November 11, 2025 • 20 mins
In this episode of the One CA Podcast, host Danny Josephspeaks with Major Jared Goff, a Civil Affairs officer whose civilian background in emergency management brings a rare planning perspective to military operations.
From managing displaced people during a crisis tointegrating civilian frameworks into doctrinal planning, Major Goff shares what it means to be a “unicorn in the AO”—a planner who bridges institutional divides and redefines mission success.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Thank you for tuning in to the One CA podcast.
I will be your host for this episode.
My name is Daniel Zaya Joseph. I have with me Major Jared Goff.
He is with three 52nd K Com. He's an expert in public safety,
especially related to Emergency Management.
So, Sir, thank you for making the time to jump on the podcast
(00:23):
with me. Hey, Danny, good morning.
Thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate it.
Can you tell me what it is that makes you such a rare item for
the army to get their hands on? What makes us the Unicorn is
it's a fairly new program. In layman's turn, we're kind of
coming on the scene, finding ourown skin and really trying to
create our own adventure and support the war fighter and
(00:45):
support the commanders. And I understand it is quite a
bit of application process from what it sounds like, just
because of the depth that each 38G is an expert in that
requires quite a lengthy application process.
And I know that the process has been on hold as of late.
But from what my buddy was telling me last interview, it's
(01:05):
a deep dive into what you bring to the military.
It's not just something that could be surface level.
So it requires a pretty extensive background.
Definitely so. Master's degree and then five
years of professional experience.
Post the degree and based upon your experience you can put it
for the different areas of concentration.
(01:28):
So with you having a background in Emergency Management, I have
a background in law enforcement.I can just imagine the chaos
that you are comfortable in thenthat you've been trained in.
Can you tell me a little bit about what it is that drew you
into Emergency Management? And I mean, just how crazy has
your life gotten on the scene? A large of a scale of an
(01:48):
emergency are you trained up to address?
Yeah, sure. It's a good question.
So I have about 3 decades of public safety experience in the
major metropolitan area, in the Northern Virginia area, and that
easily translate to the Emergency Management enterprise
in any situation. What's interesting is that the
translation of private public sector Emergency Management into
(02:12):
the Army is really interesting, how we apply it #1 but also how
we are involved. And so to your question, what
level, I wouldn't be able to assess that, Danny, to be quite
honest with you, in the sense of, hey, it could be moving a
large amount of IDP, which are Iknow we're going to go over, or
it could be 3 floors off on a 40story high rise with 10 people
(02:35):
trapped. So my experience is taking me
all over as far as those type ofincidents.
The interesting part, at least where my brain is trying to
calculate and really kind of fitin, is how do I apply that now
to the Army? Yeah, let's get into that.
So you mentioned the ID PS. Can you expand on that for the
listener who may not know that acronym?
Yeah, sure. So it's displaced persons.
(02:56):
So my first exposure to ID PS with the recent war fire that I
was able to attend in May at Fort Carson, one of the ideas it
was send me to anything that would allow me to understand
where my place is and the biggerscope of not only army, but the
military. And one of the areas that I was
(03:16):
able to focus on what ID PS and so on, the scope of Lisco or the
war fighter, if you will. Those are humans that are
displaced by conflict. And at this war fighter, that
was one of the biggest challenges I was able to
identify, not necessarily was being glossed over, but
certainly something that I couldwrap my talons around and really
(03:38):
help shape the area of operations and reduce displaced
persons and casualty and death rates.
But also be able to really show those commanders the value
within the five Yankee EmergencyManagement SI and how we can
really make that happen. And I think it was a success.
And I believe my colleagues there, including the commanders,
(03:59):
felt that was a success as well.Definitely sounds like you'd be
the person to bring that expertise and win over the chain
of command when it comes to giving them advice.
And on that note, what I learnedin civil affairs is the
importance of giving advice in abrief, not telling a war
fighting commander how to maneuver in his AOR.
(04:19):
Is there any advice you have on your sales pitch on what you
would say to handle these ID? PS To move them in a logical
fashion that makes sense, keeps them safe, but at the same time
doesn't put that commander in a spot.
Yeah, absolutely. So to that point, I really kind
of fed off of the now with the commander's attempt, but also
through the numerous briefings that I was able to be a part of
(04:42):
during the war, fighter and I was able to kind of say, hey,
we're listening to our European allies talk about ID PS.
We're listening to our own military weathers.
Hey, we've got ID PS here, there.
We need to get them out under the S3.
I was introduced as the Unicorn and said, listen, here's the
deal. This is my opinion.
(05:03):
All these folks, we need to get them out of the AO.
There's a couple things that we can do to solve the issue, not
only when parts and lines, but also really save lives and that
is to feed them and shelter them.
So let's see what we can do to build almost like humanitarian
package, if you will, that allows us to establish an IDP
camp and transmit that through the host nation, through State
(05:25):
Department and move people to where we want them to be out of
the AO and provide them shelter,food, etcetera.
So this was really unique in thesense of nobody really knew how
to do that because typically this is something that's done
well into the conflict. So I was pushed towards the G8.
I was able to have numerous meetings with them and even they
(05:46):
admitted, listen, we've never done this before.
We've never done this ahead of time.
So that was really a positive. So we built this massive package
for 30 days and it included everything from tents, showers,
electricity, latrines, lighting,food.
We also focus on the younger generations as well, so we
included diapers and bottles andbeef formula and all these
(06:06):
things that would be super important to humans and it
worked. This was absolutely a
collaborative event and definitely one of those positive
takeaways that can absolutely beused as a template for the next
either war fighter or actual conflict.
That's awesome. So here you are as an SME and
you have the humility to tell this tough crowd, I'm sure it's
(06:30):
a tough audience. Here's what I can do.
Just that humility to come in tothe table and offer that up, I'm
sure makes them want to use you even more on the team.
Because I work in a small team environment, if somebody were to
come in with an ego, others on the team would flex even harder
in order to break that ego. And you just bypass all of that
(06:51):
because you know what you can do.
You have so much potential as a 38G and yet you're letting them
know basically, I can work in any capacity.
Just let me know what you guys need.
I think that's brilliant. That was kind of my goal.
It's almost like imposter syndrome in my experience,
especially in public safety, regardless of what rank or
position you are in, if you're honest and open about not only
(07:12):
your experiences, but also whereyou actually sit, both in brain
power and awareness, that goes along way, particularly with not
only the NC OS, but also those that are there to work alongside
you. And so that actually turned into
a really cool learning experience.
When we had downtime, I had folks come up and and ask like,
how did you get here and what isyour background and what's your
(07:34):
experience? And so yeah, I'm definitely put
in the bravado at the entrance of the tent.
Really helps not only foster relationships but kind of get to
the point of we being a part of a team.
The fact that you work in Emergency Management demands
that you maintain an open mindedness to not having a set
of answers coming in. How do you manage that?
(07:55):
One of the things that I captured way back when during my
master's was in emergency management's Everything or
nothing. How to prioritize and capture
that. It's relatively based upon the
intelligence and information that you have, but it also comes
down to the ability of the receiver to digest that and
prioritize it. This is where my brain was like
(08:17):
at Max capacity and I realized that I had to be plugged in as
much as possible to not only thebriefings but also to the S2
shop and S4 shop and really understand where my places but
who I collaborate with in the event that I needed some help or
direction it things. Go sideways.
There's novel variables that canpop up that nobody was tracking
(08:40):
until you're on scene or on sideor whatever it is.
But complacency will cause people to lean on that Intel,
that information, like, OK, cool, this is what's going to
happen. It's sort of this comfortable
idea in my mind. And then all of a sudden I'm
slapped with the reality of the timing is off, the locations
off. Certain things were correct in
(09:02):
that snapshot, but it's not a real time assessment.
So there's that frustrating partof trusting Intel up into a
point emergent situation. That's the philosophy, is that
you are the guy that people trust to adapt.
You got to have the highest agility in the room.
Yeah, I mean, Intel is only as good as what you can verify.
(09:24):
I mean, during my time in fire department, even when I was an
arson investigator, there was there were multiple situations
where it was like, hey, just go do this or they were going
towards an emergency that maybe involve ACPR or something of
that effect. And the caller saying, Hey, my
baby is not breathing. Whichever turns out of the baby,
I want to be a dog or hey, just go look at this car fire over
(09:46):
here and go buses car fire next to, you know, it's turns into it
was prior shooting as well. So you have all these little
tidbits. So the air intel's really only
based upon perhaps even a singlelens.
So a lot of it has to be approached as OK, you have to
trust what you have, but also beopen to other data points that
may help support that overall decision or mitigation.
(10:08):
Then that was actually one of the challenges I had during this
war fighter was our information was coming in sporadically
through the cats or some more foreign national partners.
And so we didn't necessarily have full eyes on the ground.
There's no drones are going to fly over and say, well, it's
50,000 people moving down this road away.
We just got the information thatit was 50,000 people walking
(10:31):
down one of the main routes. And so for me it's excruciating
because there's like, well, we can't put eyes in the sky to see
this or that, or we can't put battalion worth of people to, to
trust and verify that. So a lot of it is analytical
leaps, if you will, to try to solve a specific problem.
But I was surmised that's reality, not having been in a
(10:51):
toffling zone before. Yeah.
And 50,000, we're talking an auditorium of people.
I mean, that number is easy to say, but that is so difficult to
even envision that many people on foot trying to escape
disaster. Yeah.
And one of the other challenges we had was, hey, we met the
movies folks, so let's look at ways to move folks that they
(11:12):
can't walk or whichever. So we were looking at railways,
we were looking at what's near aport and really analyzing the
overall AO and what would work for this.
And so that was good to me. I've never tried to put 50,000
people into a specific area. So we were using formulas from
FEMA, like how much space does ahuman need during a humanitarian
(11:32):
crisis? It turns out it was something
like 8 square feet. That's the standard we were
looking at people, how much of water does a human need in a
crisis? And I mean, there was a ton of
analysis that was being done based on the information we had.
And it was an amazing collaborative event.
I was embedded with the 4th 37th, which is an amazing group
of people, specifically with an FXSP.
(11:54):
A lot of really smart brains there that really helped push
this and I was super glad to be part of it. 8 square feet.
Now I granted that's ideal, but in Lisco and we're talking the
insanity of war, those numbers are obviously going to change
from the ideal. But it's cool that there's
quantifiable metrics. I'm just trying to wrap my head
(12:15):
around the scale of 50,000 people times all of these
variables on paper. It's let's order all this stuff,
let's get it shipped. But then when it comes to
disseminating this to the peoplegetting it out there to each
individual, I just can't imaginetrying to ensure this is all
done safely. Yeah.
And the interesting part that I didn't realize, the plan was to
use locals through contracts andallow them to set up and
(12:39):
breakdown or maintain even. So that kind of puts money back
into the economy, if you will, but it also allows folks to be
empowered to take care of their own.
That was again new to me from the scope of the military way of
doing this type of humanitarian process.
So how do you choose people? How do you trust people?
Because if you want a job done, do it yourself.
(12:59):
Then here you are just handing off your ideas, these concepts
that you're creating in a very delicate situation.
What is your gut tell you about who to trust and how to hand
things off? And then what touch points to
have to ensure that you're happywith how it's being conducted?
That's a great question. I kind of liken that to if I
need work done on my house, you just assume that if they're on
(13:20):
the contract list that they can get it done.
But also from the scope of that specific situation at this war
fighter, they wouldn't have built the tent right or set the
electricity upright. I think the priority you would
be food and water, but those twothings have to be the first
delivery. And that's hard to mess up
unless it's the delivery and standing out of these things to
(13:43):
ensure that there's fairness, ifyou will.
But I definitely think that's a gap.
Do we put folks there to ensure that things are done right?
But then you're getting into like the construction and
electricity. So from the Army standpoint that
they do have contracts already established, what that looks
like, That's not my purview. I think that's more of the GA
(14:03):
role. Without going too far down that
rabbit hole, can you touch on what you learned just being the
guy on the ground dealing with disaster, and how that's
influenced your philosophical approach to putting this on a
grand scale? Yeah, I think the biggest lesson
is what people call Mylan once. That's their worst day,
(14:25):
regardless of what the situationis or how you even evaluate
that. It sounds like you plan with
empathy. Yeah, there's a lot of empathy
on many levels, whether they just lost their house or they
lost a loved one or they got into an accident.
I think the empathy comes with the territory and it's it's
incredible not only human resilience, but what it takes
(14:45):
for being a firefighter or wherethe public safety to make
massive difference by just exercising it out of empathy or
humility towards those that are experiencing that rough time.
And that could be applied at anywhere.
I truly believe that you have tobe in that position to really
understand the empathetic needs of someone that again, lost a
(15:06):
child or lost their house and everything in it.
But it's an amazing concept of how many people that have been
touched by tragedy will still find time to bake cookies or
bring you food afterwards, even though they just lost everything
or lost a family member. It's amazing.
Yeah, definitely. For anybody who's a first
(15:27):
responder, there's that balance that's very difficult to strike
between empathy and then basically not burning out
because if you stay too empathetic, stay too close to
it, that can act your nervous system, your energy levels, and
now you're sidelined because youget over wall and the pendulum
can swing the other way where you don't want to feel.
(15:49):
And we've all experienced leaders that are dissociated,
detached, that don't seem to have any empathy.
But I've learned through my own journey through psychology, it's
not their fault. They're not trying to be cold
and calloused. It's self preservation.
And we've all seen it, especially in law enforcement,
especially in the world of firstresponders and again in the
(16:10):
military, we've seen people thatcan't get too close to others
that have this wall up. And yes, they can be a tactician
and they can be savvy when it comes to war fighting.
Yet at the same time, if you don't have that human
connection, then there's so muchthat's lost when it comes to the
(16:31):
relationship part dealing with whether it's war fighting or law
enforcement responding to emergencies.
And man, what a difficult balance.
And what's interesting is the translatable skills, not only
the empathy realm, but also justkind of like the human capital
realm for those that do have this public safety background
(16:52):
and applying it to the military.And again, I don't have combat
experience, but I could easily see how those skills could be
applied if there were tragedy orsomebody was killed in action.
Which brings me to a really valid point that may stir some
really good controversy or discussion.
(17:15):
One of the things I realized is a take away to this war fighter
was specifically within the FXSPand or if you're part of the S3
talk, that team is critical and brain power.
And if I was king for a day, I would definitely evaluate those
that add the experience to mitigate tragedy or mitigate
(17:39):
situations. I would think that firefighters
are police officers really have a seat at that table,
specifically within the first two weeks of that conflict,
because you're going to be dealing with a lot of issues
that like what we saw at the WarFighter where we could add
value. And I think that's really the
struggle with the 38G program, not so much like it can't be
(18:03):
done, but more so like where people are fitting in in their
own skin. So I'm trying to figure out, OK,
so how do we work this so that we've got the right people at
the right place that are able toadd value outside of the soldier
realm? Because that's the true essence
of the golf program. They hired talent, they hired
experts to be that voice, that whisper in the ear of, hey, I've
(18:28):
seen this before, or I can do this for you.
So it's an interesting dance. And I'm looking forward to other
people experiencing these war fighters so they kind of find
their place. There's so much more I want to
ask, but perhaps in the future discussion we are coming up to a
hard stop here. But any other words of advice?
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So I would say anyone that's
(18:49):
interested in this program, do it.
I did this recognizing that I would have a major spin up of
both knowledge and limited time is given my age even.
But I put myself on that track because I didn't want to regret
it when I was on my deathbed. So if you're thinking about
serving your country, getting into this amazing program, do
(19:10):
it. That being said, I'll also say
there's a massive network that of people that will help you.
There's some really wicked smartbrains that will help support
you through the entire process. I think for anyone else that is
involved in not only a war fighter, but any other these
training events, I would highly encourage the ability to
(19:31):
challenge assumptions and concepts that have been shared.
But Army wide, the 38G program, while well known in certain
areas, is also not very well known amongst the 30 alphas and
Bravo. So they understand the program
is there, they don't understand what you can do.
So I would highly encourage taking that opportunity to have
(19:53):
coffee with someone really kind of explain what you can offer,
what you can provide. Well, the rabbit, ladies and
gentlemen, Jared Goff, it was awesome talking to you.
Thank you so much for your time.Looking forward to keeping in
touch with you and getting some more discussions.
I think we should definitely schedule something for the
future, yeah. I agree.
Thanks for the time. Thanks for listening.
(20:14):
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Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an
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I'll have the e-mail and CA Association website in the show
notes. And now, most importantly, to
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(20:36):
people or leadership to forward US relations, thank you all for
what you're doing. This is Jack, your host.
Stay tuned for more great episodes one CA podcast.
Thank you for tuning in to the One CA podcast.
I will be your host for this episode.
My name is Daniel Zaya Joseph. I have with me Major Jared Goff.
He is with three 52nd K Com. He's an expert in public safety,
especially related to Emergency Management.
So, Sir, thank you for making the time to jump on the podcast
(00:23):
with me. Hey, Danny, good morning.
Thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate it.
Can you tell me what it is that makes you such a rare item for
the army to get their hands on? What makes us the Unicorn is
it's a fairly new program. In layman's turn, we're kind of
coming on the scene, finding ourown skin and really trying to
create our own adventure and support the war fighter and
(00:45):
support the commanders. And I understand it is quite a
bit of application process from what it sounds like, just
because of the depth that each 38G is an expert in that
requires quite a lengthy application process.
And I know that the process has been on hold as of late.
But from what my buddy was telling me last interview, it's
(01:05):
a deep dive into what you bring to the military.
It's not just something that could be surface level.
So it requires a pretty extensive background.
Definitely so. Master's degree and then five
years of professional experience.
Post the degree and based upon your experience you can put it
for the different areas of concentration.
(01:28):
So with you having a background in Emergency Management, I have
a background in law enforcement.I can just imagine the chaos
that you are comfortable in thenthat you've been trained in.
Can you tell me a little bit about what it is that drew you
into Emergency Management? And I mean, just how crazy has
your life gotten on the scene? A large of a scale of an
(01:48):
emergency are you trained up to address?
Yeah, sure. It's a good question.
So I have about 3 decades of public safety experience in the
major metropolitan area, in the Northern Virginia area, and that
easily translate to the Emergency Management enterprise
in any situation. What's interesting is that the
translation of private public sector Emergency Management into
(02:12):
the Army is really interesting, how we apply it #1 but also how
we are involved. And so to your question, what
level, I wouldn't be able to assess that, Danny, to be quite
honest with you, in the sense of, hey, it could be moving a
large amount of IDP, which are Iknow we're going to go over, or
it could be 3 floors off on a 40story high rise with 10 people
(02:35):
trapped. So my experience is taking me
all over as far as those type ofincidents.
The interesting part, at least where my brain is trying to
calculate and really kind of fitin, is how do I apply that now
to the Army? Yeah, let's get into that.
So you mentioned the ID PS. Can you expand on that for the
listener who may not know that acronym?
Yeah, sure. So it's displaced persons.
(02:56):
So my first exposure to ID PS with the recent war fire that I
was able to attend in May at Fort Carson, one of the ideas it
was send me to anything that would allow me to understand
where my place is and the biggerscope of not only army, but the
military. And one of the areas that I was
(03:16):
able to focus on what ID PS and so on, the scope of Lisco or the
war fighter, if you will. Those are humans that are
displaced by conflict. And at this war fighter, that
was one of the biggest challenges I was able to
identify, not necessarily was being glossed over, but
certainly something that I couldwrap my talons around and really
(03:38):
help shape the area of operations and reduce displaced
persons and casualty and death rates.
But also be able to really show those commanders the value
within the five Yankee EmergencyManagement SI and how we can
really make that happen. And I think it was a success.
And I believe my colleagues there, including the commanders,
(03:59):
felt that was a success as well.Definitely sounds like you'd be
the person to bring that expertise and win over the chain
of command when it comes to giving them advice.
And on that note, what I learnedin civil affairs is the
importance of giving advice in abrief, not telling a war
fighting commander how to maneuver in his AOR.
(04:19):
Is there any advice you have on your sales pitch on what you
would say to handle these ID? PS To move them in a logical
fashion that makes sense, keeps them safe, but at the same time
doesn't put that commander in a spot.
Yeah, absolutely. So to that point, I really kind
of fed off of the now with the commander's attempt, but also
through the numerous briefings that I was able to be a part of
(04:42):
during the war, fighter and I was able to kind of say, hey,
we're listening to our European allies talk about ID PS.
We're listening to our own military weathers.
Hey, we've got ID PS here, there.
We need to get them out under the S3.
I was introduced as the Unicorn and said, listen, here's the
deal. This is my opinion.
(05:03):
All these folks, we need to get them out of the AO.
There's a couple things that we can do to solve the issue, not
only when parts and lines, but also really save lives and that
is to feed them and shelter them.
So let's see what we can do to build almost like humanitarian
package, if you will, that allows us to establish an IDP
camp and transmit that through the host nation, through State
(05:25):
Department and move people to where we want them to be out of
the AO and provide them shelter,food, etcetera.
So this was really unique in thesense of nobody really knew how
to do that because typically this is something that's done
well into the conflict. So I was pushed towards the G8.
I was able to have numerous meetings with them and even they
(05:46):
admitted, listen, we've never done this before.
We've never done this ahead of time.
So that was really a positive. So we built this massive package
for 30 days and it included everything from tents, showers,
electricity, latrines, lighting,food.
We also focus on the younger generations as well, so we
included diapers and bottles andbeef formula and all these
(06:06):
things that would be super important to humans and it
worked. This was absolutely a
collaborative event and definitely one of those positive
takeaways that can absolutely beused as a template for the next
either war fighter or actual conflict.
That's awesome. So here you are as an SME and
you have the humility to tell this tough crowd, I'm sure it's
(06:30):
a tough audience. Here's what I can do.
Just that humility to come in tothe table and offer that up, I'm
sure makes them want to use you even more on the team.
Because I work in a small team environment, if somebody were to
come in with an ego, others on the team would flex even harder
in order to break that ego. And you just bypass all of that
(06:51):
because you know what you can do.
You have so much potential as a 38G and yet you're letting them
know basically, I can work in any capacity.
Just let me know what you guys need.
I think that's brilliant. That was kind of my goal.
It's almost like imposter syndrome in my experience,
especially in public safety, regardless of what rank or
position you are in, if you're honest and open about not only
(07:12):
your experiences, but also whereyou actually sit, both in brain
power and awareness, that goes along way, particularly with not
only the NC OS, but also those that are there to work alongside
you. And so that actually turned into
a really cool learning experience.
When we had downtime, I had folks come up and and ask like,
how did you get here and what isyour background and what's your
(07:34):
experience? And so yeah, I'm definitely put
in the bravado at the entrance of the tent.
Really helps not only foster relationships but kind of get to
the point of we being a part of a team.
The fact that you work in Emergency Management demands
that you maintain an open mindedness to not having a set
of answers coming in. How do you manage that?
(07:55):
One of the things that I captured way back when during my
master's was in emergency management's Everything or
nothing. How to prioritize and capture
that. It's relatively based upon the
intelligence and information that you have, but it also comes
down to the ability of the receiver to digest that and
prioritize it. This is where my brain was like
(08:17):
at Max capacity and I realized that I had to be plugged in as
much as possible to not only thebriefings but also to the S2
shop and S4 shop and really understand where my places but
who I collaborate with in the event that I needed some help or
direction it things. Go sideways.
There's novel variables that canpop up that nobody was tracking
(08:40):
until you're on scene or on sideor whatever it is.
But complacency will cause people to lean on that Intel,
that information, like, OK, cool, this is what's going to
happen. It's sort of this comfortable
idea in my mind. And then all of a sudden I'm
slapped with the reality of the timing is off, the locations
off. Certain things were correct in
(09:02):
that snapshot, but it's not a real time assessment.
So there's that frustrating partof trusting Intel up into a
point emergent situation. That's the philosophy, is that
you are the guy that people trust to adapt.
You got to have the highest agility in the room.
Yeah, I mean, Intel is only as good as what you can verify.
(09:24):
I mean, during my time in fire department, even when I was an
arson investigator, there was there were multiple situations
where it was like, hey, just go do this or they were going
towards an emergency that maybe involve ACPR or something of
that effect. And the caller saying, Hey, my
baby is not breathing. Whichever turns out of the baby,
I want to be a dog or hey, just go look at this car fire over
(09:46):
here and go buses car fire next to, you know, it's turns into it
was prior shooting as well. So you have all these little
tidbits. So the air intel's really only
based upon perhaps even a singlelens.
So a lot of it has to be approached as OK, you have to
trust what you have, but also beopen to other data points that
may help support that overall decision or mitigation.
(10:08):
Then that was actually one of the challenges I had during this
war fighter was our information was coming in sporadically
through the cats or some more foreign national partners.
And so we didn't necessarily have full eyes on the ground.
There's no drones are going to fly over and say, well, it's
50,000 people moving down this road away.
We just got the information thatit was 50,000 people walking
(10:31):
down one of the main routes. And so for me it's excruciating
because there's like, well, we can't put eyes in the sky to see
this or that, or we can't put battalion worth of people to, to
trust and verify that. So a lot of it is analytical
leaps, if you will, to try to solve a specific problem.
But I was surmised that's reality, not having been in a
(10:51):
toffling zone before. Yeah.
And 50,000, we're talking an auditorium of people.
I mean, that number is easy to say, but that is so difficult to
even envision that many people on foot trying to escape
disaster. Yeah.
And one of the other challenges we had was, hey, we met the
movies folks, so let's look at ways to move folks that they
(11:12):
can't walk or whichever. So we were looking at railways,
we were looking at what's near aport and really analyzing the
overall AO and what would work for this.
And so that was good to me. I've never tried to put 50,000
people into a specific area. So we were using formulas from
FEMA, like how much space does ahuman need during a humanitarian
(11:32):
crisis? It turns out it was something
like 8 square feet. That's the standard we were
looking at people, how much of water does a human need in a
crisis? And I mean, there was a ton of
analysis that was being done based on the information we had.
And it was an amazing collaborative event.
I was embedded with the 4th 37th, which is an amazing group
of people, specifically with an FXSP.
(11:54):
A lot of really smart brains there that really helped push
this and I was super glad to be part of it. 8 square feet.
Now I granted that's ideal, but in Lisco and we're talking the
insanity of war, those numbers are obviously going to change
from the ideal. But it's cool that there's
quantifiable metrics. I'm just trying to wrap my head
(12:15):
around the scale of 50,000 people times all of these
variables on paper. It's let's order all this stuff,
let's get it shipped. But then when it comes to
disseminating this to the peoplegetting it out there to each
individual, I just can't imaginetrying to ensure this is all
done safely. Yeah.
And the interesting part that I didn't realize, the plan was to
use locals through contracts andallow them to set up and
(12:39):
breakdown or maintain even. So that kind of puts money back
into the economy, if you will, but it also allows folks to be
empowered to take care of their own.
That was again new to me from the scope of the military way of
doing this type of humanitarian process.
So how do you choose people? How do you trust people?
Because if you want a job done, do it yourself.
(12:59):
Then here you are just handing off your ideas, these concepts
that you're creating in a very delicate situation.
What is your gut tell you about who to trust and how to hand
things off? And then what touch points to
have to ensure that you're happywith how it's being conducted?
That's a great question. I kind of liken that to if I
need work done on my house, you just assume that if they're on
(13:20):
the contract list that they can get it done.
But also from the scope of that specific situation at this war
fighter, they wouldn't have built the tent right or set the
electricity upright. I think the priority you would
be food and water, but those twothings have to be the first
delivery. And that's hard to mess up
unless it's the delivery and standing out of these things to
(13:43):
ensure that there's fairness, ifyou will.
But I definitely think that's a gap.
Do we put folks there to ensure that things are done right?
But then you're getting into like the construction and
electricity. So from the Army standpoint that
they do have contracts already established, what that looks
like, That's not my purview. I think that's more of the GA
(14:03):
role. Without going too far down that
rabbit hole, can you touch on what you learned just being the
guy on the ground dealing with disaster, and how that's
influenced your philosophical approach to putting this on a
grand scale? Yeah, I think the biggest lesson
is what people call Mylan once. That's their worst day,
(14:25):
regardless of what the situationis or how you even evaluate
that. It sounds like you plan with
empathy. Yeah, there's a lot of empathy
on many levels, whether they just lost their house or they
lost a loved one or they got into an accident.
I think the empathy comes with the territory and it's it's
incredible not only human resilience, but what it takes
(14:45):
for being a firefighter or wherethe public safety to make
massive difference by just exercising it out of empathy or
humility towards those that are experiencing that rough time.
And that could be applied at anywhere.
I truly believe that you have tobe in that position to really
understand the empathetic needs of someone that again, lost a
(15:06):
child or lost their house and everything in it.
But it's an amazing concept of how many people that have been
touched by tragedy will still find time to bake cookies or
bring you food afterwards, even though they just lost everything
or lost a family member. It's amazing.
Yeah, definitely. For anybody who's a first
(15:27):
responder, there's that balance that's very difficult to strike
between empathy and then basically not burning out
because if you stay too empathetic, stay too close to
it, that can act your nervous system, your energy levels, and
now you're sidelined because youget over wall and the pendulum
can swing the other way where you don't want to feel.
(15:49):
And we've all experienced leaders that are dissociated,
detached, that don't seem to have any empathy.
But I've learned through my own journey through psychology, it's
not their fault. They're not trying to be cold
and calloused. It's self preservation.
And we've all seen it, especially in law enforcement,
especially in the world of firstresponders and again in the
(16:10):
military, we've seen people thatcan't get too close to others
that have this wall up. And yes, they can be a tactician
and they can be savvy when it comes to war fighting.
Yet at the same time, if you don't have that human
connection, then there's so muchthat's lost when it comes to the
(16:31):
relationship part dealing with whether it's war fighting or law
enforcement responding to emergencies.
And man, what a difficult balance.
And what's interesting is the translatable skills, not only
the empathy realm, but also justkind of like the human capital
realm for those that do have this public safety background
(16:52):
and applying it to the military.And again, I don't have combat
experience, but I could easily see how those skills could be
applied if there were tragedy orsomebody was killed in action.
Which brings me to a really valid point that may stir some
really good controversy or discussion.
(17:15):
One of the things I realized is a take away to this war fighter
was specifically within the FXSPand or if you're part of the S3
talk, that team is critical and brain power.
And if I was king for a day, I would definitely evaluate those
that add the experience to mitigate tragedy or mitigate
(17:39):
situations. I would think that firefighters
are police officers really have a seat at that table,
specifically within the first two weeks of that conflict,
because you're going to be dealing with a lot of issues
that like what we saw at the WarFighter where we could add
value. And I think that's really the
struggle with the 38G program, not so much like it can't be
(18:03):
done, but more so like where people are fitting in in their
own skin. So I'm trying to figure out, OK,
so how do we work this so that we've got the right people at
the right place that are able toadd value outside of the soldier
realm? Because that's the true essence
of the golf program. They hired talent, they hired
experts to be that voice, that whisper in the ear of, hey, I've
(18:28):
seen this before, or I can do this for you.
So it's an interesting dance. And I'm looking forward to other
people experiencing these war fighters so they kind of find
their place. There's so much more I want to
ask, but perhaps in the future discussion we are coming up to a
hard stop here. But any other words of advice?
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So I would say anyone that's
(18:49):
interested in this program, do it.
I did this recognizing that I would have a major spin up of
both knowledge and limited time is given my age even.
But I put myself on that track because I didn't want to regret
it when I was on my deathbed. So if you're thinking about
serving your country, getting into this amazing program, do
(19:10):
it. That being said, I'll also say
there's a massive network that of people that will help you.
There's some really wicked smartbrains that will help support
you through the entire process. I think for anyone else that is
involved in not only a war fighter, but any other these
training events, I would highly encourage the ability to
(19:31):
challenge assumptions and concepts that have been shared.
But Army wide, the 38G program, while well known in certain
areas, is also not very well known amongst the 30 alphas and
Bravo. So they understand the program
is there, they don't understand what you can do.
So I would highly encourage taking that opportunity to have
(19:53):
coffee with someone really kind of explain what you can offer,
what you can provide. Well, the rabbit, ladies and
gentlemen, Jared Goff, it was awesome talking to you.
Thank you so much for your time.Looking forward to keeping in
touch with you and getting some more discussions.
I think we should definitely schedule something for the
future, yeah. I agree.
Thanks for the time. Thanks for listening.
(20:14):
If you get a chance, please likeand subscribe and rate the show
on your favorite podcast platform.
Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an
episode, e-mail us at ca.podcasting@gmail.com.
I'll have the e-mail and CA Association website in the show
notes. And now, most importantly, to
those currently out in the fieldworking with a partner nation's
(20:36):
people or leadership to forward US relations, thank you all for
what you're doing. This is Jack, your host.
Stay tuned for more great episodes one CA podcast.
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