(By Tom Nugent, courtesy of Nebraska Magazine and the Nebraska Alumni Association.)
THE FEARLESS COMMUNICATOR
During more than 15 years as a high-profile communications specialist for the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council, Susan Phalen thrived in pressure-packed jobs that sent her into dangerous combat zones. She completed nine different tours of duty inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified “Green Zone” and two short tours in Afghanistan, and then spent 18 months running communications operations for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
These days, as the communications director for the House Committee on Intelligence, Phalen directs the communications efforts of the House panel that oversees the entire intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government, which includes 17 different U.S. spy agencies.
Ask Phalen if her high-stress job ever scares her, and she’ll cheerfully explain: “Over the years, I’ve discovered that I like doing things that scare me. I also like facing up to difficult challenges – and then finding a way to get the job done.”
SHOW TIME
The back hatch door of the desert sand-colored seven-ton truck swung open, and the young woman in the green-painted combat helmet and the 30-pound Kevlar bullet-proof vest jumped out onto the sidewalk, followed by a group of journalists.
Welcome to Fallujah.
The U.S. Marines in the truck bade her farewell ... and then a moment later she was the sole, unarmed escort of the 18 U.S. and international journalists in her charge. For the next half mile, they were entirely on their own.
Perched behind the wheel of his armored vehicle, the U.S. Marine Corps captain gave her a quick, farewell salute. Another Marine closed the back hatch on the empty truck. A moment later, the steel-plated combat personnel carrier was clattering away into the distance.
Susan Phalen (B.J. ’92) would not be getting any more help from the U.S. military, as she led the group of journalists through the empty streets of Fallujah, a battle-scarred city of 420,000 located about 40 miles west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
On this historic day – Oct. 15, 2005 – Phalen shouldered a grueling responsibility: running a U.S. government public-information operation of historic importance.
This was Election Day, all across the Republic of Iraq ... and Phalen was in charge of coordinating the reporting activities of dozens of newspaper reporters, still photographers and radio and TV journalists from all across the globe, as they watched the story unfold at major polling places all across Iraq. (She’d sent other members of her Baghdad-based public affairs team to cities like Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla and Basrah with their own teams of journalists. But since Fallujah was known as “hell on earth” at that particular moment in time, she was leading that team herself. Her logic was simple, and compelling: she knew she wouldn’t be able to live with it, if she sent another team into “hell” and they wound up taking a hit.)
As the senior adviser for Iraq Communications at the U.S. State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the then-35-year-old former UNL journalism major was responsible for telling the world about that day’s Constitutional Referendum. The voting she was about to observe was part of a nationwide election in which the war-torn country’s newly enfranchised voters would decide the fate of a recently proposed (and hotly debated) new constitution.
For more than 30 million Iraqis, the vote marked a giant step forward on the road to a functioning democracy. It would also provide a major turning point, the Americans hoped, in neutralizing the brutal, two-year-old insurgency that had drenched the shell-shocked nation in blood.
Hurrying along the broad, mostly deserted avenue in Fallujah on that bright October morning six years ago, Phalen could feel the stress building beneath her heavy combat helmet.
“We had been warned by the Marines not to walk together in groups,” she recalled during a interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, “and for a very good reason: the insurgents were much more likely to try to snipe at or attack a clustered group of people than a long, strung-out group walking down the street.
“For that reason, after the Marines dropped all of us off, we stretched out into a long line with lots of space between us and we walked quickly but cautiously to the polling place on our own.”
There was no time to waste. It was about a half mile from the drop-off point to the local elementary school where the voting took place – and the fast-moving Phalen led her group there quickly and without incident.
“It was a very strange feeling,” she later recalled. “You’re walking down the street in your ‘battle rattle’ [military protective gear], and you’re constantly scanning the windows and the alleys of the buildings as you pass by, looking for anything suspicious: snipers, suicide bombers or even children who might serve to warn terrorists up the road that we were coming.
“Yeah, I was frightened. So scared, in fact, that my mouth was like cotton. But I was the team leader. I needed to project confidence. And it was easier to focus on the task at hand, rather than the fear. Pretty soon, you’re so caught up in doing your job that you don’t have time to be scared.”
PURPLE FINGER PARADE REVEALS PASSION FOR VOTING
Once they were inside the elementary school, a media frenzy began. As throngs of Iraqis stood in line to vote, the media clamored for interviews, photos and videotape of the election process.
“What we had in Iraq was an event that we called the ‘Purple Finger Parade,’” said the veteran federal communications guru. “Basically, it came down to watching thousands and thousands of Iraqi citizens line up at the polling booths in order to vote and then dip their right index fingers into a small bottle of bright purple ink.
“The indelible ink was used to prevent people from trying to vote more than once. As the voting took place, it was my job to assist the journalists in getting interviews, videotape and photos – so that they could report this amazing event to the world. And that was a huge responsibility ... because both the White House and the State Department wanted the world to see ordinary Iraqis voting freely that day.”
The message for the outside world needed to be crystal-clear, remembered Phalen. “We didn’t want to create the predictable ‘kinetic war footage’ of U.S. soldiers guarding polling places or patrolling the streets in Humvees,” she recalled.
“Instead, we were determined to let the world see the millions of Iraqis across the country braving the threat of death and lining up to vote – peacefully and happily – in a free, democratic election.”
And that’s exactly what happened.
As the Purple Finger Parade continued, Phalen watched smiling Iraqis dip their index fingers in the purple ink and then hold their ink-stained fingers up to proudly show the media and the world.
“It was so inspiring,” she recalled. “Heck, in America we don’t vote if it’s raining outside, but in Iraq – under the threat of death from terrorists – millions of people showed up all across the country and voted.
“Fortunately, the voting proceeded without a hitch in most locations and we did manage to help generate the kind of images and stories we had hoped for. The new Iraqi constitution was overwhelmingly approved – and we were pretty successful at conveying the meaning of that. And in a very real way, I think that was a significant contribution to the war effort in Iraq.”
No doubt. But how scary was it to spend an entire day working in a type of setting that Iraqi insurgents had vowed to attack with suicide bombers?
“It was a bit unsettling at first,” said Phalen. “But during those nine tours of duty inside the Green Zone, I learned that if you focus on your fear, you won’t be very effective on your job. When you’re in a war zone, you know the worst could happen at any time. On the other hand, you could fall off a curb in downtown Washington and get hit by a bus.
“I guess I decided a long time ago that if something like that happens, then it’s your time to go. But I’ve always believed that life should be about living, and enjoying the excitement and trying to meet the challenges.
“That’s why I ran with the bulls at Pamplona a few years ago ... and it’s why I just came back from a vacation in Tanzania – where I climbed all the way to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro!”
FAILING CALCULUS…AND FLIPPING BURGERS AT BIG AL’S
The daughter of an Air Force officer originally from Omaha and a homemaker originally from Lincoln (they met at UNL), Susan Phalen grew up as a self-described “Air Force Brat” who lived in half a dozen different states before deciding to return to her Lincoln roots for college.
After arriving on the UNL campus back in the fall of 1987, Phalen made a quick decision: She did not want to live with her older sister Kathy (B.A. ’91). No, Susan wanted “freedom from family constraints.” She wanted independence ... and so instead of moving in with Sis, she requested placement in a freshman dorm and soon found herself stationed on the sixth floor of Sandoz Hall.
What followed was a rather rocky and unsettling introduction to college life. “My wakeup call was calculus,” she said with a wince of remembered pain. “Until I got to UNL, I’d always felt like I was great in math. But that class was at 8:30 in the morning, five days a week. I missed more classes than I attended ... and when I did manage to show up, I had no idea what they were talking about.”
Not terribly surprised by the “F” she received in CALC 101, Phalen struggled in other classes, too. “After that first year,” she said with a sly grin, “I was invited to not come back.
“Let’s face it, I wasn’t such a great student,” she said. “I wound up flipping burgers at Big Al’s fast-food joint in the Springfield Mall in Alexandria, Va. I did that for six months, and it wasn’t much fun, let me tell you. I gained a lot of weight and I really felt miserable.
“And then one day, I suddenly realized: If I don’t get my act together, I’ll be flipping burgers for the rest of my life.”
Newly motivated and determined to succeed academically, Phalen returned to campus and promptly found her calling in journalism ... where she discovered that she loved interviewing people and then “editing the tapes down” into vivid, fast-moving radio programs with enough oomph to keep listeners glued to the airwaves.
Her next move was pure Susan Phalen – a gutsy decision (made while visiting a friend on the island of Guam, soon after her UNL graduation) to walk into a radio station and apply for a job as a radio talk show producer, sight unseen.
The president of the station was so impressed by Phalen’s nerve that he hired her on the spot, and she spent the next 18 months producing an afternoon political talk show and then eventually working in the newsroom interviewing island residents and writing and reporting news stories.
HER DREAM VACATION: CLIMBING MT. KILIMANJARO
After a year and a half of radio reporting, the upwardly mobile Phalen decided it was time to make her move on Washington. As good fortune would have it, her mother and father were already living in the D.C. area by then. “I was 25 years old and living in my parents’ basement,” she recalled. “But I wasn’t worried, because I knew in a city like D.C., something interesting would eventually pop up.
“I hit the bricks hard, looking for journalism or public relations work around Capitol Hill ... and it wasn’t long before I landed a job at the Republican National Committee, where I spent the next couple of years producing GOP sound bites for radio stations all around the country.”
What followed the Republican radio stint was a meteoric rise as an inside-the-beltway wordsmith who specialized in political PR. By the late-1990s, Phalen was riding high in the saddle as the press secretary for Rep. Henry Bonilla of Texas. She put in several years of working the daily grind of press releases and political receptions on the Hill, then moved on to the State Department – where she quickly established herself as a savvy PR-meister who knew how to properly spin stories in order to put Uncle Sam in the best possible international light.
Sandwiched around a brief interlude during which she worked in the press office of George W. Bush’s 2000 election campaign, Phalen’s State Department career soon made her a familiar figure among reporters who were covering the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
During her nine different tours in Baghdad’s Green Zone, Phalen organized hundreds of media tours intended to “show the world the progress being made in Iraq” in Day-Glo-bright colors. The tours also emphasized many of the “real positives” (such as building schools and health clinics) that flowed from the invasion of 2003.
An acknowledged Washington PR pro, the 41-year-old Phalen seems ideally suited for her current role as the mouthpiece for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Said Mike Rogers, the veteran Michigan Republican congressman who now chairs the hugely influential Committee and the 20 House members who serve on it: “I think we’re very fortunate to have Susan Phalen on staff, because she’s a seasoned professional whose background includes a powerful mix of conflict zone, national security and Hill [congressional] experience.
“Susan spent seven years at the Department of State and during three of those years she was the senior adviser for Iraq communications. She was also instrumental in drafting and implementing the State Department’s strategic communications plans for the three national-level elections that took place in Iraq in 2005. That track record speaks for itself, and it’s a good indication of just how effective she is as a communicator who knows how to shape clear, compelling messages for the people we serve each day.”
Intelligence Committee Chief of Staff Michael Allen added: “Susan is enthusiastic and diligent and exceedingly competent. She’s also quite witty, with a delightfully deadpan sense of humor – and so it’s a lot of fun to have her around an office that most of the time has to deal with some very serious matters.”
Now at the top of her game as a battle-hardened Capitol Hill communicator, Phalen pointed out that she’s “having more fun than ever” on a job she truly loves.
During one recent Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill – after she spoke to a reporter about the unclassified portions of an intelligence issue – Phalen took time out to wolf down a tuna fish sandwich and talk about her remarkable life in Washington.
Still single at age 41, she sat at a small table in the U.S. Capitol Building’s basement cafeteria and talked about how she handles the daily pressure in the looking-glass world of Washington politics.
“I think what helps me keep my feet on the ground is knowing that this job isn’t about me,” she said at one point. “Really, it’s not about Susan Phalen, and it’s not about what I want or who I am.
“It’s my responsibility to work those things out, you know? And for me, understanding that fact is the key to avoiding getting a ‘big head’ about my job. On a typical day, I might be talking to [NBC news correspondent] Andrea Mitchell or Wolf Blitzer [CNN’s Situation Room anchor] about issues related to the Intelligence Committee. But if I start thinking I’m somehow special because of that, then I’ve lost my perspective and I’m not going to be able to do my job well.
“I do think that’s a hazard you face in Washington – the danger that you’ll start taking yourself too seriously. I take the job seriously, that’s for sure, but not myself. And I also understand that someone else could just as easily be doing this job ... and eventually someone else will be.”
For the cheerfully upbeat Phalen, meeting the professional challenges of daily life on the Hill is part of a philosophy of life that insists on “grabbing all the gusto” you can get – and not tomorrow, but right now.
“I just came back from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro a couple of weeks ago,” said the fearless communicator, when asked to describe a recent challenge and how she went about handling it.
“It was 19,335 feet from the bottom to the top,” she added with a chuckle of pure delight, “and there was no way I wasn’t gonna make it to the summit!”
SHE RAN WITH THE BULLS…TWICE!
Susan Phalen was 29 years old on that hot summer afternoon in 1999 . . . and she was scared witless.
The location was Pamplona, Spain.
The event was … the Running of the Bulls!
“When the bulls were released and the crowd took off running, it scared the crap out of me,” Phalen said.
“I started running down these narrow streets, and it was truly terrifying. Actually, I wasn’t really frightened of the bulls – it was the frenzy of the crowd that shook me.
“The chaos … the screaming … the panicked shoving … everybody’s running for their life and the adrenalin is just unbelievable. You can see the wildness in their eyes, and the fear, and I didn’t expect that.
“To be honest, I got spooked and I jumped out of the run before we got to the bullring [at the end of the 903-yard scramble through downtown Pamplona]. I was relieved that I hadn’t been injured, of course, but I hadn’t even seen a bull during the event, and I really wasn’t satisfied.”
After traveling all the way from Washington, D.C., to Spain to participate in the week-long, century-old festival at Pamplona, Phalen felt that she had let herself down by “jumping out” of the run early.
And her response?
The next morning at 8 a.m. sharp, she was back at the starting line … and ready to join the mob for the second-day running of the snorting, fire-breathing behemoths.
Ignoring the risks involved (15 people have been killed during the annual event since it started back in 1910, and 200-300 are injured every year, mostly from falls) … the adventure-loving Phalen took off with the howling throng and this time made it all the way to the bullring.
“This time I did see bulls,” recalled the Capitol Hill communications guru. “As a matter of fact, I came very close to one bull who’d ripped somebody’s pants off – and he had a pant-leg hanging off one horn!
“I ran right next to him for a few seconds, and there was tons of adrenalin.”
Although she was pleased with herself for completing the run, Phalen said she still regrets the anxiety she inflicted on her “poor mother” during her Pamplona adventure.
“When I called her after the first run, she was so relieved to hear I was safe that she started crying,” Phalen said.
“The poor thing had been so worried that I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was planning to run it again … but now she knows.”