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Brigadier General Thaddeus Fineran · Five Questions for a General

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:03
  Speaker B: You're listening to Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute at West point. I am Dr. Charles Feint, the team lead for this podcast series which features interviews of senior military leaders conducted by specially selected and trained West Point cadet hosts. These exchanges produce timely, relevant, and inspirational insights for professional development of leaders at all levels.
• 0:24
  Speaker C: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Five Questions for a General Podcast. I'm Cadet Zach Olson, your host, and it's my pleasure to be here today with Brigadier General Thaddeus Finneran, the Deputy J3 of the United States Northern Command. General, welcome to the show.
• 0:38
  Speaker A: Thanks. It's a real privilege to be here, General.
• 0:40
  Speaker C: You've had a very interesting career. You started off in rotc. You've gone to aviation in both the National Guard and active duty. Can you talk about what prompted you to join the army, and why did you fly?
• 0:51
  Speaker A: I would say that my family was something of a military family, but not from really my childhood memory. My mom was a Navy nurse, my dad was a Navy corpsman, and my stepdad was an army helicopter pilot. So I knew of those experiences, but I didn't live those experiences with my family. Basically, when I went off to college, I really didn't have an idea of what I was doing. I knew that I wanted to study engineering, but the military was not really part of that equation. After the first semester in college, I went. I went to a private college in Indiana, engineering college. And I had no idea really on how I was going to pay for college. I just figured out that that would happen. And halfway through my freshman year, fall semester, I was called down to the cashier's office, basically, and the cashier or the finance office had asked me how I'd planned on paying for the spring semest semester. I thought that was a really, really good question. I didn't know the answer to it. And so I had gone and called my mom and my parents and had basically figured out that we really didn't have a plan for the second semester of college. I had previously done Naval rotc, junior ROTC in high school and found that a little bit interesting, but did not want to enlist and follow that pathway. I didn't want to go to college. So I think I was walking back from the school finance office and I saw these green uniforms out in the back of the campus. And I kind of thought to myself, well, hey, I like camping a little bit. I've done that growing up. Let me go talk to these army guys. That started, obviously a cascading service With a three and a half year ROTC scholarship and never looked back from there. That was unplanned. It was an incredible blessing at that point in time in my life, quite frankly, I'm not sure how. I didn't have any idea that paying for school would be difficult. But the army was the solution to that at the time. Getting into the aviation branch, I wanted to fly. My stepdad, my stepfather was an army aviator in Vietnam and I had some experience with him as a civilian EMS pilot. So my first choice in the ROTC program for a sessions was aviation Branch. My second choice was armor, wanted to be an armor officer if I couldn't fly. And then my third choice because we had to have a combat service support branch and our top three was the Medical Service Corps. When accession stay came around, I found out that I was assessing the Medical Service Corps and I had been initially assigned as an environmental science officer reporting to officer basic course and then a follow on assignment at Fort McPherson, Georgia. So I didn't really know what to do with that. It was in line with my engineering degree, but at the same time, it wasn't what I had hoped to do. I was also assessed on active duty at the time. And so I had headed off to Fort Sam Houston for my officer Basic course. And then about three weeks, I think it was about three, three or four weeks into the officer Basic Corps, they called a number of us in and explained to us that we would have a follow on assignment that would be different from our initial assignment. We were being sent to Fort Rucker to be branched Medical Service Corps aviator, served out of flight school at that time. And so in a roundabout way, I had wanted to do aviation and didn't realize that Medical Service Corps was a path to that, but ended up in the medevac community and flight community regardless. I was a Medical Service Corps officer for really the first, the first eight years of my career. When I moved off of active duty and into the National Guard, I stayed in the Medical Service Corps branch. And then in order to command an aviation battalion, I ended up doing a branch transfer at about 12 years in service. So long story on how I ended up aviation, but was able to experience both a Medical Service Corps aviation experience as well as the aviation captain's career course and then aviation branch as a commanding officer.
• 5:05
  Speaker C: Well, that's great, sir. I'm hoping that that Navy jarazzi wasn't too good. I'm glad we got you in the Army.
• 5:10
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker C: What kind of lessons can you draw from Aviat specifically That help you with a unique perspective on the battlefield today, Whether from your position here as the Deputy J3 or your time in the Army. You know, how does flying change your perspective?
• 5:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's really a combination of my experience as an aviator and then an engineering background, which maybe some people here, some folks at West Point can associate with. And it was really a way of thinking about things. My experience as an aviator really taught me how to approach problem sets from a systems thinking standpoint. And an example of that is, is in flight school and in your assigned aircraft, you have to memorize emergency procedures and limitations. And you start off with just rote memorization of how to operate the aircraft, how to respond in the case of an emergency, what the aircraft can and cannot do in terms of limitations, and the memorization of those chapters, Chapter five and chapter nine of the Operator's Manual. It's a very rigorous memorization. And that was difficult for me. Just memorizing facts without any context and systems thinking really got me more into chapters two and chapters eight of the manual. Chapter two of the operator's manual is normally the systems chapter, and then chapter eight is the normal procedures chapters. And so chapters two and chapters eight really would help me understand how the systems worked. And then once I understood how the systems operated, the limitations to those systems and the emergency procedures that we use to respond to problems with those systems just made a lot more sense to me. So I think that that way of thinking about problems and understanding the context that the problem exists in and then using that context to derive logical outcomes was probably born in both an engineering background and then the rigor of. Of the Aviation branch. And I apply that now and in terms of the joint force and strategy and the operational command in a way that helps me understand really how authorities apply to the mission sets and the requirements that we have.
• 7:25
  Speaker C: What do you mean by authorities?
• 7:26
  Speaker A: I would say that by authorities, I mean the responsibilities and the decision and action authorities within the combatant command specifically related to what the joint staff might do or what the services may do at that level. And so the delineation of the UCP or the Unified Command Plan and the joint staff roles and responsibilities, and then the services roles and responsibilities are all very different and all very purposeful. So being able to work at the organizational level and understand essentially who does what to who really helps streamline problem solving. When I think about this, I think about some complicated force balancing. Global force management is how the Joint Staff assigns and allocates forces to the combatant commands to Execute Combatant command mission sets. And it's fairly rigorous process in terms of assessing the risk across combatant commands, determining the priorities of the missions in accordance with the national defense strategy and national security strategy, and then allocating stressed forces from services to those mission sets in a way that still enables the training and manning and equipping and the modernization of those forces. And so as the Joint Staff tries to adjudicate capabilities versus risk versus operational mission sets, they go through a rigorous process to allocate and assign forces. And being able to understand that this is an entire career field field, that personnel will live within the global force management arena. But if you can understand from a system standpoint how to approach that and how to communicate risk and requirements within the combatant command, then suddenly you're able to communicate that better to the joint force and then receive or at least force share and transfer resources across the commands in a way that can mitigate significant risk.
• 9:36
  Speaker C: So let's say I'm a pl, right? Hopefully in a couple years.
• 9:39
  Speaker A: And hopefully you don't have to worry about global cost management.
• 9:43
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 9:44
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 9:45
  Speaker C: I'm curious, what are the downstream effects of people on the Joint Staff or in the combatant commands doing a good job at this? This is a very complex, systematic process you're talking about. What does it look like? What am I going to feel like as a platoon leader if you're doing a good job or if you're doing a bad job? Is there a difference? Will I even be able to tell?
• 10:04
  Speaker A: No, I absolutely think that there's a difference. And what I see routinely is in that really challenging problem set of global force management combined with a constrained resource of personnel and capabilities, we can't always put units at the right place at the right time or quickly enough. And so what I think you will see is perhaps shorter notice for operational taskings to support a combatant command or, or a service component commands operational mission set. You know, as we campaign in NORAD and US Northcom, we identify requirements to campaign in the Arctic or to campaign or to operate in with our theater security cooperation partners, or assigning units to the southern border for JTF Southern border. And because of the complexities of some of those force allocation requirements, units have to be at the border or available for the combatant commander to campaign in certain periods of time and windows of availability. And being able to work that GFM process well, the gf, the Global Force management process well, gives the ultimate units that are exercising those activities or conducting those operations the most amount of time to be aware of the requirement, to prepare for the requirement and to deploy to and execute the requirement.
• 11:30
  Speaker C: That's complex.
• 11:31
  Speaker A: It can be, yeah. As a platoon leader, then hopefully what you experience is that you know that your rotation to a certain Combatant Command or aor, you know when that's gonna happen? Well, ahead of time, you're able to plan for it and prepare for it and train and equip your force for it, and you're able to deploy to it in a way that is, that is in balance with your soldier's needs and your training and your other headquarters and service requirements, hopefully in a non stressed force unit or stressed unit situation.
• 12:06
  Speaker C: Right. So just more time to prepare, more time to get ready. Okay, so we just had General Ryan on the show, who is the new commander of Western Hemisphere Command. Fantastic episode. Everyone listening should go and listen to that. I'm curious, where does northcom fit in that command? Because as far as I understood in that scenario with General Ryan, he was kind of absorbing north and South Comm and forcecom into Western Hemisphere Command. Where does NORTHCOM and your position sit within that, sir?
• 12:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. Western Hemisphere Command actually is a combination of US Forces Command, ForceCom, and then army north and Army South.
• 12:41
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 12:42
  Speaker A: And so army north is our army service component command within northcom. Northcom is the cocom, or Combatant Command, which is a joint command, and underneath it we have components, regions, and separate commands. So our component commands are Army North, Air Forces Northern, Navy North, MARFOR north, or Marine Forces North, Space Forces north, and SOC north, or Special Operations Command North. So those component commands are the service components that make up the joint component basis of northcom. So Western Hemisphere Command did exactly that. Combined Army North, army south, which was southcom's Army Service component Command and Forces Command to become the operational Western Hemisphere Command. So subordinate to norad, US northcom, subordinate to US NORTHCOM as a combatant Command, but responsible to also support the Army Service component requirements of U.S. southern Command.
• 13:49
  Speaker C: So what motivated you to maybe pursue or at least accept the job that you're in right now to go from active to Guard, and now almost maybe your active Guard? I'm not sure.
• 13:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, active duty again. And it's an extended active duty opportunity that the National Guard provides for general officers. And so the National Guard puts these positions in, I would say, key assignments that are directly connected to National Guard equities. So in norad, US northcom, there's really quite a bit of overlap between what the National Guard, the Army National Guard, and the Air National Guard do in the United States and in the Western hemisphere and what U.S. northern Command does. And so the Director or the Deputy Director of Operations really is one who needs to understand the Title 10 Roles and Responsibilities and Authorities of NORTHCOM as well as the Title 32 Roles and Responsibilities of the state National Guards.
• 14:51
  Speaker C: Okay, this is all fascinating. I'm actually really interested in this. Okay, so you served in the Nebraska National Guard. Now you're in this joint federal command. How do you balance this dual mission? Right, so you're in the Guard and now we're serving. So it's state and nation. How do you balance that? Maybe those two similar priorities.
• 15:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think balance is a tough word to use here. We do talk about the dual mission of the National Guard having a state responsibility to the governor in a title 32 and a state active duty role, as well as a federal responsibility when mobilized and activated under Title 10 authorities. Maybe a better way to talk about balancing dual missions is how do we prepare our National Guard personnel to balance what they do on the civilian side versus what they do on the military side? How do they maintain the training and proficiency and professional education to continue to progress as a soldier or an airman while at the same time progressing in the increasing responsibility and challenges that they very likely have in a civilian profession? That balance is one that's quite difficult. It requires a dual focus of the individual. You know, Monday through Friday, they may be in a profession that has very little to do with their military specialty. And then on Saturday and Sunday or maybe even for extended periods of time, we ask them to put the uniform on and to be the subject matter expert in that military specialty. Whether they're a pilot, whether they're a medical professional, whether they're an infantryman, a military policeman, regardless, we ask them to pick that up in complete transition to what they do on a day to day basis. Whereas our active duty counterparts train and generate readiness every day right in the conduct of their duty in their unit of assignment. And so I think the balance is asking that individual to prioritize a dual track of development and expertise and capability and then to balance out the the demands of both of those vocations because one is often at sacrifice because of the other.
• 17:12
  Speaker C: Was there a time in your career where it was especially difficult? How did you manage it?
• 17:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think what is challenging for a number of National Guard members is that a lot of times they're proficiency and experience and development on the military side comes in evenings and weekends and summers. And so that's a trade off that Maybe does not apply directly to their civilian profession, but it's a trade off that's paid by their family. So the time spent from those individuals in pursuing both a civilian career and a military career often comes at the expense of their families. Now, I think that that trade off or that leveraging allows National Guard families to prioritize, however, what is important to them, and that is that maybe they want to stay in the same career or the same location or where they grew up or where they have family, and they're willing to spend extra time in that dual mission to be successful at both.
• 18:20
  Speaker C: So, sir, what would you say is the unique challenge that National Guard members face compared to their active duty counterparts?
• 18:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think the unique challenge. A unique challenge is the fact that they are balancing two separate careers together. On one hand, they have the civilian career, they have a family and a place where they've lived for maybe a significant amount of time. And at the same point, they have a military career profession, they have counterparts that they've known on active duty, and they're trying to maintain the same pace and proficiency and experience of those counterparts. And so that really creates maybe the dual requirement to develop professionally and personally. And from an education standpoint, I think that that often takes a little bit more time as well. It takes time in the evenings, it takes time on the weekends, it takes time during the summer. You have to take time off of work in order to be able to go to schools. And that can add up. It's not often that the civilian career is able to allow time during the day to conduct regular adrenaline training. And so weekends and evenings often pay the bill there. I think the way we balance that in the National Guard is that first off, we recognize those multiple demands and we try to be really clear with expectations. We try to make those expectations clear to our members. We make those expectations clear to employers. And so everybody goes in understanding that, hey, this is going to be a little bit more work and there will be times where we have to maybe have an acute sense of imbalance and we focus more towards the military operation and preparation and training for the service member. But then on the flip side, I think that our strong units in the National Guard are able to give some of that time back when possible. Right. And allow the family member to rebalance in terms or the soldier to rebalance their time with family and with the employer and to create a sense of predictability that allows them to accomplish both goals simultaneously.
• 20:27
  Speaker C: Sir, what did you do on the civilian side?
• 20:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, so I have been full Time in some sense my entire career. So for that active duty time, obviously, obviously that's a full time role. And when I went to the National Guard, my job in the National Guard was a full time job operating or leading an Army Aviation support facility. So it's what's called a dual status technician responsibility or role. There are also AGR or active Guard Reserve positions in the National Guard. And those, those two systems are the members that work full time to ensure that when the traditional soldiers arrive for training and operations during their drill weekends or during annual training, that the equipment's maintained and that the members are trained to operate the aircraft and the vehicles, et cetera, et cetera. They do the train, they do a good amount of training and management and planning and then the sustainment and logistics and resourcing for those operations. So I worked in that role and then through other full time positions was able to support the full time manning
• 21:36
  Speaker C: of the National Guard AGR positions. I always remember hearing about Active Guard Reserve and it was just a, it was a great position. I always remember some people getting jealous. Where's the AGR positions? Where they at?
• 21:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, AGR positions I think are, are coveted. But I would tell you that we ask so much of those members. You know, they work day to day doing the training and the manning and the oversight of the armory and the equipment and the personnel. And then, you know, we ask them to work in the evenings as well when, when drill members can come in and after their work period. Right. And, and take care of some tasks. And then on the weekends those AGRs are also embedded in the units. And so they're training on the weekends when the traditional members are there also. So, so it is, it's a challenging role. It's an incredibly important role for those AGR members.
• 22:28
  Speaker C: So I have some friends over in the Middle east right now who are in the Iowa National Guard. And I've always wondered what goes into the decision between deploying a National Guard unit and deploying an active duty unit. What kind of considerations do you guys make?
• 22:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, it goes back a little bit to the global force management process that I talked about earlier. But the decision, the decision to deploy those units really occurs at the Joint Staff and the army service and Army National Guard level to understand where units are in their readiness cycles. What is the global requirement, the deployment requirement for a theater or a combatant command. And then the services align their forces, whether they're active Guard or Reserve, in a way that allow them to meet the combatant commander's operational requirement, while at the same time balancing the readiness of those forces in that particular service. So an Army National Guard unit may rotate in and out with active duty units or reserve component units, depending on what the service itself determines is the right force to apply to that operational mission set.
• 23:39
  Speaker C: How does the National Guard and these units, how do they stay innovative? How do they stay ready? Whether it's drones or AI or all the crazy stuff that we're talking about here at West Point on Project stay? How does the National Guard stay up to date?
• 23:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, the services, the service was prioritized the modernization and readiness of all Compo forces, Compo 1 active duty, Compo 2 National Guard, and Compo 3 Reserve forces. So they may not be at the same scale and timing as active duty forces, but the army is still responsible for the modernization and readiness of those formations. And the National Guard will often advocate for proportional and concurrent fielding and modernization. And what that does is it allows us to deploy at any time and any place alongside our active duty brothers and sisters to support the war fight.
• 24:33
  Speaker C: Did you have a perspective shift when you went from a colonel to a one star? Was there a strategic level mindset shift or perspective shift that you saw, whether it was the job or the new responsibilities that kind of has influenced your, your view on the world?
• 24:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, I don't, I don't know if I had a perspective shift or a mindset mindset shift, but, but what I continue to see is that responsibility only grows. It never shrinks. But I also think that our ability to influence what matters most also grows. And so being able to operate as a general officer at the strategic level has given me an opportunity to really understand responsibility at scale across the Enterprise. You know, at northcom, our responsibility is really to ensure that our nation's worst day doesn't happen on our watch. My responsibility in that includes every mission set. It includes every service component that I talked about a little bit earlier. It talked in. It includes every partner that we have, every state and community in our area of responsibility, and every teammate that we have. So I think that umbrella of responsibility, as I mentioned earlier, only grows larger and larger.
• 25:52
  Speaker C: General, knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer to your younger self, whether in college or a young lieutenant?
• 25:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would say don't worry, you got this. I think it can be pretty intimidating starting off, and you don't know how the system works, and you don't know why you're asked to do some of the things that you do. And my own experience in that situation, I really questioned whether or not I would be able to do some of those things, it wasn't the physical demands. It was the conceptual demands of that leadership, responsibility. And how was I, as a young junior officer with very little practical experience, going to be able to effectively lead in dynamic environments that many of us had never experienced before? It's simply putting one step in front of the next and trusting the men and women that you serve with. It's about understanding that you've been trained well. Your service and your branch and your unit and your peers all work together in a cohesive way to be successful, and then you're going to be able to do this just fine.
• 27:03
  Speaker C: Well, General, thank you for your time today and for a great discussion about security, northcom and the National Guard. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it's my pleasure to present you with this rare, incompetent MWI coin. Thank you, sir.
• 27:21
  Speaker A: Thank you, Cadet Ozark.
• 27:25
  Speaker B: This has been an episode of Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute of West Point. If you like what you heard today, please download, like, subscribe and share this podcast to help us reach an even larger audience. All statements in this podcast represent the personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.