Commanding General Brigadier General Dennis Watts of The Georgia State Defense Force
Jean Marciniak (00:00):
Welcome everyone to a new episode of Commanders’ Briefing. Today we have a special guest on the show. We have the Commanding General of the Georgia State Defense Force, BRI General Dennis Watts. Welcome on to the show. General. Thank you.
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (00:14):
Thank you for having me.
Jean Marciniak (00:17):
It’s our pleasure. I have a lot of questions, I’m just going to dive right into it. So can you tell us a little bit about you and your history in the state Defense force if you have prior service?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (00:30):
Yeah, I was commissioned out of ROTC in 1980, so I’m kind of an old guy. I was an infantry officer for 12 years in active duty. Then one of the reserves for eight years after I left the reserves in 2000, I actually heard about the Georgia State Defense Force through Clark Howard, who was one of our consumer advocates here in the state of Georgia and used to be a member of the State Defense Force and just checked out and I think one of the things that made me join was wanting to get back in uniform to have some of that comradery that you had when you were on active duty. And I joined the organization, and this is my third location we’ve actually been headquartered in, but in 2005 I was in our G three shop. A few years later I became our actual G three, our assistant chief of staff, chief of staff G three for operations later commanded and stood up what we call our 76 support brigade, which was a general support unit. Went away for about a year and a half and our ready reserve and then came back and took over our training and doctrine command, which is our organization, which focuses on our professional military education and our specialty schools training. And then shortly after that became the deputy commander under Brier General Mark Gerhart. And after he resigned, became the acting commander and then was selected to command the state Defense force from Arrat General last September that took effect.
Jean Marciniak (02:09):
Oh wow. Awesome. Long military
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (02:12):
History. Yeah, it’s farther back than I can almost remember. So just as an aside, I’m getting ready to go to my 50th high school reunion. We welcome all demographic age groups in the Georgia State Defense Force. So when we say a young person, we’re really talking about somebody in their forties, 45 or something like that.
Jean Marciniak (02:36):
Yeah, that makes me feel better. I just turned 40, so when I hear young and 40, I’m always on board for that. Usually it’s the other way around that I hear from my kids and from their kids, I mean from their friends and such. So you mentioned earlier you took the role of commanding general from brigadier general marker Alhart Sr. Who I met. Great person. I actually met him in New York. Really incredible officer. And so I’m kind of curious, you took over command. I’m curious, what changes have you made since taking over?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (03:21):
I think one of the things I’ve been member for such a long time, I’ve had an opportunity to look at our organization from top and bottom, both from our tactical side, from the administrative and operational side and commanding units. And one of the things that I really wanted to do was actually change the direction of our force When we were reactivated in 1985, our table of organization actually looked like an infantry division table of organization. And we said, we man ourselves at a cadre level, but that doesn’t really work and it really didn’t work for how we focus and deploy on mission. So what we looked at is initially one of the relatively new creations on the army side are the security force assistance brigades, where they have a brigade level headquarters battalions companies. And those companies are formed of assistance teams which go to our allied partners and help train their forces.
(04:23)
But I looked at that organizational structure and I said that really kind of fits how we deploy when we do civil support missions, when we respond to natural disasters, we tend to respond as small teams, sometimes individuals. So I said, why don’t we look at reorganizing ourselves and put ourselves in a place where we can actually deploy how we actually do and then organize and train before then how we actually deploy. And so that’s kind of what we kind of looked at as I took command of the organization and we’re actually calling it our 2030 strategic plan initiative because it’ll take a little bit of time for us to transition completely to that new organizational concept in 2030 is just a number we picked. We wanted something far enough out where we could actually have some traction. But I think the key for us being able to do this is to be consistent and persistent in how we try and make this change happen because it is a bit of a mindset change.
(05:28)
But again, I go back to the fact when we do deploy, it’s a small unit that deploys. We very rarely deploy in big units. We’ll have a small unit who then may integrate individuals or other small teams in their area of operations. So this actually allows us to focus on the reality of how we actually do business support the citizens of Georgia. And I think that’s really the big thing. And lemme just add this. When we’re up briefing our adjuvant general, who I report to as part of the Georgia Department of Defense, it makes more sense to our joint staff partners, our army and air guard partners when we’re briefing, we have these many functional and capable deployable teams versus we have this unit with this authorized number and this many assigned. And so I think it makes more sense for them to wrap their heads around our capability and how we can be used with this new structural organization that we’re in the process of changing to.
Jean Marciniak (06:32):
Yeah, I completely agree. I guess the mission and the organizational structure of the 1980s when, well, the Soviet Union was still around kind of is different than today since, well, the Soviet Union is not around anymore in the Cold Wars over. So yeah, that makes up completely a hundred percent sense. I do see some state defense forces keeping that and they’re still going based upon the 1980s mission, but I don’t see a lot of missions from them. From your state defense force. I see quite a number of missions. Captain Shepherd has been incredible on posting on social media, and so I’m able to report basically everything that you guys do. And you guys do a lot big props to everything that you guys have done so far, and I only see really great things coming.
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (07:26):
It really doesn’t matter what I do to a certain extent, it’s just what we have are some great volunteers with a heart for service. We’re not a paid organization. It’s all volunteer. And so our folks truly deploy and do what they do out of a sense of service. We have a new initial entry training class that we started this weekend and I went down and visited them. And I’m not a very somber person. I love to joke around with people and one of the first questions I asked, they did tell you you’re not getting paid for this. And oh yeah, we knew that. But I think on the deploying side, when we do this stuff, it does come at a cost for our soldiers, but they’re willing to do it. They want to serve. And oftentimes when we deploy, people don’t see us as a state defense force, not even the National Guard. They see the uniform we wear, they see army. And in many cases, if it is a disaster, there’s a sense of relief that somebody’s there that’s going to make something normal out of what is a chaotic and terrible situation for people. So my hat’s off to all of our, really all the state defense forces, but my organization, I couldn’t be prouder of what they do and how they do it.
Jean Marciniak (08:44):
So kind of piggybacking off one of the items that you mentioned, so you mentioned you have a new adjunct general, which is major general Richard Wilson, I believe.
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (08:57):
Correct.
Jean Marciniak (08:57):
So I wanted to ask because a lot of state defense forces kind of take their, I would say not lead, but are very influenced in regards to where their direction is set by the adjuvant general. How has major general Richard Wilson’s view of state defense forces? I noticed some state adjunct generals are really big proponents and some are not very thrilled with a state defense force. Where does he fall into that category?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (09:31):
Well, I think first I’d like to say that we’ve been very fortunate to have a series of adjuvant generals that have been proponents and supporters of the Georgia State Defense Force. And again, we’re part of the Georgia Department of Defense. My chain of command is the tag to the governor, the same unequal footing with our Army National Guard and our Air National Guard commanders. So that is my chain of command. And General Wilson’s predecessor, predecessor general Tom now Lieutenant General Tom Cardin because he was just selected to become the deputy commander of northcom, which is quite an honor for an adjunct in general from a state also was a great supporter. So we’ve had multiple years of, and the tag before him was a big supporter of ours and General Wilson also is a big supporter. When we did the change of responsibility ceremony with the Army and Air Guard for him on May 4th, our formation was there equally with the air and Army Guard formations.
(10:40)
One of our soldiers was part of the DOD color guard and actually carried the DOD organizational colors, which were used in the transfer of colors between General Cardin and General Wilson. So that was a great honor and his remarks, general Wilson said, our state defense force is the fine state defense force in the nation. And I’m sure every Advent general may say the same thing. The bottom line is our job is to support our Georgia National Guard, our Georgia Department of Defense, and our chain of command is the Agilent General. And so whatever he needs us to do, it’s our job to make sure we do it the best we can. And I think that support is reciprocated by the respect they give us in return. We want to be part of what they do. We’re part of the Joint Forces headquarters of a Clay National Guard Center and part of the onus is on us to continually communicate and not sit back and let the Georgia Department of Defense, our army and air guard, brothers and sisters as well as the joint staff, know who we are, what our capabilities are. So it’s a bit of a marketing thing in some cases, but not ask, I couldn’t ask for better support than what we have with General Wilson or his predecessor for that matter.
Jean Marciniak (12:02):
Jumping off that, I wanted to ask for those less fortunate, say, defense forces that don’t have, that have a tag that is not, I guess fully ready to integrate state defense forces or utilize their state defense forces. What feedback would you give to other state defense forces on getting the tag more appreciative or to have the tag utilize their state defense force more than they currently are?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (12:33):
That’s really a bit of a tough question without knowing the particulars, but I can speak for what we have done over the years, at least since I’ve been a member of the organization, is number one, we’re constantly looking at ways where we can be of service and not a problem for our adjuvant general. For example, we’ve got our own lawyers and our own JAG corps who help supplement what the DOD lawyers do up at our clay headquarters. They help with soldier wills, they help with things of that nature, and it’s at no cost to our state when they do that. They’re volunteering that professional time as lawyers to help do that, and that’s a valuable thing and we’re not asking for accolades about that. So we’re constantly looking for ways that we can support and make the job of our National Guard much easier. Georgia is one of the large states for war fighting with the size of the Army and Air National Guard.
(13:40)
That’s their primary mission, is to go out and protect the nation from our nation’s enemies and be prepared. And the National Guard has changed dramatically over the years since we went through Desert Storm. They are really the primary combat reserves for the United States Army and the Air Force, et cetera. It’s our job to make sure they can focus on that mission and we take on not a lesser mission, but a less homeland security type of mission, which is to help the citizens of the state of Georgia if they have a need, civic support. Sometimes that’s just providing a color guard for a ceremony. Sometimes it’s going and deploying during a storm and maybe setting up a point of distribution operation. So we constantly look at ways that we can assist our Department of Defense and not be a problem. They’ve got bigger problems than us, so we don’t present them with an issue unless we have a solution for it. And again, we maintain that communication chain back and forth. I’ll go up to our headquarters meetings at Clay National Guard headquarters, I’ll have one-on-ones with the adjuvant general, and some of my folks will continually go up and interact with the joint staff up there. So I think that maintaining that open communications, maintaining that sense of service and being a solution, not a problem, I think is one of the reasons that we’re a success.
(15:12)
We probably have some aggravations about things we maybe wish we had better support for, but that’s our issue that doesn’t need to go up in any way impede what their primary mission is because we’re here to support is their mission to defend our nation and our state.
Jean Marciniak (15:33):
I wanted to ask you currently how big is the Georgia State Defense Force?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (15:39):
We fluctuate numbers, and I think probably right now we’re somewhere between the four 50 and 500 mark. We have some people who go in and out of what we call a ready reserve or leave of absence, but we’ve kind of hung even on that number for a couple years and that’s part of what our 2030 strategic plan was designed to do was to break that mold. Our goal under the 2030 plan is to grow to where we have at least numbers wise parody with the numbers that are active in our international guard just around the 1800, 2000 mark. So that’s what we’re shooting for. I know there’s some questions further on recruiting, but that’s part of what the impetus of the strategic plan is, is to break the deadlock before we have people coming in and the retention side of things look at new ways of doing things and start to grow.
(16:40)
And we’re starting to have some success in that area. Again, I was just looking, just went to visit one of the initial entry training groups that we have started here at Clay. There are about 18 or 20 new volunteers that are just starting their training with us. And then I was looking at a list. We’ve got two other regional training, what we call regional training institutes in some of our outlying brigade areas around the state of Georgia. Each of those had somewhere between 15 and 20. So that’s a remarkable thing to maintain that momentum. And I think we do have a chance of certainly growing the force several hundred within the next year or two and then potentially reaching that goal of somewhere between 1800 and 2000 by 2030.
Jean Marciniak (17:30):
Okay. Wow. So I guess you kind of mentioned it earlier. So yeah, I wanted the next few questions. I wanted to go over recruiting because you guys have done something as far as I know no other state defense force has done, which is basically advertise on the highway. So people are driving and you guys had a big billboard sign, join the Georgia State Guard and a link there. And how did that recruiting driver, I thought, which was an incredible idea, how did that go?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (18:06):
Well, first I’d like to state that most of these incredible ideas we have don’t come from me. I mean, I am so fortunate to have in this organization, so fortunate to have some people from a variety of industries and professions that have talent. One of our members used to be a used to work for CNN, so he was very media savvy. Captain Shepherd is very media savvy on some things. Oh yeah, definitely. So in some cases it’s really identifying the talented people that for some reason want to join our formation and then listen to ’em. And so these ideas were great. Sometimes they cost money, but sometimes you have to pay money to get that product on the inline, which is more soldiers, more recruits for us. So the billboard thing I think is a great thing, but it’s only really only one part. It’s a very noticeable part, but there’s a multitude of things that we are working on, on the recruiting, on the awareness and on the engagement side that I think will bring people in.
(19:15)
Heck, one of the new soldiers I was talking to today, he joined because he saw somebody with the Georgia State Defense Force license plate, and he had never heard of the state defense force before and looked up our website. And so there he was, and I saw in our report in our staff meeting this morning, and we had five people who responded to license plate, so who would’ve known? So everyone helps. So I think it’s not just one thing that’s going to help us get to our goal in that area. I think it’s multiple things altogether in a coherent strategy where we continually apply and modify what we’re doing to bring in some quality people who want to serve.
Jean Marciniak (19:54):
Okay. So you were mentioning different forms of outreach license plate thing is there’s a few times where I drove past an I Virginia Defense Force and I can imagine other drivers having the same questions and first thing you Google it up, but thing I wanted to ask is what other forms of advertising are you considering? I know Facebook has been big for us in terms of bringing in referrals to our website, considering other social media’s, Instagram or even Google search to do stuff like that with
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (20:36):
Yeah, I think we are, and again, captain Shepherd is leading that. We also were fortunate to bring in our ranks at the end of this last year, a retired army sergeant major whose job was recruiting and after he retired, he continued working with the Department of the Army on recruiting for the army as an advocate. And he brought a lot of expertise and really has allowed us to kind of centralized and hone in on the key components of all of what we’re doing. Recruiting not only from the media side of things, but also for how our recruiters when they go out in the field, how they interact with people, how we follow through on inquiries. So again, I think sometimes it’s just whatever, maybe the stars of just line where the right people and the right ideas come together and then you let people run with those ideas and we start getting some success.
(21:33)
So I think we’re still in the early stages of how this is ultimately going to play out for us. And I was encouraged by the number of, once we started doing some of these campaigns, the number of calls and inquiries we had and then was sadly brought to my sense is, well, you have to have this many calls to get this many action steps to get this many recruits and graduates. And I said, okay, well we do need to do better on the numbers, but you got to start somewhere. And as I’m looking at what we’re doing, I mean those numbers are continuing to grow. So I think that multiple way that we’re attacking this from the billboard to Facebook to other social media sites to on ground recruiting to one-on-one interactions with our soldiers talking to their neighbors in some cases is a way to do that.
(22:24)
But we’ve got to get the message out all across the state because we have statewide responsibilities and we’ve got units across the state. Everybody needs more people. So it’s going to have to be a sustained effort for us. And I suspect probably by the end of this year we’ll probably have enough data points to know whether we’re being successful or not or whether we need to change directions. What I’m seeing right now is I think we’re going to be successful and at least increasing the awareness and then at some point the potential engagement of people who are willing and wanting to join our organization.
Jean Marciniak (22:59):
So a few state defense forces out there are getting a little bit more stricter with their application requirements and they’re actually aligning some of their standards to US Army standards unofficially and in some officially I wanted to get your, for example, I’m not going to mention the state defense force, but they’re kind of refusing people that’ll have asthma or maybe somebody that has lost some appendage through maybe combats or through childhood or growing up and they have been denied entry into that state defense force. I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on this and what are the standards before an applicants join the Georgia State Defense Force?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (23:51):
Well, I think there’s a couple of ways to look at that. We do have standards and with all standards there are opportunities in some cases for waivers. So we have to really look at what our primary mission is and what that requires. If we’re looking at a ground troop who may be doing a search and rescue mission or something that requires some level of fitness, that’s one thing. We do need to recruit people who meet. We have a duty level requirement and our duty level one and two requirements are the ones that would typically go out and do that type of arduous type of work. If we get called out on a search and rescue mission in North Georgia, the folks who do that ground search have to be fit, otherwise they’re going to become part of the problem and negate the impact of what we’re trying to do.
(24:42)
On the other hand, if we’re augmenting the joint operation staff and we have people up at, for example, clay National headquarters helping the man phones or man computers, they don’t necessarily need to be able to run two miles and 14 minutes or run it all. But they do need to be able to communicate effectively. They need to have a good bearing if they’re wearing the uniform, they need to do honor to that uniform by looking good in it. So I think we really have two levels. We have a place for people that may have some physical impairments or maybe in some cases some height issues or may not be as physically fit as we might want somebody to be ideally. But there are places where they can serve. And we’re also part of our 2030 strategic plan was forming a new organization called our Institute for Military Support to Georgia where we can house some other people with specialty skills that we need.
(25:46)
Sometimes you need some people who have engineering skills or computer skills, other IT skills or maybe even cyber skills or who have presence in a community for community engagement. Maybe they’re a veteran, maybe they’re retired veteran at this point in time in their life, they want a beard and a ponytail so they don’t want to wear a uniform. We can put ’em in a polo shirt and khaki pants or something like that and continue to have them serve in a supporter technical role. So I think we’re open ended on that, but I think categorically for some of the types of missions we do, some of the military to military missions, some of our defense support and civil authority missions, for example, like search and rescue or really anything to do with storm response, if we’re going to have people out in the field responding, they need to be fit, they need to be in pretty good shape or they’re going to become part of the problem. And so we haven’t categorically denied anybody. We do look at people before they apply and we have turned down some people, there really just isn’t any place for us to be able to accommodate some of their needs. So we have not made a hard and fast rule that we’re going strictly with Army Standard Tech.
(27:02)
We talked about earlier, our young soldiers are in their forties. They’re going to have a hard time even at that age meeting the standards of an 18 or a 19-year-old, and we have to accept the reality of that. But if they’re going to be 40 and they want to be part of a search and rescue team, maybe we want somebody who’s pretty proficient and goes to their CrossFit gym quite a bit. So that’s kind of what we’re looking at. I know that’s not a categorical answer, but I think that’s the reality on the ground. There’s talent needs and then there are talent and physical needs and we have to balance that out on where we actually put people and how we apply them.
Jean Marciniak (27:39):
Okay, awesome. So I am going to piggyback off one of the things that you said because kind of relates a little bit. So a few months ago the National Guard Bureau reevaluated C-N-G-B-I 5500.01, which is the directive that guides the National Guard interaction with state defense forces, they worked with the adjuvant general counsel on this with multiple adjuvant generals both current and retired. Within this directive, it suggests that state defense forces of each state make drastic uniform alterations to their current OCP uniform pattern. So from camouflage pattern name tapes, which you currently wear to red name tapes with white text camouflage pattern rank to red rank patches, as well as a red bulk cap to replace the camouflage pattern. One thing I wanted to ask you is do you foresee such changes being thrust on the Georgia State Defense Force?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (28:40):
So let me answer that in this way and go back to what I said. I report to a general of Georgia. If the of Avant General of Georgia orders me to do something after I’ve had my opportunity to address concerns or make my recommendations or augment, he orders me to do something, then I’m going to comply. That’s my responsibility as a military officer. It’s my responsibility as a subordinate. If I don’t do that, I have no right to be sitting in this position or wearing this uniform at all. I will tell you what we are going to do and we don’t really have an issue with this. We are going to replace the American flag on our right shoulder with the state of Georgia flag. And in many ways that’s probably the right thing to do because, and our National Guard has actually taught when they’re not on federal service, they had actually contemplated doing the same thing to reflect the fact that they’re only on state status, but we’re Georgia soldiers and we are proud to wear the Georgia State flag on our right shoulder.
(29:53)
We haven’t done that yet. We actually did wear the state flag in our shoulders during the change of responsibility, but that was really to show we had the deputy chief of the National Guard Bureau at that change and we wanted to show that we’re supporting our tag and we’re looking at this thing, but we are in talks with the Georgia Department of Defense and looking ultimately where that’s going to go. Right now we’re going to go with the flag change. And that said, at least for the time being, obviously if that changes somewhere along the way, I know you’ll probably know about it, but this is where we’re going at this point in time. And I think that clearly shows with Georgia on a uniform with the state flag in our uniform, that does clearly differentiate us from the Army and from the National Guard. So I think that shows our compliance to something that actually is meaningful at this point in time.
Jean Marciniak (30:51):
Okay. So one thing I wanted to move on to is, so I’m not sure if I can say the word elites, but Georgia State Defense Force is known for an elite unit. You guys have an opposing force unit as well as a mission. So you do have some dedicated unit that does it, but you also have your own troops that do assist with OP four missions. And to our audience who are not familiar with OP four, it’s an opposing force unit for Army National Guard soldiers. So it’s typically when the Army National Guard soldiers go out in the field and they’re doing close quarter combat or combat scenarios, they usually have to use dummies or they’ll have to take a portion of their unit to work as the counter to the counter enemies and such. But the Georgia State Defense Force stepped in and say, Hey, we can do this job. And you guys have done an incredible job. I always hear of OP four nonstop. So I wanted to ask you, how beneficial is this mission to the Army National Guard and what are their thoughts on your participation in such a mission?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (32:11):
So first, I’m not a big fan of the word elite because anytime you use that word, you detract from other soldiers who may be doing something that’s not quite so shiny and rosy, but are working equally hard and need some equal skills to do that. So I will tell you, and you can print this if you want, I saw one of your articles one
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (32:38):
Time was up in arms with Captain Shepherd. I don’t like this, I don’t like him saying this about our unit. So I don’t like calling any of my units elite. Each of them have a different function. On the OP four, we have a one battalion that is we call our OP four battalion and there are some special circumstances which call for its creation, and there are some great soldiers that do some awesome things. They do have a high standard of physical fitness in what they do, but they do other missions as well. I mean they do the same other missions as everybody else. We also have other units whose primary, if we wanted to categorize it like that, is domestic operations missions, the search and rescue, the storm response. But they also do OP four missions. And before OP four unit was founded was created, we had units doing op four, we had created an four tab to recognize their participation in these missions.
(33:38)
So what does that mean when we go out and do an four mission from being a former infantry officer during training, not in combat. Oftentimes you had to use a sister company’s platoon to be the bad guys when you’re going out doing training. So you knew those people. You knew kind of what they did and how they’re going to do some things. So there’s no surprise what using Georgia State Defense Force Soldiers for not for Mission does is there’s a bit of a surprise there. We don’t know who these guys are. They’re the kind of old, maybe they are foreigners, who knows? I don’t know. So it gives a bit of a realism because it’s not the unit that you work with all the time back home station. So that’s one benefit. The other thing is our soldiers don’t do combatives with the National Guard. We don’t allow ’em to do
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (34:28):
Combatives, get in physical contact with them. What they do provide is scenario-based training. In some cases the National Guard directs or that battalion who’s doing the training directs. I want your folks to set up an observation point and just sit there because I want my people to be able to come up and do a recon. You let us know if you detect them. So sometimes it’s a passive mission like that. Sometimes it’s other missions where they’re setting up a defense. We want your folks to go up and try and get through their perimeter without being detected. Again, a bit of a passive mission. But again, it’s that same thing. So there are a lot of different things that folks all across the state defense force do for OP four. So it’s kind of a misnomer that our OP four elite troops, because we’ve got unit, we’ve got soldiers in almost every unit who do a tremendous amount of four missions.
(35:26)
It was just a predecessor of mine said, let’s create an OP four battalion specifically. And so that’s where we got the thing. We’ve got a lot of different units that do OP four. We’ve got a lot of soldiers not in that four battalion that we’re an OP four tab because that’s part of how we reward people for participating in those missions. I’ll also tell you that we participate in a lot of small arms leadership courses within the National Guard and actually field some competition teams when the National Guard does its competition and we’ve got instructors that help Army Instructors Train, we help support those types of things. So there’s a lot of different things that we do for the National Guard. Is it valuable? I think if I look at any sort of an four mission that we have, I think if we deploy and we train with a National Guard soldier and it makes one National Guard soldier think, okay, I probably shouldn’t have done that.
(36:30)
I probably shouldn’t have exposed myself. And that saves their life down range at some point in time, we’ll never know about it, but that’s a real mission success and that’s where the value lies. And one of the ways we do that, particularly with the 48th Brigade, which is the main combat component for the Georgia Army National Guard, is we have units that have an associated 48th infantry brigade battalion. And for example, our four unit is associated with one of those battalions, but we’ve got other units that are also associated with the other infantry battalions and do a similar type of support. So that’s a bit why I have a bit of an issue with calling an elite. If we’re going to do that, then we need to call almost the entire state Defense force elite because they all do that pretty much the same thing.
(37:19)
They all just don’t have somebody who was born in Ukraine commanding that unit. But I will say they do a good job. We have, if our demographic is anything, that unit probably has a lower demographic because they do ask people to be somewhat fit in that unit. But we also are working with them on expanding their capability because if I have a tornado up in Austinville, Georgia, I don’t need somebody who’s trained in Russian infantry tactics to go up and help. I need somebody who’s trained in traffic control or debris clearing. So part of what we’re doing is we’re trying to expand their role so they’re fully capable in our dome ops operations, which in some ways kinds aligns them with our other units that don’t have the title of OP four. So I don’t mean to sound aggravated, but that’s why I do resist the term to call elite because we’ve got a lot of good soldiers who do a lot of hard work and a lot of areas just because one has that title in their unit doesn’t make them elite compared to the other ones. But they do a good job.
Jean Marciniak (38:29):
Yeah, I will correct that in the future. So take your feedback and correct that in previous articles, and I don’t want to put anything on the search and rescue units. In fact, one of the questions that I had, well, a number of questions that I had are about your search and rescue units because you guys have, I think at this right now, the best or one of the best search and rescue units in the country. There’s only, I believe one other state that is very competitive to you guys, which is I believe the Texas State Guard where they’re doing heavy search and rescue and you guys are doing heavy search and rescue. It’s kind of almost like at the racetrack where the horses are neck and neck.
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (39:20):
So when we started our search and rescue program, and I think it’s probably always been part of the mission essential task for the Georgia State Defense Force, but there are a couple of standards that we could have looked at, and one of the ones we did look at was the National Association of Search and Rescue Standards, but we probably didn’t, not probably, we did not have the funding to be able to pay for our soldiers to go through that training. So one of the things we decided to do was to look at other national search and rescue organizations, look at Nassar, looked at what they do and how they train. And we decided one of the things that we are pretty strong in is we have a good school system within the State Defense Force, Georgia State Defense Force. We have good professional military education and we have a good specialty schools training process. So maybe what we need to do is we need to create our own search and rescue program based on some national standards. And then self-certify kind of how we went about it.
(40:31)
And again, we do get calls periodically for search and rescue missions all across the state, north Georgia primarily. And I’ll give you kind of a little fun anecdote story here. Before I became deputy commander, I was our training and doctrine commander. The day we did our change of command for that organization, we were finishing up our unit annual training, and this was up near the camp Merrill Mountain Ranger camp for the Army. Just as we finished the change of command, we got a call in that there’s a missing student from University of North Georgia College. So immediately if we change the command, I’m now the deputy commander, I give my successor, okay, great change of command. You’ve got some mission orders right now, you need to deploy the rest of your folks to go and support this search and rescue mission. But that’s kind of what we want.
(41:27)
We get something like that. We want to be able to respond quickly. So our search and rescue does a couple of things for us. And early on we had some problem with people wanting to call that, not you, but internally people wanted to say, I’m a search and rescue specialist. I’m elite. And again, I didn’t like that any better than what we’re doing with the OP four. We have soldiers who train and train hard and deserve whatever qualifications or certifications we can get them. That doesn’t make you better than this guy necessarily. But the other thing our search and rescue program particularly does is it gives us a little bit of adventure training that we can do because it incorporates all the soldier skills that we need, which is land navigation, which is cross country field marching the search part. But we also do the rescue portion of search and rescue, which is we send everybody through a basic repelling course so they all know how to repel safely.
(42:26)
And then part of that is also how to package a patient and any sort of litter, even a hasty litter, and then how to retrieve them out of ravine or out of a deep gully or something and safely bring them back to where they can be treated or transported. So we have that adventure training part of that, which people I think like, which again is something that requires some physical effort and some physical fitness to be able to do. And so it does a couple things for us. It gives us the capability which we can promote with particularly our emergency management agencies within counties, our county sheriffs who tend to run those sorts of operations, but it also provides that adventure training and that skills training for our soldiers that I think they enjoy doing.
Jean Marciniak (43:16):
So one thing to kind of go a little deeper into that is do you have different levels of search and rescue? Do you have soldiers that are basic in search and rescue, some that are intermediate and some that are advanced that are leading the group and such?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (43:37):
We have really two basic levels. Number one, anybody who goes through our initial entry training, the first course as they first join our organization, they go through, if you’re familiar with OSHA terms, they go through an awareness level search and rescue course where they learn about the national search and rescue documents. They learn the basics of what’s involved in search and rescue, but it’s all book. It’s not any sort of field craft. So when they graduate from their initial entry training, one of the things they get is a certificate saying, you’ve got this level of search and rescue training, which is kind of a neat thing to have. And it’s kind of in a couple of years after you get more experience than you can attend our ground search and rescue school, which is our primary school, which is focused on wilderness search and rescue ground search more than urban search.
(44:32)
So those are the two basic levels we have. If you complete the ground search and rescue school, our search and rescue specialist two course that we call it, then you’re authorized to wear a search and rescue tab on your uniform. And so that’s kind a nice thing for a lot of our folks to want to try and achieve. But beyond that, in some of our PME, we also go into the operational side of search and rescue, where we talk about search and rescue management, we talk about psychology of search and rescue, we do talk about urban search. So we do continue, but a lot of that search and rescue stuff, because a lot of search and rescue organizations, the way they plan and organize are based on the US Army model of planning anyway. So we’re doing a lot of that and we just throw in the domestic operations focus in this particular case search and rescue operations when we’re doing it. But our ground search and rescue is the fundamental, that’s the physical requirement. And we typically will take about six weeks, six weekends Friday through Sunday to run somebody through that course.
Jean Marciniak (45:40):
I wanted to ask you, we talked about a whole number of missions. One mission that has been gaining a lot of traction nationwide in every state defense force from Maryland to South Carolina to Texas to California is a cyber mission where they’re taking people inside their state defense force that work in IT and are network administrators or system administrators on their civilian side and saying, Hey, we’re going to develop a unit to augment the National Guard cyber defense units. Is the Georgia State Defense Force have such a unit or are you, if not considering planning on such a unit?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (46:26):
We’ve got some capability. And really it goes through the SGA efforts, I think of what SGA is doing. We sent some folks to participate in the competition that SGA ran a couple of years ago. We still have a cell within our G six, our signal and communication section in which continues to do some cyber war games internally. But one of the issues that we have in going further than that is a lot of the stuff that they might be doing with our Department of Defense may require some sort of a security clearance. And so at this point in time, our DOD doesn’t really need that additional capability from us, nor do they want to go through that process of giving clearances for people that might, if I understand correctly, there are some other state defense forces who are working on a cyber capability, but to offer that capability to help augment and support perhaps maybe some other state agencies within the state they reside.
(47:30)
And I don’t think we have that need in Georgia. I guess my answer is if we were called to provide that mission with the skill with some of the people that we have as part of our formation, I think we could probably ramp something up like that relatively quickly because we already have some of the people that could do that, have a lot of people who work at that side of the industry. But I think we have to find a need. We have to be asked to do that from our Department of Defense based on their need. And I won’t say never at this point in time though, it is not a priority for them nor us. But we do have at least a foot in the door if we ever needed to do so.
Jean Marciniak (48:17):
I do want to backtrack a little bit. I did have some more questions about four, so I wanted to get your feedback. I’ve had numerous conversations with multiple commanding generals of multiple state defense forces, and one thing that I brought up a lot was, Hey, Georgia State Defense Force is doing this op form mission. They’re developing an incredible relationship with their National Guard. Do you feel that this four mission is creating a stronger and closer relationship between your state defense force and the National Guard?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (48:53):
I think any kind of interaction we have with the National Guard, particularly at the troop, at the troop unit level, really battalion and company level, I think increases that relationship building. I think we’ve got, again, I mentioned for the three infantry battalions within the 48th brigade, we’ve got a unit that’s embedded or in direct support of them when they need it. So in many cases, they’re within their staffs planning the annual training where we can participate, where we can help, because again, we’re a resource for them. We can help augment some things that they may not necessarily be able to do on their own within the budget they’ve been allocated. So I think for sure that does increase relationship building. It increases, I think, awareness of who we are. And in many cases, just like our civilians in the state of Georgia, we don’t go down range.
(49:55)
People see the Georgia on our uniform, but they don’t really see that. They see Army uniform. And I think many of our units work with the National Guard. Oh, Georgia, that must just be another unit I haven’t heard of when we participate with them. But I think it’s a valuable mission. I think anytime we can interact one-on-one with a soldier, with a leader, with a unit from the National Guard Air or Army that benefits both organizations, I think Insurmountably, I think it’s really all about relationship building, maintaining those relationships and being respectful of what they do and how we can help them do what they do. Because again, we should never be the priority of effort. We should never be the focus of recognition. Our job is to really be a little bit more in the background and augment and support and make sure those folks, when they deploy, they deploy within our capability of helping them be as safe as possible. Return home.
Jean Marciniak (50:57):
I guess one piece of feedback I wanted to get from you is, as political tensions worldwide increase, we currently know there’s a conflict in Europe, a potential conflict in the Pacific Asia region, and most likely National Guard troops will be utilized in such events if there’ll be incorporation of the United States or its allies. Do you believe such a mission would be beneficial for other state defense forces to take on to be their opposing force for National Guard in their state? So as you were saying earlier, if a National Guard soldier is in Europe or in Asia and is on a battlefield and they learn something from an OP four mission, do you feel like other state defense forces can provide this crucial training, this crucial, yeah, basically crucial training to the National Guard as an opposing force.
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (52:02):
So again, I know I really can’t speak on what do the state defense forces do or their relationships with their TAG or their National Guard, but if you want to look at it, and this is not in any way to demean or track from what our soldiers do, but we do an OP four mission, specifically an OP four mission. We’ll talk about regardless of whether that, whether it’s a passive or a more active role, we’re really a training aid for that National Guard unit. So if it’s something that’s of value to them that’s going to help them ultimately with their mission. And this particular value just happens to be us providing 20 soldiers to go down and man some ops so they can scout or do recon missions. We’re a training aid for them. And I think if that’s a valuable need, then I think yes, that would be something that maybe other state defense forces could consider doing.
(53:02)
Going back in my time when they first operated and opened the National Training Center at Fort Orwin, California, I was at Fort Stewart with the old 24th division back then, the opposing force unit that the Army had at Fort or and now other training centers, that was their tactics. Their ability to provide a realistic component for deploying units from the Army, heavy units, mechanized units, army, whatever they were, was invaluable in helping us learn how to sustain long-term operations over days, over weeks. Because there was a time, I remember when anybody in a tactical unit, in a mechanized unit, an infantry unit, an armor unit, anybody can go for three or four days without sleep and continue driving on. But trying to do that over a two week or three week period, you quickly see where units fall apart. And that was typically how we trained prior to the National Training Center is really taking front and center.
(54:12)
So that benefited the US Army greatly. And I think the same thing for what we do on some of these OP four missions is not only if this is a strange unit, we don’t know, we don’t work with them all the time, so they’re different. So we have to be a little bit extra cautious and they’re not going to cut corners. We’re going to be asked to do certain missions and play certain parameters within that mission, and they’ve got to overcome that. So that’s got to make them a better unit, I think, in the end. And I think there’s some real value there. And ultimately, again, it’s our job in that area is if we can train one soldier and he has to deploy and something we do may increase their chances of coming back unhurt or alive, whatever it is, that’s a value that we put a lot of mark on.
Jean Marciniak (55:10):
I just have a few questions. I know we’re going over a little bit of the hour mark. I wanted to ask you, so you’ve been incorporating, I’ve noticed waterborne search and rescue exercises. I’m just kind of curious if you could elaborate on this. I’ve noticed that you guys have been incorporating that into search and rescue. Is that due to flooding occurring happening on the eastern seaboard more now in recent years and being able to incorporate waterborne search and rescue into missions?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (55:47):
I think we don’t have that capability yet. I’m not sure where this is coming from. I mean, there’s been a little bit of training here and there on that, but we haven’t actually sanctioned any training of that sort. But having said that, somebody who’s lost down in South Georgia near the Oki Oake Swamp, they’re not going to just stay lost on the dry areas. They’re going to stay lost in the wet areas in the wetland swamp areas up in north Georgia. Somebody gets lost in the mountains, they’re not going to stay lost on this side of this rushing river. They’re going to maybe be on the other side. So we have to be prepared to deal with these water events, these water challenges that we may have. And there’s also the potential as we’re looking, again, this may be a potential serious hurricane season. The meteorologists say we’re already now where we normally are in August or September, so this may be a really hairy hurricane year. And that does mean flooding, and that does mean how do we respond in a search and rescue or even participating in rescue missions in those areas. So this is something we have to look at. I think technology is also something that we’re starting to look at now in conjunction with this. We’ve used, drones have been used for a long time on reconnaissance with fire departments, with other organizations, with search and rescue organizations. But there’s also a capability to use potential drone assets for waterborne search and rescue.
(57:33)
You have somebody who may be missing in a swamp, doesn’t mean you have to send people in swamp. You could actually send a waterborne drone to do the same thing. So I think we’re looking at that capability. And having said that, we’ve not really had any search and rescue missions that we’ve done in a long time that we’re impacted by a water event or impacted by a body of water that would hinder what we are doing. But it doesn’t mean that that’s not the case in the future. And again, many of our sheriff’s departments, our eMASS, our fire departments throughout the state, they have that capability already. So we also have to look within our resources. Is that something that would add value if our emergency management agency requested our services, or is it already something that’s fully capable and maybe we find a way to support in a different direction. So we’re kind of looking at that. And this 2030 strategic plan we have, and the way we’re focusing on teams is giving us the opportunity to look at some places that we never have looked before. So I suspect we did this interview in a year or two years from now. Some of these questions will be answered quite differently.
Jean Marciniak (58:44):
I just want to confirm, you mentioned you do have a unmanned aerial vehicle, a drone basically utilized in the Georgia State Defense Force?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (58:52):
No, we have some individuals that have individual drones, but at this point in time, we don’t. Again, we need to look at the capability because some of our partners that we support, for example, if a search and rescue mission happens in North Georgia, typically it’s the county sheriff who’s going to run that. If it’s something larger than our Georgia Emergency Management Agency might get involved. But typically those sheriff departments would have own asset, their own resources that they would use for that. So again, we don’t have necessarily the need to deploy our own assets. Now, is that a never? No, I think we’re going to constantly look at that and if we identify that that’s a resource that would be of value if we’re called, and that’s something that we will look at and then work out with our DOD partners and our chain of command to see if that’s the capability they would want us to pursue.
Jean Marciniak (59:49):
Moving on, one of the other units that you guys have is, or one of the missions that you guys have is a chainsaw and debris clearing, usually following severe weather events, clearing out roads. I wanted to ask you, is this one of the most utilized missions? Because even in Virginia or California or New York, number one thing that happens is severe weather have event happens, power lines go down New York. Many other state defense forces have these chainsaw on debris clearing units. Is that a very utilized mission that the DOD has you do?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (01:00:25):
The reason behind our forming debris clearing teams was because Georgia is prone to tornadoes. We get a lot of tornadoes, sometimes very damaging. Fortunately, late in the last few years, not quite as damaging as some of our sister states have had to experience, particularly in the recent past. But if you’ve ever been in a tornado area, one of the things, the complete destruction of trees, the splintering of trees, the blocking of roads, wooden foam poles coming down, and oftentimes, particularly in our rural counties, the county may not have the assets it needs to help clear those areas, particularly if it’s an area where we may have a need to do some search and rescue or to respond to some homeowners in distress. So that’s primarily why we have that debris clearing capability because we can go in and at least clear a path to allow emergency vehicles to have access to the area so we can start bringing in sustenance support, have the evacuation capability so we can send a team in of four or five or six people with all the equipment they need, and they can relatively clearly clear a path for other emergency vehicles to follow.
(01:01:46)
And one of the advantages that Georgia State Defense Force happens and why we’re so valuable is all it takes is our joint headquarters to give us the green light to go and we can deploy with people. We can have people on the ground normally within about 12 hours, sometimes less, at least a few people on the ground. We know what the mission are for the National Guard. Of course, it takes a little longer to mobilize and there’s a cost involved with them. So that advantage of us being able to get on the ground fast, having that kind of capability so we can help augment or reinforce maybe a county public works department to help clear some roads to allow access for emergency vehicles is really a critical thing. On a larger extent, we’ve got our Air National Guard has responsibility for route recon and potential route clearing throughout the state, and we’re working on the possibility of some of our debris clearing teams participating and riding along with them on some of these things to clear points of impact. So road traffic can continue to move. So we’re really in the baby stages of talking about that, but there’s a real need that’s a real skill, and I think our training is pretty tops on what we’re doing. And again, the fact that we can get there in most cases within 12 hours makes a big difference. Some cases.
Jean Marciniak (01:03:13):
I guess finishing up, do you have any other specialty missions at the Georgia State Defense Force is performing that I didn’t cover?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (01:03:23):
We kind of consider them really not specialty missions. We do consider that’s really part of our normal metal task. So we are prepared, for example, in storm hit areas to help point of distribution operations. We can send some folks down to National Guard or other governmental agencies who are setting up these pod locations. We can help set those up. We can help man them physically, man the pods themselves along with our partners. We can provide some traffic control to help move people in and out of those locations. So that’s a key component. We’re also trying to increase our capability of communicating. Oftentimes the landlines, if anybody still uses landline or down cell phone towers may not be functioning. So we can help cross some bridges on communication in some cases. And when we’re building out our teams that we talked about earlier, that’s exactly what we’re putting in those teams, our people with the training and the specialty skills for search and rescue, for debris clearing for pod medical support for our own internal forces, communication, things of that nature. So if we do get called, we could deploy a team and they’ll have multiple capabilities with multiple people. They could do a pod operation or that whole team could turn around and do a debris clearing mission if that’s what was needed. Or that team could then funnel into insertion rescue operation because they’ll have the skills within that team that will allow them to do that. So that’s I think the advantage. If we go back to what our strategic plan is going to look like, that’s where we’re trying to focus our capability.
Jean Marciniak (01:05:10):
I just have two last questions. They might be easy. So one topic I wanted to cover is there’s a nationwide initiative in a number of states. New York already implemented it of state defense forces paying or at least considering plans to pay their soldiers for weekend drills, annual training as well as the active duty missions. Is this initiative being considered in the Georgia State Defense Force?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (01:05:37):
It is not. And again, I defer those questions back to our Department of Defense and the Deputy Aju General of Georgia is the one that really handles and works with our state partners and our legislative in the governor’s office. That’s his ballywick. So we don’t get into that. What we will do on occasion is we do have an allocation from our tags budget. And when we’re sending somebody to one of our schools, particularly those for LU sample like search and rescue or some of our professional military education that may go over a four or five or six weekends where people are away from home, we do have set aside funding where they can get at least a small per diem to help defray some of the costs of what they’re paying for. And we do have the ability on some occasions to reimburse some mileage under some pre-approved conditions.
(01:06:35)
So within what we can do, we try and defray some of the costs and make it benefit. But again, our soldiers wear this uniform in this state. Our soldiers essentially are paying to do so. And again, what I’m always amazed at and what I’m really proud is so many of ’em are willing to do that because they want to provide a service. Now, if that was something that was offered, I’m sure they would take it, but it’s not hindering people from joining us at point and having, and it’s not making people go away because we don’t have that. If we did it in the future, I mean that would be a great thing, but it’s nothing that I’m looking at at this point in time.
Jean Marciniak (01:07:14):
Okay. And then the last question that I have is what benefits does the state of Georgia offer the Georgia State Defense Force soldiers? Do you guys provide, I know you guys do license plates, which is a benefit because when I was in the State Defense force, I took advantage of that. But are there other benefits like educational benefits, civil service exam benefits, things like that?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (01:07:40):
No, there really aren’t any benefits that our soldiers get other than the pride of being in uniform, being allowed to wear our nation’s uniform, even with Georgia on the tab and doing what they can for their fellow citizens. I mean, I think what most people serve for is you go down range to a storm response. One of our communities got hit by a tornado a couple of years ago, and you show up in uniform and somebody looks at you and they say, Hey, just thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up. We’re desperate. Thank you. Thank you for being here to help us. And I think for me, that’s worth more than anything. And I think that’s the same for our soldiers. We reward our soldiers with awards, ribbons, commendations, when they do the right things, when they go to the right schools, we will promote ’em.
(01:08:45)
But again, they do this, I think really in a very selfless manner. I mean, they’re true volunteers comp. Yeah, we do have coverage under the state for workers’ comp. If somebody is injured, then they will be covered in that direction. So yeah, I did Thank you for reminding me. And again, for protection purposes, we have some indemnity protection, same as our law enforcement agencies have in the state of Georgia. So we’ll take care of you get hurt. If you’ve been doing a mission, you get hurt and you’re not going to get sued necessarily for doing something. Yeah, and my JAG officer colonel account over here is Remind, oh, we do have some benefits. So anyway, workers’ comp for some reason, sadly, if somebody was killed while on state active duty orders, then again under the workers’ comp program, state of Georgia, there would be some family benefits likely fee that would incur for them as well. So I guess we do have that, and that’s pretty good. We also have letters we can give our soldiers to give to their employers who we support the guard reserve as far as letting people deploy for missions and things like that. So I think that’s kind of where we are at this point in time.
Jean Marciniak (01:10:02):
That kind of basically covers all my questions. Is there anything that I didn’t cover that you like to include?
Brigadier General Dennis Watts (01:10:09):
Just a side, I appreciate what you’re doing with state defense force.com. I think it’s really kind of nice that there is an organization out there that’s highlighting what state defense forces do around the country. And I appreciate the way you get information. I know Captain Shepherd is, she’s good at working with everybody, but if you need something from her, I know she’ll be glad to help you do that. I think where you would help us is maybe toning down maybe the elite soldier thing. And because I don’t want to give people who are reading your articles or reading, I don’t want to give them the wrong impression because I think accuracy I in what we do and how we do is very important. So we are not an armed force. We don’t do combatives with the National Guard and we’re training, but we do use weapons on occasion.
(01:11:16)
We do marksmanship competition, we help train National Guard soldiers. We have some people who are experts in marksmanship and stuff. And we do carry weapons often when we’re acting in an opposing force mission for the National Guard because again, that provides realism. But we are an unarmed force. We don’t do any law enforcement missions at this point in time other than maybe some traffic control of type of thing. So I guess if just trying to, and I know where you get your sources, just maybe look at those and not give people the wrong impression of some things. But again, I haven’t become a Patreon. I know she is, but I’ve read the content you have and a lot of it’s really good stuff. And I really do think it’s nice that there is an advocate out there for state defense forces. So thank you for your service in providing this and doing what you do. I don’t know why you started it, but it must’ve been a good motivation. I’m sure you’re making billions of dollars running this, running this state defense force.com. Hey, thank you for taking the time. I enjoyed it. I hope I answered your questions satisfactorily for what you were after there. And again, if there’s something else we can do for you, please let us know. Yeah, go ahead.
