(Credit: istockphoto.com/XtockImages)
The Art of #BJAlife
Part I: How to Become a Hit with Your Brigade Command and Staff
By Major Caesar B. Casal
Ask any former or current brigade judge advocate (BJA) what the most important task is upon arrival at the brigade, and they will likely respond with a variation of “becoming a member of the team.” This should be intuitive, as it won’t matter much if you are the second coming of Lieber or “Clausewitz with a JD”; if you are not a member of the team, you are not invited to meetings and your advice is not heeded or sought. Your insights may as well be “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” 1
Ask any former or current BJA how exactly to accomplish the above, and you will get the opposite of unison: you’ll suffer through musings about how to fit in, ranging from their innate brilliance, to “smoking the rest of the staff in PT,” all the way to “not a clue as to how it happened, it just did.” What is a new BJA to do?
Fear not! This trick will jump-start your integration into the brigade by identifying sources of deeper-level knowledge that will turn a legal section from one that does “legal-related stuff” to one that proactively solves the brigade’s problems. We won’t cover the obvious: you must have relationships with the commanders, the Brigade Executive Officer, and the brigade primary staff officers. You will spend most of your time and effort cultivating those relationships. This article focuses on the lesser-known individuals with whom a minimal investment of time will yield disproportionately high and near-immediate returns when it comes to solving problems as a new arrival to the brigade. 2 This trick is laid out in three steps: the people, the lunch, and the questions.
Step One: The People 3
Identify the following in your brigade:
- 1. Assistant S3
- 2. Brigade Safety Officer (BSO)
- 3. Fires Section Warrant Officer (FWO)
- 4. Brigade HHC Commander
- 5. Battalion XOs
- 6. “Old Reliable”
1. Assistant S3: Just as busy as the S3 (and possibly busier) is the “3’s XO.” The Assistant S3 knows the goings-on in the plans shop and controls access to and runs the planning meetings. Most importantly, as the executive arm of the plans section, the Assistant S3 is responsible for the first draft of plans. Get to them early and you can affect the planning process at the very beginning—where you can shape the effort by opening potential avenues or foreclosing investment in ones that may yield unacceptable legal risks. This will prevent problems before they make it onto the slide deck.
2. Brigade Safety Officer 4 : The BSO is likely a veteran or retired Soldier with an in-depth familiarity of the Army, the installation, your unit, and all its equipment. This familiarity provides them with a unique vantage into aspects of the brigade that transcend PCS cycles, namely the unit’s safety culture and best installation practices. Brigade safety officers are not only well-versed in accident investigations, but they are likely to have a deeper understanding as to the systemic, recurring problems that give rise to those accidents. While they may not be able to share everything about their investigations, they remain a critical contact in understanding how accidents unfold, how they affect the brigade’s mission, and how they can be mitigated. 5 This input bears directly on your advice to your commanders regarding their preventative policies and directives. Brigade safety officers are also constantly on the move, whether in garrison or deployed. They are a primary source of direct information about the brigade’s activities in distributed operations.
3. Fires Section Warrant Officer: The FWO is the heart, brain, eyes, and ears of the fires cell; they have a hand in nearly every, if not every, function. 6 The FWO is the technical guru, and has forgotten more about targeting than you and the Fires Support Officer combined. The FWO is one of the entities on the TOC floor who directly controls the tenor of engagements—if they know you (and your operational law captain), that relationship will instantly make you relevant and credible in the tactical operations center. Know this officer, know the battlefield. Plus, they are almost always willing to give you an impromptu collateral damage estimate tutorial as needed, and you’ll never miss a targeting meeting.
4. Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) Commander: The Brigade HHC commander is typically a second command officer from within the brigade. This is for a reason—this officer knows how the brigade runs and the personalities that drive it. This officer has developed the contacts within the brigade and on the installation and knows how to get things done. They will have a close relationship with the Brigade Family Readiness Group and up-to-the-minute knowledge of fundraising efforts, events, and associated support organizations. Moreover, as a commander, they have a voice at the table when it comes to personnel movements and resourcing at your brigade that will help you take care of your own section (e.g., leave, passes, and TDY). 7
5. The Battalion Executive Officer (BN XO): True relationships with the often overlooked BN XOs will yield eyes and ears at the BN level, where a BJA rarely has complete visibility. Battalion commanders may be reticent at first to bring problems to “brigade” (i.e., you), but the BN XOs offer that all-important peer-level candor. 8 Battalion commanders are also still in the initial stages of learning how to interact with attorneys; being close to the BN XOs will ease you into that relationship without seeming like an outsider from higher seeking to point fingers.
The BN XOs can offer a quick snapshot of the morale and effectiveness of their battalions. They are adept at identifying challenges at their level, which often end up rising to the brigade commander’s attention if not otherwise addressed; as the battalions go, so goes the brigade. Battalion executive officers can also quickly provide names of investigating officers (IOs), line of duty investigators, and any other names you may need for a legal duty.
6. Old Reliable: Old Reliable will take some time to identify, but every brigade has one. This is the officer at the table who is the consummate friendly, approachable, highly-competent staff officer. This is the officer you know will do a thorough job as an IO on a high-visibility investigation and will not blink when appointed to do it. This is the officer you can pass a note to in the middle of a staff meeting to tell you what an acronym means and will, with only the hint of a smile, explain the difference between TACON (tactical control) and OPCON (operational control) during a bathroom break. 9
(Credit: istockphoto.com/MD Badsha Meah)
Step 2: The Lunch
Invite the individuals above to lunch, on you. Depending on the operational tempo of your unit, bringing lunch by their office may be better. During an exercise, a candy bar or energy drink dropped off in their chair goes a long way. 10
Step 3: The Questions
Ask these questions:
- I’d like to hear more about your job and what you do.
- What are you most concerned about?
- What can my section and I do for you?
Listen, learn, and understand. Help if you can, 11 point them in the right direction if you can’t. Become the person they seek out when a problem arises.
Conclusion
The difference between a mediocre BJA and a great one is that the former identifies problems while the latter identifies solutions. A BJA who understands the inner workings of the brigade is more apt to find those solutions. A singular focus on the commanders and the brigade staff will yield only a tip-of-the-iceberg view of the brigade’s risk profile—the individuals listed above will show you what’s under that murky water. TAL
MAJ Casal was assigned as the Brigade Judge Advocate, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division from 2015-2017, with whom he completed a deployment in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and a Joint Readiness Training Center rotation. He is currently a student at Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Notes
* This is a reference to the ubiquitous internet “click-bait” ads, e.g., “Lose 20 pounds in three days with this one weird trick!”
1. William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606).
2. The advice applies to anyone in the legal section whom the Brigade Judge Advocate wants to empower to solve problems at a particular level. At brigade, that includes the noncommissioned officer in-charge and captains. Battalion paralegals should develop similar relationships with their battalion staff.
3. This assertion is based on the author’s recent professional experiences as the Brigade Judge Advocate for 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division from 2015-2017. This was a maneuver BCT, but most every brigade will have equivalent functional areas. Every brigade is different, and this certainly won’t apply universally as to specific personnel. In some cases, the enlisted or officer counterpart may be the better contact or the true “heart” of the section. The functional areas, however, are of such importance that truly low performers won’t remain in the positions for very long.
4. Thanks to Major Michael (JR) Townsend for this suggestion.
5. U.S. Dep’t of Army, Field Manual 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations para. 2-112 (5 May 2014) (C2, 22 Apr. 2016).
6 . U.S. Dep’t of Army, Field Manual 3-09, Field Artillery Operations and Fire Support para. 2-29 (4 Apr. 2014).
7. This applies especially to your paralegals, who are constantly under pressure for office space, details, and other duties.
8. This is especially critical when the degree of difficulty between company command and battalion command is arguably much higher than any other subsequent command, given the seismic shift from task-oriented to organizational leadership.
9. This is purely a hypothetical. But, if it weren’t, the author would owe his thanks to a guy named “Ronnie,” a School of Advanced Military Studies alumnus.
10. Make sure to follow the Joint Ethics Regulation.
11. Be conscious of the professional economies that come with being a lawyer: an Army Regulation 25-50 format memo that takes another staff member two hours to complete may take you only twenty minutes. That particular action may not necessarily be in your “lane,” but capitalizing on these opportunities will build connections.