Few weeks or months ago they were in a horrible situation and jumped on a plane not knowing where everything was going to take them and they were kind of putting themselves and and our hands and trusting us to make sure that they were taking care of and their families were taken care of.
Welcome to the one. See a podcast your host today is mr. Rob, the dro once the a 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 a partner Nations. 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 see a podcasting at gmail.com, or look us up on the Civil Affairs, association website at www.flcfs.org. I'll have those in the show notes. We're the things that we were looking at, they said stability and instability factors. We had some filters built into this so that we could see week over week or day over day whatever time Horizon we thought was appropriate, we could see clothing issues are on the rise or food issues or going down or
medical care, it site. And then we could dive in to the qualitative data behind that because quantitative data is great, right? It tells you what direction to look qualitative data, It really gives you that underlying story and helps you understand the Nuance of the situation. And, you know, for example, they have any give a hypothetical example, this is not something that happened, Sergeant Shaffer, I'll jump in and take a crack at it.
Sure, major Johnson, would you like to chime in there? Yeah, one of the very first, big items of concern was very reasonably apprehension in the guest population about, not knowing where they were going after they left Fort McCoy. The policy had been to provide that information to the guests. Once it was confirmed final plane tickets are purchased, and
the guests are our departing. There was a lot of movement in the ticketing is connecting up families, and individuals, with support agencies across the country to get them. Resettled that was just a really, really challenging problem for, for our Department of State and in NGO colleague to manage and and it would change a lot. If a family is initially Needed to go to st. Paul Minnesota, six weeks from now that could change three or four times over the course of about six weeks.
And what we realized was that that was the biggest concern of the guests was where we going after this. And so we were able to use that information to suggest leadership for oaw across the country to change the policy that it's going to be a steam release valve for a lot of these folks, giving them something. Giving them a piece of information that could change is actually better than than waiting and waiting and waiting to give them the the final word.
So the task force leadership took that recommendation in approved the change and so we wound up doing a basically camp-wide, you know thousands of people coming in and having a meeting with resettlement Specialists to get at least their tentative placement location. So they can start looking at going on Google, Learning all about Albuquerque, New Mexico or finding out all about Boise Idaho or Tampa. Florida. You know, wherever they were going.
It was remarkable the next week that line of people who are concerned had anxiety about where they were going and what was going to happen to them, totally fell off just nosedive. It had been a significant portion of the population. This is their primary concern down to, it wasn't zero, but it was close to it, doing the Civil reconnaissance advising the lead. Worship on a change to how we were doing our work and then seeing the effects of that
change into the data. It was really exciting and I think was an indicator to us that we were doing good work. And so that's why I always heard about the importance of making sure that you build these systems in a way that can collect both types of data, qualitative and quantitative. So that you can really make sure that you're tailoring, your Solutions in an appropriate way. But then also have that confidence that you're solving the problems.
Once you implement your intervention, I wanted to give staff sergeant Shaffer, another note of credit for putting together this tool for us. And one of the really special pieces was to make it not just a trend analyzing tool, but also a very rudimentary case management case identification tool. We were not social workers rights civil Affairs, professionals are not social workers, but we're talking to these folks and we're talking to many of them on a recurring
basis. So Our teams were making their way through the same group of living facilities. Talking to the same families day in and day out over weeks at a time and what ended up happening was that over the course of
those conversations? Yes, we're there to provide context and picture of the civilian population, as a whole for the Mandarin, for the federal coordinating official, but we're also just running into people with people problems and because of the relationships that are soldiers and Marines, For able to develop what the guests into Camp. Sometimes, we were identifying people problems that they were uncomfortable bringing up through other established touch
points. So we had guest services throughout the camp who were there to help connect guests with the services that we had available, but we wound up being is sort of a backstop. Maybe kind of a secondary touch point for the the leadership to communicate with the guests and identify specific problems. And so we were able to to build into the the Civil Information. Management tool not just a method to capture Trends over time. But also just to say this family, in this Barracks is
having a problem. And so can we work with our colleagues across the task force to connect them up 100%? We are not social workers. We are not case workers but what we found was incidental to our role doing Civil reconnaissance for the task force. We're coming across these personal individual one-off issues, and we felt that it was
necessary. Much just ethically as anything else to make sure that that need was, was identified in communicated to the proper agency, within the task force, to leverage the purpose of our civil reconnaissance, the purpose of our civil information management was to give the leadership a picture of the civil. Environment. But staff sergeant Schaefer's, creativity in building out the tool meant that apart from just that quantitative level of analysis.
We were also able to capture granular personal details and T them up for Action in a way that wound up being a little bit of a safety net sometimes for the rest of our teammates, across the task force, and but it wound up doing a lot of good for our relationships with the guests, but also just, you know, contributing to the work that we were doing in the task force. At the end of the day, if we see somebody who's got a problem and we we can help them get connected with the person who
can fix it for them very easily. And because of Staff, Sergeant Schaefer's work, we were able to do that. Absolutely that's fascinating and sorry to interrupt you can I add one thing to that? Okay so in a major Johnson was talking about just now with serving as a backstop. One thing that was really important to me was to minimize friction and burden on the teams on the team leaders and I made sure. To set this system up in a way where the data is and what is a passively collected, right?
The reporters are submitting the reports. And a lot of the analysis is very automated, but I was pushing reports out to the team leads on a daily basis with all of the issues that they had that still required follow-up. And I think that the concept of push information versus pull information by defaulting, to push information to keep them updated. It was one less thing that the
team leaders have to juggle. At 10,000 of the things we're doing at managing their teams and so it served as a backstop but it also reduced the, the mental burden on the team leads because they knew that every day, they would get this report that would help them very quickly and succinctly Drive action in their communities. That's terrific.
So, thinking about the amount of thought and Care your teams are putting into to make sure that not only were folks getting a good transition from the camps but that they would I'd have a success in there, they were ultimately placed that ultimate outcome was beneficial to them steps on Schaefer was lost. You have on performance indicators, actually building on what major Johnson just said, you saw the issues with resettlement concerns and anxiety nosedive after shortly
after that event. But we also noticed that a lot of the other instability factors that we would see show up in the data. They were trailing downward as well, not as sharply as that, and it was Because none of them seemed related. And so, because we had this ability to see data and near real time, I noticed that after about two to three days, is able to arm our teams and have them. Ask people is that we're saying, you know that used to have all
of these issues. What why is everything so much better suddenly? And what it turned out was that not only had we relieve these people of lot of anxiety and concerns over when they were going to be resettled with that anxiety, was causing them to see all of the problems that were everywhere else. In their life. So once that this had been lifted off their shoulders. So to speak everything else about their wives.
Just seemed a little bit better and so it seemed very highly effective if not just in relieving that one concern. But we're leaving a multitude of concerns across the camp. And then along with that in terms of measuring performance, the way that the system was built, you can probably envisioned this pretty easily because we're able to automate so much other data. We're also able to automate things. Like, how many reports were being submitted by team or by marine or Soldier on an
individual level. We were able to see how long it was taking teams to follow up on the issues that they were identifying the case management system. That major Johnson mentioned. There were a lot of ways that we were able to very quickly, see what kind of performance are we getting out of our teams and then to the measures of
Effectiveness, right? Looking at how effective our interventions were In the community talks about the trend line earlier and how we were able to see things moving over time that was really helpful but then also the case management system we were collecting qualitative data in those reports on what the outcome was. And so that's not nearly as automated. You need to read through and kind of think critically about what the problem was.
But we were able to see a lot of information related to how the guess. Received that intervention or solution and they kind of Praise that they were giving our teams went from. We were kind of an item of curiosity at first, right? Being the only Marines at Fort McCoy and after several weeks, I was seeing things show up in the data about. We're so glad that the Marines are here. And that's not to say that the
Army wasn't doing a great job. It's just, you know, different uniform or easy for them to call out. Seeing these things show up in the data helped kind of reinforce the idea that Our team's work, just going through the motions and doing what they were told to do, but they were taking a lot of initiative and putting a lot of thought into how they can help improve the lives of these people.
If we can pause there for a moment and think about the same tools that you were employing, it sounds like you found a way to distill massive amounts of data into usable information to really Drive decision-making. What from those tools you think is useful for other operations soon. The tool that we were using to collect information is an application through picks the protected, information exchange. Some Of Affairs professionals may be familiar with it.
The specific app is called Mage, mobile awareness, geoint environment, it is DoD approved, and you only have to have a dot gov email to get access to it, which makes it great for working across the interagency landscape. I've worked with army civil Affairs professionals.
Before they've used it, I know Marine civil Affairs professionals that have used it. And so, especially if you were in an environment where you're maybe, you don't know who's coming and going, A place you are who you're going to have to hand this project off to next. Mages great for that because again, you can customize your projects, you can add it or pull people away from it as you see fit, you can make it open and
did closed under. There's lots of options that you have and then on top of that picks has a dedicated help desk. So, even though I might have been up at two in the morning with a question, I could send an email off to the pics help desk and they were usually very fast to respond.
Almost always within 24 hours of my question and the question would typically be, you know, hey, I see this feature but I can't figure out how to use it. They would get right back to your hop on the phone with me and walked me through exactly what I needed to do. So in terms of collecting the information Mage was an excellent tool for us and then taking the data out of my age, I mention Microsoft Excel earlier being able to build a customized dashboard that was hugely
important. And like I mentioned earlier, I didn't know how to do a lot of things. Did I just kind of knew what Excel was capable of? And then watch hate to say it watch some YouTube videos and did some Googling to figure out how to actually build these formulas. And and from there tweak it a little bit and it worked great for us. And so I would say that in terms of the specific tools that were being used Mage through picks, and then also Microsoft Excel.
It was a pretty simple system, but it worked and so how can professionals use that in future operations pics allows you to create. Kind of a Wiki style page where you can host a lot more than just some of the automated data that I was talking about pulling through this and so you can build products you can you know, post just about anything. You want to a site that you can create great place to store and
share information. Maybe you're Building Products need to be passed along to the next team and you're not sure if it'll be army or Marine Corps or state department, right whoever it might be a great place to store and share information. Owen and then Microsoft Excel. You know, I've seen many enlisted and officers alike struggle with managing just information. I won't even call it data,
right? For example, I've seen psyops greens that were trying to gauge not just how many messages they were sending out, or the types of environments are trying to influence, but also data on how they could gauge the effectiveness of their messaging. I took a look at their spreadsheet, they were using it was very man. Warmest, taking them a lot of time, just organize and understand the data.
And I showed them in about 15 minutes, how they could use pivot tables and filters to take almost no time compared to what they were doing. And it was hugely beneficial for them and allowed them to really understand how the environment was reacting to their message after that. And so, I would recommend introductory, maybe intermediate level, Excel classes can pay dividends in terms of your ability to Understand and manipulate data for your operations. That's terrific.
In the you're bringing up things set a lot of our folks that have an otherwise had experience working with those tools. I think civilian career is obviously assisted you in preparing you to be able to use those major Johnson, anything to add a weight. W was a weird deal in so many
respects. One of them was the nature of the of the Civil information environment that we were working in. Here, we've got huge amount of resources, dedicated to staying engaged with and caring for what is essentially a set group of people in a very small, geographic location. You know, one one army base and so we were able to I think compress a lot of the
procedures. And so, we were able to get into a cycle of civil reconnaissance action assessment and then reaction, I think it would be Challenging to do that, you know. I'm thinking about the experience of past guests of the of the one. See a podcast major, Rob Boudreaux his experience on the 31st meu on, its Patrol out in the Western Pacific right there.
We're you're getting off the ship and you're going ashore and working with civilian community that it may be years before another Marine comes back and works in that Community. Again, that's a much more challenging environment to apply this kind of methodology. Just because of the time and space challenges involved. What occurs to me is, just how important having some common repository available to to civil Affairs, practitioners, who are operating in the same theater
over time and over space. If it's you rob getting off the boat in the Philippines and being able to go ashore and meet with the local civilian government leadership, or Civil Society leadership. Super helpful, if you can do a similar project to what we did, You know, the talking to the folks, you know, identifying concerns and then lining that up
with data, it may be years old. But having that similar methodology, just stretched out over four months and years of time that to me is kind of the application of our method to a less unicorn, a less Black Swan environment. It's easy for me to say, not working in the Civil Affairs, brand shit us and opaque Ahmed quarters. But that to me is the is the thing too. Be on the lookout for, if I'm a tactical civil Affairs, professional deploying on an operation like that.
If I want to replicate the kind of success that we had at Fort McCoy, it's going to really be contingent on reaching out to see the work that was done by civil Affairs professionals before me, sometimes, months, or years before me, but then also documentary and recording the state of play, in The Civil information environment at the time that I'm there in order to set the guy who comes after me. Up for Success months or years down the road. It's tough.
Well, every good Marine Corps. Conversation must end with an opportunity for safe around. So a staff sergeant Shaffer, what are some of the personal memories that you're going to take from this mobilization? For me, I deployed to Afghanistan and some chick capacity is an infantryman in 2013 and the I think that just the ability to be able to help you know this many Any Afghan evacuees having seen Afghanistan? First handle was 10 years
earlier. It really was kind of a full circle moment, for me to be able to see these people and know that we're getting them to safety and that were putting measures in place to help set them up for success as they start their new lives in America. One thing that I'll always be grateful for was actually when we were at Quantico putting together a little bit of an employment supports that are his everyone knew the Lord.
Every subtle but really worried about being able to find work and so, you know, put together a some computers in an ncos faced with the Wi-Fi connection and we'd sit down with people one-on-one several hours a day and help them cranked out. Resumes, teach them, how do you search for a job on indeed or
anywhere else on the internet? And by the time that we left Quantico to go to Fort McCoy, I think we already had about a dozen or so people had job offers accepted before they were actually Be resettled to their new homes and just knowing that we were only able to put these people ahead of the curve in terms of how long it would have taken them to find employment. Once they got resettled, that for me, is a really good feeling
that always, always remember. Sounds like you got to see a lot of closure on a mission being there, firsthand in Fort McCoy. That a lot of your brothers and sisters and arms never really got to see personally. So that's terrific. Thank you. And I drew Johnson bring those home. First of all, just to say what a privilege and an honor it was to To work with the leadership at
task, force McCoy, civilian DOD. And on top of that is to thank the good work of the, the Marines and soldiers, that that I was working with staff sergeant Shaffer among them, of course. But think it ended up being more than 30 soldiers, Marines, civilians working on our civil Affairs. Detachment - reinforced, it would have been ugly on the org chart, but we worked very well together and really Rose to the challenge.
And the last thing I want to kind of leave in the Kind of, the of the listeners is really that the story of our country's relationship with Afghanistan. Didn't. And when the 82nd Airborne Commander walked up, the ramp of a C-17 and and flew out of Kabul and in August of of 2021. There were something like eighty or eighty-five thousand Afghan evacuees who wound up here in the United States and that was the big challenge. How do we keep the faith with
these people? How do we help these folks out? Who, who many of them? Years of their life. Standing alongside our brothers and sisters in arms. Putting themselves In Harm's Way to achieve the goals that we're working towards there in 20 years in Afghanistan. Again, above and beyond, just keeping faith with, with our Afghan guests. I felt and I think that we as a team felt that we had a duty to honor the work that thousands of women and men had done in Afghanistan.
Thousands of Americans had done there during the war and in a particular way they felt it was necessary to on. Honor the sacrifice of the Marines and a sailor, and the soldier who died at it, a be gate. Most directly that sacrifice was made to help these people start a new life in America. It was terrifically motivating and humbling to have that Heritage in mind is we were taking the Baton from our brothers in arms who had done
the work of the evacuation. We honor the work that was done by those who went before us. Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants. We felt that in a Way, and I am really, really proud to say that. I think that the work that we did was, was good Beyond any measures of performance or measures of Effectiveness. I think about, you know, a little English class full of fourth, fifth, and sixth grade girls who were answering the question to practice their English.
What do you want to be when you grow up and they were right there with, you know, I want to be a doctor, I want to be an airline pilot. One of them said, I want to be a US Army soldier, which broke my Marine Corps hard a little bit but my patriotic heart was was really, really Be proud to see that in here that in gave me a lot of Hope for these people.
And it makes me excited to think of what where these these people are going to go. And in the rest of their lives is American. That's really what I want to land on is just the sense of gratitude and the pride that I have in the work that we did to help these people and to and to write our our little footnote in the in the book. So thank you very much for chance to talk with you rob. We're really, really thankful for this opportunity.
Absolutely. Well you made your nation proud and you did right by the Marine Corps and we really appreciate you joining us Semper. Fidelis Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like And subscribe, and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show, or hosting an episode, email us at, see, a podcasting at gmail.com? I'll have the email and see a association website in the show
notes. And now most importantly to those, currently out in the field, working with a partner Nations, people or leadership to forward us relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. Stay tuned for more Or great episodes. One? See a podcast. Or great episodes. One? See a podcast.