–By Lee McMahon, AW2 Stratcom–

BG Cheek, do you see any differences this year from your experience last year at Symposium?


“The biggest difference is that I have another year of experience. I was pretty new into it last year. Last year we were still the Warrior Care and Transition Office and the AW2 Program was still part of Human Resources Command so its not that we weren’t good partners in working this together but our relationships were different and our responsibilities were a little different. Last year, I was only able to stay that one day and this year I’ve been here for virtually the whole conference. This year, I think the delegates have given me a.) their personal experiences and b.) by listening to their issues and ideas, I’ve been able to match those with things that we’re working on and I’ve also been matching them with things that I thought we had fixed. There have been some cases where its caused me to step back and say we really need to look at this again because in execution its still not where we want it to be. The other point is that when I hear delegates talking, I can step forward and say we agree with you, we’ve seen the same thing, here are policies, here are the changes we are putting into place. A lot of times they will give us other ideas and perspectives we hadn’t considered. All in all, I’m enormously impressed with what I’ve picked up this year, and if I wish anything at all, I wish I had stayed for the whole conference last year. I’m sure I would have learned a lot there as well.”

SGM Lac, do you see differences from your experience at Symposiums in the past two years?

“I came on-board the same time as BG Cheek. I focused on my current job at that time as a senior enlisted advisor for the Warrior Care and Transition Office. It was a huge learning curve for me from last year until now. I’ve learned a great deal. There are great facilitators, great focus groups, and all the issues are very relevant to what we are doing and the reason why we are here.”

Sir, this is the fifth Symposium AW2 has held for severely wounded Soldiers and their Families. Why does the Army continue to hold this event?

“One might say, you’ve done this five times, how many more times do you need to do this? My answer to that would be you really need to come here and sit down and participate in it to adequately answer that question because we learn an awful lot from those we are trying to serve. The Army does this because we need some kind of measuring stick, on the policies, the programs, the services, the benefits, and the orchestration of all of that. We need someone to come back and give us a common sense test from their own personal experiences on how we are doing. Whether its working right or its not working right. Their perspective is something that is irreplaceable.”

SGM, you’ve been listening in on some of the focus groups, how is it going from your perspective?

“Its wonderful to sit down in some of the focus groups and listen to the Soldiers’ and the Families’ issues and concerns. I’ve heard quite a few issues that we are already working. Some of the issues may have already been resolved but its getting that information back out to the field. Other issues, they are right on track, and we need to take it back to leadership.”

Sir, I know focus groups just started on Friday, what are your thoughts on what you’re hearing?

“I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on all the different groups. I’ve had a lot of sidebar discussions with them on their personal experiences which they are eager to share. It has given me a greater appreciation for the complexity of what they face in terms of not just their medical treatment and recovery but the wide array of benefits and opportunities, and the procedures and processes they have to go through are very daunting and challenging. It really gives you an opportunity to get in their shoes a bit and in the smallest way to begin to appreciate what they are going through. I think we have a lot of things we can do better and I’m really appreciative of what these focus groups are doing. I think they are going to give us some great insight into our program and things to work on to make it better.”

SGM, are you getting input you can bring back to the enlisted force within Warrior Transition Command?

“Absolutely. This really helps me a lot; it gives me an opportunity to better understand the needs of our Soldiers and Families in this particular population. This will give me insight as we relook at the process of cadre training in terms of squad leader, platoon sergeant training. We need to make sure we develop a training requirement that meets the needs of our Soldiers and Families, that’s number one.”

Sir, as commander of WTC, what is your desired end state of this Symposium?

“We want to take major issues and the insights that are given to us from the focus groups and take them back, assign the issues to an action officer, put them on a milestone list, and let’s get after fixing those issues. I think to a large extent that could require new policies, changes to policies, but it will certainly require a lot of training and education. We’ve got to figure out a way to effectively pass on what we learn from events like this to our Soldiers and Families. We’ve got to do it in a recurring timeline because ours is a very transient population. Our program is all about taking care of Soldiers and Families. Whether that’s a Soldier in a warrior transition unit or a proud Army veteran, an Army wounded warrior out in the civilian community, and his or her Family, it’s all about whether we are taking care of them and doing everything we can for them. As AW2 says, for as long as it takes. That’s what we want to do here. I’m very excited about the Symposium. I think it’s been a huge success and we still have several days to go.”