Episode 9 Transcript

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Jean Marciniak (00:23):

Welcome to Commanders Briefing, a podcast where we talk about state defense forces with their commanding officers. This month we have on the show Briar General Anthony Woods, the commanding General of the Texas State Guard. Welcome on the show. Sir, how are you?

Major General Anthony Woods (00:36): I’m good. How you doing today, Jean?

Jean Marciniak (00:38):

Not bad. Thank you for coming on the show. It’s, it’s an honor having you on the on the show. I know about your military history and, you know you have a, a long and dedicated history with with the us army, the US military, and also worked in the dea. So kind of before, usually with these interviews, before we kind of like dive into the main topic, I usually want to kind of cover a little bit about the Commanding General’s background a little bit about their military history. Can can you dive into a little bit about that?

Major General Anthony Woods (01:12):

Yeah, I’ll I’ll just, I’ll just run, and it’s pretty long, so I’ll just run down my, my little list here of physicians that I’ve been in while in the ma mainly the Texas army National Guard of course joined, I served, served as a platoon armor Platoon leader support platoon leader H a c commander. The served as s3, air S3 assistant before moving to California, after moving to California, being reassigned with, with the dea, and I’ll talk about my civilian stuff later. But in the California Guard, I was the Alpha Company commander down in Calexico, and then transferred and worked as the s3, and then I was reassigned to Texas with, with the dea. So when I got back to Texas, I worked as this division dis assistant division for, and then moved to the transferred to my battalion S3 first tank.

(02:21):

And then I, I was promoted and then worked as the XO for first tank. And at, while, while serving in the XOs position that’s when we, back in 2000 three, we deployed to, to Noble Eagle in Orit Falcon. These, these missions were response in response to nine 11, where we protected American infrastructure then coming back off, off Noble Legal, served briefly as the division, division three, and then promoted in, in, in assigned as battalion commander for, for, for first Tank in Wally, Texas. So, while, while I was the com command commander, battalion commander I was also the command served on operation Romania, which was the first American training mission after the fall of the Soviet Union in the country of Romania. And then served on Jumpstart which was initiated in 2006.

(03:34):

It was president Bush board of Mission. And I served as a deputy command commander on that while, while serving as commander of a first tank. And and so after Jumpstart and after completing successfully completing my battalion command duties, I was assigned as the three and deputy commander for J I F, which is the Joint Interagency Task Force. That was Texas first real disc and disc’s, direct support to

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civilian authority joint joint operation or setup. So served there. And after that, I was assigned as the commander of the R T I, the, the Regional Training Institute, which is Texas military school. And we are actually accredited by, by the Army Trade Act, the Army Training and Doctrine Command. Served there as the commander. And then after that, I deployed to Afghanistan as the joint commander for the sfa security force assistance team, where we assisted senior level gen gen general level commanders in setting up their own staffs so they could request funding and money and operations. And now, there were many versions of this, of the sfat, but we, we were the real first true Sfat team because we actually lived with the Afghans in, in their villages and, and on their basis. And so after completing that, I retired from the National Guard, and then after I retired, joined the State Guard and served as the training officer for the State Guard, the deputy Commanding General. And now I’m assigned as the commanding general of the general of the State Guard.

Jean Marciniak (05:31):

Wow. definitely very rich and long history in the US military. Wow. That the time that you did in Afghanistan. Wow. the so I guess moving on to I guess a little bit about the Texas State Guard. What made you kind of after you retired from the army National Guard move tried out the state guard?

Major General Anthony Woods (06:02):

Yeah, I, when I was at, when I was out processing with the with the National Guard, I talked to a recruiter about the state guard, and, and my attitude was, and I have to apologize to the state guard all the time about this, it’s been like, nah, man, I’m not gonna join, join, join those guys, guys and girls. And but at the time a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, Dan Steiner, we worked together on, on Operation Jumpstart, and he’s, he’s passed away now from cancer. But Dan, Dan Steiner’s, a very good friend of mine, had a lot, had a lot of respect for him. So I, so I said, okay, well, I’ll go over and talk to Dan about it. And we talked and I talked with him and General, general Betty, the previous commander in general voters, the previous commander before me. And they talked me into it. And so I, I promised him a year. And so here I am eight years later, I’m still in

Jean Marciniak (06:58):
<Laugh>. What motivates you to to stay in the Texas State Guard? I’m curious.

Major General Anthony Woods (07:05):

Well, it’s, it’s the people. It’s the guard members. The thing, you know, my my attitude towards the Texas State Guard when I, when I, before I joined was, was pretty negative. But after joining and, and the thing that motivates me, that motivates me to stay in, when I, when I look at the heart and soul soul of, of the individuals who serve, I mean, they, they are your true, you know, for God and country people for the most part. And and their, their dedication just cannot be matched, especially for what they make <laugh>.

Jean Marciniak (07:41):

So I guess moving on to the core I, I know we talked earlier cuz I was kind of curious if the Tex cause I know Texas State Guard is big and I was wondering if it was the biggest, but you corrected me on that. And you, you were, you mentioned that it is the biggest Texas state guards. How big are your numbers?

Major General Anthony Woods (08:03):

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Yeah, we’re, we’re at 1,844 members. And, and these, these are solid numbers. We, on a monthly basis, we, we reach out to our guard members and and we validate that they’re in, that they’re come coming to, to drill. And if they’re not at drill, then, then where are they? So we, we try to keep a close eye, and not just for, for the sake of numbers, but just we, we, we do it because we wanna make sure that our me members are well.

Jean Marciniak (08:34):

So I, I’m, I’m kind of curious cuz that, that I, that probably put a while on many people’s <laugh> on many people’s faces. So I’m kind of curious, what is, how do, how do you get to 1800 members? What are the, like, because many state guards are, you know, at best, a few hundred members how, how, how did you get to 1800?

Major General Anthony Woods (08:59):

Well, you know, I, I mentioned to you earlier about, you know, about us being fully integrated into the Texas Military department pillar. But I also, what I, what I didn’t say earlier, and I want to include this, is that we have, we have full support from our commander-in-chief, and that’s Governor Greg Abbott. And with that support and with, with the support of, of our, our commander-in-chief and the support of our tag ma major general selzer, you know, we’re not just a, a name on a list. We are fully integrated into the, the three pillar system of the Texas Military Department. And that’s the Army National Guard, air National Guard in the Texas State Guard.

Jean Marciniak (09:43):
Wow, okay. Wow. so that so I’m kind of curious like kind of piggy backing off that I know you guys have

which kind of surprised me. I know you guys have full-time active duty recruiters, is that correct?

Major General Anthony Woods (10:03): Yes, yes, we do.

Jean Marciniak (10:06):

<Laugh>. So, because it’s very unusual for, to for a state guard to have active duty recruiters, is that usually you have see in the National Guard or active duty h how, how, how were you able to accomplish that, that that’s, that’s kind of a feat on its own?

Major General Anthony Woods (10:24):

Well, and, and it is, it it’s something that, that we started we, after Harvey and, you know, har Harvey was, was pretty devastating to, to the state of Texas. And, and everybody was called up, I mean, all the complete National Guard, air Guard and the Texas State Guard. And, and that was an op that, that was an opportunity that unfortunately, unfortunately for us, it, we know, we, we, we had been waiting on. And so, so after Harvey, the governor actually, he, he doubled our budget, increased our budget. Oh, wow. And with that, and with that budget increase, we were, we were able to, to, to bring on full-time and additional full-time staff to in, to include re recruiters.

Jean Marciniak (11:21):

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Wow. Okay. Wow. so what kind, moving over to like, training what kind of training is the Texas State Guard up to these days? I know you guys are doing a lot of search and rescue <laugh>. I see that in the news quite often.

Major General Anthony Woods (11:37):

Well, our, our training is, is based mainly on what we call MRPs in, in in MRPs or mission mission ready packages. And, and what, and what that is that what we do, we work with the Texas emergency management department. That’s, that’s, and I’m, I’m throwing out names here, but I just think, I just think it, it gives credence to, to, to what I’m saying when I it’s, it’s run, it is run by, by NIM kid. And, and what we do every year, we, we meet with, you know, as well, the National Guard of the Texas Military Department. We meet with the Texas Merc MA Management, and, and we develop these, these packages, these are pre-determined packages that are called out when, when requested by various counties to support, you know a slew of, of, of missions. And so this, this gives us the flexibility to, to do that.

Jean Marciniak (12:49):
Oh, okay. Wow. and so what kind of what kind of like missions do you guys focus on primarily that, that

you see from these MRPs?

Major General Anthony Woods (12:59):

Yeah, our, our, our big mission we have, and I’m, I’m a I’m gonna try to narrow this down. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna bore you with, with a bunch of names, <laugh>, but our, probably our, our primary mission is the what we call the E, the E E N T is a emergency network tracking system. That’s when, if we, you know, as we plan for a large evacuation on the border we, what we do, we, we set to where we can put bands and, and tracking numbers on buses. And it’s, and it’s tracked throughout, throughout the, throughout the state. So if someone calls and asks for their mother or their aunt, and if they have their name, the social security number, then we can actually go into our computer system and tell that person, oh, hey, yeah, your, your mom is in the, the shelter in Dallas, Texas.

(13:56):

And then when that person checks out of the shelter, you know, they sign in and, oh, no, she’s not in, in the shelter in Dallas. Her aunt, aunt Jenny picked her up at 5:00 AM or 5:00 PM and then they call Aunt Jenny and they say, Hey, yeah, your mom is over here with me. Now that’s, that’s, that’s the idea. Sit situation. We also have our, our research and recovery MRPs, we work with the local law enforcement. You know, as, as people across the border, they get lost sometime. And unfortunately you know, if we don’t find them in time then we also participate in that. We, we we have our boat teams to where we, we, we support law enforcement in, in some cases law enforcement in recovering evidence for, for court. We have a robust medical chap, chaplain and legal, legal support teams. We have a, a huge joint cyber support team that we, we provide assistance to our radio network expansion team, the, so these, these are, and, and then in general, as we, we set up different shelters, you know, we have our general support units and, and, and also, you know, the pods, the points of distribution for food and those kinds of things. So that’s, that’s, that’s kind of a, a summary of, of the things that we do in the state guard and that we trained for.

Jean Marciniak (15:33):

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Yeah. The that en e e e n t or I’m sorry. Yeah. that, that is an incredible system. I can our other states

utilizing such a system that is, that is something that I can imagine that is would be high priority.

Major General Anthony Woods (15:54):
I, I’m not sure, I don’t know if if other states are using it Texas have used it. I mean, I know they’re using

it way before I joined the state guard and, and I, I don’t know if other states are, are using it.

Jean Marciniak (16:11):

So one other thing I kind of wanna move over to is as we were discussing a little bit of the training so a lot of the state defense forces are made of prior service, but there’s also a component, and it’s actually getting larger from from other states, from what I’m seeing is of non prior service members joining this state guard. I was kind of curious what are your numbers in terms of prior service versus a non prior service? And do you have a, like a basic training in the I E t course for them?

Major General Anthony Woods (16:47):
Yeah. We, we 20, only 20% of the, of the Texas State Guard is, is prior service.

Jean Marciniak (16:53): Oh, wow. Okay.

Major General Anthony Woods (16:54):

Yeah. So that you, of course, that leaves with 80% that are, that are not non-pro service. And what we have is a, is a basic orientation training system. It’s, we call it bot. And, and of course, you know, our, our members don’t have the luxury or the ability to take off six weeks as you, you know, as you do when you join 16 weeks when you join active duty. So our, our bot is, is four days long. It starts on Friday Thursday, and it ends on, on on Sunday. And what we do, we bring in those who, who have, who are non-pro service you know, we teach them customs military customs you know, and train them at, at a late age appropriate level. You know, we, you know, we’re not trying to make snipers out of these folks. We just, we just want wanna, you know, we just wanna, wanna in incorporate them into the Texas, you know state guard and, and give them a place to be comfortable or feeling of comfort when they, when they come across you know, a, a national guardsman or an active military person.

Jean Marciniak (18:13):
Okay. so I guess jumping off that, do you have other professional courses that you offer? I, I believe I did

see in the news like Bock or ak

Major General Anthony Woods (18:25):

Oh, yeah. We, we have we, we have a pretty robust soldier development, whether it’s officer or NCO development program. And and again you know, I I, I don’t want to to bore you with a lot of names, but, but again, you know, like any other commander, I’m, I’m proud of our, of our T seven section. So we, we, for, for our NCOs Yeah. We have, we have the basic leadership training. We have the, our basic NCO training, advanced NCO training. We just started our, our senior senior leadership training program, which, which transition officers who are competing officers and NCOs who are competing for geo positions in the state guard.

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Okay.

Major General Anthony Woods (19:22):

And so in these, yeah, we, and for now for officers, we have, yeah, officer basic training. We have our advanced training we have our command and general staff, our version of command and general staff, staff training. And, and again, the the, the senior LE leadership training is open to both senior NCOs and, and and officers now. And what we’re looking at when we just talked to, now there’s, there’s two Sergeant Major Thompsons, so I’m gonna have to distinguish between the two. There is the State Guard Thompson and that, and there is the, the National Guard Thompson. So of course, the National Guard Thompson works for the, for the tag. And we were, we were just informed by her and General yuli that they’re looking at ways to incorporate and they will incorporate our NCOs and officers into Texas or National Guard training that is not funded with federal dollars.

Jean Marciniak (20:23): Oh, wow.

Major General Anthony Woods (20:25):
So we’re, we’ll, we’ll be working side by side with, with National Guard members in, in, in developing

our, our NCOs and officers.

Jean Marciniak (20:34):
I know that you your Texas State Guard has been actually, this is another, I guess first state Defense

Forces. You guys are on continuous active duty and I think at least one or multiple missions, I believe.

Major General Anthony Woods (20:52):

Yeah. We, we we have been on continuous active duty now, ooh, again, before I joined the State guard with our operation, call it operation of draw Bridge and, and Border Star. And, and these, these continuous missions we, what we do, we support the Texas department public safety border, on the border with, with mon monitoring and, and, and providing camera support and providing statistics reports for, for dps.

Jean Marciniak (21:36):
Okay. so that’s been going on for a couple of years.

Major General Anthony Woods (21:40): It’s been going on for a while. Yeah.

Jean Marciniak (21:42):

Oh, okay. I, I do see that you guys do I do see postings that for i, for active duty missions that include Texas State Guard. I’m, I’m sure this is on a lot of people’s minds. If somebody is in, let’s say, the New York Guard or California, California State Guard, and they’re interested in moving to Texas to be part of this active duty mission is that something that’s possible?

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Well, I mean, you can <laugh> Yeah. If you’re in another state and you want to join the state guard and I, I hope I answered your question correctly here, but if you, if you, if you’re moving to the state of Texas and, and you become a resident of the state of Texas, you have to be here a year before you can join the state guard. And once, once you be, once you join the state guard, then yeah, you’re at, you’re, you’re eligible to, to compete for those jobs.

Jean Marciniak (22:33):

Oh, okay. <Laugh>. So that’s that that’s very good information. Cause like I, I did run into a lot of people that were saying that they were interested in you know, moving to Texas immediately to be part of these active duty missions because, you know, either their state guard is not as active or they just wanna be part of a active long-term active duty mission.

Major General Anthony Woods (22:55):

Right? Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Fortunately unfortunately for some, you have to, you have to be a resident for a year before you can join the state guard. And, and you, you have to be a member of the State guard in, in order to participate on, on those missions.

Jean Marciniak (23:09):
Okay. Sue I guess this was gonna be my next question. I, I guess it’s a little redundant, but I’ll, I’ll ask it

anyway. What is your working relationship with your state’s National Guard?

Major General Anthony Woods (23:22):

Oh, I’ll tell you what. Yeah, no, no, I, I think that’s a great question because it’s important. And I, I, you know, I mentioned that you know, general Selzer, you know, has, has been successful in, in, in, in including us, but not just him. Gerald Yuli, who is the commander of, of the, of the army of, of the Army National Guard, is a big fan of the state guard. And, and he’s made it a point to, to include us. And and he, he attend, he attended our conference this year and and him and, and, and Sergeant Major, national Guard Thompson both in attended and, and, I mean, and it was a big morale boost for everybody to see the National Guard Leadership so deeply involved. But, but I tell you, in addition to that the, the 36 division Commander General Burquette he’s, he’s constantly talking to me, my chief of staff, about how honored he is to, to serve with the state guard.

(24:29):

And he give us, he, he gives us how praise, praise and, and, and the former commander, the previous commander general Hamilton, who, who was the dual dual dual commander during Harvey. These, the support from, from the senior leadership in the National Guard has been phenomenal. Arm former Armory, army Air ma ma Major General Ferrell. She, she, she sat on our boards. She helped write policies with us and for us. And so this, this support is worth mentioning because it’s not just something that, that happens on occasion. It’s been going on for, for quite a while.

Jean Marciniak (25:18):
Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. So I guess if you had to put a number on it say out of 10 how many missions does

the Texas State Guard work with the national Guard out of out of 10? Major General Anthony Woods (25:32):

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Ooh, <laugh>? Well, I can a number, I can’t, I can’t put a number on it, but I will tell you this, the, the national, the state guard and National Guard, you know, we’ve worked on most emergency missions to include covid. I won’t go into detail, but the board mission we ice storms if normally, if the, if the National Guard is involved, the state guard is involved.

Jean Marciniak (26:13): Oh, wow.

Major General Anthony Woods (26:14):

Now these, these full-time missions, border star drawbridge, you know, because we’re in direct support to, with, with law enforcement, that’s a, that’s a state guard exclusive mission. Now, the, I will tell you the National Guard is, they’re, they’re giving us more of those missions that were more of those DISC missions that were, were exclusively assigned to, to, to the National Guard. Our MDCs, our mission direct support folks who go out and meet with, with county judges our, you know, the different county emergency managers, you know, those, we, we are, we are fighting to, to get full control of those, of those types of missions because we have the folks living in those areas that can actually build, build that, that rapport in in, I know the TAG and general yuli, they’re, they’re open to, to that, that, that I, I idea.

Jean Marciniak (27:14):
Oh, okay. So kind of piggybacking off you mentioned covid. So kind of curious I know the Texas State

Guard was activated for covid. What kinda missions did you did, did the organization perform?

Major General Anthony Woods (27:30):

On our, on our Covid missions we where we actually, you know, we, we work with the National Guard. We, you know, we, because we have a robust medical team of doctors and nurses and, and PAs we actually provided shots. We, we oh we, we helped with, with crowd control, traffic control you know, we helped set up and break down and, and the, the na, the state guard because of our, again, our robust communication team, we have set sets up communication at, at various sites during, during the height of covid.

Jean Marciniak (28:13):

Okay. Wow. I guess moving over to so there’s this other mission that I do see every so often in News Operation Loan Star am I naming it correctly? It it’s, I know it’s a unique operation. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Major General Anthony Woods (28:36):

Yeah. It’s, it’s the, yeah. Lone Star Board of Support. It’s, it’s the it’s, it’s the primarily a, a National Guard or Texas Military Department mission. But again, we, we were honored with the amount of, of openness in the, in the tag to allow us to help support the mission.

Jean Marciniak (29:03):
So lemme move over to the next question. Let’s see. Oh so let’s say currently how many troops do you

currently have on state of a state active duty Major General Anthony Woods (29:20):

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On state active duty with all the missions combined? We have almost 400 folks on state active duty right

now. The, the state guard does.

Jean Marciniak (29:34):

Wow. That’s Wow. <Laugh> excuse me. I just, that’s, that’s, wow. That’s I <laugh> That’s amazing. Usually you hear like other state defense forces, like, we have 30, you know, we have like 50, you know, we have a hundred. But 400 is definitely <laugh>, definitely quite a lot. Yeah.

Major General Anthony Woods (29:53):

Again, I’m pretty, I’m pretty proud of that number. And and, and the morale, the morale is high. We, we, I mean, we have folks on standby and say, Hey, sir, when you, when you’re ready for, for us to go, you know, call me up, you know, put me in Coach, put me in

Jean Marciniak (30:05):
<Laugh>. Yeah. I, I always see Constant News coming out of the Texas State Gardens. This is probably

the reason why <laugh>, there’s lots of report.

Major General Anthony Woods (30:17):

Yeah. And, and, and I, and I tell you well, a lot of people don’t know about the Texas State Guard. You know, we, we have, I’m trying to, I’m trying to find my, our numbers here. You know, not just troops, but we have our legal team. We have currently two, two Jags, but, but we have, we’ve, we have a rotation of, of lawyers who serve as the trial defense on our trial defense service teams. So, so we, we have those, those guys and girls who are actually leaving their practices to serve on Oh, wow. You know, to serve on state of a active duty. We have our chaplains, we have five chaplains that, that is, is supporting in that it’s on State act, active duty. We have our medical teams, we have 16, hold on, let me, we have 16 medical personnel who, who have served on our, our serving on, on state, state of active duty. Our, our communication folks. We have eight folks there. So, so we, we have not just, you know, the grunt kind of person. They’re, we, we, we bring a full, full co complete package to, to the Texas Military Department, a as a support team for, for any mission that’s on state active duty.

Jean Marciniak (32:03):

Wow. That’s, yeah. That’s, that’s, wow. <Laugh>, that’s incredible. One piece of news that I saw earlier this year was that you had troops working with the Texas Department of Public Safety and fire department who apparently they were wildfires that were occurring near the border. And you had troops that were assisting with like wildfire. It’s kind of extinguish them. I’m kind of curious because the wildfire mission wildfire response, firefighting is becoming more and more I, I would say expanded in many state defense forces. California, I know, has been doing it for numerous years. Washington State Guard has been doing it and other state defense forces are considering it. Does the Texas State Guard have a wildfire team, and if not is that a possibility in the future?

Major General Anthony Woods (33:05):

No, we, we don’t we don’t have a wild wildfire team. I think Texas, you know, we work with, with those firefighters in, in, in, like I said, being a part of the Texas military emergency, EENT emergency team. We, we have, you know, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we have these mission ready packages. So, so when, when these teams, and this is not, this is not just for the Texas State Guard. This is for the

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entire state of Texas. So, so when you look at those teams, those wildfire teams that are provided by, by the state of Texas, what, what we have been tasked to do and incorporated in this program to do is, is support, support those teams, and support the Texans who are impacted by, by any kind, any natural or manmade disaster.

Jean Marciniak (34:08): Okay.

Major General Anthony Woods (34:08):
So, so the, the, so to answer your second question, so now the idea of creating a wildfire team in the

state of Texas in the state guard is not, not something that we are con considering.

Jean Marciniak (34:20):

Oh, okay. So I guess the other big thing, which was there was a piece of news out that that we reported on is that you did a, a cyber training event with the Virginia Defense Force, which was kind of surprising when seeing two state defense forces work together. Especially the distance between Virginia and Texas is so great. I’m kinda curious so you have a cyber team. What is their mission? And and if you could elaborate a little bit how the Virginia Defense Force Mission came about?

Major General Anthony Woods (34:59):

Well, Texas and, and I, I’m Texas, you know, of course, you know, we’re, we’re Texas <laugh> <laugh>, and so we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re we’re proud people, as everybody knows. And, and we’re, and, and, you know, we, we have multiple visits from various states through throughout the year in, and we are ready and willing to share what, what we do as a state defense force. Our sergeant major, the state guard Sergeant, major Thompson, I mean, he’s, he’s on he’s on a monthly conference call with, with other state defense forces exchanging ideas in, in talking about, you know, ways to make, make their force and our force, you know, a better force. Now, in regards to our cyber, cyber team again and I, I, I hate to sound like a broken record, but, but I am pretty proud of, of our, of our cyber team.

(36:07):

You know, we, we were involved. We, we have been involved in, in, in supporting you know, national Guard and, and in sometimes leading cyber investigations. And when some, some individuals try to hold different municipalities hostage we have been involved in, in, you know, in, in supporting them. And, you know, in, and we’ve been pretty successful in, in that we, we are developing our own system to track and, and to track and account for, you know, Texas State Guard members to computerize their records. We’re also working with the Texas Military Department in, in improving their, their system as well. So, so we have, we have folks in, in our cybersecurity, I mean, our cyber, not cyber security in our cyber program, who, who own companies own. We have one, our oldest l lieutenant he was a C E O for, for a company before join, before joining the state guard.

Jean Marciniak (37:25):

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. So kind of moving away from I wanted to get, since you have an incredibly successful state defense force, a model, basically I wanted to ask you for the less active state defense forces out there and state guards out there what recomme recommendations do you have for them in regards to having a better working relationship with their National Guard?

Commnaders Briefing Texas State Guard Brigadier … (Completed Page 10 of 14 02/16/23)
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This transcript was exported on Feb 16, 2023 – view latest version here. Major General Anthony Woods (37:53):

Well, the and I think most, most states are doing this first, you know, of course, you, you, you want to make sure that, that you’re not appearing to be in competition with, with your state and National Guard. And, and also for us, you know, for the Texas State Guard, you know, we, we know our place and, and our place is serving Texans and, and the folks who joined the, the Texas State Guard for the most part, that that’s what they want to do. So we, you know, and, and as you can see with various missions various community type services that we conduct and I, I’ll give you an example. In, in, in 2019, we conduct 30 different and community type service missions 2020. Of course, that’s, that’s before COVID 13 during covid, we still served eight community missions. And in 2022, as we ramp back up, we’re back up up to 14.

(39:05):

So, so getting these folks out there and getting them in the community and allowing them to, to, to showcase their expertise I mean, is, is important. And I think that has a lot to do with the growth of, of our, our state guard. I mean, we’ve, we’ve done, we do funerals. Our chaplains our chaplains they conduct the services, the SU Sunday services at camp, maybe a headquarters. They, they provide any, any time a State guard member goes to the hospital or has a serious family issue, a chaplain is dispatched to that person. They don’t just call ’em, they show up at the hospital, and, and they offer support as long, long as they can. We we we have a 24 7 hotline, and we average, our chaplains average about two funerals a week, and that’s just a chaplain SEC section.

(40:13):

And so there are, there are just tons of things that, that you can do to keep those, those soldiers in, in a column, ’em soldiers, because we were the Army uniform only. And to keep them, to keep ’em busy. Also we have a great relationship with, with, with, with the with our Commanders and Chief’s office, the, the le leg legislators. We, I have, I have been invited and actually testified in, in a couple of legislative committees this year. I met with the TAG a couple of weeks ago, and, you know, he said, Tony, oh, prepare yourself, because I want you with me every time I go testify. And because, you know, that’s how proud, how proud he is of, of the state guard. Wow. and, and, but my, you know, the, the, I guess the, the broad answer is this, you, you, you know, your, your position, your place, whatever that place or that position is in your state, and you perfect that.

(41:19):

And you get to, to, to the point that where actually the, the, the National Guard, not only do they not want to do it, but they feel, Hey, you can do it better. And that allow us to focus on our war fighting missions. And I, I think that’s where we are now. You know, with, with the tag and, and, and the commander of the 36 division and General General [inaudible] and those folks, they’re, they’re saying, Hey, look, you know, these folks are excited. They’re, they’re, you know, so let’s allow them to do what they want to do. And that, that frees us up for to, to focus on our, on our war fighting missions. And, and, and I, and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll add this piece. We, we take the National Guard and Air Guards war fighting mission seriously as well because they are also Texans.

(42:12):

So, so we put ourselves in a position that when those folks have, have left the country, and they’re in some foreign land, and they’re putting their lives on the line for all of us in the states of America, that states of America companies are faced with disasters, whether it’s manmade or, or, or natural, then those folks can, can call back and get the reassurance that their families are safe, which clears their mind to complete their war fighting mission, and, and they can bring them home safely. It’s, it’s a small part, but, but for the Texas State Guard, it’s an important point.

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This transcript was exported on Feb 16, 2023 – view latest version here. Jean Marciniak (42:48):

Wow. so I, I kind of wanna actually just piggyback right off that. So we did a poll on the website a while ago. And it was kinda remarkable. The so the poll asked what was it what mission would what mission they would like to have their state defense force take on? And, you know, we had all the missions listed, cyber legal, everything like that. And the one that actually kind of made the the top of the list was a mission that this Georgia State Defense forces is doing for called posing forces, or they call it OP for where they act as a, a, a counter force for the National Guard. So while they’re training for their war fighting they utilize their state defense force or their state guard as the the opponents. Is, does the Texas State Guard do something like that? Or is that a possible mission that the Texas State Guard can do with the National Guard

Major General Anthony Woods (44:00):

Again, original speaking solely for the Texas State Guard that is, that is not something that, that we, we participate in or interested in participating in at this point. Now, in, in, here’s the reason why I mean, you know, Texas is a big state and we have a lot of land to cover. And, and as you can see with, with, with the numbers I’ve given you, just focusing on the disc emissions keep us busy enough between training between supporting Texans, you know, so, and, and that’s not, again, you know, each state determines what’s important to them. And, and what, what we, as, as a state military force won’t want to do is ensure that our commander in chief and our tag know that a, when, when a Texan needs help, when they need food, water, shelter, you know, those, those fundamental important things that we are trained up, we are prepared for and we can call and we can deliver the, the numbers of support needed at that, at the time of need. So, so, no, we’re, we’re not, not, not that that’s not important, but it, but it’s not important for, for Texas Okay. To be an OP four, to be an OP four kind of operation.

Jean Marciniak (45:25):
So I have two last questions. So the first one would be what do you think for the short term state

defense forces in general would need to do to better dev to grow and develop in the short term?

Major General Anthony Woods (45:42):

Well, again, and you know, you know, what your state wants, know what your, what your commander in chief wants know what your tag won’t, and, and you, you develop your force to, to provide that, that service. Again, you know, Texas, we, we, we put all of our effort in in taking care of, you know, taking care of our folks and, and, but, but with taking care of our folks our mission is, is disc, you know, it’s direct support, but, but within that, there are, there are several sub-tasks and there are various missions, you know, as, as I mentioned in the mission, our mission ready package catalog, that, that the, that the state of Texas said, Hey, we want the state guard to, to be, to conduct these missions. And what we’ve done with that is that we have perfected our support, or we are perfecting, and, and I’m, I’m not implying that we are perfect because we’re not, but we, we are, when it comes to those mission package mission ready packages that, that are assigned to us, we, we are, we are perfecting our skills on a daily basis.

(46:52):

Also, I would, I would, you know recommend in, and what we do here in Texas is that we spend a lot of time on policies that are unique to the Texas State Guard, and that gives us consistency and con cont continuity. Again, we’re not perfect, but, but we, we do have those. And, and so soldiers can look at, okay, what, what do I need to do to promote to the next rank what, what do I need to do to, to become

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a part of, you know, the, the cyber team or the chaplains team or, or the, you know, and, and, and also we, you know, we, we track, you know, as you, you spoke with chief Farley, we have a robust public affairs team. So, so we, we are putting ourselves out there and we’re trying to get away from it being the, you know, the state guard being the best kept secret.

(47:48):

So, so there are multiple things that I recommend. One, one, you, you know, you know what, what your job is. Two, you get with your lead legislators, your, your leaders, your state leaders, and you engage them and let them know that there are, there are teams out there that are, that are doing things that are, that are unique to that state. And then, you know, the last thing, and, and the most important thing that you, you listen to your guard members and you listen to what they have to say you, you make it your mission to, to include them and to give them the sense of importance they need. Because most of them the majority of ’em are, are volunteers and they’re, and they’re not getting paid. So, and, and they don’t, and, and they’re not joining to, to get paid. They are, they’re, they’re joining because they wanna serve, serve their, their communities. But, but in terms of payments and benefits, I mean, we do, we offer, we offer benefits. We offer tuition, tuition reimbursement while on, while on active on state active duty, you know, you do get paid for that. And there are various, you know, license plates discounted rate, you get, you know, you, so there are, there are various incentives to join the, the state guard, so know what those incentives are and, and, and promote those incentives as well.

Jean Marciniak (49:14):

Okay. And then my last question and I, I don’t <laugh> I don’t know what else you guys more can do cause feels like you’re doing everything, but what are your long-term plans for the Texas State Guard? What more can you do? And again, I, I can’t see anything more than you guys can do cuz you’re pretty much doing everything. But if you, if you kinda wanna, you know kind of comment on that.

Major General Anthony Woods (49:44):

No, we, we, we, we do. And as, and as a commander of the state guard, I mean, I, I do have a, a long- term strategic plan, you know, for, for the state guard, for the Texas State Guard. And, and, and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll start with, with, with this you know, I want more people, you know, I, I want more folks. I want us to grow. I would like for us to double in size oh, wow. And, and, but in order to do that, we, we need let legislative support. We need, we need more money in order to do that. In, in, in our le le legislators, we had during our conference in August and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was, was there and he spoke to us and very excited, I mean, extremely excited about the state guard and what we’re doing and, and what, what, what, what what we’ve done.

(50:39):

And and you know, we, we have, we have, we have submitted our legislative proposals is going through, through the tags office and, and, you know, we have support there. So, so it, it’s feasible for us to grow in numbers, to get more money and grow in numbers. And we, and the other thing I want us to do is that, you know, I, I want us to have all of the state, state missions. I want us to be the liaison and, and, and become the voice of the state. And and that, and, and we’re working towards that. The tag is open to it. The, you know, our commander in chief, he’s open to it. So, so I would like for us to do more of that and increase our educational benefits, you know and, and we’re, we’re trying to build a partnerships with, with various schools.

(51:31):

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We just a a guard member who’s also we, we set up a, a a we’re setting up a partnership with Talton State with, with other schools to allow to allow state guard members to join or set up a state guard unit at those U universities. So students want to join and receive some of those benefits. They don’t have to travel. They can, they can drill right there at the uni, uni University Wow. House. Wow. Bill 36, house Bill 36 0 1 says, Hey, you can take your, you can take your military training and experience in that count towards credit hours so that that’s saving a kid, you know, between five to $10,000 in taking courses that they, that they don’t, that they don’t have to pay for. Also you know, us, you know, the state guard, you know, becoming more, more involved with, with RTC units.

(52:32):

And, and then when those, when it comes time for those those, those cadets, you know, those who want to join carry on mean bear arms and fight for our freedom, you know, fully in support of that. I, I I, I can’t overemphasize that, but then, but there are some who say, Hey, look, I, I wanted the leadership training in, in the military, but I don’t want to carry a weapon. I don’t want to deplore overseas, but I wanna wear the uniform with pride, so there’s a place for those folks. So, so getting that message out and talking to those, to those different professions as you can, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we, we just don’t go out and pass out food, which was that, that’s important. But we have chapels, chaplains, we have, we have lawyers, we have, you know, our PA department is huge, you know, and our cyber, our communications department, our engineers, you know, they actually go in, in, you know, after Harvey, they went in and they, and they, you know, they, they reestablish fresh water systems and, and, you know, and establish, you know, reestablish the infrastructure in the, in those cities.

(53:38):

You know, we have policy writers, they come in and they, they write our policies and they, they make sure that they’re done, done pro professionally civil affairs operations. So, so, you know, our surgeon, you know, our, our our state surgeon is head of the state of Texas. I don’t wanna misre rep represent him, but but he, he’s a, he’s a, a leading surgeon here in the state of Texas. So, so all of these departments would like to, like to become ro more robust as, as we expand our footprint, you know, with, with the Texas Military Department. So, so yes, we do have a, have a pretty robust strategic future plan for, for the Texas State Guard.

Jean Marciniak (54:29):

Wow. That’s that’s incredible. I think that’s a perfect place to end our interview general again, thank you. It’s a, it’s been an honor. And I I wanna say thank you for all your service, for for defending this station and for your continued service after all these years and continuing serving your state and your country. And hopefully we can have you on the show again in the future to talk more about the Texas State Guard.

Major General Anthony Woods (54:57):
All right, Jean, thank, thank you so much, honor.

Jean Marciniak (55:01): Thank you.

Commnaders Briefing Texas State Guard Brigadier … (Completed 02/16/23)
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