Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Captain Sarah Spradlin. She's a veteran of the US Marine Corps serving with the Marine Forces Special Operations Command. She is now Doctor Sarah Spradlin, a leading researcher into the importance of emotional intelligence in special operations and especially female special operators. She joins me today to discuss her time on active duty and the groundbreaking scientific
work she's now been doing for years. Sarah Spradlin was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, and she came to appreciate military service at a young age. Her dad served as a Russian linguist doing military intelligence during the Cold War, and several aunts and uncles also served with honor. Spradlin says the stories from her dad's service inspired her, along with a desire to see the world, learn new things,
and meet interesting people. But she says, deciding to become a Marine is a separate and unique calculation.
The Marine Corps, in particular, is one of those things where when you wake up, you don't decide and ask yourself, am I going to join the service? You just kind of say if I'm joining the service, I want to be a Marine. I don't want to necessarily pick a service. I want to be a marine. It's very much in your blood. It's difficult to explain why you choose the Marine Corps because I think you choose to be a marine as opposed to choosing a branch.
And by the mid to late nineties, Spradlin was spending her college years preparing to be a Marine Corps officer. In ROTC.
I went through Virginia Tech Corps cadets talk about history and legacy. When I was at Virginia Tech, the deputy commandant was Colonel Wesley Fox, and so I had the absolute honor of having Colonel Wesley Fox as a mentor of mine and especially as a Marine option. Mitchipman that that's pretty incredible.
You heard Spradland mentioned Colonel Wesley Fox. By the time he was at Virginia Tech, Fox was already a Marine Corps legend. He was a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, was wounded in both, and received the Medal of Honor for his heroism at the Battle of Dewey Canyon in Vietnam in nineteen sixty nine. Spradland says learning from a man of Fox's experience and wisdom was invaluable to her.
I think about this concept of soft operators, and you know tip of the spear in the Silent Warrior, where you don't you don't boast, you don't run around, you lead by example. You do it quietly, behind the scenes, you know, shaping the environment, shaping a narrative for a positive outcome. And that's really what he did without me
even realizing it. You know, twenty five years ago, Colonel Fox, after you know, forty years of service, came over to continue to serve as the deputy commandant, and he would he would get up and the raider platoon, the Marine midshipman we would, you know, get up for pet and Colonel Fox would be up and he would already be running around the drill field is what we called it
at Virginia Tech. He'd already be out there running around, or he'd be gardening in the heat with udt shorts on and a pith helmet like in his late sixties and just quietly just making stuff happen in a very just arduous you know, the weather and everything, and he just was. He was probably a great example of you know, that silent warrior who really lived by example, and I had the opportunity to soak all that in at a very early age.
Spradland graduated from Virginia Tech in May of two thousand and one and was commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps. Just four months later. Of course, the US found itself at war as a result of the nine to eleven terrorist attacks. Spradlin explains how the already intense military culture intensified even more.
Before nine to eleven, in particular, going through the RTC program, we were in this non heightened combat deployment stage, if you would, and that ebbs and flows throughout history. And so I can remember one time as a freshman at Virginia Tech when the staff got up and addressed all of the cadets and said, we're going to be really real and really raw with you right now. In ten years from now, ten percent of you are not going to be here KIA training, accident, in service, whatever that
looks like. But statistically, look around, because ten percent of you are not going to be here. Of your peers amongst all four of the branches in the the ROTC program and in that moment it doesn't register, and you're young and you're motivated. However, once nine to eleven happened, I was at TBS, I was at the Basic School, I was at Quantico, and our XO called everybody in
to the auditorium to brief us. And after nine to eleven, I think that that concept of why those statistics were introduced to us really resonated in an appreciation of we had switched. We had gone from you know, a geopolitical state of non deployment in aggregate in like with mass deployments, and that was it like we had switched and the ten percent was coming and it wasn't just ten percent at this point there was. It was a lot more than ten percent that we lost out of that class
over the next ten years. I think that was probably for me an interesting kind of lever of change in perspective of things from pre to post nine.
To eleven, Spradland would not be sent to a war zone. Instead, her first overseas assignment was in Okinawa.
So after the schooling, I went to Okinawa. I was at third FSSG, so I was the age at third FSSG, which was unique because as a second lieutenant, I should have gone to a battalion, right if you think about a traditional route, I should have gone to a battalion, But I went to the group level, and so I got an early perspective of things at a little bit more of a strategic level, which really kind of think perpetuated a path that I went down where I never
ended up at a battalion per se. I just continued to work at a little bit more of a strategic manpower level as an adjutant.
But before long Spradland was back home and overseeing boot camp at Paris Island for female recruits.
This was when we still had Fourth Battalion, when we had our standalone female battalion. Fourth Battalion has since rolled up its colors and it's integrated now, but this was at a time when we had our standalone fourth Battalion was all female, all female hats, all female officers, and I went there and I was at Fourth Battalion with Oscar Company for about a year, and then from there I transitioned over to Support Battalion, where I took command
of a special training company. And Special Training Company is was the largest training company on Paras Island, and it's a conglomeration of all of the recruits who are they're in a transition period, so they've been either pulled out of training or they're waiting to go into training due to some type of illness or injury or mental health concern, or their physicality isn't meeting the standard yet, and we had to get them inside of those standards, whether it's
you know, pull ups, runtime weight swim call things of that. And then there's a whole nother unit within Special Training Company that was interesting, which is called the Basic Marine Platoon, and those are marines. They've graduated book, but they can't go on to marine combat training yet, and so they're
inside there too. So that was a really neat experience because I had twenty plus at all times, male and female drill instructors navigating really unique dynamics of recruit needs and trying to align that to the overall mission of you know, of Paris Island, of we want to increase retention. We want to get as many through and graduated as possible, so no matter how sick they are, we want to heal them and get them back in training, no matter
how hurt they are, injured. You know, no matter how much they don't want to be here, we want to convince them that they need to be here. And so that that was a really neat unit that I was at.
While at Paris Island, Spradland began working with others to streamline manpower in order to avoid having to bring officers and non commissioned officers out of downrange assignments for further training. That work led to the development of a special training court and the next step in Spradland's career.
And so we're at PA school and we built this strategic Manpower Officer course we called the mock Course Manpower Us our Course, and it was really great, and we'd run through about three or four iterations. And at that point, I was actually pregnant with my second daughter, and I was getting close to that ten year mark, and I kind of had to take a step back and ask myself, am I going to stay in after the ten year
mark or am I going to transition? You know, I had a lot of guilt, a lot of missed opportunities with my kids, and so I kind of floated this idea that I was looking for a change. I didn't know what that change looked like. But I knew it wasn't being deployed, being tad and being rushing to daycare with my kids at five o'clock in the morning because you know, I got to be at PT. So Marsak had stood up and things had kind of started to come to fruition with you know, how where are we
going with this? It wasn't just debt one right. Things were starting to build at that point. And I served as the retiring officer for a guny sergeant from PA School and about ten days later I get a phone call after the retirement and again he was like, hey, you heard this thing called Marsac And I was like, yeah, you know, I've kind of got an idea. They're like, all right, well, here's the deal. We're formally making things happen. We're in trailers in gravel parking lot over here at
Stone Bay. For all intents and purposes. We have a piece of paper that says these are the billets that the Head Corps Marine Corps is going to give us a bunch of you know, Grandfather Force recom Boba's in a bunch of GS positions. We're going to come together and we're going to turn this into MARSOK and we're going to grow it, but we need people who can
work strategic manpower. And so, you know, I share that backstory with you of you know, we built this course and it was really just incredible just happenstance opportunity that you believe in something and you build it and then it takes it takes on a lot of its own and so they said, you want to come over here and help build the force and help run the administration and manpower initiatives for the schoolhouse.
That's US Marine Corps veteran and Captain Sarah Spradlin. She's now doctor Spradlin, focusing on the value of emotional intelligence and special operators. Well hear how her shift to Marsock led to the work she does now, how that work is done and the impact it has on the effectiveness of special operators. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
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This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Captain Sarah Spradlin. She's a US Marine Corps veteran who oversaw the Paris Island drilling of marine recruits in the all female fourth Battalion. She also helped to develop the cutting Edge Manpower Officer Course. Shortly after that, Spradlin left to become part of the Marine Forces Special
Operations Command otherwise known as MARSAK. It was in that position that Spradland started to look into the emotional intelligence of special operators and pioneer various types of research in areas where the Marine Corps had not focused much in the past. Now it's become Spradland's focus in the private sector, but that path required several steps. First, Spradlin explains how our time at MARSAK led to the questions and eventually the search for answers on some of these questions.
So I had mentioned that assessment in selection was inside of the schoolhouse at the time. You know, a big part of what I was doing was filling these rosters of you know, what capabilities do these different things need and how do I get them? How do I grow them if we don't have them? How do we grow
them if we don't have them? So I'm really focused on making sure that the assessment in selection folks are constantstantly getting all the cadre that they need right that every time they do an evolution, they have the right people in the right place, and we're pulling them in from the conventional forces around Camp Lajune and just making sure that they have all of those right people in order to assess and select. And so as I'm doing this, I had the opportunity to go up and work at
the locations where they're doing the assessment and selection. So by proxy, I'm watching and listening to the process, the expectations, the characteristics and capabilities that they're looking for to select what right looks like in a Marsac operator. Over time, I'm watching this change and all these massinations of Okay, we want to look for this, and we need a
guy that looks like that. And then that kind of shifted and said, all right, well, no, I think as we evolve, we need them to look a little more like this right and all these different incredible attributes. And at the same time, I was going back to school and I was working on my doctorate in industrial organizational psychology.
And as I'm going through courses and doing the research of you know number of things, I started to feel like as we were kind of evolving this concept of what right looks like in terms of hiring right the first time for an operator inside of Marsok in particular, I started to see that we had these kind of these three pots of requirements that we were looking at.
And the first one was the physicality piece, right, I mean, you got to be able to run so fast, you know, all these these specific things, and it's objectively, we can measure it. There's a time and you got to run this far this fast. Then there's another pot and it is really that cognitive intellect. And again you know, very objectively,
we can measure these things objectively. There's legacy assessments and you know, these are individuals that we're going to ask them to operate very complex weapons systems that they may have never used before. We requires a very high level of intellect. But then there was this third pod of competencies and it was not clean. It was very dichotomous. We're asking them, you know, we want to find somebody
that has all these things. Oh and by the way, we want them to be a really, really good leader, but we also want them to be an incredible follower, and we want them to be really powerful in terms of being able to get up, speak publicly influence the masses. But we also want them to be able to just soak it all in and be a great, active and mindful listener so that they can gather intel and you know, cautiously navigate different conversations. And so it's all these dichotomous behaviors.
We want them to be assertive and yet empathetic. We want them right. And I mean, I could we could talk about these these all day long. And I stepped back and I said, you know what it looks like. It sounds to me like what we're really looking for is somebody who is incredibly physically fit in these parameters, unique parame somebody who is cognitively intelligent, crystal and fluid intelligence, and also emotionally and socially intelligent, which doesn't mean they're
nice and happy all the time. It means that they understand how to identify, assess, and manage emotional information in the right time to reach the optimal outcome in the best interest of all vested parties right and do these kind of push and pull of this emotional information that
they're getting from themselves and others. And so at that point is really was a big transition where I started to do a lot of research on the influence of emotional intelligence in hiring right the first time, in selecting qualified applicants, and what that looked like for a cross section of SOCOM candidates in their selection and then their subsequent development process as leaders.
Given the progress Spradland was making on her work, a jump to the private sector was not even on her radar. She was more than happy to stay at MARSAK. Eventually, she was presented with an opportunity that she simply could not refuse.
No, it definitely evolved. I mean when I initially got off active duty to go to MARSAC, I thought I was going to die as a GS at SOCOM. I mean, I was, you know, I was in it for the long haul. I wasn't expecting to then transition out and you know, solely focus outside. I mean, I still wanted to pursue the education while I was in, but I didn't think that it would take me on my own journey of a consulting firm and taking that journey.
That's US Marine Corps veteran Captain Sarah Spradlin, now doctor Sarah Spradlin. Up next. Spradlin will share how she started researching the mindset and emotional intelligence of women in special operations basically from scratch. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this addition is Captain and doctor Sarah Spradlin. She is a US Marine Corps veteran who served in
the Marine Forces Special Operations Command. She's also a pioneer in studying and applying emotional intelligence in the advancement of special operators. Spradlin explains how she got that science started.
Yeah, so as far as women and emotional intelligence, women's soft operators and emotional intelligence for all intents and purposes, there was none, right, I mean the concept might have been alluded to, but you know, I mean like peer reviewed studies on that particular dynamic. Really the research just didn't exist. And I think that's when we really stepped back and said, you know, we go back to the
like soft truths. Like the first you know, first soft truth is, hands down, humans are more important than hardware. But in the definition of that soft truth, it talks about the right people being put in the right teams
with the right capabilities, doesn't say anywhere about men. It doesn't say anything about physicality alone, and so I think collectively that the understanding that so Come works at the tip of the spear, and so Come, you know, understands that it is so much more than just being a snake eating knuckle dragon kind of you know, tough guy. It takes so much more than that to execute the operations and the tasks that are levied upon the soft community.
And so with that in mind, really thought, you know, how do we take this fundamental concept that's backed by years of neuroscience and cognitive and behavioral psychology and behavioral economics and sociology and anthropology. How do we take this and really pull apart and study these hypotheses on just to what extent is this fundamental value of EI as it relates to all of the opportunities for personnel inside of soft and then have it collectively come together as
a team. And what does that look like for women, what does it look like for men? Who needs which competencies?
And how do we put those puzzle pieces together so that the ability to identify, assess, and manage that you know, I mean just unconscious and conscious emotional information that's driving everything becomes a part of that puzzle that really actually like bolsters and evolves the underpinning of the first soft truth, which is, you know, putting the right people in the right teams together because humans are more important than hardware.
Spradlind says, one of the pillars of this research is realizing that emotional intelligence is pivotal to the success of special operations, just like physical ability.
Is absolutely I mean the psychopathy of just selecting the right people and then you know, developing them into of you know, a framework that is going to establish and sustain resilience in a like a VUKA environmental volatile and uncertain and chaotic and ambiguous environment is certainly psychology is certainly fundamental to it. Yeah.
She also elaborated on how special operators are now more aware of the need to pick team members that complement each other and not simply search for the exact same qualities.
One hundred percent. Yeah, and for those individuals to have the ability to know that, yes, these are my natural strengths, but I also know how to pull back and push forward with other ones that you have in case you're not there, and I recognize that I could use you right now and you're not here, so I'm going to kind of channel my inner view, and I'm I know how to with a positive intent, right And that's really important because this isn't about manipulation, It's about a positive intent,
you know, and really trying to reach an optimal outcome
for everybody. But being able to identify and say, hey, right now, I need to pull back a little bit with my emotional assertiveness and I need to push forward a little bit more with some of these other competencies that are going to help me gain trust and build the hearts and minds of the local populace, and win the hearts and minds of the local populace, and gain access and intel so that we can go in to execute the DA mission, the direct action mission, you know.
Right after this, Spradlin says, the science behind all of this is constantly evolving, but she is quick to stress that most of this science is not subjective at all. She says, it is intensely data driven.
Most of my research is data driven, so lots of ones and zeros, you know, lots of assessments that individuals have taken, lots of assessments, and you know, we get all the raw data on those assessments. They're very comprehensive, and we you know, we take that data and we run it through all kinds of you know, software and factor analysis and figuring out what right looks like in terms of laying it against norms or you know, expectations of our own expectations and then norms of you know,
data that has set a precedent. So I do work with a lot of data. But then likewise, the feedback and you know, the discussions and feedback that we have documented from one on one discussions, small group discussions has really been invaluable. I mean that context that we overlay
against the data is really that's powerful. I mean we can look at numbers and we can think we see something, but to then get the conceptual or excuse me, the conversational feedback provides context to the data and adds a lot more credence to it.
So what has she learned, especially about females special operators? Spradlin says, unlike other branches of the armed forces, people don't necessarily enter the Marine Corps planning to be in special operations.
If we talk about special operations at large, right soft at large, the process is most often, you know, you get recruited, and the Marines are really unique because we only inside of Marsok, we only take marines that are
already in the Marine Corps. The other services they actually recruit straight from the street and they say, you want to join the Navy, do you want to go straight into a NSW pipeline And they're like, yeah, great, Well marines, we make you still go through all of the You got to go to boot camp, you got to go to MCT, you got to get your MOS and then after you've got some experience on your belt, then you
can apply to marstock assessment and selections. So it's a different pipeline, right, But for all intents and purposes, you get recruited, you go through some kind of selection process, and then after that you go through a follow on training before before you go out. And I think that for the most part, in hindsight, candidates go, Okay, I should have seen that coming or I should have expected that,
but in the moment they don't, And that's intentional. The soft assessment pipeline is very intentionally unexpected.
One of the most scrutinized issues, of course, is the interaction between male and female special operators. Spradlin says, well, there are many obvious differences between men and women. It's what they have in common that bonds them together.
That's a lot to unpack, so I think, I mean, and I can only speak through my lens in my area of expertise, what's been most enlightening is that there's a standard and everybody respects the standard, and so the females are not looking for the standard to be modified, and the men are receptive to the notion that if you meet the standard, the collective standard, there's not just one, then welcome, right And quite frankly, if we as the women, don't meet the standard, then we don't want to be
there because we recognize we don't rate to be in that community. And I think the women that navigate that journey respect the standard, and the men that have already set the standard, you know, they maintain a sense of integrity of the standard and they appreciate it as well. And I think there's a lot of value to that, you know, just being able to separate the facts from
the feelings, if you will. And as far as the most challenging piece, I think we have a long way to go with still understanding the nuances of both physiological and emotional support needs. Of women in service. You know,
we are different, Our bodies are different. As we age, we navigate different things, and and and there's we have a long way to go in order to optimize that interdisciplinary support of women medically and psychologically, in order to truly optimize them to integrate into SOFT so that I mean, those resources need to be there so that we can make them stronger and in preventative medicine and you know, anticipated things with you know, along the way to to
really again optimize those women so that they'll best serve it. You know, if they if they make the standard in their part of SOFT, in whatever form or fashion, they're absolutely at peak performance.
This science is still in its early stages. But in addition to caring for the well being of special operators, another clear goal of this research is to make these operators as effective as possible. So what are the results?
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I see us. You know, the work that we've done, specifically as it relates to integrating EI training and development, emotional intelligence training and development into the curriculum, I see it being a variable that is going to help create improvements in cotif right, preservation of force, and family bringing this in eis as a fundamental I mean as a staple, right, not just like an idea, but bringing it in as a staple for
soft it is going to help build a foundation. That is, it's going to have these secondary and tertiary effects, positive effects on building a stronger preservation of force and family. It's going to help mitigate some of the mental health issues that we continue to work towards mitigating. It's not going to eradicate it, but it'll certainly help mitigate some of it as we give them these tools to work
on on their own and with their team. As a leader as a soft force, I think it's going to help more of these operators get to the top of Maslow's hierarchy, if you would, and really be able to look back and with a sense of not just self actualization, but sense of self transcendence where they can actually now see themselves and others and just very selflessly give back. I think it's going to get us there faster, even if that means it's another one hundred years. I think it's going to help get.
Us there faster. Now thriving in the private sector, Spradlin says she always wants to be collaborating with the armed forces in some way.
My business model is to make sure that we've always got a client inside of the government, inside of corporate, if you would, and then an institution of higher learning, so that we maintain a connection with all those different areas of professionals. You know, I've still been working with so Calm, doing a lot of great work with so Calm, do a lot of work with DHS, Department of Homeland, So continue to stay within, you know, definitely keep ties constantly with so Calm. It's been wonderful.
And she says seeing the military now embracing research that once seemed very foreign brings her great satisfaction.
I had a very magical moment this week. I was invited at the beginning of this week to come teach emotional intelligence at National Defense University to the senior leaders in the Eisenhearer School at the Strategic Leadership Program. And you know, sitting back and reflecting on kind of the idea that over a dec fifteen years ago, ish I introduced this concept of EI and everybody was like, what, No, nobody wants to talk about EI. Nobody wants what is this?
We're not talking emotion in SOCOM and that fifteen years later, I've been asked to introduce this to the most senior leaders, you know, those individuals that are going on to take six command across all four services, at all of the three letter agencies foreign governments, and that we have now gotten to a point where they are bought in top down, because that's what we need, right top down, bottom up buy in. That was very magical and I'm very proud.
That moment made me proud for the collective. I mean, we really broke through on that, and that was a
big deal. And in that course, Second Lieutenant Nicole Bashton was a second lieutenant of mine at PA school and I was the faculty advisor, as I had mentioned, and she was a colonel in this course at NDU, and she got a chance twenty years later to introduce me, you know, just coming full circle right, that self transcendence kind of concept and you know, you gave here and you're giving back here and they're giving just as much
back to you without anybody realizing it was. That's a pretty neat recent moment.
Spradland also points out that the work she ended up doing in the Marine Corps and the work she does now is completely different than anything she imagined when she began her time in the Marines, and she hopes that will resonate with young people.
Yeah. Great, Well, it's very humbling. It's very humbling, especially to know some of the people that were in the room with you know here, it's very humbling. I'm very grateful and at the end of the day, somebody listens
to it. Just you know, to sit back and appreciate that you don't have to know what your path is going to be, but just be intentionally passionate at whatever it is you are good at and just do you because you love it, and it'll take you just some incredible places with some incredible people.
That's Captain and doctor Sarah Spradlin. She is a US Marine Corps veteran and a leading figure in the integration of emotional intelligence into special operations. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans Center
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