The Iraq War Through the Eyes of Task Force Lion

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Seth Folsom joins “At the Boundary” to discuss his new book, "Nothing Here Worth Dying For," a gripping account of leading Task Force Lion in Iraq. He explores trust, adaptability, and leadership in combat, as well as the challenges of balancing professional conflicts with personal bonds.

This episode dives into the evolution of warfare, the power of relationships in conflict zones, and the lasting impact of command.

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Links from the episode:

• GNSI Tampa Summit 5 Conference Registration

• North Korea, Nuclear Threats & the Fight for a Unification Video

• Cambridge University Student Program

• “Nothing Here Worth Dying For: Task Force Lion in Iraq" by Seth Folsom

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

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Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of at the boundary podcast from the global and national security Institute the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for genocide, your host for at the boundary. First off, today, I want to thank all the speakers, guests and attendees who spent time with us last week at the St Petersburg conference on world affairs. This year's conference was titled the ties that bind us and focused on the theme of allies and partners. As Winston Churchill famously said, there's only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them. We've enjoyed uniting again with the St Petersburg conference on world affairs as we explored alliances and partnerships across every region of the world. If you are unable to attend, the videos will soon be available on the conference website, World Affairs conference.org keep an eye out for those in the coming weeks. Speaking of videos, check out the latest video we dropped on our YouTube channel, a deep dive into North Korea's nuclear ambitions, their escalating relations with Russia, and whether or not the dream of a unified Korean peninsula is even in the realm of possibility. GNSI, Senior Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell, spoke with special guest David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific strategy. We'll drop a link in our show notes. Finally, a quick reminder that the application window is still open for USF students to apply to attend the International Security and Intelligence Program at Cambridge University this summer. GNSI is sending one student to the program, and if you'd like to be that student, or know someone who might go to our website for more info and the application, we'll also drop a link to apply in our show notes on today's episode, we'll be talking with Colonel Seth Folsom, who retired from the US Marine Corps in 2022 after 28 years of service. He's just written a new book about his experiences during the latter stages of the war in Iraq entitled nothing here worth dying for, Task Force lion in Iraq, published by the United States Naval Institute Press. The book goes into frenetic details of some of folsoms command of Task Force lion, the culmination of nearly three decades in uniform, which included multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is actually his fourth book, all of which focus on a particular aspect of the wars in these two countries. Our Executive Director here at GNSI, retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie wrote a review which states his articulate and insightful book adds to the considerable literature about Marines and small unit actions. This is a book all Marines should read. Seth, great to have you on the program. Thanks, Jim. It's really great to be here. I appreciate it. So we'll dive into the book in a bit. But before doing that, besides writing books and getting published, what have you been up to since you retired from the Marine Corps?

Seth Folsom: 3:07

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I talked to a lot of people before they retired, and before or after they retired and before I retired. And you know, some of the advice that I got from friends and mentors was, don't go right back into work after you retire. Take time off. Figure out what you want to do with your life. You know you've earned that time off. And so I took the uniform off in August of 22 after I retired from out of command from headquarters battalion in First Marine Division. And I planned exactly that. I planned, you know, five or six months of almost a sabbatical, and that lasted just a couple of months before I was really climbing the walls. You know, one thing, one thing for sure, that I knew was I was I was done being a Marine, and I was ready to take the uniform off, but I still missed working with the Marines and working, you know, to support the mission, because we're at a critical point in our history right now, and so I found my way into a job supporting one Marine Expeditionary Force, one meth out here at Camp Pendleton, California, and I support them with a lot of some operational, sometimes some strategic planning and conveying, you know, some of my experience as a as a Marine, as a colonel, as an infantry Officer and and helping them, you know, get it done in these kind of uncertain days ahead.

Jim Cardoso: 4:46

Yeah, you know, I was the same way. I heard this. I got the same exact advice, sought to do the same thing. And I think, I think I made it about a month after I retired that I was on with a company, again, a company that was. That was doing, actually, as a company that did modeling and simulation here in Tampa, one to stay in Tampa, but, but, yeah, it's, it's funny, and I think that probably our respective spouses would probably prefer not to have us. They love us, but maybe not have us hanging around the house too much either 100% so, and, you know, and actually, you talked about, in my sense, too, when you with that answer you just gave, it's, you know, you're ready to leave the service, but the people you worked with and what the service stands for is still something that's in, it's, it's encoding in you almost. And, you know, we'll talk more about that. I think your book really, really talks a lot about that too.

Seth Folsom: 5:43

Yeah, I mean, that's true. It's, you know, I've used the term indoctrinated and institutionalized before, and that's true too. And like I said, I was, I was absolutely, I was ready to hang it up and at least hang the uniform up. But I still had, and still have a desire to serve, and I feel like what I'm doing now with the Marines, there's still a component of or an element of service to it, and I'm just doing it in a different capacity. And what, what I really enjoy about what I do now is I'm largely doing it on my own terms, which is different. Is much different than you know, when you are in uniform and you're beholden to the service, you're beholden to the culture and all the internal and external pressures that come with the job, especially as a senior officer. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 6:43

yeah. The company I went to was had a lot of former military, retired military folks in it, so it was a good it was a good environment to be in and and the people there were, they were thinking along the lines of how to help the warfighter. I mean, it's a for profit business, and that's part of it, too, obviously, but, but when the people you work with still have the same kind of mindset towards service, towards helping and doing things to help the war fader, it's a it's a good place to fall into, and it continues, kind of a sense of of service as you move forward to the next, the next phase of life.

Seth Folsom: 7:15

Yeah, completely. And I think I'm, you know, I think I'm in that next phase of my life, and my wife and I talk about this regularly. I don't think like I don't think that I'm a workaholic, but I do enjoy the work, and I do enjoy having that sense of purpose that people have talked about before. Of you know, getting up in the morning, doing your routine and going and doing something meaningful, as opposed to just sitting around and wasting away. I am. I'm not at a point in my life where I'm ready to just, you know, sit on the porch and drink beer all day and think about all the great things that you know that happened in the past. I like to think that, you know, like some of the best years of my life and with my family. You know that those are still ahead? Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 8:06

the sitting on the porch and beer drinking days are out there, but not quite yet. Yeah, totally. So speaking of not wasting time, I mean, so you just finished this book, actually, at the time we published this podcast that's going to be coming out, I think the next day, basically, so people will be able to go on, you know, the US, Naval Institute, press, or even Amazon, or whatever, to get it. What? Why'd you write the book? I mean, what overall messages Did you want readers to take away from it?

Seth Folsom: 8:38

Well, you know, first and foremost, the reason that I wrote the book was about the Marines and the sailors and all the other service members that were part of the task force Alliance team that they the experience that I had with them was so pivotal in my you know, ongoing education as a Marine and as an officer and commander, and I just, I felt like I had to tell their story, and which, you know, it's not really a surprise, because the other things I've written, they have been centered around the people that I've worked with in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because, you know, at the end of the day, no matter you know what we talk about with lethality and all domain operations and blah, blah, blah, at the end of the day, what we do is a people business. It's a people business that's centered around teams and teams of teams, and we can't do what we're expected to do in the service of the nation without these teams to absorb the mission and get after it and to accomplish it and doing, you know, really, whatever it takes. And the team that I had with Task Force Alliance was one of, if not the best team that I ever. Worked with, and I was just, I knew every day that I was blessed to have them with me, and we had each other smacks, and I felt like I just had to tell that story. The other story that I really felt like I had to tell was was, you know, one slice of the story that goes with Operation Inherent Resolve and the defeat ISIS campaign, and in particular, the story of Task Force alliance is one that no one knows about. You know when I was in Afghanistan in 2011 with, with the battalion that I was the CEO for third battalion, seven Marines. Three seven had a history, a great history. Everybody knew about three seven. Everybody knew what was going on in Afghanistan. Down at the battalion level, there was a lot of attention within the Marine Corps on what the battalions were doing. The same with my experience with Delta company in the Iraq invasion in 2003 the entire world was watching that everybody knew about it. But what task force Alliance was doing in Iraq in 2017 I found out really early on that no one knew what's going on. Very few people knew about what these advises and enabled task forces were doing. The focus, you know, in the media and things that people were writing about. Well, there was a lot of focus on what was happening in Mosul with the fight there, there was a lot of focus on strikes that were happening in the campaign in Syria, primarily with SOF, but there was, there was nothing about what these small, diverse advise and assist task forces were doing, and because of what, you know, what the team accomplished there. I just felt like I had to tell that story. I had to let everybody know that there was this small group of men and women who were put together, you know, in just a matter of months, and went out and accomplished a an extraordinary mission in extraordinary circumstances when not a lot of people thought that they could do it.

Jim Cardoso: 12:18

Yeah, I like the way that you really focused, especially up front, on the on the individual members of the team, and kind of showing the, I would say, the eclectic nature of the team. I mean, you had all different folks coming from all different walks of life, different career fields, whether in the Marine Corps the Navy, very different personalities. Some, some were kind of laid back, laconic. Some were very fired up and intense. You know, I think, I think people sometimes who are not familiar with the military get a get a general sense of, oh, this is what all military folks are like, and it's not the case at all. You know, your team is, was extremely diverse, extremely capable, too. But I think it lent a humanity to the overall story that was told in that, okay, these are real people with real, you know, attributes, whether admirable attributes, some are kind of annoying attributes. I mean, they're real human beings that were all out to execute this mission. And then, I think, then watching things move forward from there. It really, it really gave the story a level of just a level of depth. That was that, as a reader, I appreciated even envisioning what, what times that you didn't describe in the book were like, What were down times like I could almost envision, well, I see, I feel like I know this guy, I feel like I know this girl right now, and I can see how they may have gotten along or maybe didn't get along at some times in a very intense combat environment.

Seth Folsom: 13:47

Yeah, you know that, and that was the challenge from the get go. How was, you know, how the team was formed? You know, so often, most units that deployed, circumstances like that, they deploy as generally cohesive units that have their own culture, climate and identity. And the the team that that was brought together here in Southern California, it was a team that was 100% made of individual augments. And you know what, I'm what I've periodically reminded people and I now finally look back on was the fact that the team that we formed here in Camp Pendleton was composed of 85 Marines and Sailors from 35 different commands across the southwestern United States that at Camp Pendleton, 29 palms Miramar down in Yuma, Arizona. Those Marines all converged here at Camp Pendleton to form the core of our Task Force headquarters. And they they were all incredibly talented. And as you said, it was a diverse group of multiple specialties, multiple. Backgrounds and but what the team lacked was it lacked a unifying identity. In a lot of cases, if a marine or any service member gets assigned as an individual Augment, many times, they report to an existing headquarters and they're just a, you know, fill in the blank Staff Officer or what have you. In this case, it was an entire team of individual augments, and we had no identity to fall in on. And so we had to create our own identity and and, you know, for better or for worse, that fell to me to define what that identity was going to be for the team. And but the only way we could do that was for me to ensure that that they understood from the from the outset, this is what our mission is. This is what we're going in to do. This is what we have to be prepared to do. And we only have a couple of months to get ready to go. And so, you know, I spent a lot of time in the beginning, really trying to absorb the details of the people that were in the team. And like you said, it was an eclectic group, incredibly diverse and and, you know, despite all of the buzz that's going on right now about the evils of diversity, one of the things that I learned over over time was the diversity of Task Force Alliance headquarters was what made it so strong. It was the different backgrounds, the different perspectives, the different experiences that all these men and women had. And then when we actually got in country and we began partnering up, not only with our Iraqi partners, but also with our coalition partners such as the Danes, the Norwegians, the French, the Brits, that that different group of people coming together, it forced us to examine the problem set from multiple angles, as opposed to going in with, you know, one common mindset that's there was high bound and unable to, you know, to change on the fly, so that this diverse team that I had, like I said, I spent a lot of time absorbing who they were and where they'd come from. And, and, you know, occasionally I had to kind of sit back and laugh at some of the things that these people had done. I mean, we had on the team, you know, my my deputy was a staff judge advocate who'd come from the Marine logistics group. And you look at this guy, and he had like, he looked like Don Draper from Mad Men. And he had, he had this background where he had, you know, he had tutored people in English when he lived in Japan. He lived over in France. He spoke, spoke multiple languages. And he was, like to say he was a, he was an eclectic characters that, like the understatement of the year. You know, we had people like my operations officer, who was a, was a very, you know, tight lipped, very serious minded guy, just in general, he just didn't like to talk. When he did talk, he knew he was he meant business, but he had a very dry sense of humor. And, you know, you know, you almost had to pull information out of him until he got excited about something. But, you know, also on the team, I mean, we had like, we had an amateur rodeo rider. We had a woman who was a fitness instructor. We had a couple of amateur bodybuilders on the team. We had a Marine who had multiple degrees. Had worked in the government before and worked in the private sector. I mean, the list goes on and on, and each one of these individuals brought their unique talents and backgrounds to the team, and that that just made us a stronger group altogether, once we figured out what that identity was, and once we, you know, bumped up against each other a couple of times in the beginning, figuring out who was who in the zoo.

Jim Cardoso: 19:06

Yeah, let's, let's pull that thread a little bit, because, you know, yours is a, it's a, it's a, it's a combat zone, war time story. But you know, some of the, I would say, the team dynamics and the management lessons and practices that you adhere to and your team adhere to, there's, I would say there's applicability to the business sector, to other areas that are just working in the same area of a of a diverse, unique team, maybe a new team, maybe small team dynamics, and just trying to get everybody on the same sheet of music towards whatever you're in this case, you know a combat mission. In other cases, you know some type of objective or goal that a business unit may have. I mean, can you, can you draw any, I guess, lessons from your time? There that, that you can see, that would which you learn from, from your experience, Yeah,

Seth Folsom: 20:06

completely. You know, one of the things that I realized early on, and I mean, I think I really learned this when in a previous assignment, when I was on the joint staff, but, but I internalized it when I was with this particular team, and that's the idea that just because you are the senior person in the room and you're in charge doesn't mean you have all the answers. It doesn't mean that you're all that you're always right. And the environment that evolved over time, I don't even know that I had anything directly to do with it, but the environment that evolved over time was we created a space where everybody's voice was heard, everybody had the opportunity to weigh in. And I think, I think it evolved that way because the mission demanded it. You know, we had, we had weekly future operations are called fops, weekly fops sync meetings in my office each week. And you know, it started out as it was a it was a session every week where the future ops team would brief different things that were coming up and would seek guidance from me and seek decisions. And it became, it became a very collegial format, where everybody was chiming in, you know, multiple times and having discussion, which I have, I have rarely seen before, done in front of a commander, where there is, there's this back and forth, and these, these interactions where people are actively disagreeing with each other or or bringing up a point that hadn't been pre briefed. And you know it, I guess it's something that could have devolved into chaos, but it instead, it's synchronized everybody. And like I said, that that element of everybody having a seat at the table and everybody having a voice in the conversation, that it enabled, it enabled them to fully inform me for the decisions that I had to make as we went forward each week. And I think there was also a, there was a social component to it as well, because, again, these meetings started out very formal with everybody around, you know, a briefing table in my office. And over time they would, the meeting swelled to almost standing room only in my office at Al Asad and Marines would, would stake out spots on the couch. You know, many minutes in advance, did bring in a book to read while they were waiting, because everybody wanted to be involved in this interaction that the team was having. And it wasn't again, it wasn't just the senior members of the team, it wasn't just me and the majors who were on my staff. It was them. It was their deputies, it was their chiefs. Others would pop in just to see what was going on. And in the end, it was something that I was proud of, because we were, we were accomplishing something each week, and at the same time, everybody was interacting as friends, colleagues and really just humans, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 23:15

and they're and they're bought into the solution as well. Look, you're the commander, you're going to make the decision, and they all understand that. But I mean, just from what I've heard, what I read, I'll give you, I mean, I'll give you credit for creating an environment, creating space that they can have that conversation. Some, you know, different commanders are different, and some don't want to have that, that kind of open back and forth. They just want to, you know, hear some of the facts, make a decision, move on. And you, you know, you set up a an environment such that there could be just kind of an open discussion. You, you allowed the time to do that, and then when the decision was made, at least everybody in the room could say, well, my point was heard. Okay, maybe my point of view wasn't the one that was taken for the decision, but at least I know I got my point out and over. And I think over time, you probably created an environment that, you know, sometimes Person A would get their point in, and that's where the decision will lie along those lines. And then the following week, person B would get their point and that'd be along the lines of decision. And Person A was kind of like, okay, I mean, that's all right. I mean, it's all good. We had a good discussion about it. So, you know, there are lessons, I think, for just in any general management sort of situation to understand, I mean, leverage the talent you have and allow it to allow it to flourish under you, create the environment by which it can, it can do so,

Seth Folsom: 24:34

yeah, and you know that that back and forth also supported, you know, my direction to the team, which was, look, I want to hear everything that everybody has to say, and we need to discuss and argue these points. And when it's time for me to make my decision, and I make that decision, everybody needs to get on board with it and walk out of the room arms length and on the same page of music. And so I think that. Forum, and that that environment is what was, what enabled that, that unified message every time everybody left the room, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 25:09

you know, one thing I liked about your book, you know, as you go through the book, there's obviously in a combat environment, there's a lot of strong personalities, there's a lot of differences of not just in your team, but across teams with all the different partners, you are working with a lot of strong personalities, most of which thought they were right in any particular discussion, and you did not, for lack better term, you did not identify villains. There's no villains. Well, yeah, there was a clear villain, okay? I mean, there's one player building that everybody was fighting against, but as far as the US forces and our partner, nation, allies, you know, it could have been so easy to do so, and I think you did a really good job of spelling out Some of the differences of opinion, but also understanding that everybody comes or something with just that's their point of view and, and they have probably some pretty good reason to back up their point of view. Everybody's got a higher boss to answer to. Everybody's a higher mission to answer to, and, and so there was, it was a very realistic presentation of how these types of interactions happen down range, that when all everybody's there trying to do the right thing for the right reasons, just have differences of opinion how to get there.

Seth Folsom: 26:29

Yeah, it's, it's like we, you know, I think I mentioned the story. You know, my battalion commander from 20 plus years ago was, was fond of saying that, you know, most people don't wake up on Monday mornings and say, You know what, I'm going to screw it up this week. Everybody is doing their best. Did he say?

Jim Cardoso: 26:47

Everybody really say screw it up? Or did he say something else? Maybe

Seth Folsom: 26:51

he may have said something else. I'll try to keep I'll try to keep it clean. I appreciate

Jim Cardoso: 26:58

that. But, yeah, but you know,

Seth Folsom: 27:00

I mean, the guy was right, and I recognized that over the years. And in Iraq in 2017 It was no different. Like you said, the different the different entities that we worked with, whether they were coalition units like the Norwegians or the Brits or the Danes or the soft units we looked worked alongside, or even some of the other marine units that were in theater as well. Everybody had a particular mission that someone told them to get after. Everybody worked for somebody else. You know, everybody else works for somebody else, that that's, that's the way it always is. And you know, I had, I had my mandate that the the commander at more scent gave me before we went in theater. I had an additional mandate that the the CJ flick commander in Iraq, who I was under tactical control of, I had the mandate that he gave me. I also had, there was also, you know, specific guidance or direction that was given to me by my my parent unit here at one meth. And so I was, I was balancing all of those different mandates and requirements and different masters that I served, and I know that the other entities that we worked with, were doing the same thing. Just Just as there was a lot of pressure on me and my team to accomplish the mission set that that had been assigned to us, there was a lot of pressure on those other teams as well. And so I tried to keep that in mind, when I had interactions with them, or when, when we bumped up against each other. Sometimes it was easier than others to deal with, but at the end of the day, I did, you know, that was something that I realized was everybody's fighting the fight. Everybody is on the same team here. We're all unified on the same mission. We just have to figure out how to make it work. You know time now,

Jim Cardoso: 29:03

you know you relate in the book, and I don't know how deeply you want to get into this, but a particular challenge with that, in one case a difference of opinion with someone who's a friend of yours, who you'd known for a long time in the Marine Corps. And you know, I was in the Air Force 30 years, so I was kind of envisioning what this type of person may have looked like to me, who I know that long and admired and trusted and worked a lot with, and, and it was, I guess it was just very challenging because you were on different sides of a particular issue, again, both with your marching orders, both with a sense of the right way To do things. And and you talk about how difficult it was to navigate that, would you mind, kind of, not to give the book away and not to but as comfortable as you are, mind talking about that a bit?

Seth Folsom: 29:51

Yeah, you know that what you're talking about was it was one of the greatest professional challenges, I think, that I faced. And in my entire career, and that was, how do you have a significant professional disagreement with somebody who was a close friend? In this case that you know that close friend was the the commander of the Special Purpose Magda that was, that was based down in Kuwait, and we had a, we had, we had a difference of opinion, and that opinion was who was going to lead the big operation with the Rockies to clear Western Al Anbar, my position was, was very clear. It because it was, it was the mission that was assigned to me. The CJ flick commander had told me, within a week of my arrival at Al Assad Task Force, your task force is going to partner with the Iraqis, and you're going to take them all the way to the Iraqi to the Iraqi border with Syria. You're going to move with them, and you're going to get them out of their comfort zone, and we're going to finish this thing off. My my colleague with the special purpose magtaf, he did. He didn't have the same direct guidance on what that mission was, but he had a he had an extreme he was the commander of an extremely capable unit that had, to certain degree, many more different capabilities than my own task force had, and he believed that his unit was best postured to take on this mission with the Iraqis and clear out to the border with Syria. And so we eventually, we just, we had to disagree. We had to agree to disagree. And it, it put a significant strain on our friendship. And you know, to be, to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure that our friendship would survive the deployment, because I knew what I had to do. He knew what he had to do, and we just couldn't, we couldn't connect the dots, you know, and so, and it really, it was something that really troubled me. It would be one thing if I was having that conversation with someone that I didn't care about and someone that I hadn't deployed with in the past, and, you know, drank beers with and knew his family and he knew mine, but that wasn't the case. You know, we had a history. And you know, when you've got two people who are strong personalities, who are both type A and both believe, you know, believe in something, and you get cross threaded. It's, it's hard, and, you know, I think in the end, we made it work. And I think our friendship, in the end, be actually became stronger for it. But I think if, you know, if someone talked to him, he would probably say something similar, which is, you know, it was, it was it was it was tough. It was tough on the friendship, and it was a tough time to be in command,

Jim Cardoso: 32:53

yeah. But the friendship survived, though you say, and to this day, yeah,

Seth Folsom: 32:57

yep, yep. And, like I said, I felt like, in the end, you know, the friendship was was stronger, but, you know, it comes at a cost.

Jim Cardoso: 33:07

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I think you see that in thinking sometimes you want, you'll see movies of two people, two senior leaders, who are friends, and, you know, throughout life, and then they have this disagreement, and the movies just kind of, they have it, and then they just move on, and everything's fine. And in the real world, you know, there's, it's not the same, it's more challenging, and there's lingering feelings and lingering, you know, just how do I deal with this going forward? I can imagine that, would I again, I'm just putting myself in your shoes, and I wasn't in your position, but I can imagine something would weigh on you for a while. Yeah, yeah. And

Seth Folsom: 33:46

you know what? I'll tell you one of the, one of the significant frustrations that I had in this particular scenario that we're talking about. I won't speak for for my friend, but I'll tell you that that from my perspective, it was, it was really frustrating because, you know, the service and our respective chains of command, they knew this was going on. They knew that there was this, you know, call it a competition to execute the mission and and over time it really it was. What was challenging was we both agreed that as as colonels and as commanders, we should be able to work it out ourselves. But the way things were operating in Iraq and in CENTCOM at the time and with the service we I just, I don't think that we were empowered to make a lot of those decisions together. And in the end, you know, from my perspective, it really felt like the service and the circumstances were were in this this case, were pitting two commanders against each other when. You know, we should actually be cooperating and supporting each other now again, you know, then that's not an attempt to shift blame outward. Is at the end of the day, I was responsible, you know, for the things I did and the things that I said and the decisions that I made. But it felt like there was not the, you know, it felt like there was not the degree of or the, rather, the spirit of cooperation that I had grown up with in the Marine Corps. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 35:33

well, I mean, and I think we talk spoke of this offline, sometimes there is a competition, a bit of a competition when you're down range, when you've look you've trained your whole life to go into combat and execute the mission and lead troops in combat when the time comes to do so you want to do it. And I mean, there's, there's a little bit of, I can see competitiveness sneaking in as well, that he felt he was the best suited for the mission, and he wanted to, he wanted to lead his troops into that. I can see how that would happen. And then I can also see how the service writ large would kind of go and just, just let them work it out. It's, you know, the one step up for you is probably not going to get involved. Yeah, exactly. You talk about that. It was you were tasked to go with your the Iraqis, your partners, all the way the Syria border. So let, let's talk about that, whole concept of that, that that advisor mission that you had there, and which you've you, which you've done before, it is a unique mission that the military does undertake, and you had some opportunities to do it. You you know you spoke offline about the just the challenge, but the honor and the privilege and just the worthwhileness, if that's even a word of that advisor mission. Talk a little bit about that, please.

Seth Folsom: 36:50

Yeah, the, you know, the the advisor mission that I did in 2017 with the Iraqis was so wildly different than the experience that I had at a smaller level in 2008 as an advisor. You know, interestingly enough, both both tours I was advising the same unit, Miss seventh Iraqi Army Division. But the circumstances and the, you know, the situation in 2008 was so wildly different than it was in 2000 than it was in 2017 and in 2008 you know, I was focused at the battalion level. There was, there was not a significant enemy situation or threat in the area that we were in, and the advising component of it really was mostly a lot of one on one with the Iraqis and helping them get spare parts and get fuel and and feed and water their troops and things like that, and and helping them broker their, You know, their intramural disagreements with the Iraqi police. It just there was not a whole lot to it. Not that it was, it's, I'm not saying that it was unfulfilling, but when I then flash forward to 2017 the mission had grown so much. I was no longer working at the battalion level. We were now working at the core level with the Iraqi command that was called the Jazeera operations command. You know, working with the two star general costum, who was the commander of the J OC, and from from the advising piece, what we needed to do to support the Iraqis was was so much more complicated than what we needed to do in 2008 it was no longer just helping them get spare parts and fuel and ammunition. It was about getting them the enabling capabilities that they needed to prosecute the fight against ISIS. And that was really, you know, the evolution of Task Force Alliance. It began as a 26 member advisor team that was modeled off of the old division transition teams from from the 2008 time frame, and very quickly into the campaign, the coalition realized that that just wasn't enough. The Advising component, that's the Rockies needed more than that. They needed fire support. They needed intelligence support. They needed heavy logistical support. And so the the advisor task forces into that by 2017 had beefed up to the size that they were when, when I arrived in the summer of 2017 and so it was, it was no longer a focused effort in a small piece of area. It was now, you know, again, operating at the core level with the entirety of Western Al Anbar Province, stretching from Al Assad all the way to Syrian border. So very different scenarios and very different you. Heavy requirements between the two tours in 2008 and 2017 but what, what remained the same was that that element of advising the, you know, the relationship building with the Iraqis, the the daily, sometimes hourly, back and forth with them, you know, helping them develop their plans, encouraging, encouraging them to to get outside of their comfort zone, to get away from Al Assad and move farther and farther forward on the battlefield. And so those, those advisor elements, I think, are, they're universal, and it requires, it requires a unique set of skills, as Liam Neeson would say, to be able to execute it successfully, you know. And something, something that I learned or heard right before I became an advisor in 2008 Marine General was giving a after action brief. He just come from advising duty, and he said, cultural training is important for you to become an advisor. But cultural training is not the only thing that's going to lead to your success. And ultimately, what he said, and I'll clean it up, was he said, if you're a jerk in the United States, you're going to be a jerk anywhere else.

Jim Cardoso: 41:25

I've heard that before, and I think I know the proper terminology too. Yeah,

Seth Folsom: 41:29

so you know, and that's, that's the thing, is that being an advisor, it's funny, because, you know, you like, in our case, we're trying to get the Iraqis to get outside of their comfort zone. But being an advisor requires you to get out of your comfort zone. It requires everything from molding your schedule to their schedule to putting yourselves in positions where you may not be entirely comfortable with. It involves a level of personal interaction that some people aren't comfortable with I can tell you that in my case, you know, believe it or not, I'm actually, I'm actually an introverted person. You know, I like the company of people that I know and trust, but if I don't know someone, well, you know, being in large groups and being around people I don't know, it exhausts me. And so, you know, in my case, I had to really dig deep to to, you know, inject myself into situations where I really otherwise, you know, would not be comfortable or would be happy if I didn't have to do it. But the mission required it. And so that that interaction between the advisors and the Iraqis, it, you know, it's a campaign in and of itself, to gain that trust with each other and build that relationship. Because at the end of the day, you know, you know, talked to, talked before, about how what we do is the people business, and it's also a business of trust. And the Rockies are no different than us. You know, if they don't know you, if they don't trust you, they're not going to work with you. And so in our particular circumstances, in the summer of 2017 we learned immediately, you know, almost upon, almost from the moment that we landed there that we were going to be working with the Iraqis, and we were going to go with them all the way to the border. And so we had to accelerate that relationship building with them, so that they knew who we were and who they trust, and that they could trust us and where we were fortunate in that regard. Was going back to the team piece that we were talking about, almost all of my senior officers on the team and senior staff and CEOs had experience in Western alambar from the early days of the Iraq War. So for me to be able to tell my Iraqi partner my ops so was in Al crime. And who say, but my intelligence officer was in Al Khan, my sergeant major was in Al Khan. You know, I was in Al 2008 you know, she was all over the province, you know, operating that that that helped establish that trust, that helped helped him understand that, you know, this is not a team. It's not a JV team who doesn't know what they're doing. They've been here before. They understand the terrain, they understand the operating environment.

Jim Cardoso: 44:29

Yeah, the, you know, we're starting to this has been a great conversation, and, like, actually been at it for a while. So I do want to start wrapping up. But one of the thing I want to kind of come out of this book for a bit for one, one question, and just you've written four books, and all of them, I believe, all of them, about your your experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan over the years, as you've been you know, from you know, different levels of command, different levels of authority. What do you think has what. Do you think has changed in terms of your approach to writing these books? I mean, I imagine, as an author, you've evolved how you present look, the circumstances change. Obviously we know that. But also you change as it when you went from being a captain to a colonel, that changes things in your perspective, your perspective as well. Can you kind of, I don't know, maybe talk me through a little bit of how maybe you evolved and how you approached these writings books, how you approached presenting this, this, this story, to an interested reader.

Seth Folsom: 45:32

Yeah, you know, I don't know that. I have an easy answer to it. What I can tell you is, you know, all these, these stories that I've written, they've all been based on journals that I've kept while I've been deployed. Every time I've deployed, I've kept a personal journal to help me capture what was going on so that I could remember it. And you know, because, I mean, I even from that first deployment to Iraq, I remember sitting there at certain times thinking, if I don't capture this right now, I'm not going to remember the details that I need to or that someone needs to, you know, years from now and so, you know, keeping a journal when I was overseas was never, was never a vehicle so that I could write a future book. I've always been very mindful of that. People have asked me before, you know, are you keeping a journal so you can write a book? I had to make. I had to make very conscious decisions each time I deployed and kept a journal that I'm not doing this to write a book, because that would, that would color every decision that I made, you know, thinking, Well, how would this look if, you know, ends up in a book one day? So I had to, I had to do like a mind split, and not even, not even consider the things that I'd written, or the things that I might one day write. But in each case, you know, in that cooling down period after you get back from a deployment, I would pull out those, those journals that I'd written, and I would look through them. And again, in each case, there was a story, and that story was something that had to be told. It was the story about, you know, what men and women do, what ordinary men and women do under extraordinary circumstances. And it's, you know, at the risk of sounding sappy, the the stories, the books that I've written, they are their love letters to the men and women that I've served with, and I but I can't, because the stories are told from my perspective. I just I never had the time or the depth of knowledge or the understanding to write the story in the third person about everybody. The stories had to be told from my perspective. And each time I knew that with that I couldn't just tell their story without telling my own, and I couldn't tell my own story without not only talking about the the successes that I had, but just as important, the failures that I had. You know failures. You know of leadership. You know, bad decisions, mistakes. You know, that's the story wouldn't be complete without that. So each, each story that I've written has actually taken me longer and longer to write, you know, and that was, I think that was a function, not only of of my match duration as a Marine and as an officer and Commander, but it was also a function of the life that I was living with my family when I when I returned in in 2003 from Iraq and started thinking about putting together a book, I had a lot of free time on my hand. I mean, even though I was in graduate school at the time, my wife and I were newly married, we had no children, and I had a significant amount of free time that I could put this thing together and edit it. And you know when the time for the next book came along? Well, I had two small girls that were going to join the family, and then when, you know, the third book came along, those those girls were getting older, and then they had things going on in their lives, and I wanted to be a part of their life. And so each book took me longer to write from because I had more commitments outside of time to just sit down and compose my thoughts. And at the same time each successive book that I wrote, I think I put more into it intellectually, to not only try to tell a better story, you know, from just from a readability perspective, but also to try to really bring out this. So what you know when I go when I look back on the. First story that I wrote, it's, you know, it's very detailed, and it's almost like a day by day, minute by minute, recounting of what happened during the invasion. And I suppose that's good from a from a history perspective, but I don't know that I was always able to really underscore the salient points that needed to be made. There are some salient points in that story, but I think they kind of get lost in in, you know, in the sheer volume of words. So I each book, I've spent more and more time trying to figure out what the story is already there. What do I want people to learn from it, and what am I learning from it along the way? And what, but what do I want people to remember it for? And so that's ultimately why this, this most recent book, has taken so long to to complete was I, you know, I knew this is going to be the last thing that I write in uniform. This is going to be the last, the last story I tell about Marines that I've worked with. This is going to be, you know, my the last adventure that I have in the Marine Corps. What do people need to understand about that story? And what do they need to understand about you know the character of modern war. You know the the nature of war. You know, you know the old saying that the nature of warfare never changes, but the character warfare is ever evolving. Warfare, the character of warfare has evolved to something that people 20 years ago, you know, wouldn't even recognize it. And and with that evolution of the character of warfare, comes a set of circumstances and realities that are are just as challenging, I think, as they were, you know, in the in the horse drawn era.

Jim Cardoso: 52:05

Well, I'll tell you, it's a it's an eminently readable book. It's a interesting story. It moves along. There's real characters. There's real flesh and blood. People in there, both the, you know, your your team, and also the partner nations, the Iraqis, they're fleshed out as individuals as well, not just this amorphous bunch and and I would, I would encourage people that are that are hearing us today, to go out there and look it up. I guess it's at the Naval Institute Press, or probably on Amazon as well, on any place you get your books Seth, any final thoughts, any final comments before we close out the podcast? Well,

Seth Folsom: 52:43

you know, first and foremost, I appreciate you having me on as always I am. I'm always eager to talk about the men and women that I've worked with, because I know that. You know, I may have written the book, but they provided the story, and I'm just happy to get that story out there to you know, to tell the tale of this, this team of underdogs that a lot of people thought wouldn't be able to get it done, but at the end of the day, they gave a pretty damn good showing of themselves, and I was proud to serve with them. Proud to know them, and just as important, I'm proud to tell their story. So again, I thank you. Thank you for having me on here

Jim Cardoso: 53:27

and appreciate your time. Seth, thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Thanks to our special guest today, retired Marine Corps Colonel Seth Folsom, his fourth book, nothing here worth dying for, Task Force line in Iraq, was just published by the United States Naval Institute Press, and it's available from all your favorite booksellers. We'll drop a link in the show notes next week on at the boundary, we'll continue to preview the upcoming genocide campus summit five, which focuses on technology and innovation. Lessons learned from the Ukraine, Russia conflict. By the way, registration is still open for that, so reserve your spot today. Our guest next week will be Sam bendit, an adjunct Senior Fellow with the Center for New American Security and senior level advisor with the CNA strategy, policy plans and Program Center. Most importantly, however, he is an honorary mad scientist with the Army's TRADOC mad scientist initiative. Looking forward to hearing more about that. Thanks for listening today. You like the podcast, please share with your colleagues and network. You can follow GNSI and your LinkedIn next accounts at USF, underscore GNSI, and check out our website as well, at usf.edu/gnsi, where you can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but over. Overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary.

Unknown: 55:12

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