ORG: 2-503rd, 173rd
POSITION: TEAM 1SG
LOCATION: The Republic of Georgia
CONTACT: @BB_CORPS_SFAB
Building Rapport
- Background: Advisors from the 173rd were tasked to establish the first CTC in the Republic of Georgia. I was assigned to a 5 person team, working in a one level up capacity. Example: 3 Infantry SL were advising in the role of Infantry Platoon Sergeant, Infantry PL as the Company Commander, and myself as the Team/Company 1SG.
- Preparation: Our country briefs were mediocre, it was information that was extracted from Wikipedia, nothing that helped me understand the people and most importantly the soldiers of Georgia.
What did help was watching YouTube videos about Georgia. Surprisingly, Anthony Bourdain helped me understand the food-culture from one of his shows. It doesn’t sound like much, but that episode helped me when meeting the PF.
External Gov source used: The best known secret that is often used, but by a small amount in the military is PIXTODAY. They had so much information that helped me understand the history and military of Georgia. The information was a bit outdated but it was helpful. I will not expand on specific information that was used, but if you are in the US Military, you can get instant access to it, and see for yourself. Bug your local intel nerd to help you get access or navigate the site.
- Meeting the PF: We were very fortunate to meet our interpreters first. The first thing I asked was if they could teach me how to introduce myself and how to say thank you. Gaa-Ma-Jo-Ba Ba-To-No = Hello Sir/Mr (very formal) and Di-Di-Mat-Lo-Va = Thank you very much (formal as well). The best thing you can do is to learn at least a few words. There is no one that I know of who said I got heat or that my PF hates me for trying to speak their language. It is a good icebreaker, if you mess it up, your PF can help you say it. If you get it right, it shows that you at least took the time to learn a few words.
Finally meeting our PF, I introduced myself, butchered “Hello Sir” in Georgian but made a good impression with my 1SG counterpart. IMPORTANT information to know: there is an ethnic subgroup of people, known as Mingrelians who even have their own language. The majority of the people I worked with were Mingrelians. They noticed me butchering Georgian and they heard me say my last name which to my surprise, to them is a Mingrelian name. They told me to say Mu-chu-Rek instead, which is easier to pronounce in my opinion, and gave me a way to introduce myself which would immediately garner the PF attention.
Uniform: The Georgian military has been working with US military for a long time, they were part of our coalition in 2003 OIF. They know what skill badges, deployment patches, berets, and unit patches mean. Please don’t think you can tell a Georgian soldier that your 82nd or 10th Mountain deployment patch means it is an elite/special unit, it does not go well.
Experience: They value combat experience, it didn’t take long to talk about Iraq and our shared locations like Mosul and Tikrit. Some of the older Georgian soldiers will talk about their experiences in 2008 with Russia, crazy stories. I used my experience in RGR RGT and 173rd to provide that buy-in from my 41 year-old 1SG counterpart, who deployed to Iraq twice and fought against the Russians. I believe if I didn’t have that experience, he would not have considered some of my assessments.
Anthony Bourdain! Finally, if it wasn’t for Mr. Bourdain, my reaction when I heard we were going to be provided an opportunity to eat homemade Khinkali (which is probable the best damn dumpling of my life), would have been mediocre. I was the only one that took the offer and it really solidify our partnership, I never say no to the food no matter what, and me knowing what it was, and showing genuine excitement, showed my counterpart I wanted to be there, in their country.
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