 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Greetings all, and welcome to Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii, where we discuss the impact of change on workers, employers, and the economy. I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier-Garcia, inviting you to join the conversation. You can do so by calling us at area code 808-374-2014, or by tweeting us at thinktechhi. Today we're very fortunate to have a successful author and military officer joining us. Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea is a retired Marine, and he was one of the advisors who trained the Iraqi Army's Fifth Battalion. His new book, The Ragged Edge, a U.S. Marine's account of leading the Iraqi Army's Fifth Battalion, chronicles the way a loosely associated group of individuals can be turned into a successful fighting force. He's joining us today via Skype from his home in Connecticut, and in addition to that, I must tell you that we are proud to call him an HPU alum and fellow sea warrior. So please help me welcome Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea. Hi Michael. Hi Cheryl, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? I'm well, thank you. Good. I read your book and I was shocked and amazed at so many levels. I don't want to give it up chronologically because I really want people who read it to have a first-hand example of what you experienced, but there were some things that surprised me that I wanted to specifically ask you about because I think there are some misconceptions about what it is that U.S. military officers do when they are in these kinds of advisory roles in other countries. So that's what I want to focus on. And the first thing I'd like to ask you about is why do you think you were also grossly under-resourced? That's a great question. I think that we were grossly under-resourced because the Bush administration had not thought about what happens, what do we do with the Iraqi army after we beat it, what do we do with all those soldiers. I don't think they anticipated the Iraqi army, I know they didn't anticipate the insurgency and there was no plan for reconstituting an Iraqi army. So I think that they just didn't put any thought into it and then I think they panicked when the insurgency sort of exploded and they said, oh my God we got to get people and we got to do something to get us out of this. I think it was politically motivated and not from the military. Now you mentioned the insurgency and I was very interested to read that the people who enlisted and who eventually became the Fifth Battalion came from many different sides of the battle. You might have had former regular Iraqi army personnel or other military personnel. You might have had people who were members of fringe kinds of political groups, etc. And you had to figure out a way to turn all of those people who may have disagreed with one another and literally have been trying to kill each other in the past. You had to turn them into a team. How did you figure out the best way to approach that kind of a divergent workforce for one of a better term? So just to put this in context, I need to give you props because the class that I took with you at HPU and my master's program included was about culture, business culture. And so I had a vocabulary and cognitive structure to understand those concepts and what I had to do. Very specifically a book that we used in your class, Franz Trompendors, writing the Waves of Culture. I actually brought a copy of that with me and I taught that to my Marines and soldiers as we were developing the training program. I was extremely aware that there was an entire ocean of cultural shared meaning and communication that we did not have access to, that we were not privy to. I always emphasized that we were guests in their country and we were their guests specifically. We emphasized and we used, resorted to our Marine Corps training, I refer to this in the book, every Marine is a rifleman. And that's what we said, every soldier is a rifleman, we're all in this together and we tried to overcome and build a spriticore shared hardship and misery which is already built in because we had no buildings, we had very little electricity, we needed water supply, we had very little running water. We had food, bad gear and so those things, those hardships and that privation actually helped to gel our battalion in what the Iraqis actually called the crucible of hardships. Hardship can certainly help to build a team, I mean just ask the Chicago Cubs, so that's an interesting approach to it. Even within the group of soldiers that you had to deal with, they among themselves had many different cultures because it sounds like you had Sunnis, you had Shiites, there were Yazidis, people from other tribal types of associations, many of whom may have had historical conflicts going way back and yet somehow you had to figure out a way to have them put it all aside for the good of the entire organization. How did you do that without having them kill each other? You know what's amazing is how profoundly ignorant of Iraq and its history and its peoples we were. I had a little bit of knowledge about it because I, when I was in college, I majored in classics and I had read and I knew of Lawrence of Arabia so I understood a little bit about the region what he did and I used that as a template for what I was doing. Again in the book I write this but I think that there was a lazy political assumption or assumption by the politicians that you know an Arab is an Arab is an Arab whether they're Shi or Sunni or whatever it didn't matter to them. I think that that was probably an easy assumption to make. I think that what we came to find out is that Iraq actually had a history of multi ethnic multi religious history was very integrated at one point during Saddam Hussein's reign. It was a very vibrant and thriving Jewish community which eventually was driven out of Baghdad but you know it had this history of getting along in terms of ethnicities of Chaldeans the Assyrians the Turkmen you know there were Zoroastrians so which I was surprised by the Yazidis I learned about a lot about the Yazidis their religion goes back to traces back to the last Ice Age and even within the the Muslim blocks there are separate sects not just Sunni and Shi and other smaller sects that we were not aware of and I learned all this and I had to try to figure out how to make it work and I can't say that I had a plan I just sort of did the best I could when things came up and tried to you know given over and they seem to respond to this idea of wahed Iraq which means one Iraq a unified Iraq they're very interested in the idea of unity and singularity or oneness so I that was a theme that I played in fact at one point in the book I talk about when I said that we speak with one voice and that was very motivating to them and they liked that a lot it also sounds like you had the opportunity to surround yourself with experienced Iraqi personnel who who were able to really provide assistance as the US military was learning how to work with the Iraqis Captain Zane and Sergeant Major Iskander and those folks did you become friends with them what was your relationship like with your Iraqi counterparts a couple pieces that one it was all luck of the draw and you know some of the Iraqi soldiers and were very very good and many of them were mediocre and some were just outright terrible I refer to all three Iskander was a character and you he was great and I loved Iskander and yes I was friends with him same thing with Zane and you know Zane is like my brother I have helped a number of later on when I came back to the United States I formed a nonprofit with Kirk Johnson from USAID we called it the list project and we basically formed a pipeline for helping Iraqis come to the United States and I've helped a number of both interpreters and soldiers from my old battalion come here so yes I was you know I talked about how sad and you know we weren't friends exactly but we knew each other very well and he was very corrupt and he has now gone on to become he's a major general in the Iraqi army and he is the commanding general of the Western Baghdad Defense District Zane you know at the end of the book I talk about how his when Mosul got overrun and his brother was executed by ISIS the commanding general of the Iraqi forces that we took Mosul was a lieutenant general Najem al-Jaboury and so he was from Zane's tribe and that was for Iraqis they would understand this is the Jaboury taking back Mosul and getting avenged on ISIS for the execution of Zane's brother so we in the United States would not recognize that but because I know to look for this stuff I recognize the dynamics there yeah it sounds like just an amazing an amazing lack of knowledge that we have in the West and particularly in the United States about people that we would like to have as friends tell me a little bit about this story I shouldn't I shouldn't say it made me laugh but it did tell me about the massive food poisoning incident yeah well you know and again I read about this in the book and it was actually a serious deal yeah it sounded bad you know we had a food a kitchen crew that were Yazidis and we had no idea at that time who they were what they were just you know the contractors that showed up and you know we didn't have a place to put them and they were sleeping in the kitchens with the food and you know doing the ritual cleaning of themselves and stuff in the kitchen etc the contract required only cultural standards of cleanliness for food preparation and so that met the requirements of the contract but you know they did not believe or they did not make a distinction the way we do about food preparation food safety and food cleanliness etc so with the Yazidis what they began doing is marking the walls around where we lived with feces to scare the devil away and of course they were also eating with you know handling food and so everybody got sick we had massive food poisoning you know well over hundred soldiers it was a real mess but then when I tried to teach and I called in like food specialists from the US Army we did inspection we did a whole thing to overcome because that's real serious especially with the hydration in the desert I mean it could be fatal and you know when I was trying to teach these guys and most of them have little more than a you know fourth or fifth grade education most of them are semi-literate or functionally illiterate and I was trying to tell them all you have these invisible bugs that live on your fingers that can get you sick and they were like looking at me like you're crazy they didn't believe me and you know how do you prove that I don't know I don't know you know it never occurred to me that they wouldn't believe me that there were you know tiny bugs that were invisible living on their hand think about it when you put it like that sounds ridiculous would you believe somebody if they told you that no I wouldn't but you know we taught them you have to wash your hands before you handle food and you got to wear shoes and you can't wash yourself in the kitchen you know do your take a shower where the food is etc and I got them beds and all kind of stuff and after that we didn't have any problems but yeah but again this came out of you know we had no idea what we're dealing with I was amazed to find out when you relate in the book where the food sanitation people that came in said that the entire kitchen crew had to wear shoes and for many of the people you went out and found them shoes and for it and for a lot of those folks it was the first pair of shoes they'd ever had yeah and you know these people are for the most part desperately poor yeah you know at one point I talked about them playing soccer in the gravel barefoot I mean you know their feet are like you know like leathery cut you know they can do that I could not but like Louis right they think nothing of you know being barefoot in the gravel and all that kind of stuff but and you know it's interesting so Islam requires the ritual cleaning five times a day before prayer cleaning of your hands and feet before prayer and I wonder if that was not Muhammad his way of introducing you know ritual cleanliness into you know the daily lives of the Arabs then yeah for exactly that reason it could have been listen Michael we need to take a quick break so that we can show our viewers some of the other wonderful programming here on think tech Hawaii but can you stick around because I really want to continue this conversation sure happy to great we will be right back right after this we all play a role in keeping our community safe every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives it's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day some are good others not so much but that's life it's when something doesn't seem quite right that it's time to pay attention because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day so protect your every day if you see something suspicious say something to local authorities I'm Helen Dora the host of voice of the veteran seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1pm on think tech Hawaii as a fellow veteran and veterans advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans active duty and family members I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show in addition I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions as we navigate and work together through issues we can all benefit please join me every Thursday at 1pm for the voice of the veteran aloha welcome back to working together on think tech Hawaii I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia and we are talking via telephone with Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel retired Michael Zekia who is an HPU graduate and who has written a book about his experiences with the Iraqi 5th Army it the book is available on amazon.com and I highly recommend it but Michael since you've been back your life has taken quite a different turn tell us about what you're up to now sure so I'm doing a lot it took me a while to recover from my wounds I spent a year in and out of the hospital I had no memory for a year basically I was medically tired from the Marine Corps when I retired I moved to Northwest Connecticut and I applied to go to University of Connecticut for an MBA and I started while I was there and I had started with some advocacy before this but I started a non-profit for veterans called entrepreneur bootcamp for veterans and I helped them instruct businesses and it's been very successful and that led to a number of opportunities both with the state I was appointed several gubernatorial task forces on veterans reintegration I am an Obama appoint me to the small business administration I've testified to the Senate a number of times I was President Obama's guest at the State of the Union Address in 2016 all that said right now I am starting a United States Veterans Chamber of Commerce there's 2.5 million veteran owned businesses in the country that account for about 1.2 trillion dollars in gross domestic product which about 6% of the US gross domestic product that's never been organized and we are presently in the act of organizing basically we're we're creating a market we're connecting supply-to-demand for veteran owned businesses to corporate America and to municipal and federal governments federal agencies who want to contract and want to work with veteran owned businesses there's significant research on the importance and the value creation of veteran owned businesses in the community that help build community etc so we've been working on a national level in the next few months I'm going to be working with the Department of Defense on several initiatives and this fall I will have a big announcement that I'll be able to tell you about should you have me back but I have become very vocal and very visible on a national level in terms of veteran business entrepreneurship that's good I'm glad to hear that you know folks that work with military personnel or who have history of association those of us that are Air Force kids and military spouses etc we know that the training that the military provides its service members is easily translatable to professions in the civilian sector I mean we know that but folks that are not as as intimately connected with service members may not be aware of just how valuable military training and the leadership skills and experiences that are provided to service members how they can really enhance the value proposition of any business well if you let me throw a couple of statistics at you part of what's happening is a decline in the population overall so since 2000 since 2000 census the veterans population is declined by 25% and it's projected to climb by an additional 33% by 2030 so what's happening is a loss of political social and economic capital at a time when the US population itself is growing so in the last census there was part of the survey was do you know a veteran and 80% of Americans responded that they did not know somebody who had served in the military wow so we're getting very concerned about the shrinking both the raw number of shrinkage and the relative shrinkage of the veteran population compared to the overall population right so is part of that encouraging people perhaps to consider spending some time in the military yes I think or in some sort of national service to understand what it is that veterans go through and what they have to offer unfortunately and I work a lot with corporations there continues to be talent managers and hiring managers continue to assign a risk premium to veteran job applicants because of post-traumatic stress and medical issues and being lost to the workforce so it's a barrier that we have to overcome but are there any I'm sorry to interrupt are there any statistics to support this this added risk factor there were it's improved but I've been told by hiring managers that there was a risk premium associated with a veteran hire another barrier to entry that we have with veterans is what economists call a suddenly the it's about changes technology and change essentially and I forgot the technical term now it just my mind but essentially hiring managers look at veterans as people have been out of the workforce for four or eight or 20 years so they think that they don't have current technical skills and they're not adaptable to change there's a very severe misperception of the military that's called skills obsolescence yes a technological skills right and well it sounds to me like you could use a really sharp HR person who shall remain nameless who might be able to cut to partner with you to really to tell the real story about just how valuable military experience can be within an organization as a matter of fact I am working with somebody in Hawaii to start a Hawaii State Veterans Chamber of Commerce oh fantastic well as soon as you get that up and going we're gonna have to fly you after I will introduce you to her then to good yes do that but the other thing I guess I would like to say since we have HR people that watch this show if you are under the mistaken impression that people with military experience are not as well qualified as other people based solely on their military experience you are mistaken because there's not another group of people that is as resilient as flexible and as willing to take risks to accomplish a goal then then somebody with military history because that's what you're trying to do ultimately and I think Michael that your book proves that statement to a tee you know had you not been resilient flexible and willing to take risks the Iraqi army wouldn't have had a fifth battalion well actually I'll tell you I actually started so even though it was a fifth battalion it was the first okay I actually started the first Iraqi unit the Iraqi army and at a time when no American had ever done what I did right and that is the historic significance of this and why I wrote the book but if I can just capitalize on what you said so I think that what veterans have to offer in the workforce or or starting a business or a mission accomplishment and a bias for action and oftentimes it's what I call business speak versus middle speak and the two speaks don't necessarily understand each other and I have gotten to a point where I can talk to either one try to bring them to the middle and that's what we're trying to do the overall market well I wish you luck with that because as as I said a person with deep military connections I'm on your side and and I know the kinds of leadership abilities that come out of a military experience we are going to have to wrap in just a minute here but Michael thank you so much for joining us and could you take maybe a couple of seconds to share some props for your fellow Marines and service members sure so if you don't mind I'd like to give you my the website for my book oh fantastic yes it's you know the ragged edge book com and as you said it's available Amazon it's also available through Barnes and Noble so it's also available audio book and you know all that stuff Kindle etc so you know I have the extraordinarily good fortune and privileged to work with thousands of veterans nationwide I am working with the Vietnam veterans of America what they're calling a rotation of policy leadership and veterans issues as they both are leaving the workforce and you know at some point in the future departing into history they're very concerned that and to a man they will tell me we don't want what happened to us to happen to your generation of veterans and I think that that's a commitment that we can carry forward we're going to be dealing with the ramifications and the implications of this war and the veteran population until well into the middle of this century yeah that's true it's war isn't over when they signed the armistice right so there's there going to be a lot of 35 40 years yeah that's true before peak payments for veterans issues are reached so you know we're looking at like 2050 to 2060 right before we even peak with this it's gonna be a big job for many decades to come yeah well you certainly have my support as well as my undying gratitude for joining me today we're gonna have to wrap it up right now but I would urge every single one of you that's watching right now to get online and buy Michael's book and read it it's it's fantastic and it will teach you a lot about our brothers and sisters in the Middle East so that does it for us on working together on think tech Hawaii I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia and we will be back in two weeks aloha