Pre Deployment Briefing.

Greetings, sir!  My name is David Dusek, and I’m the guy you’re going to see in this video series.  I’ve worked with the Chaplain Corps for years, and after 18 months of travel and filming, we’ve put together the above video series for you and your team.

There’s really only one central mission for the series:  To help you connect men so when life happens, they have some other brothers around them to get through life. Just like a fireteam when downrange and on target, I believe men need other men to fight the battles of life like marriage, parenting, work and money when they’re at home.

Disclaimer: While designed initially for men, the content and the topics work well for both men and women. But since over 80% of the suicides we’re seeing in the Army are males under 45 years old, we aimed the material at the largest target audience.

Now that you have access to the content, I wanted to give you a quick briefing on the TTPs of “Who Has Your Six” to really maximize your time with the soldiers. You have the freedom of action to use it however you wish but here are a few tips for when you rally the men.

• There are 8 episodes. Along with a brief description and a video, there is a PDF facilitator guide for each video in the series. Make sure you print off a copy to lead the team.

• You will need a laptop, pad or Smartphone with an HDMI Out, VGA/Audio Out, or Screen Mirroring to connect to a TV in order to show the videos.  They were all filmed in 4K UHD, so make sure you have good sound! Also, we recommend a minimum internet speed of 50Mbps to avoid technical issues and buffering.

• We suggest a meeting time of no longer than one (1) hour.  That’s 30 minutes of video and 30 minutes of fireteam discussion. You can certainly run longer if the men are still engaged, but honor the time commitment as best you can.

• If possible, try to offer two times per week when you run the series. Ideally, one in the morning and one in the evening.  There are men who have to drop kids off at school, so 0730 won’t work for them.  And there are men who work late, so 1800 won’t work for them.  Also, if someone misses the morning linkup, they can always catch up at the evening meeting. Make the content as accessible as possible, to maximum your impact.

• Food is always a good motivator, and can be pretty inexpensive to your CTOF if you do donuts/coffee for AM gatherings, and pizza/soda for the PM gatherings.

• There is no ideal venue, but we’ve found that off-post works well. Try to avoid meeting in a chapel setting, unless it’s a gathering room. The goal is to make the gatherings as non-threatening as possible. A lot of men have an aversion to a sanctuary setting.

• Each video is 20 minutes (more or less) in run time. Allow 30 minutes just to get through the video portion.

• There’s no “ideal number” of soldiers. If you have more than 4 or 5, you’ll need to break them into Fireteams of 4.  After speaking to thousands of men at hundreds of events, I’ve found that men will shut down if you put them in a group of more than four.

• The ideal scenario is to team them up by unit. It’s actually more effective to take men who already know eachother and help them drive deeper. The more time they spend together, the greater the trust level.  Just like being downrange and outside the wire.

• Good facilitation is always critical. Some people talk, some don’t. Make sure that you’re engaging the silent ones, by saying something like “You’re awfully quiet over there. What’s on your mind?”  Conversely, some people love to talk, so you’ll have to tactfully figure out how to keep them on target.

• Encourage the team to invite others every week.  Since each video in the series is a standalone, they can jump in any time.

• I know you’re always busy and adding one more thing can be a challenge but I suggest running a rotation quarterly if possible. That gives you eight weeks of content, a month off, then run it again.  If you have a solid 56M, feel free to have them lead when you can’t.

• Promotion is everything initially. We can provide you with hi-res logos and a couple of solid 90-second e-mailable promotional videos for the initial push. Most units have a gifted 56M who can create print media, but if you don’t we can help with that as well.

• Finally, as with anything in the Army, it’s all about the AAR. We want to know what’s happening, and the Flagpole will want to know that there is a measurable ROI. That said, if you do your AAR in Excel or Word, please e-mail it to us when you’ve finished a rotation.  We will compile the data annually for the Chief’s office, as we’re committed to making sure that Who Has Your Six is effective at connecting soldiers for life.