Pete A Turner - SFAB Elements, Combat Advising and Advanced Interpreter Operations

Pete A Turner - SFAB Elements, Combat Advising and Advanced Interpreter Operations - Bill Mankins of Mankins Research steps in, interviewing Pete A Turner on the advanced use of an interpreter. This session is part of our multi-episodic exploration of the elements of combat advising. SFABs, or Security Forces Advisor Brigades and the MATA (Military Advisor Training Academy) create SFAB warriors who are designed to deploy and advise and assist the US' foreign partners. 

Pete A Turner, apart from being the co-founder and Executive Producer of the Break it Down Show, also has years of time working in conflict zones. Working with numerous units guiding them to a more collaborative space. 

For more on the SFAB Elements check out- 
Dr Richard Ledet - Education
COL John McKay - Advanced Partnering
Bill Mankins - Identifying SFAB Professionals

Haiku
Language skills are nice
But I’ll beat you with my terp
‘Cuz that’s what pros do

Similar episodes:
Dr. Richard Ledet & Pete A Turner
Pete A Turner
Pete A Turner

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Executive Producer/Host/Intro: Pete A Turner
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev 
Writer: Bojan Spasovski ​

Transcript

Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner executive producer and host of your break it down show hey listen everybody I say your break it down check cuz I mean, I really want you guys to feel like you own part of this show I have you in mind as I create this content. This week we're focusing on military advisors trying to help the folks that are going to go to the military advisor training academy, or are part of a suffered security forces advisor, Brigade, the S fabs and we're doing this because we're going to suppose him in Auburn, Alabama

Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner executive producer and host of your break it down show hey listen everybody I say your break it down check cuz I mean, I really want you guys to feel like you own part of this show I have you in mind as I create this content. This week we're focusing on military advisors trying to help the folks that are going to go to the military advisor training academy, or are part of a suffered security forces advisor, Brigade, the S fabs and we're doing this because we're going to suppose him in Auburn, Alabama to talk about how do we make better advisors? How do we get these folks up to speed to do the incredibly challenging job and revising across culture across language all these things? This time, we're going to talk about me I'm going to talk about language and the use of interpreter at an advanced level. It's easy to think it's easy to tell interpreter what to say. They say you listen, you write down notes that is, at best, the most basic way to do it and you have to be much more nuanced than that. We have to have a better ability. Well, no matter if you're in the military or not. If you're going to speak Cross language, you have to have the ability to work in interpreter at an advanced level. And I talk a lot about how to do that because here's the bottom line. Yes, language capacity is important, but it is less than the ability to drive an interpreter at the advanced level. Now you'll hear bill Mankins hosting this show. He is a linguist himself, and he has said himself. There are many times when I wanted to bring a linguist because there's words I don't know, there's context, I don't know. And you have those eyes, someone that comes from that homeland, or at least is better at it than than you imagine, if you will. If you're going to go to Germany, and you speak German, but there's a person who's from Germany there or from Austria or Switzerland, and like you're missing this whole thing right here, this cultural aspect. That's what we're talking about in terms of getting more out of your interpreter, building your relationship from trust. If you can't trust your interpreter, how do you build trust with a partner? That's where we're going and I hope you guys will appreciate that number. We don't always do content based upon military advisors. This is a special week, but I know there's a lot of value in what you leaders What you folks in the corporate world are going to hear and I hope you guys can all take something from these powerful, powerful field lessons. We did this we stayed alive by doing it in combat zones and let me tell you something that ain't easy to do. So here's today's guest, the incredible mind of Mr. Pete Turner, old Pedro himself. Hey, subscribe to the show. That really helps us out and I'll talk to you all soon. Here comes Pete lions rock productions.

Unknown Speaker  2:26  
This is Jay Morrison. This is Jordan Haas Dexter from the offspring Navy Sebastian yo this is Rick Murat Stewart COPPA. This is Mitch Alexis handy. Somebody there's a skunk Baxter. Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon Guerrero.

Pete Turner  2:37  
Hey, and this is Pete a Turner. Hey, this is Pete a Turner and you're listening to the break it down show. We're working on these shows for s fabs in addition to the regular day to day show stuff and basically s fabs our advisory units for the military army specifically. We're trying to Put together a packet of lessons on how to do things that are universal elements of the ASVAB mission. So in this case, I'm actually going to be the guest. And I'm going to talk specifically about how to use an interpreter. Yet language capacity is important for any military member, we should all be working specifically and individually on our own language path. But just just to say that you have to have language capacity means that you're going to get one specific thing Spanish, Russian, German, whatever it's going to be. That doesn't mean that when you go to Africa, where they speak, I don't know 2000 plus languages, you're going to be relevant. So you're going to have to, at some point, have a capacity at the professional level to work with an interpreter. What does that mean? Well, instead of me just run on my mouth and asking my own questions. I thought I would get one of the most qualified people I know to come on and ask me these questions and he is a linguist. He is super talented at languages. So he has to ask me a question because he would just go learn the language. He has that ability. Not everybody has that and he'll say, Oh, I'm not that great at languages. Then ask him how many languages you can communicate in, you know, like your language. Anyhow, Bill Mankins, thank you for coming on. And Bill, if you don't know, is one of the most interesting people who's done work in some of the most fascinating places. And I consider him a peer and I don't have many people that I consider my peers. So, Bill, if that's not praise enough, I think the hell I think the hell of you and I love you, and I'm so glad that we've stayed connected over all these years.

Bill Mankins  4:22  
Yeah, thanks for having me on and appreciate feeling's mutual. So let's talk using interpreters. Tell me about your I mean, you develop this system over time, over repeated multiple deployments, multiple uses, both in uniform and out of uniform, different conflicts over different decades. Tell me about in general, sort of a little bit more about how and where and you've kind of developed your, your system and philosophy for using interpreters.

Pete Turner  4:50  
Well, there's not a lot of stuff out there for this complicated thing. So I've got to manage a conversation as an Intel collector as an advisor, as someone who advisors, advisors, I've got to manage a conversation with someone who speaks a different language, probably has a different religion probably lives in a lot more distress than I do. There's all these barriers. And so I recognized early on for whatever reason, that the ability to communicate was was vital. And then the videos that I saw were crazy. It was like this Vietnam era stuff, where nobody trusted anybody, and then you would yell at the interpreter and say things like, say exactly what I say, don't change any words. And then they would say the words and it was very combative. And and I understand that the Vietnam thing that a lot of the interpreters were, were contrary, but what if the person you talked to was an American? What if they lived in America longer than you even though they're not a citizen, and they're just waiting on packets to come through? And so these were the case. So my first interpreter who worked with us day in day out was this guy. We called him Vegas, but he's a Navy guy, and he spoke serbo Croatian. So he he is an American. He's service member I can't treat him like that would be completely and wholly inappropriate. Plus he was a people he's folksy. So he knew how to talk to people get to things. And so we would, yeah, we would. Yeah, folksy is powerful if you got some new folks, so you know, like, okay, let's, let's focus on that strength. And so we would pre plan our missions. And we would back brief, we would talk about what we did, but didn't didn't work. And we all learn together like a team. And so I was very fortunate to have that environment instead of having this very command driven. Linear thing because conversations, like the conversations in our world, but you have these long drawn out conversations about things that may not even matter, you know, you need time to ask a better question. You need time to savor what's been said. And having an interpreter helps you to actually have a higher quality in you know, it gives you a reason to have a longer conversation, which allows you to have a higher quality conversation.

Unknown Speaker  6:56  
Yeah, that's powerful. So imagine The conversation. You know, if we look at that, we'll dive into that for just a second, he hit a couple things that we're going to come back to preparation, sort of the back brief at the end or a ours. I managed the conversation in general, the fact that this guy was an American. So let's dive into one aspect of this. And let's talk about just preparation. So what are some, some things in the preparation part that before you even get to the site before we even get to the place where the interactions go, and whether it's a planned interaction, or it's just you're going out on patrol, and there's no particular interaction plan, but you know, the mission has a purpose in general. So talk through how you interact with that interpreter ahead of time to get him up to speed.

Pete Turner  7:44  
So one of the things all of these things require a lot of work. This is not just show up and do work, right. You have to be prepared. So before I even get to the interpreter part, understand that I understand specifically about the commander's intent, and what actually look, the commander says, I wonder Why is not intent? That's just a question. It could be hypothetical. So I work in trying to distill What am I really trying to find out and I build question sets for those things. So if I and I don't know what I'm going to encounter, am I going to encounter a doctor, a nurse, a farmer, a businessman, I'm not going to encounter a combatant or just, you know, a guy that's just standing on the corner in a tie shop, I don't know what I'm going to get. So I need to have a I call them magazines of questions. So I'm trying, understanding the overall requirements from information that are out there, that I've got that in my mind, and then I've got question flows that lead to those questions where they naturally say, you know, whatever it is that they're saying I'm prepared. I've, I've designed these questions. So when I build a question set, I start with the main question, Where are the bombs? Where are the bad people? Where is the black market? What is sold in the black? All these questions that would normally be asked in a vacuum? You can't ask them directly. You have to ask seven questions before that. And then you find out through the question tree where you end up and you end up here. Usually somewhere else, man, I change magazines and slap it in. And I asked the farmer question, because it turns out this guy shops actually a farmer. And we find out more about this guy. So all of that work has to be done in advance. So I understand the questions that I'm going to want to ask. And then I have to explain that craziness to my interpreter and say, here are the things we're going to get into. And, and as you get a rhythm, and as you get good at it, you're going to have some basic questions you asked just to build a baseline because they're very simple entry level questions that get people talking. Like, what is the biggest problem that you guys can't solve it, the government should be dealing with this area. And then when they say moku, my Mako cutter bought all that kind of, they saw about bad electricity, bad water, all that stuff. I can then look at my interpreter and say, say the words, you know, and then I could go over and I waved my head around and I go, I get it. I get it, you know, electricity and water. Everybody says that tell me one simple thing that we could fix tomorrow. That's not water and electricity. And I don't have to say any of that stuff because I've already worked with my interpreter. So he goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hear that all the time. Obviously, that's important. Give me something that we can maybe fix today that we could go to the government and fix and when they say there is no help from the government, now I'm in a different stream of questions, talking about their connection to the government. But my interpreter does almost all of that work because I've prepped them properly.

Bill Mankins  10:20  
So when you take for those who don't know your your CCI Rs, your commanders critical intelligence or information requirements, and your PIRs intelligence requirements. And you have that because a lot of those are sort of some of those are secret, and some of them are not right. The intent in general is usually not a secret thing. Like we're here for a very clear right intention to do a very clear thing. The information requirements, some of those might be more concealed or not, or some aspects of that may or may not be but most of that's pretty, pretty open and known. So when you what I heard you say was you go into Take this list of questions that are based off the commander's intent. And then you develop those and form them into a series or kind of pattern, an algorithm of questions or thought that you may be able to go through as conversations pivot. So how do you, let's talk about you said you explain some of these things earlier to the interpreter. So he knows this, of course, takes a lot of trust. You know, I guess we'll break this into two things. You've got interpreters who have various levels of clearance or don't. And how do you prep at the beginning when you when you talk to them about what's going on and the purpose of a given mission or the information that you're trying to get through? How do you how do you? What are some principles that you can you can tell us are there ways that you think about including and building trust with that interpreter so that they not only understand your intent, but you understand each other so that they know they're not going to blow or say something? You know, they shouldn't be saying

Pete Turner  12:00  
Well, this will sound strange, but it shouldn't. I don't do any work with them at first, I say let's go to the chow hall. Let's get cookies. Let's get some coffee, let's get some whatever. And let's talk and I build rapport with that person. And when I say build rapport, I'm not just saying the words build report, there's a design in this, you know, tell me about your kids. How long have you been here? How many units have you been with? You know, and I want to understand what they've done, how they've been treated, and what they've accomplished. Like, what are some of the big things that you guys have done? You know, how has the command treated you in the past? Because I want to know if this person is cynical, or they fired up or you know, cuz always gonna say, Oh, Mr. Pete, Mr. P, anything you want, like, I don't want that. I want I don't want subservient partner. I don't want a partner. And so I try to understand who they are. So I can I can, if I can, the better. I can understand where they're at and how their brain works, the more easily I can adapt. And then I asked them the questions. The question I'm trying to find out is, are they focusing? Are they able Have a conversation, are they persuasive? And if they're not, that's fine. I can just approach that problem set from a different angle. But let's say it attends these guys kind of self select in, you don't go on patrols all the time, because you're not going to talk. And for the most part, yes, there are terrible interpreters. We're not talking about that, that's a different problem set. So you got these guys are like, you know, I would rather go out, then be in an office all day, you know, there, and those are the guys that I tend to get. So we'll go with that premise that for the most part, you're going to encounter those kind of folks. And so if they want to go out every day, you know, like, what, what the last unit or the unit before that or the unit before that or if they're new. Okay, great. What do you want to get out of this that you maybe didn't get before? Or what do you want to get out of this whole thing? Like, how do you want to contribute? I just want to talk for you. Okay, great. You understand that we can't just ask questions directly. There's no culture that does that where you just constantly do that and get what you want. No, like, Yes, of course. No one does that here. Everything is done through the side door. Okay, good. I always want you to go through the side. Door. And I'm going to add, I always say that all this in my initial time I, every time I say this, and they all make the same mistake, and it's fine. Because it's a learning point for the both of us. I'll say to them, I'm going to ask questions that, you know, I know the answer to. But I'm not asking it to find out the answer to that question. I'm asking it to build some kind of emotional response in this person. So I'll say something ridiculous, like Ramadan is just like Easter. I'm told. I know that's false. But what I want is I want that person in Arabic to go black.

But I don't want them to start spitting out information at me, so that that interpreter can then manage it and go, this guy's trying to learn he's really helpful. You know, he just wants to understand and so I get them to look at it. So when the interpreter fails the test, they look at me like, you know the answer to this question, and I say, ask the question. Remember, I told you, I have a reason for this? And then they go, Oh, wait, that's right. You want me to help build trust and get this person talking? Okay, great. And so that, Prime's, it and that gets that person The person can't help. But I could do this to you right now, Bill, I could ask you and you I know you could do it to me too. I could ask you a question that you are you are forced to respond to, you know, like you cannot help but throw all of your passion into response like you go to iu. But I could say I heard that I you has a second rate basketball programs is bobby knight left, and you're gonna be like, boom, boom, and you're gonna blowback me right? Like you, you have to. So those are the things I'm looking for. And I want to explain that to the interpreter like, that's fine those things, and then I'll even get this. I'll ask them. What are some things that we can say to these people where they're just compelled, they cannot shut up about it doesn't have to be about secrets. Just get them talking. How do we do that? And then I shut up and I listen to what my interpreter has to say.

Bill Mankins  15:48  
Well, there's a lot there. As always, let me go back to building our port for a second and hit on touch on that. So when you're when you're looking and you're trying to fill out your your interpreter Depending on where you are, you may have in the context that you're there, you may have one interpreter assigned, you may have a bullpen, right have to go. You've got a lot of things go on here, we're talking particularly about interpretation on this deal. But in that pin, you might have some people that are better or more suited, as you said, introverts and they don't, they're not very folksy. They don't really they're not good at talking to people and like, creating connection. So those person might be assigned to do more translations of say pocket letter or other documents and whatnot. So you've got your person, you've got them picked out, you're working with them. Is there anything that you have as you build rapport like that might be different, for example, with a female interpreter versus a male one, or for a younger person versus, you know, I mean, a couple different places, for example, add various interpreters that were anywhere between like, 17 years And some of them that were 65 year old, Afghan female, for example, you know, we used in very different ways, I'm sure. So when you talk about just the rapport building part and then about how to use them know, what's your strategy for getting to know them and who they are and what they're about how they feel, where they are in a political and religious thing of, Oh, I must just, you know, see a person and I'm interpreting while talking to a Sunni group or whatever the context may be Catholic, Protestant, you know, so go ahead.

Pete Turner  17:31  
So I'll say this first off, I'm always ready to go out on patrol right? If the commander says we're going right now, I don't go But wait, I just got here. I dropped my shit where it is, and I get on the fucking patrol. So that's all covered in that right. So if I haven't had time to prep my interpreter, we go out and we come back and we'll prep next time. So when I so again, get this I talked to my interpreter like a real person. And I say to female up to that young kid, I always say this. Nobody is going to outwork me on this Camp between prep the mission writing up the report and then you know, getting ready for the next day, I'm going to work a lot of hours, I don't want you to have to work that many hours. But when it's time to go out, you have to always be ready to go out. And if there's some problem if there's some limiting factor, you know, and I didn't learn this stuff around, like, you are Islamic, you can't always eat what's at a remote outpost, I have to make sure that I account for that for you. Because you have my trip, I had no ability to do that for himself. So I have to go to the command and say, I need to have make sure that there are Islamic appropriate rations out here. Because this guy's only had fucking salad for three weeks. You know? So you say that like what food provisions so we need to make sure we have because I'm going to I am going to work the shit out of you. If I'm going to be right there with you and I'm going to actually outwork you. So know that that's going in if you don't want to do that, man, that is fine. There are no hard feelings. I will I will take you back back into the bullpen, and you can go work something else. But if you want to go out and do the most interesting work where you can contribute the most, you come out with me, and you're gonna have a chance to really make a difference. You're really going to do incredible things. And so the ones that want to do that, they sign up for that. But again, I'm treating them like a regular person. So if there are 17 they're gung ho, you're going to be gung ho, what I need you to be as smart. You're a lady. Okay, great. I've had female interpreters. One of them I didn't fire but I had, it's like your job right now was to walk laps around the camp until you can walk five miles in a row at this altitude because she couldn't do it. And I wasn't going to put her on a patrol. Because it's all walking patrols, super, super hip busting, rugged patrols, and she couldn't make it 10 miles. So her job was to just keep walking. You know, and I don't know that she ever got fit enough to do it. It but it was a very rugged place to go. If you worked on a big camp, she'd be fine and that's ultimately where I center wasn't because you I was a bad interpreter. We just couldn't use her out there. But when I've had other female interpreters, I tell them like use your femininity to your advantage. Whenever you I expect you to get the advantage that you can get I know you know how to manipulate a conversation. So do that, and and let me know to get out of your way. And I treat them like I try to determine their weaknesses and their strengths. And I respect them for it. And then I try to find out how else we can put them to work. I had an interpreter that was super spicy, drove everybody crazy on campus. So he didn't build a lot of trust. I didn't care about that. I sat him down and said, What can you do? He's like, I can go into town to talk to anybody. And I'm like, can you? He's like, yeah, I'll go into solder city. And I will find out whatever you want me to find out. And I'm like, Well, I'm not going to ask you to find anything out. But I will point at this board and say, Here's things that are interested in that have nothing to do with with threat. And if you can find those things out. Great. Tell me about what you find out. And that guy went out every day. And I said don't come to the camp. It's dangerous. You don't gotta come back every day, fill a notebook full of notes, come back when it's safe, and don't get killed. Because it was super dangerous doing what he did. But that guy got me such great stuff. And everybody's like, Where are you getting all this information from? And I'm like, I've got a guy that goes into town, he works for us. And no one else could use the guy. So I put him to work in a way that made sense for him. And he got us tons and tons of stuff that was really powerful, and not any more dangerous than it would have been otherwise he would get this he would go into a park in solder city and drink openly, because there's people in solder city that still drink, you know, so we sat next day, and we get drunk and talk in the park. That is me using an interpreter in a way that is not taught. Well, there is no interpreter school. So that's not taught. But I took a guy that was not going to be used and was going to be a problem on camp because he was fidgety. And you don't want fidgety people on a on a cop or a fob or any of those kind of places. So I put him to work in a way that made sense.

Bill Mankins  21:55  
Do you find that there's a way that you So you have this asset, this interpreter that's often used in a very limited way, as in I speak, you say what I say, I'm going to tell me what the other person said, full stop, right? what you just described is basically using an interpreter, beyond this hyper limited capacity, which is largely how things are run, right? Usually, when you think about how you can use that asset and maximize their ability, you know, one of the things that I found that I love for you to talk about this sort of, because I know you did, too, over the years is depends depending on whether they are an American citizen, who speaks a language fluently and where they are, how they learned it, and or whether they were from that country and never left or if they were from that country and then came to the United States. Years later, largely determines not only their capacity of knowing the specific language, right, but it determines their capacity of knowing the culture and the context that they give. in place. And so I found personally, that a, you know, I can use my interpreter not only when I did did use them, because I would use them even if I'm speak the language fluently, I would still use them because there's times in places where I didn't want someone to know that I spoke or didn't speak right or I didn't speak well enough with the context of that specific specialty thing we're talking about. Is there things where, for example, you're a bad ability to consult that person as a knowledge experts on an area or as a Hey, I'm a young person who thinks about these mountain people this way. And it's a way almost to like use them as an intelligence asset in and of themselves without even having communicated with people to understand your environment, but also their positionality so that you know how to use them, because you know more about how they fit within that culture and what they believe, to use that to your advantage. Yeah,

Pete Turner  23:57  
well, I would ask this question specifically because it's high. Important. Hey Muhammad, whoever it is, how do these guys see you? Like what are they saying to you? What kind of jokes do they tell jokes are a fantastic information source for you to understand how you are being perceived, you know, like, what is their mood? How many people have been taught to ever say, what was the mood of that meeting? And if you detect a bad mood, I want you to alert me and let me know because because, again, I am trying to not control but I am trying to have a finessed conversation that I am getting to where I want to get to, you know, I am in control of this conversation, but it's a loose reins kind of thing. Like I need to let the conversation go to where it needs to go to. But I am working, my job is to find things out. So I can't determine the mood necessarily, or if the mood is angry. So I'll give you an example. We're in a meeting with our rocky partners. We're in an a rocky police i a headquarters right like this is government of Iraq, people only and Americans. And there's this e6 in there, and he's an infantry guy. And he is absolutely mean mugging directly across to the commander and it's a lieutenant. And so I'm looking at this I'm looking at this e6 who's sitting 10 feet dead ahead of this guy who's behind the desk, who's quote, unquote, in charge, right? I'm looking at him and I look at this guy, and all of a sudden they start having like this, they're distracting each other with how they are, you know, how ultimately how the e6 is behaving. Look at the FAA captain who I'm with and I'm like, Hey, can we get started Johnson a break and have him go somewhere else because he's fucking this meeting up. I said this in the open cuz Johnson and all you have to do is look at harden Johnson. He was so laser focused, even if he was thinking about beating off what he was putting out, was, I am angry. I hate you. You can feel the tension and the it was distracting our partner, right? And so the captain realizes that hey, Johnson, go get some air, you know, and we didn't need him in that tiny little room anyhow, go do something else, you know, but those that moved thing is so important. And if you have an interpreter you take time to understand, like, I want you to tell me what's going on culturally, I want you to work the room, I want you to tell me what you see and experience even if you don't know why. So I can help us figure this out, you know, and take a timeout mid conversation and have it Say something. It's all right. There's plenty of things that are being said that no one understands anyhow, you know, so understanding what has to happen in that room. And what sets the conditions for you to have a good meeting is, I would say it's the found it's foundational, it's so much more important than go in there with your commander's objective in mind, that's actually honestly, the least of my concern. When I go in there. The commander's intent is in my head. But what I do day to day is up to me, and that partner, and really, everybody else can get fucked, because that's the key relationship. And if that day, we're going to talk about soccer and drinking and America, then that's what we're going to talk about and it's going to look like we're goofing around, but the whole time I'm working the whole time. My interpreter is working with me. And they understand that when we go on these journeys, that we're they're trying to make friends. We're they're trying to establish ourselves as someone who's viable in the area. We're trying to build trust. And so all of those things have to go into what we do on a day to day basis. Because if you're just a to b all the time ADB, ADB ADB. That doesn't work. You have to spend time doing other things. I'll give you a quick example of this. Again, young lieutenant, not at all versed in conversations, not at all versed and using an interpreter goes over and he's got his commanders agenda on his mind like he could Lieutenant would when we go there, and it's the evening and it's, it's the Arab cup, everybody's playing soccer on TV and all of the Iraqi army guys are distracted because they're watching the game. And he's like, Hey, you know, McCotter, Mohammed, Colonel Mohammed? Well, let's go work. And I'm like, gonna crush him and now I'm and I'm like, dude, we're watching soccer. Like, why are you guys all watching soccer? Oh, it's Arab cup. Okay, it's Arab cup, you know? all over this country. soccer teams are playing for. This is like the super the Super Bowl. Yeah, for sure. So our job tonight is rapport building and building trust. And that Lieutenant got a great lesson in that. He's like, Oh, we don't have to accomplish every single mission every single time. Sometimes there's more important things. So those are the things that you need an interpreter there to help you realize, because I can look on the TV and see Arab cup. But maybe they sent something from their cultural I know, like, hey, something's up here. Oh, it turns out so and so's bottle. And it's happened since I was a little girl was hurt. And he's not in this room. But it's put a pall over the entire meeting. And so maybe that's the day you scrub the meeting and say, Hey, man, let's just do this another day, or you take the time to say something's up. Now, I don't sense a good vibe. And then they'll say, Oh, well, you know, because they know that I don't know. So they're like, you know, so and so's daughter was hit by a car and she's really messed up and we're hoping that she'll pull through. It seems to be okay, but we're all just really down. Like, do you want to do this meeting today? Or should we just be plenty of meetings? So can we Come back tomorrow, you know, and then you let them decide. But the interpreter enabled me to do that because I had no idea.

Bill Mankins  29:07  
Yeah, that's powerful.

Pete Turner  29:10  
And that's not something I ate. You know, I said, you will say what I say is like, hey, yeah, I want you paying attention. Go be social talk. Let me know what's going on. Interpret the room for me interpret the culture for me interpret the conversations, interpret the past for me, and I'm gonna tell another story. Here's the power of an interpreter, and everybody who's listening to the show, if you haven't listened to our night train episode, I will put it in the show notes so you can listen to it but it was my interpreter, and he constantly graduated up to the Colonel's interpreter, so new unit rotate in, and he would be ignored and forgotten because he wasn't the Colonel's interpreter. And within three or four weeks, he would be the Colonel's interpreter. So one of the lessons that we learned was at one point, the Iraqi general drove over to our camp, just a mile away, not that big of a deal, and it's 100 billion degrees outside and they had that general sit outside that camp for hours in the heat. And I was like, oh boy, I heard about this several times. And I had conversations with that general offline about this as I tried to deal with this significant barrier. Imagine if General Petraeus showed up to an American camp, or in a rocky camp and was frozen outside in the in the heat in his Humvee. And I'm going to say this for our audience who aren't military members. Here's how this goes the other direction during the same era. And this commander is an awesome commander. He was great infantry commander, he's in his m rap, and there's all kinds of fuckery around the gate. There's m wraps everywhere, and there's cars coming in cars going out, and it's just entirely too much going on. The colonel gets on the battalion net, and says, whoever's in my way better get the fuck out of my way. I'm leaving the camp. And guess what happened? Everybody got the fuck out of the way. All the fuckery instantly stopped. They made a fucking make a goddamn hole. And they did. Yeah. On the other side, you know in this other room. incident, the Iraqi generals left to cook in the car for three hours outside. Hey, this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here. And if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear, the best plan and show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you. That's sustainable. That's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at break it down show calm. Let me help. I want to hear about the rocky generals left to cook in the car for three hours outside, insulted, pissed off hot, you know. And he held that against every commander afterwards. And sure, the interpreter and I knew that that was the case. And so we would say this is a significant thing. We work to deflate it and we actually made it funny eventually to that General, but he still held it against those commanders. And if they didn't acknowledge that past mistake, and adjust, and like I said, what you have to do is you have to invite this guy in your camp. You treat him like the general that he is. And all the kernels get that. But that doesn't happen. If you don't deal with your interpreter in a way that makes sense and say, Hey, what's happened in the past? What if we screwed up? How was this partnership evolved? Who's been good at it? Who's been bad at it? Who Can we talk about? So that you had let them interpret the past for you. And if you don't do that, you're a fool.

Unknown Speaker  32:22  
So that kind of leaves a good segue into a another sub conversation that's a little bit touchy, but we're going to go there is about the, you know, green on blue kind of instances. So specific to S fabbi kind of things. And when you're training, working with partner coalition groups, or any indigenous group you have, so in the context, right, you've got a place where usually, or often the culture is insanely foreign. And so you don't know that much about it. And depending on the context, whether it's an award or not, you could have a little bit of trust or a lot of trust or no trust And trust in terms of like, I'm sleeping beside this guy Am I going to trust he's not going to shoot me. There are various levels of context I think it's sometimes people don't realize how intimate some of these living situations or traveling situations are. And so when you're working with a partner force in a fab or an entity or any kind of training environment like that, you're literally and not only trusting yours, but your other people's lives when you're arming and training another group to go shoot him, you're literally taking him to a range and teaching that shoot, you could turn a gun on you at any point in time, right? So you know, building trust a through that interpreter who's then will effectively you use to build trust with the partner force is obviously huge trust building thing and the trust lines open like hey, if there's a grievance or there's some kind of problem that are busy people off if they've got a way to be able to communicate that without No pressure release vows, so to speak. Have you had you ever like, you know, had interpreters? Because you brought that up about basically then stating when there's been a problem? Yeah, it needs to be addressed at the general level. That's one thing, right? Because that's commanders will oftentimes listen to that once they realize it because it's a big shot. Yeah, but when it's some country bumpkin like eetu, who's got a grievance in the Afghan army and they're pissed off because of x, y, z, or some Afghan you know, or some some rocky or you name that some Nigerian soldier who's from nowhere that's so low ranking that no one gives a shit in his own country, much less our own. And now this person's, you know, clearly upset and they're talking amongst the lower ranks about it because there's something where there was a transgression or something wrong. You know, how do you ever use interpreters to get lower level, resolve lower level problems or learn about what's going on and defuse a festering potentially festering situation.

Pete Turner  35:01  
There are some definite principles and some tools to apply here with this whole concept. Let's talk specifically about the blue on green violence thing. That's an inherent risk. It doesn't happen very often when it does. It's always a tragedy, all those things said, if you are on a camp, partnered with somebody else, and you are not spending your time with your partner, know that you get to have a break. But if they've got a gym, go workout in their gym, they got a chow hall, go to their chow hall. If you're on the same camp, invite them to your chow hall. Do you know how much money I made by bringing in people onto American camps and feeding them American Chow? You know, they've never put their lips on good ice cream maybe their entire lives. I am the king of the world at that, Hey, tell these guys you're going to come to the camp and before that person comes to the camp with the general lesson in my head. I go to the gate and I'm like, you're I'm gonna be bringing some VIPs on and you guys aren't going to search them. Who do I need to talk to so that you don't get in trouble? Before I do this, because we're going to do it legitimately, mid fives, like can't bring anybody on that search, like I understand. And if I need to start at the boss, I will, I just want to give you a chance as an NCO to get this squared away with me, this is something I always do, I'm going to do it, it's going to happen. So either you can help me or I'll just go do it. And you'll get told to do it. You know, if you'd like, I will do this with you. And usually the fives are cool. They're like, I got what you're saying. I don't know who you are. You got a beard. I'm gonna do what you say. So yeah, talk to sergeant so and so I talked to her and so and so next thing you know, I'm talking to the cat, the captain, it's an Ops, and they're like, yeah, Pete, whatever you want to do. And then I started to bring these guys on the camp. And it changes the entire dynamic of the relationship. But all of that stuff is created through my interpreter because I've built trust with them. You know, and, and I'm like, use your phone, call these guys. set an appointment, find out when they can come on. We never tell them when they're going to meet. We always work on their schedule. Now there's exceptions to that, of course, but that whole thing is how you try to reduce blue on green. I've been in a meeting that the Taliban called because they wanted to look at me and decide, yes, no, blow that guy up. Right. And I walked out with that I didn't know this. This was this was rich the day and I, but we walked out. And we found out later on that the Taliban called this meeting specifically, you know, almost by name tasked us to be there. The Afghans delivered us. And the Taliban guys like those guys are all right. Why? Because of how we handled things, you know, we didn't dominate everybody in the room. partners have to be humble. And you have to be humble to work an interpreter. Well, you're asking this person to do a lot of work for you. And it's complex work. It's mine, like you come out and you're mentally exhausted from all the stuff that we do. So when we try to deal with green on blue, blue on green problems, we need to be as uncomfortable as we can, culturally. So we know that we're in an area of over growing culturally and we're interacting with our partner in a way that hopefully it's productive, or being humble. We're looking for that Miss comfort that cross cultural brain I'm saying Miss comfort purposely, it's not a lack of comfort. It's just a, it's like a, you know, when when you get used to working out and that you want that soreness in your body, that's Miss comfort, because you know you're growing, you're looking for that culturally, and an interpreter can help with that. They can help you understand, you know, when how things work. And look, this is kind of the cultural part, but this is part of every episode. You don't have to master. You never tried out Iraq, in Iraq, you never tried it out whatever that person is. You just try to understand who they are, what they do and why they do it. So one of my interpreters was called the Kuwaiti to the Rockies around them and I could hear them say, you know, Kuwaiti, and I'm like, why do they call you that he's like, these kind of this fun game we play. They know I'm from Kuwait. And so they say I'm really a rocky, and they had a rough day with that. And so I'm like, encourage that I want you to, when you guys go on that I want you to hit back. I want you to be funny with them. And I really I can do that. I had to give the guy permission to have a report and I'm like, I want you to do that. I want Do that and I want you to bring me in when it's normal to do so don't inject me, but just go. And this guy's from Florida or this guy's from, you know, whatever you want to say, but be truthful about who I am and what I do and have fun at my expense. So we can laugh, you know, yeah. And get your partner to laugh if you can get your partner to go through several different emotions reliably, if you can make them laugh. If you can make them contemplate if you can, you know, make them cry, you are really creating an actual relationship with this person, where there's some value in it beyond just you know, what your commander wants you to do. So I hope that answers your bigger question. But that's, that's how I approach a green on blue, blue and green thing is that I try to be as accessible to those guys and respectful as them. I try to knock down the walls so that if they do decide to kill me, they go, we love Pete, we're going to kill them. But we love that guy. I want them to know my name. I know I'm winning with the Americans and with the partners. When they say there's Pete they don't say Mr. Pete, they don't say Turner or Mr. Turner. They say Pete and that's what KPI that's where I want to hear is are they using my first name?

Unknown Speaker  40:03  
Do you have in the way you want to pivot for a slight second on the the technique that you use when you're talking timewise talking over, you know, how much do you do you use? Or when do you use the? I'm going to say something you're going to translate, they translate. And it's it's literally like, sentence for sentence or paragraph for paragraph versus I'm going to tell you just what I want you freestyle. Let me know when you got that through.

Pete Turner  40:34  
Well, early on, there's more of that, you know, tit for tat. There's more of that. But early on in terms of the relationship, yeah, interpreter with me and the interpreter, once we get there. And if they say, and all they got to do is just give me a look, give me a sign. If they say give me some time. I shut the fuck up. I write notes in my book. I try to listen to what they're saying because I understand some of what they're saying. Especially if the conversations in a stream of words that I understand But yeah, I shut up and I get out of the way if they think they sent something and they want to go after it. I don't need to control that part of the conversation. Bill I already have. Like, I've already created an environment that gets me the information I need. Yeah, this call is a great in this goes to spying and collecting and partnering and all these things. He announces that Kurt Gibson home run he shuts up for two and a half minutes as the crowd roars for him. You get to that point, yeah. As a person partners. God's the gold standard. That's what you're looking for. When your partner says, Give me my cultural adviser, and he's talking about me. That's the gold standard. When you were so valuable to that person, they your jet. The general says I need Pete in here now to ask him questions about a Rockies.

Unknown Speaker  41:51  
What?

Pete Turner  41:53  
Come on, that comes from knowing how to use an interpreter in a way that amplifies what I do if your interpreter is not amplifying who you are and how you do it like how you're appeared, then you're not doing it right. It's not tit for tat. It's a, it's a relationship that you're trying to create with these things. Even if it's a five minute conversation with a farmer on the side of a hill, it's a relationship as much as you allow it to be

Unknown Speaker  42:15  
on the debrief sites, we talked about the prep. So in a in a debrief for an AR fraction with what you do with your interpreter, you know, what went well, what didn't go, well? How do we improve? What are some typical, I don't know, either items or things you've learned, what kinds of questions you ask, in that

Pete Turner  42:34  
process, in terms of working with my interpreter. Yeah, yeah. So one of the things I'm trying to create shorthand with them all the time, so that when they're working and talking, you know, like, I just need you to give me a back brief as you don't have to give me word for word to say you can give me the gist because I here's the thing. here's, here's the advanced level, right? So they're talking for two minutes, and I'm like, I need you to check in with me so I understand where you're going and they waved me off. I noticed trust them, and let them do it. And when they come back to me, they say, here's what we're talking about. Bla bla bla bla bla, and they give me 30 seconds worth of what they talking about. I'm allowing them to edit. Because I trust that they know what I'm after and get this. I'm still in control, I can still go back and say, please ask these specific questions. You know, and a lot of times he gets tit for tat when you're talking about a very specific thing and you're I'm trying to understand clearly what is in the mind's eye of my subject. So let's say it's an Intel thing. Wait, everything stopped slow down everything. Okay, a brown guy wearing sandals with a moustache named Mohammed, you know wearing a dish dash in in a Brazilian cab. Okay, what other specific things can you tell me about that? Give me five more facts that are specific to this thing. Give me something that's unique because right now you've described every rocky ever give me something special. And so then they go back with that task and they work specifically on that one thing. What else? Tell me what else? You know, what did they call him? Who was he with You know what part of that we all have these questions that you have to fill in on those things. That's when you go tit for tat. Otherwise, I'm trying to get that person as much shorthand as I can. So they can have an eloquent conversation, and I'm not adding complexity to it. It's already hard enough. So if they can get the information I need, then great. Like, imagine if they're on the phone. And you're like, ask him, like, How annoying is it to have someone say, ask him about Friday? Ask him about Friday. You know, you're like, I'm on the fucking phone. Will you let me go? Doing it? I'm gonna ask him about Friday. I think about it like that. It doesn't work, right? Like, just let the person do to try to do and make sure you ask about Friday. Like I couldn't ask him about Friday, because he's talking about Thursday, and Thursday was crazy. What could we can ask him about Friday later on. Can we set another meeting? Yes, we can always set another meeting. But don't get Don't be in your own way. And if you don't recognize that, that's the advanced level you're looking for. How do you get out of your own way? How do you get out of the way of your own success?

Unknown Speaker  44:56  
Yeah, and in context, I think that matters to rights. There's the context of is this a, an interpreter in a key meeting amongst senior folks, right? Is this a low level meeting with somebody you encounter on the streets and a given on accident? And it's not it's not prepared, it's not staged. It's just that lid or the word training these guys How do you know? This particular tactical maneuver right now your training partner army, how you'd use that interpreter in terms of, you know, the I will give a command you give the command in that foreign layer, you know, in that language for fire for clear or for here's how you insert the magazine and here's how you clear my function. Yeah, just that those contexts obviously, matter in terms of that looseness and flexibility that that part that, you know, the interpreter uses, yes, only a lot of times, you know, it's funny, I had a situation like that where we were talking About procedures for doing something. And, you know, the interpreter doesn't. Even if I said these technical words like they don't know the words in English, for example of how do you, you know, when you talk about clearing a malfunction, like malfunction is not an easy, it's not a typical, not one of the first 3000 words you learn in English, for example. So, a trajectory, another one, right?

Unknown Speaker  46:27  
So a lot of a there's a couple of times when they would say, okay, just give me a second and I'll work through this and then I'll have them demonstrate it and make sure that's right. And then we would go

Pete Turner  46:36  
sometimes those interesting questions like we learned how to say, I don't know eight different kinds of shovel and hot pasta. Yeah, because there's, there's a spud shovel, there's a flat blade shovel, there's a clamshell, you know, whatever. Right. And so we would take that moment to go hang on Wait, wait, hold on. We're always curious about this. What kind of shovel is that? Oh, do you call that Pashto and then we'll tell you what we call it in English. You out. And so it took that moment that tension and it deflated it a little bit. And we always use that tool to to create an opportunity for humanity to creep into this human exchange. Because it's very easy to get hyper locked in. We're really bad at this where, okay, our interpreters interpreting what we say, we're here to accomplish a and b, and you don't realize that the actual thing you could have accomplished was pumpkin. Because you're so focused on A, B, and C on your list, you don't realize there's a whole different thing that's so much more valuable that you would my job when I go out off camp, whether it's threat related or related to the populace is to bring back gold, the unknown unknowns. And I did that every day, because I didn't just focus on a and b, I focused on the conversation in that person. And I allowed my interpreter to do those things too. So when they say, Hey, give me a second, I'm going to give it to him. And I'm already going to have built that trust by the way to build trust. As the as the initiator of the action as the boss. You have to extend some trust. You have to You can, you can absolutely say you violated my trust and say to that person, you violated my trust today, I need to know I can count on you. And if I can't tell me so it's okay, we'll find you a different job. But you have to build trust all the time with your interpreter. And if you can't reliably do that, and you do that incrementally, and if you don't know how to do that, read Robin Drake's book, he's the code of trust. And he's got another book that talks about like predicting human behavior. He's a counterintelligence guy, and his stuff is awesome. If you have a mastery of that you'll get you'll get why we do these things. Because we're not focused on our own need. We're focused on that person that we're engaging with, and what do we do for their well being in their care? I'm going to partner with you. Okay, great. They didn't get to pick that you're partnering. You have to make sure you're not partnering through them an on them right. I am your partner. You've learned a lot of things from us. What are you good at? This is something that partners don't do. What are you good at? What do you had enough of what do you guys sick of what do you need help with what do you want more of and you really make like an array have things like, what do you not know? Can I bring some of these things in? And you worked out again, through your interpreter, you say, I want to find out what bugs this guy? Look, I've been on a lot of patrols. We have done a sand table for one of them out of 1000. And we only did that because the sergeant major was there. Right? So why the fuck do we keep teaching Iraqis and Afghans and Africans sand table drills when we don't do them ourselves? Here we are not practicing what we preach, right? And so you talk to your partner, you say, Where do you need specifically, you need help, you know, I need help my higher Okay, what are you going to do about that? Now you have to engage vertically, or maybe you have to engage laterally if you don't think spherically in these kind of situations, because a lot of what they like if you work with a governor and you're trying to help build governance capacity, understand where they're limited, you know, and this is a critical thing in terms of using an interpreter. You need to understand through your interpreter who that person is and Good chance if they've worked with Americans for a long time, all they've been is dominated. So how do you get out of that way of that and allow that person to emerge into the person you want them to be? If you don't pre plan that with an interpreter, you will fail that.

Unknown Speaker  50:14  
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. When you were getting running, I know on time here, so we're gonna probably want to ask questions I asked you, but if you think about the partner force, in this case with your ASVAB and training or in the war, you you're developing partner capacity and trying to get it so you can actually, you know, leave, right. You basically took two two kinds of things, you're either going to be colonial and you're going to stay and run Yeah. Or you're going to develop capacity and split.

Unknown Speaker  50:48  
So

Unknown Speaker  50:51  
when the objective is to build up, the other to the point where they are taking over and maintaining

Unknown Speaker  51:00  
One of the things that I've found a new way is, you know, part of that part of the key thing is identifying in the host, entity, host culture, whether it's host government or host population or host, whatever. That kind of person who is effectively your own own kind of opposite meaning this person has the capacity to understand society and context and can can, can be the person who can inform you about what's going on, because they have a broad perspective. Whereas a lot of times if you work with your interpreter, and you get stuck dealing with so and so because so and so was assigned, you know, as your counterpart or whatever, but they might not he might need to deal with them, but they might not be like the person who can really get you the pulse. You know, have I guess the question is, how do you work with an interpreter? How do you explain to that interpreter the kind of person and kind of relationship you're trying to build, so they can help you identify amongst a group of unknowns which people are like, yeah, that's the person, even if they're, they can give you the information that can help you understand, even if they're not the person with positional authority, but they're the person with the knowledge authority, and the desire to communicate and partner reminds me on the on this. So it's funny. There's a old movie Dances with Wolves with Kevin Costner is out there. And he's trying to like, understand, and then they're most of the tribe wants to kill them. Right? Because he's a soldier number one. And number two, he sort of out there. And then there's just one older kind of member of the tribe, who kind of takes him under his wing and decides to teach him about themselves. Mm hmm. And he's also then curious, right about the Americans and their culture now. And it's only because these two curious people who are somewhat open minded and curious that the information can flow. Yeah. Can even work together.

Pete Turner  52:56  
Yeah, I mean, that's game Game of Thrones. Same thing too, with the people. Normally of the of the wall, you needed that partnership to come through, and there was a lot of animus there, you know, on both sides. So you had to have people that were allowing other people just to be who they are. Anytime I have a question on something I'm trying to accomplish with my partner, if I'm a pro, using my interpreter, which I am, I start with them, especially if not longer than me, especially if they're from there. Here's what I'm trying to get to. I'm trying to get to a better relationship with this person. How do I build trust with them? How would you suggest and because you respect this person, and you, you know, they want to do a good job, I'll allow them some input and then you don't have to take their advice. You can say, Man, I'm going to try this but hold me accountable if it's not working, let's try your way and and allow someone else's way to be because here's how culture works. There is a path and Americans want to just go straight. We want to get to the source right away. But quite often there's a path that has ice cream on it and and and love and happiness and it's a lot easier for people If it may not seem like it says direct, but it is the better path. And so the person that has the stronger cultural compass is probably going to find that path more often. And really, because we suck at being too dominant in relationships and too dominant with our, with our interpreters, if you sense that you're being dominant, you're probably not working at the pro level. And I'll go so far as to say, I would encourage you in the sense, the second you sense your ego, or your commander's needs going into a conversation, or you're a to b nature, because we're military people. And that's how we think you should stop yourself right there and say, How do I do this more elegantly? How do I do this more humbly? How do I ask my interpreter? How do we accomplish this thing? And should we accomplish this thing? And when should we accomplish this thing? How do you make yourself so small in that conversation? That, you know, they beg you to get bigger, please, we want to hear from you. When I'm advising commanders. For a long time ago, I learned this lesson. I don't give advice. And I tell them I'm not going to give you advice. I'm not Gonna tell you how to do things. You're the commander, you know how to do it. And I make them insist upon it. And I'm like, I'm not going to do it. Like, I insist I need your help. Tell me what you think. And I'm like, the staff hates it. When I do this every unit over and over again, they hate that. And then they say, fuck the staff, I own the staff. Tell me what you think. Now I've got their buy in, you know, and that's what you're looking for. For your partner, you have to communicate that through an interpreter. And if you can't do that through your interpreter, then your work starts right there with the interpreter. How do we get this person so passionate about what we're trying to do for them, you know, that that they that they want to do this with us. And by the way, they have a plan, your partner has a plan, the only way to get that plan out of them is to work with your interpreter and say, I want to define this person's plan so I can get behind it and get it provisioned as appropriate. Don't over provision under provision, make them say I need this help from you. And it's going to be smaller things than what you might expect because they want to if you've done your job through your interpreter, and you've worked with your Your partner, and you allow them to come out of their shell because you haven't dominated them. They'll say, Get out of my way. All I need from you is that garbage over there that you're gonna burn anyhow. And I need access to this guy, Mike over here because I like that guy. He has video games, and I want to play video games at night to blow off steam. Okay, I can I can give you garbage in Mike, that's fine. And that. That's real shit. Those things have happened. I've actually, we traded parachutes for services, and we gave them to the governor and said, whatever you want to do with these things, man, they're yours now. You know. And so the governor would look at the people and say, I got the army to give me these parachutes so that you guys can use them, which family needs them the most and watch the Afghans go and self organized as a community with the governor's guidance. Holy shit. That's only possible to an interpreter

Unknown Speaker  56:48  
viewer creating because, as you pointed out, there's no formal school for using interpreters. You know? Obviously like anything, there's Time to build truly mastery. But from a basic level like this is what you would need to do to be to be. What's the word? base proficiency? Okay, so base proficiency in that only. What? You know, how would you set a week set a couple days? What What does that look like in a schoolhouse environment to, to add to an existing curriculum or make as a second separate? Yeah, specialized curriculum,

Pete Turner  57:30  
I would say a two week residence course, which will sound crazy to people and that's why I want to save say that. But I would want to work on a variety of skills, one, how to build trust, and we pull out this book from Robin shriek, you know, the code of trust and sizing people up. And we would have a mastery of this in our read ahead list. So that we would understand how do you how do you put someone else's needs in front of yours so you can accomplish what you have to accomplish. Again, counterintelligence FBI guy who's trying to catch terrorists. All right. So this guy was very successful has a whole career of that. Have a command of some of these books then go in and start working on that how do you build trust and then you know, go through a whole poi and and exercise focused and work on these skills. Then work on recognizing your ego work on recognizing cultural paths work on all of those things. So that you then on the second, we can start to bring an interpreter in, okay, now you know, your mission, you know, you have, you know, partner mission x, okay, here's your interpreter. Go ahead and start to establish rapport and trust with this person. You know, and you go through that feel problem work every day fishbowl type thing. What did he do that a stab? When did you guys think he had report? Did he test for it? simply saying, establish rapport is about the dumbest thing you can say. It's not as dumb as going to a foreign language class where they teach you how to say in the native language, Do you speak English? That's the probably the dumbest thing that the army ever does, and it's an absolute waste of 10 minutes of my training time. If if, you know sweating is a trade off of blood, why are you teaching me how to say? Do you speak English in any language other than English, you know, don't waste our time with this stuff. So working with an interpreter and building trust is vital. And if you can't do that, if you can't relay your complicated asked message and mission, then that's where you have to put the work in. And then you do that in a fishbowl. What could they have said to build rapport there? Did they have it? Did they test for it? Did they have trust, you know, and then quit looking at everything through a threat lens, look at this through a partnership lens. You need to be able to put yourself in the other chair. That's a big exercise to make people do is okay. I'm gonna play the role of your partner. I'm pissed off because the last four of you that came through have been dicks to me. And I'm going to treat you like that until you recognize through your interpreter that I'm treating you like a dick. I'm going to be passive aggressive. I'm going to give you all the cultural clues. The obvious is how I'm going to give you passive aggressive responses. Gonna Give You incompetent responses, I'm going to give you just all of those negative things. And if you don't recognize and start to negotiate that through your interpreter, then you don't get the past the class. And that's going to take two weeks.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:12  
Yeah. Is there anybody that's doing a component of this that you're aware of? Or has in the past? It's all of the things that are existing right now, is there any place that you've heard of that's doing this?

Pete Turner  1:00:26  
The most? Well, competent literature is out there is in the medical field, because you've got people in crisis, and they bring interpreters in to communicate very important things that are often in life and death situations. So there's a lot there, and you know, what it doesn't focus on, it doesn't focus on the lack of trust. So if you want to write a doctrine focused on a lack of trust, by all means, knock yourself out. But understand that you're establishing a new ground, that you're trying to establish a relationship with two different people that doesn't focus on trust first. That's where I would say read up on that. Be smart on what There it's not 100% germane, but it's it's a Venn diagram. There's a lot of crossover and if you can competently talk through the skills that it takes to do that job well and think about this, someone comes in, they speak Arabic and they've been shot or they're having they have stomach pain. Is there anything more obscure than stomach pain? I have stomach pain. Okay. Arab guy, What's he saying? stomach pain? Okay. You know, and then you've got to ask questions in a very tactical manner very fast to determine what's what's going on with this person and get them through something. And, and what if they are really like against doctors, like a lot of people are they don't want to be in the hospital, you know, like, you've got a lot to deal with. So plenty of lessons in the medical field.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:41  
How about on the on the private side from the, you know, like mission essential and others that is supplied the interpreters themselves so there's, there's the training of US government personnel to use interpreters. And then there's the training of interpreters, not just how to translate but how to be Is there any partnership between those two entities that you've observed any kind of like, for example, I don't know, because I haven't heard of this, other than a couple units having in the past interpreters assigned before they deployed that went with them. But that was pretty rare because it was to a very specific place that wasn't in rotation contexts like Iraq or Afghanistan. And so well chances of that happening are pretty slim.

Pete Turner  1:02:23  
First, I say whatever training effect is there and this applies to all MLS is all branches deploying, what you all are learning is 5% of what you need to know when you go do this job. You are not learning the skills that are and I'm saying that because I want you all come in and watch the absolute incapacity and lack of preparedness for the mission. We got a battle plan that battle plans already irrelevant, and I can tell you 100 stories about that this is the benefits, I got to see how badly and I got to be trained a lot too. And and I think you and I said this I think the number for me easily is below 5%. I don't need to learn how to do a nine line medivac more than I need to learn how to run a conversation, the shit we just talked about is stronger than any block of instruction anybody's received on anything like this yet. This is the thing they're going to do way more than they call for close air support. You know, so yeah, a nine line medevac, put a thing in the window and say, if there's a lot of trouble and all of a sudden you find yourself on the radio because so much shit has gone down, get on the radio and say, holy shit, a lot of shit has gone down. Nine line medevac is we need a lot of help, you know? And these are things it's like teaching me how to say Do you speak English? these abilities to run a conversation through another person is not something you just show up and do in 10 minutes. I know that's the perception. Think about this. If there was a firefight and you were a mop for Would you be able to hit anything? No. Right? Because we only do fam fire. Okay, having a conversation is harder. Think about your wife if she didn't speak or your loved one, whoever it is, if they didn't speak English, and the last four lovers treated them like shit, how effective would you be at communicating with that person getting done what you wanted to get done because your your best friend wants you to make her do something? How good would you be at that you can't see things from that opposite perspective then you're obsolete and you can't identify those barriers with your interpreter in advance you're obsolete you are creating instability you are not accomplishing your mission

Bill Mankins  1:04:24  
that's a lot you know p developed this your your system for a while and it's something obviously that will help the training comms and the people that are out there that are able to create these curriculum are able to listen and add to what they're doing. Body language. That's the last thing interpreter operations and body language. Is there anything that you work with, you know, body language, in some ways is universal in others, their specific cultural, body language components about you know, staring at someone in the eyes or not or body positioning about how people sit around a table or or don't that, you know, it was a knowledge or training block was useful to you that you learn from an interpreter or were able to use the interpreter to navigate.

Pete Turner  1:05:15  
Yeah, this is a great question. First off, everybody should read john barrows work again, FBI guy, friend of Robin shrieks. And he talks a lot about body language. And one of the things he's going to say is, you know, he's done it for years and years and years. And he's not no one gets it. All right, you, there's things that will scream at you that you will be good at reading. There are things that you'll never pick up. But the thing is, is you're just looking for hints, and then you can test those hints and inferences through your conversation. So I have a command of Jonah barrows work and I want to try to get him on the on the show but that guy is so busy because he's so great at what he does. He's hard to get on the show

Bill Mankins  1:05:49  
is phenomenal. Yeah.

Pete Turner  1:05:50  
And some of the things you can learn your partner's look at their behavior and how they act and think about the word that they're communicating through how they're sitting. And I did this whole breakdown with this one governor and I talked about the three phases of the governor, you know, because I got to see him in different environments. When he's talking to his people. He's sitting on the floor, and he's talking about the future. When he's with the Americans, he's sitting in a chair, and he's bracing himself and he's leaning back away from the person engaging him. Because he's been dominated by us. You could see it and he doesn't talk about the future. He's like, yes, no, yes. No, totally different person, and you go watch him out in the community. He's a different person, even still, understanding those things. Didn't take language that took reading body language. He never had his hands above his heart when he was talking to Americans always had an anchored and pushing back and trying to support himself as if he was being blasted by the wind coming from the American. You can picture that in your mind with the villagers hands above the heart, looking up at the sky and, you know, like, preaching like a Baptist minister to these people, really getting them excited. And this guy wasn't he, he was a Mullah. Right? He knew how to do this. And with his peers, the farmers, he sat and he was calm. But again, His hands were elevated. They weren't anchored to the ground. He was with them rooted in the ground, three different phases, all talking about body language. Which one sounds like the governor you want to engage with? Certainly not the American model. And I got all of those guys in that camp. And I'm not Superman. I've fucked this up more times than then I've gotten it right. It took years to learn all this stuff. But I was able to, because I haven't interpreted there and they're talking. I'm not just like, playing Pac Man on my device. I'm watching I'm looking at the room. I'm trying to see what I'm trying to listen to the communication that's going on. And when I see my partner in there locked up in the American is blasting them with demands. It's like we're going to have a show this week. The education sure ASCAP and BMI. Well that's bullshit. That guy doesn't like that. Let me I'm gonna come back after this. This meeting I'm going to talk to that Governor and I'm ready to get I'm going to tell my interpreter for read MSA for read. I want you to ask him about shuras and see what he thinks about him. Like what's good, what's bad, just get the lay down. And that's my tasking for the for the interpreter. Because we already had trust and so they had an hour long conversation. But I knew the answer. I didn't need any words I heard it is like, it's not he's like, it's not time for that. And then for we'd said, Is it is it is that time for this? Is he wants to do them later and I'm like, then that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna stop doing sure us, you know. So, again, that's an interpretive thing. Like I need to be able to give him like, here's your tasking. Find out about sure as what's good, what's bad, what how do we proceed? And if proceeding means not doing it great. And if you spend an hour getting this guy to calm down because he's so irate at the person who just ordered him who's 22 years old, and in the army, ordering an Afghan guy, you know, or rolling his eyes at an elder you kidding me? You need an interpreter to fix that. If you don't have command a real command of the language, you need an interpreter fix that.

Bill Mankins  1:09:07  
Okay, thanks, Pete. I appreciate the opportunity to come in and talk to you today. Pick your brain on interpreters. This is fun. These small time. It's useful.

Pete Turner  1:09:16  
Yeah, man. It's a lot of fun looking forward to hopefully getting down there to Alabama with you. And thank you all for listening. And if you're in the audience was just checking things out. That's a good lesson on how to do the deal, Graham. Thank you all. So much.