Several weeks ago, I was approached by Dr. Young, County Administrator, and Annie Cupka, Grant Writer, to participate in an upcoming military exercise that would be held in King George County. I knew about the exercises and their general time frame having attended previous Board of Supervisors meetings but I never expected to be involved. I also never expected to learn so much or have so much fun doing it.
The 98th Civil Affairs Battalion is based in Fort Bragg, just outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is part of the United States Army Special Operations Command. Skipping the military jargon, the group is tasked primarily with supporting civilian authorities in foreign countries. Their operations are broken down into six main areas of focus. They include Rule of Law, Economic Stability, Infrastructure, Governance, Public Health and Welfare, and Public Education and Information. They provide support to the civilian authorities during war and peace and they also support their fellow troops by sharing information about the local population. Dr. Young’s previous service with the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion serves as a good example. As a Captain in Afghanistan, Dr. Young and his group learned from local residents that while the US Army was asking them to stand up against the insurgent forces, there was a trust issue with the locals and they had a fear of abandonment. By recognizing the needs of the local populace and building a stronger relationship with them, they were able to use that closer bond to get the locals to help in the fight against the insurgents. They were able to build that strong relationship by doing things like making repairs to bridges and roads and boosting the local economy. Except the US troops didn’t do the building, they only facilitated by helping local leaders find local contractors. They helped the local authorities document the process, publish the budget documents publicly, and have the finished work inspected. In a nutshell, the US troops were simply there to help locals by being a guiding hand.
With Dr. Young’s experience in this specific field, he was the leading force in bringing the troops from the 98th to King George for their exercise. My involvement was to be there as a member of the Press and to ask questions that would stress them. Dr. Young was admittedly nervous about asking me to do it and I’ll admit I was nervous too. Having been tasked with being an aggressive person of the Press was out of character for me personally but I did my best because I want to share the experience with my fellow residents.
Leading up to the exercise, I was given my role in the exercise and was told to develop a list of questions. Dr. Young was not sure my questions would be hard enough and asked for a preview so he could provide feedback before the exercise. I gladly obliged but was not too keen on my list of questions being shared before I could ask them. Dr. Young did a good job of only striking a few of them from my list and after re-reading those questions, I realized they had no bearing on the exercise and would likely end up with me getting no answers from the soldiers.
Aside from the questions, I was also directed to be aggressive and obnoxious but was warned “don’t do anything to get arrested.” I was also asked to not share any of the final outcomes related to the Security and Health, especially those related to school security. Having several members of my family in local schools, I was more than happy to oblige with the request. In fact, I’m taking it a step further and will only mention in general terms that they will be studying various scenarios at various locations in the County. This team will also work with the Sheriff’s Office, Fire and EMS, and other local authorities to develop an outline for future plans and procedures to be put into place. While I won’t mention where they will be working, I will say it involves important areas other than just the schools.
Aside from the Security and Health team that I interviewed, I also listened to and interviewed a team that was working on Tourism and another that was focused on Recreation. I missed the presentation from the team working on Economic Development and the team working on Transportation.
All of the teams did well in answering my questions. While I was instructed by Dr. Young to not ask them a question regarding their Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) training, I managed to work it into my introduction to help break the ice. It was also a way for me to help lay the groundwork of confusion. I then pulled the proverbial Crazy Ivan by asking them a question from my “crazy uncle.” Although it was actually a seed planted by my father, the test was to see if they laughed when I asked them about overthrowing the local government and building internment camps. Everyone passed the test with a straight face or stunned silence. Although one soldier did laugh, I think he was just laughing at the absurdity of the question.
I also asked all of them if there was any sort of kick-back or sweetheart deal between them and Dr. Young for doing the exercise here. None of them knew of any graft but it spoke volumes to me that Dr. Young didn’t ask me to remove this question from the list I submitted to him. I never expected there to be any backroom dealings but it made me feel better that he had no issue with the question. I also asked a few sporadic, general questions about training accidents, merging Civil Affairs Reservists with Active Duty for training, and the tedious “what’s your biggest challenge this week” question. All of them answered concisely and coherently.
Along with these more general questions, I also asked more specific questions for each group. I asked the Security and Health team why they were training here instead of Puerto Rico when that is their usual training ground and Puerto Rico still needed help after the hurricane. They gave a somewhat rote answer of it being a national issue that was being handled by the National Guard and other groups. With a little more probing I was able to get the impression that if they did go to Puerto Rico it would not be beneficial for them to have a training exercise while emergency personnel were still needed for a real-life emergency.
For the Tourism team, I asked where they felt their area fit into their group’s main focus and they saw it fall under the Economic Development section. They said they were staying and eating locally and that all of their encounters with residents were positive. They were meeting with Dr. Gates from the Dahlgren Heritage Museum later in the day but were not aware of the upcoming Route 301 Bridge project [EDITOR'S NOTE - Neil Richard, a co-founder of Project94, is also an employee of the Dahlgren Heritage Museum. Sean Gates, a co-founder of Project94, is also the son of Dr. Gates.]. They quickly tapped into this thread and began asking detailed questions to get more information. They quickly had a grasp of the potential issues of traffic in the area.
For the Recreation team, I apparently threw them off their game when I addressed one of the Sergeants by name and directed her to lead the team back to the room for questions. Each team was lead by a Captain and apparently this was an unexpected, and unintentional, breach of protocol. Since I was oblivious to this at the time, I didn’t hear about it until later. Had I known this could be a potentially stressor, I would have applied it to all of the teams I interviewed. The team adapted well and was able to come back with questions of their own during the conversation and were knowledgeable of some of the main points of concern for the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail (DRHT) [EDITOR'S NOTE - Neil Richard, a co-founder of Project94, is the Treasurer of the Friends of DRHT]. As with the Tourism team, they were able to ask questions that dove deeper into their specific area of focus and I felt confident in their abilities.
Overall, I felt somewhat like a fraud sitting there with Dr. Young introducing me as an “influential citizen.” I felt confident that Dr. Young was not going to pull any punches with the soldiers as he repeatedly told them this wasn’t an exercise, this was real life for our community. As I learned with my children long ago, you can throw somebody off their train of thought simply by having detailed knowledge about something people assume you know nothing about. Knowing names, dates, acronyms, and other military minutia or slang came from my doing hours of research about the 98th Civil Affairs group and the work they’ve done in the past. I also leaned heavily on my family’s past military experience with a smattering of pop culture thrown in for good measure. While I don’t feel like I am a cocky, arrogant, or abrasive person, I feel like I can pretend to be one for at least a little bit. And when things get tough, I can always fall back on my tried and true, and truthful, statement that I’ve been to prison and I’ve worked at the FBI Academy.
The 98th Civil Affairs Battalion is based in Fort Bragg, just outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is part of the United States Army Special Operations Command. Skipping the military jargon, the group is tasked primarily with supporting civilian authorities in foreign countries. Their operations are broken down into six main areas of focus. They include Rule of Law, Economic Stability, Infrastructure, Governance, Public Health and Welfare, and Public Education and Information. They provide support to the civilian authorities during war and peace and they also support their fellow troops by sharing information about the local population. Dr. Young’s previous service with the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion serves as a good example. As a Captain in Afghanistan, Dr. Young and his group learned from local residents that while the US Army was asking them to stand up against the insurgent forces, there was a trust issue with the locals and they had a fear of abandonment. By recognizing the needs of the local populace and building a stronger relationship with them, they were able to use that closer bond to get the locals to help in the fight against the insurgents. They were able to build that strong relationship by doing things like making repairs to bridges and roads and boosting the local economy. Except the US troops didn’t do the building, they only facilitated by helping local leaders find local contractors. They helped the local authorities document the process, publish the budget documents publicly, and have the finished work inspected. In a nutshell, the US troops were simply there to help locals by being a guiding hand.
With Dr. Young’s experience in this specific field, he was the leading force in bringing the troops from the 98th to King George for their exercise. My involvement was to be there as a member of the Press and to ask questions that would stress them. Dr. Young was admittedly nervous about asking me to do it and I’ll admit I was nervous too. Having been tasked with being an aggressive person of the Press was out of character for me personally but I did my best because I want to share the experience with my fellow residents.
Leading up to the exercise, I was given my role in the exercise and was told to develop a list of questions. Dr. Young was not sure my questions would be hard enough and asked for a preview so he could provide feedback before the exercise. I gladly obliged but was not too keen on my list of questions being shared before I could ask them. Dr. Young did a good job of only striking a few of them from my list and after re-reading those questions, I realized they had no bearing on the exercise and would likely end up with me getting no answers from the soldiers.
Aside from the questions, I was also directed to be aggressive and obnoxious but was warned “don’t do anything to get arrested.” I was also asked to not share any of the final outcomes related to the Security and Health, especially those related to school security. Having several members of my family in local schools, I was more than happy to oblige with the request. In fact, I’m taking it a step further and will only mention in general terms that they will be studying various scenarios at various locations in the County. This team will also work with the Sheriff’s Office, Fire and EMS, and other local authorities to develop an outline for future plans and procedures to be put into place. While I won’t mention where they will be working, I will say it involves important areas other than just the schools.
Aside from the Security and Health team that I interviewed, I also listened to and interviewed a team that was working on Tourism and another that was focused on Recreation. I missed the presentation from the team working on Economic Development and the team working on Transportation.
All of the teams did well in answering my questions. While I was instructed by Dr. Young to not ask them a question regarding their Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) training, I managed to work it into my introduction to help break the ice. It was also a way for me to help lay the groundwork of confusion. I then pulled the proverbial Crazy Ivan by asking them a question from my “crazy uncle.” Although it was actually a seed planted by my father, the test was to see if they laughed when I asked them about overthrowing the local government and building internment camps. Everyone passed the test with a straight face or stunned silence. Although one soldier did laugh, I think he was just laughing at the absurdity of the question.
I also asked all of them if there was any sort of kick-back or sweetheart deal between them and Dr. Young for doing the exercise here. None of them knew of any graft but it spoke volumes to me that Dr. Young didn’t ask me to remove this question from the list I submitted to him. I never expected there to be any backroom dealings but it made me feel better that he had no issue with the question. I also asked a few sporadic, general questions about training accidents, merging Civil Affairs Reservists with Active Duty for training, and the tedious “what’s your biggest challenge this week” question. All of them answered concisely and coherently.
Along with these more general questions, I also asked more specific questions for each group. I asked the Security and Health team why they were training here instead of Puerto Rico when that is their usual training ground and Puerto Rico still needed help after the hurricane. They gave a somewhat rote answer of it being a national issue that was being handled by the National Guard and other groups. With a little more probing I was able to get the impression that if they did go to Puerto Rico it would not be beneficial for them to have a training exercise while emergency personnel were still needed for a real-life emergency.
For the Tourism team, I asked where they felt their area fit into their group’s main focus and they saw it fall under the Economic Development section. They said they were staying and eating locally and that all of their encounters with residents were positive. They were meeting with Dr. Gates from the Dahlgren Heritage Museum later in the day but were not aware of the upcoming Route 301 Bridge project [EDITOR'S NOTE - Neil Richard, a co-founder of Project94, is also an employee of the Dahlgren Heritage Museum. Sean Gates, a co-founder of Project94, is also the son of Dr. Gates.]. They quickly tapped into this thread and began asking detailed questions to get more information. They quickly had a grasp of the potential issues of traffic in the area.
For the Recreation team, I apparently threw them off their game when I addressed one of the Sergeants by name and directed her to lead the team back to the room for questions. Each team was lead by a Captain and apparently this was an unexpected, and unintentional, breach of protocol. Since I was oblivious to this at the time, I didn’t hear about it until later. Had I known this could be a potentially stressor, I would have applied it to all of the teams I interviewed. The team adapted well and was able to come back with questions of their own during the conversation and were knowledgeable of some of the main points of concern for the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail (DRHT) [EDITOR'S NOTE - Neil Richard, a co-founder of Project94, is the Treasurer of the Friends of DRHT]. As with the Tourism team, they were able to ask questions that dove deeper into their specific area of focus and I felt confident in their abilities.
Overall, I felt somewhat like a fraud sitting there with Dr. Young introducing me as an “influential citizen.” I felt confident that Dr. Young was not going to pull any punches with the soldiers as he repeatedly told them this wasn’t an exercise, this was real life for our community. As I learned with my children long ago, you can throw somebody off their train of thought simply by having detailed knowledge about something people assume you know nothing about. Knowing names, dates, acronyms, and other military minutia or slang came from my doing hours of research about the 98th Civil Affairs group and the work they’ve done in the past. I also leaned heavily on my family’s past military experience with a smattering of pop culture thrown in for good measure. While I don’t feel like I am a cocky, arrogant, or abrasive person, I feel like I can pretend to be one for at least a little bit. And when things get tough, I can always fall back on my tried and true, and truthful, statement that I’ve been to prison and I’ve worked at the FBI Academy.
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