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THE U.S. ARMY RESERVE CELEBRATES THE CIVIL AFFAIRS REGIMENT’S 68TH ANNIVERSARY AS THE “EYES & EARS” TO CIVIL ORGANIZATIONS · Go News To Go: More Good News

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  Hi, Paul Flacus, Good who's broadcast? And then pause the world for
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  peace. I'm here. It's gonna we're going to discuss something very important.
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  The US Army celebrates the Civil Affairs Regiment sixty eight by anniversary as the eyes
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  and ears to civil organization. We're going to learn about that. We'll have
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  the opportunity and honor to speak with Colonel Bradford Hughes, the Government Functional Specialty
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  Chief of the three hundred and fifty first Civil Affairs Command. Good morning,
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  colonel, how are you today? Hey, good morning, great to be
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  here. I'm calling in from Austin, Texas Hookham horns and looking forward to
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  our conversation. All right, we like Austin. I like it on Halloween.
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  I'll tell you that was that fifth Street or sixth Street. I always
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  get the street mixed up. That's so crazy. It's sixth Street. It's
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  six Street. So so, and you're doing important work. So tell you
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  know, I don't know much about in essence of this civil organization. So
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  tell us how you guys help and here and what are some of the good
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  things that you've been doing? So I think a great way in a place
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  to start to understand Civil Affairs is to start with the value proposition or the
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  core competencies. Right, what do we bring to the table, what do
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  we do? And there's three things civil network development and engagement that's just a
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  fancy way of saying partnerships. Relationships, that's an important component of CEA.
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  And then we take what we learn from those partnerships and we call it civil
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  knowledge integration and that just helps us make better decisions or decision superiority. And
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  then using both of those, you know, how can we influence a potential
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  partner? How can we provide stability during right now we're in what we call
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  the great power competition, but how can we ensure stability? How can we
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  promote resilience? And uh, you know, worst case during armed conflict,
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  how do we assure continuity of government? So those are our value propositions,
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  and I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the to the Civil
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  Affairs Regiment. Like you mentioned, today is our birthday and it's our sixty
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  eighth anniversary. Okay, we're happy birthday to you. It's all good.
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  So you're going to give me an example of you know something that you know
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  I hear the value propositions and own the good thoughts here, and those good
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  thoughts are actionable thoughts. And what are some examples of your partnerships with civil
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  upfairs? Yeah, for sure. So I'll get there by starting with So,
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  my unit's the three fifty first Civil Affairs Command. We're based out of
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  Mountain View, California, and we have folks that come in from across the
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  country and across the world. We actually have personnel assigned to embassies from Delhi,
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  Singapore, Korea that are part of the team. But what we do
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  is we bring civilian expertise to bear on problem sets. And I'm going to
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  give you that real world, real world example. But we have folks that
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  are superintendents for schools. I'm a transportation guy twenty seven years Army Aviation,
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  but do a lot of work with the FAA, so I'm able to leverage
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  that. We have farmers, energy experts, people that again they leverage those
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  civilian skills, and we've recently been engaged across COFA. So that's the compact
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  of free association. So think countries like Palau, Micronesia, the Republic of
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  the Marshall Islands, and right now a significant problem set over there is climate
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  change, and we have emergency management folks, environmental and natural resources personnel that
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  can help those local governments come up with best practices to work through that that
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  reality. And that's that's an example of I think a positive partnership. Oh
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  it's a great, great important partnership. So literally, I mean say in
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  those examples they work with a local government or the local merchants and make sure
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  that the they have water protection from the community, or they teach them.
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  I mean, the reserve has a lot of our people like yourself are others
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  as you mentioned the superior, say the supertension of the school. So they
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  have certain skills that are very special and say in a mountain view they can
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  go and teach Facebook how to do their thing, no, right, so
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  you know they literally the somebody, I mean, this is a great opportunity
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  for somebody to get involved with the Army Reserve because are they using their skill
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  on the usual they're a monthly basis, on their daily basis, because the
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  reserve is in the full time a job. Let's say, right, the
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  reserve is there's a more play time for absolutely by definition the reserves, you
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  know, we all have full time jobs. Doing doing other things. And
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  that's that's where our expertise comes from. You know, what do we do
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  in a civilian capacity, But yeah, we come in. You know,
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  sometimes it ebbs and flows in terms of how busy we are. But when
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  we come in and I think I've got another great example. So I mentioned,
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  you know, agricultural business and food, so think think farmers. Or
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  we have an individual who's the COO for a apple orchard up in Washington State.
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  But when we bring in this case, it's a guy. There's been
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  a challenge in Palau. They they eat a plant called tara or they grow
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  it. It's it's like a root, almost like a sweet potato. And
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  as as sea levels rise, the taro plant isn't quite as viable and they're
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  looking for a maybe there's a salt water variant, something that can grow in
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  brackish water. And we have partners in academia in this case Fresno State,
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  Texas A and M are two partners in the the ag space. And it's
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  like phone a friend. That's where you know, we can go back to
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  academia. We you know, we bring expertise, but we certainly don't know
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  everything. And we can bounce good ideas off that that academic backstop and uh,
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  you know, hopefully come up with a novel solution and work with the
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  local administration and yeah, and PARAO is it did you say? Yeah,
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  so work with with that civil society organization? Yes? Uh, huh wow
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  you sit there. What a country we are. We are such a wonderful
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  country, America. I mean, uh, you know, helping all around
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  the world. I mean, it's I'm getting goose pimples. I mean it's
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  it's it's really wonderful. It's there's such a hopefully quote that's not philanthropic.
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  We're just a good treat. Look, we're going all around the world trying
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  to help others. That's a beautiful thing. That's really that's I'm bringing in
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  a say, a ce CEO that knows how to grow apples up there in
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  Washington's state and so so uh and you're celebrating that right right here, right
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  now today. Yep, we're celebrating it today. And you know, like
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  any anniversary, this is you know, an opportunity to reflect on the h
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  you know, some of our broader accomplishments and you know, what we what
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  we're committed to doing in the future. So somebody who has these kinds of
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  skills, they join the armies. Say, since someone's not in the Army
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  Reserve right now, and uh, but there's always you know, this is
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  another opportunity to give back, say to the world, almost in a humanitarian
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  way. But working with the uh, the Army Reserve, they contact you
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  and and join. Uh how does that? How does that work out?
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  Yeah, there's the path to come into civil affairs. There there's a variety
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  of different paths folks can take. We're a little bit our team. Uh.
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  You know, I mentioned expertise coming from civilian jobs. So folks are
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  a little bit older, you know, they've been in their civilian capacity for
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  a while to build up that expertise. But there's still room for them,
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  and there's ways for those individuals to uh to come into the civil affairs branch.
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  But for younger guys and gals who want to get after civil affairs more
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  tactically, right, that would be uh, you know, the one on
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  one relationships that you're going to see more at a local level. There is
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  through the Army Reserve. They show interest in civil affairs and they can can
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  follow that path and in a lot of cases, if they show a willingness
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  to learn a language, we'll send them to language school, which is,
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  you know, to be an ambassador, you've got to speak the language,
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  which is incredibly important. And that that's a way that I think that's a
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  great recruitment tool that the Army Reserve has through through the Civil Affairs branch,
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  and really any any languages is up for grabs. We focus in on,
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  you know, with the Pacific Tagalic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, but
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  depending on where the mission is, it could be Russian, it could be
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  could be Arabic. But it's a great opportunity. Sure is. Do we
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  have a website to send people to. Yeah, absolutely, and you know,
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  to learn more about Civil Affairs and the Army Reserve encourage folks to navigate
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  to us AAR dot Army dot mil. Okay, Colonel, thank you very
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  very much for your service, and that's really wanted to get to get to
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  speak with you and to learn more about your sixty eighth anniversary. Happy birthday,
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  Thank you, sir, Happy birthday. Thank you really appreciate it.
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  Thanks again,