Early life and what led you to attend the US Military Academy?
I was raised in Massachusetts in a small, blue collared mill town outside of Boston. My Mom was a school teacher and my Dad was a state trooper. So I grew up in a family that was pretty committed to helping other people and served. My Dad was a Marine before he became a police officer. That’s what I grew up around and with, so for me, it was a part of my DNA to serve. My Dad actually took me to visit the service academy when I was in eighth-grade and it was by far one of the most important experiences in my adolescence, where I got to visit an incredibly impressive school, not just for what it looks like, but for the people that go there and for what they’ve committed to for their purpose in life. I got to go to a game and I was just struck by this level of excellence that is unique to places like West Point. I spent most of high school, head down and focused on that, with athletics, academics and serving in some civic capacity to get a flavor of that whole person concept that the academy looks for.
My parents were encouraging; at the time in 1997, which is when I graduated High School and went to West Point, it was a totally different country. I would hope that my parents would have been as supportive if it was today, or ten-years ago, and I think they would, my parents have always been encouraging and supportive. I also didn’t come from a lot of money; my parents worked incredibly hard to provide a great life. I just knew that in the long run that I didn’t want to burden them with college finances; so I knew I was going to school on my own, and the academy afforded that opportunity as a free institution- you just pay for it in a different way.
I grew up playing sports and running around in the woods; I always wanted to do something I thought was cool in terms of serving and being in the military. When my Dad introduced me to West Point I was sold.
You got your bachelors in philosophy from West Point. What was the motivation behind that?
I was fortunate enough to have a mentor at school who was my philosophy professor in a real basic, introductory course. And at the same time at school, you’re starting to pick your major. I never had a strong math and science foundation, and I struggled through math and science through the academy, which is an engineering school. I originally became a political science major with a focus on international relations, and I made it through four classes and I thought “I don’t know if this is for me.” So I went and talked with my philosophy professor and at the time he gave me some really good advice. He said “When you commission as an officer in the military, your degree doesn’t really matter.” But I felt that what I was studying in philosophy had a much deeper impact on me as a person. So I started to look hard at that. And he said “If you want to go get your masters in international relations, you can always do that later in life.” And he recommended enjoying my time at school, and studying something that I enjoyed. Time at West Point can be pretty brutal and why study something that I hate, on top of an already tough lifestyle.
So I jumped into philosophy and it was something that I deeply enjoyed. You read a lot, and you had to reflect a lot, and you had to think about arguments from a logical standpoint and also looking from a historical context of when were these arguments built, and have we learned more since then, and how do we take new knowledge and apply it to old arguments.
So I spent a lot of time in the English department, in the history department and at a young age I’ve always been fascinated by religion, and how people use religion as a way to live their lives both good and bad. So my focus in my junior and senior year, started to trend more towards studying religions both eastern and western. My degree ended up being a philosophy and religion, and I had to write a thesis and defend it.
Did studying Philosophy have an impact on your military service?
When I got out into the Army, and I started dealing with people, not that I was having philosophy debates in the operations center, but I had a better appreciation for different cultures and perspectives. I wasn’t trying to fix or solve anything, I was just appreciating what people believed and why they believed it. And I just think that with the natural curiosity with things like that, I felt more comfortable talking about it, or thinking about it in terms of how I led as an officer. Some of the basic foundations of philosophy are ethics and virtues, so that segues beautifully into what you learn as a cadet about your character being the most important thing as a leader, and how I wanted to be a leader of character. So I think my foundation of studies in the English department of West Point absolutely helped with that.
Do you have any books that were important for you to read, and could be important for others as well?
I’m consumed by books. I read all the time. I go through different phases; actually some of my favorite books are fiction- I think you can get away with more, and I think you can challenge ideas more. From a philosophy standpoint I’m fascinated with ethics and virtue, particularly stoicism, which is something I kind of agree with in their approach in life, and even though it’s considered a western philosophy there’s a lot of eastern influence there. The Bhagavad-Gita is a phenomenal book. I’ve moved away from the self-help, pop philosophy books that are pretty exciting- all these people are out there selling books on how to do deep work, how to improve efficiency in your day, and from there I think you can get back into the basics of literature from thousands of years ago, from Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, to all sorts of philosophers or thinkers that challenge the way we live. In my opinion, philosophy is great to read, but if you can’t put it into your life functionally, then it’s just a book and it falls flat.
There’s a guy, whose name is Ryan Holliday, and he’s been doing a lot of really great work making stoicism approachable in contemporary world. He draws a lot on current issues and he ties it back to the idea that none of this is new, stuff like this happens all the time. I grew up and loved Kerouac, Salinger, and Hemingway, because I feel like those books, while they aren’t philosophy texts, it’s the human condition they go through. Moby Dick is probably one of my favorite books, just thinking about the human condition. We could probably spend a whole conversation about books, because I nerd out pretty quick. I’m actually staring these shelves in my office that have a couple hundred books, and they’re pretty good, but I don’t know if I would put that down as one of my favorites.
Can you give me a brief synopsis of your military career post West Point?
I graduated in June of 2001, and I had a couple of months of leave, so went back home to Boston and then started flight school. A month after getting down to Alabama, September 11th happened. For a lot of us, especially my friends, that fundamentally changed the way we looked at going into the Army. Before that, the threats were old, not to say they weren’t realistic, but they weren’t what we are now confronting. We had a different attitude, I think, on service, I never planned on doing over my obligation at the time. But when 9/11 happened, it changed. They attacked us, came onto our turf and attacked innocent people. So for me the idea of violating that, there was no way to reconcile that for me.
Flight school took about eighteen months, and then I went to survival school at Fort Bragg. After that, I showed up as an aero-scout at Fort Carson Colorado. My unit was already deployed, so I pretty much got my household goods, had a little time to in-process and then went right over. I hopped into a platoon leader position, and from the get-go, all the war stories you hear about showing up having no experience, and you’re responsible for twenty to thirty guys, and the equipment and yourself, become tactically proficient and being able to also lead.
My approach, when I’m new, is to listen and learn from people, and start to pick out who I trust and who I think is a strong leader and I put these guys around me. I’m not afraid to ask for help if it’s an enlisted guy or a warrant officer because the way I look at it we were a team and I just so happen to be in a certain position that required I do certain things. I wasn’t better educated or more talented, it was just the way it was. So that’s always been my approach and I think that helped me not only lead and take care of guys, but also find purpose in the military.
So I did a year deployment, came home for ten months and we pretty much knew we were going back as soon as I got home. So that ten months, we used to train and prepare. Our team got gutted, so it was me and a couple other guys and a bunch of new people. So unlike special operations, we were constantly rebuilding teams. And then I went back over to Tal-Afar for a year; my boss was H.R. McMaster at the time, who is currently the national security advisor. He was incredibly aggressive, but phenomenal leader. He is a guy that I would follow into fire. I know he’s exactly what you want from a leader in combat. It was an incredibly tough year, we lost a lot of people in some significant firefights, and there was a time where I thought that this may be it. One night I was sitting, waiting to refuel my helicopter and what’s currently known as SOCOM, showed up, cleared us out of the airspace, and conducted a mission. And through my night vision goggles, just watching these guys operate over a town that we had been working in for a long time, was fascinating and inspiring, and when they came in and refueled and took off, I thought “That’s where I want to go.” So I requested an application and submitted, and not too long after I got home I assessed. Soon after that I was at Fort Campbell going through training. I got picked up and I was really fortunate that I spent a lot of time as a platoon leader in the conventional army. I had a little bit of staff time, and then I got to go to the 160th and operate there.
And for the next six or so years, I got to work with the most committed, the best warfighters in the world. I got to train at an intensity level that mirrored combat, and I got to be surrounded by people that who are exceptional at what they did professionally. I learned a ton, and I deployed a ton after that; ten times, doing liaison work, staff work, but I liked that because I knew how important it was to have someone I trusted in that seat who was in between guys on the ground and guys in the air. So, as unsexy as it can be, it gave me a ton of purpose and meaning, so I valued it.
It wasn’t easy, the pace and energy at which we were running required a ton from our families and a ton from us personally. Being so focused on that mission, I was unable to provide an important part of myself to my family, my son at the time, and ultimately my own well-being. I became consumed by the mission, and that’s what you want, you want those guys, but you also want to be there to help them when they need help. I got out in 2012, as a Major, and was in first battalion of the 160th when I left. So that’s my military background.
Thoughts on being in Tal-Afar, and implementing the Seize, clear, hold, build strategy.
McMaster ran what you could call the pilot program, to the surge that happened in Bagdad a couple years later. So the surge in Bagdad was in 2007 or 2008, and for the seize, clear, hold, build, Tal-Afar was the first in around 2005 to 2006. And we were literally clear, hold ground, but immediately once we had boots on the ground and could secure the area, we were bringing in humanitarian relief. Unprecedented, the way they did it. So you think about what happened in Fallujah or Ramadi, I mean they just leveled those towns. And my first deployment that’s where I worked, in Al-Anbar. When we went in we had to be incredibly patient, thoughtful, disciplined and strict with your rules of engagement (ROE), and you are generally on the receiving end of a ton of bad stuff. Not in the sense of turning the other cheek, but you are going to take probably heavier casualties or losses and it’s going to be a lot more physically and mentally demanding to do it the way McMaster wanted to do, as opposed to just going in and clearing a whole area and just killing people.
It was tough, there was a lot of pressure, but unfortunately you have to leave what you do there. At least I do. To see a town that we worked so hard to free and liberate, ten years later be under the control of ISIS, is terribly frustrating, but it’s out of my control. And at some point you have to let the Iraqi people take over.
What was the training for the 160th like?
In comparison to say conventional training, the 160th assesses and selects the best aviators from the US Army. So they’re pulling the best pilots they can possibly pull. It’s not like the SEAL Community where you can be eighteen and show up to BUDS. You have to go through some hurdles before they will even look at you. And that’s a lot to do with the technical proficiency that’s required to be a pilot and that’s just part of the game. But you may have a ton of hours, and you may be one of the best pilots in your unit, physically fit, but if you don’t meet their requirements psychologically and emotionally, and be a whole person, they may not pick you up. And that’s hard for some guys to swallow but if that’s hard, then you’re not the right person to be there. So they select the right people. A lot of it has to do with their aviation capabilities, but it’s also a lot of mindset and ethos.
When I went through my assessment, I failed nearly every single thing that I went to. I was constantly being told “You failed at this station.” And I was hoping that it was part of the game, so I just kept driving forward. The ethos of the 160th is Night Stalkers Don’t Quit. So no matter how bad things get, that ethos is always with you.
The training is incredibly intense and meticulous. The 160th is known for being on time, plus or minus thirty-seconds anywhere in the world. And in order to accomplish that, your planning and your execution has to be perfect. So we were constantly driving towards this idea of perfection. It’s unattainable, and we forget that sometimes, but we are constantly evaluating our actions, constantly reviewing in after action reviews, and it may be as simply hovering the aircraft across the airfield and spending thirty to forty minutes debriefing that. And it seems kind of crazy and intense, but that’s how the 160th got to where they are. They are also not afraid to take risk, even though it might sound as very risk averse, the only thing different between our training and combat, is that the bullets coming at you. That’s about it. Everything else: the intensity, the mindset, the role-playing, it is as real as it can possibly get. And we demand the same level of excellence in training as we do in combat.
The 160th is also resourced incredibly well. So there’s a lot of funding there that makes that training available, which helps. If you don’t have the money you can’t train, and that happened in the conventional army. We would not have money for things that you would be insane to think we wouldn’t have in combat. But in the 160th, you never felt that you didn’t have enough money or tools and your disposal.
Can you tell me a little bit about the Station Foundation and its inception?
Since 2012 till today, I’ve been building a resource or set of resources, that help families come home from war. Guys that I’ve served with in the special operations community, giving them a path home from war that helps them recognize what they’ve been through and become more aware of how combat impacts us, how it impacts our family, and ultimately providing functional solutions to help them address those impacts in a way that is culturally sensitive to who we are. So with cultural sensitivity, most people would probably throw up in their mouth if they heard that, but it’s recognizing that what we ask of the special operations community every night, and what their families endure, has a certain kind of cultural dynamic. You couldn’t ask this from other communities in the world. Simply to ask this from them is a huge ask.
So if we are going to try to help on the backside of combat, then we should have a really good understanding of what they’ve been through and who they are as people. And not to overgeneralize, but there are some cultural characteristics or some aspects of the mindset or ethos that are special considerations within that community. So we look at it through that lens. There’s not a ton of trust falls or ropes courses that we do- a lot of the stuff that we offer is incredibly challenging. Maybe not physically challenging to them, but absolutely emotionally and sometimes spiritually challenging. And that’s what they expect and sometimes demand.
What are some of your goals that you still want to accomplish with the Station Foundation?
There’s a couple of things. I still want to build the organization out, so that it can respond to the demand that we have. Right now, we have people at our doorstep that have to wait and I think that’s unacceptable. Part of that means hiring folks who can support these programs, and building more opportunities for families and service members to come through. So a lot of that is a function of money, but it takes time to build a team, especially in the civilian world; it’s totally different than being in the military. So that’s one: growing the organization so that it can meet the demand.
And then another thing I want to do is start offering programs that are more focused on the deeper challenges that families face when it comes to serving and healing from trauma. So, for guys who continue to deploy, who have been doing this since 2001, who have very little respite or opportunity to process or reflect what they’ve been through, this stuff starts to build up and add up. And you can run from it as much as you want, but eventually it’s going to catch you; and I’d rather get the guys before they are caught. I think that mentally, health is an incredibly important part of that. No one likes to say that term because it doesn’t mean anything and it scares people off, because they think they are going to have to sit on a leather sofa and talk about daddy issues. And that’s not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about taking care of yourself mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so that you can be a better leader and teammate. And I think it’s unacceptable that we have guys who are struggling inside who don’t have an outlet, don’t have hope on what they carry with them.
We’ve been doing this for long enough now, we’re in our sixth year of programs, that we are really good at what we do. I say that in the most un-cocky way possible, but we are incredibly good at what we do. There’s no one that does a better job at this than us, and I want to take it further, I want to do what we do now, but also offer solutions for hope.
How much do you think the nature aspect and beauty of Montana plays into the restoration and recovery that you do so well?
It’s massive. When people take the time to disconnect from electronics, they have to start looking at each other and themselves.
So I just finished a program Saturday that was a trauma based program that deals with loss. To put it in perspective, we were already in the middle of the woods. We hike around six miles in the middle of the night to this fire lookout that’s not far from where we work, and we spent three days there. So we get to the top, it’s dark, and we get settled in. And then in the morning when you wake up, you’re on this peak that has the most commanding view of the valley. And nature provides hope, it provides this awe and appreciation of beauty. And I think it gives you this safe place to reflect and think and be surrounded by something that wraps its arms around you.
For the folks that I work with, being outside is kind of second nature. Most guys feel safe there, and when they want quiet time, they go to the woods or they hunt or fish. So it’s an easy hook. So when I tell someone that they are coming out to Montana, all the things he already thinks about, of Montana, are positive. And then doing what we do, a lot of our applications involve outdoor activities, but aren’t hinged on it. We rock and ice climb, we fly-fish, we hike in the back country, we camp; we do all those things, but that’s just an outlet for me to get to a guy to hit the more important things. So it’s a hook, and it taps on all those virtues that are important in my life. And to me, there’s a spiritual connection to the outdoors, I don’t know how to put that in better terms, but for me walking through the woods or sharing that with people is the closest thing to God that I can experience every day. And I’m not a religious guy; I’m a recovering Catholic, but I know how important that is in the work that we do.
And how many of these retreats do you do per-year?
So we run year-round, and we are doing a program or two per month, and some of those programs have three or four programs going on within them. So somewhere around twenty-two to twenty-five programming events that we do, some of them overlap, some are simultaneous. So we finished a program last Saturday, and we’ll start another one next week.
Can you share a specifically powerful experience from your time at the Station Foundation that really embodies what the foundation is all about?
One thing that we do, which we are doing more frequently, started with our gold-star kids. And so every summer we have a pack of kids who come out here and we put them through a wilderness survival school. Really, what we are doing, is reconnecting them to members of their dad’s team, who served with him while he was alive. And it helps preserve legacies of our fallen, but most importantly it challenges kids to step out from underneath that shadow of being a gold-star kid, and take back their lives.
Every day, there’s a huge, huge rock pile at the entrance of our property, and these are rocks that we’ve pulled from the river that are football sized and bigger. And every day, usually after dinner, around sunset, we’ll all show up at that rock pile, each of us will grab a rock, and we hike in honor of one of the dads. Generally, it’s about a thirty-minute hike and there’s a special place in the woods that only people who have been there know where it is, and when you show up, it’s this huge rock pile, even bigger than the one that sits at our entrance. And it’s a chance for guys to privately talk about their teammate that they lost, not for his heroics, or how he was killed, but for the type of person he was, their character, and how much they loved their children. And it’s an incredibly powerful, moving moment, and kids get to share if they want to on who their dad was. This isn’t a grief camp, we’re not trying to get kids to cry and do that, but it’s a chance to be really proud of who they are and who their dad was, and to learn about them. So we do that all the time and now when we don’t have gold-star kids here, but I have an active duty family, the last day of the program we’ll do that hike. And we’ll say “If you have something that you are holding on to, you can put it down. You can put it here.” And it doesn’t have to be the loss of a teammate. It can be anything. And so that has symbolically become this moment where people can let go and release, and allow for some of that suffering to go away. For me, of all the things that we do out here, that moment captures who we are, and what we’re about, and the incredible strength and courage of the people who come out here. You think “I’m going out to Montana for ten-days to hike through the woods, and enjoy myself.” But you walk away with, hopefully, this release, and awareness, and a recognition that it is time to start living beyond war.
