General Impressions

Over the past eight days I have had the pleasure...priviledge...obligation?...ok, ok, I drew the short straw (*sigh*)...of briefing several generals on multiple issues related to the Afghan National Police (ANP).  Having never briefed anyone higher than the colonel level before, this was a new experience for me.  Briefing to colonels can be tricky.  Briefing to generals can be scary.  Generals can make things happen, and as such, expect a high quality in the presentation and information they are briefed in order to make intelligent decisions.  If you screw up, you're going to know about it. 

For reference, all generals are not equal.  There are four levels of general in the U.S. Army, each denoted by a different amount of stars, which is the rank insignia for a general officer.  Brigadier General (BG) is the initial rank, and has one star.  Major General (MG) is the second rank, and has two stars.  Lieutenant General (LTG) is the third general officer rank, and has three stars.  This is the rank of the commanding general of CSTC-A, LTG William Caldwell.  The last rank is simply called General, and has four stars.  This is the rank of the ISAF commander, General David Petreaus.  (Technically there IS a five star rank, but it's a special rank awarded extremely infrequently.  If General Petreaus manages to turn around the situation in Afghanistan, and lead us to unmistakable victory, he MAY be in line for a 5th star.  May.)

The first briefing was for a pair of generals, actually, a two for one special.  MG Ward, the Deputy Commander - Police (DCOM-P), is the primary audience for most of the things I produce, since I work so much on the police side of things.  He's a Canadian, and a bit of an oddity for a general officer.  While I've only been responsible for briefing him once, I've been in the room for several briefings where he was the primary audience, and I have never once heard him raise his voice.  He speaks very deliberately and thoughtfully, and clearly has a purpose in his words before they are spoken.  He also very much likes numbers.  He encourages us to produce slides that most generals would throw you out of the room for.  That ends up making our job a bit easier, since we can show numerical data without having to fear the general's eyes crossing.

The general I picked up for free in this buy-one get-one deal was MG Beare (pronounced Beer).  Also a Canadian, he will be replacing MG Ward starting tomorrow.  When I met him, he had only been at Camp Eggers for a day or two, and was still learning to crawl through the mire of ANP.  It was obvious his head was still spinning as he tried to keep pace with the work load.  After our meeting we talked for a minute or two, and he seemed like an extremely nice guy.  He was familiar with Leavenworth, and had actually spent a little bit of time there, so we talked a bit about home, and the CSTC-A commander, who's last duty assignment had him stationed at Leavenworth.

While briefing two generals when only expecting one does cause the stress levels to raise a few notches, I was glad they were both present.  The briefing I was giving that day is a monthly update, and will be something I have to do at least three more times.  Since MG Ward is leaving, next time it will be the new guy all by himself.  Having MG Ward be able to guide him through the briefing once will be an immense help later down the road.  MG Beare's level of confusion will be much lower, and his expectations for what the briefing provides will be in line with reality.  Having MG Beare at this particular briefing was even better, as we were discussing a couple sticky issues of the police, and I was glad he was made aware of these problems right from the start.  There were several times during the brief that I normally would have pushed a little harder to make a point with MG Ward, who has formed his own opinions on things after a year on the job and didn't completely agree with the points we were making, but because I had MG Beare nodding along with me, I let it go.  While MG Ward may still have been the acting DCOM-P, it was more important to get MG Beare on board, since he'll be the general I have to live with the rest of my tour. 

The next general I interacted with was BG Smith.  He's an American, and was requested by name for this assignment by LTG Caldwell.  Only 10 months ago he was the assistant division commander for the 10th Mountain Division, fighting in eastern Afghanistan.  He wasn't even home a year before being asked to come back for another tour, this time as the Assistant Commanding General for Police Development (ACG-PD).  BG Smith is relatively new at Camp Eggers, arriving in the early part of July, but he's been around plenty long enough to know what's going on.  He is also quite the thoughtful fellow, but more of a go-getter than either of the Canadians he worked/works for.  I haven't gotten to interact with him a whole lot, but from what I've seen, I really, really like him. 

Case in point: after briefing, most generals will task you with more work.  Change this slide, do this analysis, answer this question.  They have things that they depend on you to tell them, and this is the time they can give you guidance as to how they need you to go about finding those answers.  Not BG Smith.  After concluding my briefing, (the same brief I gave to MGs Ward and Beare), the first words out of BG Smith's mouth were "What can I do for you?"  Indeed, there were several issues in the brief that needed to be addressed, and he was in a position to address them in his dealings with the government leaders in charge of the ANP.  One issue concerned an Afghan commander at a training site who was not allowing Coalition personnel use of his buildings to house ANP recruits.  BG Smith promised it would be fixed by the next day, as he would make it clear to the Minister of the Interior, the man in charge of the ANP for the entire country, that this behavior was unacceptable.  Either the commander would allow access to the buildings, or he would be fired.  Tomorrow.  Our group was thrilled.  Here was a leader that didn't back away from a fight and didn't need to put his decision through a group huddle before proceeding.  His combatant commander background definitely comes through in his actions.

But that wasn't the coolest part of this briefing.  Because we were detailing some serious issues with the ANP, he requested some of the slides from the briefing be translated into Dari so he and the Minister could have a candid discussion.  It was BG Smith's intention to clearly layout the very issues on which we had just briefed him, and encourage the Minister to "put some energy" into solving them as quickly as possible.  Those translated slides were delivered Monday.  Sometime this week, analysis I worked on will be in the hands of the highest levels of Afghan leadership, with an American general advocating action to correct problems that I helped identify.  That kind of influence can't even be approached at my job back in Kansas. 

The last briefing wasn't actually to a general, but a civilian Senior Executive Service (SES) officer.  An SES is the civilian equivalent of a general, in this case equivalent to a two star.  Dr. Jack Kem is the Deputy Commander for NTM-A/CSTC-A, so even though he's a civilian, he's technically the second in command at Camp Eggers.  He also has a direct line of influence to the CG, and can help to shape the battlefield when trying to get the CG to make a decision on your particular issue.  He's a great guy to have in your corner.  Dr. Kem also comes from Leavenworth, where he was a teacher at the Army's Command and General Staff College (CGSC).  CGSC is where majors and lieutenant colonels who are slated to be battalion and brigade commanders go to get their master's degree.  On top of that, Dr. Kem also has an ORSA background.  This can be a help and a hindrance.  On the helpful side, technical details that can't normally be briefed to leadership CAN be briefed to Dr. Kem, since he has a good understanding of the techniques used in producing our analysis.  On the hindrance side, because of his level of knowledge, the level of rigor in your analysis often has to be greater than normal, adding time and headaches to an already difficult task.  The extra work only makes the answers better, but the amount of work that has to be put in to get to that level makes the value of that extra detail debatable at times. 

Of my three briefings, I considered this one to be the least useful.  Dr. Kem only had 30 minutes to hear the brief, and his executive officer was making sure he stuck to schedule.  As such, places I had hoped we would have serious discussion were skimmed past, lessening the value of the briefing.  Dr. Kem also has a tendency to "chase rabbits", so to speak, elaborating extensively on topics that are only cursorily related to the briefing.  My briefing was no exception, and so a tight window became maddeningly tighter.  And to top it off, when all was said and done, he told us the reason he had directed us to do the analysis was no longer valid, and the analysis wasn't as important as he once believed.  Translation: I don't care that I asked you to look at changing this thing, we're not changing it now and probably not ever.  Arrrrrrgh.  My analysis WILL help us to more accurately predict the future strength of the ANA and ANP in our mathematical models, but I had intended for the analysis to influence ANP policy as well.  That piece got killed.  Oh well.  Another day at CSTC-A.

I also narrowly escaped a couple more briefings this week to bigger and more important men.  I had been put on notice that I would be briefing the CG any day, but that never materialized.  It does look like the CG will be a regular in our monthly briefings to the DCOM-P now, so I may have only been given a stay.  We'll see.  Also, my boss was given 4 hours notice tonight that he would be briefing General Petraeus tomorrow on police related statistics.  My boss told me that if we'd been given a day or two days notice that he'd have made me do it instead. 

I am Neo.  Watch me dodge bullets.  /whoosh

*****

 A brief Happy Birthday to my mom who turned *cough cough* years old yesterday.  And I may as well say Happy Anniversary now as well, as my mom and dad will have been married for 40 years this Saturday.  Wish I could be there.

That's all for tonight.  Out here.