News From USJFCOM: Newsmaker Profile: SOCJFCOM Commander Army Col. Wesley Rehorn

Newsmaker Profile: SOCJFCOM Commander Army Col. Wesley Rehorn

With the intent to raise awareness of USJFCOM's continuing transformation efforts, this is part of a series of profiles, allowing command subject matter experts to highlight priorities, challenges, and solution paths for the future in their field. Army Col. Wesley Rehorn, commander of Special Operations Command - Joint Forces recently discussed SOCJFCOM, some of the current projects his team is working on, and what lies ahead.

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By Robert Pursell
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(SUFFOLK, Va. - Dec. 5, 2007) -- When Army Col. Wesley Rehorn took over as the commander of Special Operations Command - Joint Forces Command (SOCJFCOM) in July, he vowed that he was committed to the future of the command and its relevance to the war on terrorism.

Since then, Rehorn has been quite busy fulfilling that commitment.

SOCJFCOM serves as the DoD's primary joint special operations forces (SOF) trainer and integrator, supporting all geographic combatant commands and joint task forces.

Rehorn is responsible for the training of conventional and special operations joint force commanders and their staffs in the employment of SOF. This is all done while focusing on full integration of SOF and conventional forces in planning and execution to enhance warfighting readiness.

Because SOCJFCOM is a subordinate command of USJFCOM, he also serves as the senior SOF advisor to the commander, USJFCOM.

Rehorn recently took the time to discuss his dual-hatted role, SOCJFCOM's recent move to Suffolk, and other projects his command is working on to support the warfighter now and in the future.

Q: What were your expectations and goals when you first took command of SOCJFCOM and what's their status?
A: There were a couple of things that evolved around the periphery of what we do. One is joint integration, working with the J9 (Joint Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate) which we've always been tasked to do, but we never had the manpower support. Now we have the manpower.

The other one involved issues like coalition SOF…partnership SOF or NATO SOF. We sort of stepped back and looked at what we were tasked to do and by whom. Then we looked at what we could do and there was a difference because we'd been tasked to do some things by both (USJFCOM and SOCOM) commands that were never resourced.

So, I went back to both commanders and said, "Look, here's what we've been tasked to do, here's what we see. Which do you want to support us for?" And we're in the process of receiving some very clear mission guidance from both commanders.

Q: How can the recent SOCJFCOM move from Norfolk, Va. to Suffolk, Va. help the command?
A: There are probably three things that are really tying us into the community. One is that the move from Norfolk Naval Base to the JTEC (Joint Technology Exploration Center) in Suffolk co-locates us not only with JWFC (Joint Warfighting Center), who is the primary unit that we support, but also with the J9, so it helps us with integration.

It also helps us with our products because we're one of the few units where we'll take our lessons learned and publish them through handbooks on how to perform in your individual positions, how to set up a JSOTF (Joint Special Operation Task Force). We produce a separate book called "Insights" which the units deploy with so having access to a better distribution network within JWFC would be great.

It will also help our community of interest. One of the things we'll do is to capture all of the SOF subject matter experts in USJFCOM into a collective body so that SOCOM (Special Operations Command) or SOCJFCOM can have one voice on SOF issues in USJFCOM. We're meeting about once a month with about 25 personnel, and that will allow us to have a body of SOF expertise.

Q: SOCJFCOM has a unique situation in that you directly support both the missions of Special Operations Command and USJFCOM as joint trainer. Can you talk about this unique situation?
A: It's interesting because we're the only special operations command that is dual-headed and works for two different four-star generals, but we have specific responsibilities to USJFCOM.

Really, we have three jobs within USJFCOM. One is SOF integration and performing conventional force exercises, which means we support the Joint Warfighting Center, all of their Unified Endeavor exercises and their MRXs [mission rehearsal exercises]. We're also supposed to integrate SOF from within USJFCOM itself, so I talk to the directorates for all of their SOF issues. The third thing we do within USJFCOM is we're the SOF advisor to the USJFCOM commander.

Q: Can you explain what SOCJFCOM does to prepare its forces?
A: I think one of the newest areas of the command is that we've been tasked to provide joint special operations level one education and joint special operations level two education, which is a collective education in a classroom environment.

Level one is designed for people who are assigned to a special operations command and have very little special operations background. They could be special operations themselves and just want to learn more about the other services or learn more about what joint special operations means because there are terminologies and definitions that don't transfer from the Army, the Navy or the Air Force to joint. But primarily it's for people who have no SOF background going to the joint SOF assignment. That's online through JKKDC (Joint Knowledge Development and Distribution Capability).

Level two is a 30-40 man class and that's primarily for people that are transferring into a special operations command and are going directly to a theater operations command assignment, so it's a little bit more specific.

Level three is unit training, which is where we train the JSOTFs when we assist the theater special operations command in one of their exercises.

We've always been very good at incorporating our lessons learned back into our products for our next target audience, but one of the things we haven't been able to do is nest level one and level two educations into level three training. So if you look at those things there would be gaps in some processes and overlaps.

Now that we have control over all three of those aspects of education and training, they're all nested very well and we think that the lessons learned that we get from the operational units will be a lot better captured in the education process.

Q: Special operations-capable forces have been front and center during operations over the last couple of years. How does such an aggressive use of these forces help inform your mission to prepare these troops?
A: 9-11 changed everything for us because as a command, prior to that, we primarily looked at exercises, we looked at quite a bit of SOF integration into conventional forces to show, not only SOF personnel how to set up a headquarters…that interface role with conventional forces, but also to help give conventional forces an idea of what to expect from SOF.

After 9-11, what happened was a virtual playing role on behalf of the GCC (geographic combatant commander) learning audience, the conventional training audience. Now, all of the sudden, we're responsible for teaching the SOF personnel how to be an actual JSOTF (joint special operations task force) down range.

Many people don't know it, but this command sent about 17 people to Task Force Dagger, which was the first unit deployed to Afghanistan, and they were all the primary staff officers. Most of us were there for 90 days, where we set up Task Force Dagger and ran it.

The interesting thing about the command is that it's the only command that provides joint SOF training and it's one of the only commands that have the continuity to keep training these things because all of your joint special operations commands are primarily ad hoc and those people transfer out of those organizations repetitively. The body of knowledge here with the people I have is basically unparalleled.

Q: For a long time, special operations troops operated in the shadows away from conventional troops. Now we see a lot more of conventional and SOF troops working together. What role does SOCJFCOM play in that integration?
A: One of the responsibilities of the command is to show the conventional forces that there is a targeting nomination process, there's a delineation of areas of operations both with special operations and conventional forces.

I've heard many times that the special operations people are operating on their own, and that's just not true. We work with conventional force commanders in different command and control relationships.

I think over the past five years the conventional forces have understood that SOF forces work for them, coordinate with them both in the planning and execution of the missions.

Q: Where do you see SOCJFCOM headed in the near future? Distant future?
A: I think we have two emerging missions. One is that we've never been involved in NATO - SOF training. I think with NATO taking on a larger role in Afghanistan, specifically, that NATO- U.S. liaison personnel will ask us to help with that training. That's a USJFCOM mission. In the past, we haven't been asked to support that so that's going to require some resources on our part.

I think the other one is that SOCOM is looking at fighting the war more in a "by, through and with" attitude, which is one of the SOF tenents. I believe they're going to be asking us to do a lot more coalitional partnership, which is not NATO, but countries in Central and South America and other countries in Africa to help either an individual or unit level to train joint special operations command and control.

Q: Can you describe, overall, what it has meant for you to be in command of this team?
A: The first thing is the mission; it's a very good mission. There are many people who don't know what we do until they need the help. Once they receive the help, they're won over to how we can assist them. It's rare that somebody shows up and says, "I'm here to help," and really means it. This command does that. So it's a good mission because it affects what the warfighter is doing.

The second part is the people that I have. The years of experience that are represented in this command is just phenomenal. So if you listen well to the advice you're given and you chose wisely, it's a great command to have.