John Stufflebeem: Who Am I and Why Am I Here?

Answer to Question #1 - I am John Stufflebeem, a retired military officer with a lifetime of military experience in successfully dealing with adversity, both personal and professional, that I want to share with others.

Answer to Question #2 - I have learned from some smart people that nearly everyone is communicating today more prevalently via social media so I am giving it a try (on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter). I would enjoy your feedback, as well as your questions, after you have read this or anything I write on this blog in the future.

Opportunity Through Adversity


Through dealing with and conquering adversity, I have learned that instead of viewing challenges as setbacks and difficulties, they are doors to opportunity. While adversity raises fear, doubts, anxiety and in the worst condition—panic, they do in fact make us stronger as we work towards solutions.  In my experiences, which included life and death while going into combat, the reality of the aphorism “what does not kill me, makes me stronger” [-Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888] is accurate.

Now that I am retired from the military and am a business consultant, I also know what I learned from these experiences are equally as applicable in business and life as they are in combat. So, I am now in the blogosphere to offer insights into what I have learned with the intent that these lessons can help others achieve success...even in the worst of professional or personal challenges.

The first thing to know is that adversity can be turned into opportunity—I know this firsthand as fact. As a career fighter pilot flying F-14 Tomcats on and off aircraft carriers, I was able to turn the first flight of Operation Deny Flight over the Balkans in 1993 into a positive example for my squadron pilots to carry on in combat during horrendous weather. My flight was the first of the combat operation launching into the night, in bad weather, which became our sanctuary. But coming back to land hours later with a hurt bird, having severe vertigo due to lack of visual references, and a carrier pitching in heavy seas under a a large thunderstorm system almost ended in tragedy for me—it did for another crew that was lost attempting to land.

But I overcame the panic and fear of this environment and proved to my leadership and my subordinates that we could fly and execute the United Nations mandate over Bosnia Herzegovina—we turned foul weather nights into our sanctuary to prevail over hostile forces.

I saw this again following the attacks of 9/11 when I was a planner on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon. After we were hit, we ran around the clock planning what became known as Operation Enduring Freedom.  During the early days of this operation in 2001, I became the reluctant operations briefer at the Pentagon to a hungry press corps and without any forewarning, training or preparation. Seven months later I left this post to return to operations as a commander but having been a spokesman to the world telling part of the story of what was happening in Afghanistan.

From this difficult experience I became a confident and competent leader able to address the most senior of managers, international media, and large audiences on the most difficult topics and be convincing, forthright and accepted. It is a skill I excel in today.

In 2003, I was the commander of Task Force 60, a combined force of two aircraft carrier strike groups plus the largest assembly of ships in the Mediterranean Sea since World War II.  From our perch in the northeastern end of the Mediterranean, we launched sorties to Baghdad in the kick off of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  But more importantly, we quickly developed our support to less than 2,000 Special Forces to take on more than 80,000 Iraqi forces north of Baghdad where WE WON without losing a single soldier. This was an immense operation that was developed and executed in just days. Talk about a confidence builder!

Again in 2005, when I was a commander in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I was sent to Islamabad, Pakistan in the fall following a devastating earthquake in the Himalayan Mountains. With only a team of five, I had to develop plans to bring in medical and engineering support to assist more than 267,000 people at a distance NATO had never operated beyond and in an environment NATO had never operated in before.  I had to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a suspicious Muslim populace, among Taliban opponents, and leave the area with a good reputation for NATO.  We did it.

In 2006 I was sent to assist the evacuation of thousands of Americans stranded in Lebanon under the surprise fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli Defense Forces plus reinforce the American Embassy—the same one bombed in 1983—and if overrun, get all the personnel out safely (under fire). We succeeded.

In 2007, I was sent to West-Central Africa to nations that had only land armies and no navies or coast guards, to develop schemes of maritime security and safety. These waters were lawless where illegal oil bunkering, human trafficking, immigration, elements of terrorism and piracy was effecting Europe and portended to affect security of the U.S. [much of transshipped containers enter U.S. ports from developing African ports in this part of the world].

From these experiences and years worth more, I have learned how to deal with crises with little to no advance notice, little guidance, few resources, and...DELIVERED because I was required to-successful outcomes.

I turned challenges into opportunities and I know how to do it for others which I will detail in forthcoming articles.  Stay tuned, my friends...