Conus Support Team??

[Rob Thornton]

I copied this out of an email response I wrote - I've been considering the roles of HSOCs for about a year now. Then today I got the idea of being able to access a CST (CONUS Support Team)- The President said he was looking for ways for the more professionals to help - this would provide support to commanders & staffs by people who might not wish or be able to deploy, but were desiring or willing to help. The teams might be ADHOC, they may change, they may be temporary, but that would be OK, maybe even desirable since you want more professionals who have experiences in addition to their qualifications, not just smart people with a degree. It would have to be managed by somebody, but imagine the flexibility! You could even bill some of it as a USG internship. I don't think you'd want career CST types unless it was a second career or in additon to their day job. A guy like Marc would be perfect as he already donates a great deal of his time and is having a positive impact on operations here (yes Marc - I've stlen everything you've offered up in one form or another to help the mission and those pursuing the mission if I've not told you and the rest of the SWC - thanks!). Most communities could support something like this - maybe we should run an add in some paper somewhere, establish a group leader and marry them up with a unit?

Thoughts?? What kind of professionals would be useful? What kind of experiences would be beneficial to those skill sets? What kind might not be? How would the group be involved? Would you need a leader and what kind of person might that be. Somebody could do this, and do it right - it could be a USG organization, or it could be a contractor - both have pluses and minuses.

This email actually started as a discussion on Aided Decision Making software (Selil probably has some good thoughts on that one as well) - iworked allot with these concepts back at Knox when I working FCS in the Battle Lab - I never thought the acronym GUI (pronounced "Gooey" for Graphic User Interface) would be in my lexicon

Aided decision Making tools are still being developed and pushed - a study awhile back by RAND on cognitive readiness deterimined that people could only do so much, and while that is sort of a blinding flash of the obvious - some people have to be told its OK to have limits. The development community then hit upon the idea of using intuitive software to aid in decision superiority. The problem is though that computer work in input/out put either by a program or by new user information. Computer analysis of somethings are better then others; things with physical properties such as routes (hydrology, geological features - gradient, soil composition, time distance stuff etc meshed with how long you have to get some where and what you are trying to move - can be useful, but computers dealing with people gets messy (except in a computer simulation where the people are run by the machine). People do crazy things like stuff other people in rice sacks.
I worry a bit that the Army will cut a corner somewhere - because we always try to invest in technology vs. people. I'm not arguing for mongoso deployable staffs, but I do think our guys need better educational development earlier, and that we could supplement them with a HSOC (Home Station Operations Command) like organization- for every deploying MSC that is staffed so that a group of professionals with skills unavailable in the staff - anthropologists, sociolgists, psychologists, etc. Call it 3 x 8 hour shifts that these guys would be colocated where they could brainstorm and act as an adjunct to the staff. They would not have to be on a specific post, but it would be preferable if they were in the same city and could travel to the same physical location. They could begin supporting a specific MSC at its alert so it could be part of the mission prep and establish relationships. Then it would take it all the way through its deployment.
If a new unit is set to RIP with the unit redeploying, it may be more beneficial for that unit to fall in on the HSOC (you know a better term for this might be CST - Conus Support Team) since that CST is now very familiar with the METT-TC (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, Time, Civilian) components of that geographical area. There would be some security issues, but let the contracting agency do the hiring and providing the secure location - could be on any allied military base. What's great about the US is we have a diverse and educated population, although if you wanted I suppose you could go outside of the US as long as you could deal with the security issues.