Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today, we have Major General Darrell Guthrie, Commander, US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), discussing the command, his priorities and vision for Civil Affairs, and whether CA has a sales problem.
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Transcript:
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We provide... Welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We have a very special guest, Major General Daryl Guthrie. He's the Commanding General of the U .S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, often referred to as USIC -KPOC. General Guthrie began his military career in 1985, commissioned as a second lieutenant after graduating from UAV. He then became a king of battle and field artillery, completed the civil affairs course, and went on to the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. At some point, General Guthrie found time to earn a law degree.
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He has successfully held command and staff positions at company through division, joint and combined headquarters, and in support of the Department of State. His experience in civil affairs is extensive and throughout the country. And, sir, I'm not sure if you have time to do this anymore, but your civilian occupation is managing your own law firm. And for anyone who has attended UAB or Texas Tech, they will happily call you a fellow Blazer and Red Raider. General Guthrie, welcome to the 1CA Podcast.
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Hey, John. Thanks for having me. And go Blazers.
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And I think we say something like get your guns up at Texas Tech.
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Good. So are you still a resident of, you're on sort of active duty orders now, but you're from Texas, is that right?
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Well, I grew up in, I actually grew up in Alabama, just outside of Birmingham, but have lived.
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Civil Affairs and the 413th Civil Affairs Battalion there in Lubbock. But with this job, and now that my wife and I are empty nesters, we actually moved to North Carolina. So I'm a North Carolina resident for the time being.
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That's great. And I also read that you have four children with your wife, three of whom are serving the military. So this has become a family business for you.
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in the Marine Corps stationed at Quantico at present. And then I have a son that's in the 101st. He's actually in Iraq right now. And then a son that's at West Point in his third year. And then I have a daughter who's a physical therapist who can take care of me when I get old.
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take care of me when I get old.
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That's good. Well, congratulations to you and your family. So there's a lot to cover. We got some questions that came in from listeners from the podcast. A lot of people who wanted to get introduced to the command. So if we could, let's set the stage for listeners by describing the breadth and depth of personnel that are under use of KPOC, which is much more than civil affairs. Yeah, so use of KPOC is...
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operation.
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500 people is a lot, especially when you're looking at the structure of those units because I'm on a team of five people. So would you say that that reflects there are numerous teams and companies spread throughout the country, spread throughout the world?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Definitely the type of forces that punch above their weight. Sir, I wanted to ask you about the Ready Force X. There's been a shift under General Luckey's command of the Army Reserve to tag some units as Ready Force X. How many of your CA, PSYOP, and IO units are in this Ready Force status?
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the Army Reserve to get after this idea of fighting fast.
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Sir, what would you say are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned since taking command?
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We're listening to the 1CA podcast and interview with Major General Darrell Guthrie, Commanding General of USA KPOC. When we come back, I'll ask General Guthrie about his priorities for the next few years and his vision for civil affairs.
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Mark your calendars for the 2019 Civil Affairs Roundtable to be held on Tuesday to April at the National Guard Armory Conference in Washington, D .C. This year's roundtable will conclude the seminal discussion of optimizing civil affairs, started at last fall's symposium at Fort Fragg, North Carolina, and in the 2018 -19 Civil Affairs issue papers to be published before the roundtable. At the roundtable, the discussion shifts to a more granular identification of dot mill PFP pathways to guide CA modernization and continuous investment in an innovative and adaptive force that is well -networked in planning, and operational relationships, and persistently engaged and aligned regionally to facilitate political military goals and objectives. In addition to the speakers and panel discussions, attending members and friends of the regiment will conclude by looking at how to advance civil affairs at a more ambitious multilateral scale over the next year's cycle. In order to maximize official travel for uniformed members of the regiment, the roundtable immediately precedes the PKSOI Training and Education Workshop. which will be held on 3 to 5 April at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. For more information, including the agenda and registration, go to the Civil Affairs Association website, which is at civilaffairsassoc .org.
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Hi, welcome back to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're continuing our conversation with Major General Darrell Guthrie, the commanding general, U .S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. Sir, what are your priorities for the next few years? What's your vision for CA? Yeah, so I kind of start with I have four lines of effort.
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lines of effort.
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So does that mean building a force to combat a near -peer threat like China, Russia, or a massive ground force that may be needed for a place like North Korea?
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Sir, I could go on to additional questions here, the two that I mentioned earlier. Is there anything else before we do that that you'd like to share about any documents that you'll be unveiling to the force?
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We're working right now. the organization is thinking.
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That's good to hear, sir. Sir, I wanted to close this conversation by asking you a question about visibility and appreciation of the CA forces. Many Civil Affairs Association meetings have included discussions about the need to increase demand for CA forces or to secure greater visibility and appreciation of our capabilities for the Army and the Marine Corps. Sir, what's your maybe personal view on whether there's a sales problem within DOD or the larger national security community?
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operations. I've said here at the headquarters, and as I've gone out and visited some places recently, we all wear the same patch. And therefore, we've got to be willing to offer solutions to commanders. And those commanders have a lot of data points coming at them, a lot of inputs coming to them from a lot of people.
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now that only
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while at the same time we're probably changing some of our capabilities to be able to provide the best benefit on the battlefields of the future.
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That's right. Yeah, we need to adapt and evolve, and that's part of the reason how we're trained in civil affairs and SOAP and IO. And I would recommend to the listeners to continue to build up your personal professional skills. There's, for example, language money that's on the table for anyone who's CA qualified. And if you're not learning a foreign language, you're leaving money on the table that the command is offering for you to learn a language that would be relevant not only to your military career, but also your civilian careers. And there's a lot of self -training out there.
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a lot of self -training
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a problem, not just legally, but actually lead through the problem as well.
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General Guthrie, Commanding General of the U .S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. Sir, the future is bright for CA. I thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast and wish you well with the rest of your command. Hey, John, thank you very much and thanks for taking the time to let me spend a little bit of time with you and talk about
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little bit of time with you and talk about for the future. I'm a big podcast listener and I indeed listen to the 1CA podcast.
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Sir, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Take care, sir. All right. Thank you.
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Thank you for spending some time with us. Please subscribe and come back for another installment. 1CA. Until then, be safe and secure the victory.