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“THERE’S NO WAY WE’RE GETTING OUT OF HERE ALIVE.”

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As a US Army Green Beret, I’ve said those words more times than I care to remember. That’s because we tend to have a bad habit of getting surrounded by the enemy on purpose. You see, Green Berets parachute in below the noise and then we offset away from the chaos. Then we walk in with just 12 guys, where we eventually connect at exactly the right spot with precisely the right person, a village elder or a tribal chief, and then we immerse ourselves in the language, the culture. When the time’s just right, we help the little guy stand up against the big guy from the bottom up.

Green Berets achieve strategic results by, with, and through indigenous populations, usually who are very different than we are and who live in some of the most conflict-riddled places on the planet. In fact, we often find ourselves leading people who are very reluctant to follow us in the beginning.

Nowhere was that more true than Afghanistan in January 2010. We were losing the war. There were more Taliban in the rural areas than when we started in 2002. A handful of us were selected to design and implement a new plan that would put our Green Berets out back in the rural areas helping Afghan tribes stand up against the Taliban.

The biggest problem with this was the level of violence that had plagued the country. Imagine your neighborhood having endured 38 years of nonstop fighting, right on your block. These little villages of 800 people had seen so much trauma that they were collectively paralyzed between the most basic human functions of fight and flight. They were stuck in what anthropologist Patrick Christian calls inescapable shock.

To work with these folks, we would bring them into the courtyard and simply make three promises. One, if you don’t want us in your village, we’ll leave right now. Two, if you do work with us, it’s going to get harder before it gets easier. Those Taliban thugs down the road are going to come for you, they’re going to come for your children, and they’re going to come for us. And three, when they do, our little team is going to go up the ladders onto your rooftops and we’re going to fight them whether you do or not.

Promise two always came true first, usually within days, if not hours, of us moving into a community. At night as locals huddled in their homes and after we’d gone to bed, contact. From the edge of the rooftop, we fought all night long until the sun came up, then we’d hobble down those ladders carrying our wounded and sometimes carrying our dead. This would go on night after night. Up those ladders while the Afghans stayed down below.

Then one night in the middle of a fight off to the side, we heard a rifle shot, saw a muzzle flash, and it was shooting in the same direction we were, but it wasn’t from our rooftop. One farmer had made a decision to go up onto his roof and defend his home. It was a very small shift in the mood, but we’d take it. Because within two to three weeks of us going up those ladders night after night, before we could get to the last rung of our ladder, every rooftop in the village was pouring rifle fire back into the source of the Taliban attack, breaking it off before it even started. Not in one village, not in six villages, but this story played out in 113 villages across rural Afghanistan in less than two years.

Local Afghans have always stood up for their villages. But how did these folks go from inescapable shock to an overt willingness to climb up on a rooftop and stand shoulder to shoulder with men they didn’t even trust two weeks prior and endure intense rifle and machine-gun fire and face certain enemy retaliation? Not because they had to, but because they chose to.

That’s what I’ve come to call Rooftop Leadership.

These same old-school Green Beret interpersonal skills that we used in these rough areas can help you lead here at home. You don’t have to be a Green Beret working in a tribal area to see that your world now and the world I lived in then are not that far apart.

So how do we lead people who are too skeptical, angry, or frightened to follow us?

It starts with you.

I’ll see you on the Rooftop in Fort Lauderdale in May.

“THERE’S NO WAY WE’RE GETTING OUT OF HERE ALIVE.”
Apr 24, 2024

As a US Army Green Beret, I’ve said those words more times than I care to remember. That’s because we tend to have a bad habit of getting surrounded by the enemy on purpose. You see, Green Berets parachute in below the noise and then we offset away… Read the rest

Business Partner Webinar | Enhancing the Borrower Experience: The Demand for Easy Bill Payment Method
Apr 23, 2024

Borrower engagement is crucial for maintaining healthy financial relationships and ensuring timely bill payments. But what exactly is borrower engagement? It’s the level of involvement and interaction between borrowers and lenders… Read the rest

AFSA’s Letter to CA on Vehicle Repossessions
Apr 18, 2024

AFSA’s State Government Affairs team released a joint comment letter earlier this week to California’s Assembly Judiciary Committee in regards to Assembly Bill 2228 and vehicle repossessions. The letter emphasizes that the bill’s proposed… Read the rest

Letter on CA Small Business Debt Collection
Apr 18, 2024

AFSA’s State Government Affairs team recently sent a joint comment letter to the California State Senate regarding Senate Bill 1286 and small business debt collection in the state.

In the letter AFSA expresses concern with SB 1286’s inclusion… Read the rest

Overview: AFSA’s C3 Index
Apr 18, 2024

This report presents the results of a first-of-its kind survey of leading providers of mortgages, vehicle financing, personal installment loans, credit cards, and other consumer products. Participants provide their views on several … Read the rest

New AFSA Survey: Lenders Saw Weak Q1 2024, But Improvement Expected
Apr 18, 2024

Results from AFSA’s new Consumer Credit Conditions Index (C3) reflect the challenges faced by lenders and borrowers in today’s volatile economic and regulatory climate.

This view from lenders is the result of a first-of-its kind survey … Read the rest

AFSA Launches Industry Survey
Apr 18, 2024

AFSA is excited to launch the Consumer Credit Conditions Index (C3 Index). This initiative fills a need among lenders, policymakers, consumer-facing businesses, the financial media, and the public for a set of focused indicators that track… Read the rest

AFSA Expresses Concerns with APRA
Apr 17, 2024

Today, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing titled “Legislative Solutions to Protect Kids Online and Ensure Americans’ Data Privacy Rights.” During this hearing, the subcommittee considered the discussion… Read the rest

Who Wins if Arbitration Loses?
Apr 11, 2024

Ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing entitled “Small Print, Big Impact: Examining the Effects of Forced Arbitration,” AFSA wrote to Chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in supportRead the rest

AFSA FILES AMICUS IN FCRA 3RD CIRCUIT CASE
Apr 10, 2024

AFSA joined several other trades in an amicus brief in a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) case in front of the 3rd Circuit. The question in the case, Ritz v. Nissan, is whether a furnisher has to investigate not only the factual accuracy of … Read the rest

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