 Hi, welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel at the two o'clock block. This is the military in Hawaii, and today we're going to talk about the Marines, specifically the Marine Corps base in Hawaii with, I guess, the commander of the base, Colonel Spiros Comparakis. I pronounced that right, Colonel. In. All right. OK. And the chief of staff who is a civilian, a former Marine, Doug Wasworth. Thank you gentlemen for joining us on the show. Thank you so much for having us today. We really appreciate the time. Well, I want to get an update on the base and the Marine Corps in general. I think it's important that people in Hawaii know what we have and how it evolves and its connection with the state. My recollection, the good way my age is that I remember when it was Marine Corps air base Hawaii and there were actual planes flying in and out all day. But somewhere along the line, that stopped. So can you talk about that for a minute? I mean, what's the history of this base? So, Jay, thank you so much for the question. So Marine Corps base Hawaii has a steep and rich tradition here in Oahu specifically, but kind of across the archipelago. We just celebrated. We did a footwork event in the remembrance of Pearl Harbor Bay just a few days ago. And what we remembered there and what we focused on, this was actually Navy installation. And so over the years, this is transition to a Marine Corps base, but we still are a maritime team. We still have Navy helicopters, Navy aircraft flying from our airfield as well as Marine Corps aircraft flying. And then it's also the home of our third Marine Regiment supported with logistics and other command element parts of the Marine Air Ground Task Force. And so today, we call it kind of the Hawaii MAGTAP, the Hawaii Marine Corps Air Ground Task Force. And we provide forces out to the third map or three map Marine Expeditionary Force in Opanawa for any of the events that could happen, whether they be humanitarian assistance, regular rotations, or if upon to go against facing threat. And so our team here is made up of, with myself and Chief of Staff, Doug Wadsworth. And then we also have a Sergeant Major, and that's our command team. And we basically provide support to our tenants to make sure that the base is ready, providing day in and day out what's required. An airfield that's ready and open and conducting operations, training area, which is Marine Corps training area bellows right outside of Opanawa, all the way over to Ewa Beach where we have the Kualoa Range training facility. And we also even have a liaison over at the Opanawa training area with the Army. Because that training area is so important to us, and we have a person stationed with the Army at that training base. And so I'm going to turn it over to Doug because he's got the continuity. He's been here since 2012, and he served here even before that to talk a little bit more about the history. Yeah, Doug, you are a very picture of continuity. Can you talk about how it works? I can. Interestingly, to me, I love history. And if you look at the history of the Marine Corps in Hawaii, especially the aviation that started over at Marine Corps Air Station Ewa over by Barbara's point, it's no longer open. Our base that you talked about used to be Marine Corps Air Station in Kaniole started out as an army force and then transitioned to include NAS Kaniole, which is what the CO talked about during the December 7th attack. It was an actual Navy base. And it wasn't until the 50s that the Navy departed and the Marine Corps took over. And then in 1994, it actually became Marine Corps Base Hawaii and encompassed all of those places that Spiro talked about. Most people think of Marine Corps Base Hawaii as just being Macaulay Peninsula, but it exceeds that. We do a lot more than that around the island and even a small partial river in Molokai. You just gave me a flashback to Bellows. The colonel mentioned Bellows. And I remember, I mean, I started, I came here in the Coast Guard in 1965. So I saw a lot of things, including course military. And Bellows has an airfield. You don't notice it, but it's there. And it's not used. I doubt it'll ever be used again, but Bellows was an air base, an airfield. Actually, you'd be surprised that it is still used. Is that right? It's not used in the fashion that it started. The runways aren't active as runways, but we have landing zones over there. And our helicopters and our MB-22, our Tilt River aircraft, pretty routinely operate in and out of there on those runways. So very interesting, a neat place. Well, you know what? I'm sorry, Colonel. To Doug's point on that, the way we use space in Hawaii is really unimpressed every day. It's a small facility, but the way that our operations and training folks have developed that place is we can conduct a raid, we can conduct a landing, we can conduct training to prepare our Marines for almost anything they'll see in almost any country they'll go into in the Indo-Pacific region. And so it's really impressive what the team here is able to do with an old airfield that still has a few old buildings and a few new buildings that prepare Marines for the full range of military operations. Yeah, especially including helicopters which don't require a long runway or anything like that. Yeah. I remember you have a significant rifle range over on the east side of Kaneohe. It's still in operation. It is. We have a great range training facility located, I'm gonna step back a second when you're talking about the crater area where we have. Yes. That crater is a beautiful pristine location where we're able to control fires very, very well. But at the same time, we have a team of environmentalists that actually help protect many of the things we have. We actually have the, wanna get it right, the red-footed boobies there that nest in the trees. And so we are able to create a beautiful and a perfect location for them to thrive in the same place where we're conducting live fire exercises and we have good fire breaks. So we get the reports when a fire breaks out, we have fire suppression systems and then we also have good fire breaks that keep the red-footed boobies protected very, very well. You know, just a digression, but in the day when I was visiting Kaneohe base on a regular basis, you know, it was a day when we were more active in the Middle East and Central Asia. And I tell you, every time I passed by the sentries there at the guardhouse, it welled up for me and I would thank the sentries. I know the sentries may or may not have been deployed there but I thanked them anyway. I thanked them for their national service. And I tell you the truth, I see the Marines is like, you know, at the frontier. Marines are taking chances, being exposed maybe more than the other services. And therefore I have a stronger emotional feeling about them than any other. Am I right about that or should I just relax over it? I think Doug and I were talking about this earlier today and so we also want to say thank you for your service and the postcard. I think there's a hindered spirit between those services that choose the word simper in their models and whether it be Simper Fidelis or Simper Paratus, it's those smaller units that create great small teams that go out and do the bidding of our country that kind of have a special place. And definitely in my heart, I work very closely with the postcard in my last job. I'm down in Bukit Park, Columbia. And so I saw that same spirit in the postcard and what they do, they go against the narco traffickers and in support of foreign countries. And it's amazing what small folks who are who allow leadership to be pushed down for the lowest level where we allow corporals to be leaders and we focus on low level leadership. They're willing to make and take a few risks as long as it's tied together with our core ethos our integrity and our values of our encouraging commitment. So we kind of weave those things to get through integrity. And then we teach that at the lowest level for the tenants, for captains, for corporals and sergeants so they can go forth and do our bidding. And then we trust them. If they do something wrong, then we're accountable and we counsel, we try to make them better. Yeah, why does this remind me of General Stackpole who I knew. And it was a kind of immediate leadership thing. You didn't have to spend five minutes with him and you were ready to follow him wherever he went. That's special marine quality. So what is, what happens at Kaniyoyi these days? I mean, it's mostly training. What's the, you know, the kinds of activities that the troops there conduct? If we can turn this one over to you. Sure, okay. Yeah, you know, we talk about, when we talk about our mission at Marine Corps based on why we refer to the three P's and it's producing readiness, projecting power and providing or promoting resiliency. And so it's a combination of things, you know, and while most of the focus for us who actually work at the base, as opposed to the operational tenants are focused on the training part of that. They're supporting the tenants so that they get the training they need to go into a combat or contingency situation. We also project, we do have an air station still with aircraft that come in and out. It's not just marine aircraft. The Air Force uses it routinely. So we project power. And we have teams of cyber, you know, folks who work doing real world missions. We have a Navy maritime patrol, you know, when Barbara's point closed, the P threes moved over there, they sent over to Marine Corps based Hawaii and have since transitioned to the P eight. And so on a daily basis, they're out hunting submarines. And so it's a combination of things. And then lastly, it's hugely important. And we put much more focus on it these days than we used to on that resiliency piece, not only for our Marines who work very long hours who deploy, whether that be to a combat zone or just to a training deployment, we focus on them, they're mailed to health, taking care of their families while they're gone. And so everything from child development centers to schools, to counseling and sexual assault prevention, all of those things go into what the base provides for all the folks who live and work there. And you know, just to add to what Doug said, those three P's, you will see when you come on for base. You know, it is the produce readiness, promote resiliency project power. And they're not just a mantra for us. It really is important. I would say if we were to add a P today, especially during COVID, it would probably be perfect for our resources as well because all of those things can't be done unless we're protecting our people, our location and to include our environment and our community. And so I think that protection piece, it's an important message as well. Yeah, let's turn to that. That's part of the show today for sure. It's how COVID came upon you and what you did and had to do and are doing and will be doing to deal with it. So I'll tell you a little story on how I got here. I was supposed to show up in late April, early May because of COVID, I ended up taking a humanitarian flight out of Bogotá, Colombia before Lauderdale and then transitioning to a commercial flight a day later and landing in Hawaii almost 60 days after my original arrival. And so I was, it was very strange going through Fort Lauderdale to Miami in about 35, 40 minutes in a taxi on an afternoon around 5 p.m. in the afternoon, zero traffic. It was very strange to be in Miami and Fort Lauderdale with no traffic at the beginning of June. And so when I arrived, what's special about Marine Corps Base of Hawaii is the first person who met me was Greg Wadsworth with a Sergeant Hernandez and those two were two people that I met and they're part of our HANA, our HANA, our family here. So it was really special to me to be met by, you know, people from my own demand team knowing that I might be a threat to them and the mitigations that they had put into place on my arrival coming from an unknown place like Bogotá, Colombia, where I could have been a threat to my own base on showing up. They had mitigations that they put into place and they were very good from wearing gloves to wearing masks. And this was all, you know, fairly early in COVID and they got a van big enough where all my stuff and me were separated from them. They got to the base and then they put me in a room and locked me in for 14 days and said, don't come out. And no, no man, no officer is above the law. That's exactly right. And it was amazing. I lived by that 14-day match that's the gold standard for COVID. We'd love to get that number down to 10 days or seven days. It would adjust how we do our operations, but 14 days is kind of the gold standard. And we continue to evaluate now that we're far along. But I came into a situation where Doug had been fighting this fight from the beginning here in Hawaii and I brought in with it some experience in Columbia where I was working at the interagency level, help a partner to look at best practices for those countries. And so together we came up with an idea where we will make decisions methodically using good data, looking and seeing what's going on on our base and off base and then pausing for about two weeks to see what the results of our decisions were. And so as we've transitioned to H.E.Con Charlie, a heightened state of awareness to wearing masks indoor all the time, we came through the Father's Day when everyone thought it was about to get really good and we came through July and then a bump in August. And so we watched the trends very, very, very closely with great experts who provide support from defense health agencies from our medical clinics. And then the other thing we do, and I think this is where technology comes into play is I have a meeting every single week with every base commander from Oahu. And we do it just like this in this forum and we talk about what's going on on our bases, how our numbers are looking, what questions we're getting from the local population, community and government and making sure that we're kind of aligned when it comes to what mitigations we put into place on our bases. I've been really impressed. Simple things that you wouldn't think of but a self-help team of CDs who puts hexaglass, you know, glued and together with blocks through my forage. And all of a sudden, the post office is a safe place for someone to work out of. Our exchange is a safe place to work out of for employees. And we don't think of that as technology but it really is part of the technology of how to beat or at least have a mid-term epidemic. And that's what we use here. We're not trying to beat COVID, we're trying to mitigate and operate in the age of COVID. It's like sea state for the Navy or the Coast Guard or weather. It's just something we have to learn to operate in until we have the vaccine for everyone. And anything you'd like to add to that? Yeah, sure. Jay, I think you're, when you alluded to or talked about the centuries at the gate and the young Marines, Marines traditionally, sorry about that. The Marines traditionally are very hands-on. You know, they like to get Marines into a formation and whether you're briefing a mission or you're briefing, you know, a Liberty plan for the weekend, we like to have people close and in tight. And so this was a real culture change when we went into the pandemic and we're required to do things from afar. And as Colonel Cooper-Roccus said, it's really been an amazing leap forward not only for our folks who run our communication systems to get them up to speed to be able to do things like Zoom calls or teleconferences and those sorts of things, but it's the people themselves, some of whom aren't real savvy with computers that we've had to train as well. And what I've seen happen is certainly, again, alluding to the CO's comment about the other commanders, not only on our own base, but our interactions with the other bases, the Navy, you know, the Air Force, the Army. We've actually gotten closer, you know, to those folks. You know, before we started the show, we talked a little bit about the collegiality, you know, amongst the commanders and the requirement to cooperate. During a pandemic, everybody has to cooperate and, you know, using technology to connect and to stay tight and close so that one entity isn't making a decision or going in direction that's opposite the other is hugely important. So it's worked out well for us. It's been a challenge, however. As the chief of staff, you're kind of like the executive officer, aren't you? I am, but we don't really have an executive officer. We have an operations officer who, when the commander's gone, will step in and do the military justice thing. So I operate, you know, part executive officer, part conductor. If you consider the staff in orchestra, in the CO is writing the music, I help make sure that the woodwinds play well with the drum set. You must be reading my mind because a couple of days ago, we had a show with a chorale, a bunch of fellas and girls who sing together. And in the past, they would sing in the same room. And when you sing choir style, just like you're talking about the Marines, you're together. You're within inches of each other. You're bouncing off the person next to you. In fact, it's very hard for you to function without that. So now they sing in separate Zoom boxes, in separate places. And to hear their director talk about it, they get very nervous. They're very uncomfortable not having people near them because part of being in a choir and a chorale is having people right next to you and playing off their sound. So I imagine the same kind of process goes on. It's that musical collaboration thing. It's togetherness. And certainly the Marine Corps, maybe more than other services are together. If I were a Marine, I mean, in my mind's eye, maybe someday, maybe when I get younger, I'll be a Marine. But I would feel uncomfortable without having my group around me. And now you're saying, well, wait, no, you got to deal by Zoom. And you don't have to maintain social distancing and you're not proximate the way you used to be. And so what does that do to the culture in the Marine Corps? I really like to hear your views on that. Doug, why don't you start? Yeah, you're dead on. It's just, even if you talk about a regular meeting and whether it's Marines or a combination of Marines and civilians, we key off of one another. And so, if you want to make a comment, you kind of do this and the CO is up front and he goes, hey, Doug, what do you got? And when you're on a teleconference, it's difficult to do that. And so you have to be very methodical about including and having everybody understand who's on, pausing long enough so that people can have that interaction and allowing them to talk. And then monitoring it such that, and we all have different personalities. Some people are quick to want to take the mic and run with it and others are shy and less prone. And so you have to kind of call that out a little bit. Meanwhile, people are calling from their homes like we are right now. And maybe the kids who aren't at school because school isn't in session or running around or the dog is barking and it really is challenging to kind of get everybody to focus. But we're starting to get pretty darn good at it. Well, Colonel, is this changing the culture? Is it changing the, I don't know, the way of looking at things in the Marine Corps? Are some of these changes in protocols going to be more long lasting than just through the COVID crisis? I think there's a real sense of hope that, so we've got the location for the money, Tom and Jennifer Berger, who spent time here in Hawaii, about getting us to a different form of Marine Corps that's operating its small teams. And so there's some of us who look at COVID and say, well, this is actually an opportunity where we should be practicing what our economy is asking us to do. As we look across the base, you've got different units that do different things. I mean, one of our tenants is a Southburn, sorry, I mean, an interpay company. So we've got the Admiral and his staff that sit on Kent Smith and we make sure the base is safe and secure for him and his staff. And we also have Marine Corps forces specific and we have Dallas West. These are very senior places that are in offices. So they have found ways to operate using technology, keep them running at full speed so they can ensure man control across the Indo-Pacum region. And I think that's impressive that they're able to do that and we hope we provide a little bit of that infrastructure that allows you to man control. And then, but we also have very packed units. We've got air crews that work in very tight spaces together to make sure an aircraft is ready. We've got at the infantry level, we've got higher teams and squads in about 15. And so one of the things we've talked about a lot with those peer commanders who are tenants that live and work on the base is what is your pod? What is your cohort that you have to have working together? And then that is who you spend your time with. And so we're very hopeful that, you know, now the squad might be that tactical unit that's very close to one another who are spending time. And if one of them gets towed and we fully expect that the offer team to get towed and then we take them off the line, we put them in quarantine and they get back on the line in a few weeks. Same thing for that air crew that's about five or six individuals. They have to spend time together. They're a very tight knit group, they operate, they eat, they sleep, they do everything together. And then if the worst-case scenario happens that something happens for that team, then we have a red crew behind them to pick up the slot. And so these are the ways when you have to get through a pandemic where it's not just six feet for everyone. Sometimes you've got mission requirements that force people to be together, but that group needs to be a work-solid group that spends time together. If something's wrong with any one of them, they have to identify for their China command and go isolate themselves. And I'm really proud of what I've seen across the base. The Marines do a very good job. The hardest thing we've had to do over the last six months is tell the Marine, it's okay to not suck it up because that's just what you do in the Marine Corps. You've got a cough, you've got a fever, you're not feeling great. Well, then you just work process hard. And now we're telling people, that's not the red badge of courage. That is bringing something in to the rest of the crew that actually the vector brings your readiness, not which it's taking time to think what we're doing. Yeah, if you have a significant number of cases that get by you, that affects your mission readiness. So this is for the Marines more than other groups, certainly more than civilians, it's really critical that you remain healthy as much as possible. You cannot have a pandemic inside the Marine Corps. And I would add, there's two reasons why that's so important for us. Number one, we want clean, tenant units that deploy to go to foreign countries without COVID because we don't want to be seen as the vector of COVID, we've got great allies across the Indian Pacific, Japan, Thailand, we're starting to do more operations in other countries, Australia. So the last thing we want to do is send a unit there that has COVID. So we work very hard to make sure that those units are completely clear of COVID before they depart Hawaii. And the second piece is we've got a population here that works on the base that are susceptible to issues of COVID. So those young Marines probably aren't gonna feel the effects, but we also don't want them to be spreading the virus, even though they're asymptomatic to people who could feel the effects like their own family members or the people who work in a commissary, PX, and facilities maintenance and those types of things. So does that mean liberty policy has changed, Doug? If I'm a young E1 or E2 and I want to run off and have a good time on a weekend, can I do that? And how do you control me? So I don't get in trouble in terms of getting infected. I guess that depends on what your good time consists of, Jay. I'm not telling you. Yeah, unfortunately, I guess I should say, we're not in this alone. If YPP were bustling and we were dealing with this on our own, it would be very, very difficult because Marines like to be where people are. And so despite our desire to hold them within the base and keep them safe and have activities for them to do like anybody they want to get out and about. But because out and about is so restricted right now and because we've been very careful about taking care of our foods and ensuring they don't get COVID, we've put a lot of focus on doing things differently on base to try to invigorate, you know, liberty time because it still exists. And it's everything from athletic competitions where you're not getting together, you're doing it individually to art competitions, cooking competitions for families, for children, for the Marines themselves, trying to find things to do on base so that they can stay safe and still get some of that resilience that I talked about earlier. And then as things open up, they're able to get out to the beaches, you know, out and around Oahu and the state and then downtown to the degree that restaurants are open in things. So certainly things have changed but there are still opportunities out there to have fun and to get involved. So we keep our eye on that as well. Yeah, as the Colonel was suggesting, you have to stay in touch with what's going on outside the gate and, you know, adapt yourself to the environment around the community around, especially now. But we're almost out of time and Colonel, I wanted to ask you one other question. You've had decades in the service and you've seen a lot of changes, I'm sure. But there have been, you know, profound changes over the past few years, both externally, you know, operations outside the country and I'm sure within the Marine Corps itself. And so, you know, you describe the horizontal and vertical and collaborative nature of command and various commands in the Marine Corps in the Pacific. How have things changed? What are the senior officers talking about? What's the wardroom discussion these days? I think one of the things we talked about, you know, the elephant in the room is COVID and is it, are we prepared come April, May, June if a vaccine makes it out in large numbers for what to do next? And do we return to February of 2020 or do we advance to June of 2021? And I think we all agree we want to advance to June of 2021 and beyond thinking about how we use technology during COVID to make ourselves better and how do we support our missions, whether it's the basis of this. And I would say the next thing we're looking at is, you know, what is the most likely thing to happen and what is the worst case scenario to happen? So we've got pacing threats who are challenging us across the world and whether it be in my last job in South America or here in Opecom, there are people in countries that want to challenge the United States. And so we in the Marine Corps from, I think, private all the way up to the senior most general want to be that ready force that is challenged by Mother Nature or our pacing threat that we can respond not only tonight, but today. Now we say it in Okinawa where our hierarchy is used to say fight tonight. Now they say fight today. And our mantra here at Marine Corps is why is that we are ready today for the fight tonight. So when they call on us, we want to be ready to go out and support. And the most likely is probably an HADR, Manicaring Assistance Disaster Relief scenario where we need to go. And the Marine Corps is literal, which means we working with our maritime partners can get into places where other people can't whether it be by helicopter, by Osprey, by small boat working with the Navy. I mean, this first Navy, we talk about it all the time, but I think it's real. And there's a return to our maritime brother since sisters. And so what I would like to see pushing on to June 21 and beyond is what is that relationship with our maritime partners, the Navy and the Coast Guard and then our allied navies and Marine Corps across Indo-Kaikon. And how do we just make sure that we're there fighting our way in, but being a constant ally and friend and the friend of choice. And that's what we'll be in the future. Well, we're in the middle of the COVID and it affects everybody, certainly. It's clear it affects the military as well as everybody else. But query, and I really don't know the answer. Is there some priority involved for the military and the vaccine? In other words, we know that for example, if you're a hundred years old, you're likely to get a shot. But query, if you're 20 years old and enlisted Marine, are you likely to get a shot? Is that coming down the pike? Do you have expectations in that regard? So I would say we do have expectations, but healthy, aged males and females will probably not be our priority for giving a COVID vaccination. It's going to be our first responders just all across the town. In fact, our plan almost mirrors the CDC's plan that was developed with the CDC. And so the Department of Defense Health Agency has a great plan to get an initial tranche here to through TNC, through the Trippler Ardeline Medical Center, and they'll focus on those first responders. And then eventually as we get second and third and fourth, we will move down a tiered system to get the deployable units to make sure they show up at allied countries, completely clean. And then folks like me who work on bases and hopefully are of a healthy age will probably be last in line. It's of a healthy, healthy age. And so that's okay. I'll gladly take it when it's time. I'll also gladly put the right people in front of me to get it if you are getting wherever they need to go. All right. Doug, are you in the same place? So you're older then, aren't you? So. Doug gets it tomorrow, right? I wish you could stay. You're only as old as you feel. There you go. My own view is that I'm 16 and I'm sticking to it. I like it. Perfect. Thank you, Colonel. Colonel Comparakis, Doug Wasworth from Kanioa. Make that the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kanioa. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great to talk to you. Aloha. You're welcome.