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| (Image by 이정임 lee from Pixabay) |
Last month I was asked to speak about relationships to a pandemic incident management team. I relayed an example I have used in our L-481 Intent into Action course.
When we look at what is going on in our country – unprecedented heat waves – extreme fire and weather events – fractious politics – the surge in Delta – disinformation – misinformation – no information – the stress on the bonds of deep trust and cooperative relationships needed to succeed is reaching (in some cases exceeded) the breaking point. Yet the need for these relationships have never been greater.
The nature of our varied lines of work is not that we have to cooperate with another organization one and done. Ours is the long fight. Constantly engaged in partnership, constantly going back to places that seem like they just recovered from one disaster only to now be suffering the next.
What is the payoff – the return on the difficult investment – in developing and maintaining long term relationships? Deep trust relationships that will outlast your career?
In 1986, my Special Forces unit was assisting the Philippines in fighting a communist insurgency. We were operating in a remote area called Bundok Province. If you want to know how remote – and if you’ve ever wondered where our term “out in the boondocks” – the “boonies” - comes from – you now have your answer to both questions.
The New People’s Army (NPA) had infiltrated this whole area and was conducting intimidation and influence operations to coerce support from farmers and other rural residents.
Six of us were assigned as an ad hoc team to conduct a survey for helicopter landing zones in this contested area. We took a truck to where the road ended in a deep mud hole with two water buffalo who, judging by their aggressive behavior, had already joined the communist cause.
We continued on foot, armed with only pistols because of the sensitivity of perception with the locals. I carried a radio in case we got into serious trouble. After an hour or so, our patrol came across a small farmhouse. The yard was fenced in ingeniously by sapling fruit trees with wire in between to contain the goats.
At this point, a young teenage girl came out onto the porch, took one look at us, and beelined back into the house. Hmm… Noted. Not a warning sign by itself. However, we also noticed there was no dog barking at us. Girl plus no dog now raised a yellow flag because in the early stages of taking over an area the NPA would kill all the dogs so they could come and go without raising a warning.
At this point, girl came back out along with two “young men of military age” who waved us over. The girl was holding something with both hands. Not feeling warm and fuzzy.
Now at the porch, we could see the girl was holding a pot of something that looked like split pea soup and indicated for us to drink. All relationships based on trust require taking risk. We drank, hoping that if this was our last meal at least it tasted good. At this point the two young men went back in the house and the girl stayed on the porch indicating to wait. At this point, still early in our deployment, we only had a few phrases of Tagalog and we had exhausted every single one.
The young men returned, now holding their old grandfather between them, who shuffled onto the porch. The old man held out a picture frame and when I saw it chills ran down my spine.
In the frame was a pocket-sized American flag, folded correctly, a U.S. Bronze Star Medal, and a black and white photo of General Douglas MacArthur pinning a medal on a young Filipino soldier. The old man pointed at the photo and then at himself. He was one of the famed Philippine Scouts, a unit that conducted special operations during the entire Japanese occupation during World War II and whose valor was legendary. Several founders of Army Special Forces had served alongside them.
I really don’t have words to describe the profound sense of connection, across generations, transcending time and space that the nine of us experienced. His grandchildren could see the respect we had for him, that we knew and revered his history. That did not require words.
In time, we said our goodbyes, continued our mission and returned to base.
About a month later, I joined an “A-Team” and we were assigned a mission into this same area. We inserted onto one of the landing zones I had surveyed, along with a Philippine Special Forces team. Our Filipino counterparts had just come up from Mindanao, an island 600 miles south of where we now were on Central Luzon. They had been fighting a separatist group aligned with the NPA composed of the Moros. As Muslims, Moros had been resisting the Philippine government since the days of the Spanish missionaries. U.S. soldiers learned the hard way how fierce Moro fighters were during the Spanish-American War.
To eat, we stopped at small farms and bought food from families to supplement the rice we carried. We cooked shared communal meals on large banana leaves in order to build relationships with our counterparts. Building strong relationships with our Filipino teammates and with locals was a critical part of our mission. The Philippine SF team was shocked because before long, as we ate, farmers would come and relay messages on NPA activities. The old man, the Philippine Scout, was still in action and orchestrating an intelligence network for us. We had inherited a relationship built in WWII and we were building new relationships to defeat communism in the Cold War. Our Filipino counterparts took notice. The NPA never gained control of this region.
One of the fine men who was with me on the day we met the old man, Cole Hogan, was killed during the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. His death, along with many others, became the catalyst for Operation Enduring Freedom. Most of that campaign took place in Afghanistan. Less known was OEF-P. “P” as in – Philippines. On Mindanao, U.S. Special Operations assisted Philippine units in dismantling radicalized Islamic factions of Moros, Abu Sayef and others, who had embraced Al Queda and the dream of an Islamic Caliphate. As Mindanao experts, a few of the Filipinos on our sister team in 1986 were now senior leaders and working with our soldiers. U.S. and Filipino troops we never met now inherited the relationships we built.
In my office is the small Spanish American War Bible of my great grandfather. The inscription lists his unit, the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, and the date in 1898 when they shipped out from the Presidio of San Francisco bound for Manila. The Philippine Scouts were established in 1901.
I also have the brass casing of a 3-inch gun shell fired off the USS Kincaid. I know from my grandfather’s ship’s log it was fired at a Kamikaze as they landed troops on Leyte during the Liberation of the Philippines in 1944.
In a photo album are pictures of my dad and his destroyer, the USS Higbee, during one of his many port calls at Subic Bay, working with Filipino locals maintaining the ship and training with the Philippine Navy. In 1961, my mom returned to the U.S. from Japan, where his ship was based, pregnant with me. I was born at the Army hospital on the Presidio of San Francisco.
Events will happen again and again over time and in the same places. Nuts and bolts of pandemics, floods and fires will fade. The relationships you build will endure.
Foster and fuel your relationships. Repair damaged and weak relationships. Relationships equal strong bonds of trust and those mean cohesion, resilience and adaptability. Those are what will win the battles of the future.
Reprinted with permission from Mark Smith, Mission-Centered Solutions. All opinions are those of the author.
The nature of our varied lines of work is not that we have to cooperate with another organization one and done. Ours is the long fight. Constantly engaged in partnership, constantly going back to places that seem like they just recovered from one disaster only to now be suffering the next.
What is the payoff – the return on the difficult investment – in developing and maintaining long term relationships? Deep trust relationships that will outlast your career?
In 1986, my Special Forces unit was assisting the Philippines in fighting a communist insurgency. We were operating in a remote area called Bundok Province. If you want to know how remote – and if you’ve ever wondered where our term “out in the boondocks” – the “boonies” - comes from – you now have your answer to both questions.
The New People’s Army (NPA) had infiltrated this whole area and was conducting intimidation and influence operations to coerce support from farmers and other rural residents.
Six of us were assigned as an ad hoc team to conduct a survey for helicopter landing zones in this contested area. We took a truck to where the road ended in a deep mud hole with two water buffalo who, judging by their aggressive behavior, had already joined the communist cause.
We continued on foot, armed with only pistols because of the sensitivity of perception with the locals. I carried a radio in case we got into serious trouble. After an hour or so, our patrol came across a small farmhouse. The yard was fenced in ingeniously by sapling fruit trees with wire in between to contain the goats.
At this point, a young teenage girl came out onto the porch, took one look at us, and beelined back into the house. Hmm… Noted. Not a warning sign by itself. However, we also noticed there was no dog barking at us. Girl plus no dog now raised a yellow flag because in the early stages of taking over an area the NPA would kill all the dogs so they could come and go without raising a warning.
At this point, girl came back out along with two “young men of military age” who waved us over. The girl was holding something with both hands. Not feeling warm and fuzzy.
Now at the porch, we could see the girl was holding a pot of something that looked like split pea soup and indicated for us to drink. All relationships based on trust require taking risk. We drank, hoping that if this was our last meal at least it tasted good. At this point the two young men went back in the house and the girl stayed on the porch indicating to wait. At this point, still early in our deployment, we only had a few phrases of Tagalog and we had exhausted every single one.
The young men returned, now holding their old grandfather between them, who shuffled onto the porch. The old man held out a picture frame and when I saw it chills ran down my spine.
In the frame was a pocket-sized American flag, folded correctly, a U.S. Bronze Star Medal, and a black and white photo of General Douglas MacArthur pinning a medal on a young Filipino soldier. The old man pointed at the photo and then at himself. He was one of the famed Philippine Scouts, a unit that conducted special operations during the entire Japanese occupation during World War II and whose valor was legendary. Several founders of Army Special Forces had served alongside them.
I really don’t have words to describe the profound sense of connection, across generations, transcending time and space that the nine of us experienced. His grandchildren could see the respect we had for him, that we knew and revered his history. That did not require words.
In time, we said our goodbyes, continued our mission and returned to base.
About a month later, I joined an “A-Team” and we were assigned a mission into this same area. We inserted onto one of the landing zones I had surveyed, along with a Philippine Special Forces team. Our Filipino counterparts had just come up from Mindanao, an island 600 miles south of where we now were on Central Luzon. They had been fighting a separatist group aligned with the NPA composed of the Moros. As Muslims, Moros had been resisting the Philippine government since the days of the Spanish missionaries. U.S. soldiers learned the hard way how fierce Moro fighters were during the Spanish-American War.
To eat, we stopped at small farms and bought food from families to supplement the rice we carried. We cooked shared communal meals on large banana leaves in order to build relationships with our counterparts. Building strong relationships with our Filipino teammates and with locals was a critical part of our mission. The Philippine SF team was shocked because before long, as we ate, farmers would come and relay messages on NPA activities. The old man, the Philippine Scout, was still in action and orchestrating an intelligence network for us. We had inherited a relationship built in WWII and we were building new relationships to defeat communism in the Cold War. Our Filipino counterparts took notice. The NPA never gained control of this region.
One of the fine men who was with me on the day we met the old man, Cole Hogan, was killed during the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. His death, along with many others, became the catalyst for Operation Enduring Freedom. Most of that campaign took place in Afghanistan. Less known was OEF-P. “P” as in – Philippines. On Mindanao, U.S. Special Operations assisted Philippine units in dismantling radicalized Islamic factions of Moros, Abu Sayef and others, who had embraced Al Queda and the dream of an Islamic Caliphate. As Mindanao experts, a few of the Filipinos on our sister team in 1986 were now senior leaders and working with our soldiers. U.S. and Filipino troops we never met now inherited the relationships we built.
In my office is the small Spanish American War Bible of my great grandfather. The inscription lists his unit, the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, and the date in 1898 when they shipped out from the Presidio of San Francisco bound for Manila. The Philippine Scouts were established in 1901.
I also have the brass casing of a 3-inch gun shell fired off the USS Kincaid. I know from my grandfather’s ship’s log it was fired at a Kamikaze as they landed troops on Leyte during the Liberation of the Philippines in 1944.
In a photo album are pictures of my dad and his destroyer, the USS Higbee, during one of his many port calls at Subic Bay, working with Filipino locals maintaining the ship and training with the Philippine Navy. In 1961, my mom returned to the U.S. from Japan, where his ship was based, pregnant with me. I was born at the Army hospital on the Presidio of San Francisco.
Events will happen again and again over time and in the same places. Nuts and bolts of pandemics, floods and fires will fade. The relationships you build will endure.
Foster and fuel your relationships. Repair damaged and weak relationships. Relationships equal strong bonds of trust and those mean cohesion, resilience and adaptability. Those are what will win the battles of the future.
Reprinted with permission from Mark Smith, Mission-Centered Solutions. All opinions are those of the author.
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