S6 E9 - Jim O'Brien - Leadership, Legacy & the Global Brotherhood of SOF

All right, hey everyone, welcome back to Softcast. This is your host Matt Parrish and today we've got a really awesome conversation with Colonel Jim O'Brien. Jim's a Green Beret's Green Beret. He's known he wanted to be a commando since he was eight years old and all the way through West Point and through his time in the infantry, he ultimately knew he wanted to end up on a Special Forces team. Now throughout his career, he had a really interesting opportunity to work with a lot of different partner nations in a lot of different areas of responsibility. He also had the unique opportunity to be the commanding officer of the Special Forces Qualification Course. It's interesting to listen to his perspective shift across his career. So I know you're really going to enjoy this episode of Softcast. Get a briefing on the weather. Believe me, you don't know anything. I don't know anything that you don't know right now. Don't worry. Hey, man, I'm really excited to get to sit down. Now Colonel retired, Jim O'Brien. Man, I want to start, you know, one of the interesting things we got to do recently that we were talking about as we started was, you know, I was honored to help emcee your retirement. Yeah. And at your, no, of course, man, I was honored to do it. And it was really, I love those. I love those ceremonies when it's an opportunity to learn about, you know, even though you and I served together on the parachute team together, you know, served here in the headquarters together. We didn't serve together back in the day, like on teams and whatever else. And, you know, we were kind of cross paths in seventh group, but we weren't directly together in a lot of places. And so it was interesting hearing some of the things, right? But one of the things that rung through your ceremony was like, this guy wanted to be a commando from the time he was like knee high, right? Just knew that. So where's that comfort? Like, talk to me about where did you feel like that kind of call from service and play an army, you know, matriculated into, hey, I'm going to West Point. Great question. First of all, thanks for having me here. Of course. the soft cast is an incredibly powerful vehicle to share you know our our most powerful uh resource which is our people so so thank you uh but yeah everyone has their own origin story uh how they how they kind of got here and i knew i wanted to be a commander ever since i was eight years old that's all i've ever wanted to do it's all i've ever wanted to be i would go in the backwoods hit the trees with wooden swords you know play cowboys indians where sometimes i was the cowboy Boy, sometimes I was Indian, sometimes I was both. So it was a really blessed and really idyllic childhood where I was just able to be outside. My family had a long military line. Both my paternal grandfathers, my uncle, my dad. I stepped back because my dad passed away when I was eight years old. And then now my two sons are both infantry officers right now. So it's really, it's kind of part of our family's DNA. But really, one part, there's really one moment that really kind of sticks out to me is that when I was eight years old, my dad was a test pilot. He was in test pilot school in Maryland. And for an Army guy to go to a Navy test pilot school, it was, I think, only like five guys a year I get to go. That's awesome. I don't know if it's the same right now. Yeah. But it's a year-long course. And then afterwards, he was going to graduate and then go into the NASA program to be an astronaut. As an eight-year-old kid, you have no idea what this is. You just know your dad's cool. You know, and so, but one day he had an accident and he died. So I opened the door, you know, a man in green, another man in black with a white collar. I looked at him, I immediately knew, and I'm like, hey, mom, it's for you. So that was kind of a watershed moment in my childhood where I kind of had to not necessarily grow up faster, but kind of understand that life is temporary. uh so focus on the big things not the small things uh and and for me the big things was you know family you know faith uh and then and then myself as far as getting myself ready to be in a position of responsibility so that was kind of a watershed moment where it clicked like that's what i want to do uh and and i want to serve my country um every one of my family's a pilot but me but I had a calling where I loved the woods. And then growing up in Maine, once again, very fortunate. And I grew up skiing, mountain biking, windsurfing, surfing, hiking, climbing. Yeah, beautiful country. It's absolutely wonderful. And then the opportunities in Maine are mostly rural, mostly outdoors. There's some commerce there. But I wanted to go to West Point. I knew I wanted to go to West Point since I was eight years old. once again. And so I was blessed to be able to get into West Point from Maine. Now, West Point kind of works on a quota system for the country. So if I was competing for North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, California, New York, I don't know if I got in, but for Maine, I had pretty good odds. So going into the academy there, it was a really great experience because I got to be around other people who were better than me. They were better than me in every respect. They were faster, stronger, smarter, more creative. Uh, and they, and I was just inspired by my peers, uh, which was a phenomenal, and I had some great instructors too. Um, and that's kind of a leadership laboratory where you get to get to be a leader, uh, and you get to figure out where, what kind of your, um, leadership style is, you know? So my, my son went to West Point, my son went to Citadel and I, and they were, they were talking about leadership in the school, both schools. I said, Hey, listen, guys, the academy is like monopoly. Right. It's, it's your, your leadership roles you have there. It's all monopoly money. It doesn't mean anything in the real world, but it's great practice. Yeah. You know, so it's a, it was a great place for me to figure out that my strength wasn't in aeronautical engineering. My strength wasn't in, um, you know, uh, you know, the hard sciences, my strength was in people. You know, I like talking to people. I like being around people. I like solving people problems. I like being part of a small group of exceptional individuals that make you better. And I didn't realize that's what special operations was at the time. But I knew that's where I felt the best. So going through my commissioning into the infantry, I deployed to Germany at the time in the mid to late 90s. The only kind of game in town was the Balkans. Yeah. That was the sound of the guns. That's where I marched towards, to Bosnia and Kosovo. And in Bosnia, I got to see some phenomenal leaders, General Dave Grange, Frank Kearney, and some other really motivational leaders that walked the walk. And I got to see international cooperation. I got to see international special operations as a second lieutenant, which is phenomenal. Yeah. And then in Kosovo, I was a scout platoon leader where I was pretty much a mayor of a town, which was a phenomenal responsibility for at the time of first lieutenant. But then I had a special, a 10th group team come. And Chief Kelly was the warrant officer. I don't know where he is now, but what a phenomenal ODA that was. And that was the first moment where like I saw a special forces team. I saw who they were. I saw what they were doing. I saw how they treated each other. I saw and I saw their overall professionalism. I said, that's it. That's what I want to be. And I, and I didn't know, I didn't have the words. I knew I wanted to be a commando, but I didn't want to tell anyone, you know, cause I didn't, I wasn't quite sure where that fit into my, my path. When I saw that, that 10th group team, I said that that's it. That's where I belong. Yeah. That's, that's incredible. It's, you know, I like to say like the best recruiter is a well-functioning soft team out in the wilderness, right? Because everybody who's around and working with him is like, how do I get to do? And it's not even that necessarily, it's a cooler mission. Sometimes it's just, you see the professionalism, you see the way that people are able, like you said, the guys are treated, that they're respected, all those things. And it's funny how many guys and gals that I've had in that seat, you know, during this podcast are like, yeah, I was somewhere and I saw this team and I was like, hmm, that's what I want to do. You know, General Fenton is that way, right? Like he was absolutely when he was when he was a young buck, he saw a team was like, I don't know who they are, but that's what I want to go do. And it was an SF team. And he was like, that's what I want to go do. Same with Shane Shorter. Yeah. Same story. But yeah, I saw how they treat each other. Yeah. I saw how people treated them as far as not as far as like accolades or special permissions. I saw that when they spoke, people listened because they had truth to power. They spoke what they saw and it was unfiltered but professional. So I said, I like that. I'm going to get in on that. Yeah, I like that. That's one of the things that we talk about sometimes is like the badges and the tabs and the hats and whatever else. where they're good is if you're using that as a marker that you've been willing to go through all of this training and now it gives you a level of trust and influence as you're either talking to your conventional counterparts or your international counterparts, things like that. Like in that way, I think those things are good. Now, if you're using it, you know, to just walk around and peacock, like, okay, that's a different story. But, you know, there's a there's a level to some of that that is good yeah right that if if you walk in and it gives you a trust factor you like i think back to you know mutual mutual teammate of ours he was my team but he was uh he was one of your senior deltas matt barrack who's uh you know he could walk in and get a trust level because he was massive yeah but also as he walked in as an sf guy there was an immediate trust level of like all right we should probably listen to this guy and until you break that yeah you have a a trust uh you know i'm thinking of our trip to afghanistan we walk into the conventional talk and try to influence like battle space owner and he was the best at it because not only was he massive but he was a genius and you know you walk in and and you know immediately they're like all right let's listen to the sf guy and then as he talks they're like okay yep let's keep listening to the sf guy and and so that's where you know some of the times some of that mystique and things like that can be you know kind of used in the wrong manner but i think a lot of times if a if a team is functioning well and they are going and doing the right thing then people being drawn and wanting to listen not only helps us get the mission done but also recruits others uh later to come and join our ranks which is great and matt you're right he walks by and he blots the sun out he's an enormous human being um and uh but soon as but on but on that team i was on him with he was our junior medic or junior delto He was the best shooter. He was the best commo guy. He was the best demo guy. He was the best. It was just incredible. And he had a unique ability of putting complex thoughts and ideas into common speak. And I would always see him win people over as soon as he starts talking. Because you're right. He's absolutely brilliant. But Matt's just, he's unique in our force. But he's also, that is our force. Our force is multi-talented. Our force is diverse. And what they can bring to the fight with our conventional partners, our foreign partners, but also our conventional forces in the U.S. military is, you know, a common sense solution to their problems. And that was exceptionally at it. What's interesting is, you know, for you having seen that team and then going to SFAS and like knowing sort of what your goal was is a little bit different than like, you know, even for me. Like I didn't, I had never seen like a well-functioning team when I went through, right? It was aspirational. Like I had read books, seen whatever I, you know, picked up whatever, you know, this was before all these podcasts and Instagram and whatever else. But you had seen like, hey, this is how this job works in international competition or cooperation and competition at the time. Talk to me about when you actually end up saying like, yep, putting in my packet. I'm going to selection. How was your process of getting into soft and then ultimately like earning the Green Beret? Great question. It's funny because my oldest son just put an SF packet in. He's going to go later on. but you know it's I felt very secure about my decision sure so I for me it was it wasn't it if I make it or not it's when I make it sure I had a determination that this is where I belong and this is where I will be so the the process of the Q course is great because one I went through it second I was I was had the wonderful opportunity to be in charge of it and now I'm going through it as a father and also mentor some other kids too going through it. So I kind of see it from the graybeard side. You're not crotchety enough to be one of the guys that stands up as the second generation. You got to get a little crotchier before he graduates the Q course. They always do the like, hey, stand up if you're an SF guy or a ranger and your folks are here. You got to get that big hat and everything and get crotchety. But no, it's amazing to see it from those different angles. You've had a really cool, and I want to get to your time for sure, as a commander out there at SWCC, being in charge of the QCORS, because then you're taking a whole different lens on stewardship of the profession. It's not like, hey, I'm mentoring my element. It's like I am in charge of all Green Berets who are going to come forward. And you have about seven bosses breathing down your neck every day. Seven bosses and a million old crotchety SF guys that every time you change something are not happy about it. I had a lot of help. Well, let's talk about it. We'll jump back into service afterwards. You end up, after serving on an ODA, after all those things, let's talk about it now because I think it's interesting. You get into SF. You lead teams. You lead elements. You lead company. You go back over there, and now you're in charge of the Q course. Yeah. What's that lens like, you know, fast forwarding from seeing yourself as one of those Q course kids. Yeah. To all of a sudden, like, oh, man, I got to run this whole joint. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because in the Q course, you know, I wasn't an exceptional friend. I was moderate. It was really fun because when you're a cadre there, you can go through and look at your student files. Yeah, I've always wanted to, you know, I want to bribe somebody at SWIT just to pull my file and be like, yep, yep, I was just as big a dirtbag as I thought I was. But yeah, I got that counseling statement. I earned that one. Yep, yep. Yeah, I ate that one. Yeah, that's true. That's fair enough. So, you know, seeing my counseling packet, I was, you know, my goal was to get to a team. Yeah. And then when you're on a team, no one cares how long it took you to get there. No one cares if you went straight through. No one cares if you recycled. No one cares if you got dropped and came back. All the care is that you're there. So as a student, I just kind of, I just took the next step, the next step, the next step. If you focus on the step in front of you, then the larger picture will take care of itself. And in the Q course, that was absolutely true for me. And now as the commander of it, it was a different lens because you have the tactical, operational, strategic level of war. We're all kind of used to that. once you get, you know, in our business to about the 15 years in service mark, then you start to realize there's a fourth level of war no one talks about, the corporate level of war. Yeah. Where it the institutional priorities is to keep the organization moving forward Because in every deployment I been on every combat operation whether it operational combat it's always the same. The enemy wants to kill you. We want to kill them. That's the enemy. But about 80% of my bandwidth was always friendly force two levels higher. It's always not my boss, but his boss that we have to kind of feed into because for all the right reasons, for situational awareness, for battle space coordination, deconfliction, support requests. Because the world, when you're in a combat zone or in operational deployment, the world is not just one ODA. I know on ODA we think that, but the world is much bigger. That battalion commander is looking at a SOTF. That group commander is looking at the siege of SOTF. So it's a larger picture than just one team. So when I got to SWCC as the commander, I started to realize, okay, there's the corporate level of war. operation, you know, a kind of a, the battle focus of it, but also the institutional part of it is, is the fourth generation, you know, because right now we have a force right now. Yeah. Uh, but with, you know, uh, with, uh, attrition of natural of our forces, we lose about 10 to 15% of our force every year due to retirement, ETS, medical, other, um, so we have to have forces to generate, to put back into those ODAs to populate. Um, so seeing it from that perspective and balancing out the uh you know the adhering to what the the the quote-unquote standard is uh but generally the vector is the same uh to kind of to stick to what is expected uh from the force uh but also to kind of to mirror what our you know 80 years of special operations is kind of provided as a blueprint for kind of a training plan um to balance that with with all my friends who are all, you know, tactical battalion commanders, tactical group commanders, breathing down my neck saying, hey, I need more guys. I'm like, okay, what do you want? I need this skill, this skill, this skill, this skill, this skill. And I kind of say, okay, if we did all those skills, that would take me five years to produce that one guy. Is that what you want? And his contract's going to be up. I know, I know. Like, no, no, we need him now. Okay. You know, we go back. Until we get the matrix thing in the back of the head to give that guy all the knowledge he needs, it's going to be time. I know. That industrial age triangle. Good, fast, cheap. You can have two out of the three, but not all three. So the goal of the course is to produce entry-level special operation forces that are capable of joining a team. And that's where the real learning comes is when you get to a team. The Q course is just kind of basic training. And people are like, well, it's special forces. Yes. it's just qualification though right you know it's just it's just getting guys qualified uh to get to a team uh to learn it and that that's where the team sergeant comes in but from the the kind of the institutional side of the q course man it was what a great opportunity to to shape the next generation of soft uh because like in robin sage where we have it you know i would tell the guys going to go into robin stage hey no matter what how outlandish the scenario is no matter how weird it feels no matter how unbelievable it is it's based on something that we've done as a force you know that over the past 80 years that we have done uh and we've distilled those lessons to pass on to you the next generation um and the q course is really modeled very very well it is a crawl walk run where in the first phase of SUT, I would tell guys, hey, you're going through some of your tactics. And I'd have a whole bunch of infantry guys and prior service guys. They're like, hey, range regiment guys. Hey, we've got this. I'm like, change your perspective, man. You're not going through this to learn SUTs. You're going through this to see it from the perspective of your partner force. Because as you are being taught by the ODA, the cadre for SUT. That's the crawl. When you get to the MOS phase, you do your own MOSs. That's kind of the walk phase where you're practicing being that ODA now, and you're learning how to do a light infantry, a small unit light infantry, J-Set, P-O-I. And then when you get to Robin Sage, you're running it. Now you're the ODA going into Pineland to conduct a light infantry, small unit, J-SET, POI, with a partner force, the G-SET, or other units that we can kind of cobble together. So to see it from kind of the procedural side, and then it was phenomenal because you have those institutional kind of consistencies. But then you also get to add in, hey, in combat, this is what's happening now. Uh, and, and, and operational theaters, this is kind of the TTPs that we're seeing now. Uh, I know when, when I was there, uh, you know, drones were just on the cusp of really getting into the, the battlefield part of it, where when I was ODA in combat, I would use drones, uh, you know, a Raven just for like IR or just, you know, just, just for, just for informational awareness, just for kind of, you know, uh, ISR, I'm sorry, uh, to kind of get, kind of figure out where things were. Uh, but that was on the objective. Now guys are using an offensive capabilities and defense capabilities in ways that as a detached commander, man, I never thought of. So to have the institutional kind of, you know, the path of what the Q course is, adding in combat and operationally relevant TTPs and vignettes and lessons learned, man, it was, we're producing a better product now than we went through. yeah it's it's interesting because you're at the collision pinch point of like multiple priorities as the guy in charge of that right because all of us that are on a team are like i don't care if you only graduate one of them i want him to be the absolute best dude on earth who knows everything who you know comes in and is immediately an asset to the team but i need him right now yeah and and And I don't care if no other team gets one. I just need my vacancy filled with the best dude who's ever walked out of the Q course. Right. As, as you know, E-6 and E-7 is on the team. That's what we think. Right. And then you get your own peers who are battalion commanders and group commanders and everybody saying like, hey, but now, you know, you were, you were right during the point where we all know that SOF and SF specifically started being a force of choice for a lot of the missions during the global war on terrorism. So we started to grow. uh we started to fill out you know companies like ours that didn't have a sixth team in the company got a sixth team we got fourth battalions we got all these things because we needed more green berets you know we're having the x-ray program we're doing all those things to try to create green berets but we also can't lower the standard on the green berets that end up on the other side so you're at that pinch point we're like okay you need me to produce 500 of them but you need them all to be perfect and you know it's just uh it's a constantly you know i guess i guess controversial question did you feel like the standard got lowered no no no yeah uh i you know the uh the standard is i'd have uh some old you know mcfee saw graveyard come in and say this is what it is i mean valid point um for at that point in history that's what you needed right uh that we have some post-Vietnam guys come in and say, this is what we need to do. Valid, you know, great points. For that part, that time of history, that's what we needed to do. But now we're in a different part of history where the force needs something not different, just a little bit different shaded. Yeah. No, I think it's, you know, it's one of those curses of the profession where everybody thinks the standard is lowered for the generation after them. No one ever thinks it was lowered at all for there and hey don't get me wrong i'm not sitting here you know i'm a company guy but i'm not sitting here saying hey everybody who gets through his part we hey every every element has guys that slip through the cracks or guys that end up not being the best soft warriors like not saying we're perfect whatsoever but i do think it's always funny when it's always like the generation behind me it got lowered for but nobody during my generation was it ever lowered for it yeah yeah but every generation is just the same way right i think Yeah. It's hilarious. It was definitely the rule of thirds apply. Yeah. A third of the guys were the right guys. Yeah. And they were exactly what the force needs. A third of the guys, and gals too, I should say, wrong. Yeah. And they probably don't belong there. But the third and middle is where my focus was at. Yeah. Because they can go either way. Sure. Just like in a special forces company, you have six ODAs. Two ODAs, really good. Yeah. Two ODAs, not the best. two ODAs kind of in the middle and can go either way. That changes every quarter. Yeah. You know, so it was really fun to focus on, you know, that middle third. And then also that bottom third too to say, hey, you know, if you're not the right guy, then either change your paradigm of why you're here or maybe we'll find a better fit for you somewhere else. Sure. Yeah, just to clarify, A2 and A4 are the two good teams in that company, Jim's team and my team. Let's go there, right? So, okay, let's backtrack a little bit. You've been wanting to be a commando since you were eight years old. You go to West Point. You go to the infantry. You get an opportunity to see these things. You go through the Q course. Talk to me about finally becoming a Green Beret. And the interesting thing, difference between us, is like I got to come in as the 21-year-old dumbass E5 that was like, hey, man, just happy you're here to sweep the floor and take out the trash. You walk in and you're the commander of that team. Yeah. Completely different. Expectations. Yeah. A lot of expectations. Talk to me about coming in. I always, you know, I'm a NCO, so I always like to give my officer counterparts crap. But I recognize that that's a much harder role to come into as a new Green Beret to say, hey, group of SF dudes who's been doing this. I'm in charge now. Like, let's go do this. Yeah, it is one of the joys of our profession is that leadership opportunity. And it's not about you as a team leader or officer. It's what can you do for the team to make them better. Now, fortunately, I was on two teams for different reasons. And I had two phenomenal team sergeants. Everything in Special Forces is based around the ODA. Everything in the ODA is based around the team sergeant. The team sergeant is the core of our force. Officers command the force, but NCOs run the force, and that's how it needs to be. And my first team sergeant, Tim Norris, you know, I've been made by Norris Stamp in the back of my head. He grabbed me and took me in and said, hey, this is what I need from you. This is what you'll get from me. And I was like, wow, this is phenomenal. He was a phenomenal team sergeant. Phenomenal company sergeant major later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a great guy. Love me since Tim Norris. But he ran the team. You know, my job was outside the team room. I was talking to other teams, talking to the company, the battalion, the TSOC, and his ability to run the team allowed me to do my job of commanding the team. And then when I went to 7-4, I had Joe Dawson as a team sergeant. Once again, phenomenal team sergeant. Completely different from Tim in a lot of ways, but in a lot of ways very similar where he ran the team. You know, he ran everyone's schedule. He ran everyone's collective team training. But then he allowed me to do my team leader stuff. But you're right. Walking in as a newly minted Green Beret to a bunch of, you know, to Matt Barrick guys and other guys on our team. Chad Mickelson, Alfonso Rocha, Tim Norris, Visa Blavetta. You know, it's so, so many guys. It was definitely intimidating. You know, if you're not intimidated, you're in the wrong business. Because, you know, it's, but that's what you want to be. You know, that's where you want to be with people who are better than you, who are faster, stronger, smarter, better. And that pushes you to do that. Now, that being said, you don't come in with zero value. You know, you come in with a different lexicon. uh mdm mdmp planning uh coordination but also leadership and counseling you know people are people wherever you go doesn't matter your badges your tabs your your status they're still people um so if you treat people with respect and and you uh demand the respect from yourself and you demand discipline from yourself and performance from yourself then you can do it from them and they demand it of you and themselves as well so two phenomenal teams on 784 and 774 Yeah, when I got to A2, A4 was like the team. It was right after you had left. And man, that team, all those guys you mentioned and Angel Rodriguez and all the – Oh, yeah, A-Rod, yeah. Just like legends, right? Like as a young guy coming in, like every dude on that team was just phenomenal, right? Yeah, and one thing that both Tim did and Joe Dawson did, And not just them, but really the core NCOs in our company at Battalion is, you know, good teams take care of themselves. Great teams take care of others. And I remember one Saturday we were back at Bragg. We were doing some – it was a weekend off. And then Tim sends a phone call to everyone. hey, we need to be in the team room at, you know, 0-2 on Saturday. I'm like, oh, come on, Tim. You know, it's Saturday, man. I got things to do. But it's like, hey, everyone needs to be here at 2 in the morning. So everyone showed up. And it was because one of our sister team, 7-8-1, was coming back from deployment. And they were smoked. And so we helped them get off the bird, depalletize, bring everything back, sensitive items, inventory check, and help them kind of do that. And I've always remembered that. I think, you know, good teams take care of themselves, but great teams take care of others. And that's what Tim did. That's what Joe absolutely did. And the and focusing and that but that's just part of it is that, you know, being special in our business. And I say for wherever you go, being special is you do the basics right every time. You know, it's in our world that shoot, move, communicate, first aid, physical fitness. but that can be applied to any profession but if you do the basics right every time you're special and on 784 and 774 all the guys on both those teams did the basics right and that's why they were legends because they weren't flashy they weren't hey look at me they weren't getting attention they were just doing their job but doing their job with excellence yeah and that culture you know permeated right um because i remember as a new guy coming on to a2 like i said seeing a4 in that same culture that tim and you had put into that team one of the you know you remember these small little windows that were impactful to you uh along your career and one of them for me was as a new guy uh again i think i was like the third 18 x-ray to come to bco right And so I am just running around, just doing whatever I can to fit in and be there, right? Not getting in trouble. Yeah, anything I can do, right? And, you know, I remember A-Rod at the time, you know, just absolutely in the best shape of anyone on earth. Like just absolutely jacked was the most respected like senior E7 in the company Halo Jumpmaster all of these things And again I was lucky to serve with him in my career all the way through C37 for years and years and years And literally for my entire career, that's the guy I looked up to. One of the many, but one of the top three guys I looked up to in my entire career. And I was a brand new guy. And as a new guy, not only am I doing whatever our common area is, I'm doing what everybody else is, whatever it And I remember it was Friday afternoon. It's like six o'clock at night, right? Everybody's gone. And I come back from doing some garbage detail somewhere that I was doing. I come in and A-Rod, of all people, is in there sweeping the company area, right? And I'm like, please give me that broom. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm good. You know, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like, I'm a new guy. You are the dude. Like, give me the broom. And I was like, what are you doing here at six o'clock sweeping and you know he's just like the most humble great dude on earth he has zero ego yeah zero ego whatsoever and and he's like oh you know well you know i was doing our common area and i noticed that and i won't you know i don't remember what team it was but like they didn't do their common area and i know they were at the range all week and i know whatever so i'm just knocking it out for them and i'm like holy like and that's such a simple stupid thing but it stuck with me forever because i'm like if that dude who if we had an oml like company roster of like who's the best SF dude in the company, A-Rod's either number one or he's top two or three. Technical competence, excellent. You know, he is phenomenal at everything he touches. But his superpower is he has zero ego. He puts everyone else first. 100%. So, you know, the All Blacks, there's a book about him, you know, leader sweep the floors. And he personifies that. And so does, but there's so many NCOs, officers, warrant officers, so many soldiers in our force that do it. that every day yeah they don't they're not looking for credit they're not looking for uh anything that benefits them they're genuinely putting themselves second uh and and yeah a rod is one of my most favorite favorite favorites of special operations guys he did that i mean he was the same way when he was a cw two and three and everything like always that same way but i remember it was pivotal to me like those tiny little things yeah that like a if he wouldn't have done that nobody would have known b if he would have done that nobody else saw him nobody would have known yeah and like all of these different things but he knew it was the right thing to do and he was just trying to take care like you said good teams take care of themselves great teams take care of each other and others that's all he was doing right it's another team he's like hey man i know monday morning people are going to walk in here and if this common area is not sweeped or not swept it's going to be a big deal like i'm just going to knock it out six o'clock on a friday and to him it wasn't it wasn't he doesn't remember that at all right He probably did it every Friday and I just happened to walk into him once. That's just the way that guy is and was. Just phenomenal. He treats everyone with respect and his competence, professionalism. You get that from him and you're like, well, this is, I want to be like him. I was going to say the best guys and the guys that you're like, I just want to be like him. Yeah, yeah. So even though I was, you know, his team leader, man, he was my hero. Yeah. Yeah, him, Matt Barrett, Jorge Venegas, all these guys. I'm like, I want to be like these guys. It was still first-handed O'Brien in Kosovo looking at Chief Kelly. I'm like, I want to be like him. So that's one of the magic of our force is that even though you quote-unquote made it, you're always being assessed. But even though you're there, you're like, no, no, I need to earn it every day. I need to earn it whether it's in garrison, whether it's on an operational deployment, whether it's in combat because you want to let your mates down. every day you want to earn the privilege of being on that team and being around guys like a rod yeah a hundred percent um you know you have an interesting lens on on two things i want to get to one international cooperation and and and working together with our partners has been a thread throughout your entire career right and that is by virtue of being an sf guy we we get to work with with foreign, you know, and partner nations, I should say. But you got to do it even before you came in. Yeah. You know, when you're in the Balkans and in Kosovo. But then throughout your career, you got a lot of opportunities, ultimately ending up here at J3 International and working directly with some of our special operations liaison officers and all those things. Talk to me about that role of kind of international cooperation and working together with partner nations throughout, the different phases of your career? Oh, absolutely great question. And I think about this quite a bit. And I don't know if I've done anything in my career, whether it's the commissioning process, as an infantry officer, even as a special operations officer. I've done almost nothing unilateral as far as a nation. Everything's been international to some degree at some point. Either I have an international student assigned to a course or I'm working by, with, and through a partner force or I'm in the J3 either as a training education division chief, as a deputy J3, or as a J3I division director with our partners to achieve common goals, either interoperability, to coordinate crisis response. but everything has been, you know, with a partner force, uh, or a partner element or some international flavor to it. So, so for me, I'm like, yeah, of course, like it, to me, it's, it's, it's second nature, uh, to, to have a, uh, you know, a Aussie, a Brit, a Colombian, an Egyptian, uh, a Thai officer, uh, an Aussie, uh, Japanese, uh, it's just, it's just part of our force. Uh, so, uh, I'm always like, well, why, why, what's so surprising? You know, because to me it's, it's just how it's always been. Uh, and there's so much, um, uh, benefit to it. Uh, because when we deploy to a country, you know, we might be deploying, but we're going to their home, you know, uh, like when we go, you know, to combat zones, uh, with, uh, you know, like one of my, when I was with a 7-4 in Iraq, we were on one objective, and we had a couple of squirters, you know, guys who left the objective and ran away. So we were kind of chasing him down. And then I went with my partner force, the Iraqi Hill of Swat. And as we're going through, you know, where the paths of the squirters were, I was with myself, and I think I had one more guy with me, and then we had a couple of Hill of Swat guys, and we were following this path, and we come across this field. And then there was an old gentleman there. He must have been in his hundreds. He was older than Dart. And we're like, at first I was like, okay, we're trying to assess the situation. And then my Hill Swat guy starts talking to him. And then he's the new food interpreter. He talks to me. And I'm like, hey, did you see the guy that came through here? And he's like, Sadie. Like, he's been here for his entire life. He's never left this plot. He knows every blade of grass by name. Of course he knows he came through here. He went that way, you know? So, you know, but it's, you know, we're going to their home. So why would you not capitalize on their knowledge of the land, their knowledge of the people, and their ability to see things that we, you know, as U.S. soldiers might not necessarily be tuned into. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you and I, you mentioned it in that story. You and I both got an opportunity on different tours to do a really cool, like, cooperation, international cooperation mission, which was to be a partner force with the El Salvadorians on an Iraq deployment. Yeah. Right? So you get kind of layers of it. I got an opportunity to do like the same thing with the checks in Afghanistan. Like it's like a whole nother, like now we're a multilateral force and plus our low, you know, our local, you know, you're getting like your own coalition at the ODA level, which is, which is really interesting. Talk to me about kind of the, Hey, I'm rapping with this guy, you know, this commander in El Salvador, uh, in, in Spanish. And now we're talking to the Hill of SWAT and we're going to do a missions together. Like it starts really becoming like green beret. Oh yeah. So at the time, the El Salvador battalion commander, he was a second lieutenant back in El Salvador during the conflict. Yeah. So he was taught by an ODA, the PAT teams at the time. So he saw it. He was the recipient of Green Beret teaching, which was phenomenal. So now fast forward to 2005. He was battalion commander. And he was like, hey, listen, this isn't my first counter-insurgency. You're like, oh, OK. Let me listen to this one. And he's like, hey, at daytime, we train the Iraqi army. And then you help us train the Iraqi army. At nighttime, you'd heal a SWAT. You do counterterrorism missions. And so he's like, you have to have both. Otherwise, if you don't have one or the other, it fails. So him having that perspective that he was taught by our seventh group, brothers in the PAD teams back in the 80s, carrying that over to Iraq, It was very, very mature, nuanced, and comprehensive. So yeah, so talking to the El Salvadorians in Spanish and then talking to the Hill of Swat guys. You pick up a little bit Arabic at the time, but you still have interpreters. But it was really fun to kind of manage not just the SF mission in the SF mission in the SF mission, but just in general. I remember one story. I think at the time John Casey was MNFI commander. He came down because he wanted it. Because at the time, El Salvador was the only of the Spanish at the time that they left. So they were the only Latino or Latin coalition partner. And there was this debate in El Salvador at the time was, hey, should we contribute to this multinational force in Iraq again or not? Because, you know, it is, you know, it's a war. But also El Salvador had some internal political issues at the time, as every country does. So General Casey came down to talk to the battalion commander and I was the interpreter. so I'm going back and forth with General Casey and my battalion commander and I'm wearing an American flag you know I'm wearing U.S. Army it says O'Brien you know it's not a secret of who I am and at the end of it it was like an hour hour and a half long he's like hey are you an American? I'm like yes sir I am so he was like oh man but that kind of speaks to the chameleon nature of our business that's perfect like man it's I was I was the conduit, you know, not just for the Americans to the El Salvadorians, but I was also able to represent the El Salvadorians to the U.S., which that was the real crux of our mission was to represent the El Salvadorians, look out for their interests. uh you know we had a a vehicle accident uh with the iad uh or you know a vehicle accident rolled up i'm sorry uh and then we airlifted the el salvadorians to the medical hospital uh saved their lives and they were like hey man this is yeah we're you you shoot you know el salvador was like hey you showed us that you take care of us we'll stay and take care of you yeah uh and the el salvadorians were in there they're so so they're such great uh fighters yeah they're they're they're humble like like a rod no ego yeah uh they just wanted to get the job done yeah because in 2005 you know the ieds was you know they um was a big threat um and then uh the american response was well everything needs to be up armored like we need to have up armored humvees up armored you know undercarriages everything needs to be buttoned up which saves lives absolutely but here you have the al-salvadorians and like you know uh light-skinned humvees you know uh two by four sorry like a like a plywood as a roof with their 249 you know automatic machine gun zip strip to the uh the roof they're like hey let's go you're like man this is like this is great because they just cared about doing the mission yeah um we had uh we had the opportunity i think it was probably i think it was two rotations after yours i think was when a2 went over there and did that mission yeah and it was slightly different because el salvador had kind of switched out and done more of like logistical convoy troops and so but we were still doing very similar uh missions on that i had the honor of um the president of el salvador came over oh and didn't have they like he didn't bring a huge psd and so they were like hey we need an oda to do psd for him you know and i think i was like 23 or something i'm like hey look at me i'm pulling security you know i was like close security for a president of a nation but it was an awesome like not only had we already been ingratiated with our El Salvadorian compadres but then it was like hey man you guys are willing to guard our president yeah you know and it was a very cool like kind of interaction and they trusted you yeah exactly exactly it was you know as a young dude at the time it was like oh this is like you know I don't know it was just like one of those things like oh this is not your average you know Tuesday yeah yeah yeah that's the president of uh of El Salvador right there it's very cool um you know and to your point like man uh listen i love all of our partners got it i love the central american partners man they're just hard as nails just want to go get after it guatemala el salvador all this place is like yeah like this man great stuff right um so then you know as you as you continue you know part of the reason i asked that question as far as international competition and cooperation and all those things is because i think there's a especially after the global war on terrorism where there's you know there's all these cool guy videos of all of us running around doing da and ct and all these things i think sometimes folks lose focus that like hey when we talk about uh you know competition yeah all the way from uh the ambassador's office all the way up through an actual shooting war like soft is built for that this is not like something where now okay global war on terrorism is over we got to shutter all these you know crazy uh you know direct action guys because we got to build a new force for like competition and international cooperation like no actually that's that's the main part of a lot of our mission set we were needed to do more direct action and ct and things like that because of the way the wars uh you know kind of turned out but i think there's a misconception from outside of the community sometimes that like we were just doing all these things unilaterally. And there's a few elements that are doing some things unilaterally, but by and large, almost all of us were partnered up either directly on objectives or in, you know, in cooperative blocking positions and things like that with all sorts of different forces across the world. So one of the cool things before we move on a little bit from international cooperation is you ended up, part of your retirement ceremony is being inducted as an honorary, uh, seller scout, right? Yeah. Yeah. How did that come about where you got connected to the Rhodesian, you know, seller scouts? Like that's one of those elements that like as a, as a commando, that's one of those international elements that you really hear about. And you, you listen to some of the stories from that. How did that come? I'm trying to figure it out myself. So I feel so, so blessed. You know, it's, um, we, uh, we, as Americans, we don't have the monopoly on exceptionalism. Sure. You know, It the a lot of our partners have been doing this a long time and they really have done a great job of it too So when I when I you know growing up as a as a as a young commando yeah you always always look for you know look at history to kind of figure out what those lessons learned are so we can apply them to today and tomorrow. And the Salute Scouts in the British and Bush War is definitely one of those pieces of our special operations history that's really unique. Now, they had different authorities because they were in an existential crisis for national identity. So their authorities were a little bit broader. But what they were able to do, and through not just pseudo operations, but for their fire force operations, their tracking operations, their training, and really UW operations, really, really, really phenomenal. And I talk about everything that we've done in the GWAT, in the Global War on Terror, I can line a block chart it to something the Salute Scouts did, whether it's using aerial development, drones, whether it's using disguises, counterterrorism, counterespionage or espionage. It's really, really phenomenal to read them and go, oh, yeah, they did that. phenomenal organization, phenomenal authorities, but more importantly, phenomenal execution of going into cross-border operations disguised as other forces and really changing the battlefield. So when I was here in SOCOM, I was in the J3 in a small program, I needed a guest speaker for something. And I was going through, you know, some books. And then one of my mentors, Mike Warburton, it's like, you know, kind of tuned me up to more about the reason because he's from the area of the world. And I saw this guy named Tim Bax. And I thought, hey, I'll cold call Tim Bax, thinking he was in England or Australia or, you know, somewhere in, you know, South Africa or Kenya. See if he's interested in coming to be a guest speaker. So I called him up. He's like, i'd love to be a guy speaker i'm like great where you at he's like oh i'm over in sebring like oh like an hour that's a lot better i'm like an hour and a half away i can afford that so uh so i asked him if he had come and he very graciously did um and uh he gave a speech on it and and mind you he he didn't you know all the everyone in the room was running civilian closed uh he just kind of knew that we were special operations guys from so come um and And he was like, hey, much like us going through the Q course, us getting to our first team, it's intimidating. And he was like, hey, did I do a good job? I'm like, Tim, you knocked that out of the park. We're lucky to have you, not the other way around. But since then, I've been so blessed to have a friendship with him. And we were able to, when I was in charge of the Q course, we were able to bring some salute scouts over to the Q course to talk about their operations, instead to bring them out to Rob and Sage at Camp McCall with my counterpart, Seth Wheeler. And we were able to do a lot of stuff and incorporate them and have the students kind of learn from history and learn from it. And so with that, I was able to go to South Africa and be a guest speaker at their 50th anniversary, which was, it's like a kid walking around heroes. I'd have guys come up to me and say, hey, I'm so-and-so. I'm Aunt White. Or I'm this person. I'm like, I know who you are. Like I've read all your books, like, you know, like I, I've seen your pictures. I know, I know who you are, uh, everything you've done. And they were really amazed that anyone cared, you know, and that, that, that the, um, that they have a legacy. Uh, so, so to be able to talk to them about that, uh, about the impacts of, of, of what they did on the current force, not just the U S but global, uh, because it really special operations to special operations wherever you go in the world um mcraven's book spec ops is a phenomenal example of of the vignettes of of that uh to say hey no you guys have are absolutely relevant at the absolute value and or and the lessons that you the hard lessons you learned are still being applied maybe in a different shape or form but those core principles were still there um it was really powerful um so when i was talking to them they said hey we want to induct you to the uh, the Salute Scott Regiment Association, I was floored, absolutely floored. Like I don't deserve this. And, uh, but I'll, I'll do my best to live up to it. So it was really, really phenomenal, uh, uh, to be a part of the, of guys that, uh, are my heroes. Yeah. It's, uh, it's interesting, you know, like you said, that they, they were floored that, uh, that somebody cared, but there's a uniting, like, obviously, you know, as we, as we talk, we're, we're American soft guys like we care about american interests uh you know in every place that we're going and all those things but there's a united brotherhood of commandos across you know because you get to interact and do training together or you get to look up the history of some of the special operations raids and different things that are done all the way back through history and there's a uniting warrior spirit and brotherhood that is a thread that goes through that there's natural When we have soft week in a few weeks or whatever it is, there'd be a bunch of international soft guys and gals there that you have a kinship with that you know, again, back to the cooperation and kind of global competition, you know that, hey, these are teammates that I can count on if we are either going to go to their country or we're going to go to a third country or whatever. like I there is a united bond that I know that they are just as bought in to the ideas of freedom and all of these uh interests that we're looking to uh you know to safeguard around the world I know that they're just as bought in and I know that they're yeah wired tight and and to your point like there were some of the most impactful points in in like things like field craft and bushcraft and things like that we're learning from others like going to Columbia and going to their jungle school and saying like, Hey, teach me how to survive in the jungle. And then I got a chance to do that. And then go to, uh, we, we were able to actually like bring in an Indian who lived in the rainforest and spend a week with him and like, teach us how you do it. Uh, and you know, learning from those things, uh, pretty incredible, but you know, that's where we get that cooperation and competition. Yeah. Cause you know, what I've definitely found to your point with our international soft brotherhood is that we're all the same people. Just meet different uniform, different culture, different time. But we're all the same. It's the same eight-year-old kid who wants to go out and play Cowboys and Indians in the woods, where sometimes are the Cowboys, sometimes are the Indians, sometimes are both. And it's really that core value of wanting to serve, put others first, but be around exceptional human beings who make you better. Let's talk, let's talk family a little bit. So family, incredibly important to you, as we've known each other. And as you said, faith and family, incredibly important. Now you've got sons in the brotherhood. Talk to me about that evolution of now, as you enter into retirement, it. Uh, you know, you've, you've brought the family along and, and they've been your, you know, kind of rock through a lot of this stuff. And now you have an opportunity, uh, to be on the other side of it where you're looking at young O'Brien in boots. How's that feel? It's great. It's great. You know, people are like, Hey, are you, are you proud of them for, for, you know, for being in the infantry or, or doing this? What I'm like, Hey, I'm, I'm incredibly proud of them, but I'm proud. I'm proud of them for, for being good human beings, whatever they do, that's their path. And I might have shown them an azimuth, but they're on their own path. So it's really fun to do that. It is kind of fun, though, to have two boys in their early mid-20s who ask me questions and they're floored that I know the answer. They're like, Dad, what does this mean? And I'll tell them, like, how do you know that? Like, I've been doing this my entire life since I was 17. SF06. And they're like, oh, I never thought I never knew you were in the Army. But, you know, I would bring them to the team room. You know, I would. One of my favorite stories is when I was a company commander of fifth group, I brought them up there. And then I went to Ken Wainwright and Chuck Unch's team room, brought the boys there. I had to go talk to, I think, the battalion commander or some other nonsense, some other other thing to do. So I left the boys there. And when I came back, they were duct taped to some wheelchairs in the middle of the team room and getting spun around. And all the guys are shooting nerf darts at them. I'm like, good training. Good training. Like, hey, I pro on, they're good. But I would bring them to work. I'd bring them to, I'd have them be up for on objectives. That's awesome. So they'd be dressed in camo and they'd get stitched up with, you know, sim munitions. And I'd tell the boys, hey, don't fight the guys unless you want to fight the guys. You know? Yeah, choose your own adventure. Do what your rank can handle. But I think, but also kind of back to how I saw that 10th group team in Kosovo, I bring them to team parties and team events or team functions. And what they saw, they didn't see a colonel talking to an E-7, talking to an E-5, talking to a brigadier general, talking to a captain. They saw Jim talking to Matt. So they saw the fraternal bonds of professional soldiers. where professionalism, professional competency came first. And then after that, personal relationships followed. So they saw how I treated people. They saw how people treated me. They saw how people treated each other. And they're like, oh, this is really cool. And yeah, it is a special bond where you, you know, the Army is, once again, you know, tactical operational strategic corporate. The Army does a really good job in being the Army. You know, and that's what it's supposed to do. But in special operations, we have the unique opportunity to have those small bonds that last longer than one PCS cycle. You know, we serve with guys for our entire life. Yeah. So that provides a vehicle to have those professional and personal bonds. So I think the team parties, bringing my boys to Gil Ferguson's Change Command, talking to him in the backyard for his reception, bringing the kids to Change Command events, or just sometimes even memorial services so they understand the price of our business. The boys are like, hey, this is what we want to do. Now I have an eight-year-old son, and my wife's like, no. He is my boy. Baby boy. Do not let him go down your path. Like, hey, you know, he'll pick his own path. Yeah. You know, whatever it is, just like with my two older boys, whatever path they pick, I'm fine with, long as they're good human beings. But, you know, but it is fun to kind of have them being in the Army and then asking me, you know, asking questions about, hey, what does GRTC mean? You know, hey, I'm having this leadership problem with my battalion commander in S3. How do I work this out? My company commander says this, but I want to do that. And so I'm like, well, and I'll give them COA, COA 1, 2, and 3, and pros and cons. And, hey, what do you think you need to do? So it's really, really rewarding. Yeah. What a resource to have Colonel O'Brien instead of just dad. But it's hard to tap in. I coach my 7-year-old in baseball, and one of the kids on the team, his dad, was a former major leaguer. And I'm out. I'm the head coach. I'm not. not anywhere close to the major leagues right uh and you know there's times where i'm like hey you know uh you know xavier's his name coach xavier will be saying something and like kids not paying attention i'm like hey man you might want to pay attention you know guy playing in the major leagues he's probably giving you some good advice so that's kind of the same uh you know hey dad do you know about this like yeah you might want to pay attention like yeah yeah yeah done it a little bit but man uh you know it's very interesting um it's the same thing that i talk about when it's like hey when you come to your first team if you have a good if you have a good experience the chances of you continuing in soft are super high yeah yeah you have a bad experience uh you know the chances of you continuing are very low that first team is so critical i think in the same for like multi-generation uh service members and in in your case in soft for multi-generations i think the proof is in the pudding to what they saw by them choosing that it is now daddy yeah Yeah, it wasn't you like pushing it to them. It's like, hey, they saw, to your point, exactly what you saw in that 10th group team. They're like, that's where I want to be. Those are the types of people I want to be around. That's the level of respect and like professional warrior brotherhood that I want to join. And that's pretty amazing. But even with our spouses, you know, just like the team sergeant is the core of the team, which is the core of SF, you know, our spouse is the core of the family. Because we're out there playing Peter Pan and we come back home to do laundry, to go out and do it again. So the spouse aspect of it is super, super important. So all the FRG pushes, the POTIF, all the initiatives that SOCOM and the downtrend elements, the components they do, man, super important. Because without our spouse there, family falls apart. And I know with my oldest son, he's married, just had his first son, so I'm a grandfather now. Yeah, congratulations. Very cool. That's awesome. but you know so we used to asking about family and special operations and what it's like and like well it's for me it's been great you know it's been phenomenal there's a certain amount of predictability that hey I know I'm going to be gone but when I'm home I'm home so it's a little bit more contained and you know comforting there's less very well there's a ton of variability in what you do but there's less variability in necessarily like units and things that you're constantly just getting pulled to right because you kind of once you're in the community there's only a certain amount of places that you're going to end up sort of being in there so you see all the same people that helps a little bit yeah it helps a little bit well uh obi i really appreciate the time brother it's been great to catch up with you and be able to walk through you know uh like i said at the beginning you have a really unique lens of having worked cooperatively, both with our international partners, but also coming in and out of, you know, of SOF and being in charge of the Q course and all those things. And it's really interesting to kind of pick your brain for a little while. And I really appreciate the time and I appreciate you joining us. Well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to share the story, but also I appreciate the opportunity to be a commando, to work with these phenomenal men and women in our force who every day do the hard things and make it look easy. And do they do the basics right every time. So the opportunity to serve alongside them has been the absolute professional highlight of my life. Absolutely. Well, thanks, brother. Thanks for joining us on Softcast. Thank you. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Softcast. No matter where you find our show, do us a favor, go give us a like, a follow, and share it with somebody in your network who might enjoy this episode. Also, please go give us a five-star review. It really does help other people find the show. If there's someone else that you'd like to hear from or a topic you'd like to hear about, please shoot us an email, softcast at SOCOM.mil. And while you're at it, go check us out on social media at USSOCOM, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, wherever, follow along with what's going on with US Special Operations Command and with the show. And on behalf of all of us from General Fenton on down at US Special Operations Command, thanks for listening to another episode of Softcast.