The Team House - Women in Combat Roles, CST (Cultural Support Teams) | Jessica Yahn | Ep. 327

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

Jessica worked as CST attached to Delta Force and the 75th Ranger Regiment, she then went on and assessed for SOF.Find Jessica here:⬇️https://alltru.comhttps://dulcineaproductions.com/workNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnPodcast/featured—————————————————————-Today's Sponsors:GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 50% OFF!!!StopBox USAGet firearm security redesigned and save with BOGO the StopBox Pro AND 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code HOUSE at https://www.stopboxusa.com/HOUSE  #stopboxpod____________________________________Pre-order Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" today! ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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And if you're not in the market for a mattress, check out their pillows, their bedding. They have all kinds of great stuff there. So thanks to Ghostbed and check them out. The Team House with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 327 of the Team House. I'm Jack here with our guest tonight, Jessica Jan. Jessica served as a signals officer in the Army, served with the CST program, and then had some other interesting Army special ops assignments.

And today is also working on a documentary project, which is going to be out by the time. most of you guys see this video. So the documentary is called Guerrera. It is going to be out on Amazon Saturday. So we're recording this on Wednesday. By the time most of you guys see this, it will already be available on Amazon. So please go check it out.

And we'll get all into the details of the documentary in a little bit. Jessica, thank you for joining us on the show tonight. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Appreciate you coming out and admiring our set. You know, Tim Weiner said this couch was ugly. I love the couch.

It is blasphemy. It is blasphemy. That's a fantastic deal. That's the art of the deal over there behind the desk. There we go. Behind the desk. Yeah. So, Jessica, I mean, let's sort of start at the beginning.

I ask most of the people on the show to tell us, like, their origin story. Like, what was your upbringing like? Where did you grow up? and what was sort of the path that eventually took you towards the Army? Sure. My dad was Air Force. So first, by going Army, I was no longer his favorite child. No longer the preferred child.

So grew up military brat, moved around a lot, primarily California and Northern Virginia, probably where we spent the most time. I had four sisters, always a little chaos in the house. My dad was a pilot. He flew the U-2, which is a pretty cool. platform. And so I had always grown up, you know, watching Patton, Deer Hunter, all the classics, right? Anytime I'd bring a boy home, dad would sit him down and have him watch Deer Hunter, and that was it, you know, so I always felt drawn to service, you know, and then 9-11 happened.

I was, you know, eighth grade at the time, remember it coming on the TVs. I feel so old right now. But that moment, you know, that sticks. Everyone, you know, everyone can recall that. And I originally actually went to the Air Force Academy. I played soccer at the Air Force Academy. Was a little too free-spirited for that place. And wound up commissioning through University of California, Santa Barbara, through Army ROTC.

Wow. So, yeah, too many keg stands for the Air Force. Yeah. So Air Force ROTC to Army ROTC. Yeah, Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs there. And then, yep, switched over to Army ROTC. And then, yeah, the rest is history. So you were commissioned as a signals officer?

Yep, Signal Corps. And first duty assignment, the Center of Universe, Fort Bragg. We can call it Fort Bragg. Can call it Fort Bragg again, yeah. Went away for a little while. I was just getting used to calling it for Liberty. Now it's back. Fort Bragg is back.

So explain to folks a little bit about, like, what your sort of responsibilities were, because now we're getting sort of like into your platoon leader time, right? What does a PL and a signals unit do on Fort Bragg? As soon as I got to the unit, we were on a deployment, you know, ready to go on deployment. And I was assigned to 35th Signal Brigade, which is an expeditionary signal unit. However, we were about a decade into the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and signal units had been cycling through and serving in a strategic communications capacity.

So when I deployed forward, we essentially split and ran communications at all the various spaces across the country, primarily doing, you know, strategic comps, not tactical, you know, spent most of the time, you know, on base and working through just keeping things up and running for all the various units that obviously have to tie into that infrastructure. When you say strategic communications, are we talking about how the bases in Iraq communicate with like combatant commanders and Pentagon and you know those elements back home exactly i mean these are these are big pipes um earth terminals that are you know manned and maintained by signal soldiers and so without that you know you're getting with when one of those

goes down it's not like hey one one truck doesn't have comms or one company it's the entire, you know, the entire theater is, you know, out, out on-com. So, yeah, it was a very great experience to have that deployment early on. It was an opportunity to lead, you know, separated from the flagpole, if you will, because, again, you know, platoon leaders went out and became these, you know, in charge of these signal sites. And so that made you grow quick. Yeah, absolutely.

But, I mean, I also get the sense that you were looking for a little bit something more. So this is like, what, 2011, 2012? Yes. You come back home. Tell us a little bit about when's the first time that you hear about this thing called the CST program? How does that creep in your mind? It was actually a friend of mine from deployment. one of the Warren officers in the unit, you know, we came back and he told me,

hey, have you heard about this thing? I was like, no, no idea, but it sounds pretty awesome. And I, you know, learned a little more about it. It's pretty vague. Essentially, there's, you know, one of those blast emails that goes out. There were a couple flyers that were put up around Fort Bragg that said, hey, you know, we're looking for women to volunteer to go to assessment and selection. and serve, you know, in Afghanistan alongside special operations teams.

And so to me, I was like, absolutely, I want to do that. Took it to my battalion commander at the time and didn't get a yes right away. You know, I was on, you know, what we called a global response force. You know, I was still a platoon leader at the time. Oh, because it was attached to 80 seconds. Yes, exactly. So did my time as a platoon leader served in the operations shop and then the next iteration of assessment and selection, I applied for that. And at the time, the program was, you know, when you applied, it's not like you left your unit and were, you're essentially TDIY.

You're basically going for a short-term deployment with special operations and then coming right back. and so it was a yeah CST was not a unit per se it was like a program that people would be attached or detached to

and then sent back to the home station so what did you know about the cultural support teams as you get ready for selection I mean you said you knew

that they deploy with special operations and support those types of missions did you have any sort of conception or was there like a briefing or anything sort of explain what this new job was?

Completely no idea. Oh, wow. I, you know, it's interesting. You go back to when you're in ROTC, you're deciding what branch you want. And, you know, at the time, you know, you're just, as a woman, you're like, okay, Intel, signal, you know, there's things that obviously weren't open when I was commissioning. And even though I loved, you know, the movie G.I. Jane and, you know, had these probably desires that I didn't know at the time to do things like that. Because it just wasn't an option, you know, you're not necessarily thinking about it.

But when this CST program came around, it was very much, okay, this is an opportunity to be at the tip of the spear, to be, you know, involved. in a little bit more, you know, just closer way. And I'm always one to, like, get after a challenge, you know, kind of embrace the suck kind of thing. So to me, this was a chance to, even if I were to go and fail, you're going to learn something about yourself and, you know, give it a go. So what was selection like? A lot.

Well, man, walking into selection, you're surrounded by, like, tons of women, which is a in signal core unit, like in signal units that's not... On Fort Bragg, that's... It's still rare. You know, usually you're like one of one, you know, maybe one of a couple. So you walk into this selection and you're looking around and it's like all of these, you know, alpha women. And, you know, they had sapper tabs and everyone's kind of just like figuring each other out. And you quickly realize that, you know, it's just a bunch of...

of women that want to empower each other and also do, you know, really well. And they're going to, they're not going to leave anything, you know, on the table. And so, cool to be in that kind of environment, kind of like shocking at the same time. It was as much physical as it was, you know, mental, you know, like with, you know, any kind of selection process, there's, you know, they're trying to test not just the physical side. So, you know, do you have the grit? Do you have the ability to work through ambiguous situations? How do you react to little to know information?

All of that, you know, is kind of part of the process. Tell us a little bit more about that, about how they assessed you guys and selected you. I'm guessing that a ruck sack was involved in this process. Lots of rucking. Yes, I do love a good ruck. So those ruck marches were fun. for me. You know, we did, whether it was upper body, various tests and, you know, workouts, a ton of rucking, anywhere from short distance to unknown distance, team events, you know, where you're given a

problem to solve, and, you know, you figure out, you know, the dynamics of, hey, can you work together, can you not? Where you have to build some sort of weird apparatus. Some apparatus, you know. I mean, it was very much modeled after, you know, it's run by the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. So model after other... So the instructors were probably SF guys. S.F. guys. S.F. and Ranger Regiment.

Cool. Mm-hmm. And so it's funny. One of our primary trainers from Ranger Regiment, you know, he tells the story of how, yeah, he got, you know, asked to be a part of this program and go run, you know, because run part of the training. And he's like, a platoon size element of women? Yeah, why not? So it's great, you know, his perspective of why he wanted to do it.

But, you know, he was an incredible trainer. And so, yeah, we, as we evolved through, you know, different iterations, obviously, selection and then having made it going to training after a lot with. weapons training as well. I'd say that's, that was, you know, kind of the bulk of, um, because that you have all of these people coming from different branches, different MOSs who maybe don't have like the combat training. Absolutely. I mean, again, signal core officer, very little time on the range, you know, however, my teammate next to me was an MP. So, you know, she was very comfortable with, you know, on the range to the ton, you know, had a ton more reps. So yeah,

there's a level of, you know, hey, baselining folks on the tactics, how the teams that you're going to be attached to work, you know, different radio calls, you know, the dynamics of the team, how it's structured. And then, of course, the cultural component, which was, you know, really the origin of the CST program was an operational, you know, demand. from Joint Force commanders, they said, hey, we've been doing this thing here in Afghanistan for a decade and we haven't seen the other half of a target building or we haven't spoken to the other 50% of this village. And so the purpose behind the CST program was really to work with and engage women and children for operational advantage, whether that was gathering critical information, intelligence, or, you know, understanding what problems a village might have so that you could influence more effectively.

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And so as you get selected, I mean, how long was the selection course? Three weeks. Okay. Yeah. Typical selection, yeah. Three weeks of selection, you get selected for this CST unit or program. And this is when they start sort of like briefing you on what you just described. This is what this element is going to do.

Right, right. And at the time, so any special operations team in Afghanistan had essentially a CST team, usually of two, attached them. So that included both the ODAs, village stability operations, and then direct action, you know, joint task force units that fell under, you know, JSOX. So there were kind of two tracks. and all of the women that made it through assessment and selection did a baseline course together at Bank Hall, you know, right there at SWIC. And then we were selected either into to support village stability operations or to support direct action.

And, you know, you got to make your little wish list of, okay, I want to go VSO because of X, Y, Z, or, you know, what have you. But ultimately they're going to, I feel like it's like NFL draft or whatever. They got all your portfolios, your bios, and the units that are, you know, that you're going to go, going out and support are coming in and saying, okay, I think this is a good match for my team. And that's kind of how they, you wound up, you know, land in with who you were deployed with. Yeah, the operational needs. Mm-hmm. So where did you fall in?

Where did they put you? Well, I actually requested village stability operations. I really liked the idea of being able to be out with the local population. I got pulled to the direct action side and very grateful for that. I think either experience would have been pretty awesome. but I had a really great team that I was deployed with. And so, you know, things happened for a reason. Yeah.

So where did you go? What unit were you supporting? So I was up north in Conduz with Delta. And then about halfway through my deployment, you know, condos shut down, moved to Mez. And at that point, I switched and served with 375. Wow. And how long were you overseas for in this trip?

Six months. Okay. So split between these two units. That's pretty interesting. Yes. And when I, unfortunately, the teammate that I was meant to deploy forward were with Tor ACL kind of towards the tail end of our training. So I actually went solo forward, which I had a female interpreter, U.S. citizen, Afghan U.S. citizen. And so I wasn't, you know, totally the only only.

chick out there, you know, and we, uh, the CST program also, uh, trained a partner force. So the female tactical platoon, um, not every team had one of the Afghan females, but, um, I did for, for some of the time. And so it was, you know, that cohort, you know, myself, um, Habiba was my interpreter. And then I had, uh, a couple different FTPs rotate through. So that kind of core element was who I spent, you know, the bulk of the time with. Um, um, And so how was it, you know, I have to ask, of course, how was it integrating into a predominantly male unit? The CST thing is all like very new to everyone, right? Yeah.

I, again, it all comes down to the leadership on the team that I integrated with. So one of the first things that happened when I got on ground in Condu's, the teams were actually switching out. So, you know, Sardre Major basically on my first mission with them, I'm walking to my kit room and the guys are walking to the guy's kit room. And the, you know, Sergeant Major is like, CST, where are you going? I was like, go get it, going to get ready, you know. And he's like, grab your stuff. Get over here. Yeah.

So in that moment, you know, he established. you know, the precedent for the team, like, hey, this is a member of the team. She's going to get ready in this kit room because, you know, things might change right before we get on a bird. And she needs to be part of that. And she needs to hear that. So I think you got a little bit of flack for that in the beginning. And, you know, I even asked, are you sure, you know, I should be in the kit room? And he's like, you shut up, you shut up.

Like, you're in the kit room. And we're going to figure this out. It's all, you know, everyone's going to be okay. So that, again, to me, is a great example of inclusive leadership. And for no other reason than he wanted to ensure that I was as prepared as anyone else prior to going out on the bird. There were, you know, a lot of different CSTs had different experiences. So some had, you know, more challenge. being kind of welcomed.

I think two of my teammates who served on the Village Stability Operation side, you know, said, hey, really what it came down to was the first, you know, first, you know, time we were in combat. That's, you know, the great equalizer. And it was after that, after the team saw that they could react and perform, it kind of came together. And so I think time on target is important, you know, to demonstrate, you know, character, competence, commitment, and be able to kind of win that trust.

And it doesn't matter if you're the CST, the dog guy, the other enabler, like, you all go in there and you're all going to have to, you know, prove yourself before you're kind of welcomed into the fold. I also have to ask for, you know, full disclosure, for my own amusement, if nothing else, I would love to hear about what the difference was like working with Delta and the Ranger Regist. Totally different. Both, I'm in awe of, you know, these teams. And I'll real quick reference, Jenny Moreno, who was deployed in my cohort of CSD. She was killed on Objective Aries in October of 2013 with three.

The IED. Yes. She wrote in her journal, and I remember reading this and thinking the same thing, what an honor it is to be around these guys that do this mission day and day out, multiple deployments. I mean, for us, again, I was a first lieutenant at the time. A lot of us were first lieutenants. There's both enlisted and officer, but you're pretty green, right? And you come in and I have someone like on the Delta side, a George Frazier for purple,

hearts, you know, multiple deployments spent so much time sacrificing time away from family, you know, for our national security. And so it's almost like, it's a very deep respect for whether it's a range of regiment, whether it's dealt with, just because you're a bit in like awe of the amount of dedication that, you know, just cultural difference between the two. but overall I had you know great experiences on target with both teams and felt very well utilized so tell us about that about like were there any like memorable missions I mean either something memorable or wild happened or you know that's stuck out for you is like a success of like this is what the CST program can bring to the day yeah absolutely um so um

Really easy. Off the top of my head, one that comes to mind is, again, you're always looking for certain things that are going to help you find out if the guy you're looking for is either at the location you're at or not. And there was one mission, it was a joint mission we were doing with our Aussie partners. And it was their number one target. There was a green on blue attack. And so it was a big deal. And we went... That killed an Australian soldier. You what? Oh, you... Oh, sorry. I thought you said you killed an Australian soldier.

Yes. The blue-on-green killed an Australian soldier. If I recall correctly. Correct. And so this was a mission to get that individual. And we initially went to the wrong compound. And it was the women that came out of that compound that I was questioning that confirmed where the actual...

where the person we were looking for lived. And then we were successful in killing that individual. So, you know, when we talk about not seeing the other half of that target building, you don't know what they may have observed, what they're willing to tell you. Maybe they don't want to tell you anything. It's not like every female out there wants to talk to you, or maybe they're just as, you know, adversarial

as their husbands or their brothers or what have you, but by not asking the question, you'll never know. And so I think that's one that definitely comes to mind. I always like to highlight this one of Jenny. She directed her, redirected her task force as well to a weapons cache that she learned about from a young child on target. On the village stability operation side,

there's a whole other, you know, dynamic, right? And one of the stories I remember from teammates was they delivered a baby. Like, no shit delivered a baby. And it was their last day before they were going to redeploy. And, you know, they had been ingratiating themselves with this local village and really made a lot of headway in terms of, you know, in the beginning, not being welcomed and, you know, kind of at the end of their tour, not them as CSTs, but the U.S. presence in that village.

And by the end of their tour, you know, very much the villagers did not want them to leave. This one couple got stuck in a snowstorm. The CST and one of the ODA guys go out. They retrieve them from their vehicle, bring them back. At the time, I think the medics were like, hey, we got this. guys can, you know, be in the room, but, you know, like, we can handle this. And there was no way that the, because of the conservative nature of the society, that there was going to be any man in that operating room, if you will, if you want to call it an operating room. And the CST and the,

yeah, both CST successfully delivered the baby. The mother of the woman was also there and also helping. All in a day's work. All in a day's work. And then they redeployed. I'm like, what an incredible way. And the way they talk about it, though, is just so interesting because in war, you just see a lot of death and violence. But, you know, on that last day, you're bringing life into the world. And who knows, had they been able to keep that baby alive in the middle of snowstorm broken down in the middle of nowhere? Maybe. but just kind of a really lasting thing to remember, you know, for them. I mean, I don't know what you have to compare this to,

but did you notice that people on target, like the civilian population, responded differently when there were women on target with the American or Allied force? Absolutely. I think the, and I know, like, the Israelis use this technique, right? And, like, rioting, you know, women can bring, just the tensions down and kind of puts people a little bit more at ease and not when we're in

gear and helmet and don't look like a woman, but when, you know, you let your hair down or you are able to, you know, maybe take off your helmet once you're inside. And it's comforting. And it allows for our work to be done, the whole task force's work to just be done more efficiently and effectively. One of the guys that I was with, you know, references prior to the CST program, they'd have to have, like, you know, a few guys, like,

coordinating off the women and children, and then, you know, they're screaming and crying, and, like, obviously that's manpower. And just having, you know, the one CST on target with them, you know, is it, I guess, a force multiplier in that bring the room at ease, you know, get the information, ensure that, you know, the security of the task force and allow the rest of the team to do, you know, what they're there for. I definitely recall being on a target in Iraq where we had

her in, we had no CSTs or anything on that particular operation. I just remember exactly that having to stand guard at the door and the room is filled with like maybe five women. like 25 kids and they're all screaming. Yeah. And you're just there like, uh, uh. I always remember we used to like come back and you know, you kind of get back from your mission and you're like chatting all the other girls up at the other, you know, sites.

Like how many did you have today? It was like who had like the most, you know, women and children that they had to deal with was always like a little game almost. I remember one, it was actually my last mission and it was very impactful. for future things that I'm doing now, we went to a madrasa. And so there were no women, but there were a bunch of young boys. And did the thing, search question, and then at the end, one of the CST's roles was to engage with the senior male on the target.

And essentially, if there was anything broken or any damage, You know, we'd ensure that the right paperwork was provided so that they could work through that. And so in this madrasa, I go and I have this theological conversation with the imam. And he's like, you're not supposed to go there. I wasn't trying to. You're not supposed to go there. But I'm giving him the paperwork, getting in his thumb stamp on our little sheet. And he's like, do you believe in Jesus?

And this is through the interpreter. And I was like, well, yes, I do. In my country, we believe in freedom of religion. And he goes on and he's like, eventually he's like, you're an infidel. This war will never end. And I walked away back, you know, headed back to the bird. And I'm just thinking of all those young boys lined up on the mud wall, while hearing that every day, not having access to any exposure to the outside world

and thinking, holy smokes, we've got to like stop the cycle. We've got education, the next generation, you know, we've got to invest more in that because otherwise we're not able to translate tactical success into operational strategic success. And I do think women play a large part of that, even in conservative societies, you know, their sons, their daughters. You know, when you have a woman that is educated,

or is able to influence that, you know, it takes a long time. It's generational change we're talking about here, but that was something that stuck with me. And again, happening to me on my last mission. Any others from that deployment that stick out for you that you'd like to talk about before we move on? No, I think, yeah, those are some of the main ones. And so now we're entering in sort of like an interesting period of time,

I feel like, for your career. because as we had talked about, CST program was a temporary duty assignment. Now you're finished with that TDY assignment and you're going back to the Signal Corps, do your company commander time. You've gotten a taste of this special ops stuff, but there's still not like necessarily a clear pathway maybe

for women to serve in those positions. And of course, the federal law hadn't been repealed yet that allowed women in the combat positions at that time. Right. When I finished CSD, so 2013 redeployed, and again, went back to, like you mentioned, my same Signal Corps unit, took a company command position at another conventional signal unit. And some of the CSTs that came back from our rotation went to Ranger School. It was right when Ranger School was opening for women. no one was switching branches, though.

At that point, you know, it's the younger generation that's now commissioning or, you know, from the enlisted side, like, going into those, going to Ranger School or branching combat arms. So for me, and quite honestly, I didn't, I would have loved to go to Ranger School. I didn't have a desire to be an infantry, but I did have a desire to continue to, serve in the special operations community and kind of work in the human domain. And, you know, I'm grateful to the CSD program for being that initial exposure and, and finding a pathway eventually to get back into the special operations world after my company command time. What was that like for you? I mean, you went on to, you did find your way back into special operations through sort of a unique role, But how did, I'm also, and people ask us this all the time, because they're thinking about joining the military.

I mean, how did this opportunity come about for you? How did you hear about it? How did you get the ball rolling on that? Yeah, well, I heard about it during CST. Like, I just knew, hey, there's other things out there. And a lot of times they're not known until, you know, for officers, like after you do your company command, you're here. your key developmental time. You know, it might be a little different on the enlisted side,

but those different units that are out there are looking for more experience before, you know, they bring you into, you know, various pipelines. So for me, I always knew after CST, like, there was something else out there. But I wanted to do company command. I wanted to, you know, gain a little bit more experience.

Just, you know, basic leadership one-on-one experience. And that does translate. And it goes a long way when, you know, you come into these elite units and you have a little bit of that under your belt. And it's a difficult thing because a lot of women that want to do these, a lot of these cool things want to do it before, you know, you're juggling life plans. You're juggling all of this other stuff.

So you're like, I want to do it now. when I'm in the best shape of my life. And, you know, sometimes just the way that these pipelines work, you've got to, it takes a little bit more time. Can you tell us a little bit about, I mean, if you can, about, like, the assessment and selection at that point? Yeah, definitely a longer, you know, you put your packet in, they'll do, you know, it's your initial review once you get kind of through that.

there's um um you'll get your invite it's a much longer selection it was a longer selection than cst you know selection and for um for me again as a signal corps officer um you know i i go back to i wanted to kind of serve in the human domain so i wanted to do whatever the green berets and the ranger guys were we're doing um and so that's kind of what i had um um you know, requested through the recruiters. And, you know, special operations has recruiters everywhere. And for anyone that is out there, like, interested, you know, sometimes you just got to, you know, find those keynotes and start just asking questions. And a lot of times information is ambiguous.

You know, you get those blast emails just like CST where it's like, we're looking for this, you know, age group or this. rank and you kind of got to take a chance, a little leap of faith, if you will. But it's, you know, you can kind of figure it out as you go. Well, first off, I'd say that's cool that they let you move from a signals background to a human background. It seems like they would want you to, you know, by the time you're a, you know, O3 company command time, like you're kind of in this one role or another, but they let you move over. Yes. And I think part of that is, you know, I like to talk, you know,

big picture-wise, when we think about CST or we think about other unique ways that women serve and have been serving in special operations for well before CST. I mean, I always, you know, I read George Washington's Secret Six, the book about his, the Culpeper Spy Rink. right? There's a female spy in that, you know, ring. So, like, women have been serving in unique capacities since the beginning of our, you know, military origins. And I think there's just something to point out.

There's a difference in women integration and integrating into combat arms units than integrating into a special operations unit where you're leveraging gender as a tool. And for me, because of my CST experience, I was always very interested in what can I bring to the table in that, you kind of leveraging that and leveraging that as a tool.

I mean, can you unpack that a little bit more for the people who are listening and maybe not familiar? So, I mean, I think you're trying to differentiate between the people who go to like there's been at least one woman that has graduated from the special forces assessment and selection and serves in special forces now and so those opportunities are out there now to go through that pipeline but then there are also these like support roles intelligence roles etc yeah absolutely for for the integration side of things it's it's simple obviously there's a standard that you have to achieve

to do infantry, to go SF, to go into Ranger Regiment. And when you're going through that pipeline, you're essentially integrating on a team and you're colorblind, you're gender blind. You're the door kicker. You're applying to do the job that everyone else is doing. That is very different than, and I'll go back to the CST example,

then, hey, you're assessing and selecting and being trained to not be the door kicker, but to engage with women and children in a village or on a target. And as an institution for us to reach our greatest potential, I think we need to be able to do both. How do you think the military is doing with that, integration and also the other side of it as well? I think we conflate the two a lot. Yeah. And I think they should be seen as two kind of distinct efforts.

And there is the Women Peace and Security Act, which is interesting because I didn't really learn about it until well into my career, well after the CST program. But it was passed under the Trump administration, and it is informed by. a UN security resolution that says, hey, when women are involved in decision-making and involved in the, you know, a greater role in the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict, we have better results. And I think the CST program is the embodiment of that. So the DOD actually has to, has to implement the Women Peace and Security Act, you know, by law. And so, they have an implementation plan and part of that is the purposeful employment of women and that can be integration or it can be you know again gender as a tool think about all the female partner

forces that are out there so for an internal defense security assistance like those are all you know natural special operations activities and if we just apply that to women as much as we do men we can increase our capacity building. We can increase our placement and access. And the Afghan female tactical platoon that the CSTs trained, you know, that's a force multiplier for the Afghan army. And they were slowly but surely kind of creating societal change as well as, you know, in the military by having women in those roles, slowly kind of creating kind of more pro-democratic, you know, values. So there's a lot of benefit to applying that the Women Peace and Security Act

in defense in our everyday operations. I remember years ago speaking to a former Special Forces Group commander, old school guy, Cold Warrior, 1970s, you know, and I remember him telling me then, he was like, we have got to figure out a way to get women on ODAs. He's like, I don't know, maybe they can't necessarily be Green Berets per se, but we've got to figure out a way to get them there. because of exactly what the things you were mentioning.

Yeah, and I think my thing is, hey, if a woman wants to go, be a ranger, go on a ODA, and she can meet the standard. Yeah, she has every right to wear the hat. Every right to be there. And on the flip side of that, we should be trying to create opportunities for women to also be employed in ways that are not the same but still, again, purposeful and what they can bring to the table. Directed sort of niche capabilities. Yes, absolutely.

So, okay, you go through this assessment program. Can you tell us about the training you went through afterwards as you got prepared for this position? Yeah, I would say primarily, different than CST in that CST was very focused on Afghanistan, focused on a lot more tactical what to do on target. Right, right. And this is just a very different mission. So everything related to, you know, reconstructive.

is really more the focus of the training. So did, like, I'm fishing for information, I know, like, do you get to do anything cool, wearing disguises, wearing vocal garb? I mean, come on. I'll say one of the times that I was, you know, given a task, I made myself look like a pregnant woman. And it worked. It was great. So that was a fun. That was a fun way to get creative. Did you have to like improvise with some pillows or did they actually have the like rubber suit? Oh, I had pillows. I had pillows. I used my, yeah, I took some pillows from my Aunt Steph's

guest room and that's what I was staying with at the time. I'm sure she had weird questions about what I was, what I was up to. What was the most challenging part of the, training? I think it's just being able to quickly react to new information. You know, you go with your gut a little bit, but you've got to trust your gut. You just got to make a decision. Ultimately, there's going to be things pulling you left and right, but you can't be paralyzed. Right, right. make it move forward. If it's the wrong decision, you know, you can adjust, adapt, but don't get caught in paralysis.

Yeah, yeah. They say that, you know, a bad decision is still better than no decision a lot of times. Right, right. Yeah. Okay, so then you move on. You take this position as a operations officer assigned to a task force, start getting deployed overseas. I mean, so this is the dream job, right?

Yes. I mean, I've been super fortunate with all the different assignments and the teams that I've been, you know, privileged to work with. It's very, very cool to be forward deployed as an operations officer being able to kind of utilize various capabilities and integrate them all for, you know, achieve whatever effect that you're looking to achieve. And it's an organization where male, female, doesn't matter. It's, hey, do you, have you been trained, again, your competence, your character confidence commitment are what, you know, allow you to serve in those positions? Any, from that time period, are there any, like, challenging moments that you can share?

Might be. We can accept vague, some vagueness in the answer, of course. It comes to mind. Yeah, let me think on that and I'll come back to it, maybe. So I guess the other part of this role is, that, you know, you had mentioned, was that the CST was a publicly known program, but there are these others out there, other units out there, that utilize women and specialized roles that are not readily visible to the public?

Well, there, yeah, I would say the CST program is easy, you know, it's out there. You can talk about it. You can use that as an example to show the value of, you know, that women can bring to the table in terms of, again, it was an operational imperative that drove the program in the first place. But I think the key thing to note, and it's seen throughout history,

is that women have been playing a role in unique capacities, again, since the origins of our military. and there are opportunities out there and you know you just work through your your career to you know find them and you spent 10 years on this special forces or special operations assignment and then transferred over to the reserves and i mean i'm always interested and i think everyone has a story a little bit different, like, what made you decide to leave and go on to sort of the next chapter in your life? For me, it was really, well, two things, I'd say, personal decision. So I got married, and it was, you know, that time, you know, a move went from, you know, moved down to Tampa, Florida.

at the same time, I was really invested in a couple other projects that I had started 20, you know, 2020, 2021 time period, and I wanted to invest, you know, a lot of energy into those, into those projects. Yeah, you were busy. Very busy. Juggling a lot. So you transfer over in the reserves, move down to Tampa. and then you mentioned around 2021 time frame this documentary project.

Like, how does that enter into your mind? Because you have spent a career largely kind of hidden behind the veil, so to speak, you know, and the television shows would say in the shadows or something corny like that. But, I mean, to some extent, sure. What made you decide to do a documentary, do something that's very like public-facing? Yeah, very different. The origin for the documentary really came as I wanted to memorialize and honor Jenny and the other women that participated in the CST program. Ashley White was killed in 2011. She was the first CST that was killed in action.

And so it was just meant to be originally meant to be like a, I had enough money in my pocket to pay for 15 minutes. My cousin was dating a filmmaker at the time, or still is. And Will A.G. and Dulcenae Productions took it on. They were like, yeah, let's do it. So sent Will out to San Diego where Jenny is buried. She's buried in Rose Grand's National Cemetery. And he did the first few interviews and just immediately realized that this was a much larger story that needed to be told. And so, yeah, four plus years, five years later almost, we're finally about to, you know, release the docu-series this Saturday, February 15th.

But it's been a long effort over 17 terabytes of film. And, of course, we started before the evacuation from Afghanistan. We actually were filming in Kandahar when Kandahar fell to the Taliban. Oh, wow. Yeah. And Guerrera, the name is female warrior, and it's in honor of Jenny. You know, simultaneously to standing up Guerrera or initiating this, the women of this community, we all came together and we also stood up a nonprofit, All True.

And Altru is meant to unite warriors to lead, to inspire the next generation. And so to understand Guerrera, kind of have to understand Altru. Our thought process was get these incredible role models and their stories and the values that they embody and the sacrifices of our fallen teammates out to the next generation and the masses. And so Will has done a beautiful job of, in my eyes, bringing those role models, you know, to the big screen. And you acted as sort of like producer, kind of like, executive producer. Gotcha. Yeah. So you were like connecting him with the people to go interview.

Yeah, that's all. Yeah. Complete creative vision and his license is all of him. And, again, he's a phenomenal. I knew when I met him, the work that he had done previously, that he was the right person, you know, for. the job. He always, you know, likes to tell that story of kind of the underdog and the human spirit. And I knew that it would, it would come out the way that, you know, we intended. And you said it also has like, Guerrera has an interesting sort of like story arc to it.

Like, it's not just about the CST program. It's sort of from the CST program to today. Yes. And part of that is, you know, the CST. T program helped inform, you know, what happened, you know, the lifting of the combat arms and what happened after. What year was a shutdown? 2021. So when we left Afghanistan was when the program completely shut down. But 2017-ish was kind of when, you know, we were going out on target less and it became

towards the latter part of the program. Yeah, primarily focused on training the female tactical platoon. And Ranger Regiment was very much still, you know, involved in that as well. But it does. It's really a story of the evolution of, you know, kind of a women's role in the war throughout the GWAT. But much more than that, and that it's a story of the male characters just as much as it is the women characters. and the unity and the teamwork and the camaraderie that exists on these teams and what draws men and women to service? And what are those things that, you know, regardless of our background, gender, raised, religion, color, like, what draws us to do these, to do these things?

Just out of curiosity, does it also touch on the female engagement teams at all that the Marine Corps had? We don't. And that is both the female engagement teams and, again, like I mentioned, the other programs that have existed for a long time are not a core part of the story. But absolutely, I hope that this brings a light to other stories like it. and can be a platform that, you know, enables continued spotlight on a lot of these really awesome programs and women. And so the documentary is Guerrera coming out. It'll be out again when most of you are listening to this. It'll already be available on Amazon so you can go and check it out. Three-part series?

Three-part series. Available everywhere. Amazon, Google. right iTunes in a couple weeks it'll be on Apple TV but a little later so Amazon Amazon YouTube and Google are ready to watch on February 15th yeah we'll have a link in the description in the show so this is like the part of the interview where I have to make that famous caveat that never holds true I don't mean to get political but but I we don't have to get political but I do want to ask you that you know it seems like

this issue is coming back up into the public consciousness, again, about women serving in combat. What is the appropriate role for women in the military? What do you make of that debate and that we're sort of like relitigating it again years later? Yeah, I think it's funny because I've been asked a lot, was this purposefully timed, you know, with the sect F and comments made? I'm like, absolutely not. This was, we finished the trailer for Guerrera and, you know, a couple of years ago. It just happens to be, yes, very much. Distribution takes a long, long time.

Oh, I know. Very much, you know, relevant when we thought, hey, this is a mute point, but it's, you know, again, like you said, kind of being relitigated. I like to think of it as an opportunity to inform. I think the story speaks for itself. And I hope that, I mean, I hope the SACF watches it. And again, it comes back to like the characters on screen, there's Republicans, there's Democrats, they're, you know, all different backgrounds. And there are a couple things that, you know, we all agree on.

We all want high standards. We all want the opportunity, maybe the opportunity to, you know, fail, sure, but still, you know, keep that opportunity open. And I think that the, like you said, the story will, you know, speak for itself and hopefully be a platform to launch, you know, rich discourse from as these kind of topics kind of come up again. Do you want to tell us a little bit about, you know, I think you said there were like 16 primary interviews, primary characters that go through this series. You want to tell us a little bit about

some of these other women and sort of what their backgrounds are? Oh, yeah, I'd love to. I mean, this is why I want to do it. These women and our male counterparts are incredible, and my goal is to get them, you know, show their stories to, you know, the world. And so a few of the characters,

CST, a lot of CSTs, of course, but also we have, you know, Chris Christ, first Ranger School graduate. We have Peshana Durrani, who is a founder of Learn Afghanistan, an activist who gives a perspective of a woman in Afghanistan, you know, throughout the war. You have Manaz Akbari, who is the commander of the female tactical platoon. And she talks about what it was like for her to be able to wear a uniform and defend her country. The CSDs come, again, from every different MSS. There's military police, there's nurses, there's Intel engineers.

Jenny was a nurse. and she, you know, like kind of the rest of us, was just looking to do something a little closer to the fight and, you know, volunteered and did exceptionally well and didn't expect to be on the direct action side, actually. And because it wasn't, that was the first time in 2013 where in our cohort that they actually had nurses go on the direct action side.

So yeah, a whole great, great crew or cast. Some of the male counterparts involved, you have Rangers in the series, SF. We don't have any Navy SEALs. That's okay. They've got enough publicity. But, yeah, like I said, all different backgrounds and one of the coolest things I think is that you just see like

um there's when you have that kind of shared purpose and combination um you're all you're all teammates first you know before anything else you feel like that's kind of in like on a on a personal level also sort of like turn the page on you know this sort of phase of your life like you're able to tell the story it must feel good to feel like that chapter is complete right yeah it does And for me, I do hope it's the beginning of more. And it's meant to be a memorial, and it's meant to inspire the next generation. And so the profits from Guerrera will be reinvested

into All True and Altru's mission. And again, that is what allows us to continue to live the legacy of Jenny Marino, of Ashley White, of Shannon Kent, of all the women who have sacrificed, and our male counterparts. And what does AllTrue do? I mean, I know you mentioned it. It's a not-for-profit, but what do you guys actually do?

Yeah, primarily we take role models. A lot of them are women from the special operations community, but also men, and we engage with the next generation. And so we'll go to universities, we'll go to ROTC units, We'll go to high schools and we share these stories of sacrifice, of unity, of teamwork to try and instill a sense of self-determination and service. And service doesn't have to come in a uniform. You know, you can serve in a lot of different ways. But, you know, we'd like to see our audience kind of find, you know, various values that they,

you know, resonate with that they see whether in person when we're doing these events or, again, on screen, you know, through, through Guerrera and embody those in their own, you know, authentic, authentic way. Super cool. Yeah. So anything else that I failed to ask that you'd like to talk about? No, I think you've covered it. This was, thank you for helping us.

Share the story and share Guerrera. We're happy to. I mean, we've had a couple CSTs on the show before now that I think about it. Kate. Kate from Zero Blog 30. Oh, okay. She's a trip. Nice.

And Sam Juan, too. Sam Juan, and then we had another. Yeah, Sam's great. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, and I appreciate you coming on the show and telling your story and sharing the story of all these other folks, all of your teammates. It's great. I hope people will go and check out the documentary.

I'm going to watch it probably next week. And I don't know, anything else that we need to bring up? Oh, we got a couple questions. Okay, sure. M. Corbyn asks, do you have any pet peeves about how women are portraying combat and mass media? We talked about that earlier. So I don't think too hard about it because I feel like Hollywood is always going to sensationalize things, you know? but there are you know there are things that I'm like oh that's not completely you know

accurate or but again I just go back to hey it's Hollywood and it's entertainment right right so you got to make it kind of meant to be a little bit sultry or a little bit a little more spicy than maybe it would have been what's what I hope is Greer is like hey it's it's all real and it's actually spicy. It's spicy without, you know, without the extra sultry. So, yeah, I was saying earlier, you know, G.I. Jane is one of the ones that a lot of us in the community are like, oh, that was the movie that, you know, left an impact or whatnot. But a lot of the shows, I think out today are fun to watch. Right. You know, I enjoy watching. And that's probably the right way to think about it. I made my husband sit and watch Lioness, you know.

You know, there's, like I said, it's Hollywood, so I don't have too many expectations of making it, like, super accurate. One more question from V. Did you ever feel like your male co-workers were overprotective of you? There was one mission. There was one mission. I noticed that, but for the most part, no, I think you're, you know, everyone's just really focused on their, on their job. That one mission was there weren't any women and children on the target, and everyone was posting up pulling security or some of us had our weapons directed into a courtyard. And I was one of those people.

And my teammate was like, get down, you know, basically, like push me down so that I wasn't, you know, basically I was, you know, basically I was, kneeling then behind the mud wall versus, you know, helping provide an extra... He didn't want you on the front line, so to speak, yeah. So that, that I think, again, was a, you know, protective kind of reaction. Doesn't upset me or anything, you know. It doesn't... Yeah, he didn't mean any harm. Yeah, it wasn't malicious or anything like that.

But I think for the most part, yeah, everyone's there very focused on their job. and it wasn't besides that one time. I didn't have any other incidences like that. Anything else, Steve? Yeah, one more from Havoc. During the 10 years of your special-op stuff, did Jessica get a chance to work with the YPJ by any chance? That's a good question.

I didn't, but that's a great example of another way to build partner force capacity. And Daughters of Kobani, I don't know if you've read that book, but Gell-Lamon, who wrote Ashley's War about Ashley White, who was killed in 2011, wrote Daughters of Kobani, and it is a fantastic story of the YPJ, if anyone wants to read about that. I read recently a novel called Rosa's Story by Till. We had him on the show. I can't remember his last name, unfortunately. But he wrote a novel. He was over there fighting with the YPG, so he met a lot of these people. And he wrote a novel about a teenage girl in Sinjar when ISIS comes and massacres the place. And the girl joins the YPJ as a refugee. And so it's telling her story through this battle against ISIS.

And I mean, he just has very unique insights and really captured that as they start working with the American Special Operations. community and doing the dam operation. It was a good book. I'll forward you the information. Yeah, I would love to read it. Yeah, yeah, please. So I think that's all we got. Thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight.

Please check us out on Patreon if you haven't. You can subscribe to this show and Eyes On for $5 a month. Get all episodes ad-free. We really appreciate it. And if you subscribe for $10, we'll send you the patch too. And there's the new merch shop. You can check out the links down the description. There's also going to be links down the description for Ultru, for Guerrera, and anything else I'm forgetting, Dee?

Okay. Cool. My book is out. That's fun. Thank you, everyone who read it and reviewed it. Appreciate it. I got one. Guys, go to the Aizan channel and hit subscribe on that subscribe button because we have a separate YouTube channel for Aizan.

Please. Thank you. Okay. That's a show. All good? All good. All right. We'll see everyone next time. Thank you, everyone.