Retirement Award

Narrative Accompanying Award

When the 9-11 attacks of 2001 occurred then Army Reserve LTC Martin was commanding his second battalion (372nd Petroleum Quartermaster) having previously completed successful command time with the 3rd of the 95th Signal Battalion. His sudden assignment to this second command was to bring it back into Army standards. With intense work this battalion was turned into a combat ready asset. Discipline was re-instilled, equipment inventories had been completed for the first time in five years, personnel strength and MOS qualification greatly improved, Soldiers were being paid on time, vehicle maintenance was back on track, officers and NCOs were being held accountable for their misbehavior, and administrative requirements such as evaluations were brought up to date from a previous two year lag. The Soldiers of the command were already aware that LTC Martin had played a pivotal role in the "Army Values" and "Consideration of Others" reforms that had already improved the entire Army. Now they experienced the implementation of those reforms at the unit level. After eighteen months in this command, in January of 2002 LTC Martin was suddenly assigned as interim commander of the 647th Area Support Group. His marching orders were the same as with the 372nd - fix it. Responsible for 15 units spread over New Mexico and western Texas, LTC Martin's never ending and mostly uncompensated work again resulted in increased retention rates, individual accountability, improved equipment readiness, and command-wide fulfillment of administrative requirements. As both battalion and group commander, LTC Martin established the requirement for quarterly field exercises which became his best readiness and personnel retention tools.

Concurrently with those command years, while working with a well-known military writer, LTC Martin wrote his own "Lessons of the Ages" series or leadership articles. Published through numerous forums, his articles include: "Soldier's Load Revisited" and "Sergeant Hull" (both with former Sergeant Major of the Army Wooldridge), The Harder Right" (with former Sergeant Major of the Army Gates), "True Success of Authority," "Buffalo Soldiers of the Southwest," "Patton," "Concord Hymn Revisited," and a score of others.

In January of 2003, now COL Martin accepted what would become a long series of active duty tours. These tours would eventually call upon all his experience gained through a variety of military and civilian positions: 117 months of command time, 2 years as a county corrections and confinement supervisor, 5 years on a Department of Energy (DOE) Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team, 7 years managing an Operations Security (OPSEC) program for a nuclear weapons laboratory, and over 2 years as Chief of Protective Force Operations at the same laboratory. Combined and independently at various times, these experiences served him well and had a most positive affect both in the Pentagon and Iraq.

For the first 8 months of 2003, COL Martin was assigned to HQDA Operations Center conducting force protection assessments of Army bases and major commands. As OIC in charge of five separate assessment teams, he worked closely with the military installations to identify security requirements and best practices. Having also identified a serious shortfall in the Army's OPSEC program, COL Martin developed a comprehensive corrective action program. Meanwhile, COL Martin served as back-up team chief for the Army Operations Center/Crisis Action Team (AOC/CAT). In this role, COL Martin developed and introduced map tracking of attacks and developed a spreadsheet that provided complete summary of the day's attacks. These information tools became part of the daily balcony brief and 5x8 summaries to senior Army leadership.

In September of 2003, COL Martin deployed to Iraq where he served as the Antiterrorism/Force Protection Officer for Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7). He conducted Iraq wide physical security inspections, implemented the Vulnerability Assessment Process, introduced state-of-the-art technologies, and designed the badging program based on DOE standards. At base entry points he employed X-Ray machines, explosive detectors, and robots to search under vehicle carriages. COL Martin coordinated the site visits and tracked the corrective actions of concerns discovered by DOD's Joint Security Integrated Vulnerability Assessment (JSIVA) and CENTCOM's Joint Security Directorate (JSD) teams.

Always determined to operate outside the base perimeter, COL Martin conducted on-site security evaluations or ordnance sites, civilian police stations, and government installations. Because of his long-term experience in nuclear and radiological security, COL Martin was selected by the CJTF-7 Commander to conduct a 15-6 investigation of stolen (and later recovered) Cobalt 60 sources in Al Anbar province. During this investigation, he realized why it was able to happen. Even before completing the report, he travelled at Al Tuwaitha and identified even worse problems at that site. Without waiting for guidance or direction from his seniors, COL Martin forced a series of enhancements that prevented easy access to over one thousand units of Cobalt 60. As a result, a massive amount of dirty bomb material was prevented from falling into adversarial hands. Later his findings in the pending Baghdad Security Exposition Fair resulted in Ambassador Bremer cancelling that event where scores of others were destined to be killed. Determining that the Baghdad hosted doctors' convention was going to be attacked, COL Martin moved the event into the Green Zone. After the convention started (which was attended by over 250 Iraqi doctors), a powerful pre-planted bomb was discovered at the original location. As an additional duty COL Martin was the CJTF-7's representative in dealing with all United Nations activities. This included ambassador travel, support of working teams, and security assessments. When confusion arose on how to distribute election related materials, COL Martin took charge and deployed his own staff to deliver the sealed cases throughout Iraq.

When it was learned that the Ashura celebrations at the Inman Ali Mosque in Najaf were being targeted, and specifically the moderate Shia Grand Ayatollah Sistani, COL Martin was dispatched to prevent Al Qaeda success. Working closely with the city police, shrine police, Hondurans, and El Salvadorians, he developed a layered security system that prevented suicide bomber (either vehicle or foot) access. Had the moderate Al Sistani been killed Iraq would have been primed for a civil war. Instead, a month later, a still-living Sistani physically slapped Moqtada al-Sadr into ending his militia control of Najaf.

In November of 2004 COL Martin was once again on active duty serving at the Pentagon as an AOC/CAT Chief. He brought with him the front line combat experience and perspective that was lacking within the Crisis Action Teams. On his own initiative he took on the additional duty of helping to improve the Army's OPSEC program. During his off-duty time he worked with the Information Operations (IO) section rewriting the OPSEC regulation.

In December of 2005, accepting a by-name request, COL Martin returned to Iraq as the J3 of Task Force 134, Detention Operations. Recognizing concerns existed with detention procedures, he worked with his commander and implemented as series of reforms which enhanced security. He also stopped actions that were in violation of the Geneva Convention starting with the removing of high threat detainees from permanent isolation and instead placed them in limited populations. To determine if foreign nationals in detention were really foreign fighters, COL Martin personally reviewed every file of each person in this classification. He was able to determine almost a hundred detainees were long-term residents of Iraq with families and businesses. These legitimate foreign nationals were immediately processed for release. COL Martin charted the entire release process and was able to cut out the unnecessary steps. He employed automatic money counting machines in the detainee receiving area. This resulted in fast and accurate counting and the identification/rejecting of counterfeit U.S. currency. To inhibit the Shia death squads from easily identifying released Sunni detainees, COL Martin stopped the issuing of the clean and new white dishdashers and instead had pants and shirts provided. COL Martin brought to an end the procedure of sending convicted members of Al Qaeda's Mosul Terror Cell to Baddush (Mosul) where they were running the prison and having the Court of Cessation releasing them from custody. While organizing these reforms, COL Martin was able to develop and train his own staff while operating at 30% authorized strength of a JMD based upon 5,600 detainees in custody. TF 134 had 14,700 detainees.

In June of 2006 COL Martin was tasked to take command of Forward Operating Base - Ashraf. On this base of 1,100 service-members were forces of the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines Corps, Bulgarians, and Moldovians. Also on the base were 3,500 members of the Peoples Mojahedin of Iran - a State Department declared terrorist organization that the Coalition inherited responsibility for with the defeat of Saddam. Two major subtasks for Colonel Martin were to build enlisted trust towards the U.S. Officer Corps and overcome the deteriorating situation with the Mojahedin. Trust with the subordinate commands was achieved, supported by COL Martin sharing the danger in going on long range foots patrols with the Soldiers and Marines. Concerning the Mojahedin, COL Martin spent time in all their compounds, met with hundreds of their members, worked through misunderstandings and was able to provide a thorough summary of Mojahedin history from the beginning of the organization. Working with the Mojahedin, Colonel Martin directly interfaced with local, but disenchanted, Al Qaeda membership. The result of this work further resulted in turning Al Qaeda members into intelligence resources.

In December of 2006, COL Martin returned to the Pentagon, this time serving as Chief of the Information Operations Division. He aggressively worked to bring the entire Army IO community together as one unified team focusing efforts on improving and developing initiatives in support of the warfighter. COL Martin identified the need and took on the mission of developing a cyber warrior recruitment program. This program showed the way ahead for bringing together the efforts of civilian academia, Recruiting Command, Cadet Command, and the Signal Corps and Military Intelligence training schools. COL Martin's work in this area resulted in him being tasked as the Office of Secretary of Defense's (OSD) IO lead of a cyber warrior recruitment and retention panel. Once again, two years ahead of his peers, COL Martin showed the way for cyber warrior recruitment and retention. Under his direction the revised OPSEC regulation was published, OPSEC involvement in computer security was initiated, and he created the OPSEC Project Development Skill Identifier (PDSI) for formally trained professionals.

In December of 2008, COL Martin arrived at USFK to serve as IO Chief. He successfully fused together the effort of Computer Network Operations (CNO), OPSEC, Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Electronic Warfare, and Military Deception. COL Martin created the Information Assurance/Computer Network Defense (IA/CND) Flag Officer Oversight Committee Charter (FLOC) and is the pivotal force behind this program bringing together the entire US Forces Korea CNO community under Flag Officer oversight. This FLOC process is now being touted by the J3 of the U.S. Joint Staff as the example for other U.S. Commands around the world to emulate. As the USFK military lead for Cyber Pilot Test program, COL Martin is now developing the template for COCOM/Cyber Command integration.