One of the U.S. Army’s most prestigious leadership awards for junior officers was bestowed upon an officer from the 353rd Civil Affairs Command last month. Capt. Luke Neal, a Civil Affairs officer living in New York, and an 11-year civilian employee of the Federal Reserve System, received the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award on July 11, 2024, in recognition of the partnerships he forged between the U.S. Army and various other entities.

Each year since 1987, Gen. Douglas MacArthur Leadership Awards are presented to captains who demonstrate superior commitment to duty, honor and country – the most esteemed values of the award’s name-sake: Duty, honor and country. Famed World War II leader Gen. Douglas MacArthur attended the United States Military Academy, the motto of which is “Duty, Honor, Country.” He championed that motto throughout his career and aspired to instill the same ethos in the officers that followed him in the profession of arms.

In submitting Neal for the award, Neal’s battalion commander cited many accomplishments, but focused on successes in creating partnerships. Fostering civil-military cooperation programs is critical to the mission of Army Civil Affairs soldiers. To that end, Neal oversaw the establishment of Army partnerships with the U.S. Federal Reserve and various Bulgarian military and civil organizations, to include the Bulgarian Land Forces Military Academy in 2023 and 2024.

According to the award nomination, “[Capt.] Neal has the natural ability to relate to a broad array of people, from his Soldiers, to other Army Leaders, to both foreign and domestic civilian leaders. This has been demonstrated by both his deployment to Eastern Europe and through his career as a Military Government Officer and Military Police Officer.”

In his civilian job, Neal is a bank examiner and credit risk specialist for the U.S. Federal Reserve. He is responsible for determining risk ratings for banks and for evaluating the effectiveness of bank risk management. He is simultaneously an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He began his military career as a military police officer, but later transitioned to the Civil Affairs branch as a 38G Military Government Officer with a specialty in economics and later a 38A civil affairs officer. Neal is now with the 353rd CACOM assigned to the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion in Belton, Missouri.

Civil affairs Soldiers, such as Neal, are experts in complex socio-political issues that affect the military. They contribute to global stability by advising U.S. leaders, as well as foreign nations, on nuanced topics such as economics, infrastructure development, court administration and public education systems.

“My military and civilian careers are more intwined than I ever would have thought,” said Neal. “A lot of that had to do with my mobilization to Guantanamo. While I was there, I did a lot of networking and learned about Military Government Officers and the Civil Affairs branch, which I believed would allow me to combine skills I have developed in my civilian career with my military responsibilities.”

Neal submitted an application packet during his mobilization and was accepted into the Military Government Officer program in 2018. Soon after becoming a Military Government Officer, he attended the civil affairs captain’s career course and gained additional qualification as a Civil Affairs officer.

He obtained his initial officer’s commission through Officer Candidate School in 2015. Since then, Neal has performed missions in the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Eastern Europe. He achieved all of that as a traditional reservist, meaning he served in the military part-time, while maintaining his civilian job in New York.

Indeed, Neal was able to leverage his 11 years with the Federal Reserve and decade with the Army to establish a partnership between the two organizations that improves the ability of the U.S. Army to conduct the whole-of-government operations. And he did not stop there.

“In Bulgaria, one of the partnerships that had the most positive impact for the Vth Corps mission was the relationship we set up with the Bulgarian Military Academy, and our work with the Bulgarian CIMIC [Civil-Military Cooperation – essentially the NATO version of Civil Affairs],” said Neal. “We could sell the CIMIC/Civil Affairs mission to the up-and-coming maneuver officers in the Bulgarian Army and increase Bulgarian inter-service interoperability along with US/Bulgarian military interoperability. Additionally, our team in Bulgaria was a huge force multiplier because Bulgaria only has about a company of CIMIC soldiers. Since it was smaller, we were able to provide a lot of value. We were able to help them in a meaningful way.”

While in Bulgaria, Neal enjoyed seeing the country and learning abouts its culture, but he also assisted his Bulgarian CIMIC partners in obtaining NATO deployment qualification, enhancing US-Bulgarian military interoperability, and developing the civil common operating picture for Vth Corps.

“Capt. Neal epitomizes the professionalism and dedication to duty that is emblematic of the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award,” said Lt. Col. Eric Anderson, who is Neal’s battalion commander and responsible for the MacArthur Award nomination. “In his young career, he has already had an out-sized impact on every organization and mission to which he has been assigned. It is rare to find company grade officers who possess the maturity, competence, and leadership ability to excel in the way Luke has, even at the strategic level. We are lucky to have him on our team.”

The 353rd CACOM is a Civil Affairs unit assigned to U.S. Army Special Operations Command. It is principally comprised of senior soldiers and officers with particular expertise in a broad range of skills in civil-military matters used for furthering global stability. For more information, visit https://www.usar.army.mil/USACAPOC/353rdCACOM/.