

  between where we're at and what we need those soldiers to be able to do to meet the needs of the operational force.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say that we look at the baseline. We take that baseline from the operational force. But the baseline has changed. It's changed over decades. And I think what we are doing now is, we have to reestablish what that baseline is in the sense of, you know, you look at any of the environments, UCOM or CENTCOM environments, and they're laden with technology that is changing the security environment, the way we fight. And so what we have to do is be able to adapt to that as well. What is our new baseline? We're evaluating that. We're actually executing a few things throughout

• 24:38Speaker 03

  the pipelines to ensure that we deliver that capability to the operational force that can be prepared to deploy in days, weeks, or months, at any time to combat if necessary.

• 24:52Fran Racioppi?

  One of the things that I feel like I've observed as an outsider, but a little bit of an insider as well, having come through the organization, and now, you know, having sat down with General Wertham, having sat down with General Ferguson, and now, you know, yourself, is, I don't think I've seen in the decade plus, and 15 years or so now that I've been involved in the regiment, the level of collaboration between the commands as I kind of see now. And we've kind of, we've done a bit of this circuit, you know, two years ago, where we sat down, you heard about collaboration, you heard about, okay,

• 25:35Fran Racioppi?

  well, we're working together. But I don't think I've seen the closeness, almost, that exists now between, you know, your headquarters, First SFC, USASOC, and then the incorporation down to the O6 Command, where it seems like much more now than in the past, everybody's on the same sheet of music.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  I've been in and out, as officers do throughout their career, but it's essential, I think. I mean, it's a dynamic environment. You know, our adversaries are modernizing or changing, investing in capabilities at scale, technology, you know, I don't want to go down the technology road, but that, you know, is iterating at a really fast pace. And so I think that collaboration is really critical if we're going to continue to build the world's best special operators. You know, the other thing I like to say, and you know, the coin that Jeff and Gary and I have on the back of it, it says one team. And so that's the kind of culture that we like to perpetuate, not only inside SWIC,

• 26:34Speaker 01

  but you know, it's a big tent, and everybody's invited. And so I agree, I think the collaboration, the teamwork between the three headquarters inside of USASOC is pretty strong. And I think generally, it's always good to believe that teammates don't let teammates fail. And I think if you believe in that, then you're in a pretty good place. I don't know, what do you guys think?

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Everything we do here at SWIC isn't for the sake of SWIC, it's for the operational force. We provide soldiers with the training so they can have the capability to go out to the operational force. And we can't do that in a vacuum. We have to collaborate with First SSC. We have to understand what's going on in the operational force, so we can go back with a critical eye and look at what we're doing. And so I think that's important. I was talking with some SARS majors the other day about how we're going after some of the problems, so that we can address training, make that training more realistic for those same needs, in describing that same thing.

• 27:31Fran Racioppi?

  Well, there's an expectation. There's an expectation from the operational force that coming out of SWIC, there's a, there's a baseline, you know, there's a baseline level of knowledge, there's a baseline level of competency. Just like when, you know, I'm a detachment commander, and a guy comes back here to go to school, you know, well, when they come back, there's an expectation that, okay, yeah, maybe they haven't employed this operation into the level that we want them, and that's our job on the team now to bring them up there. But they're going to come to us with baseline level. But you could progress that forward to, okay, well, now as an organization, we have to provide the regular army and the conventional force with a capability where a corps commander,

• 28:10Fran Racioppi?

  a JTF commander, joint force commander, is receiving the force with the confidence that this force is trained to the level they need to be, and what I need them to do, and I'm not going to have to worry about them being able to affect their mission.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. What I would say is that the strong collaboration that you just talked about between USASOC, First SFC, and SWIC, I think exists with 18th Corps, with Lieutenant General Anderson, the other Corps as well. I know Joe Wertham also has great contact and relationship with the division commanders, and so do we with the other Centers of Excellence. At the same time, right, the entire army, right, is adapting to the lessons we're learning from around the world. So I think that not only the confidence in the soldiers, right, in the formations, what the formations can accomplish, contribute the value that they

• 29:06Speaker 01

  can bring, but I think it's also the relationships between the senior leaders that can solve those problems, get formations together in training at our combat training centers or at warfighters, so that we can try to solve problems in creative ways. So another example, outside of the qualification course, and maybe it's with the robotics and technology integration course, and this new warrant officer MOS that we're working on with USASOC and First SFC right now. And, you know, really, building a soldier that has the skills, knowledge, and abilities to solve problems across all warfighting domains using robotics

• 29:49Speaker 01

  and autonomous systems. So extending, you know, using a piece of robotic kit to extend the range of a sensor, right, so enabling what Joe Wertham's trying to do in terms of delivering a capability to a corps or JTF commander to sense targets deep, but also strike, right, training soldiers how to program a commercial off-the-shelf autonomous system to strike a target in excess of 25 kilometers, right, as an example. So, Gary, I'd just, I'd turn it over to you, maybe, and talk just a little bit about that.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it kind of touches back with what you asked previously, right? How do we increase the lethality? As you look at a standard operational detachment, the lethality range right now is between seven to eight kilometers, based on organic weapon systems. How do we extend that? Well, that's obviously through a robotic capability now, based on the technological advancements that we're seeing that are playing out, not only in Europe, but also in the Middle East. And so we have taken a step forward to deliver a capability to the operational force as a robotics technician warrant officer. And

• 31:04Speaker 03

  that individual is able to compile parts and pieces, largely across the internet, a commercial off-the-shelf, to leverage a large language model to write code, Linux code into Python, program a companion computer, be able to adjust lenses and camera systems to target detect, be able to operate autonomously to strike those targets at distance. And so we're in pilot two, being able to execute that. And we are bringing the army along with us as we have integrated them as partners.

• 31:45Fran Racioppi?

  Rumor has it around the halls here that that was your baby over the last couple of years was the development of the warrant officer MOS was high on your list.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  There's a lot of people behind the effort on it that have really put the legwork in to push this across the globe.

• 32:02Fran Racioppi?

  Where's that person coming from? Are they being recruited out of the regular army? Are we taking you guys out of the existing jobs and roles that they might have within the USOC and saying, hey, we're going to reclass you into this? Like, where's that coming from?

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, we initially started, as with the difficulty of standing up in the MOS and delivering an immediate capability, you got to look a little bit differently. So we're actually conducting V-tips for warrant officers as tranche one. So taking existing warrant officers that had a different MOS, they went through pilot one, we're bringing them over and we will assign the MOS to them. Initially, we sourced that all internal within the USOC formation. As we proceed forward, we are going to source that externally, looking at recruiting across the army. There's incredible talent out there that we can bring in that that can help us lead this area.

• 32:59Fran Racioppi?

  Are we looking outside too, like almost like a X-ray type program from like industry experts?

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Yes, sir. We're definitely looking externally. We have to be able to define what the initial requirements, how do we assess somebody coming in off the street? So where is a practical application, an assessment or evaluation test that can be executed prior to them signing a contract to bring them in?

• 33:27Fran Racioppi?

  And do you view that this role as something that's organic to say, an ODA? Or is this like an enabler that lives at a company level or in the battalion and then kind of gets pushed where it needs to be?

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Right now, the operational force is set with having this as a brigade level asset. There's going to be more than just one. It's a small team that's contained within a multi-domain company. That's a brigade asset to be leveraged at the tactical unit of action level.

• 34:00Fran 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 $19.52 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. I mean, that's the future. It's here, the future's here.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  We've been learning about the role of robotics in combat for the past four years in Eastern Europe. So this is a great example of how General Wertham over in the operational force is identifying, hey, I've got a hole in my swing. And whether that was identified by his ODAs or whether that was identified as a result of training with our core level counterparts, that's the benefit of the operational force and SWIC talking and trying to coming up with solutions about how we solve this problem. So as Gary said, you know, Joe Wertham is adapting his formation and standing up a multi-domain operations company.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Part of that includes this capability that we're building, this warrant officer capability that we're building. Another example is kind of recapturing the competence and the expertise that we had over 20 years ago in tactical SIG and electronic warfare and doing the same thing, right? Taking 17 and 35 series MOS soldiers that are assigned to First Special Forces Command and putting them through a similar training program and then back into the operational force to give our special forces group a multi-domain capability.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say the last piece is as we look at the formations and we assess our adversaries, how do we fight with information? And the army has tasked this center of excellence to be able to bring together two disparate capabilities, information operations as well as psychological operations and create a single branch that is delivered at corps and division levels. And so now on the production line, we are producing a singular capability that is employed within the operational force SF command, but also as they mature and continue their careers, they can be employed in a corps and that corps commander understands he doesn't have two different capabilities.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  He has a singular capability to conduct planning, do precision targeting, et cetera.

• 36:41Fran Racioppi?

  Tomorrow, we get to sit down with the command team from PSYOP and CA. So I'm looking forward to that because we haven't, we haven't spent enough time talking about their capabilities.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 36:51Fran Racioppi?

  And then what they're bringing to the organization and the fight. But I think it is important to note that, yeah, that this organization has now become the army's hub of information operations and psychological warfare. And in the modern domain, today's domain, I mean, information is power. It always has been, but now in the digital age where, you know, we went from looking at pluggers and trying to get the Blue Force Tracker thing working in the Humvee or my Bradley as a platoon leader to, you know, now you have cell phones and watches that give us more data than we could ever use.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:29Fran Racioppi?

  So everything's sped up now. But when we, I guess my question to you is, as you look at what you need those capabilities to be in psychological operations and information operations, what does their focus have to be? Because for a long time, we talked about changing their mind. We've got to change the mind of the enemy. Well, they're probably not going to like us. At the end of the day, the reality is we're probably not going to change their mind. So when you look at trying, this is the end state of our information operations and our psychological operations, how are you quantifying that?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think first of all, we've got to start with, you know, our current national defense strategy, right? And who are our prioritized adversaries and what are their capabilities? And then from there, right, assess, you talked about humility earlier, right? Be humble enough to assess ourselves and then have the courage to change where we might need to. And I think this is one of those areas where, you know, we've had through the great collaboration that we have across the enterprise here and with the army, make some changes. So the two things I would, I would say is, what does our training look like and what capability are we trying to build?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  We are building an officer and a non-commissioned officer that can integrate other information effectors in planning, right? So that's space, that's electronic warfare, that's cyber, that's psychological operations, that's precision influence, and then layer those effects in execution. More simply, these soldiers will be able to blind, confuse, and deceive the enemy and then protect our friendly forces, you know, from activities that the enemy's trying to do the same thing to us. And so I think we're on a great path. We are in pilot, we just finished up pilot number two.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  We've got all of the army information operations, soldiers, officers from all three components, active guard and reserve, together with our psychological operations soldiers, you know, going through our, our qualification course now. And we're pretty pleased with, with the progress.

• 39:43Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. I think it's great from my perspective, and it almost reminds me a little bit of like, why did we develop Ranger Battalion? And one of the reasons Ranger Battalion exists, you know, the various charters that drive that organization is to take, you know, infantry personnel from the regular army, from the conventional army, bring them into Ranger Regiment, give them a different skill, a higher level skill set, and then kick them back out. And when they go back out, their job is to bring everybody else up. And so when I kind of look at the construct of what you're talking about, I feel like making that change within the army writ large enhances the entire conventional force.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  I think so, especially on the aspect of deception, right? If we think about the capabilities that our adversaries have and the challenges on the modern battlefield, I think we're making a lot of progress there. And I think that, you know, again, we're being really good teammates with, with the army on this one.

• 40:39Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. Can we talk about recruiting?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 40:42Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. We got to keep the pipeline full.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:46Fran Racioppi?

  We've got to continue to bring folks in, we've got to get them excited. And those recruits into whether it be special forces or PSYOPS or CA are going to come from either the conventional army or they're going to come from the 18X-ray program. We'll get to your side about, he has to rebut, you know, there's a lot of YouTube warriors out there looking gun in form right now, but they're going to come to us one of two ways. And both are valuable.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 41:14Fran Racioppi?

  And there's a reason why those programs have existed for quite a long time. When you assess the recruiting capability of our organization to be able to bring people in and keep the pipeline full, where are we, how are we doing?

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So where are we, how we're doing? So right now, our current estimate this year is that we will achieve both of our recruiting mission for 18x-rays and our recruiting mission for in-service non-commissioned officers from across various army divisions. It's been a number of years since we've achieved both those missions. And so we're pretty pleased. And this is another area where really close collaboration with US Army Recruiting Command has been of great benefit to USOC enterprise. It's a little bit of a misnomer. I talk about my number one priority as being recruiting, preparing, and producing special forces active duty enlisted soldiers.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  When I look at like, what are the most fundamental things that I have to do? That's number one, that's at the top of my list. But I don't have recruiters, right? And US Army Recruiting Command has this battalion that's called the Special Operations Recruiting Battalion, and everybody thinks, oh, that belongs to SWIC or USOC. In fact, it's organic to US Army Recruiting Command.

• 42:29Fran Racioppi?

  I actually didn't know that.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 42:32Fran Racioppi?

  I've like. Talk to the store going, why?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 42:34Fran Racioppi?

  It sounds like thoroughly embarrassed.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they work for Brigadier General Dudley at US Army Recruiting Command. And we think it's a really great accomplishment. If you look at the challenges that we've had over the years with recruiting, we're pretty pleased. We think that we're on a sustainable path, right? Not just to do it this year, but to repeat that in the coming years. Now, what that has done as well is it's driven SWIC and 4th Special Warfare Training Group to adapt to having about 1,000 more Special Forces candidates moving into the Special Forces Qualification Course, right? So, two years ago, we ran three Special Forces Qualification Courses a year.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  We've expanded that to five to, you know, in anticipation of being able to bring all of these candidates through the Special Forces Assessment Selection and then on into the Qualification Course, you know, if they're selected. So, we're pretty pleased. Now, I talked with the Master Leaders Course students in the Non-Commissioned Officer Academy on Wednesday, and they asked me the same question. And I told them, I said, "It takes about two years to produce a Special Forces soldier, whether you recruit him out of his hometown, somewhere in our country, or you recruit him from any one of our numbered divisions across the Army.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  It takes about two years to get him to Fort Bragg, get him into SWIC, get him through Assessment Selection, and then if selected, graduated, qualified, and then on to the Operational Force." So, it'll be about another 18 to 24 months before we see like real tangible evidence that all of the work that has gone on over the past 18 months is bearing fruit. But it's real, and I'm really, really proud of this organization. I'm proud of our collaboration with the Army on that.

• 44:34Fran Racioppi?

  How do you get guys to come? And why? Because I look at it and I think like, "Why would you not go SF?"

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 44:41Fran Racioppi?

  You know, like, "Why do you not want to be part of, which truly is, in my mind at least, and I'm sure yours, the greatest organization in the world, and certainly in the Army?"

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, best job.

• 44:51Fran Racioppi?

  It's the best job, and it's the best place to be. And it's where you're going to get the most opportunity to do a variety of different things. It's where you're going to be empowered to be a leader, as we talked about from the very beginning. So, what has kind of been that barrier to entry where we saw people not wanting to come, and then how have we overcome it?

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Barriers to entry. And when I go out and I talk with folks and they're thinking about joining the Army, and maybe they're on the fence about, "Hey, I want to join the Army. I'm going to go into Special Forces." I often talk to them about the Army first, how great of a place it is. I've met best friends. I've worked with awesome folks. I've been able to do awesome things. The Army itself has been nothing but upside. There's no downside to joining the Army. It's nothing but opportunity. And so, every person I talk to about that, I get them on board with the Army. If you want to challenge yourself, you want to do something that is important, important for the nation, that provides you a great sense of worth. Why not challenge yourself and go into Special Operations?

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Sign up as an 18X-Ray. It never has there been a time, there's more information out there in social media, inside of books, about what we do, how we do things, what you need to do to prepare. There's no bad time to try. And what I can say, because I see it firsthand, is there's cadre up and down our dens inside of 4th Battalion, 4th Special Warfare Training Group, that are there, will provide you all of the knowledge, all of the training, all of the sets and reps, so that folks can be prepared if they listen. So, there's no downside to trying.

• 46:29Fran Racioppi?

  I would agree with you. And I would say that it's almost one of those things that you don't really appreciate it until you leave. Right, because I talk to folks all the time, where like, "I want to join the Army. You know, what should I do?" It's like, "Well, you have to remember that when you join the Army, like, there's still only a small percentage of the population that qualify to go into the Army. And then of those who qualify to go into the Army, there's a smaller percentage of folks who come through this organization, who try, and then a smaller who actually make it and have a career here. But you kind of realize it like later. You get out and, you know, now as a business owner, you know, as an entrepreneur,

• 47:09Fran Racioppi?

  trying to develop our own, you know, recruitment and assessment and selection process, and then build systems to have strong retention and get people excited about coming to work. The Army is full of the best people. And we get spoiled working with those people each and every day. And then when you're kind of not around that all day long, you start to take it for granted. And then you have to start to always remind yourself like, "How do I implement this standard? How do I maintain what I'm used to? Because my foundation is often above someone else's necks."

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:49Fran Racioppi?

  You know, and then you have to figure out a way to bridge that gap when you kind of go back into the real world. It's hard.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the other fact is, you know, how are we doing? We brought in more 18X-Rays, you know, this year and last year than, again, it's been a number of years. I won't go back too far. So, I think there are young Americans out there, right? That, you know, there's, there's young Americans out there that want to give it a shot, want to try to do something hard. Now, to your point, I think, you know, being an American soldier is important all by itself. And getting some number of them to also want to come and, and do something a little, a little harder and test themselves is what we're looking for.

• 48:36Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  I had the opportunity a few weeks ago. I was talking with one of the soldiers inside of a SFQ course. He's National Guard, 18X-Ray. He's a little bit older. He'd been around the block. He's gone to college. He had a job in business. He was doing all of the things. And as he was moving through life, he wanted to do more. And so, a little bit later in life, he joined. He went through the 18X-Ray Program, through the National Guard. And he's successful so far, and he's going through the course. And so, the other thing that I would offer, sometimes folks, is they're thinking about these decisions. Sometimes they think this is maybe a young man's game, or that was something I should have done last year or the year before. But there's plenty of opportunities out there for folks to do that

• 49:23Speaker 02

  inside the Active Duty Army or the National Guard. And if you're thinking about it, you should go and look at those opportunities, because there's a lot of young men, women, young Americans, maybe farther along in life, that are still wildly successful.

• 49:38Fran Racioppi?

  We haven't done any pieces we need to with 19th and 20th Group to really talk about the dynamics there. You know, I mean, it's easy for us in the Active Duty, like, we, we forget often that some of the nuances that come with serving in the National Guard for the SF groups, you know, they're, they're National Guard based versus the Reserve. I mean, I've got a couple of guys in my company who are National Guard SF guys. And I won't say lose. We give them back to the Army every couple of years.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 50:08Fran Racioppi?

  You know, in my, and it's impactful to the company. You know, and as a business owner, I'm like, "Oh, man, you know, this is for a year. Like, this is tough." But we've always been like, "Go. You're going." You know, and they'll come, and they'll be like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. No, you're not. You're going to your team. You're going to contribute to the mission. You're going to be part of that team." But what I don't tell them, because they're going to realize, they're not going to realize it, but I am, when they come back, they're going to be better.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:36Fran Racioppi?

  They're going to be a better asset to my company after that deployment than they were. I don't care what they did. You know, and we're not out there doing SF stuff as a security company. But I know that they're coming back a better leader, more mature, having had a set of experiences that we can't provide them. And they're going to make the organization better on the back end. I think that's really important to look at.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  And we would say the same thing about the, the other successes we're seeing inside, you know, with the 18X-Rays, right? Why are we seeing the high success rate that we're seeing with 18X-Rays? Well, it's for the same. We have remarkable NCOs that come from the Operational Force to SWIC, to build Green Berets, and they pour all of their experience and knowledge into these young Americans, right? That want to do something hard and find the best version of themselves. So, I agree with you. The folks we get from the Operational Force are good, also because they've been around the world doing hard things.

• 51:38Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. Can I get you, sir, on what, on who you didn't mention? The officers? Are we hurting for officers?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  No, actually, no, we're doing fine on officers. I didn't mention them only just because I've been laser focused on my priority, and that is Special Forces Active Duty enlisted production.

• 51:57Fran Racioppi?

  Well, it's the preponderance of those.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Because 10 to 12 men on an ODA are, right?

• 52:00Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  I mean, so when I look at all of the things that I do, if what's the one thing I can't fail at? It's that. So, we're doing good with officers. Yeah.

• 52:09Fran Racioppi?

  How about warrant officers?

• 52:11Speaker 03

  We're doing well. We adjust off of the NCO Manning Strength, and we take that in stride. But the challenge is a little bit of retention, right? As we look at, as they become CW3s into CW4, there's an attrition factor there, and it's just because they got a lot of miles, a lot of time on teams and deployments, et cetera. And so, that's our greatest gap right now. But with the production model, us meeting our mission, we're going to balance out and kind of plateau. So, we're fixing some of our challenges already that we saw a couple of years ago.

• 52:47Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. I want to go to...

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Give us a really hard one.

• 52:53Fran Racioppi?

  What?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Don't do that.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  You like, you like to do math. If you have something with algebra.

• 53:00Fran Racioppi?

  Well, we talked about the, we talked about the UAS, and we talked about the robotics.

• 53:07Fran Racioppi?

  But I want to go, I want to go back, because I think it's important, and we're probably going to move a little bit of this around when it comes out. But I want to talk about, go back to the large-scale combat operations and the near-peer, peer, peer preparation. You know, that's kind of in, in the world. Works right now and and then kind of talk about this idea that we so I'm thinking about out loud how I'm gonna frame it. Okay, good. One of the core missions that you have in the development of our operators is to prepare them for their hardest day. We heard CSM Waldo

• 53:51Fran Racioppi?

  brilliantly with his references to college football and Michigan's greatness and the impending defeat, I guess, of Ohio State.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Uh huh. And every other college football team.

• 54:02Fran Racioppi?

  Exactly, yes. And the shrine of the stadium. But he is able to really articulate what it means to have your hardest day on today's modern battlefield in ground combat. And there's a lot that gets our special operators to that point. But as Army soldiers, what's our job close with and destroy the enemy? And your job is to take that person off the street and show them what the hardest day actually can and potentially will look like for them. And everybody's hardest day is going to be different. So when you look at what we face now, large scale combat operations,

• 54:46Fran Racioppi?

  much more closer to peer defining near peer to peer competition that we've had quite a long time as a country. How are you defining what the worst day looks like? And what are the mechanisms that you're putting in place to prepare that operator, that soldier for that day?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Jeff, you wanna?

• 55:08Speaker 02

  I think the way you described it before, I think it's good is starting first with the red pen, looking at our courses and how they're designed from an enemy perspective, and then layering in what those enemy capabilities are against what it is that we're trying to teach as they move through time and space inside of the course. And so what that might look like inside of SET in the beginning of the course is exposing them to what that peer or near peer enemy threat is as they're moving through small unit tactics where they disabilities, night vision goggles, thermals, etc. Maybe access to robotics and small UAS, forcing them to plan around those things and then adapt to those things on the battlefield and how they

• 55:53Speaker 02

  would execute it. And as they move through maybe MOS phase, giving them some of the tools, technology for them to use so that they can still execute the same fundamental tasks, but maybe in a different way with a different tool or to plan a little bit faster. And then as they move towards the end inside of Robin Sage, layering those two things together with what the enemy might have and what they might see on the battlefield in a realistic way with the tools that they also might have access to, to demonstrate the usage of both of those things and plan around those things. I think when you combine those things together gives to a more realistic picture of what they're actually going to experience on the modern day battlefield and utilizing some of the tools they might have access to.

• 56:38Fran Racioppi?

  How do you integrate technology without making technology the foundation? And I quantify that because we have a generation coming into the force, you know, a generation coming into my workforce, who's extremely smart in a lot of ways, probably a lot more technically savvy than we were and, you know, they and smarter than we were in a lot of ways, but also quite ignorant in other ways. And so it's easy now with AI, and I've even put it out in my company, like, I don't want to do not say the word AI again to me until you can show me how to do the task. Like, show me how to do the task, prove to me that you're competent in manually doing the

• 57:21Fran Racioppi?

  task, and then we can have a conversation about how technology is going to change it. Because right now, you're trying to tell me how to use all this technology, and the end product is not the product that we actually need that we're looking for. So how do we not become so reliant on technology? And how does that not become the foundation, but that becomes the enhancer?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, it goes back to, you know, something Jeff just said, something I said earlier in our discussion, right? All of the decisions that we make when we think about what's required to prepare and qualify Green Beret are, number one, we start with being good students or adversaries, right? And then all of our subsequent decisions are rooted in principles and fundamentals and training standards for shoot, move, communicate, and medicate. And so just using Jeff's example a little bit, you know, if we go back 20 years ago, and the tactical problem that you're trying to solve is half a dozen enemy forces on an objective with rifles

• 58:25Speaker 01

  and daylight sights. Okay, well, then you'll plan your route accordingly. You'll figure out where you're going to put your patrol base, maybe a kilometer away. You'll figure out where you're going to establish your objective rally point. You'll do your leaders recon to set in your machine guns and your assault line. You'll do final coordination with your partner force within 100 meters off the objective. If you start with the red pen, you understand who our prioritized adversaries are, you understand the capabilities that they have, day/night optics, layered protection, the robotics capability that gives them the ability to sense and understand what's going on around their position at range, then that's a completely different problem that

• 59:07Speaker 01

  you have to solve. And so we're being very careful. I mean, we're building soldiers that can adapt and use tools to solve problems. We're not building robotics experts, we're building warfighters, but we're exposing them to the tools that they'll need to solve the kinds of problems on the modern battlefield based on our current adversaries.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  You brought up AI in the sense of how do we build the basics and understanding before leveraging that to expedite a task, right? And so one of the examples is we look at in the Captain's Career Course or 18 Alpha Course of, hey, you're going to master MDMP and the stubby pencil and, you know, dry erase board and terrain model capabilities, right? You're going to do that several times to iterate and understand the basics. Once you master that and you achieve the objective standard, then we're going to layer on AI capabilities. How do you do this faster for more repetitions so that you can then look at that product and say, hey, something's off,

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  I gotta go back and understand it, right? You already understand the basics, and so you are now QCing, but you're doing that at speed and you get greater reps and sets. General Slatter uses an example of him doing like six planning exercises through the Captain's Career Course, and that was several years ago.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  1996.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  But as up until about 18 months ago, we were still doing the same thing.

• 1:00:44Fran Racioppi?

  Right.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  And so how do we evolve? How do we give commanders that are going to be in charge the ability to access that data, rapidly plan against it, assess against the final product, and be able to execute a mission in short order?

• 1:01:02Fran Racioppi?

  With in an environment that's changing rapidly.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Fran Racioppi?

  And because the battlefield today is changing lightning speed.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And so I think that's one of the challenges. I think that's why principles, fundamentals, and standards are so important. I think that's why it's it's more important to learn how to navigate with a map and compass before you, you know, use some kind of digital device. And we've got to guard, I think, against, there's a balance between ensuring that the skills, knowledge, and abilities that we're imbuing within, you know, our students, these candidates, that they're relevant after they graduate and they arrive at the operational force. But it also has to be stable enough that we're building a durable skill.

• 1:01:48Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. So when you look back on your time here as the SWCC commander, and you're going to USOC now, so, you know, I guess the challenges get innumerable after this. The, what do you look back on as some of the biggest successes?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  I'll phone friends here with Jeff and Gary as well, but I think, you know, you talked about the environment inside USOC Enterprise right now. I think that doesn't happen by accident. None of us certainly did that all by ourselves. There was an environment for that to be created. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the relationship that I've got with Joe Worthy and and General Ferguson. You know, likewise, I'm proud of, you know, I mentioned earlier, we actually don't have our own recruiters, yet we've had this recruiting success. And I'm proud of the work that we've done with the Army, right, to overcome a longstanding problem. And that's going to help us. As Jeff said, we don't do anything for ourselves, right? It's all to meet

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  the needs and requirements of First Special Forces Command. So I'm proud of that. I'm proud of, you know, the work that we've done to, you know, build a robotic capability in a way and that can do things tactically that I think we're probably doing, we're building a capability that no one else is building right now. And I think it's going to be of great benefit to the operational force. So those are just some examples. And each of those examples are directly contributing to the readiness and the availability of our units of action inside of First Special Forces Command. So, so I'm pretty proud of those things.

• 1:03:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's a proud day to come to work every day in the sense of, we understand that the operational force cannot execute its mission if we cease to be here. And so all the things that General Slatter mentioned is, hey, we're focused on the recruitment, focused on the production. How do we retool ourselves? How do we deliver the next capability of MOS or additional skill to the force that can fill a gap immediately and be employed down the range? Those items are,

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  they're humbling in the effort that's been put into them, but they're also rewarding.

• 1:04:16Fran Racioppi?

  How long do you have to stay in to be the oldest guy in the Army?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Not long.

• 1:04:20Fran Racioppi?

  Not long. General Slatter's got to be.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  I might have a couple of years on.

• 1:04:28Fran Racioppi?

  So when the new commander is going to come in and the new chief warrant officer is going to come in and they're going to go probably find their their seat there, the command wing, and then they're going to go come find you as a CSM, at least if they, I would assume want to be successful. And I know who they are, and I know that they're going to do that. So what's your guidance to the new commander and the new chief warrant who are going to come into the seat and kind of be sitting beside you for the next couple of years?

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  The beauty of SWIC is that all of the important things don't happen in Bryant Hall, as much as I love it. And my guidance would be, my advice would be to get out into the field, get out and see where the soldiers are training, where the cadre are leading them, and how each of those things operates and runs. To truly understand SWIC, it isn't a PowerPoint slide, it isn't a briefing inside of an office, those things are useful. But it's actually getting out and talking to the cadre, talking to the students, seeing what they need to be successful. That's where the magic happens at SWIC. Every time you go out into the field, out at Camp McCall, you wake up early and you go out to where

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  the soldiers are doing a 12 mile road march, a five mile run, a swim in Mott Lake, you see the beauty of this place and what it takes to run. And so I would say go out and see all that.

• 1:05:48Fran Racioppi?

  Well, we all have different experiences when we go out into the the operational force and we spend time on in the units. But the common bond that we all have in Army Special Operations is you get to come through here and you get to come through the through SWIC, you get to come and have some of that shared suffering. But it's important, it makes you a better person, and it makes you a better operator, it makes you a better soldier. And we got to start somewhere because we can't go out there and do these in really important special missions that our nation needs us to do if we don't come here and learn the fundamentals and be excited about it. And I think that it's an honor to come here, sit

• 1:06:29Fran Racioppi?

  down with you, be able to be indoctrinated back into to this building and and walk around these grounds. But I'm excited every day. I'm excited to come back here, learn more about where the organization is, where it's going. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. And I know that wherever you guys go next, I'll be fortunate to have you, and we'll be taking that, your experiences here to only make those organizations better. And I know that, you know, SWIC over the next couple of years will continue to grow and evolve as we're going to need it to face the current threats. So thanks for taking some time out of your day, sitting with me and welcoming us here. American Jedbergs went on to form the foundation of the United States Special Forces

• 1:07:12Fran Racioppi?

  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, extra threads. Send your comments and inquiries to Fran at JedbergPodcast.com. 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. How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.