Welcome to One CA Podcast.
Today, Brian Hancock talks with Phillip Smith about his experience as commander of the 451 Civil Affairs Brigade, his time as a student at the Army War College and his work designing how Civil Affairs can respond to domestic crises and disasters.
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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 [email protected]
or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org
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Special thanks to "Traveller" for the sample of Federico Abuele's "Contigo." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-AL7q5mDSc
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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 dot 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
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I'll be your host for this session. Today we have with us Lieutenant Colonel Philip Smith. He serves on an active duty tour at the Joint Staff J -5 in the Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs Division. In his civilian capacity, Lieutenant Colonel Smith is an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Texas. where he works on general civil litigation. Quick reminder for the audience, all remarks are solely those of myself and the prosecutors. Now, you've done many things in your 26 -year military career, and can you walk us through your journey where you started in military intelligence, then moved to psychological operations, and now are in civil affairs. Tell us a little bit about that journey.
00:01:29 PHILIP SMITH
Absolutely. So going all the way back to 2002, coming out of Texas Tech, I don't really know that I had a great bead on where I was going to go. And I knew that I wanted to do military intelligence. I recall at advanced camp when I went through in summer of 2001, before 9 -11, we had what you call branch orientation day and all the branches presented their best foot forward. And I recall that we had the G2 from I -Corps there. And he didn't really put on much of a presentation. It was a lot like, hey, I get 5 ,000 or however many applications. And I know that he was addressing the active component there. But I had things pretty well sewn up as far as a unit. The 413th Civil Affairs Battalion was going to take me in as their S -2. So I knew that I had everything locked in. Well, then 9 -11 happened one month almost to the day after graduating from advanced camp. And I recall that they had to rebuild the sessions packets from scratch. Normally by about Thanksgiving, you would get your branch assignments, but we didn't get ours until spring break in March of the next year. So it was a different time moving from there to OBC. I went to Fort Huachuca at a time when seeing the ground invasion in Iraq happened, OIF -1 happened while I was at OBC. And I thought, oh my God, just like everything else that had occurred prior to this time. Desert Storm, Panama. It was going to be over before I had a chance to get over there, participate in something that made history.
00:03:05 BRIAN HANCOCK
You're concerned that it's going to be over before you can go in and lend a hand. That's very impressive. It's what you train for. You never hoped for it,
00:03:12 PHILIP SMITH
for. You never hoped for it, but when it happens, you want to be part of that effort. You want to be part of that victory. And so I moved very quickly afterwards to get to deploy over there. I went with... field artillery battalion for the West Virginia National Guard, and then stayed there for another year. So I did two years back -to -back because the unit that replaced us was the Texas National Guard. And being able to then spend that year in Iraq with those folks was another opportunity that your friends that you grew up with in Iraq can be able to partake in an effort of that magnitude with them. It was just a tremendous opportunity. So I stayed there another year and then came back home, finally, And then went and took a tour after I sat for the LSATs at the Joint Analysis Center and RAF Molesworth from USUCOM, working on counterterrorism capabilities for several North African countries and leading a team that put those together and directing them and helping to guide their efforts was another great opportunity. From there, law school, three years. for 15th Civil Affairs Battalion then after that. And then got back home to Dallas after graduating, went to the 345th PSYOP in Dallas. And from there, had the opportunity to go through the PSYOP -2 course with you and then got ready to deploy to Horn of Africa. Preparing for deployment.
00:04:45 BRIAN HANCOCK
for deployment. Do you remember those heavy days?
00:04:48 PHILIP SMITH
Brian, I absolutely do. And we had a great group in that class. It does seem like a lifetime ago, and that was a great opportunity to be able to exercise those skills that we learned. I think from one of the best in the trade, Greg Cisa, I think absolutely one of the best instructors that we could have hoped for and gotten really prepared us well for deployment. And then also my experience at the SOC pack. built upon those prior experiences. But yes, it has been a while. And I look back fondly. I don't know how fondly I look back at Camp McCall. But, you know,
00:05:26 BRIAN HANCOCK
know, we would take the bad. Now, the coordinating assignment for successful officer careers, of course, battalion command. Now, you were the battalion commander for the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion. What was that lot?
00:05:40 PHILIP SMITH
Just a tremendous experience to be able to work with some of the finest in our profession. in our regiment to take the 451 battalion that was coming off of COVID and in many respects not seeing each other in at least a year. It was a very trying time because you have to have that physical face -to -face. So that was one challenge that we inherited when I took command. We went in two CTC rotations, NTC, JRTC, and then we had a warfighter just before I relinquished commands.
00:06:19 BRIAN HANCOCK
That's a pretty ambitious schedule just coming out of what it mattered to a year at Reset. You're getting back together and trying to establish policies, procedures, stand up training and prepare for the mission. And then the missions just fall in on you back to back. Absolutely. How did you overcome them?
00:06:38 PHILIP SMITH
Correct response to a situation is sometimes no response, but to let the situation transpire a bit, get you a little bit more information and not to knee jerk, I think was one of the biggest lessons that I distilled out of battalion command. Sometimes you need to let things transpire or let your subordinates make the decisions and run with things and not interject. Let them grow and develop or let the situation transpire.
00:07:09 PHILIP SMITH
instance, we had a lot of unsatisfactory participants. And the problem was essentially getting people to physically show up. You mentioned problem solving and everything starts with framing the problem. How do we get people back to drill? So what I did was I sat down with my sergeant major and chaplain, and we decided to develop what we called the battalion wellness working. And what we did through that was we would have the sergeant major, the chaplain. And the first sergeants from the companies sit down and just see how can we engage these soldiers? Who are the problem soldiers that we're recognizing some of these signs and that we're not seeing things that we're having contact with, but we're not able to connect with? And how can we connect and bring them in? And our chaplain was tremendous in being able to facilitate that and provide some ideas and being a conduit for our companies to be able to bring. and reconnect the soldiers. So that post -COVID world was a great challenge. The other one that I have sticking out in my mind was NTC, which was our first CTC rotation. And we had a trucker strike. Our truckers would not cross the picket line to go into California. You just can't make this stuff, right? Not one bit. So I have soldiers there at Fort Irwin with no equipment. And it's, sir, what are we going to do? And basically it was, hey, you're going to have to try to hitch a ride. You know, a lot of it was just questioning the company commander to try to lead him to the right conclusion. And together we worked on it to resolving it was basically a nut you can't crack. You can't materialize those vehicles there. But at the same time, you know, you need some transport. So you're going to have to really knuckle down on that relationship with the supported unit. You're really going to have to do something at least until the strike breaks. So a lot of what I found working with my company commanders, and I had a tremendous slate of company commanders that were great. I had Courtney Bone was my HHC commander during the warfighter. I had Matt Horschow as my Charlie company commander. Both these challenges developed into something where I think that as a commander. You are more of a shepherd insofar as you've got to work with your people and you've got to lead them to the resources. Part of development and growth is to cause them to exercise the six most important inches of real estate on the battlefield. And that's the gray matter between your ears. And I think as commanders, we have to facilitate that.
00:09:43 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right. Give them the estate and give them positive feedback. I think that positive feedback may be something that we don't do the best job in the military. I'm not sure we coach and mentor as effectively as we could at times. But critical to learning, it seems like we have to experience things ourselves for us to really cement that learning. Well, let's look at the flip side. We've talked about some of the challenges. We know that it's not easy to be a battalion commander. And sometimes, at least in Comp3, there have been some difficulties in getting enough people to manage this. So, curious to you for throwing your name in the hat and getting selected. In that time, I imagine it was a very valuable experience, though. Did you do anything particularly novel or anything that you found in your good time? And can you tell us a bit about it?
00:10:31 PHILIP SMITH
Absolutely. I think that each one of those events and the outcomes from them are something that remain a source of pride for me during my command tenure. I think that the legacies that... Sergeant Major Hardy Hay and I left for the 451. I would like to think that they echo to this day. All of them are a testament to the dedication of the soldiers of the 451. One is Resolute Sentinel, Guatemala, where we sent CA teams down there. We had an enduring presence. They're going to Southcom and supporting efforts down there. And to great aplomb to the soldiers down there, that was something I'm proud of and how we were able to achieve effects. And then finally, the three -quarter warfighter exercise, we supported 1st Cavalry Division. A great opportunity to be able to go down there, interface with our active component brothers and sisters, and support them in an exercise of tremendous magnitude. Again, achieved tremendous effects in many cases. I couldn't have been prouder to see our soldiers really shine a light and set the example. That was the capstone for my command.
00:11:40 BRIAN HANCOCK
command. Earlier, we'd see one of the regional groups has had such a kind of doings, filling all the battalion command positions. They did the public report for how to be studied on. I think it was a missed opportunity that many of the battalion commanders that I had talked to and said, look, this is a very demanding timeline. You're looking at, oftentimes, 20 plus hours a week doing various things, whether it's... Signing papers, drafting things, reviewing things, making decisions, building plans, political coordinations, etc. So you've got that road when you are sitting as a battalion commander. Then you've got clearly a very challenging civilian career. Do you have any advice for the audience, those folks who find themselves in a very demanding civilian job, at the same time as a very demanding military job? How do you manage your time to make sure that you stay healthy?
00:12:37 PHILIP SMITH
I found that really kind of prioritizing things helps and sitting down and setting the time aside for all of those aspects that you mentioned really helps. And I've found just from other leaders and mentors that I've talked to and worked with, and this is what I've adopted, is setting aside the time to give to each one of those aspects every day. Obviously, when not on orders, what am I going to do? I've got a lot more time dedicated than to the civilian job. But I always set aside at least maybe an hour every day or period of time to look at the prioritized issues, especially when in command, what's being presented to. Now, that's not to say that fires don't pop up, things don't occur that demand immediate attention. heavily empowered my subordinates. I think you've got one battle as a commander where you really knuckle down on assessing your AGR full -time staff leadership. That paramount when you take command because those are the folks you're going to be relying on and you've got to assess everything. Exactly. And those are the people that are going to become the threshold filter and you've got to assess your confidence in them and where that contours of that confidence lie. And so, I was always confident in my operations officers that I gave them signature authority. My SSA, I gave Ms. Glasgow 451, I gave her signature authority because I could trust them. And that's the thing, trust and confidence. A