202: Andrew Gonzalez on Marine Civil Affairs in the Pacific (Part II)

Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today, Brian Hancock talks with Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez about how the Marine Corps modernization is shifting Civil Affairs' roles and duties in the force and how those changes impact their work in the Pacific.

MSgt Andrew Gonzalez joined the USMC-CA community in October 2015 as an E7. CA activations of note include OCT 2017 CJTF-OIR, clear and hold Mosul after displacing ISIS, DEC 2021 in support of Operation Allies Welcome operating out of Fort Pickett, VA, a rare opportunity to support a Defense Support of Civil Authorities mission. MSgt Gonzalez was most recently activated in support of JTF-Red Hill, the safe and expedient refueling of the underground fuel storage facility on the island of Oahu. Allowed to meet with the Waianae Kupuna Council to discuss the transition from JTF-Red Hill leadership and mission to the Red Hill – Navy Closure Task Force.

MSgt Gonzalez has supported 1st Civil Affairs Group for nearly 10 years and continues to drive USA-USMC CA collaborative efforts, civil information management best practice, and USMC - Civil Military Operations training standards in direct response to OSD/INDOPACOM/MARFORPAC/IMEF demand for CA and Civic Action Team support.
---

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Special Thanks to "Cool Jazz Hot Bossa" for the sample of Energy Jazz Music Playlist - Jazz Instrumental Upbeat - High Energy Jazz Music Mix. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/bdWUj2NYDYQ?si=_bLf2fdTw6Ba93oh

---

Transcript

00:00:04    Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

00:00:40    BRIAN HANCOCK
Welcome to One Civil Affairs Podcast. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock and I will be your host for this session. Today we have with us Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez to discuss United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs, Civil Information Management, and civil harm mitigation and response. Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez joined the United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs community in October 2015 as an E -7. Civil Affairs activations of note include Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve, Clear and Hold Mosul after displacing ISIS, Support of Operation Allies Welcome operating out of Fort Pickett, Virginia, which was a rare opportunity to support a defense support to civil authorities mission. Master Sergeant Gonzalez has supported First Civil Affairs Group for nearly 10 years in direct response to the Secretary of Defense, INDO -PACOM, MARFOR -PAC, and IMEF. Boy, that's a lot of acronyms. Top, welcome to the show. Great to link up, Ryan. It's been a while. Far, far too long. The last time we worked together, we were lamenting the state of civil information management in both the Marine Corps and the Army because we saw the potential there to help us achieve strategic objectives that are often tied to the civil population.

00:02:03    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, I can only speak for the Marine Corps. And then, you know, because you were with McTog at the time and then you had a leg inside, I think it was 351st KCOM. So that's what always made the conversation interesting. So you could just step into both worlds and say, this is what I'm learning on the USA, CA side. Conversely, this is what McTog is doing it. And really what it came down to was the commander's perspective.

00:02:25    BRIAN HANCOCK
Absolutely. I am very grateful to the Marine Corps for the opportunity to learn, you know, both from professionals such as yourself, as well as from some of your schools, like the Civil Military Operations Planners course back in Quantica. Amazingly good. I'm really excited to have you here today because you're going to give us a much -needed additional perspective and thought on some of these challenges that we're wrestling with, frankly, all over the world.

00:02:55    ANDREW GONZALEZ
You and I had first connected, and all throughout that time, numbers are shrinking, toker shrinking, and we're like, where's value? And that came into our initial dialogues with civil information management, thinking that, hey, we could probably get some traction with this, but ultimately, it took several years, but then... I call it the great IF Sauron, right? The DOD looked west and said, hey, Indo -PACOM, this is the simple problem. But I just felt like when it came to developing relationships with the host nation, that's a given. We're going to be placed inside the host nation. But what's the commander's perception? And that's where I want to kind of pick up the conversation due to the fact that that has changed. And now it's coming down to IMF landing general saying, what I witnessed in Vallarta 1024. With respect to the civil affairs engagement in theater, I want more of it. I want more cowbell. And that's what we're going to deliver it in Balakatan 25. With the planning that's going on right now after the initial planning conference that I just got back from, I asked for it. And without hesitation, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, G7, responded with, we are going to give you civil affairs teams. So it's just a much more open, much more inclusive, much more inviting environment when it comes to the civil picture.

00:04:08    BRIAN HANCOCK
That's fantastic. In 351, a number of years ago, I was involved in Balakatan. And previously, when I was in the SIOP demand, now military information support and operations, we participated there. And it was not easy, and it was not friendly, and it was not open like that. And it was really just an opportunity to send some of our service members who spoke to Gallic to go on over there. There was some increase in capability of the Philippine Defense Force, but they were still very much struggling against Abu Sayyaf and MNLC and these other terrorist organizations that were operating at the Holo Archipelago. It was just a really rough time. So it's fantastic to hear that years later, fast forward now, and we have a much stronger relationship, a much more effective relationship, a stronger partnership. We're talking about reopening some of our military bases there. We've lost some of those bases years ago, which allows China certainly to say, OK, if you only got one major port where you can do roll on, roll off operations, boy, we know where to set up our ISR and target. Right. So the strength of that relationship and the work that you're doing out there, I think, is really important. I'm glad to hear how it's progressed.

00:05:19    ANDREW GONZALEZ
I have a couple of relationships with 351st KCOM 3Shot. So maybe sometime after the podcast, we'll reconnect and talk through. Some of the collaboration, because it's been a while since I've talked with them. But during the initial planning conference, I reached into USRPAC to say, hey, we would really, really appreciate some USACA flavor. And the response was, what do we need to do? I said, can you put me in touch with 350 first? And it happened that day.

00:05:46    BRIAN HANCOCK
While you reconnect there, make sure our 38 golf program with all of those PhD level experts and everything from medicine to engineering, that is really taking off. 38 golf, got it. Yes, that MOS within the functioning specialty team constructs that we have in the Army is delivering incredible value. For instance, in our region, they recently did the NATO 7 resiliency studies of other areas, which is things we should be working in competition, and food resiliency within Medova and other areas. These things are such quality, they're being published in Military Review. And right now, the iron is hot because they're still trying to figure out... How do you utilize those 38 golfs and functional specialty teams? So make sure as we partner with you in the ground combat element in the core that we're fully utilizing some of those capabilities I think would add a lot of value to those of you who are doing planning on the Mew and doing assessments.

00:06:43    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, it's very easy to say things like 1CA, okay? It's the people. It's individuals that see and understand that given the tyranny of distance, there's lots of things, right? Like expeditionary. advanced -based operations. And just that there's no possible way that one service couldn't cover all that distance and cover down on all of those requirements. So the bottom line is we have so much to learn from one another. And I am definitely going to discuss that with 351st S3 Shop for sure.

00:07:11    BRIAN HANCOCK
Fantastic. I really encouraged to hear that. And I know 351st will receive that well. Many of our listeners happen to be Army just because there's a little bit more civil affairs in the Army. The Marine Corps is a little bit smaller force. Let's level the table a little bit, help them understand some of the Marine Corps civil affairs structure. For instance, in the Army civil affairs, this is a non -accession branch, certainly for officers it is. But here's the thing, both officers and NCOs, once they get the MOS, can spend their entire careers in civil affairs. And the way the pyramid is built out, there's plenty of room and plenty of slots for promotion. So it's very realistic that you can be awarded. a 38 MOS in the Army, and then that's it. That's what you'll be doing for the next 15 plus years or however long you go until you choose to retire. Now, I understand the Marine Corps, it's not like that. Can you elaborate a little bit on how that process is for Marines?

00:08:11    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, you're 100 % right with respect to officers. Once you get to E -8 and E -9 in the Marine Corps, you suddenly start to see how difficult it is for the O -4 and above. to get to kernel. And it is incredibly competitive. So what's also happening is the 17XX migration. But that came out of not just consolidating MISO and Comstrat and SIOP and civil affairs all under one MOS branch. And some space operations in there too, I recall. It's what's required, right? In order for us to work through any kind of distributed operations, we're going to have to rely on space substantially. Yes. But these changes are happening at the headquarters Marine Corps level where 17XX will now give officers a career path. Nice. In 17XX. And this is where you and I were having conversations about what does that mean for Reserve CA? Are we going to be completely replaced, supplanted, marginalized?

00:09:10    BRIAN HANCOCK
Right.

00:09:10    ANDREW GONZALEZ
And in the end. From 21 to 24, we learned that even though our schoolhouse got completely consumed with consolidating the MISO, the PSYOP, the Comstrat, the CA schools, all in one building, to teaching the entire 17XX curriculum.

00:09:25    BRIAN HANCOCK
In fairness, the Marine Corps has done some massive changes, at least relative to, say, the Army, which turns a little bit slower. Look at their entire divestiture of tanks under Commandant Berger. And the standing up of these Marine littoral regiments. uh brand new formations the very new equipment that they're looking at that's tied into very specific missions the marine corps is innovating across stop gulf pp very quickly it's impressive to see i popped into third mlr in oahu when i was there from october to april 2024 and asked them about civil affairs

00:09:57    ANDREW GONZALEZ
popped into third mlr in oahu when i was there from october to april 2024 and asked them about civil affairs And their concept of civil affairs employment wasn't so much about understanding the civil population. It was really just understanding that they're there. We're going to take this into consideration. But there was no real collaboration, if you will. But what they did was, as they reached out to requisition CA specifically, because they recognized that there was a little bit of a delta there. And they wanted to make sure that civil affairs had a seat at the planning table when it came to MLR and specifically overall combat team operations.

00:10:36    BRIAN HANCOCK
Good.

00:10:36    ANDREW GONZALEZ
It's a part of their training tasks. And that's the commander's perspective that I keep coming back to. If the commander sees value, if the commander sees a necessity, then it will happen. Marine Corps, Army, Navy doesn't make any difference.

00:10:48    BRIAN HANCOCK
make any difference. So when you're referring to Marine Corps, civil affairs, I understand why we would say Navy, civil affairs. But the Navy itself organically had its own. civil affairs program. We'll talk about that later. They disbanded it. So I just want to make sure that the audience understands that when you're saying Navy civil affairs, you're still referring to United States Marine Corps civil affairs.

00:11:09    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, but let's drill down on just one specific point. When it came down to BK -25, we reached out to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command. And this is kind of analogous to your 38Gs in the USA. It's a very specific maritime focus for that commander. that says hey before i go into this littoral region with ships etc i'm not i need a really good evaluation of what's the host nation look like are they amenable and open to us being in the area yeah and then drilling down on that so we asked because they were clamoring to get involved in bk24 and immediately they responded with one of their maritime ca units great and then ideally we're going to do that in bk25 as well so i'm just trying to bring in the one ca mindset I really have to say it's not just lip service. Speaking about BK -25, Armed Forces of the Philippine CA is going to lend six teams. I see no reason why 351st CA leadership isn't going to lend at least one team, and I'm going to ask them for 38 calls. And then the Federation Combat Command will also be lending a Navy CA team. That's beautiful. I'll follow up with you, Brian, on how we were able to implement and share information and then inform the commander and see what the commander does.

00:12:23    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, awesome. For those Marines who are listening to our podcast right now, who might consider making that kind of a lat move, what does a typical duty day look like for you, Top? How do you spend your time? What types of activities are you engaged in? What's that quality of life look like for someone else who might consider coming on over?

00:12:46    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Let's say that this is anybody but a 17XXer. This is not somebody that's coming from the Comstrat Meso -Syop community at all. Right.

00:12:54    BRIAN HANCOCK
Infantry, sure.

00:12:56    ANDREW GONZALEZ
The beauty of Marine Corps Civil Affairs is that we take all comers because we need people that know and understand and speak logistics, know and understand infantry tactics and training, know and understand intel, and then you've got the civility component. So what it looks like is a pretty standard drill to suit one, two entirely dark months. Now, one in the summer and then one in December because most people are traveling and taking time off. And then we typically drill on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I'm just speaking about in September, it's going to be civil information management, which now we've got a very strong relationship with Marine Corps tactical support systems and software activity. Okay. So we're going to do some sim training. We're going to take a lot of the new joins and baseline them in MARSIMS, which is just like it sounds, Marine Corps civil information management. So with our Indopaycom and Southcom focused, What we're screening for is plasticity. We're screening for people that really want to take their existing skill set and apply it to the host nation. Because now we've got a really solid relationship with Indonesia and Malaysia. We're training side by side with their forces.

00:14:03    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And look at the opportunities there. I mean, like Oceania, we're concerned about geopolitical alignments and West versus, say, China and civil affairs. They're kind of our unit of action for competition in this regard. They're wanted there. They go out, they add value, they create relationships and help remind those Pacific Island nations, many of which came into the Western purview as a result of World War II, why we're the best partners to have. So that seems to me like it's a very critical function, not just in the Philippines, but in all of these areas.

00:14:41    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Correct. No, 100%. It's one of those relationships that you and I had first kind of talked about and that I took a chance to reach out was 9th MSC, which is just a support organization, but the Oceania engagement team, that was who they were supporting principally.

00:14:57    BRIAN HANCOCK
Right.

00:14:58    ANDREW GONZALEZ
So then you fast forward because that was the 2017 timeframe for me, even though that's a very persistent task on the part of the U .S. Army. U .S. RPAC has forces in the Second Island chain and has had. since 1947 right more than ever as we work through this competition problem set 99 of the time civil affairs just has a huge role play everything that we do that matters is joint combined it's just really exciting to hear what that felt that has been since 2017 and that the future just it looks really bright now we've been talking a little bit about civil affairs operations when i went to the civil military operations school to get my

00:15:14    BRIAN HANCOCK
than ever as we work through this competition problem set 99 of the time civil affairs just has a huge role play everything that we do that matters is joint combined it's just really exciting to hear what that felt that has been since 2017 and that the future just it looks really bright now we've been talking a little bit about civil affairs operations when i went to the civil military operations school to get my credential, we were focused on civil military operations, which seems to resonate with Marines. Can you tell us a little bit about the difference between civil military operations and civil affairs operations and why the Marine Corps, CA elements, might be more focused on the latter?

00:15:59    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Beginning in October 2015, when I first joined civil affairs, I would regularly conflate civil affairs with the activity of civil military operations. civil affairs is force description. We're out there supporting civil -military relationships, civil -military planning, et cetera, et cetera. One thing is the who, and the other thing is the do. And I don't think, but I have to kind of turn the question back on you, Brian, is after I describe what we think constitutes civil -military operations, I think what you will find is there's more similar than dissimilar to civil affairs operations. I really feel like they are more analogous than not.

00:16:35    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. I think the unit of action matters. Civil affairs operations have to be conducted by civil affairs forces, but civil military operations could be conducted by an infantry command. But I think they're achieving some similar purposes, and I think a number of the tasks are probably very similar.

00:16:51    ANDREW GONZALEZ
I agree, and that's a really interesting point. I just had that brief conversation with the Sergeant Major of 3rd MLR, and I said, Sergeant Major, we're at the tail end of EK -24, and so all their forces are out there distributed, and Sergeant Major's like, hey man, I've got an hour for you. Totally understand, Sergeant Major. If I could get your CONOPS, if I could find out what your commanding officer's guidance is with respect to employment of CA, and then tell me, this is the type of thing that we could help you in 25, all throughout FI -25. And he's like, hey, man, we're already ahead of you. We already did a request for forces, right? So, but the point I'm trying to make with that is, is their understanding of civil military in the LCTs, a very critical force enabler in the Marine Corps and throughout the DOD, because again, that's your asymmetric component, right? Those are the guys that are out there alone and unafraid, walking around with a ship killer. It's no small feat. But that commander was still like, you're involved in the planning. We do have good relationships with the host nation. But our mission can't be distracted by anything other than time -sensitive targets. And I'm being very, very reductive. But that was a sergeant major that was under pressure to literally get out the door so he'd get to the Philippines. But focus on the civil military operations component from commander to commander. And it's to the point where they want so much of our bandwidth that MFR is almost kind of pushing back. 1MF just keeps asking us for civil military operations support. Civ mil, civ mil, civ mil. But the bottom line is, at no other time have we been in such need to get people up to speed, take their existing specialty, and apply it to civil military operations planning. Much like what you're doing, what does the next generation of near peer, and we don't want it to get to combat. Yeah,

00:18:32    BRIAN HANCOCK
absolutely.

00:18:33    ANDREW GONZALEZ
What does it look like for the host nation populations? within the second island chain within the first island chain yeah we're certainly getting a pretty close look at that in ukraine and it it's devastating can you elaborate on that you're talking about millions of people displaced flowing over borders now poland unbelievable the reception they'll give the ukrainians i think they have at least a million that they're looking out for right now

00:18:39    BRIAN HANCOCK
certainly getting a pretty close look at that in ukraine and it it's devastating can

00:18:43    ANDREW GONZALEZ
you elaborate on that you're

00:18:45    BRIAN HANCOCK
talking about millions of people displaced flowing over borders now poland unbelievable the reception they'll give the ukrainians i think they have at least a million that they're looking out for right now They come over and train, and they're met at the station, and they're given food, they're given water, they're given shelter. They help them find a longer -term place to be. They help them find work. It's a very, very serious situation. We understand what war crimes are. You're not supposed to blow up hospitals and schools and things like this, but Ukraine and the Russians are intentionally targeting them. They think they commit enough of these war crimes that they'll break the will of the people. You know, what we know historically, certainly when we're talking about large -scale bombing in World War II, that when you start doing these things, it actually has a reverse effect. It makes the people so angry that they double down on their commitment to fight you. So it's an ineffective strategy and blatantly immortal and unlawful. But that's the situation that is happening over there. Various elements are in talk with Ukrainian elements about... Depending on the different scenarios of how this ultimately plays out, there is going to be an enormous amount of work. There's going to be an enormous opportunity for civil military specialists to assist with the stabilization and rebuilding. And of course, through our CIMIC programs here in Europe, we are training a lot of Ukrainians and many other nations how to do these kinds of missions and to be prepared.

00:20:20    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, there's so much of what we hear and what we're hearing are, you know, tactical successes on the forward element. And whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, you typically only hear Poland or Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, all the nations that share that border, and they're all on edge, which they should be. It's actually not a bad state to be in. You just don't want to be there chronically, right? Right. But the point is, it is amazing how much work Poland and the former states of the Soviet Union are doing and continue to do to give those people safe harbor. But just pivoting over to Indopaycom, the role of civil military operations.

00:00:55    BRIAN HANCOCK
But just pivoting over to Indo -PACOM, the role of civil military operations. Once the balloon goes up, the areas where combat is actually going to be exploited to the degree that you can in northern Philippines and in the westernmost portion of Japan, because this has happened once before. The origins of Taiwan, when some of the existing peoples on the island were being displaced by Chiang Kai -shek, they headed to the westernmost portion of Japan. to these islands that had maybe 150 to 250 people on the entire island, but they're bringing in enough nourishment, enough fuel that they have homeostasis. What they have coming in and what they have going out, there's balance. And then you add 1 ,500 people that don't speak the language. That's just one tiny island in the westernmost portion of Japan's archipelago. I don't want to imagine it, but we have to. We should be forced to sit at a table and apply what we know. to people who know how to do it because nobody does HADR and nobody does complex emergency management like the Taiwanese. They do it every year, multiple times during a year. And the same goes for Japan. But who do it best are the Taiwanese. We have something to learn from them, honestly.

00:02:12    ANDREW GONZALEZ
I agree. Absolutely. And given that we have some great alliances and we work in joint combined environments, there's a lot of opportunity for cross -learning. Now, earlier we talked about Department of Navy civil affairs capabilities, and I just wanted to go back to that a little bit. Years ago, the Department of Navy had a separate and distinct civil affairs program from the Marine Corps civil affairs elements. Now, that program vested itself. It sounds like there's some emergent capability happening now. And of course, they retained their Marine Corps capability. With those forces being emergent, if the joint force needs something, say, a port assessment after a disaster, a system analysis of the economics of aquaculture in a given region, is that something Marine Corps civil affairs can provide? And if the Marine Corps civil affairs can't provide that maritime type expert level assessment, who should we be turning to for it as a force?

00:03:19    BRIAN HANCOCK
you would reach out to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, the NEC, without a doubt. And I'm not just blowing smoke here. This is the units in peacetime that deliver by far the most value, not even relative to the amount of money spent. Let's just take the monetary component out. The people who have a forward -leaning presence into the First Island chain are the Bs.

00:03:42    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, CBs,

00:03:43    BRIAN HANCOCK
yeah. Yeah, the construction battalions. And so when it comes down to the naval, maritime -trained civil affairs, of which there's a very limited number, they're working hand -in -glove with the bees, with their Explosive Ordnance Bubbas, with their Expeditionary Security Force Bubbas, to say, hey, this is what you're going to encounter in this specific aspect of this specific island, right? Like, you're coming into this littoral region, this is what you can expect with expected depths, draft, and then the host nation population studies. They have that capability embedded in the neck. And so that's why we're really looking forward to working with them again in BK25. They love what we do and we love what they do. I can only imagine how when we did an innovative readiness training,

00:04:22    ANDREW GONZALEZ
how when we did an innovative readiness training, the native tribes in Alaska up there in Aleutians, many of the things that we found that could be done to help them, CBs could have done on the spot. Yeah. We had no capability. We had a planning and an assessment and analysis and a research capability. But that action arm that the bees offer, that would have been amazing to have. I see what you're saying. It makes perfect sense to me. It sounds like a fantastic marriage of capability moving forward. When I introduced you, you mentioned a couple of the big missions that you've been involved in. But Operation Air Resolve and Operation Allies Welcome. Can you just tell us a little bit about what those missions were? and what the role of the Corps was.

00:05:16    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yep. So it was General Votel that was head of sync at the time. The portion that I want to hit you with is a success that really should never have been allowed. And that will make sense after I explain. Operation Enhanced Resolve winter into the spring of 2017. Mosul. It was a meat grinder for the Iraqi army because they're going house to house, door to door, booby traps. just a hellscape it's just getting crushed and so what was born out of that doctors without borders says we're not leaving but we need help and we never ask the dod ever because we don't want to be aligned with the dod right so picture this right so that message gets sent to oir command as oir receives this request for a conversation we just want to have a conversation to find out what if anything can be done Because everyone's hearing about the OBGYN that's wandering Western Iraq, trying to help women deliver babies, and then he gets decapitated, right? That's what you're dealing with. Medical professionals are targets, period. So fast forward, that happens at the beginning of my turn in mid -2017. We got all the way to a sit -down with the leadership of Doctors Without Borders, who flew in from New York, Belgium, and France. So five representatives come in and say, listen, you cannot divulge the fact that we are opening up direct line of communication to FOAR headquarters and our people on the ground. We ended up opening a line of communication. We got to the point where we actually tested it and it worked. Now, no assets were ever called for. We had a quick consult in the CJ39 with CENTCOM leadership, with USAID, and a member of General Hotel staff. And the question I was asked was, Who told you to bring Doctors Without Borders into the command headquarters to talk about a real -time tactical link? And I said, I was told by, you know, my leadership in the CJ39. So the point I'm trying to make with this is, please, please, please, your senior staff, your field grades, even a sergeant who's listening, who's applying themselves, doesn't make any difference. Ask the question. does hire no one understand what's going on? Because this got all the way to linking one radio with another, with a comm check. And General Votel, to my knowledge, did not have knowledge of it. His command, his staff did not have knowledge of the fact that that relationship had been enacted, had been moved. So I'm just saying things can get traction. You're thinking, wow, I'm doing the right thing, right? Like I am the humanitarian affairs deconfliction SNCOIC for CJTFOAR in phase three operations. This is the right thing to do so that we don't lose doctors. But honestly, it wasn't done the right way. I'm just letting people know that things can get momentum and their own inertia, but that doesn't mean that CONUS knows what's going on.

00:08:12    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Actually, I think an incredible success. As you said, Medicine Salts Franciard is an amazing organization. If they are actively being targeted and destroyed, as we've seen the Russians targeting their facilities in, say, Syria, they were using the Doctors Without Borders clinics. They're supposed to be protected under the law of war. They were using them as a targeting list, right? So that is unfortunately the reality of the adversaries we face. So I think it's a success story that there was enough adaptability shown by both parties to at least explore something. And having worked at four -star commands, I can also understand how difficult it is to reach senior decision makers. their ability to move at the speed of relevance, I would argue in many cases that they're just not capable of doing that, with some exceptions. This is one of the reasons why Secretary Mattis had a process he called skip echelon to tighten kilchines and other things to flow faster. But when you have an incident of that level of seriousness happening, in an area in blunt contact, in an austere region, everyone has to think out of the box a little bit. And then you add the five of war to that, right? So I certainly don't fault anyone involved in that. I think it is a great case study that should be talked about. I see that as the win. As a leader, sometimes making the wrong decision with alacrity is better than making no decision or waiting until it's irrelevant. In hindsight, it's very easy, I think, to look back at that. But thank you for sharing that amazing experience.

00:10:00    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. One kind of final cherry on top is when individuals in the reserves think that they're not going to be confronted with gravity, real gravity, where civil affairs isn't always looked upon fondly, civil military operations support isn't always looked upon fondly, especially when you're tactical. And you have to raise your hand in a room full of meat eaters. And you say, this is the reason you don't want to hit. That ambulance that you see clearly displayed by an MQ -9 in the middle of nowhere is ISIS and their families are evacuating Mosul, right? And you're saying, yeah, you could very easily take out those 10 buses. But this is why you don't want to do that. And this is the people that you contact. That takes courage. And that's what we're looking for. That person who raises their hand on the jock floor and says, I see what your MQ -9 sees. All we need to do is contact the Red Cross. confirm that that's a legitimate Red Crescent vehicle that's going into harm's way because they have to know and understand that an armed MQ9 is circling those 10 buses. That's the kind of individual that we're looking for. And we don't care if they're NCOs or staff NCOs, a company grade or a field grade. They just have to have knowledge, confidence, the courage of their convictions. And sometimes the strength of those convictions may not just be protecting those lies,

00:11:15    ANDREW GONZALEZ
sometimes the strength of those convictions may not just be protecting those lies, but... pointing out the potential economic loss that can occur. We're talking about dropping all those bridges in Baghdad. The cost to rebuild those things is enormous. Do you really want to do strategic destruction of them and have to completely rebuild them? Or might a tactical destruction be more appropriate? And again, it was a civil affairs officer who had to stand up and point that distinction out when on the job they were just looking at demolishing. all of them to prevent retreating forces. So yes, that is a very important part. You have to have some moxie and be willing to stand in the face of power, which is a moment of truth. You have to be willing to do that to survive in this branch and thrive. So well said. I'd like to turn the conversation to something that's been on a number of minds in the civil affairs communities, a lot of debate. But a few years ago, the Department of Defense created the Office for Civil Harm Mitigation Response, or CHMR. Some of the civil affairs professionals in the communities have expressed a concern that this new body may actually be kind of taking over some of the traditional mission, as defined by General Winfried Scott, from civil affairs. What do you think?

00:12:42    BRIAN HANCOCK
I don't think. I really don't, based on not just the August 22 release of the structure. for CHMR, but then also the December 2023 OSD release, but it's saying you, component commander, right, saying commando, pick on mother, are going to have this as a lens when it comes down to your host nation relationships and also the employment of American designed, engineered, and released weapons. I don't think that this has as much to do with civil military operations as it does our prosecution of combat operations in a given combatant command. So the CHMR has less to do with civil military operations as I understand it. It has more to do with when it comes down to your concept of operations for how you are going to defend some portion of the first island chain or break and enter here or at the strategic level. that you are informing your operational commanders and your tactical execution with these as potential restraints, not constraints.

00:13:48    ANDREW GONZALEZ
And that only becomes more complicated. But look at a joint combined environment now where each individual host nation has a say on the employment of force because of ABO and other things. We saw in Bosnia that quickly became unwieldy. You couldn't do it because it started out with 50 targets on your targeting list. And by the time... every nation had pulled its picks off the list, you had about 15 targets left. So I think there's some complexity there. I am a little bit concerned in the way it's described as a lens, similar to Women, Peace, and Security, that's also kind of seen as a lens. The problem with that in a military organization is that we are action -oriented organizations. And if you do not have mission essential tasks, associated with something that then get rated, validated, and recorded in the USR process, it's probably not something you're going to do. How do you train to a lens? How do you validate a lens? How do you operationalize something like that? It has to be operational to truly be relevant to the military. Now, I know it's new. 2022 is not a long ago. I suspect they're still working through that. But I am concerned about the practical implementation of that.

00:15:12    BRIAN HANCOCK
So it is new. It's so new that when I spoke to Major Weyland, he's dual -hatted as a reserve civil affairs bubba with RG9. His real -time job in the civilian world is USAID. I said, Weyland, can you please tell me what USAID's position is? Or what are they training to? How does this change the nature of AID and the DOD? And he's like, this is just too new. It's making its way into AID. And we're looking at the primary, secondary and tertiary impacts to relationships and how this is going to be perceived within the DoD. So it's very new. I did notice that there are pilot trainings that are going to be taking place for staff associated with the component commands. Attend the training, find out what this is about, see how this is going to impact your planning cycle. So, like I said, it's probably a good year to two years before we see something precipitate out. And I'm focusing on AID and DOD because that, to me, is kind of where the rubber meets the road because you've got a civilian agency that's tasked with coordinating with U .N. agencies, World Health Organization, World Food Program, but not limited to those people, UNOCHO and others.

00:16:12    SPEAKER_00
civilian agency

00:16:19    BRIAN HANCOCK
And now you're saying, OK, take the strategic, operational and tactical, that compression that I talked about. real -time information to be fed into this so that the commander has as much time and space, and we're talking about now instead of days, we're talking about hours, to make a decision on what ordinance gets dropped where and to what effect. And I'm asking you, do you think non -kinetic was as utilized in 2017 as it could have been?

00:16:45    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Definitely not. Right. And now looking at adding competition into the continuum in the range of military operations. where we're going to be the majority of the time. What's your rounds to fire in competition? Well, they're not lethal, right? Yep. Because except for some soft action against very select targets and some denied activities, it's not going to be acceptable to go in there and killing people and breaking things. Yep. That's not how you convince folks to come to your coalition. So absolutely, there's a lot of work to be done and we didn't do enough there. What we did do got criticized by Rand and others, at least in some cases. And some of that criticism was legitimate. So there's, I think, a lot more work that can be done there.

00:17:33    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And you, when it comes down to this multinational land component commander concept, I can't even begin to wrap my head around. My head was spinning, as you were describing, because it's just distributed operations. Right. Land -based, as opposed to maritime -based. It's the same problem set, like rail gauges. With a lot more people.

00:17:50    ANDREW GONZALEZ
With a lot more people. There aren't as many people out. With a lot more people.

00:17:51    BRIAN HANCOCK
There aren't as many people out. With a lot more people.

00:17:53    ANDREW GONZALEZ
in the ocean when you're doing distributed maritime operations, right?

00:17:56    BRIAN HANCOCK
And if the balloon goes up, we do have limited ability while the air is uncontested and while the seas are uncontested to get civilians away.

00:18:06    ANDREW GONZALEZ
We have a few minutes left. I'd kind of like to close up by returning to some of the innovation that the Marine Corps has been doing in the last several years. You've talked a bit about the 17XX MOS. Some things we haven't talked as much about are the development and utilization of the Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, the MIGs, and the deployment of the Tactical Assault Kit. Can you tell the audience a little bit about those developments?

00:18:35    BRIAN HANCOCK
The MIG is really focused on PSYOPs, Comstrat, and MISO. They're excellent at what they do. We do have some OneMeth integration between CA and Comstrat, obviously, for BK25 with respect to their narratives and our public affairs guidance that's going to be issued. And it's going to be very similar to BK24 from what I'm hearing. So again, we don't want to spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel on things we don't need to. Let's focus on the things that we really do need to. And that namely are the relationships and the things like tactical assault kit. So it sounds like it's an actual piece of gear, but it's not. It is a common tactical picture in the most reductive sense. But the bottom line is the reason that this is becoming so prolific throughout the DoD is because you can develop. a map support and a common tactical picture that can be fed up to feed a common operational picture very readily because it's very lightweight and it's OS agnostic. And so it's basically just taking over because it is so adaptable. And when it comes down to air component, land component, logistics component in the Marine Corps needing a specific tool set. to help manage information and get that information to the logistics commander. And then the logistics commander can inform the CJA commander. This is the way to do it. So I am asking everyone out there, go to the MCTESA website, Marine Corps Tactical Software Support Activity website. Log in, go to the Warfighter Support Division. And MCTESA has really gone to great lengths to host what's called TechTube. And what it is, is a series of YouTube videos on all of the software that the Marine Corps currently is fueling. All the systems of record and some of the systems that are not of record. Tactical Assault Kit is not currently a program of record, but we're, you know, high speed moving towards that to make it a program of record. So how civil affairs is planning to utilize this. And ideally we get our ducks in a row with respect to data because everybody and their mother wants Starlink. Right. You can only spread that so thin and reserves are not going to be at the top of any list when it comes down to. No. So we have to rely on in -country data, which is doable, but we have to just learning from BK24, we have to get enough data for a long enough period of time to support TAK. Even though it's lightweight, it's like anything else. It's a cell phone. We currently are outfitted with Galaxy S22s. That's how we conduct our KLEs. That's how we do our, you know, our engagements and do our site assessments. And it's all done on this handheld. And now ATAK, the Android version of TAK, Civ, as opposed to Mill, there's two flavors of TAK. Civilian is, you can just go to any download. You can go to the Android store, you can go to the Apple store, download your civilian variant of TAK, and immediately start using it. But if you want to know how to use it, whether it's the civilian or the military variant, just go to MCTISA, the website, you need a CAT card, log in, go to the Warfighter Support Division, and then drill down on the TechTube videos. And you can immediately see just how user -friendly this system is. And so our goal at EarthCAG is to make this an application alongside Martians. So it's already built into the image when we receive our Martians gear, our Galaxy S22s. So we're organizing some training with MCTISA. And this is one of those things where we want to be able to get the army in on this. We want to be able to get the armed forces of the Philippines. There's no constraints on using. the civilian variant of TAK with our host nation partners. So how do you want to know where your people are and what they're doing? This is how we're going to do it. That's how I plan to give our commander a common tactical picture and roll up the multinational joint civil affairs outreach and civil military operations employment in theater. That's how we're going to do it as VATAC.

00:22:23    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Well, you've convinced me. I am going to go take a look at that and I'm excited. Mictissa, here I come. I'm going to take a look at the tactical assault kit. Certainly working at the ASCC, if this looks good, I'll definitely be talking to some of my Army colleagues about that. Thank you for your time today, Top. I really appreciate it. Really appreciate everything you're doing as well as what your colleagues at First CAG have been doing. It's been a fantastic relationship and we're looking forward, I know, certainly at 351 and in other. civil affairs formation to working with you in the future.

00:22:58    BRIAN HANCOCK
Ryan, thank you for leaning into the relationship. I don't know of too many others in the civil affairs community independent of service that have gone to the lengths that you have to bring in new ideas, to take some time to listen and learn from one another and actually get this to be applied because that's the only way that we're going to skin the cat.

00:23:20    ANDREW GONZALEZ
Well said. Thank you also to the audience for joining us for this session. And we'll be putting out some more content from the United States Marine Corps in future sessions.

00:23:32    Close
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field. working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, 1CA Podcast.