When I wrote this article a couple months back, I thought I was going to be briefing the NTM-A commander in a few days. As it happened, that chance never materialized. The work morphed, a different organization took the lead, and I ended up only in a supporting role. I was pretty bummed that I didn't get to follow through with the briefing, especially since chances to brief leadership at that level don't come along everyday.
Well, today I got my second chance.
Lieutenant General (LTG) William B. Caldwell IV is the NTM-A / CSTC-A commander, and has been since November 2009. The rank of Lieutenant General is signified by three stars, and surpassed only by the rank of General (just General, no qualifiers), which has four stars*. In the U.S. Army, there exist somewhere around 50 three star generals for the entire force of 548,000 soldiers. In Afghanistan, there are only four: General Petraeus' deputy commander, Petraeus' Chief of Staff (both foreign officers, one French, one British), the Commander of the ISAF Joint Command (COM IJC, LTG David Rodriguez) who controls how Afghan and Coalition forces are employed in the field, and COM NTM-A, LTG Caldwell.
*Ok, so technically I'm ignoring the ultra-rare, five star rank called General of the Army/Navy/Air Force. In the history of the U.S. military only nine people have attained the five star rank, so I think I'm safe.
During "normal" war time operations (force on force battles), a three star general would command a force element called a Corps, made up of several divisions, totaling 20,000-40,000 personnel. Here in Afghanistan, LTG Caldwell has total command over the recruiting, training and assignment infrastructure of the Afghan National Army and Police. He is entirely responsible for building the Afghan security forces to the point where they can take care of their own country. He commands a budget of around $12 billion. Yes, with a "B" - billion. And as the ORSA cell for the NTM-A command, he depends heavily on our shop to provide analysis to his constituent organizations in order to facilitate decisions. As you can imagine, briefing LTG Caldwell is kind of a big deal.
Usually we don't get to do much of the briefing to the commander, as we are in a supporting role to the subject matter experts instead of in the lead. But, in this case, the organization we were supporting felt more comfortable having us brief the results than having us teach them how. It was good for us, as it reinforces to the commander our importance in the scheme of things, and will (hopefully) make him more likely to question "analysis" that didn't come from our shop. Of course, to make that impression, we had to actually do well on the brief. Cue preparation.
The briefing we were to be a part of is a monthly "deep dive". The commander tells the two star general in charge of the Afghan Police, Deputy Commander - Police (DCOM-P), what topics he wants to cover for the month and we drill into it as deep as we can in two hours. This month we were talking about how many training centers we will need to sustain the police force after we finish growing, and how we can grow two types of police more efficiently to better secure the country. The first was fairly technical, and was briefed by one of my co-workers. The second is somewhat contentious between the trainers and the operators, and briefed by myself*. Neither topic was going to be easy to cover, so we had a meeting with the general every single night this week to cover the slides and the presentation. This is highly unusual. A two star general has a lot of things to do. Meeting with his staff every evening for an entire week for the same topic was a very visible testament to how important he considered this Deep Dive briefing to be. By the time the brief rolled around this morning, I think I could recite my slides and my briefing notes in my sleep.
*Neither of these topics were classified, but I would consider them sensitive, so I can't go into a ton of detail. Vague references is the best you get. Sorry.
Personally, I was hoping for my first briefing to COM NTM-A to be a smaller affair with only a few people present. Say, 10-12. Sadly, it was not to be. The Deep Dive is a well attended event, but this one more so than usual, as several outside organizations were coming, as well as representatives from the Afghan Ministry of the Interior. Even knowing the place was going to be packed, I was unprepared for what I walked into. Holy sardine can, Batman! I counted 65 people in a room designed for 30. Three people were sitting on the floor. One was standing in a corner. The aisle to the "spectator" seats was blocked by another row of chairs. I was thankful that as one of the briefers, I had a choice seat with my name on it along a side wall and a slide packet stapled and waiting for me. I'd been to these things before and had to fight for a spot, but not today.
Generals from the Afghan Police, IJC, and EUPOL were special guests at the table, along with all of the other generals from NTM-A. Total, there were five one star generals, four two stars, and the three star. I have no idea how many colonels and other ranks were in the room, but as I have grown accustomed to, I was definitely the most junior, both in "rank" and age. I was definitely a bit nervous due to all the brass, and very thankful I was briefing second.
When my time came to brief, I was expecting it to be rocky. As I said earlier, my topic was somewhat contentious, as those responsible for operating the force and those responsible for training the force don't always see eye to eye on those topics. IJC, the operators, were requesting specific items from NTM-A, the trainers, and my analysis showed what we were doing to accommodate them. I was worried that the two star general from IJC in attendance at the meeting would object to something I was briefing, but he was very agreeable to the information I was providing, and LTG Caldwell was very pleased with the presentation. He even gave me a thumbs up and a "You're right on track" when I told him our first course of action was clearly not going to satisfy IJC's request. Through 40 minutes (for only 10 Power Point slides) of discussion with the staff, we came up with some very reasonable ideas on how to tackle the issue. We've got a lot of work to do, and, as always, not very much time to do it in, but nothing that is impossible. As I sat down and the next briefer took over, I received an appreciative nod from the commander. I figured that meant I did ok.
After the brief, my suspicions appeared to be confirmed, as LTG Caldwell's Chief of Staff congratulated me on briefing a difficult topic so well, and several senior NTM-A leaders that had never spoken to me before echoed his sentiments. Not that I was expecting to fail or anything, but things went far better than I had imagined them going. I was grateful for the preparation time, and for the tips those with experience briefing these kinds of audiences had given me. I'm not sure I'll get this chance again, and really wasn't sure I wanted to have it in the first place, but having suffered through it, I'm glad I did. The experience of briefing a commander in a combat zone is unique, and can't be gained just anywhere. The lessons learned will be invaluable in future briefings as I move on in my ORSA career. One more reason to be glad I came to Afghanistan.
That's it for now. Out here.
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