Check Your Hubris at the Door: OCSJX

I had always heard about the “old boy” network that accompanied graduating from USAFA. It was this mythical network of secret handshakes and under the table connections, and I had always heard of it but never experienced it. Other non-grad officers always alluded to it with a sarcastic pantomime of knocking an Academy ring on a table, sometimes accompanied with a self-applied secret handshake.

After awhile, I started wondering if I had skipped that particular briefing during Graduation week at USAFA. Or perhaps I had auto-deleted an email with my secret guild invitation in it, complete with secret password and a list the top ten ways to recognize a USAFA Grad who isn’t wearing their ring (#1 Is a Lieutenant with Jump Wings).

It took almost three full years of being a Lieutenant before I finally got my first secret handshake, under the table deal.

“Hey bro, I saw your name on this roster for OCSJX,” my buddy’s message said, “and my Colonel put me in charge of managing it for a bit. Do you want to be in the Mayor Cell? Gets you out of San Angelo for a bit of extra time.”

I told my buddy that I very much wanted to get out of San Angelo for a bit, even if it was just a six hour drive Westward, to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Even at that time, I did not recognize this as a USAFA grad connection, which it most certainly was in retrospect. It was just one friend looking out for another friend.

OCSJX, or Operational Contract Support, Joint Exercise is a Military Exercise that takes place over several weeks and encompasses Contracting professionals from all branches of the Department of Defense and several of our closest Allied Nations. There are several different iterations of it every year, but the largest and most notable is almost always held at Fort Bliss in El Paso. Even though the location rarely changes, since it is a joint exercise, the Army and the Air Force take turns taking the lead on organizing the event. I have only been to OCSJX once, but I am told that it is pretty easy to tell which branch of the Military was responsible for planning it on a given year.

When the Army plans it, there is always a chunk of time dedicated to running around in the desert, practicing “contingency” operations through obstacle courses and other such combat-centric funtivities.

When the Air Force plans the exercise, we omit those activities for reasons of “safety” and instead replace it with additional Contracting training and scenarios.

I had volunteered for OCSJX two years prior, but at the time it was deemed necessary to volunteer a couple of the Squadron’s NCOs as tribute instead. The following year, instead of volunteering for OCSJX again, I was at Al Udeid more or less practicing the principles taught at OCSJX in the real world, with real world applications and real world consequences. Some of the military leadership that was going to be present at this year’s OCSJX were the same ones that I had dealt with while deployed to Qatar.

This “Mayor Cell,” as my buddy had referred to it, was more or less a mystery to me. When I asked what being in the Mayor Cell entailed, I was simply told that I would not have to sit through so many boring PowerPoint presentations and would be in charge of some of the behind-the-scenes stuff.

Cool, sign me up I guess.

When I told Major Travieso about my incoming assignment to the Mayor Cell for OCSJX, he was less than enthused, and a bit surprised that I already knew my position before the OCSJX assignments had been released.

“Mayor Cell, Ell-Tee?” Major Travieso asked, “Man, you won’t be doing a lick of contracting in the Mayor Cell.”

To be honest, that was totally fine with me. I had been working on an annoyingly long acquisition for Camelbak-style hydration packs that had been dragged out by a contractor who had originally tried to pull a bait-and-switch with a Chinese knock-off and was now trying to weasel out of providing anything at all. That, combined with a general desire for a change in scenery made me very much at peace with doing something other than strict acquisitions work for a short period of time.

“I didn’t see anything about the OCSJX assignments yet,” Major Travieso continued, “how do you know that you are in the Mayor Cell already?”

“Oh I have a friend who has some semblance of control over the assignments,” I replied.

“Gol-darn Academy grads!” Major Travieso laughed while doing a goofy, self-applied version of the Secret Academy Handshake that we all allegedly do.

A couple weeks later, the official OCSJX assignment notifications came out, with my name officially in the Mayor Cell listing. A few weeks after that, I packed a suitcase in my truck and drove to El Paso.

On the way to El Paso, I stopped in Alamogordo, New Mexico, which is actually closer to San Angelo, Texas than El Paso is. Upon arriving in Alamogordo, I immediately regretted every negative thing I had ever said about being stationed in San Angelo because, as I could now plainly see, it could have been so much worse. Alamogordo is even smaller than San Angelo, and was overcome with a single, brown hue. The hue is the color of the ground, the buildings, and even the first couple layers of sky just above the horizon. The town lies in stark contrast to the mountains just a few minutes away to the North.

My reasons for visiting this dusty, brown village was really just to reconnect with two friends I had made through the past years, and to pick up a hand-made hunting knife I had been promised some months prior. Sergeant Stark, who I had been deployed with, and Indigo, who was also going to be at OCSJX that year, were both stationed at Holloman AFB and I was looking forward to seeing them both. We hung out for the night, at Alamogordo’s best bar, which is in a Lowe’s Grocery store, got caught up, and after a night of bumming a place to sleep, I was on my way to El Paso.

I arrived at Fort Bliss slightly early, despite making several wrong turns trying to find the correct gate from which to enter the massive Army base. Using the extra time to acquaint myself with my new home for the next four weeks, I drove around the more densely populated part of the base.

When the appointed meeting time drew near enough, I drove back over to the building that was to be the Mayor Cell’s office for the next few weeks. It was there where I met Lieutenant Colonel Church, a soft-spoken Army Officer who had been actively serving for so long that the Army was politely forcing him to retire, Master Sergeant P, an Army NCO whose name was long and difficult to pronounce and who had his time split between this exercise and actually preparing to deploy a few weeks after it would wrap up, and finally, Major Lewis.

Major Lewis was an Air Force officer who was coming from Eglin AFB and one of the large System Program Offices that employed many DoD Contracting Professionals. While Lieutenant Colonel Church and Master Sergeant P were technically in charge of the Mayor Cell, Major Lewis was the brains. He brought a whole system for putting together our operation, and was ready to implement it on day one. Major Lewis’s system was, like many Air Force systems, heavily reliant on technology, utilizing Sharepoints and “pivot charts,” whatever those were.

Out of necessity, the Mayor Cell were the first people to arrive at the exercise, and they came from all over the globe. The furthest of us, Airman McCoy, came from Guam to participate. We stuck him on the night shift so his sleep schedule would not get too jacked up. Airman McCoy was also the youngest of us, and ended up being “asked” to be the Designated Driver for his own twentieth birthday party.

It would take me far too many words to give an individual shout out to every member of the Mayor Cell, but I can assure you that I have rarely worked with such a motivated, effective team. Members of the Cell arrived from the airport, dropped their bags in our makeshift break room, and got to work immediately. That attitude continued all the way through our last day, when each of us left the exercise exhausted and very proud.

As the Mayor Cell, our major responsibilities included making sure that everyone participating in that year’s OCSJX had a place to sleep, transportation, and all the necessary supplies to last the duration of the exercise among other things. This all required an extreme amount of organization, and none of it would have been accomplished without the hard work of the Airmen and NCOs in the Mayor Cell.

Sure, Major Lewis’s organizational system played a large part in keeping us organized. In fact, it was probably the most organized I personally have ever been. That just made the work easier, and it allowed us to do over-the-top things like organize the fleet of vehicles allotted to OCSJX not only by vehicle type, but based on rental source (Government Fleet Vehicle or Private Vendor lease), and in order based on an alpha-numeric code assigned through Major Lewis’s system printed out and taped inside the vehicle’s windshield and rear window.

The efforts of the Mayor Cell were pretty widely acknowledged to be the best to ever do it, and the efforts of the NCOs and Airmen allowed Major Lewis and I to focus not only on the nitty-gritty details of running the Cell, but also on other distractions. Like explaining to the Navy Lieutenant (O-3) that no, I will not send one of my Airmen down to his room to plunge his toilet. Or telling the Marine Colonel that he cannot have a new vehicle simply because he saw one shinier than his.

Or even explaining to a certain high ranking individual that the reason their assigned Ford Escape did not make any engine noise when it turned on was because it was a hybrid.

During the in-processing phase of OCSJX, the Mayor Cell was responsible for making sure that exercise attendees were picked up from the airport, delivered to the exercise, and given the necessary accommodations. When they arrived at the Mayor Cell, everyone was given a welcome briefing, with necessary safety briefings and warnings, and then they were hustled through Major Lewis’s system. Each member was checked in, given their room, and a vehicle key if applicable.

My portion of the in-processing line dealt with the vehicle fleet. Every team at OCSJX had been allotted a certain number of “seats” to get them from their barracks rooms to the exercise area. There were a few other considerations, mostly centered around people and teams who needed additional vehicles to accommodate running back and forth throughout the day. We had several vehicles that were designated as “Distinguished Visitor” transportation, which ended up bruising the egos of a few individuals who didn’t rate as highly as they thought of themselves.

Toward the end of the in-processing days, a very agitated Air Force Colonel made his way through our system. He was being followed by a visibly embarrassed  Air Force Major who had been assigned to act as the Colonel’s minder. From my position at the end of the in-processing line, I observed the Colonel work his way through, being curt to the Airmen serving him, almost to the point of being rude. When the Colonel made it over to my station, where I was joking with Senior Airman Harper over whether he was going to make Staff Sergeant that year, the Colonel’s mood finally deteriorated the rest of the way.

Whether the flight was a rough one, or the Colonel was putting his wife’s sister through college, I will never know. But when told there had not been a vehicle set aside for him, let alone a “Distinguished Visitor” car, the Colonel let his frustration air.

“What do you mean, I’m not on the DV listing?” The Colonel demanded, the Major following him around standing behind him looking uncomfortable while staring at his boots, “Do you know who I am?”

I turned back to the open laptop in front of me and stated the Colonel’s name and organization to the Colonel before adding, “and you are not on the DV list, so you do not get DV transportation.”

“Well Lieutenant,” the Colonel said, preparing what I am sure he thought was going to be a lecture, “Usually when an O-6 attends exercises like this, they are considered a Distinguished Visitor. Who gets their own car.”

“I understand Colonel,” I responded before gesturing to the laptop and counting out loud, “but there are at least a half-dozen flag officers at this exercise even more SES’s (DoD Civilian equivalents), and God only knows how many other O-6’s are here.”

The Colonel stared blankly at me, and I stared right back, “so I’m sorry, sir, but here you are just another Full Bird.”

Storming off, the Colonel was intercepted by Lieutenant Colonel Church, who worked his calm magic to Soothe the Colonel’s ego. The Major who had been awkwardly shadowing the angry Colonel paused for a moment at the desk.

“I’m sorry about that, Ell-Tee,” he said quietly, “I’ve been telling him the same thing for weeks. You know how it is.”

The Major hustled after the Colonel to give him a ride in his undistinguished vehicle. Lieutenant Colonel Church returned to the in-processing room, and with a soft smile and shake of his head simply stated,

“Some people’s egos.”