A Letter to My Replacement: 14 Leadership Lessons from a SERE Specialist

By Joseph Apolinar

Joseph Apolinar is a U.S. Air Force SERE Specialist, an expert at preparing high-risk military personnel to SURVIVE the elements, EVADE capture, RESIST exploitation, and ESCAPE their captors should they be separated from friendly control in remote, hostile environments. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Latah Books
• Release date: Aug 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781957607238

Joseph Apolinar

Joseph Apolinar is a U.S. Air Force SERE Specialist, an expert at preparing high-risk military personnel to SURVIVE the elements, EVADE capture, RESIST exploitation, and ESCAPE their captors should they be separated from friendly control in remote, hostile environments. His book -- A Letter to My Replacement: 14 Leadership Lessons from a SERE Specialist -- delivers critical lessons to aid building stronger leaders in a world that desperately needs them.

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A LETTER TO MY

REPLACEMENT

14 LEADERSHIP LESSONS

FROM A SERE SPECIALIST

JOSEPH APOLINAR

A Letter to My Replacement:

14 Leadership Lessons from a SERE Specialist

Copyright © 2023 by Joseph Apolinar

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government. The public release clearance of this publication by the Department of Defense does not imply Department of Defense endorsement or factual accuracy of the material.

For permissions, contact: [e-mail]

Book design by Kevin Breen

Cover design by PathLiner

Softcover ISBN: 978-1-957607-20-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-957607-00-9

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

Published by Latah Books

www.latahbooks.com

Joseph Apolinar may be contacted at [e-mail]

CONTENTS

Introduction

5 Tips For Groups When Using This Book

Teamwork Helps You Keep All Ten Fingers

Leaders Do Yoga

Plant The Right Trees On Your Team

Feedback Is Like Beer – Learn To Handle It

Let Them Struggle

Build Your Influence

Don’t Be A Pushover

Watch Out For Burnout

Leaders Lift Weights

Follow Like A Leader

Punish Only With A Purpose

Speed Bumps Prevent Injury

Leave Something Behind

Wear A Belt Buckle

Acknowledgments

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

I am a U.S. Air Force SERE Specialist, an expert in survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. My mission is to prepare pilots and other high-risk military members to survive and return with honor should they be isolated from friendly control. I also advise allied and partner nations on the process and help shape the landscape in potential war zones to better support keeping our warfighters safe. Their lives depend on how well I execute my mission.

I started writing this when I worked as a cadre at the schoolhouse that built me into this expert, and I have refined its ideas into the book you’re holding now. Graduation of SERE Specialist Selection and completion of the SERE schoolhouse is about a year-long process and serves to challenge the candidates’ abilities to thrive in some of the most extreme biomes in the world. We do this because a SERE Specialist must deploy to missions abroad, which we primarily support alone or with small teams.

SERE training is challenging enough on its own, but as a representative of the community, we must also learn to demonstrate, teach, and lead effectively. As a young SERE candidate, I was responsible for leading my peers through different training phases. Then, soon after graduating from the pipeline, I led teams of officers and enlisted members—from airmen basics to lieutenant colonels—through a demanding nineteen-day survival course in the mountains of Washington State.

As time passed, I polished my skills, completed the required training, and then deployed to Afghanistan. There, I worked with many military and civilian assets involved in personnel recovery and was the subject matter expert on leading recoveries should things have gone very wrong. We sought to prevent total mission failure alongside military, diplomatic, and civil representatives. And we usually succeeded.

Beyond my work in Afghanistan, I led many courses for the Department of Defense, Department of State, U.S. partners, and allies of our NATO forces involved in personnel recovery abroad. All this work—from leading personnel recovery in conflict zones to educating other government branches on such practices—began at a place tucked inside Fairchild Air Force Base where that schoolhouse lives. Though training can never prepare anyone for all the potential problems, the cadre at the schoolhouse showed me how to adapt quickly, problem-solve with minimal equipment, and think outside the box to solve current or future unexpected complications.

When I took on the cadre role, my teammates and I worked diligently to reshape the organizational culture to thrive. This book is built upon the stories that were the catalyst for that positive change. As leaders, regardless of our position in the military or the civilian sector, the men and women we develop are the tangible outcomes of our work. Our organization’s future depends on how well they internalize and enact the principles we have taught them.

Fundamentally, good leaders must build and maintain their character and demonstrate competence in the skills they claim to have. They must work diligently to develop themselves and those around them into effective ambassadors committed to growth. This may sound grandiose if your leadership role is housed within a call center or a cafeteria instead of a specialized military team. But, to paraphrase a quote from President Teddy Roosevelt, all we can aspire to is a chance to work hard at work worth doing. Any professional path is worthy of your hard work, diligence, and dedication to becoming a better leader. No matter what you’re doing, this book will help you leave a positive impact on those coming after you. And though born from my experience, it is not limited in its application. Use it to help build your team into better leaders who see that what they leave behind matters.

The fourteen lessons in this book elaborate upon a single underlying principle that was the most significant throughout my development as a leader: Invest in the people coming after you.

In the first four chapters, I will detail how you can help your team become more effective and explain some of the methods we used as a cadre to build a stronger community. In chapters five through nine, I will explore the many competing demands you will encounter as a leader and help you identify relevant practices you can implement to find balance when you are in charge. Chapter ten will help you see the value of allowing new leaders to take control. Then, chapters eleven and twelve explain the dangers posed to leaders who overdo correction when their replacements fail. Finally, chapters thirteen and fourteen will discuss the value of leaving something positive behind you. These chapters offer solutions you can use to create future leaders who are not afraid to speak, take ownership, and recognize their own mistakes before they become toxic.

Before beginning, know that you are welcome to skip around to chapters that highlight principles you want to focus more on or to start from the beginning and work your way straight to the end. Either way, I guarantee this book will be helpful to you if you approach it with a willingness to learn.

Each of this book’s chapters concludes with questions for you to consider and answer. I challenge you to wrestle with them. It’s incredible how these topics can liberate you from feeling helpless, sharpen your perspective, and inspire you to address issues that you may need to confront and resolve. As they did for me and my team, these lessons will help reduce confusion and build strong bonds of teamwork between you and the members willing to engage in them.

This book began as a letter to my replacement. My goal was to type up how I helped change the SERE cadre culture, how the lessons in these chapters were used to facilitate that change, and the best way for my replacement to maintain it as he advanced. I wanted to print it out, leave it on my desk for him to find, and be done with it. Two years after beginning to elaborate upon that process and the lessons learned along the way, that original impetus to write a letter to my replacement has finally grown into this book.

If you’re proud of your organization, the following lessons will help you maintain it. And if your team isn’t living up to the quality it’s capable of, this book is a tool to get it on track. You have a chance to leave something behind, something worth building upon, something greater than any individual. It is my honor to help you on your journey.

5 TIPS FOR GROUPS WHEN USING THIS BOOK

This book is meant to be used in a simple format: Read, Write, and Discuss. I recommend that you and your groupmates read the chapters individually and actively reflect on the content by writing notes in the lines beneath the questions. Then get your group together and discuss how you can use some of your ideas to encourage positive change or maintain momentum.

1. Divide the discussions into digestible blocks. Each leadership lesson unpacks some heavy topics, perhaps even our detrimental flaws, so I recommend leaving time between sections. Your team can practice some of the tools you will discuss—self-reflection and generative feedback communication. If your group requires more time to completely unpack a conversation, don’t hesitate to cut the discussion into smaller chunks of any chapter and finish it at a different time. This material challenges you and your team to ask hard questions, so leave room to discuss the answers—and ultimately to act on them.

2. Start with a 30-minute block to introduce this book and work up to a one-hour discussion. Keep it natural. Discussion times will vary between groups. It takes about an hour to get a solid rhythm in the forum and for people to come out of their shells. But after two hours, the conversation tends to drag on. Also, group members should generally be given several days to prepare for the discussion. A lack of notice and preparation will make for more rambling and unproductive group time.

3. Group leaders should be comfortable and familiar with each lesson’s material to speak confidently on the topic. The facilitator of these meetings will need to know the material better than everyone else. This knowledge helps facilitators guide the group back to the subject when they lose track.

4. Vary who in your organization leads each discussion section. Don’t let one person lead the entire facilitation process themselves—even if you’re in charge. Instead, the lead facilitator should maintain oversight of the project but use these discussions to empower others. As discussed throughout this book, leading isn’t