The CARE Coalition

Since Oct. 19, 2001, when the first SOCOM personnel landed in Afghanistan, it has been clearly understood that the nature of combat deployments for SOF warriors was going to be fundamentally different than for those of conventional force units and personnel. More than a dozen years of continuous combat operations has established that SOF personnel, their families, and their dependents have been living a much different life than those in the conventional forces. Individual SOF personnel regularly have deployed more than a dozen times, with some having gone downrange twice that often since 2001. This has placed significant strains on SOCOM personnel and their dependents, especially those who have returned as “wounded warriors” stateside.

To help deal with the unique stateside challenges and problems of SOF personnel and their families, SOCOM has created the CARE Coalition, which is designed to act as an overarching collection of programs to help support returning special warfare personnel. The CARE Coalition’s efforts are based around a network of about two dozen “advocates” nationally, who provide oversight and assistance for SOF wounded, ill, and injured (WII) personnel and their families through a range of care and recovery programs. These provide direct, and if necessary, lifelong assistance to SOF WII personnel through active follow-up contact and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams (MDT), medical case managers, and other military agencies. Advocates provide coordination and tracking for medical and non-medical services, and help implement systematic rehabilitation and transition back to active duty or civilian life.

To help deal with the unique stateside challenges and problems of SOF personnel and their families, SOCOM has created the CARE Coalition, which is designed to act as an overarching collection of programs to help support returning special warfare personnel.

In addition, advocates collect, maintain, and analyze data for planning and tracking purposes, so process improvements can be developed as required, and work closely with SOF WII service members, their families, and their recovery teams to develop a comprehensive recovery plan (CRP) that identifies the service member’s and family’s goals and the resources they need to achieve them, such as assistive technology, education, employment, or housing.

In addition to the basic recovery and treatment programs, the CARE Coalition has offices dedicated to community outreach and adaptive sports, that provide a way for WII SOF personnel to gain from the benefits of sports, hobbies, networking, and reception of the well earned appreciation of the communities they live in and have served. This community outreach section supports the SOCOM CARE Coalition by establishing relationships with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to provide support for WII service members within the SOF community.

They are also responsible for compliance with the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act, and for qualifying individuals, businesses, and nonprofits, in order to ensure compatibility with all DoD rules and regulations. And while the DoD and Department of Veterans Affairs work to help provide for the specialized needs of WII SOF service personnel and their families, there are often “holes” in support during the various recovery processes. The community outreach section seeks to bridge these gaps by providing to the service members a roadmap directly to NGOs that provide goods, services, and support.

Finally, the Wounded Warrior Athletic Reconditioning Program (WWARP) provides assistance in both the physical and mental recovery processes, and strives to enhance the general health and welfare of WII SOF personnel through introductions to adaptive team sports and recreation. WWARP has, for example, conducted camps and events in competitive sailing, archery, track and field, seated water skiing, seated volleyball, and golf. It supports both active-duty and retired members of the special operations community, and is proving to be a vital and valuable means of reconnecting WII SOF personnel to everyday lives. “The USSOCOM Care Coalition program provides outstanding support to wounded SOF warriors and their families and is a model for patient advocacy within the Department of Defense,” McRaven said in an interview last year with The Year in Special Operations.

 

SOCOM Acquisitions and Procurement

In the decades since its creation, SOCOM has been envied by other components of DoD for the robust and diverse financing it has received to grow and equip the special warfare force we know today. In particular, SOCOM’s Title 10 funding line, unique among the geographic combatant commands, provides McRaven and his staff in Tampa with a unique ability to develop and procure systems and services specially tailored to support their roles and missions across the globe. Over the years, this has included systems like the M4 carbine, CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport, and Ground Mobility Vehicle variant of the HMMWV.

While some of the component commands’ significant contracting and procurement projects under way in 2013 are described elsewhere in this book, there are several others that are specific to SOCOM itself. They include:

• SOCOM Wide Mission Support (SWMS) – SWMS is an omnibus service and support contract designed to cover the whole of SOCOM and its component commands. As such, it will replace USASOC’s Global Battlestaff and Program Support (GBPS) program, which is due to expire May 15, 2015. SWMS will provide knowledge-based services for SOCOM, across one of the widest ranges of expertise within DoD. This will include engineering, training, logistical, and contractor management, finance and program monitoring and planning, along with other services and support as required by the command. The fact that SWMS will cover all of SOCOM and its subordinate commands should provide greater connectivity between organizations and services, along with reducing “stovepiping” when greater interoperability is needed.

• Special Operations Forces Information Technology Enterprise Contract II (SITEC II) – The original SITEC contract, which has been in place for several years with SOCOM, has not entirely fulfilled the expectations and desires of the command. In particular, with respect to the planned expansion of the Global SOF Network (SOFNET), SOCOM has decided that the current contract lacks the necessary flexibility to support the planned goals outlined in SOCOM 2020. For this reason, SOCOM has chosen to re-compete the program as SITEC II, with greater latitude and flexibility inherent in the contract. This should allow the SITEC II contractor to better support SOCOM across the entire command enterprise, and down to the field level for deployed forces downrange. The objectives of SITEC II are that it enable and improve IT to support mission operations, provide “reliable SIE [SOF Information Environment] core services worldwide, while aligning with the JIE,” and provide “flexible and scalable services for all SOF site-unique requirements, foster innovation while providing an agile approach to insert new technologies, establish flexible and scalable contracts that foster competition, and drive cost optimization.”

Conclusion

The early months of 2014 are showing great promise over 2013, as the personnel of SOCOM and the rest of the U.S. military get back to something they have not had since 2009: a normal and understood funding and operational profile. This is not to say, however, that SOCOM does not have challenges ahead, both in the near-term and long-term. As this story is being written, the question of the American commitment in Afghanistan is still undefined and in flux. In addition, continuing operations in Africa, the Far East, and other regions will likely keep the TSOCs and component commands busy packaging and supplying SOF units and personnel well into the latter half of this decade. And while there will continue to be uncertainty, both operationally and fiscally, there can be little doubt that SOCOM will continue to be the force of choice of America’s national leaders.

This article first appeared in The Year in Special Operations: 2014-2015 Edition.