Stephanie Rotolo joins us to talk about her path from Mortuary Affairs and MP work to joining the Cultural Support Team program and deploying to Afghanistan with Special Operations Forces. She breaks down CST selection, working with Afghan female tactical platoons, going out on missions with ODAs, and how those experiences shaped her later work in Civil Affairs across West Africa.
Find Stephanie here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-r-d-rotolo-1b01641a6?trk=public_post_feed-actor-name
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"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"
00:00 Start
01:43 Stephanie’s origin story and path to the Army
07:20 Mortuary Affairs and working at Dover
12:53 ROTC, commissioning, and becoming an MP
17:04 MP life in Germany and barracks chaos
25:31 Discovering the Cultural Support Team program
28:14 CST selection and Ranger-led training
33:08 Cultural training and preparing for Afghanistan
38:11 Training Afghanistan’s Female Tactical Platoon
48:00 Operations with ODAs, Rangers, and JSOC
58:00 Coming home, reintegration, and CST program gaps
1:04:36 Smokey the deployment dog
1:12:10 Switching to Civil Affairs and language school
1:15:18 West Africa missions in Senegal and Benin
1:26:30 Naples, the reserves, Altru, and final reflections
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