February 10, 2024 • 54 mins
Initially enlisted in 1969 to play football for the army, Col. Tiso ended up on a bus to the Virginia Military Institute to ultimately get commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1973. He served decades as a soldier and, after mandatory retirement, still chose to serve 11 more years as an intelligence planner and analyst for a defense contractor.
He deployed five more times to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Col. Tiso explains that the Iraqi army was envisioned to be a bulwark against Iran. But its failures in the Battle of Najaf, as well as a pivot in strategy, ended up costing American lives in a war that could have been over by 2005.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, welcome back. This is rad and this is another
episode of soft Rep Radio. I want to remind you
to go check out our book club at soft reap
dot com book hyphen Club. You guys know what it is.
Go check out the book club. We also have the
merch store where we have branded goods from soft Rep
that you guys have been like tagging me on the
internet in keep that up and you know, maybe we'll
(00:58):
pick someone to win a prize. Keep tagging. Today's guest
is someone special because he's just a human being on
this earth who was tasked with raising his hand to
defend his country that he chose to do and decided
to go to college and become an officer in the military.
And so I have Colonel Roland J. Tisso, Junior United
(01:20):
States Army, retired author. You know he is going to
be let me go over as a background here. Colonel
Roland Tisso was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry upon
his graduation from the Virginia Military Institute in nineteen seventy three.
He commanded infantry companies in Korea and the United States,
the first Battalion, five O eighth Airborne Infantry in Panama,
(01:42):
and United States Task Force Sinai, Multinational Force and Observers
in Egypt. He was the Chief of War Plans Division,
US Central Command in nineteen ninety six ninety seven and
was one of the primary planners of the Iraq War Plan.
He was Executive Officer to the Commander of the US
Central Command nineteen ninety eight to two thousand. He's a
(02:03):
graduate of the US Army War College, the Command and
General Staff College, and the Armed Forces College. The show
is over, Holy Cow. Welcome to the show, Colonel Roland. Sir, dude, Sarah,
thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Read I hope you had fun with that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I had fun with that, you know. I read it
like five times before we were going to meet up,
and I thought I had it like a breeze. But
as I'm reading it, you have quite the resume. And
as a young man, let me just hit you right,
as a young man, you're sixteen years old. Are you
in like boy scouts? Are you swimming? What are you
doing at sixteen seventeen before you go off to high school,
college graduation.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, that's interesting you should ask that that particular period
between sixteen and the time I entered the Army, my
principal focus was sports. And I went to school at
that time at a place called Pellam Memorial High School
in Westchester County in New York, and again the principal
focus was football, wrestling, boxing, believe it or not, and
(03:07):
track and field. All of that served me very very
well for a decision that I had made many many
years before, and that was to become a soldier. And
so armed with that, I entered the Army and then
the Virginia Military Institute in nineteen sixty nine. So you
enlisted initially, but that was very short lived, primarily because
(03:32):
of my football background. The Army decided that, you know,
maybe I could play football for them, but there was
no room at the United States Army Preparatory School. So
I ended up on a bus to a place that
I hold an extremely high esteem, and that was the
Virginia Military Institute, and I was commissioned a second lieutenant
(03:53):
from there in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So you're definitely a Vietnam baby.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, of course, my actions all occurred after the conflict,
but my brother served there, and I'm very very proud
of him, very very proud of my family's legacy with
respect to service. My father and his four brothers all
served in the Great World War Two. They are my heroes,
(04:21):
and they were the basis upon my decision very early
in life to become a soldier.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's very powerful. I also joined because of the family.
My father former Green Beret, and I just idolized that
that was my father, you know, my hero and my
grandfather World War two Navy. My dad also Vietnam Navy.
So you just have this legacy. And then to come
to find out later in life after my dad was adopted,
(04:49):
didn't find out his dad until he had died. But
his dad was in Vietnam the same year he was
in Vietnam, and he never knew that. It's like they
were just going to pass each other. So there's just
this weird legacy. You know, I'm wearing a Tiger stripe
right now. I just can't help it. I'm a seventies child.
(05:10):
So before I get into the hard hitting stuff with you,
when you decided to go infantry, was that because you
just wanted to go infantry or you pulled out a
basic infantry. I'm curious about that. Is that like a
job that you chose.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well the you know, I mentioned my legacy, very very
proud of my father and his brothers, But my father
was an infantry. When he initially went in the army,
he was assigned, believe it or not, to the coastal
artillery because he was a phenomenal mechanically inclined individual, and
(05:48):
he became an expert on all weapons, from the sixteen
inchers that we all know from the battleships, but were
also the big coastal artillery guns, right down to the
small arms of the day, the Grand the three Springfield,
the Thompson machine gun. And he could take those things
(06:12):
and put them back to take them apart, put them
back together again, fixed them. He was an amazing man
that way. But as the war progressed, he was tired
of sitting in Connecticut, where he actually engaged a German
submarine off the coast. But that was not enough for him,
(06:35):
so he volunteered for the infantry and was decorated for
heroism during the Central European Campaign in nineteen forty four
forty five that I thought was the standard. Along with
my uncle Mark, who was very badly wounded fighting with
the twenty ninth Infantry Division during the assault on the
Sigfried Line. They were my heroes, and I thought, you
(06:59):
know what, that's what I want to be. I want
to be an infantry officer, and that's what I put
all of my efforts toward on the athletic fields and
eventually on the drill fields of the Virginia Military Institute.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Now let's flash forward two thousand and one, nine to eleven.
So I remember I was in bed. My dad woke
me up. He's like, hey, Aaron, wake up, turn the
TV on. We were watching the TV of the first
tower smoking second one guy hit. At that moment, he
looked at me and he just said, we're under attack.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah. Let me tell you that was quite an eye opener.
And for me, I had just arrived at United States
Central Command the month before, having successfully commanded United States
Task Force Sinai. I was very, very proud of having
been selected for that assignment, where by the way, I
(07:57):
also served as the chief of Staff of the moment
the National Force, and of course I speak about that
in the book that I wrote in Strange Company. But
I was sitting in my office on eleven September, and
I actually had the news on when the first aircraft
(08:17):
hit the building, and I thought to myself, oh my god,
what a terrible, terrible accident. And I said that because
you may not be aware of this, but in nineteen
forty five, I believe it was a B seventeen bomber
on its way back from Europe that had flown into
the Empire State Building, a similar kind of event. But
(08:39):
then the second plane hit and I got up from
behind my desk and I walked into my boss's office
and I said, sir, something's not right, and I believe
we've been attacked. And then, of course, shortly after that,
the truth became known, and we started gearing up at
(09:01):
United States Central Command to deploy a forward headquarters to Afghanistan.
And the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And you talk about this history, and you mentioned it
in Strange Company. I do want to mention that you've
wrote a book and you're out there talking about this
and wanting to let people know about it. And I
don't forget about that, you know, I just want folks
to know that you started out without really a recruiter
coming at you. Except for your family wanting to join
the military. You had this passion, and I want to
(09:34):
reignite that passion with someone who may listen to this
and they may want to join and take that next step. So,
you know, we need those constitution fighters out there.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, I think that's particularly important, and especially today. You know,
I am very very concerned about what's going on in
today's armed forces, and I believe that some of the
policies that we've seen of late have led to a
lot of young men, and I say, men, we need
men in our Army and our Marine Corps and the
(10:07):
other services to look elsewhere to not want to serve
in given what they have seen of late. And it's
something that I understand and something that I think will
change very shortly, because let me tell you, rad as
(10:29):
you well know. You know, the enemy has a vote
in how we perform on the battlefield. And right now,
I am very very concerned that the status of readiness
of our armed forces, and I'm particularly the Army and
the Marine Corps, those ground combat organizations that are manpower intensive, okay,
(10:57):
is not up to snuff. I think that far too
much time is being placed on nonsensical issues that frankly,
are driving a lot of our young men, as I
indicated previously, to think about doing other things. I believe
that will change. I believe that will change perhaps in
(11:18):
twenty twenty five, when we might be seeing a change
in leadership. I don't know, but I'm certainly hopeful of that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
As a colonel, someone who climbed that grade ladder, you know,
with all diligence, if some congress could hold up three
hundred appointments just because they want to be able to
play games with your job, that would make you, with
(11:46):
all of this knowledge and all of this schooling and
all of this leadership, maybe look to the civilian market
versus like, Hey, why would I want to work for
someone who can just like put the thumb on me
when I'm supposed to be the one to the oppressed.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, I would only say this, I am familiar with
the issue that you just raised, and I always viewed
that as a temporary situation that certain congressmen engaged in
in order to perpetrate a positive action on the part
(12:25):
of our administration and perhaps our military to do other
things that they thought were badly needed. And I'm inclined
to think, as I just said, are very badly needed.
But having said that, I think that young men today
(12:46):
are not going to be overly concerned with that particular issue. Ultimately,
the United States armed forces have always dealt with our
Congress and with civilian leaders, a number of whom, unfortunately
true today, don't know one end of a rifle from
the other, and never walked a mile in yours or
(13:08):
my shoes, or the shoes of countless other millions who
have in fact served this nation. And so to the
young folks out there who think otherwise, I am inclined
to say, Look, you know, in nineteen sixty one a
man stood up who was a Democratic president, and he said,
(13:29):
you know, ask not what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country. And I
think that that holds true, not only for the time
that he raised that in nineteen sixty one, but it
certainly holds true today. We will continue, as senior officers
(13:50):
to deal with the Congress, and they will be as
irresponsible as they were in seventeen eighty one when they
we're not paying our army, and Washington had to do
everything he could to keep an army in the field
during the Treaty of Paris discussions that eventually ended the war.
(14:12):
We've always dealt with these things read and our nation
will ultimately prevail. But we need young men, and we
need them now to recognize that they need to serve
their country. That freedom isn't free.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Just to keep the country ready, that's right, just to
keep the country ready. You know, we may not even
be per se at war, but you have to keep
all the stuff oiled and you know running, and the
key's got to turn inside the machine so that it
can turn on when that action happens. And so you know,
you could totally go talk to a career counselor at
a recruiting station and see if they can offer you
(14:48):
some type of a technical job welding, diesel mechanic. You know,
all these different things can help you when you go
outside of the military sector to civilian world. You're doing
right now. You went from being really the top of
the league, top of your game in the military too.
What am I doing today? You know, I'm out of
(15:09):
the military. You know, it's like I've retired. It's like, wait,
do I wake up and shuffle up and jump with
the guys again, will they notice me if I go?
You know, well, I was.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Very fortunate in that regard. I very reluctantly left the
Army mandatorily retired, as you know. But interestingly enough, after
I was handed a flag by a young a young
soldier and thank for my service. I walked out to
the parking lot to jump into my vehicle, and I
(15:42):
was approached by a very fine fellow who had been
an intelligence officer and had been my control when I
went to Somalia in nineteen ninety four. He said, hey, Roland,
how you doing? He said, what are you going to do?
I understand that you're being made to retire and I said, yes,
(16:04):
that's true, and I don't have a clue right now,
but I'll figure it out. And he said, well, let
me help you. It turned out that at that particular juncture,
in two thousand and four, and ten years after he
had been my control while I was in Somalia, he
said he was now a program manager for a defense
(16:27):
contractor working at United States Central Command doing intelligence planning. Well,
as you know, rad, I am a planner. I'm an
operations planner. However, when I pointed that out to him,
he looked at me, and he said, Hey, Roland, don't
worry about that. Our plan shop desperately needs you. Would
(16:47):
you like to have a job, And I said, well sure.
So for the next eleven years I worked as an
intelligence planner and analyst, and that allowed me the opportunity
to continue to work with a soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines,
(17:08):
and I deployed on five more occasions, Pakistan to Afghanistan,
one time to Pakistan, and then later as a private
defense contractor. After I left United States Central Command. When
our contract ended, I went to Iraq to serve eighteen
(17:29):
months supporting the Iraqi Air Force. So I was very,
very fortunate in the aftermath of my career. And then
when I left defense contracting in twenty twenty, I decided
a year later to pick up where I had left off,
and that was writing a book that I had started,
(17:51):
believe it or not, in two thousand and five. I
had put it away in two thousand and eight in
order to go overseas as a defense contractor, and so
in twenty twenty one I picked it back up, and
lo and behold, it caught the fancy of Casemate publishers
(18:11):
and it was copyrighted in twenty twenty three and released
on the fifteenth of January of this year. So I've
been very very busy.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I have it right here, it's on my phone, and
so it's in strange company an American soldier with multinational
forces in the Middle East and Iraq, and the cover
is littered with all of the isaf right, is that
what we're going to, we would say, is the security forces,
the International Security Assistant Force.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yes, exactly right. And of course at the very top
of that, of course, is the emblem of which we
are most proud, and that is the flag of the
United States of America. But flanking it, of course, are
two very very key countries that served in the multi
national division the Central South, to which I was assigned
(19:02):
as a senior advisor, Those being the country of Ukraine,
which is to the left of our flag, and to
the right the Polish flag. The Poles, of course, I
would submit to you, along with Great Britain, one of
our staunchest allies. And I was very very proud to
(19:25):
serve with these exceptional soldiers, and very proud. I don't
normally say this rad but both of those countries saw
fit to have me decorated for the services that I provided,
both in combat and on the staff. I'm immensely proud
of those decorations, and am very very proud of the
(19:49):
Ukrainian and Polish people, not only for what they have
done in Iraq, but what they are currently doing the Poles,
of course, in NATO and my Ukrainian comrade. It's fighting
so gallantly against Putin and his Russia.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
And his evilness and his autocracy and all his This
is my land and I want the empire. I don't
want to get into that. I want to talk to
you a little bit about well. I mean, I do
want to get into it. I love your opinion on it,
and I think we can agree that I don't want
to fight here in the US. I was talking to
a friend of mine just the other day getting an
oil change. This is the same guy I talked about
(20:24):
it before on another show. I said, are we really
ready for our cal ranch right there just to get
blown apart while we're talking? And he just looks at me.
I'm not. I'm not ready for like a missile just
to come sailing into us. And I said, that's what's
happening over there now. Either we put effort into them
to support them and keep it over there and keep
(20:45):
that fight pushed away from our shores, or it's going
to be too late here. If we have it here,
it's too late. That's my opinion.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Well, I have to agree with you. As a matter
of fact, I would submit that America's policy since nineteen
forty five, when we you know, during the Cold War,
which started, as you know, in nineteen forty five and
I suppose technically ended in nineteen eighty nine with the
(21:13):
or off the Wall and the dissolution of of the
Soviet Empire, we always had a force's forward strategy, which meant,
of course that we kept a good portion of our
army in Central Europe and in Korea, and of course
(21:33):
we still maintained forces in both of those places, as
well as in bases around the world. All of this,
of course, is oriented on ensuring that we can respond
and to do so very very quickly, as opposed to
having to one move a large number of forces from
(21:54):
the United States, which takes time, effort, money goes without
saying so to battle the evil that confronts us on
any given day forward, as opposed to on the shores
of the United States of America.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Jeez, you're great. I know we're not perfect in this life,
and I know there's people out there that are probably
your critics, and so let's ask some critical questions. Iraq
happens and we send over an ambassador that doesn't speak
any Arabic and he dismantles the bath party and fires
the army. How do you feel about that? Oh?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Well, you know, it's interesting. I discussed this a great deal,
A great deal in a strange company. As you know,
I was available once we redeployed the Peninsula Shield Force
to which was the Arab division in western Kuwait. I
was the senior advisor to the Saudi Arabian general that
(22:57):
commanded the Peninsula Shield Force. And after we redeployed those
forces home, I was available and they took a look
at me and said, you know, we've got just a
job for you. And I was flown into Baghdad, and
to make a long story short, I was assigned eventually
(23:17):
as the C three, that is, the operations officer. And
because we were so shorthanded, I was the chief of
staff of the Coalition Military Assistants Training Team this command,
and it was commanded eventually by a very very fine
(23:38):
major general who was a war college classmate of mine,
by the name of Major General Paul Eaton, was tasked
with the development of the new Iraqi Army. But I
should say that the decision to tear to eliminate the
(23:59):
Iraqi Army that was standing in the field was contrary
to all of the brain trust planning that had occurred
between nineteen ninety four and nineteen ninety eight, and that
(24:20):
planning called for a force that included some ten divisions
of the Iraqi Army, which of course we would have
purged of outright criminals and the light we would have
(24:41):
re armed them, reoriented them, placed advisors with each of
the divisions, and then used that manpower to protect the
borders of Iraq, to quell any Sunni Shia problems that
(25:02):
arose in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's downfall, and provide
us with an opportunity in time to begin withdrawing our
own forces. As we developed further, this ten division army
into something even more credible to be a bulwark, particularly
(25:28):
against the enemy to the east, and that of course
is Iran. Back to the new Iraqi Army, everyone knew
that Iraq had to be able to protect itself at
some point, so we were told that we would develop
an army of forty thousand men that would be lightly armed,
(25:49):
would have no heavy weapons, no artillery, no air support,
but that now that Saddam was gone, everything would be fine. Well,
we started out on that task, but thanks to General Eaton,
in large measure, we started to upgun that force, and
(26:10):
by two thousand and four, after the new Iraqi Army's
initial units failed I suppose is the right word during
its battles in on the Jaff alongside US forces, they
didn't do very well. They weren't prepared for that kind
of fighting. The decision was made that we would upgun
(26:36):
that force, but it took a long time, and the
Iraqi Army wasn't I would dare say, a credible force
until well into the decade, and as you know, the
decision was made to withdraw US combat forces in large
measure by twenty eleven. By that time, a number of
(26:57):
the coalition, certainly the forces with which I had served
in the Multi National Division Central South and those others
that served in the Multi National Division Southeast, were withdrawn
by their respective countries in the meantime, we had had
a tremendous amount of Iranian infiltration in the country, and
(27:21):
it was that Iranian infiltration infiltration put's force presence, the
presence of Shia and Sunni militants that this did not
like being an occupied country that saw us fighting a
war through the twenty eleven And it is my humble
(27:44):
belief that had we followed the plan, had we kept
the Iraqi army in place, cleaned it up, reoriented it,
rearmed it, and done the things that we were supposed
to do in accordance with a plan, to include having
a much larger force to occupy the country and plant
(28:07):
it down. It is my personal belief. And I suppose
it's arguable that we could have been out of Iraq
with the exception of a military support group of some
sort between two thousand and five and two thousand and six,
and a lot of young Americans would not have to
(28:28):
have been killed or made as a result of the
extended war that we had there.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Oh wow, And my viewers, my listener, they're those privates,
They're the sergeants, They're the guys that were in Pallujah
and a Najev crossing the Tigris. All the phase lines
that you and your commanders were creating on the maps.
They were calling in phase line alpha Charlie Zulu time,
you know. And so those guys might be mad, but
(28:56):
I think they're only mad maybe because of the end
result versus the not battling next to their battle buddy.
They're not mad because they went to combat and fought
with their buddy and they had to stick together in
the trenches. I think they're upset that they maybe were
used when it could have been used less.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Or they could have been used better. That's what I
mean again and better appreciated. You know, I'm going to
tell you something, rad and again not everyone would agree
with me. But you know, as a young second lieutenant
and as a young cadet, I so enjoyed the stories
of my uncles and of course my father, who shared
them with me because they knew of my interests in
(29:35):
the army and in the army in particular and in
the military in general. And I thought to myself, you know,
someday I'm going to lead men into battle, and that's
what I want to do. You know, I'm going to
fight the enemies of the United States, and you know.
I will tell you that young officers in particular all
(29:57):
seek to be blooded in combat. Of course, I was
no exception. As a matter of fact, I would dare
say that I was the rule. But I was committed
to combat very early in my career, primarily small unit
actions in places like South America, which I would rather
not expound upon, but you know later in Panama, and
(30:23):
then of course what I saw in Somalia. As the
young second lieutenant or the young sergeant grows up as
a soldier, you know, he still feels the need to
be tested and to be proven. But the enthusiasm for
war is a rule. When you see what it's all about,
(30:43):
or perhaps you hold somebody in your arms who didn't
duck when he should have, brings a different perspective to
one's life. And I will tell you that I think
it's most unfortunate and our nation finds itself again on
the cusp of more combat and more a war that
(31:09):
will undoubtedly cause the severe wounds and death of the
cream of our youth. It bothers me, but I'm often asked,
particularly by the people who have read my book of
Late Roland, would you do it again? And I always
smile as I say, you know, I think I'd be
(31:30):
a heck of a lot smarter, but I'd do so
in an heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, And you have to make decisive decisions and move
forward with what happens next. You know, there's not a
crystal ball, and you can only Like the Kings of England,
I went and visited a castle and his only sanity
was sitting in a room for eight hours praying to
(31:57):
a god to talk to him about his entire troop
into battle as in this room. And I'm like, this
is the room where he decided hours upon end. He
was staying there for four or five hours, just praying, like,
tell me what to do. It's so wild how some
things are created war wise. You know what was his
(32:18):
Internet connection back then?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, you know, a wise man once said that the
brain is the most powerful the mind is the most
powerful weapon. You know, I never met a guy who
didn't believe in God in combat. And I know you've
heard that phrase before, but I've got to tell you
it's true. I'll tell you a funny story. Rad and
(32:45):
I had the distinct privilege in honor of commanding the
five Away, their born infantry in Panama they're born and
thank you very much. And all the way, we used
to support the United States Army Jungles School, which at
that time was located at a place called Fort Sherman
the other side of Panama, the Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Side, and that entailed a company plus of my battalion
and a part of the battalion staff to conduct a parachute.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Jump into a place we called a Gatoon drop zone,
which was right next to Gatoon Lake. And it was
you know, of course, it was Sunday, and like everybody
who prepares for a parachute jump or every unit, you
have to assemble at your packing point and your pre
(33:41):
deployment point very early in the morning for a mid
morning jump, and that pretty much eliminates the opportunity to
go to church. So I always used to coordinate to
have our very very good Catholic chaplain come down after
he would say, asked to come down to the hangar
(34:03):
where we were preparing to preparing our equipment to board
the C one thirties and conduct our parachute jump. And
it never ceased to amaze me that you not only
got the Catholic boys, but practically everybody knowing that they
(34:27):
were about to hurl themselves out of an airplane, and
regardless of how many times they had done it, you know,
hurling yourself out of an airplane is not exactly a
natural act. It is a very unnatural act. And we
do it because it's another way to get to the enemy.
And it requires a great deal of training and confidence
and orientation and courage, frankly, particularly for the kinds of
(34:51):
things that combat soldiers have to do. And so I
always found it interesting that everybody wanted to be a
little bit closer to God on those Sunday mornings when
we were going to jump into this God off it
drops on where you know, it wasn't exactly a cleared area,
(35:12):
you know, and I had guys who actually got lost
in the Kuni grass which was so darn high, and
the chance of going into the trees was very very good.
But I always got a big kick out of church
attendance on those days in the hangar, and it only
reinforced my belief that when the rubber meets the road,
(35:33):
everyone knows that the ranger six up there will look
out for you if you believe, and I have always believed,
and I'm here today to tell my story.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You know that's very very very cool, very team work oriented.
I would imagine, you know, even the guy that's like,
you know, agnostic or atheist and doesn't want to, you know,
deal with it, doesn't go to church normally, he's probably
standing around still like I could take some of this
good positive juju that you guys are all trying to
get going, and I can why not have a piece
(36:08):
of it? You know? I tell people if if he's
real and I get to him, he or she and
God says, rad, you're a good dude. I'm totally what
you want from me. He's not. I tell you what. Okay. So,
and it's funny because I just learned that God was
added into the Pledge of Allegiance in nineteen fifty four.
It was indivisible, one nation indivisible, and then now it's
(36:31):
one nation under God indivisible. But what I like about
it is it's not just like one God. It is
God as like an overall definition. So we all know
that something's bigger than us. We don't have a definitive anything.
That's what's called faith. And so faith in something is
the belief that helps put you forward with your front
(36:54):
foot so that you do the best you can every day.
I was raised very religious in a Mormon family, and
my dad was raised Catholic converted to be Mormon. And
now I just have my own belief of all that
stuff that's combined and just being a good person, you know.
And if you guys were all in the hangar saying
a prayer, I would have no problem piling up next
(37:16):
to you guys, shouldered his shoulder and saying, what do
I say here?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Well, there's one other thing about that story that I
need to tell you. Rat you would have loved powling
up to that crowd, because shortly after the reverend the
priest was done, he always had a few extra, very
small bottles of wine that he had not consecrated. And
(37:44):
he looked at me and he said, you know, Colonel,
with your permission, how about I toss out this extra
wine to the boys. Now, it was just not enough
there to throw anybody off. Yeah, so I said, knock
yourself out. And so if there any were any agnostics
(38:04):
or you know, atheists or whatever in the back of
the crowd, I can assure you they all found a
place in the crowd to get their little botty exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
You see, it's it's just about being neighborly and you know,
loving each other, but being ready to you know, destroy
the enemy. And you mentioned boxing earlier, right, And what
boxing does to bring this full circle for you is
that it builds you up to be violent, to be humble,
(38:36):
so you don't have to use it because once you're
using boxing, it's not just one punch, it's multiple punches
and you know, some bobs and some weaves. In fact,
right before I got on the show with you, I
just came from boxing.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Oh well that's that's fantastic. Well, rat, As you well know,
all young officers, you know, whether it's the Virginia Military Institute,
the United States Military Academy, the citadel, the true additional
upbringing of a young officer calls for several courses of
instruction that go above and beyond the classroom. They include swimming.
(39:11):
The classically trained officer is expected to know how to swim,
primarily because he is required not only to be able
to fend for himself but also to teach his soldiers.
But above and beyond swimming, the first thing that the
young cadet at VMI or West Point is introduced to
(39:33):
is the boxing ring, because you want to develop the confidence,
the courage, the ability, the fourth rightness to hold your
own and aggressively pursue your opponent there in the boxing ring,
(39:55):
but later down the road in combat as required. So
the fighting skills give way to the confidence and the courage,
the footwork, the physical ability, all of which boils down
to an officer in the future capable of doing what
(40:18):
Douglas MacArthur talked about in a quotation that he is
often attributed to him, and that is, on the fields
of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other
fields and on other days are reaped the fruits the vicary.
(40:41):
I always viewed boxing in that light, much like I
did the football that I played. And oh, by the way,
rad at the Virginia Military Institute, you either defeated your
opponent or you bled in the f If you didn't
(41:01):
do one of those two things, you didn't pass and
you could look forward to taking the course again.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Oh it's serious business. Boxing is serious business. It's tougher
than MMA, and I'll say it right now on the
show because in MMA they get to tap out like
I'm gonna tap out, But in boxing it's like one two.
Are you good? Walk to me? All right, you're fed up, bro,
but you're still fighting, dude. You don't get to tap out, dude,
(41:32):
you get knocked out, or you take a knee, or
you get a towel thrown in, right, but that's like,
don't ever throw the towel. And obviously, you know, we
just lost Carl Weathers who played Apollo Creed you know,
and Predator Dylan and Predator with Donald Schwarzenegger and huge
boxing icon.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Absolutely, I was very sad to see that. Of course,
I'm a big stallone fan between Rambow and Rocky. I mean,
who was a man's man, you know? Yeah, but yeah,
Carl Weather's played large in all of those Rocky one
through four. Yeah, I was very very sad to see that.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
And a lead. You know, he was a lead in
the film. You know. It wasn't just like a small role.
It was Apollo. I want to fight Apolo. Apollo is
the man. I mean really he was yoked. I mean,
if that's the definition of a boxer, that body. I
am still working on it, but I've lost thirty pounds
(42:36):
since June of last year agoing, I've got about two
hundred times since I started boxing and I can't stop.
I'm just there's a switch.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
You know what did you say that? Because you need
to protect yourself and I can just defer back to
my book in Strange Company when I'm with the Peninsula
Shield Force. You probably read where I used to spend
the evenings when I would come off patrol in the
Western KUWAITI desert engaging on a number of different matters
(43:10):
in politics, family and social issues with my Arab comrades.
And of course they came from throughout the Gulf region, Kuwait,
Sau Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates boch Brain,
just to name name several of them. And they always
(43:33):
used to ask me, you know, Colonel tisso why are
you always doing pull ups and running around the camp?
And I said, well, my brothers, you know you are
as officers expected to lead from the front. We have
to stay in shape. And on top of that, when
you are in good physical condition, you are better prepared
(43:54):
to deal with the stress of combat, which, as you know,
can be deadly. It can provoke heart attacks in the light.
And besides, you must be an example to your men
and look good in your uniform. You cannot be fat
and out of shape. But you know, Rad, I'm going
to tell you a story here. None of that really
(44:14):
communicated well with my Arab brothers. And knowing that, having
been amongst my Arab friends since nineteen ninety four up
until I was assigned to the Peninsula Shiel Force in
the spring of two thousand and three, I looked at
them and with a smile, I said, and beside, my brother,
(44:38):
if you remain in good shape, in good condition, you
will not have to ask me to supply you with
all these bottles of viagra. They were constantly asking me,
ruland can you get some viagra for us? The very
next day, Rad, when I I was out doing my calisthenics,
(45:03):
all of a sudden, I saw fifty or sixty guys
running around the camp and doing something for their physical conditioning.
And so that's when it struck me or reinforced what
I always knew. You have to understand your audience, and
(45:23):
particularly when you're in strange company, you have to understand
what to say, what to do in order to convince
them to do something that they may not want to do,
whether it's physical training or an attacking an objective of
(45:44):
some kind, and I found a way with regard to
physical training on that particular night, and they until we
stood the force down, they were out there running, joining
me at my pull up bar and doing whatever else
they could to kind of improve their performance, perhaps not
(46:04):
in combat, but certainly in the bed.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I love that. Oh my god, that's great. You know
they didn't come back today.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Well, interestingly enough, not after that night. But I've always
had a lot of fun, and I have a great
deal of respect for a number of the Arab officers
with whom I serve In the spring of two thousand
and three, and I discuss all of that and in
(46:39):
some detail in the Strange Company.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Well, you know what Colonel tisso retired Roland, Sir dude,
I could say those things. I love my gig, I
do I do edwar tiger stripe at the same time.
So it's like, you know, being around all these different people,
and did you learn the language? Did you learn you
any Arabic to try to communicate with these guys and
(47:05):
have that.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Well, interestingly enough, the short answer to that question is no. However,
every officer or every soldier secundered to advisory duties picks
up a few words here and there you learn how
to greet them, you know how to say good night,
(47:26):
say thank you, all of those things. However, as I
point out in Strange Company, very early on, growing up
in Old New York, I was exposed to Spanish. I
grew up in the old ethnic neighborhoods of New York,
and of course there was a Hispanic neighborhood, there was
a Polish neighborhood, a German neighborhood, of course, the Italian
(47:48):
neighborhood where my family was, the Black neighborhood. And we
played football in all of these neighborhoods. And as I
started to get more and more into football, you know,
we didn't have the fancy machines back then if you
kids have today in the gyms, particularly to train the
inner legs. And I was a running back, and in
(48:10):
order to find ways to do that, I used to
run down to a place called Rye Beach, And during
any given day there were a number of people who
happened to be from Puerto Rico who used to be
on the beach there, and they used to play a
game called three sided handball, and I learned to play
(48:32):
very well. And in the course of that sports activity,
I picked up a lot of Spanish. Then in high
school I continued my study of Spanish, and when I
was eventually found myself at the Virginia Military Institute, I
was tested for a foreign language and I tested very
(48:52):
well in Spanish and ended up studying Spanish for another
four years. In the multi national division set South, there
were three brigades, the Ukrainian Brigade, Polish Brigade, and the
Spanish Brigade. And in the Spanish Brigade were several Central
(49:15):
American armies L. Salvador, nic at Agua, Honduras, and the
Dominican Republic. And I had to advise each of the brigades,
and I went on a number of patrols with the
Spanish as well as with the L. Salvadoran paratroopers. I
(49:39):
was very very comfortable around the Elsals because they were
paratroopers and special forces, and they were very very fine soldiers.
A number of whom are the officers, that is and
the senior NCOs were combat veterans of the guerrilla war
that had been fought in their country in the eighties
and early nineties. And so the fact that I was
(50:02):
able to do as well as I did with the
Spaniards and with the Central American commanders was a direct result,
I think of my ability to converse with them in
their native language. Not only was it very much appreciated,
but it helped me to be more convincing in what
I thought they needed to do in order to better
(50:26):
conduct combat operations. And I'm very very proud of that.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
I love that. And I also think that, like our leadership,
needs to have a different language as well as English.
I understand the English first push here in the US,
but it's okay if they speak Mandarin and also some
Spanish or maybe some German, because there's nothing like having
a conversation with someone and not thinking they're talking behind
your back.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Well, I absolutely concur with that. And you know, Mandarin
is considered one of the most difficult languages in the
world to learn. For a young officer to be able
to speak that very difficult and yet very very necessary
language as we look at the future and our engagement
(51:12):
in the Pacific, I think the Army would be very
very wise and all the services of course, to look
at developing young speakers very early in their careers. You know,
I once had a very fine officer who I mentioned
in strange company. He's a superb gentleman who went on
(51:34):
to become a senior naval officer, who as a Russian
Jew was he and his family were thrown out of
Russia in the nineteen eighties by Putin or whoever at
that time, and they came to our great country. And
(51:58):
this fellow, and his name is Gary Tobak, learned to
speak English, and to this day, of course, he he
came as a young teenager, and he learned, of course
to speak English, but of course he speaks fluent Russian.
And Gary, who I call Yuri Yuri. Gary, with his
(52:21):
fluent Russian, became the first naval officer to be a
foreign specialist, a foreign country specialist, and he spent a
great deal of time serving our country in places like
Poland and in Russia. And he went on to become
(52:46):
a navy captain and was the senior officer in the
navy when he retired several years ago. And he continues
to serve our country working with the Ukrainian media in
Ukraine as we speak. So here's a perfect example of
a guy who could speak the language, loved his adopted
(53:10):
country and went on to serve it. So well for
nearly thirty years as a foreign area specialist.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Well, we've had Roland for about an hour of time.
We heard wonderful stories from him and got some insight
into Iraq and going in and him as a planner.
Really want to thank the retired colonel for being on
the show. Roland J. Tisso Junior in Strange Company is
the book an American soldier with multinational forces in the
(53:42):
Middle East and Iraq. He also has a forward. I
want to give a shout out to General retired Anthony Sizini,
United States Marine Corps who gives him a foreword. Go
check out his book and check out the book club
that soft rep dot com, Forward slash Book hyphen Club,
and go check out our merch store. And this is
(54:03):
rad Saying Peace.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
You've been listening to sulf Red Radio.
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, welcome back. This is rad and this is another
episode of soft Rep Radio. I want to remind you
to go check out our book club at soft reap
dot com book hyphen Club. You guys know what it is.
Go check out the book club. We also have the
merch store where we have branded goods from soft Rep
that you guys have been like tagging me on the
internet in keep that up and you know, maybe we'll
(00:58):
pick someone to win a prize. Keep tagging. Today's guest
is someone special because he's just a human being on
this earth who was tasked with raising his hand to
defend his country that he chose to do and decided
to go to college and become an officer in the military.
And so I have Colonel Roland J. Tisso, Junior United
(01:20):
States Army, retired author. You know he is going to
be let me go over as a background here. Colonel
Roland Tisso was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry upon
his graduation from the Virginia Military Institute in nineteen seventy three.
He commanded infantry companies in Korea and the United States,
the first Battalion, five O eighth Airborne Infantry in Panama,
(01:42):
and United States Task Force Sinai, Multinational Force and Observers
in Egypt. He was the Chief of War Plans Division,
US Central Command in nineteen ninety six ninety seven and
was one of the primary planners of the Iraq War Plan.
He was Executive Officer to the Commander of the US
Central Command nineteen ninety eight to two thousand. He's a
(02:03):
graduate of the US Army War College, the Command and
General Staff College, and the Armed Forces College. The show
is over, Holy Cow. Welcome to the show, Colonel Roland. Sir, dude, Sarah,
thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Read I hope you had fun with that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I had fun with that, you know. I read it
like five times before we were going to meet up,
and I thought I had it like a breeze. But
as I'm reading it, you have quite the resume. And
as a young man, let me just hit you right,
as a young man, you're sixteen years old. Are you
in like boy scouts? Are you swimming? What are you
doing at sixteen seventeen before you go off to high school,
college graduation.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, that's interesting you should ask that that particular period
between sixteen and the time I entered the Army, my
principal focus was sports. And I went to school at
that time at a place called Pellam Memorial High School
in Westchester County in New York, and again the principal
focus was football, wrestling, boxing, believe it or not, and
(03:07):
track and field. All of that served me very very
well for a decision that I had made many many
years before, and that was to become a soldier. And
so armed with that, I entered the Army and then
the Virginia Military Institute in nineteen sixty nine. So you
enlisted initially, but that was very short lived, primarily because
(03:32):
of my football background. The Army decided that, you know,
maybe I could play football for them, but there was
no room at the United States Army Preparatory School. So
I ended up on a bus to a place that
I hold an extremely high esteem, and that was the
Virginia Military Institute, and I was commissioned a second lieutenant
(03:53):
from there in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So you're definitely a Vietnam baby.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, of course, my actions all occurred after the conflict,
but my brother served there, and I'm very very proud
of him, very very proud of my family's legacy with
respect to service. My father and his four brothers all
served in the Great World War Two. They are my heroes,
(04:21):
and they were the basis upon my decision very early
in life to become a soldier.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's very powerful. I also joined because of the family.
My father former Green Beret, and I just idolized that
that was my father, you know, my hero and my
grandfather World War two Navy. My dad also Vietnam Navy.
So you just have this legacy. And then to come
to find out later in life after my dad was adopted,
(04:49):
didn't find out his dad until he had died. But
his dad was in Vietnam the same year he was
in Vietnam, and he never knew that. It's like they
were just going to pass each other. So there's just
this weird legacy. You know, I'm wearing a Tiger stripe
right now. I just can't help it. I'm a seventies child.
(05:10):
So before I get into the hard hitting stuff with you,
when you decided to go infantry, was that because you
just wanted to go infantry or you pulled out a
basic infantry. I'm curious about that. Is that like a
job that you chose.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well the you know, I mentioned my legacy, very very
proud of my father and his brothers, But my father
was an infantry. When he initially went in the army,
he was assigned, believe it or not, to the coastal
artillery because he was a phenomenal mechanically inclined individual, and
(05:48):
he became an expert on all weapons, from the sixteen
inchers that we all know from the battleships, but were
also the big coastal artillery guns, right down to the
small arms of the day, the Grand the three Springfield,
the Thompson machine gun. And he could take those things
(06:12):
and put them back to take them apart, put them
back together again, fixed them. He was an amazing man
that way. But as the war progressed, he was tired
of sitting in Connecticut, where he actually engaged a German
submarine off the coast. But that was not enough for him,
(06:35):
so he volunteered for the infantry and was decorated for
heroism during the Central European Campaign in nineteen forty four
forty five that I thought was the standard. Along with
my uncle Mark, who was very badly wounded fighting with
the twenty ninth Infantry Division during the assault on the
Sigfried Line. They were my heroes, and I thought, you
(06:59):
know what, that's what I want to be. I want
to be an infantry officer, and that's what I put
all of my efforts toward on the athletic fields and
eventually on the drill fields of the Virginia Military Institute.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Now let's flash forward two thousand and one, nine to eleven.
So I remember I was in bed. My dad woke
me up. He's like, hey, Aaron, wake up, turn the
TV on. We were watching the TV of the first
tower smoking second one guy hit. At that moment, he
looked at me and he just said, we're under attack.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah. Let me tell you that was quite an eye opener.
And for me, I had just arrived at United States
Central Command the month before, having successfully commanded United States
Task Force Sinai. I was very, very proud of having
been selected for that assignment, where by the way, I
(07:57):
also served as the chief of Staff of the moment
the National Force, and of course I speak about that
in the book that I wrote in Strange Company. But
I was sitting in my office on eleven September, and
I actually had the news on when the first aircraft
(08:17):
hit the building, and I thought to myself, oh my god,
what a terrible, terrible accident. And I said that because
you may not be aware of this, but in nineteen
forty five, I believe it was a B seventeen bomber
on its way back from Europe that had flown into
the Empire State Building, a similar kind of event. But
(08:39):
then the second plane hit and I got up from
behind my desk and I walked into my boss's office
and I said, sir, something's not right, and I believe
we've been attacked. And then, of course, shortly after that,
the truth became known, and we started gearing up at
(09:01):
United States Central Command to deploy a forward headquarters to Afghanistan.
And the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And you talk about this history, and you mentioned it
in Strange Company. I do want to mention that you've
wrote a book and you're out there talking about this
and wanting to let people know about it. And I
don't forget about that, you know, I just want folks
to know that you started out without really a recruiter
coming at you. Except for your family wanting to join
the military. You had this passion, and I want to
(09:34):
reignite that passion with someone who may listen to this
and they may want to join and take that next step. So,
you know, we need those constitution fighters out there.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, I think that's particularly important, and especially today. You know,
I am very very concerned about what's going on in
today's armed forces, and I believe that some of the
policies that we've seen of late have led to a
lot of young men, and I say, men, we need
men in our Army and our Marine Corps and the
(10:07):
other services to look elsewhere to not want to serve
in given what they have seen of late. And it's
something that I understand and something that I think will
change very shortly, because let me tell you, rad as
(10:29):
you well know. You know, the enemy has a vote
in how we perform on the battlefield. And right now,
I am very very concerned that the status of readiness
of our armed forces, and I'm particularly the Army and
the Marine Corps, those ground combat organizations that are manpower intensive, okay,
(10:57):
is not up to snuff. I think that far too
much time is being placed on nonsensical issues that frankly,
are driving a lot of our young men, as I
indicated previously, to think about doing other things. I believe
that will change. I believe that will change perhaps in
(11:18):
twenty twenty five, when we might be seeing a change
in leadership. I don't know, but I'm certainly hopeful of that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
As a colonel, someone who climbed that grade ladder, you know,
with all diligence, if some congress could hold up three
hundred appointments just because they want to be able to
play games with your job, that would make you, with
(11:46):
all of this knowledge and all of this schooling and
all of this leadership, maybe look to the civilian market
versus like, Hey, why would I want to work for
someone who can just like put the thumb on me
when I'm supposed to be the one to the oppressed.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, I would only say this, I am familiar with
the issue that you just raised, and I always viewed
that as a temporary situation that certain congressmen engaged in
in order to perpetrate a positive action on the part
(12:25):
of our administration and perhaps our military to do other
things that they thought were badly needed. And I'm inclined
to think, as I just said, are very badly needed.
But having said that, I think that young men today
(12:46):
are not going to be overly concerned with that particular issue. Ultimately,
the United States armed forces have always dealt with our
Congress and with civilian leaders, a number of whom, unfortunately
true today, don't know one end of a rifle from
the other, and never walked a mile in yours or
(13:08):
my shoes, or the shoes of countless other millions who
have in fact served this nation. And so to the
young folks out there who think otherwise, I am inclined
to say, Look, you know, in nineteen sixty one a
man stood up who was a Democratic president, and he said,
(13:29):
you know, ask not what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country. And I
think that that holds true, not only for the time
that he raised that in nineteen sixty one, but it
certainly holds true today. We will continue, as senior officers
(13:50):
to deal with the Congress, and they will be as
irresponsible as they were in seventeen eighty one when they
we're not paying our army, and Washington had to do
everything he could to keep an army in the field
during the Treaty of Paris discussions that eventually ended the war.
(14:12):
We've always dealt with these things read and our nation
will ultimately prevail. But we need young men, and we
need them now to recognize that they need to serve
their country. That freedom isn't free.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Just to keep the country ready, that's right, just to
keep the country ready. You know, we may not even
be per se at war, but you have to keep
all the stuff oiled and you know running, and the
key's got to turn inside the machine so that it
can turn on when that action happens. And so you know,
you could totally go talk to a career counselor at
a recruiting station and see if they can offer you
(14:48):
some type of a technical job welding, diesel mechanic. You know,
all these different things can help you when you go
outside of the military sector to civilian world. You're doing
right now. You went from being really the top of
the league, top of your game in the military too.
What am I doing today? You know, I'm out of
(15:09):
the military. You know, it's like I've retired. It's like, wait,
do I wake up and shuffle up and jump with
the guys again, will they notice me if I go?
You know, well, I was.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Very fortunate in that regard. I very reluctantly left the
Army mandatorily retired, as you know. But interestingly enough, after
I was handed a flag by a young a young
soldier and thank for my service. I walked out to
the parking lot to jump into my vehicle, and I
(15:42):
was approached by a very fine fellow who had been
an intelligence officer and had been my control when I
went to Somalia in nineteen ninety four. He said, hey, Roland,
how you doing? He said, what are you going to do?
I understand that you're being made to retire and I said, yes,
(16:04):
that's true, and I don't have a clue right now,
but I'll figure it out. And he said, well, let
me help you. It turned out that at that particular juncture,
in two thousand and four, and ten years after he
had been my control while I was in Somalia, he
said he was now a program manager for a defense
(16:27):
contractor working at United States Central Command doing intelligence planning. Well,
as you know, rad, I am a planner. I'm an
operations planner. However, when I pointed that out to him,
he looked at me, and he said, Hey, Roland, don't
worry about that. Our plan shop desperately needs you. Would
(16:47):
you like to have a job, And I said, well sure.
So for the next eleven years I worked as an
intelligence planner and analyst, and that allowed me the opportunity
to continue to work with a soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines,
(17:08):
and I deployed on five more occasions, Pakistan to Afghanistan,
one time to Pakistan, and then later as a private
defense contractor. After I left United States Central Command. When
our contract ended, I went to Iraq to serve eighteen
(17:29):
months supporting the Iraqi Air Force. So I was very,
very fortunate in the aftermath of my career. And then
when I left defense contracting in twenty twenty, I decided
a year later to pick up where I had left off,
and that was writing a book that I had started,
(17:51):
believe it or not, in two thousand and five. I
had put it away in two thousand and eight in
order to go overseas as a defense contractor, and so
in twenty twenty one I picked it back up, and
lo and behold, it caught the fancy of Casemate publishers
(18:11):
and it was copyrighted in twenty twenty three and released
on the fifteenth of January of this year. So I've
been very very busy.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I have it right here, it's on my phone, and
so it's in strange company an American soldier with multinational
forces in the Middle East and Iraq, and the cover
is littered with all of the isaf right, is that
what we're going to, we would say, is the security forces,
the International Security Assistant Force.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yes, exactly right. And of course at the very top
of that, of course, is the emblem of which we
are most proud, and that is the flag of the
United States of America. But flanking it, of course, are
two very very key countries that served in the multi
national division the Central South, to which I was assigned
(19:02):
as a senior advisor, Those being the country of Ukraine,
which is to the left of our flag, and to
the right the Polish flag. The Poles, of course, I
would submit to you, along with Great Britain, one of
our staunchest allies. And I was very very proud to
(19:25):
serve with these exceptional soldiers, and very proud. I don't
normally say this rad but both of those countries saw
fit to have me decorated for the services that I provided,
both in combat and on the staff. I'm immensely proud
of those decorations, and am very very proud of the
(19:49):
Ukrainian and Polish people, not only for what they have
done in Iraq, but what they are currently doing the Poles,
of course, in NATO and my Ukrainian comrade. It's fighting
so gallantly against Putin and his Russia.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
And his evilness and his autocracy and all his This
is my land and I want the empire. I don't
want to get into that. I want to talk to
you a little bit about well. I mean, I do
want to get into it. I love your opinion on it,
and I think we can agree that I don't want
to fight here in the US. I was talking to
a friend of mine just the other day getting an
oil change. This is the same guy I talked about
(20:24):
it before on another show. I said, are we really
ready for our cal ranch right there just to get
blown apart while we're talking? And he just looks at me.
I'm not. I'm not ready for like a missile just
to come sailing into us. And I said, that's what's
happening over there now. Either we put effort into them
to support them and keep it over there and keep
(20:45):
that fight pushed away from our shores, or it's going
to be too late here. If we have it here,
it's too late. That's my opinion.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Well, I have to agree with you. As a matter
of fact, I would submit that America's policy since nineteen
forty five, when we you know, during the Cold War,
which started, as you know, in nineteen forty five and
I suppose technically ended in nineteen eighty nine with the
(21:13):
or off the Wall and the dissolution of of the
Soviet Empire, we always had a force's forward strategy, which meant,
of course that we kept a good portion of our
army in Central Europe and in Korea, and of course
(21:33):
we still maintained forces in both of those places, as
well as in bases around the world. All of this,
of course, is oriented on ensuring that we can respond
and to do so very very quickly, as opposed to
having to one move a large number of forces from
(21:54):
the United States, which takes time, effort, money goes without
saying so to battle the evil that confronts us on
any given day forward, as opposed to on the shores
of the United States of America.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Jeez, you're great. I know we're not perfect in this life,
and I know there's people out there that are probably
your critics, and so let's ask some critical questions. Iraq
happens and we send over an ambassador that doesn't speak
any Arabic and he dismantles the bath party and fires
the army. How do you feel about that? Oh?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Well, you know, it's interesting. I discussed this a great deal,
A great deal in a strange company. As you know,
I was available once we redeployed the Peninsula Shield Force
to which was the Arab division in western Kuwait. I
was the senior advisor to the Saudi Arabian general that
(22:57):
commanded the Peninsula Shield Force. And after we redeployed those
forces home, I was available and they took a look
at me and said, you know, we've got just a
job for you. And I was flown into Baghdad, and
to make a long story short, I was assigned eventually
(23:17):
as the C three, that is, the operations officer. And
because we were so shorthanded, I was the chief of
staff of the Coalition Military Assistants Training Team this command,
and it was commanded eventually by a very very fine
(23:38):
major general who was a war college classmate of mine,
by the name of Major General Paul Eaton, was tasked
with the development of the new Iraqi Army. But I
should say that the decision to tear to eliminate the
(23:59):
Iraqi Army that was standing in the field was contrary
to all of the brain trust planning that had occurred
between nineteen ninety four and nineteen ninety eight, and that
(24:20):
planning called for a force that included some ten divisions
of the Iraqi Army, which of course we would have
purged of outright criminals and the light we would have
(24:41):
re armed them, reoriented them, placed advisors with each of
the divisions, and then used that manpower to protect the
borders of Iraq, to quell any Sunni Shia problems that
(25:02):
arose in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's downfall, and provide
us with an opportunity in time to begin withdrawing our
own forces. As we developed further, this ten division army
into something even more credible to be a bulwark, particularly
(25:28):
against the enemy to the east, and that of course
is Iran. Back to the new Iraqi Army, everyone knew
that Iraq had to be able to protect itself at
some point, so we were told that we would develop
an army of forty thousand men that would be lightly armed,
(25:49):
would have no heavy weapons, no artillery, no air support,
but that now that Saddam was gone, everything would be fine. Well,
we started out on that task, but thanks to General Eaton,
in large measure, we started to upgun that force, and
(26:10):
by two thousand and four, after the new Iraqi Army's
initial units failed I suppose is the right word during
its battles in on the Jaff alongside US forces, they
didn't do very well. They weren't prepared for that kind
of fighting. The decision was made that we would upgun
(26:36):
that force, but it took a long time, and the
Iraqi Army wasn't I would dare say, a credible force
until well into the decade, and as you know, the
decision was made to withdraw US combat forces in large
measure by twenty eleven. By that time, a number of
(26:57):
the coalition, certainly the forces with which I had served
in the Multi National Division Central South and those others
that served in the Multi National Division Southeast, were withdrawn
by their respective countries in the meantime, we had had
a tremendous amount of Iranian infiltration in the country, and
(27:21):
it was that Iranian infiltration infiltration put's force presence, the
presence of Shia and Sunni militants that this did not
like being an occupied country that saw us fighting a
war through the twenty eleven And it is my humble
(27:44):
belief that had we followed the plan, had we kept
the Iraqi army in place, cleaned it up, reoriented it,
rearmed it, and done the things that we were supposed
to do in accordance with a plan, to include having
a much larger force to occupy the country and plant
(28:07):
it down. It is my personal belief. And I suppose
it's arguable that we could have been out of Iraq
with the exception of a military support group of some
sort between two thousand and five and two thousand and six,
and a lot of young Americans would not have to
(28:28):
have been killed or made as a result of the
extended war that we had there.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Oh wow, And my viewers, my listener, they're those privates,
They're the sergeants, They're the guys that were in Pallujah
and a Najev crossing the Tigris. All the phase lines
that you and your commanders were creating on the maps.
They were calling in phase line alpha Charlie Zulu time,
you know. And so those guys might be mad, but
(28:56):
I think they're only mad maybe because of the end
result versus the not battling next to their battle buddy.
They're not mad because they went to combat and fought
with their buddy and they had to stick together in
the trenches. I think they're upset that they maybe were
used when it could have been used less.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Or they could have been used better. That's what I
mean again and better appreciated. You know, I'm going to
tell you something, rad and again not everyone would agree
with me. But you know, as a young second lieutenant
and as a young cadet, I so enjoyed the stories
of my uncles and of course my father, who shared
them with me because they knew of my interests in
(29:35):
the army and in the army in particular and in
the military in general. And I thought to myself, you know,
someday I'm going to lead men into battle, and that's
what I want to do. You know, I'm going to
fight the enemies of the United States, and you know.
I will tell you that young officers in particular all
(29:57):
seek to be blooded in combat. Of course, I was
no exception. As a matter of fact, I would dare
say that I was the rule. But I was committed
to combat very early in my career, primarily small unit
actions in places like South America, which I would rather
not expound upon, but you know later in Panama, and
(30:23):
then of course what I saw in Somalia. As the
young second lieutenant or the young sergeant grows up as
a soldier, you know, he still feels the need to
be tested and to be proven. But the enthusiasm for
war is a rule. When you see what it's all about,
(30:43):
or perhaps you hold somebody in your arms who didn't
duck when he should have, brings a different perspective to
one's life. And I will tell you that I think
it's most unfortunate and our nation finds itself again on
the cusp of more combat and more a war that
(31:09):
will undoubtedly cause the severe wounds and death of the
cream of our youth. It bothers me, but I'm often asked,
particularly by the people who have read my book of
Late Roland, would you do it again? And I always
smile as I say, you know, I think I'd be
(31:30):
a heck of a lot smarter, but I'd do so
in an heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, And you have to make decisive decisions and move
forward with what happens next. You know, there's not a
crystal ball, and you can only Like the Kings of England,
I went and visited a castle and his only sanity
was sitting in a room for eight hours praying to
(31:57):
a god to talk to him about his entire troop
into battle as in this room. And I'm like, this
is the room where he decided hours upon end. He
was staying there for four or five hours, just praying, like,
tell me what to do. It's so wild how some
things are created war wise. You know what was his
(32:18):
Internet connection back then?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, you know, a wise man once said that the
brain is the most powerful the mind is the most
powerful weapon. You know, I never met a guy who
didn't believe in God in combat. And I know you've
heard that phrase before, but I've got to tell you
it's true. I'll tell you a funny story. Rad and
(32:45):
I had the distinct privilege in honor of commanding the
five Away, their born infantry in Panama they're born and
thank you very much. And all the way, we used
to support the United States Army Jungles School, which at
that time was located at a place called Fort Sherman
the other side of Panama, the Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Side, and that entailed a company plus of my battalion
and a part of the battalion staff to conduct a parachute.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Jump into a place we called a Gatoon drop zone,
which was right next to Gatoon Lake. And it was
you know, of course, it was Sunday, and like everybody
who prepares for a parachute jump or every unit, you
have to assemble at your packing point and your pre
(33:41):
deployment point very early in the morning for a mid
morning jump, and that pretty much eliminates the opportunity to
go to church. So I always used to coordinate to
have our very very good Catholic chaplain come down after
he would say, asked to come down to the hangar
(34:03):
where we were preparing to preparing our equipment to board
the C one thirties and conduct our parachute jump. And
it never ceased to amaze me that you not only
got the Catholic boys, but practically everybody knowing that they
(34:27):
were about to hurl themselves out of an airplane, and
regardless of how many times they had done it, you know,
hurling yourself out of an airplane is not exactly a
natural act. It is a very unnatural act. And we
do it because it's another way to get to the enemy.
And it requires a great deal of training and confidence
and orientation and courage, frankly, particularly for the kinds of
(34:51):
things that combat soldiers have to do. And so I
always found it interesting that everybody wanted to be a
little bit closer to God on those Sunday mornings when
we were going to jump into this God off it
drops on where you know, it wasn't exactly a cleared area,
(35:12):
you know, and I had guys who actually got lost
in the Kuni grass which was so darn high, and
the chance of going into the trees was very very good.
But I always got a big kick out of church
attendance on those days in the hangar, and it only
reinforced my belief that when the rubber meets the road,
(35:33):
everyone knows that the ranger six up there will look
out for you if you believe, and I have always believed,
and I'm here today to tell my story.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You know that's very very very cool, very team work oriented.
I would imagine, you know, even the guy that's like,
you know, agnostic or atheist and doesn't want to, you know,
deal with it, doesn't go to church normally, he's probably
standing around still like I could take some of this
good positive juju that you guys are all trying to
get going, and I can why not have a piece
(36:08):
of it? You know? I tell people if if he's
real and I get to him, he or she and
God says, rad, you're a good dude. I'm totally what
you want from me. He's not. I tell you what. Okay. So,
and it's funny because I just learned that God was
added into the Pledge of Allegiance in nineteen fifty four.
It was indivisible, one nation indivisible, and then now it's
(36:31):
one nation under God indivisible. But what I like about
it is it's not just like one God. It is
God as like an overall definition. So we all know
that something's bigger than us. We don't have a definitive anything.
That's what's called faith. And so faith in something is
the belief that helps put you forward with your front
(36:54):
foot so that you do the best you can every day.
I was raised very religious in a Mormon family, and
my dad was raised Catholic converted to be Mormon. And
now I just have my own belief of all that
stuff that's combined and just being a good person, you know.
And if you guys were all in the hangar saying
a prayer, I would have no problem piling up next
(37:16):
to you guys, shouldered his shoulder and saying, what do
I say here?
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Well, there's one other thing about that story that I
need to tell you. Rat you would have loved powling
up to that crowd, because shortly after the reverend the
priest was done, he always had a few extra, very
small bottles of wine that he had not consecrated. And
(37:44):
he looked at me and he said, you know, Colonel,
with your permission, how about I toss out this extra
wine to the boys. Now, it was just not enough
there to throw anybody off. Yeah, so I said, knock
yourself out. And so if there any were any agnostics
(38:04):
or you know, atheists or whatever in the back of
the crowd, I can assure you they all found a
place in the crowd to get their little botty exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
You see, it's it's just about being neighborly and you know,
loving each other, but being ready to you know, destroy
the enemy. And you mentioned boxing earlier, right, And what
boxing does to bring this full circle for you is
that it builds you up to be violent, to be humble,
(38:36):
so you don't have to use it because once you're
using boxing, it's not just one punch, it's multiple punches
and you know, some bobs and some weaves. In fact,
right before I got on the show with you, I
just came from boxing.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Oh well that's that's fantastic. Well, rat, As you well know,
all young officers, you know, whether it's the Virginia Military Institute,
the United States Military Academy, the citadel, the true additional
upbringing of a young officer calls for several courses of
instruction that go above and beyond the classroom. They include swimming.
(39:11):
The classically trained officer is expected to know how to swim,
primarily because he is required not only to be able
to fend for himself but also to teach his soldiers.
But above and beyond swimming, the first thing that the
young cadet at VMI or West Point is introduced to
(39:33):
is the boxing ring, because you want to develop the confidence,
the courage, the ability, the fourth rightness to hold your
own and aggressively pursue your opponent there in the boxing ring,
(39:55):
but later down the road in combat as required. So
the fighting skills give way to the confidence and the courage,
the footwork, the physical ability, all of which boils down
to an officer in the future capable of doing what
(40:18):
Douglas MacArthur talked about in a quotation that he is
often attributed to him, and that is, on the fields
of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other
fields and on other days are reaped the fruits the vicary.
(40:41):
I always viewed boxing in that light, much like I
did the football that I played. And oh, by the way,
rad at the Virginia Military Institute, you either defeated your
opponent or you bled in the f If you didn't
(41:01):
do one of those two things, you didn't pass and
you could look forward to taking the course again.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Oh it's serious business. Boxing is serious business. It's tougher
than MMA, and I'll say it right now on the
show because in MMA they get to tap out like
I'm gonna tap out, But in boxing it's like one two.
Are you good? Walk to me? All right, you're fed up, bro,
but you're still fighting, dude. You don't get to tap out, dude,
(41:32):
you get knocked out, or you take a knee, or
you get a towel thrown in, right, but that's like,
don't ever throw the towel. And obviously, you know, we
just lost Carl Weathers who played Apollo Creed you know,
and Predator Dylan and Predator with Donald Schwarzenegger and huge
boxing icon.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Absolutely, I was very sad to see that. Of course,
I'm a big stallone fan between Rambow and Rocky. I mean,
who was a man's man, you know? Yeah, but yeah,
Carl Weather's played large in all of those Rocky one
through four. Yeah, I was very very sad to see that.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
And a lead. You know, he was a lead in
the film. You know. It wasn't just like a small role.
It was Apollo. I want to fight Apolo. Apollo is
the man. I mean really he was yoked. I mean,
if that's the definition of a boxer, that body. I
am still working on it, but I've lost thirty pounds
(42:36):
since June of last year agoing, I've got about two
hundred times since I started boxing and I can't stop.
I'm just there's a switch.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
You know what did you say that? Because you need
to protect yourself and I can just defer back to
my book in Strange Company when I'm with the Peninsula
Shield Force. You probably read where I used to spend
the evenings when I would come off patrol in the
Western KUWAITI desert engaging on a number of different matters
(43:10):
in politics, family and social issues with my Arab comrades.
And of course they came from throughout the Gulf region, Kuwait,
Sau Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates boch Brain,
just to name name several of them. And they always
(43:33):
used to ask me, you know, Colonel tisso why are
you always doing pull ups and running around the camp?
And I said, well, my brothers, you know you are
as officers expected to lead from the front. We have
to stay in shape. And on top of that, when
you are in good physical condition, you are better prepared
(43:54):
to deal with the stress of combat, which, as you know,
can be deadly. It can provoke heart attacks in the light.
And besides, you must be an example to your men
and look good in your uniform. You cannot be fat
and out of shape. But you know, Rad, I'm going
to tell you a story here. None of that really
(44:14):
communicated well with my Arab brothers. And knowing that, having
been amongst my Arab friends since nineteen ninety four up
until I was assigned to the Peninsula Shiel Force in
the spring of two thousand and three, I looked at
them and with a smile, I said, and beside, my brother,
(44:38):
if you remain in good shape, in good condition, you
will not have to ask me to supply you with
all these bottles of viagra. They were constantly asking me,
ruland can you get some viagra for us? The very
next day, Rad, when I I was out doing my calisthenics,
(45:03):
all of a sudden, I saw fifty or sixty guys
running around the camp and doing something for their physical conditioning.
And so that's when it struck me or reinforced what
I always knew. You have to understand your audience, and
(45:23):
particularly when you're in strange company, you have to understand
what to say, what to do in order to convince
them to do something that they may not want to do,
whether it's physical training or an attacking an objective of
(45:44):
some kind, and I found a way with regard to
physical training on that particular night, and they until we
stood the force down, they were out there running, joining
me at my pull up bar and doing whatever else
they could to kind of improve their performance, perhaps not
(46:04):
in combat, but certainly in the bed.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I love that. Oh my god, that's great. You know
they didn't come back today.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Well, interestingly enough, not after that night. But I've always
had a lot of fun, and I have a great
deal of respect for a number of the Arab officers
with whom I serve In the spring of two thousand
and three, and I discuss all of that and in
(46:39):
some detail in the Strange Company.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Well, you know what Colonel tisso retired Roland, Sir dude,
I could say those things. I love my gig, I
do I do edwar tiger stripe at the same time.
So it's like, you know, being around all these different people,
and did you learn the language? Did you learn you
any Arabic to try to communicate with these guys and
(47:05):
have that.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Well, interestingly enough, the short answer to that question is no. However,
every officer or every soldier secundered to advisory duties picks
up a few words here and there you learn how
to greet them, you know how to say good night,
(47:26):
say thank you, all of those things. However, as I
point out in Strange Company, very early on, growing up
in Old New York, I was exposed to Spanish. I
grew up in the old ethnic neighborhoods of New York,
and of course there was a Hispanic neighborhood, there was
a Polish neighborhood, a German neighborhood, of course, the Italian
(47:48):
neighborhood where my family was, the Black neighborhood. And we
played football in all of these neighborhoods. And as I
started to get more and more into football, you know,
we didn't have the fancy machines back then if you
kids have today in the gyms, particularly to train the
inner legs. And I was a running back, and in
(48:10):
order to find ways to do that, I used to
run down to a place called Rye Beach, And during
any given day there were a number of people who
happened to be from Puerto Rico who used to be
on the beach there, and they used to play a
game called three sided handball, and I learned to play
(48:32):
very well. And in the course of that sports activity,
I picked up a lot of Spanish. Then in high
school I continued my study of Spanish, and when I
was eventually found myself at the Virginia Military Institute, I
was tested for a foreign language and I tested very
(48:52):
well in Spanish and ended up studying Spanish for another
four years. In the multi national division set South, there
were three brigades, the Ukrainian Brigade, Polish Brigade, and the
Spanish Brigade. And in the Spanish Brigade were several Central
(49:15):
American armies L. Salvador, nic at Agua, Honduras, and the
Dominican Republic. And I had to advise each of the brigades,
and I went on a number of patrols with the
Spanish as well as with the L. Salvadoran paratroopers. I
(49:39):
was very very comfortable around the Elsals because they were
paratroopers and special forces, and they were very very fine soldiers.
A number of whom are the officers, that is and
the senior NCOs were combat veterans of the guerrilla war
that had been fought in their country in the eighties
and early nineties. And so the fact that I was
(50:02):
able to do as well as I did with the
Spaniards and with the Central American commanders was a direct result,
I think of my ability to converse with them in
their native language. Not only was it very much appreciated,
but it helped me to be more convincing in what
I thought they needed to do in order to better
(50:26):
conduct combat operations. And I'm very very proud of that.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
I love that. And I also think that, like our leadership,
needs to have a different language as well as English.
I understand the English first push here in the US,
but it's okay if they speak Mandarin and also some
Spanish or maybe some German, because there's nothing like having
a conversation with someone and not thinking they're talking behind
your back.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Well, I absolutely concur with that. And you know, Mandarin
is considered one of the most difficult languages in the
world to learn. For a young officer to be able
to speak that very difficult and yet very very necessary
language as we look at the future and our engagement
(51:12):
in the Pacific, I think the Army would be very
very wise and all the services of course, to look
at developing young speakers very early in their careers. You know,
I once had a very fine officer who I mentioned
in strange company. He's a superb gentleman who went on
(51:34):
to become a senior naval officer, who as a Russian
Jew was he and his family were thrown out of
Russia in the nineteen eighties by Putin or whoever at
that time, and they came to our great country. And
(51:58):
this fellow, and his name is Gary Tobak, learned to
speak English, and to this day, of course, he he
came as a young teenager, and he learned, of course
to speak English, but of course he speaks fluent Russian.
And Gary, who I call Yuri Yuri. Gary, with his
(52:21):
fluent Russian, became the first naval officer to be a
foreign specialist, a foreign country specialist, and he spent a
great deal of time serving our country in places like
Poland and in Russia. And he went on to become
(52:46):
a navy captain and was the senior officer in the
navy when he retired several years ago. And he continues
to serve our country working with the Ukrainian media in
Ukraine as we speak. So here's a perfect example of
a guy who could speak the language, loved his adopted
(53:10):
country and went on to serve it. So well for
nearly thirty years as a foreign area specialist.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Well, we've had Roland for about an hour of time.
We heard wonderful stories from him and got some insight
into Iraq and going in and him as a planner.
Really want to thank the retired colonel for being on
the show. Roland J. Tisso Junior in Strange Company is
the book an American soldier with multinational forces in the
(53:42):
Middle East and Iraq. He also has a forward. I
want to give a shout out to General retired Anthony Sizini,
United States Marine Corps who gives him a foreword. Go
check out his book and check out the book club
that soft rep dot com, Forward slash Book hyphen Club,
and go check out our merch store. And this is
(54:03):
rad Saying Peace.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
You've been listening to sulf Red Radio.
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