 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm Major Rich Horror and it is my pleasure to introduce our next guest speaker, retired Colonel Mike D'Argenio. The following video covers Colonel Mike D'Argenio's career as a soft aviator, leader, and innovator. Retired Air Force Colonel Michael J. D'Argenio was selected as an Eagle for his leadership and innovation. He was tasked by Air Force Special Operations Command to lead the rapid fielding and deployment of the U-28A Tactical Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Platform in the summer of 2005. Colonel D'Argenio started his career flying the C-21A, then joined Air Force Special Operations Command in 1993. Joining the 16th Special Operations Squadron, flying the AC-130H Spectre Gunship. After combat deployments to Somalia and Bosnia, transitioned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron, flying the new AC-130U Spectre Gunship. Colonel D'Argenio's crews played critical combat roles in Albania and Kosovo. Then following attacks on September 11, 2001, he led a 6-ship deployment of AC-130Us to support combat operations in Afghanistan. His crew received the Distinguished Flying Cross for its role in the initial raid and airfield seizure of key Taliban objectives on 19 October 2001. In 2003, Colonel D'Argenio was tasked to integrate Air Force Special Operations Aircraft as part of the Aviation Tactics Evaluation Group. In Spring 2005, while serving on the Joint Special Operations Command Staff, there was a significant shortfall in tactical ISR aircraft. Colonel D'Argenio reached out to Special Operations Command and then interned to the Air Force Special Operations Command to solve the critical gap in combat operations. In December 2005, Colonel D'Argenio was assigned as the commander of the 319th Special Operations Squadron. It was immediately tasked with the rapid acquisition and building of the U-28A aircraft and the tactical ISR mission set. In a joint team, Colonel D'Argenio deployed the first two aircraft in June 2006, less than nine months from initial design. From fall 2006 to December 2007, 319th Special Operations Squadron grew from 6 aircraft to 14 from 30 to 150 personnel and building the Block 10 and Block 20 aircraft modifications. Fostered and unquestioned Mission First mantra, the 319th U-28 quickly became a required aircraft that stacked with the joint communities most critical missions. Colonel D'Argenio retired in 2013 following Group Command and 26 years of Distinguished Service, supported by his wife and four children. The UALS program aims to capture the lessons and insights of air power leaders. The format of Colonel D'Argenio's speech today will be an interview on stage followed by question and answer session with the audience. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Colonel Mike D'Argenio. Thank you for joining us today, sir. Thanks, Rich. First off, I just want to say that I'm honored and humbled to be invited to the event. This goes contrary to the quiet professional ethos that we live out in our daily lives. So I know you had quite a strong lobbying team behind you and I see quite a few subdued patches of criminals out there, so you had them to blame. But I have enjoyed our conversations and I appreciate your patience going through all of them. I also appreciate the Air University and their work on making my ramblings over several hours into something that's somewhat intelligible to read, so I do appreciate that. When you asked me what we want to do for the stage portion, and really I just wanted to kind of continue our conversation and just leave it to you to take it wherever you think you'd like to because the audience would be most interested. I never know what's going to come out of my mouth, so it's in your hands. When I gave you that response, I did not realize that this would be a great event for you, so no pressure, don't fuck it up. But again, I'm honored to be here, so thank you. I appreciate it again, sir, and to the folks in the audience such as General Holt and a few others that helped convince you to be here, I really do appreciate that. As a graded event, I needed someone that I could actually work with, and that's definitely been the case the last 10 months. So the quiet professional and someone that potentially talks too much, we should be able to make this happen today. Sir, throughout the last 10 months, one thing that's been constant, and we heard in your video, is that Mission First mantra. So moving into the early part of your career, what started developing that Mission First mantra that is part of the community now to this day? For me, that comes really down to a clear understanding of what is a supporting force and what is a supported force. And I think in the Air Force, that's a hard thing to grasp and understand. I know certainly for me it was, coming into the Air Force, for me it was all about me, what I wanted to do. And that was kind of reinforced early on, even when you go through pilot training. What's the first official photo that they take of you at pilot training, is they hear a shot in front of your primary trainer. So again, it's you up in front, and that's what you're thinking about. And then you're fighting for what airplane do you want to fly, what mission do you want to do, and you're fighting for that in your class ranking. And you get to your first squadron, and it's okay, what positions do I need to have, and what do I want to do to send to do what I want to do. So I think for me, it was a constant path of maturing, but that's the start point, and that's what I had to kind of understand and get through. And that kind of goes across all of our disciplines. It wasn't until I really got to AFSOC where I understood more what a supported force requires and what a supporting force needs to do. So it wasn't until I got up close and personal with our CCT brethren and our JTACs and our STS folks and the ground forward assaulters, our helicopter assault forces, and really got to understand really what that team consists of and what those terms and what those roles really meant. So as I took what I thought was a flawed understanding initially, and matured hopefully to the point where I was fortunate enough to be asked to command a squadron, and that's what we focused on. No matter what the AFSE, no matter what the duty of the job was, it was what is your role for mission success and mission impact. And that had to be clear across the board. So we trained everybody, and every discipline that we could, we expected everybody to deploy, and everybody did. So they had that direct connection with the mission and the impact, and that kind of lays the foundation for that mission first mantra. It's just natural at that point. I understood, and to kind of go off of what Chief Mark was talking about a little bit, and along the mission first lines, there he is talking about boots on the ground in Afghanistan. You talked a little bit about, in the interview you said your first deployment in AFSOC was actually as an L&O, and you learned some of those lessons firsthand about what it takes to understand that joint environment, understand what's going on on the ground. Yeah, I mean, I think that deployment was probably my first real challenge in my understanding and my perception of reality. You know, a single seat pilot training, two seat airplane first assignment, get selected to go to AFSOC, thrilled with that opportunity, get checked out in a 14 man crew, AC-130H gunship, and thought I understood what the team and the goal and the mission was about. And then 93 Task Force Ranger happens, and I'm on leave, I get recalled thinking, okay, I'm checked out, I'm mission qualified, I'm going out the door to go blow shit up. Well, not so fast. I got tagged as the SOC sent L&O and found myself within the week on the ground in Mogadishu, and that was a much different perspective for me. So, now here I found myself newly checked out, you know, fangs hanging wide out, wide open, ready to chomp in something, and I find myself in the joint environment up close with not only the ground user, but that battle staff and that command staff as an L&O. So, I quickly learned that it wasn't me coming to the table saying, here's my platform, here's my capability, here's everything that I can do, and here's what I'm going to do in the next 24 hours. That fell flat very, very quickly. It was a crash course and okay, what do you need? What effects on the battlefield are required for you to be successful, not only on the ground, but on the helicopter, you know, pre-strike and post-strike. What is it that we need to bring to bear? How do I not only time my platform, but all the other pieces in to be able to do that? So, that was my crash course in the joint environment, and I wouldn't have traded for the world. It happened right about the right time, I think, when my head was probably the biggest, that I really wanted it to be, and it was time to kind of step back and understand, okay, what is your role in this piece and the supported and supporting forces element? Continue on that topic of understanding your role. What was your technique as you became mission qualified in the AC-130 and then rolling into becoming a mission aircraft commander? How did you take those lessons and then be able to run a crew of 14, 15 individuals? Yeah, first I thought the being on a 14 person crew was going to be a huge challenge, and it was. I think it was like for many others that you're leading a team, no matter what the size of the team is, whether it's a two person team, 14 person team, 10 person team, ground team, aircraft, it didn't matter. The job was trying to figure out how to get that element moving all together, and it harkens back to most of what Charlie and Mike was talking about. It's trust. It's trust in the folks on board to be experts at their jobs. You're counting on that, and then you just have to put those pieces together at the right time, at the right environment. Keep on the same theme of building that credibility, knowing where your role is in a unit. You went from the 16th SOS with an AC-130H, and then we're part of that early days of the AC-130U with the 4th SOS. Can you talk about understanding what your role is as you grew in seniority and experience within the gunship? Well, I mean, you climb the ranks, and your ability to, you know, you become an instructor, you become an evaluator, your ability to impact what's going on around you is significant. You know, for me, I wasn't the initial cadre for the U-boat. Folks had gone out to Edwards and had done that. So I was kind of that next wave of folks that were kind of tasked to get the squadron combat ready, you know, pass the ORI and validate and get the asset airborne and forward. As you were becoming more experienced, became an aircraft commander, you started having some, there were some conflicts in the Balkans in Eastern Europe. Can you talk about some of the lessons learned that the community saw in Mogadishu, for example, and then moving into an area where there were some potential surface-air threats, for example? How did you manage that crew as an aircraft commander? Well, I can tell you that the Mogadishu environment was permissive, in my opinion. You know, IR manpads and SAMs, but nothing significant. So we had, from a soft element, freedom of movement and maneuver in that respect. That was different than the Balkans, Kosovo, kind of an environment where Kosovo was more of a semi-permissive to non-permissive depending on where you were involved in that country and that conflict. So I think one of the lessons that I took out of the Kosovo experience was the training textbook doesn't always translate positively to combat real-world operations. It just doesn't. So oftentimes I saw and felt and was pressured by other folks on the crew and adjacent crews to let the textbook chase you off target. And I guess the example I'd use is back when we were flying at that time, we did not have an electronic warfare range to go out and train on. There was no EW range for the gunships. So training to that environment was all simulated. We simulated it in our ground and flight training scenarios. We would have an instructor pilot or an instructor Iwo provide the scenario, brief the threats, place them along the training routes and in the engagement areas and then kind of role play on back of the airplane as you go throughout your training scenario. So it kind of bred more of a black and white kind of an answer and there wasn't a whole lot of pushing the limits. You know, you were getting through checking the box and moving on your training syllabus. Well, when we got to Kosovo, I kind of saw that smack us right in the face in that particular environment. And one night in particular, we were assigned a series of targets along the Kosovo border. So the gunships were working in close proximity to the border and we had three to four airplanes launched that night. Weather had rolled in, obscured all of the targets. IR, you know, SAMs were active all through the day and into the evening and the radar threats were coming up and popping off. They actually launched a couple, but the systems became quite active. So folks were ingressing into the target and we were getting the threat updates and the radar, SAMs, again, the textbook said, you know, if they're within this range in my target, I'm not going. So a good number of the other aircraft had turned back and we thought through it on the airplane and said, okay, I've got some real time tipping and queuing that I hadn't had before coming over the satellite feed. I trust the E-WO, the electronic warfare officer. I trust him on his gear. I trust him to identify signals. Let's plan an ingress and egress route that we think will work. And then while we're doing that, now have you better freaking, you know, get schooled up on the targets because you're shooting the IMC through the radar at the targets for that night. So it was contrary to what the crew initially thought was the answer and it was contrary to what they were trained and reflected to do. But again, we just, you know, hack the watch, work through it line by line and executed. We've got a bunch of flat coming back in terms of questions as to how, what, and why. But at the end of the day, you've got to use all the tools at your disposal. You have to trust the folks that are on board with you and you need to execute the mission. So that was kind of my takeaway from that particular set of missions and that environment. Putting your commander hat on, looking back at that time, what was the discussion of risk to mission versus risk to force in your mindset? Well, that particular set of missions probably is a great example because, you know, risk to mission was not engaging the targets. Risk to force was us solely. I would translate that over to one of the more complex missions that we find ourselves responsible for, where the risk to force isn't, and again, it can't be focused on us. The risk to force is the ground to force element, whether it's via convoy, whether it's by Hilo, what is the risk, that risk to force, what is that risk to the mission on target and egressing. So that's what has to be balanced. It starts with, yeah, I want to take, I want to take everybody on the airplane that I brought in target back with me, but most importantly, and what we harped on and emphasized every single day in the 319th was your job's not done until every single eagle's back in the wire. So that was the risk to force and risk to mission that we had to calculate. So the phrase we hear a lot in the U-28 community is once the boots are on the ground, know who you're working for. So just kind of maybe to continue that, a little bit, but once the JTAC's on the radio with you, whether you're a gunship or U-28 or whatever the platform is, could you describe a little bit further that idea of who has take on or who you're supporting at that point? Without question, you're supporting the ground force commander, and that's through the JTAC, through the guy on the radio, to that team leader down there. So that's where you're taking your direction from. That's who you want to provide the best picture, the best situational awareness. And quite frankly, we saw it in the gunship community, and then we, you know, shrap-layed that into the tactical mandir, so our community is that you need to be an extension of that JTAC and of that ground force commander. So whatever load you can take off of him is what you absolutely have to do. So, and that, when we, you know, activate the squadron, we kind of set up what we wanted to do short-term, long-term. One of the things that we absolutely wanted to be able to do was take that load off and be more than just, you know, a manned ISR platform overhead. So that meant training ourselves to be able to run the air stack, to be able to shed that load, to be able to take, you know, receive folks into that stack, brief them, put them in at a whole point, get their essay up, direct the various sensors on target, because we had the essay to be able to do that, let the JTAC focus on his close-in fight and work with that ground force commander. So again, that's something that we kind of did and focused on very, very heavily. And we did it very quietly. I don't think, well, I know, we didn't ask permission to send anybody to EGOS. We didn't ask permission to get a mobile training team out to Herbert and do a TAC-A, FAC-A training course for our folks. It's something we just said we had to be able to do. So you brought up a lot of different tools to bring up your situational awareness. So looking in the 1990s timeframe, before we get into some of the innovation that happened with the U-28, can you talk a little bit about some of the barriers to innovation that you saw in the gunship or how long it took to get some of the new technology on to build that situational awareness? Well, yeah, I think there was... I mean, SOF and AFSOC was a lot more flexible, a lot more engaged than what I saw in AMC when it came out of my first assignment. So that was a given. But there still was a hesitation to move fast in terms of modifications, equipment, TTP upgrades, because when I got to the squadron, there was a good number of combat season folks, but it was from an older series of conflicts. So that was, again, came back to it. That's the way we've always done it, mindset. And that's just... that's not going to get you where you need to go. So very simple. Why are we still using 40-mic-mic mesh to sparkle and designate a target foreground force? Why are we creating that signature? Why can't... I'm getting targets pointed out to me by the ground team using laser pointer and ISLIS mounted to the barrel of their weapon. Why don't I have something mounted to the barrel of my weapon that I can do the same thing from five, six miles away? And so we asked the question and we got a, okay, it's going to take a couple of years to work through. Well, that wasn't the answer. So, you know, Bob Monroe and a couple of other smart folks at the unit said, well, I think we can mount this inside the shell of a 105. We can put it in the bore of the airplane. We can trick the fire control computer to take out the lead and lag. We can point it where the sensor's pointing and we can do that. All right, let's give it a try. So we went out to the ramp, installed it. Everything seemed to work. We did our safety check and took off and it worked in the airplane as well. But there was a hesitation when we landed and a few folks got their asses handed to them, but that's what needed to happen. So that worked for a little while, but what it did was it just woke up the headquarters machine saying, yeah, you're right. We do need to be doing this better. We can't take two years to crack into the optics of a sensor to be able to do that. Let's figure out a way to do it now. So going back to a little bit of the mission first discussion and the job fulfillment that that provides is having the understanding of what that mission is. Pushing into the late 1990s, could you explain a little bit of the iteration of the training scenarios that were going on around the country preparing for possible events and then talking about the decision that you and your family ended up making based on that mission at the time? Yeah, okay. So this comes back on a personal level that all of us have to face and ask ourselves the question, is the mission worth the price? What am I paying? What is the family paying? What's going on against what's the mission impact? And so for us, for me personally, coming into the 2000 and 2000 timeframe, we at AFSOC and gunship specifically had trained and prepared for a series of missions that we thought had significant impact and significant national level importance. So we would plan, we would go into isolation, we'd go out west, we'd rehearse, we'd build plywood mock-ups. We would prove that the plan was feasible, suitable and acceptable and would succeed and then we would see those plans go up to DC and the answer came back three out of three, no. We're not going to do that. So in one instance, the solution was a volley of T-lams over into the country and it just, in our opinion, rearranged the rubble, didn't have the impact that it needed to or the result. So Lori and I, we talked about it. We said, we are spinning our wheels here. I'm on the deployment bandwagon. It's a revolving door, you know, gone better than half the year and at 60 and 90, nine day pops and that was just continuous. So he said, hey, I got my health. We can, I can get a job at the airlines. So I dropped papers, I turned down ACSC. I said, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go make a life for the family. Fortunately, that didn't happen. But unfortunately, the events that turned that was the events of 9-11. So that turned it for me. Similar, I'm assuming that a lot of the folks in the audience brought them into the military and energized to serve. So I quickly found myself back with a no kidding mission and a purpose and Lori and I, we talked about that and it was, again, focus was back to me and to what I wanted to do and 9-11 just helped. It was the shock to help me flip that back in the right priority order for the family overall but for the mission specifically. So we stayed on after that. And we're glad to still have you. So getting in 9-11 occurs and at this point you're working in group Standoval and just wanted to get an idea of what was it like in the 4th SOS and then specifically for you as an attached air crew to the 4th SOS working in the Standoval shop. So how did the 4th SOS get spun up to go downrange relatively shortly after? Yeah, so I was in group Standoval. I watched a second airplane hit the towers on the news live and immediately knew that we were going to be busy for a while. So all the squadrons started spinning up and getting ready to deploy and to mobilize and the 4th was in that same boat. So we got called in and we started crew starting to get assigned and plans started to get put into place and I know you're baiting me with this, aren't you? So, but somebody at the time in the squadron had decided that this show was going to be for assigned air crew. So attached air crew, you're attached to a reason you're not going to be included. We've got to get on the road quickly. So I left. I got out of the room and left and then I was promptly invited back as soon as they realized that. But it was a time to put together and address all the things that had frustrated us operationally up to that point. Operating above 10,000 feet in non-pressurized airplane, we had done that over Bosnia and in Kosovo and we had learned to operate in that environment. But those missions weren't as much of an integrated soft package. It was a lot of armed overwatch interdiction. So here we were going into opening night that was going to be a rather sophisticated ballet of pre-assault fires by conventional air forces, strafing our bomb runs by B-1s, B-52s and then the soft wave right behind that. So we had to learn to work through a lot of things that had plagued us, just as simple as communicating on the airplane on the hose more effectively with multiple radios firing. The hit night for us, we kind of moved towards the get-go time frame. We had to put two gunships in close proximity over a target area to engage multiple targets simultaneously and be responsive for immediate fire missions. We needed to figure out a way to do that. So I learned very quickly putting that together and then executing that was that you absolutely just can't micromanage. You cannot micromanage. You have to leverage the expertise of those around you and that's exactly what we did for that particular instance. We had a handful of us, not just pilots, but vokos, navs, gunners. Everybody went into a room to whiteboard and we figured out, hey, J-Fire doesn't cover this. How are we going to get max fires down, pre-assaults, immediate calls for fire and then cover the Hilo-X-Phil for that time on target? And we figured out a way that would work. We executed it, it did, but that was one of the, hey, don't micromanage. Just get the smart people in the room and let's figure this out. That was one of the prep elements going into Afghanistan. Moving out of that first deployment to Afghanistan, kicking off the war around the same time that Charlie Mike was there. You end up coming back and you get pushed to go to the special plan shop. I was curious if you could talk a little bit about your transition to the wing staff followed by moving into the joint staff. Just talk about what that level of expertise is. How do you lead in a joint environment to let the joint community know what the Air Force can bring to the table and that affects place planning like you were speaking of earlier. Yeah, so I see timeline-wise. You know, I was at wing plans at the first sal and worked my way through for the OIF, you know, battle in, you know, with, you know, Sadaman country. You know, the piece I had to help work through was how do we use the combat Air Force, the CAF, to blow a hole out, get a soft assault force into multiple objectives in that threat environment. So that was my task and we figured out a way to knock that out. Did OIF and OEF and was flying and now I find myself being tasked to go into the JSOC staff. So for me it was another instance of maturing. I thought that we had a very well-run team, very good solution at the wing level. Now I find myself at ABTAG for the air component within SOF at the time and I found the A-team kind of staring me square in the face. What I thought I knew, I had not a clue. I was looking at a series of experts that were absolutely experts in every discipline and that was their job and that was the foundation, the baseline. So they understood mission requirements, they understood support to the ground force element better than I ever had imagined and I learned very, very quickly to improve my understanding of that. And again you were exposed to the joint tribe so you've got the Army SOF units, you've got your Navy SOF units and the Air Force SOF units. So those tribes, each one of them are different. Each one of them plan differently, they execute differently, they will follow their branch and sequels and adapt differently and you absolutely have to understand that piece going through and I had no appreciation for that prior to getting into that position. So again it was how do I put the pieces together at that level. Thinking about this idea of building air-minded joint leaders, looking back at your time, Lieutenant, Captain, early Major, what do you wish you would have heard to prepare you better for that joint environment? Well, from a staff perspective, I hate to say it in this environment but I wish I had understood and was more proficient at MDMP, Military Decision Making Process because that's the way that staff executed and so I had to learn that very, very quickly and in order to communicate effectively and at that level I had to use their language so that's something that I needed and didn't have walking into it. I think I spent a good amount of time, I think apologizing for the Air Force within the staff and I don't mean that, you know, projectively it's just the reality of the Air Force thought differently and thinks differently and their culture was different and quite frankly some of the soft elements had little time or patience for that. Again, they didn't want to hear what you couldn't do or why you couldn't do something. Don't say the word, crew rest, don't fall back in that level of thinking. Again, project yourself forward, what is it that has to be done and I wasn't prepared for that initially walking in, I learned very, very quickly and it kind of took it from there. You talked a little bit in the interview about technique that you saw relatively often was people come up and ask you a series of questions, how do they get to know what level of expertise you have? Can you speak a little bit to that? I mean, I experienced that first day so in that community the first time you run across something, again it goes back to can I trust the guy? Is he an expert? Can I trust him? And there's an immediate test right off the bat, you're going to get probably five questions asked to you. The person that's asking the question, those series of questions, he knows the answers to at least two or three of them and he's making sure you're not bullshitting them and you get through that initial engagement, satisfy them that you know what you're talking about, that you're thinking and committed along the proper lines and then everything else falls into place from that. But I experienced that the first day walking in the door and I was like what in the world, why is he asking this? And then as I come to realize it after just a very short time, that's the way it is. Speaking of trust and then also a flat command structure that you're dealing with once you got to the joint staff there can you talk a little bit about how General McChrystal ran his staff and the idea of eyes on hands off that you got to experience firsthand? Yeah, I mean I served under General McChrystal, I remember Craven and General Thomas at various times in the community and probably beyond the mission focus and being able to technically put things together, the ability to run a flat and transparent organization was a significant learning event for me. Here I saw somebody with a global responsibility, a global reach and being able to put those pieces together every day without micromanaging and that was a significant achievement in my opinion. So I mean every day we'd go around the world and one hour on a VTC you would touch every note across the globe and you would know exactly what's going on. He as a commander would know what he needed to do to enable and to help. It wasn't a brief back to hey, how great stuff is, it's no kidding. Here's what we're doing, here's what we're struggling with, here's what we need and that would resonate and folks would pick up the ball and run to knock those out. So trust your folks, don't micromanage and that was the way that General Crystal and Admiral Craven after him continued to manage the force and it was very impressive and one that I carry into industry today. Folks just can't quite understand how you can not all be in the same room but get a common goal done and execute. So pushing into 2004 and 2005 on the staff this shortfall starts being recognized in the tactical level of ISR. Could you speak a little bit about the background and then what your understanding was as the decision was made to fuel the U-28? Well, I was floored at Bagram as the Gessoac commander. I'm sitting there living and breathing the mission, the shortfall and the task from an ISR perspective and an execution perspective. There just wasn't enough to go around on a tactical basis. I knew exactly what the ground force commander needed and wanted and was familiar with the requirement across the board but was pretty heads down on the fight. So I got a phone call saying, hey, actually we're going to address this. We're going to build an airplane. We're going to get it on the road and out the door in six months and we need you to come back and figure it out. So I was familiar with the tactical need and requirement and the way that something like that could be employed. But then I got back to Herbert and realized, well, the AFSOC staff, SOCOM staff, they had briefed it and had gone to Congress as a stopgap fill for a shortfall on the MQ1, MQ9, ISR platforms both in crews and equipment. Let's get something out the door as quickly as possible. Six months was the mandate to fill that gap for the next two years until that production cycle, that training cycle could catch up. So absolutely temporary in nature, nothing more than a man predator, get it done and get it out the door. So that's what was happening at the headquarters level. I knew very well, fully what was going on at the ground level. So we inherited the task. So as far as describing that task a little bit, I know we have to figure up on the board that everybody can see here. Can you talk a little bit of how this team built that requirement and turned it into something different than a man predator? Well, yeah, I asked you to have that available. And really the graphic on the right, if you can't read it now, I encourage you to kind of get up close and look at it here a little bit later. But you'll see all the folks that made that happen at the operational squadron level from the aircrew perspective. You'll see four flights of eight guys that just busted their butt. You'll see in the corners, you'll see 10 naval flight officers around that circle who picked up the ball, deployed for a year forward for the full 12 months and manned the systems in the back of the airplane because the Air Force wasn't prepared and ready. After all, it was just temporary. So why would we man for anything other than somebody to fly the machine? And oh, by the way, we didn't tell anybody until 2012 that the thing that it did was ISR. It was inter-theater mobility. So again, here I was handing the flag over, getting the flag past to stand up the squadron. I went back to Lori and the kids and said, hey, I took them out to the flight line and showed them a slick PC-12 with executive seats of stuff in the back of it. And they're like, hey, where's the equipment? I flew generals for a living. When I first came in the Air Force, I screwed up. I'm still flying generals for a living. So that's what was said. But we had to work the tactical mission behind the scenes. So that's everybody on the right-hand side and they moved mountains. Organizationally, the way we pulled this off, again, things lined up perfectly for a reason and we kept everything at the lowest level possible. I talked a little bit at breakfast with Lynn Lee about this, RC-26 for a little bit, and we were talking about how did we get this done? And really, you can get, for an acquisition program, there's three things, cost, schedule, and performance. You can get any two of the three, but you're never going to get three out of the three. Well, for us, the only one was schedule. We had to get something fielded in six months. That was the only thing that we were focused on. We were constantly trading off cost versus performance. So how did that work? We focused everything as we started talking at the beginning of this conversation, was on the ground force commander. So to the Army and the Navy elements, that's where the requirements came from. That's who we were supporting, and those are the tools that we needed to be able to field to execute. So we got that from the ground up, cycled that up through the JSOC staff to the air component at Avteg, and then everything you see in that circle is what we kept down at the lowest level possible to execute. So you'll have Avteg, who was the subject matter experts, to make sure that the ground force commander's requirements and intent were met, and that we were satisfied, you know, threshold versus objective for whatever the requirements were. We had a big safari that was the program office that was tagged to execute this, and in a very short timeframe, and then you had the AFSOC guys and the Navy folks. Partnered with us was the prime contractor, SNC, and then we also brought an avenge to do some pilot training as we started ramping up the ranks. But the importance of that circle is that's where everything happened. We didn't go up to the wing and to the AFSOC and ask for permission and go through and have program elements and program, you know, execution plans. I went there for resourcing, and I went there to tell them what it is we needed and when we needed it. And that's what made it work. We did everything at the unit level, and the big safari of PM, Don Macelli, was outstanding at being responsive and allowing us to execute at that level. So we had a guy at the SNC facility to the maximum possible, you know, eyes on and making sure that decisions were made appropriately. So as far as that timeline is concerned, could you speak to the importance of that 80% let's roll out with that, talking with Mr. Macelli and so forth, how did that work? Yeah, I mean, the 80% solution was all we were going to be able to get. So six months was the mandate. We actually fielded it in about eight, a little over eight. And that was mostly because we had to get crews trained. The first, you know, six months, nobody saw a mission piece of equipment at all. We flew the PC-12 for the slick airplane. We did MBGs. We did air land. We did everything we could from mission set perspective except the actual thing we would be tasked to do overseas because we didn't have the equipment. So guys were at a disadvantage there. So 80% was all we were able to get out the door. Was it perfect? No. Did we have any essay tools up front in the airplane for the back end systems initially? Absolutely not. So our guys working with SNC said, okay, just give me a network cable. Give me a laptop. We'll work the rest out. So I can have at least essay in terms of what the sensor is looking at where I need to put the airplane, what's important, what's going on in the ground. So those are the things that we worked out at the unit level. You know, when the airplane was delivered, it flat out, it didn't work right off the bat. Sensor sight line was way out of the picture and we couldn't train. We couldn't deploy. So we had to push pause, bring everybody in for about a 48-hour period of time and let the experts work through it to fix it. But again, it was 80% saw you're going to get going out the door. Speaking of the experts, I know a couple of the plank holders, John Ross and Russ Flowers are here today. Can you talk about how you empowered that relatively small group really on to run and be the experts that you're speaking of? Absolutely. I mean, again, like Charlie, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I count on having smart folks there and you just can't micromanage. You have to empower them and let them run with it. And that's exactly what we did. We had a handful of initial cadre, six really strong performance out of the AFSOC, Black Side of the World. We had the first probably 12 to 16 were all within AFSOC ranks and then we ran out of slits pretty quick. AFSOC was standing up the third SOS, bringing on the MC 130 Whiskies. So they had a manpower drill that they just couldn't satisfy. So we went out to AMC and we selected, hand selected folks with not the best person. And I want to emphasize that we weren't looking for the best person. We were looking for the right person to come in and to do the job with the right attitude that could quickly adapt and operate on this timeline in this environment and then autonomously. So we, first 32 guys in the door were tasked with that responsibility and they took the ball and ran with it. We just divided up what had to be done from A1 to A5 and we structured the squadron that way to match our ground force elements, joint elements, and then the headquarters element at AFSOC to knock that out. So talking a little bit more about how this rapid growth ended up working to get from that 80% through that last 20%, could you talk to the training that the guys went down range and did and then also how you started incorporating some of the younger, less experienced air crew? Right, I mean as I said, we didn't have any of the mission equipment. How could we get the guys exposed to that? So everybody went down range for several weeks to see the mission, live and breathe at the fob, talk with the user, understand what was going on, and then flying other platforms that were overhead close to target and understand what needed to be done. So that was a requirement for everybody before they went out the door regardless of whether they flew the mission airplane or not and that's just how we executed it. The only way we could go as fast as we could, we did at that time was because we had experienced crew members in the door first. I didn't have to work on their basic flying skills, MVGs, they could talk in their area, they could run the stack. We had that baseline experience and then as the squadron got larger and the experience level began to reduce, then those training cycles had to expand to be able to give them the proper foundation. So as you start recognizing what that other 20% is going to look like and some of these smart guys, smart experts in the squadron have ideas, what did the rapid innovation process look like, what did you end up standing at the Combat Development Division, how did that process go? So for us, the way to attack a problem or a shortfall was to solve it at the unit level. So we stood up at Combat Development Division, it was the first time it was done there in AFSOC for a flying unit and other units had done it, but that was, let's resource them with the technology and the tools to tinker and to figure out what the right solution is. So we had kind of our own little mad scientist lab in the squadron, we had a set of porcupine antennas up on the roof, we had a full rack simulated set of equipment from the airplane and then we were working to see what from the ground interface we could do to close that gap. And that was all done internal to the squadron inside that circle. So when we found a solution, we would try it out, we'd communicate it up through Domicelli and Big Suffice, hey, here's what we're thinking, let's get the S&C engineers to validate it, yep, that works, or actually no, here's a better piece of equipment, get that done in a very, very tight circle and then not ask for permission, just say, hey, here's where we're going with it. So we were able to go from a block zero to block ten, which was a glass cockpit mod to actually put screens and interfaces for the mission systems up in the aircraft, because again, fielding the 80% solution, there wasn't even time for that. And that was doing, you know, digital cast was just starting to be done, but there wasn't a digital helicopter assault. We were talking our helicopter assault force onto moving targets using video, using MGRS on a chart, and doing a radio call and trying to map and decide where that guy was going to be next so we can, you know, vector in a helicopter VI to get to the right place at the right time. The guys in the CDD said, hey, this is stupid. We can do better than this. I said, okay, what do you need? I said, well, actually we have everything we need. Everything we need to do this is already on the airplane, minus some software. So, you know, while we were forward, we talked to the Air Mission Commander for the helicopter assault force, the Day VI guys. I said, okay, what are you looking at? What information do you need? When do you need it? How do you need it presented? And then we went back and had a really smart guy at Hurlbert Software Code. Lou Pouchet, you know, did some coding for us. He would zip it and send it to us forward. We'd upload it. We'd validate it. We'd fly it. It worked. Oh, actually we needed to tweak a couple things. We sent it back to him. So this was a matter of three or four hours. We were able to get that software tweaked. And that's how we fielded and did our Day VI's from there on out. So having the experts at the unit, and I can't stress this enough, you know, the biggest takeaway. And even as I, you know, left the squadron and got to the group and headquarters level, and you guys will as well, you'll mature out of the squadron, but you absolutely can't forget that the experts reside in the squadron. The mission experts are in the squadron. So don't think the staff is going to solve all the problems. Don't think those are the only places that the experts are, because quite frankly at many headquarters, folks have been their way too long and are stale. But the core competency and expertise for all of this is at the squadron level. With empowering those folks in your squadron where all those great ideas are coming from, were there any examples you can give of, I think the phrase you used, getting out in front of the headlights and how did that work within the group wing and above? Well, I mean, for the folks to operate in that circle confidently, and as you said, there's a handful of them here in the room today. You know, it was imperative to me to find what the left and right limits were, to give them the intent and the goal and then provide them the resources as best as I can and then just stand back and just provide the top cover. So yeah, there were many times where we would do something rather quickly and get in front of headlights, but it was my goal always to at least have them understand that if, come back and tell me if something goes sideways as quickly as possible, I know that's not always possible, but I got your back because we need to make this work. So I've always thought you can't steer a parked car and you can't hang a guy for his first mistake, so if you're going to solve something fast, you're going to run hard and you're going to get some bumps and bruises along the way, but defining those left and right limits and then making sure that folks to your left and right and above have your back, that's what made it work in hindsight. A lot of what you're talking about involves a lot of communication, knowing your people, knowing what they're good at. How did you extrapolate that out as the squadron went from the 30 up to 150 by the time you were having your change of command? Yeah. I mean, the growth was quick and as I said, the experience level started to dilute, but not in a bad way, just from the foundation that we started, we had to learn to do things differently in terms of a training, in terms of prep and focus. The folks that we got in from the TAMI 2-1 were just phenomenal. Fighter bomber guys that had the option to go either to MQ-9s, U-28s, and I don't remember if there's a third choice in there, but we had some really, really long ball hitters come to us and help take us to that next level. And then we had some really, really sharp folks coming right out of flight school that were able to adapt to those systems and do the mission very, very quickly. I mean, I guess the point of your question, though, is that when you've got 1632, 65 folks, you can run a pretty tight core group and as it starts expanding, that's when I started leaning back on the lessons that I learned from General Crystal and others in terms of, okay, this is going to get big. You cannot micromanage. You've got to be able to have a flat and transparent organization. So flat in terms of communication on a regular basis and transparent is that everybody needs to know what the folks are doing alongside. There can be no secrets. There can be no surprises. And there can be no agendas. So that's kind of how it helped us get to that next level. So as this growth is going on, can you talk a little bit about how you stayed connected with a habitual training and operational relationship with the joint partners at the base of the figure here? Well, we're hot and heavy combat, so really for the squadron, it was 60 on, 60 off. So 60 on, about 45 days at home and then 60 days back in the chute. And those guys did that for years. And really why it was 60 days is because they legally could not fly another minute according to Air Force wave regulations. So it's 60 days, they were pumpkins. They had to come back, get some time to click off the clock. Get reacquainted with the home life and then get trained to go back out again. So not a whole lot of opportunity other than the forward engagement. As the numbers increased and we had the ability to do some training iterations back at home, then it was okay, how do I habitually mate a squadron, a flight up with a ground user, get them on the same rotation cycle so that there's familiarity, there's comfort with everybody from the top of the stack all the way down to the ground. So I know the person, not because of the call sign, but because of the voice. So we talked a lot about the operational side from the air crew down to the guys on the ground. Can you talk a little bit about, we mentioned Don Macelli, but Mr. Hondo Gertz and what he was doing within PEO Fixed Wing for how this acquisition process was enabled through material command as well as SOCOM? Yeah, so Hondo PEO Fixed Wing at the time, again a lot of acquisition stuff, try not to bore you, but he moved mountains for this particular activity. He charged hard, he briefed Congress initially and then, hey, guess what? The airplane was actually making a difference and we started off with six and they wanted to buy 12 more so he had to go back and ask for more money. We, the CDD was working, churning out better equipment, better refined TTPs and that all required money. So he went to bat for that right off, you know, as soon as we hit go. So it's unusual that a squadron commander has a direct cell phone line to PEO Fixed Wing, but again, this situation, that's what made it work. So I mean, just the simple thing is I used the example of the glass cockpit. There was not a whole lot of support for improving the airplane and sinking money into it because it was just going to be around for two years, so why would we just get it out the door, let's fly the wings off of it, and then we're done. But we took the airplane down to SOCOM, what Hondo thought was going to be kind of a static display for his staff guys to say, hey, look what you guys helped field. And we did some of that for a while, and then we tapped on those shows, hey, get in, get in the right seat, get in the right seat. Yeah, get in the right seat, we're going to take a ride. So we took off, we went over Tampa, and we ran a scripted scenario to emulate what it is the airplane does overseas. And we put him in the right seat, put the laptop in his lap, put the hand controller for the sensor in his lap, put the headphones on, gave him the helmet fire with all the radios going off, and he said, holy crap. You guys do this every mission? I said, yeah, we do it every mission, and we need to be doing it better. So how do we fix it? Well, we landed, we showed, you know, exactly what the CDD guys had lined out, hey, this is how we get from this, you know, block zero to a block 10, you know, overnight. And he went to bat for it. So now we're getting an idea of how the operations occurred. Can you talk a little bit about resiliency piece with, you're dealing with people gone more than half the year, and you obviously have the families at home, and just a little bit, explain how you handle that as a commander. Yeah, that was a challenge. And quite frankly, Lori and Beth, you know, Jay Haynes is, you know, as my D.O., Beth is wife. They bore the brunt of that on the spouse's side of the house. And again, when you have a small unit, you can have a very one direct interaction and you can take care of folks. As it grows, you rely on your flight structure, and this is nothing new to anybody here in this room. But we really wanted to be doing it better, not differently, just better, because of the ops tempo. This is before, you know, preservation of the force of family and getting psychs into the squadrons and chaplains, you know, more of them and assigned. So we actively went out and sought that and put those in place. We had a psychologist come to the unit and give a talk. I mean, before the unit went out on the first deployment, we had to sit down and talk about communication. Okay, what does it mean to be an AFSOC? What does it mean to be no contact for 30, 60, 90 days? How does a family deal with that? And what are the tools to be able to kind of get through that piece? And it was a really interesting engagement that I learned a lot from, because it wasn't just, hey, you're not going to be able to talk. You're not going to be able to... Here's the things you can or can't say. It was, hey, as the family member at home, when I hear your voice on the other end of the phone, this is what I'm thinking, this is what's important to me. And then flip that on its ear, okay, when I'm the deployed individual, maybe I don't want to hear the following list. I don't want to hear that the car broke and the washing machine doesn't work and my kid just got kicked out of school. I don't want to hear that up front. So it was a really, really good engagement on how to try to deal with that piece. And again, it was hands-on. So we tried to do that at the unit level. And then as the squadrons continued to grow and we went from one to now three squadrons, my understanding, talking with folks, is that those elements still exist and are still kind of solidified in the community. Something's just as simple as, hey, you're not going to fly at this airplane or deploy until you fill out this following series of paperwork. Well, what is it? Well, I can't tell you that you have to fill it out, but I'm going to give everything to you. You're going to give me back a sealed envelope that's going to go in the first shirt's file cabinet locked up. And on that piece of paper is where are all the bank accounts? What are all the bills that I need to be worried about? If the worst happens, what are my funeral preferences? Who do I want to have come to the house? Are there people I don't want to have come to the house? All of those things, we wanted to address upfront to put the elephant in the room, address it, make sure everybody had that conversation. And then, again, God forbid that something were to happen, we could go, we could pull that off the shelf, and we had a good start point. Because as Jay and I talked about it, in that instance, as a commander, you only get one chance to get it right. So, sir, before we open it up to some questions, it's kind of a final question. A lot of folks here in this room are going to go take command. You're straight out of ACSC. Just wanted to give you an opportunity to maybe give them some maybe advice you heard or maybe wish you would have heard before going to command. You just talked about building a lot of culture. And how do you do that for these new commanders? Yeah, I mean, the commander owns the culture. There's no way around that. And most units emulate the personality and the attitude of the commander. You just have to accept and deal with that. That being said, one of the things that was told to me as I was coming up into the squander command was, that's all true, but don't change who you are as soon as you get into command. You are hired and put into that job. You are selected to have that duty based on who you are. So there's no need to have some metamorphous change into somebody, oh, I'm all medically commanded. I need to be acting that way to start with to get in there. So your troops, your airmen are looking at you to continue to lead and to be that individual. But again, you own the culture. So you've got to manage that actively. So I wouldn't micromanage. And your comment of eyes on hands off from General Crystal, you've got to leverage that. So sir, you ready for some questions? Absolutely. So if anybody wants to go over to the side wall, if anyone wants to stand up right here in the front row, we can work that too, but give us 10, 15 minutes of questions if able. It's time to wake up. So he does know a few people in the crowd, so he might call somebody out if we don't get one right away here. But you know Travis C, 10 minutes. Travis, indeed. We've crossed paths twice in life. Second, you know, this works. You were my first commander. Myself, Val Ferrer and John Vandermen were the first UPT graduates. I understand there were some A-1 discussions. They went on when Val showed up, and then probably a lot of critical thinking and evaluation about how these new folks would filter into a new squadron. Each of us were late 50s in the Slayer numbers, so we were right behind that first 30, and you guys were still running hard. Looking forward to how all of us are going to move forward as commanders and staff officers, seeing those young people come into jobs that you may think will be overwhelming to them, what advice, looking back on that instance, would you give them? Well, first off, don't sell them short. And I think there was a perception that I did a lot of that up front. And subconsciously, I think I did. But in reality, as I said earlier, we hit the ground hard, we hit the ground running, and we had a very short timeline. So we relied on the experience of the aviators to come in at the graduate level and then to do that mission for the ground force. Having yourself and Val and the others come in just kind of caused us to calibrate that thinking a little bit differently. We had to really look hard, what's the gap in the tool set that the guys that we originally came in the squadron with, what's that gap, and how do we best fill it for the younger, less experienced folks. And I think the bulk of that was airmanship to a certain extent, and it was the mission. I think once you guys got air under the wings in that platform and really connected with the ground force and the mission, the rest of it just kind of clicked. The technology side, all that stuff, you guys took too much, much quicker than I did or envisioned. So word to everybody out here is don't sell folks short. Their capabilities go well past what you offer them. Again, just give them the tools to succeed and they'll surprise you. And you guys did, so thanks. Thanks, sir. Thanks for coming. Jerry gave Flight 30. The U-28 is a phenomenal ISR and targeting tool. As you well know, most tools are only as good as the crews that are employing the tool. Can you talk through how you prioritize the specific layout of sensors and weapons? Was weaponizing it at the front of your priority list or did you put out a platform and then come back to some of these things, especially like dual sensor, multi-ant and weaponization? Well, the short answer is we had to get the threshold out the door. Even Travis and Val and folks that went forward on their initial field trip, as we'll call it, forward to Belot and flying in that environment, watching the other platforms and the ground ski maneuver pan out very quickly, we realized that one sensor was not going to be enough. And your job of racking and stacking the sensors and being the warden over target was significant, so as much of that as you can do organically, the better. So there's absolutely the intent to mature the airplane. Now, when the airplane got to us, it was expected to fly seven hours. Well, it did five, four and a half, depending on who was on the four, if you had to really big guys. So the difference between my lightest crew and my heaviest crew was in hours with the gas. So as you know, you've got a whole crewing set of gymnastics to do to maximize that. It's just the reality of flying a small airplane. You're burning 300 pounds an hour. Well, what's a big guy with all this kit? Breaking 300 pounds. So the concept that we'd ever be able to fit a second sensor on there was just completely alien to us. But then as the contractors and as big safari and those guys started nibbling at it, getting, you know, back to Pilatus and understanding what the airplane could and couldn't do, we've got waivers to that airplane that, you know, that OEM never would have envisioned. And it's all done on the military side. So that's how we got through a lot of those things. So the second sensor was a huge piece and the ability to data link and do everything digitally was the next big hurdle that we knew was coming and that we empowered the CDD guys to fix and figure out. So, you know, the idea of having link 16 and saddle and everything else on the airplane was not even considered. But when we had one of the CDD guys sitting in the talk at the fob there in the green zone in Iraq and saw a stinking saddle radio on the fire's desk and realized what they were pulling in off of that, what they could do, we're like, okay, it's time to mature. And there's no reason why, although we're not active on the link, that we can't be pushing all this data. Over to you, Jerry. Good morning. Appreciate you coming to share your wisdom with us. Matt Vogue, Flight 17. We've had a lot of joint leaders, senior leaders, come and talk to us about how important it is to be bold decision makers, make bold decisions. And then a lot of frustration occurs when we see the exact opposite being reinforced in actual real world. As somebody that's been, you know, air quotes fired multiple times and also promoted for being that bold decision maker and leader, how, when, where do you actually do that in practice in the real world versus just talking a big game and then doing something different? Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting point. Because, yeah, I mean, fired and hired a couple different times. I know Don Macelli was fired and hired a couple different times. But the reality is, you need to be bold, you need to execute the mission, and your folks look up to you to do that. But you can't do it blindly. And I didn't do it blindly, although it may sound in this conversation, there has to be a regular and honest conversation with your boss and your boss's boss. You've got to keep them informed to the level that you can and keep the momentum moving forward. You know, because at the end of the day, as commander, you know, there is the mission, but that's just, you know, hey, as the ops, so what's your job? Your job is to execute ops and to make sure the commander, you know, is able to do his and make him successful. So that communication upward has to happen. And I didn't take that for granted. I didn't always have the opportunity to do it. And, you know, my ops group commander reminded me a couple different times. Hey, Dards, you're a squadron commander. I need you at the squadron, you know, commanding the squadron. And because we started the 60 on 60 off and he saw me for maybe, you know, three weeks or so before I headed out the door again. But again, it goes back to that flat and transparent mindset that you can execute distributively, but you've got to keep your boss and your boss's boss informed. So General, Colonel Broznik at the wing level, you know, he, we would have very frank and honest discussions. And again, that graphic, that would not have happened unless you had folks that supported you at that level as well. It's when they don't is when you have the real problems. So it wasn't asking permission a lot. It was, but it was informing. And they were smart enough to realize, you know, how much rope and leash to let out and let us go. And if you're successful, you know, they're good. I mean, it's funny because the whole U-28 story, if you will, you know, success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. If this thing has failed, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about any of this right now. And nobody would have, you know, taken credit for any or said that they even touched it. But keep them informed, making sure you've got a good smart plan. And as long as you continue to be successful and they'll let you run. Time for one more question. Sir, could I pose? And for myself and many of the other cadets here, this is, you know, the first time we're leading large organizations. And you talked briefly about having a flat transparent organization. So I was wondering if you can elaborate on the challenges of creating that environment and maybe some of the pros and cons of that environment compared to other organizational structures. Well, again, we talked a lot about, you know, crews and airplanes and that kind of stuff. But this conversation goes through every AFC, every specialty in the unit in the squadron. And they all have a role. You know, our intel officers and personnel, for instance, they weren't in the squadron. They were attached to us from, you know, from the intel group. But they were forced to operate at a much, much different pace and much different level than they had in the past. So how do we bring those folks on board? How did we, you know, get the basic support structures in place? I mean, shoot that picture you saw of me assuming command at the flag. We had C.D. Dunham. We had to rent him. We had no one listed in the squadron when we first stood up. You know, we were a bunch of, like, 18 officers trying to figure everything out. So, but we brought all those folks in and, you know, the flat, that's communication. And that's, you can do that distributively in many different ways. You know, SOF is the command of ETCs and we executed those regularly. That was the only way that we could tie all of our distributed nodes together. So, SOF's level of ETC is absolutely required on a regular basis. And it can't be a long drawn out event. It's got to be quick to the point. And then the transparent side of the house is absolutely understanding and knowing what everybody is doing in their individual lanes and putting those pieces together. You know, I'm not sure I've given you enough information based on what you've asked, but each organization is going to be different and you're going to figure out that battle rhythm. But it's got to be across the board for everybody and you're going to lead that battle rhythm. You're going to set that tone and you're going to set what information you need and when and make sure that folks aren't keeping things to themselves. It's not from your perspective, but for everybody else, it's at every different lane next to them. That's where you start having problems. All right, sir. Well, really appreciate it. I just want to let you know that last 10 months it was a real pleasure to not only get to know you, but also to hear this story. And most importantly, this story is now, your story, your career, is now recorded in the book that we have. So now everybody going through initial call, whether it's down at Holbert Field or wherever else, can read that story and hopefully get some of these lessons like this crowd just got. So again, just want to give a round of applause to Cron d'Orginio and say thank you. Appreciate it. I think we did it. We hit the timeline, too.