Richard Knerr died this week. He was 82. He and a childhood friend, Arthur Melin, formed the Wham-o company, and the result was a 50 year toy company which brought us some of the most significant cultural icons of our youth, (Well, maybe my youth. You young whippersnappers might not know what the hula hoop was.)
Wham-o also produced the killer toys called Frisbees, the Super-ball, and something called Slip-n-Slide. But one of their best toys was a silly little bit of frippery called Silly String. There’s no really good way to describe Silly String. It is asshattery in a can. Mothers all over the US were frantically happy that it’s easy to pick up off tables, lamps, coat racks, shelf units, fish tanks and even cocker spaniels.
There is a military use for Silly String: spray it across a suspect area, or in a room, and it hangs up on tripwires. Several ladies across the nation have campaigned for donations to ship the stuff where it was needed, as featured in this CBS TV report.
The campaign seemed to have been a big hit with folks at home.
And it has been appreciated by the REMF troops, too.
The US Army has a parameter called “deployable strength.” This figure seems to be the nominal, optimal strength of a unit as reflected on what used to be named its DA-1, the unit Morning Report. The Morning Report listed the total strength of a company-sized unit, including all personnel assigned or attached for rations and administrative support and UCMJ, and personnel on leave, in hospital or medical hold, and detached for duty elsewhere. It told a higher headquarters just who was available. The Morning Report was phased out in 1978, replaced by a more efficient electronic gizmo, but the reporting goes on. “Present For Duty” is “Deployable Strength.”
Soldiers who were medically unfit or considered borderline have been sent to the Middle East to meet Army goals for “deployable strength,” The Denver Post reported Thursday.
Quoting internal Army e-mails and a Fort Carson soldier, the newspaper said that more than 50 troops were deployed to Kuwait en route to Iraq while they were still getting medical treatment for various conditions. At least two have been sent home.
Capt. Scot Tebo, the surgeon for Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, wrote in an e-mail obtained by the newspaper that “We have been having issues reaching deployable strength, and thus have been taking along some borderline soldiers who we would otherwise have left behind for continued treatment.”
Because every uniformed bureaucrat knows the legend is more important than the fact, and soldiers with crippling injuries will miraculously be cured when landed in a combat zone. After all as Mr Bu$h’s neocon advisors keep insisting, it’s all a matter of the will. Apparently that famous Jewish carpenter isn’t the only man who has ever been able to heal a sick man and will him to rise from his bed.
Master Sgt. Denny Nelson said he was sent to Kuwait last month despite a severe foot injury. He was sent back to Fort Carson after a military doctor in Kuwait wrote that he never should have been shipped out.
Maj. Harvinder Singh, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s rear detachment commander, said he did not believe medically unfit soldiers have been sent to Iraq. He said soldiers with medical problems are deployed only if they can be assigned to light-duty jobs and if medical services are available at their destinations.
Fort Carson spokeswoman Dee McNutt said she knew of no Army policy defining “deployable strength” levels that Army commanders must meet.
Singh said commanders have goals, “but there is no repercussion if you don’t hit that goal.”
Uh huh. I see. A commander is not criticized if he doesn’t meet his goals, and it will never affect his promotion chances.
Certainly.
MSG Nelson mentioned above, injured himself while playing on his daughter’s trampoline, circumstances that the Army used to consider in “line of duty” and before the Army’s desperate push to fulfill the demands of Mr Bu$h’s ego and the greed of Mr Cheney’s friends, MSG Nelson would have been left home to fully recuperate, and to follow on when fully recovered.
Now they’re shipping bodies that breathe once in a while to Iraq.
He said he was sent to Kuwait last month even though Fort Carson doctors ordered that he not run, jump or carry more than 20 pounds for three months.
Nelson said two other soldiers were deployed with torn rotator cuffs, another was deployed even though he was taking morphine for nerve damage and another had mental health issues.
Nelson said the soldier with nerve damage was sent home after medical staff at a clinic in Iraq turned down his request for more pain medication.
Nelson said that while he was in Kuwait he was told by superiors he would be in charge of 52 soldiers who were receiving medical treatment.
“I expected to find a whole bunch of people, but when I got there, they were all gone. They were already all in Iraq,” Nelson said.
By the way, MSG Nelson did not continue on to Iraq.
Nelson said he feared he would be a liability to fellow soldiers because of his inability to carry full combat gear.
“I’m not going to Iraq not being able to wear any of my gear, not carry a weapon,” he said. “I become a liability to everybody around me because if they get mortared, they’re going to have to look out for me because obviously, I can’t run. I can’t look out for myself. Now I’ve got soldiers worrying about my welfare, instead of their own.”
A doctor in Kuwait – an officer actually paid to think - sent his ass (and damaged leg) back to CONUS, and sent a rather unhappy email back to the authorities at Ft Carson.
Nelson was sent back to the U.S. after a physician in Kuwait, Maj. Thomas Schymanski, sent Fort Carson officials an e-mail saying, “This soldier should NOT have even left [the continental United States] ... In his current state, he is not full mission capable and in his current condition is a risk to further injury to himself, others and his unit.”
I couldn’t speculate how The Denver Post got the copy of the email, but I’ll bet that receives a lot more attention than investigating why the Army is shipping troops to the sandbox who are not fit for duty. And then they have to be sent home, costing the US taxpayer two unnecessary plane tickets.
While discussing the V-22 Osprey in the past I noted that it’s a bit light in the self-defense department.
The machine itself is a big step forward for the Corps and I know we’re all rooting for it to deliver the snuffies somewhere near the crash and clangor of battle – but not too close, since they only carry one .30 machine gun for defensive fire, and the rear ramp has to be lowered to use it. [emph added]
The immediate image I had was the mandatory requirement to land four of these babies at a time, nose in, with their rear ramps facing out in order to provide some fire suppression. This was not a happy picture. It seems some other people had the same stomach griping I did.
Air Force and Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys may get a turret-mounted machine gun, fulfilling a long-sought requirement for a forward-firing defensive weapon and making it unique among today’s U.S. transport aircraft.
…
A nose gun was considered early in the tilt-rotor’s two-decade gestation but was branded too costly, Air Force requirements officials said.
The fiscal 2008 supplemental request includes $82 million for research, development and testing of an “all-quadrant,” or 360-degree, defensive weapon to augment the ramp-mounted 7.62mm machine gun the Marines use for now.
Navy program spokesman James Darcy said there is no timetable for finding such a gun, and the search will be bound by finances and the plodding acquisition process.
“SOCom is looking at a faster turnaround,” Darcy said. “But Air Force Special Operations Command is flying a different mission than the Marine Corps.”
I suppose that SOCOM feels that, unlike the Marine Corps, they are sent into areas where they’re not welcome. Imagine that: the Marines not having opposed landings.
There are 10 Marine Ospreys in Iraq right now, and they’re hauling troops and trash (supplies) around on logistical missions, although I have heard reports that the biggest use of Ospreys has been to haul around VIPs rather than supplies or troops. As I said, “trash.”
SOCOM put out requests for program solutions last September seeking an “all-quadrant” defensive weapon system to be ready within 120 days of contract signing.
But for the most part, those requirements are intentionally vague, he said, leaving the door open for industry to be as innovative as possible. It is not even specified whether the system should be fully integrated into the aircraft in the future or if a drop-in solution is the best plan.
“There are advantages and disadvantages to total, permanent integration,” said Air Force Maj. Rob Pittman of the Air Force acquisition office. “The quick-and-dirty solution that gets the job done might be the answer.”
One contractor, BAE Systems, has started design work already on such a system.
[…] BAE Systems has been spending its own money to develop the Remote Guardian System, a turreted, remote-operated, retractable weapon that could be fielded in the third quarter of 2008 and fitted aboard the V-22 and other aircraft, said Clark B. Freise, vice president and general manager of defense avionics for BAE.
“We’ve been investing for two years and created our own program to develop the capability,” Freise said.
While Freise would not say how much BAE has spent or how much it would charge per weapon, he did say the price would be low enough to appeal to the Pentagon and high enough to recoup its investment.
“We spent a lot of money on it,” he said. “We found a hole in their protection, we’re covering it for now, and we’ll get it back. We’d rather not say how much we’ve invested. We have shared with the Marine Corps what we think it will cost to go into production, and it is significantly lower than other solutions.”
Before the Marine Corps gets too deeply invested in new technology (and BAE'$ $olution will be an inve$tment) it might be wise to point out that the Army feels it has already recognized and resolved this problem.
The U.S. Army plans to outfit thousands more vehicles with Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS), which allow gunners to fire on targets from the safety of armored crew compartments.
In August, Army officials intend to choose one firm from among several competitors to receive a contract for 1,500 CROWS stations. In total, the contract could grow to as many as 6,500 CROWS, Army officials said.
“The Army is looking at the CROWS system for the up-armored Humvee, Fox [reconnaissance vehicle], RG-31 [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and the Abrams [tank], so right now the Army is trying to finalize the basis of issue regarding how many CROWS to order and who gets them,” said Richard Audette, deputy project manager for soldier weapons at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.
It takes one week to train soldiers.
Now, I know I get active duty readers from the Corps, and from CENTCOM and the Pentagon, and I have been hard on your bosses. It’s not that I hate officers, gentlemen. I understand they think differently, that’s all. The CROWS system has been test-driven in the sandbox, and the GIs seem to like it.
Not only can you bring along your best friend (Ma Deuce) and you don’t have to carry it! And you can fit out the installation with the Mk 19. That has got to be a popular feature.
The US general in charge of training the Afghan police has criticised British-backed plans to arm local militias in an attempt to defeat the Taliban. The remarks by Maj-Gen Robert Cone, the second most senior US soldier in Afghanistan, are likely to deepen the row between London and Washington over how to counter the insurgency.
General Cone, who is in charge of rebuilding the Afghan police force, is the second US commander to condemn the initiative. He said: "Anything that detracts from a professional, well-trained, well-led police force is not the answer."
Last month, Gordon Brown said Britain would increase its support for "community defence initiatives, where local volunteers are recruited to defend homes and families modelled on traditional Afghan arbakai". The arbakai system involves arming untrained Afghani men, who agree to come running at the beating of a drum if their village elders feel threatened.
British diplomats and military strategists in the restive southern province of Helmand hope the idea might bolster Afghanistan's fledgling police force, which is unable to defend itself against attacks by Taliban insurgents. At least 10 officers died yesterday in a Taliban attack on a checkpoint in Kandahar. But US officials fear that arbakai fighters would fall under the command of warlords disloyal to the Afghan government. Their reluctance to endorse the plan follows a disastrous international initiative to build an "auxiliary" police force, which was scrapped last year.
Auxiliary officers were given assault rifles and uniforms after just a few days of rudimentary training, on the understanding that they would be required only to police the area they came from. "The auxiliary police was an attempt to take short-cuts," said General Cone, warning that there were similarities between the doomed auxiliaries and Mr Brown's arbakai plan. "It is very important to understand why the Afghan National Auxiliary Police Force did not work, as we look at any informal programme that doesn't promote professional policing," he added.
Analysts also fear the introduction of arbakai would undo years of effort by the United Nations to disarm illegal militias.
General Cone's remarks follow earlier criticism of the idea by the commander of the 37-nation Nato coalition in Afghanistan. General Dan McNeill said the plan would work only in small parts of the countryside which did not include Helmand, where most of Britain's 7,700 troops are stationed. He said: "My information, from studying Afghan history, is that arbakai works only in Paktia, Khost and the southern portion of Paktika, and it's not likely to work beyond those geographic locations."
General Cone is leading a root-and-branch reform of the Afghan police force, which has been ill-equipped, badly paid, poorly trained and dogged by corruption since 2001. The US government has pledged $7.4bn (£3.7bn) to improve Afghan security forces between now and October. But General Cone admitted there was no "model of what policing should be" in the country. "When Afghan people understand what well-trained, well-paid police do, they will demand it," he added. "But right now they are just not familiar."
He said he backed greater community involvement in the police if it meant "neighbourhood-watch type programmes" rather than arming and paying local people.
Britain has faced increasing criticism from allies in recent months for championing alternative tactics to defeat the Taliban. The Prime Minister promised more "tribal engagement" during a recent visit to Kabul. But last month the Afghan government expelled two UN and EU diplomats for meeting commanders sympathetic to insurgents.
There has been a lot of recent criticism of NATO efforts in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Gates fired off a broadside claiming that the NATO allies who agreed to come to Afghanistan after Mr Bu$h screwed it all up with his childish ego-war in Iraq in search of oil and his mother’s approval have in fact not been killing and dying enough.
British commanders were outraged after the US defence secretary criticised other Nato troops for their role in the bloody conflict in Afghanistan.
Robert Gates said the 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan were "doing a terrific job" in confronting the Taliban insurgency.
He added, however: "I think our allies over there, this is not something they have any experience with."
Mr Gates's comments caused an international outcry following months of simmering tensions between the U.S. and its allies over strategy in Afghanistan.
Senior British officers in Afghanistan said he should "wind his neck in".
…
Mr Gates told the Los Angeles Times he believed America's allies lack the skills to pursue successful counter-insurgency operations against Taliban guerillas.
It’s accurate to say that Denmark, Germany and Canada do not have the COIN experience that the US has purchased so expensively in Iraq. However, Mr Gates might have forgotten that Britain has had the only successful counter-insurgency campaigns in the history of the NATO member states. Even though Saint David Petraeus got to put his name on a book written by others, in true American military/management style, Britain defeated an uprising in Malaya and a particularly brutal and long-running insurrection in Northern Ireland. (My good friend A.E, might disagree with me that Northern Ireland was an apt example of COIN.)
Just because we’re in the middle of a pissing contest with the UK because they feel they’ve accomplished their mission in Southern Iraq and we wanted them to be tied down for 50 years like us is not a good reason to play Calvinball with them. They did what we asked them to, with a proportionately larger slice of their Army than we have stuck into the tarbaby.
What’s your problem, Mr Gates? Not enough Germans dying in Afghanistan? It was an American general who put them in the quiet part of Afghanistan.
Plus, no fair saying the Brits are not allowed to do in Afghanistan what we’re doing in Iraq! We’ve taken civilians in Iraq who are kinda-sorta ex-brigands, thieves, murderers and all-around not nice people and given them lots of guns, lots of money, and lots of free fire zones because they have a better dislike of Saudis than our government. We called that a great success, although in reality it’s only a temporary marriage of convenience. The Bu$h malAdministration was just seeking a propaganda victory. Sooner or later the US is going to stop paying these Anbaris baksheesh and then it will be Katie bar the door, with 70,000 well-armed and pissed off locals out of work.
The Shiite central government has decided that no more than 20% of these Iraqi mercenaries concerned local citizens will be permitted to join the army or national police forces and the other 80% are going to be left kicking the curb.
While there might be a legitimate concern that some of the Afghan police auxiliaries might be Talibani moles, we have seen that there are takfiri moles in the Iraqi Army. It’s going to happen when your colonialization policy includes kicking crates of rifles and bags of ca$h off of helicopters in a desperate attempt to stop them killing US troops in the runup to a national election.
I know I’m right, you know I’m right, and less importantly, but better-publicized, is the fact that Secretary Gates pulled in his horns the next day.
WASHINGTON - U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates scrambled Thursday to praise Canada and other NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan, saying reports that he's unhappy with their efforts don't "reflect reality" or the views of the American government.
Countries like Canada that are committing combat troops are "playing a significant and powerful role," Gates told a news conference called to quell an international furor after he told the Los Angeles Times he's worried some allied forces weren't trained in counterinsurgency operations.
…
Asked whether his comments this week fit "the Washington definition of a gaffe, which is accidentally telling the truth," Gates replied: "No, I don't think so."
And he insisted the additional U.S. marines, something Canada has been requesting for some time, doesn't "reflect dissatisfaction" with the military performance of allied forces.
U.S. military analyst Bruce Riedel said Gates was venting growing unease about a badly stretched U.S. military which is facing two serious insurgencies - in Iraq and Afghanistan - without the resources to fight them both effectively. [emph added]
If Mr Gates is unhappy with the flavor of his soup he’d do better to complain to the chef, who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I like to check the Sitemeter stats – see who’s visited, what interested them enough to visit, how long they stayed, and what brought them here. That’s how I learned how many visitors I get from pentagon.mil, CENTCOM.mil, and the various services. It’s curious why they would pay attention to a little pishker of a site like this. I find they usually arrive here after googling for a photo and that brings them here.
I had a morning visit that intrigued me because it came from a technorati hit, and that lead me to a TBI survivor who apparently had trouble placing a comment on yesterday’s story about the VA’s uphill battle to respond to the massive number of vets with PTSD and TBI problems. I liked the comment. The lady has a blog. It’s interesting reading, because those of us who are not challenged really have no comprehension of how difficult simple every-day things can be.
Thanks so much for this excellent post! It brings together some great into that people really need to know. I’m a long-term (35 of my 43 years) traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor, who never received assistance or help (or even acknowledgement) of my condition. I was head-injured when I was 8 years old, and when people didn’t see any immediate physical problems, they just assumed things would work themselves out. Well, they didn’t. I had to work them out, myself. That’s the bad news — years and years of isolation, confusion, false-starts, problems with peers and teachers and parents and family… problems at every turn, with no explanation of what was going on with me. Growing up with a TBI taught me a lot — most of it thanks to the school of hard knocks.
But I have to say, there has been light at the end of the tunnel. Recovery from and successful living with a TBI is possible! I’m living proof! I’ve been through the darkest of valleys, and today I’m in a stable marriage of 17 years, I have a long and productive career history with some of the top businesses in the world, I have a satisfying social life, a healthy emotional balance, and peace of mind. All this, despite living on the margins and having tremendous difficulties over the years with this TBI.
In spite of all the difficulties (perhaps because of them), I have learned to live successfully on my own terms, drawing on my own resources and making sure my own needs are met. If I had depended on folks around me to help me out, I don’t think they could have done nearly as good a job as I’ve done. That’s one of the problems with TBI — it impacts the very part of you that you depend on to identify your needs and communicate them to others.
Even though the VA and the current administration are NOT living up to their responsibilities, there is hope. Each person can find their own way to health and balance… so long as they’re not locked away in a prison of ignorance and fear. TBI survivors are all too often on their own, but it doesn’t need to be the end of the story. Each and every one of us can live up to our true potential, even in the face of limitations. Even in the face of government neglect, PTSD, and brain injury!
I’m glad you liked the post. I noted you have a great deal of information about this injury, and some very helpful links to resources. If any of my readers want further information I hope they’ll visit your corner of blogtopia (y!sctp) and learn about how we’re treating this problem.
Broken/Brilliant has a great mission statement, and I wish her all the success possible.
Soldiers get killed and wounded in combat. That’s what war is. Some die quickly, screaming, their life’s blood spurting out, staining their buddies as they try desperately to save them. Others die slowly, inch by inch, day by day once they get home. They have no visible wounds, so amputated limbs. Their minds are dying.
Saving them is the job of the VA, which hasn’t done well in the past. The professionals at the VA are trying to win that battle.
The only outward sign of something amiss at Garry Naipo's household in this community of well-tended homes south of Fort Lewis is the ragged, yellowing lawn.
"It used to be like Safeco Field out there," Paoakalani "Paoa" Naipo said of the lawn his father no longer trims every three days. Before, Garry Naipo would forgo watching football on the weekend until the grass was cut. Once he started so early on a Saturday morning, his wife, Alii, rushed out, as she put it, "to save him from the neighbors."
Then Garry Naipo, a grandfather of three, went to Iraq -- boomeranging from cul-de-sac to combat and back in 15 months, a journey that would change his life -- and that of his family -- in subtle, corrosive ways.
Naipo, 51, is one of thousands of National Guard citizen soldiers who have left established jobs and families to answer a call and come back altered men and women. On the outside, they look fine, the same even. They blend in at work, in the grocery line, at their children's soccer games. People tell them they're lucky. They're not dead.
They don't bear the grim signatures of combat, the missing limbs or shattered skulls. Their wounds, though, are as insidious as they are invisible. Many return with brains and psyches damaged by chronic exposure to the hammering of blast waves and the afterimages left by bodies blown apart.
They come home, but not back to themselves.
“This portrait of Garry Naipo and his extended family was taken just before he left for Iraq in January 2004, when his National Guard unit was deployed. Alii Naipo says her husband came home from Iraq ‘a different man.’ She's been his main advocate in seeking help for him for post-traumatic stress disorder from the VA.”
This citizen-soldier answered his country’s call and came back a changed man. Combat changes many of us, and we don’t revert back to the person we were before.
In Iraq the exposure to significant bomb attacks has created a huge new class of wounded soldier: the Traumatic Brain Injury.
Veterans Affairs doctors estimate 60 percent to 65 percent of soldiers have experienced a significant explosion, or multiple detonations, by the time they leave the service. "Our mouths drop sometimes at how many blast events our servicepeople have been exposed to," said Jay Uomoto, a neuropsychologist with the VA Puget Sound.
That, in turn, has likely left many with undiagnosed mild to moderate brain injuries, a prognosis that some fear is setting a long fuse that could eventually swamp the system with disabilities as they emerge in the months and years to come.
There are pages of research information about this consequence of combat in Iraq, but not a great deal has reached the public about the scandal of the Army’s disgraceful soughing off of this injury.
Surprisingly, the VA recently announced that only six percent of GIs suffered from TBI. They must have been working from figures supplied from the Army. Soldiers with brain problems that were obvious to their buddies were certified as sound, and discharged into civilian life with no VA referral and no chance for disability payments for their wounds.
A VA mandatory screening program that took effect in April has looked at 61,285 veterans of the wars. Of those, 19.2 percent were identified on the screening questionnaire as potentially suffering from traumatic brain injuries and were referred for more tests.
While evaluation continues, VA spokeswoman Alison Aikele said officials believe, based on a smaller sample, that the final result about 5.8 percent will be diagnosed with TBI.
Just a few months ago, as Mr Bu$h was preparing to address the VFW, telling them what a Great Warrior Leader he was and how Islamofascism is the greatest danger ever facing the country, a group of real patriots was demanding the Bu$h malAdministration deal honestly and completely with the human consequences of its policies.
As President Bush prepares to address the 108th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City tomorrow, Democrats today called on the President to offer more than the same empty rhetoric and broken promises on the issues that matter to America's veterans and military families. Despite years of promises, on President Bush's watch the Administration has allowed conditions at VA hospitals and medical centers like Walter Reed to deteriorate to appalling levels, has failed to accurately project the cost of treating thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and has jeopardized the personal financial information of America's 26.5 million veterans. Worse, the President's budget proposals have consistently shortchanged the VA, with his 2008 budget including a two percent cut.
Garry Naipo’s been home for two years. He has trouble with his memory, trouble with his speech centers, his fingers are going numb, and he spends his days sheltering in his garage, which he sweeps out daily.
“Since returning from Iraq, Garry Naipo leaves his house less and less. His routine is to go to work, then come home to the bunker of his garage, which he cleans on a daily basis. "My safe place," Naipo calls his garage. "I just want to feel normal," he said recently. "I want to stop looking over my shoulder."
And he’s had little help.
Although he suffers ringing in his ears, is going deaf, has memory lapses, difficulty retrieving words, problems concentrating, anxiety and anger outbursts, he has yet to be medically evaluated for concussive brain injury. A few weeks ago, more than two years after his return, he got a questionnaire in the mail regarding blast wave exposure, but he said he hasn't been able to organize his thoughts enough to answer it.
Regardless of how the symptoms are labeled, his family is sure of one thing: Iraq transformed the man they knew as husband, father and grandfather -- and he's come back to a culture that, for the most part, has hardly noticed.
Those of us who have watched the trainwreck that is George Bu$h and his elitist policies realize he has no thought for soldiers once they have been expended, physically or mentally, in the ego-war of Iraq. They make great backgrounds for his political photo ops, but beyond that their deaths and maimings mean nothing to him.
Last year I featured a few articles written by CPT Jeff Leonard, a California-based Army Reserve officer who served in Iraq with the 114th Medical Detachment as a combat stress specialist. They deal with his life in Iraq, and his duty traveling around a portion of the country, talking with GIs who’ve found the stress level of combat high enough to affect their performance, which is a major concern of the Army. A good soldier, CPT Leonard worked hard to relieve the stress by working with soldiers to overcome the natural fears a man develops when his life is in danger on a daily basis. Along the way, we learned of CPT Leonard’s own fears, and that was a very personal, revealing look into a man trained to help others.
He wrote of the pain felt by men who were supposed to be professional healers and who conducted memorials for dead soldiers, agonizing over the deaths of men they respected and loved. He wrote of soldiers second-guessing themselves after failing to save a life, and of his task to help these men get past combat’s inevitable consequences. He wrote about how to make contact with a wounded man, a bit of “us guys together” – not stage fakery, but the honest and open expression of caring about the troops.
In one of my articles I called CPT Leonard one of the bravest men I have ever heard of, and I stand by that statement today.
Waiting to go back to his family, CPT Leonard wrote openly and honestly about what he had learned about Iraq, combat, and himself. As I recall he came in for some disapproving comments in that piece. Combat and killing is very glamorous to those who’ve never been there.
DefenseLink published an article several days ago that I‘ve wanted to feature for several reasons. It deals with a similar section of counselors in Afghanistan. Company C of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Support Battalion deals in shattered nerves and minds, as CPT Leonard did. The Sky Soldiers have a long and treasured reputation as a fine unit and have earned the (sometimes grudging) respect of the paratrooper community.
They operate from Forward Operating Base Fenty somewhere up in Afghanistan, where the real war against terror – the Taliban and al Qaeda, continues unwon. The Combat Stress Control Detachment works with an Air Force Detachment doing the same job at FOB Fenty. This is a good thing for the 173rd because everyone knows the Air Force is a glide outfit: they get three hot meals a day, clean underwear every other day, clean sheets, and if they run out of ice cream, they fly a load in on a C5 Galaxy. It’s true. Really. Just ask any soldier. Plus they always load their beer pallets on a C-130 and test fly the bird up to around 15,00 feet for an hour. Makes the beer r e a l cold.
A small team of airmen and soldiers work hand in hand to help deployed servicemembers battle stress here and at some 20 surrounding forward operating bases.
The issues troops for which troops seek help vary, team members said.
“It depends a little bit on where the individual is based out of,” said Air Force Lt. Col. (Dr.) Jeffrey Wiser, a psychiatrist with the Combat Stress Control Detachment. “I think a lot of people in the forward locations deal with combat stress reactions. FOB Fenty and some of the areas south and east of here tend to be more operational stress, home-front issues and difficulties within the unit.”
OK, all kidding about the Air Force aside, working on a base in Afghanistan is not a skate job. Dull, unchanging days of 16 hour shifts, seven days a week, bitter cold winters and nasty hot summers with the unending threat of rocket or mortar attacks do not make a happy trooper. While out in the boonies you have a better chance of getting killed, the boredom on a base like that creates its own problems. Things happen at home and you’re not there to deal with them. Wives are forced to do double duty, handling the tasks that are “Daddy’s job.”
And let’s not forget that women also serve in Afghanistan and they also have issues.
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Laurie Wienclawski, a mental health technician on the team, said the team sometimes helps troops hours or days after they have witnessed tragic or shocking events. “The 173rd has lost a lot of people. Being back home, you hear about soldiers being killed and wounded in action. Until you are deployed and actually live it and see it and hear about it, it doesn’t seem real until you are actually there,” she said.
…
Wienclawski said she hoped being a woman would make it easier for troops to talk to her. When she hit the ground, she found out that was not the case. Now, she said, she can best relate to troops by finding things in common with them, like family situation or background.
Not all soldiers realize they’re suffering from stress. Some, wrapped up in that macho “super warrior” syndrome refuse to believe combat stress exists.
Servicemembers don’t always come out to seek help with their problems. Some internalize issues, and only people who really know them notice a change in their behavior, daily routine or sleep patterns, the combat stress experts said. It is important for everyone to know the typical behavior of their battle buddies, or to know their “baseline,” the experts said.
Back in 1999 the DoD realized the dangers of combat stress and developed a program to deal with it. This program has undergone continuing change as adaptation to the realities of war became apparent.
Recently the Army developed the “Battle Buddy” program, given to each soldier as part of his training to teach GIs to watch each other or signs of stress or depression. (Power Point presentation)
Like CPT Leonard, the teams travel to outlying bases because some soldiers are prevented by circumstances or inner reluctance to ask for help.
Since not everyone comes running with their issues, the Combat Stress Control Detachment sends out a small team to surrounding FOBs to “canvas” the neighborhood and see if someone needs their assistance. Weiser said Army Spc. Christopher Truax, a mental health specialist with Company C, is great at “mixing with soldiers and engaging them in conversation and prompting them to come in for evaluations or a more extensive interview.”
Truax, who studied psychology in college, learned about his military occupational specialty on the Internet. He said he finds his job rewarding. “We don’t wait for someone to come and see us; we go see them,” Truax said.
He usually travels with Army Capt. Bryan O’Leary, a 173rd Airborne Brigade psychologist working with the Combat Stress Control Detachment.
…
Team members travel for three to four weeks at a time visiting remote locations. Since some places are really hard to get to, the team spends a lot of time at flightlines and trying to jump on convoys. There is no way to give out actual appointments, but they always notify command elements and aid stations that they are on the way so servicemembers can get the word.
In addition to their physical health, soldiers must be mentally healthy to complete the mission and – the most important duty – come home to their families.
It’s a good thing the 173rd has decided its troopers aren’t iron men.
A representative of the VA sent Jesse Wendel of the Group News Blog an email after reading his carrying my original story about the “MkII Pencil test” of body armor. The email denied the truth of assertion by military officials that soldiers who wore Dragon Skin armor into combat would be penalized if they died. It was claimed that the soldiers beneficiaries would be denied the SGLI payment.
Jesse Wendel sent me a copy of an email he received regarding the SGLI denial story.
Folks:
My title is below. One of my responsibilities is managing the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) program on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs. I have been involved in the SGLI program for nearly 30 years.
I can assure you, there is ZERO truth to the statement about SGLI not being payable if the service member is injured or killed while wearing or not wearing that Dragon body armor or any other item.
99% of active duty service members have elected to be insured under SGLI. Except for extraordinarily serious situations, such as treason, desertion, etc. SGLI death proceeds are always payable for those individuals. SGLI is 24/7 coverage, everywhere in the world, and is payable whether the death is combat-related or not.
Please correct your story, or at least advise your staffs to not repeat the erroneous information in the future. Thank you very much.
Steve
Jesse and I have taken it as accurate and honest in tone and tenor. There is no need to contact jim by phone or email and discuss the matter with him. It goes without saying there is no need to appoint oneself a soldiers’ collective representative and abuse him in anyway at all.
Obviously, the next step was to backtrack the SGLI denial story. This story emanates from a January 14, 2006 article written by Nathaniel Helms under the DefenseWatch subsection of the pro-soldier Soldiers For The Truth which was started and inspired by COL David Hackworth, one of the greatest infantry soldiers the US was ever honored to have wear its uniform.
Go read the original, which I have excerpted, and decide for yourself. Remember: the issue here is not whether soldiers were actually denied their SGLI benefits, but whether or not the Army intentionally, mendaciously and dishonorably lied to troops going into combat.
Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.
The soldiers asked for anonymity because they are concerned they will face retaliation for going public with the Army's apparently new directive. At the sources' requests DefenseWatch has also agreed not to reveal the unit at which the incident occured for operational security reasons.
On Saturday morning a soldier affected by the order reported to DefenseWatch that the directive specified that "all" commercially available body armor was prohibited. The soldier said the order came down Friday morning from Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (HQ, USSOCOM), located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. [editor: Special Ops soldiers are usually not given to telling tall tales unless it is at a bar.] It arrived unexpectedly while his unit was preparing to deploy on combat operations. The soldier said the order was deeply disturbiing to many of the men who had used their own money to purchase Dragon Skin because it will affect both their mobility and ballistic protection. [emph added]
"We have to be able to move. It (Dragon Skin) is heavy, but it is made so we have mobility and the best ballistic protection out there. This is crazy. And they are threatening us with our benefits if we don't comply." he said.
The soldier reiterated Friday's reports that any soldier who refused to comply with the order and was subsequently killed in action "could" be denied the $400,000 death benefit provided by their SGLI life insurance policy as well as face disciplinary action.
As of this report Saturday morning the Army has not yet responded to a DefenseWatch inquiry.
…
One of the soldiers who lost his coveted Dragon Skin is a veteran operator. He reported that his commander expressed deep regret upon issuing his orders directing him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind. The commander reportedly told his subordinates that he "had no choice because the orders came from very high up" and had to be enforced, the soldier said. Another soldier's story was corroborated by his mother, who helped defray the $6,000 cost of buying the Dragon Skin, she said.
The mother of the soldier, who hails from the Providence, Rhode Island area, said she helped pay for the Dragon Skin as a Christmas present because her son told her it was "so much better" than the Interceptor OTV they expected to be issued when arriving in country for a combat tour.
"He didn't want to use that other stuff," she said. "He told me that if anything happened to him I am supposed to raise hell."
At the time the orders were issued the two soldiers had already loaded their Dragon Skin body armor onto the pallets being used to air freight their gear into the operational theater, the soldiers said. They subsequently removed it pursuant to their orders.
Currently nine U.S. generals stationed in Afghanistan are reportedly wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin body armor, according to company spokesman Paul Chopra. Chopra, a retired Army chief warrant officer and 20+-year pilot in the famed 160th "Nightstalkers" Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), said his company was merely told the generals wanted to "evaluate" the body armor in a combat environment. Chopra said he did not know the names of the general officers wearing the Dragon Skin. [emph added]
While searching to track down the original story which emanated from the Solders For The Truth webpage I happened upon this interesting tidbit:
Former Head of Army's Body Armor Program Under Criminal Investigation
Retired Army Colonel John D. Norwood (West Point '80), former head of the Army office responsible for body armor, is reported to be under criminal investigation for alleged violations of federal law related to his taking a post-retirement job with Armor Holdings, Inc., one of the major providers of Interceptor Body Armor to the Army .
Two sources aware of the investigation have told DefenseWatch that at least three federal agencies are investigating Norwood's transition from being the Project Manager for Soldier Equipment under PEO-SOLDIER (from 2003 until his retirement in the summer of 2006) to his post-retirement job as a Vice President of the Aerospace & Defense Group of Armor Holdings.
Editor's Note: Effective August 1, 2007 BAE became the owner of Armor Holdings, Inc., and the new owners assigned components of former Armor Holdings to already existing divisions within BAE. A representative of BAE confirmed to DefenseWatch that Col. Norwood is a current employee with the title of "Vice President for Business Development" of a BAE component. This representative stated that he was "unaware of any investigation involving Col. John Norwood."
(DefenseWatch first exposed Norwood's trip through the revolving door from a senior position in the Army's body armor program responsible for Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) to a senior position with Armor Holdings.)
A third source, a long-time member of the personal protective equipment industry, has told DefenseWatch that one of the specific allegations for which Norwood is being investigated involves possible illegal actions with regard to classified information.
DefenseWatch will continue to pursue this story and keep its readers informed as more information becomes available.
Editor's Note: It is important to emphasize: (1) that Norwood is entitled to the presumption of innocence. To this point a criminal investigation is underway. And, (2) that an investigation means only that federal law enforcement agencies are gathering evidence that will be presented to a US Attorney for determination as to whether the evidence is sufficient to move forward to the next level of legal proceedings, i.e., presentation of evidence to a federal grand jury. A DefenseWatch email to Norwood's personal/home email account has not been answered.
By the way, that interior link to Defense Watch, in which they state they first learned of the investigation, is worth quoting too. It is dated March 23, 2007.
A Sad Reality - Four West Pointers At The Heart Of The Body Armor Scandal
Those readers of DefenseWatch who have followed SFTT's efforts over the past year and a half to get honest and completely transparent comparative testing of all available both armor, including, but not necessarily restricted to both Dragon Skin and the currently issued Interceptor Body Armor system, know that from time to time there's been a tad -- okay, maybe more than a tad -- of anger in my writings on this subject. After all, it's truly an issue of life-or-death importance to America's Grunts.
This column is however, written much more in sadness and sorrow than in anger.
West Point graduates have contributed so much, for so many years, to the defense of our great nation, and in other areas as well. Two have been presidents.
But, it is on our country's many battlefields over the last two centuries that The Long Gray Line has earned the respect and gratitude that distinguishes West Point from all other institutions in our nation.
Two of the warriors that Hack respected most are West Point grads who continue to serve their country by being members of the SFTT Advisory Board: Lt. Gen. Henry E. "Hank" Emerson USA (Ret.), Class of 1947, and Lt.Gen. Harold G. "Hal" Moore, USA (Ret.), Class of 1945. Their records of distinguished and heroic performance as combat leaders speak for themselves, and need no repeating here.
Consequently, to have discovered that several West Pointers have played key roles in ensuring that inferior body armor continues to be issued to our great troops is a particular and sharp disappointment to this writer.
Before I get into the specifics of who are these "disappointments," and what just what were their roles in continuing the status quo when undeniable evidence proves a better body armor is available, I want to quote from an email received just this morning.
Like the combat leadership achievements of Hank Emerson and Hal Moore, this email speaks for itself.
I will identify the sender as a father of an sergeant of infantry, with one combat tour in Iraq behind him, and another tour coming up later this year. (Due to this father's diligence, SFTT has recently obtained some amazing information that will be shared with our readers in the next few weeks. Stand by.)
There’s much more to this story of apparent corruption within the US Army’s body armor criterion and selection board.
The letter referred to above must be read since it forms a pertinent part of this ongoing story.
As the editor notes above a presumption of innocence must be made. Are any of you familiar with how a military investigation is conducted? Early on you’re given an “Article 32” hearing, which often includes the proceedings required under Article 31, and is the military’s equivalent under UCMJ and is approximately analogous to the civilian law enforcement agencies conducting an investigation, issuing a Miranda warning, and performing the sort of detailed collection and consideration of evidence done by a grand jury in the civilian world.
Having granted COL Norwood his due right to be considered innocent, it’s noteworthy to remember that by the time the military gets to Article 32, there is an assumption that the matter will go further, and that’s all I’m going to say about the matter for now.
Most military summoned to an Article 32 hearing bring a defense attorney with them for very good reason.
This morning’s Gorilla’s Guides points up a thematic of irregular warfare espoused by Lt Col T E Lawrence, of the General Staff, Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Yes, that Lt Colonel Lawrence. Some of the picked out passage is quite apt to our shaky occupation of Iraq, and perhaps we should look to see if the dynamics of war in the desert of 1916-1918 are still viable today. (This will be a brief look because one could write a book about the topic. I see no reason to give it all to you for free when I might be able to score some beer money.) OK, I’m kidding about the beer money.
The piece was first published in Army Journal and Defence Quarterly, October, 1920 and is available on microfilm, I believe.
As I recall, most of Colonel Lawrence’s writings were not well received within the ranks of Britain’s small professional Army in great part because of institutional prejudice against a temporary officer who had “gone native” and served with irregular forces rather than with one of his country’s regiments. His very well known “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” was quite well-received throughout the world, but not in Britain. (cf: Matthew, 13:57, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country.)
It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfil the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts.1 It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy.2 Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent. active in a striking force, and 98 per cent. passively sympathetic.3 The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. 4 They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyse the enemy’s organized communications,5 for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication” 6 in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not. In fifty words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.[emph added]
1. Aware readers will recognize that some of Lawrence’s requirements exist in Iraq. The resistance has enjoyed freedom not only from attack but from fear of it only because the occupying US troops were unable to exert their technological superiority of intelligence-gathering and observation until, within the last year UAVs had been brought to bear monitoring group movements. Direct intelligence gathering has suffered due to a lack of qualified translators. This is due in part to a failure within the Armed Forces to perceive that the Russians would in fact not be coming through the Fulda Gap, and future strategic threats might evolve in other theaters, and to prepare accordingly. Additionally the failure to supply sufficient ground forces to carry out the occupation is directly attributable to the ideological insistence of the civilian leadership that the invasion and conquest of Iraq would be a “cakewalk” and their eagerness to seek advice from “yes-men.”
2. Until the application of UAVs the occupation was severely limited in obtaining real-time information regarding movements of resistance bands. Direct intelligence gathered from the populace was often prompted by motives of clan and sectarian revenge.
3. It has been estimated that the actual “resistance” never comprised more than about 45,000-60,000 fighters gathered from all sources, including disgruntled ex-Iraq Army officers and senior NCOs, Sunni tribesmen, principally from Anbar province, and some Shiite dissidents from the Badr Corps and Mahdi Army, both of which held some degree of loyalty to Iran, the principal wellspring of the Shia sect of Islam. There were also a small number of non-Iraqi fighters drawn to Iraq in opposition to the presence of US troops on “Arab soil.” It has been variously estimated that these fighters were about 65-75% Saudi. As you can see these forces total less than the 2% figure presented by Lawrence, (Iraq’s population being estimated at 25 million) yet were able to hold the occupation for almost four years and inflict grievous losses.
4. The rebels, having grown from youth in the hardpan of Iraq, with its brutal Summer temperatures, were well-adapted to urban combat in the country. US troops were at a considerable disadvantage because of environmental conditions and the necessity to weigh themselves down with a great deal of equipment, which slowed them down and forced them to slower movement on the ground. The resistance fighters were adapted to operating in small, semi-independent bands of 4-8, considered an optimum size for guerrilla warfare. Such small groups can more easily go to ground, disappearing among the populace, more readily than larger bands.
(This is a core point of guerrilla warfare: strike with overwhelming force where the enemy is weak, create casualties, and melt back into the populace.)
5. It’s important to understand that Lawrence uses “communications” here in the sense of unit communication on the ground, i.e. logistical (supply) and tactical support of nearby fraternal units, and not voice and date communications as enabled by the use of radio and data link. This reference to Willisen’s (Lt Gen Karl Wilhelm von Willisen) dictum about communications describes the need in early 19th century warfare to maneuver ground units – infantry battalions and artillery batteries – in close contact in order to maintain cohesion and deliver a killing blow at the schwerpunkt of the battle., where the enemy was weakest, and most vulnerable to a strong penetration of his defenses. When you lose contact with a neighboring unit and find enemy troops moving into the breach, a commander’s instinctive reaction is to withdraw.
6. Lawrence exploited this weakness well, moving rapidly into the Turkish Army’s rear areas, spreading destruction and panic. Nothing like this has occurred in Iraq, but the resistance has maintained a strategy of slow abrasion. The death of 10,000 cuts, wearing down soldiers weary from long days of patrolling and defensive watch at their bases. The overstretching of combat forces and the slow but steady attacks against the supply convoys that the occupation depended upon has been classic communication strategy as practiced by Lawrence. The prodigious use of military-quality explosives left unguarded during the invasion afforded the resistance access to generous supplies of the means to bleed the occupation.
Utilizing its technological superiority in intelligence gathering, a temporary combat superiority through massive infusion of troops, and utilizing the Israeli method of walling off districts into sectarian enclaves, the Occupation forces have managed to create a lessened level of violence in Baghdad. It has long been a military rule that control of a country’s capital is a primary strategic, tactical, and propaganda goal. Through these means the “surge” has apparently tamped down the violence in Baghdad, lending a veneer of control to the central government.
The occupation has adapted one of Lawrence’s rules to its own use. The co-option of native forces through the argument of self-interest has enabled them to create a large force of semi-trained, lightly armed auxiliaries in Anbar province. It should be noted that the Shiite central government has little interest in incorporating these units (estimated as high as 75,000 armed men) into the country’s security forces. Some have speculated that only the payment of monthly salaries by the US has kept these tribesmen calm.
Failure to replace these salaries with gainful employment will keep the restive West a tinderbox, and the tribes tied to the US by monthly stipend. The Shiite central government is resisting the idea of political reconciliation, which would have to include economic development of the tribal areas. The strength of tribal and religious enmity is too great to bring about reconciliation, it seems.
Maintaining peace on the ground will last only as long as the Occupation forces continue to pay off the tribesmen.
There’s been a great deal of discussion of this topic recently and it might be prudent to investigate the matter. Two of the better blogs who regularly discuss this topic are Mountain Runner and Swedish Meatballs. Both are good reads, although Meatballs has been accused of being NOT WORK FRIENDLY if you’re a corporate drone working in cubicleland or are employed by say, a fundamentalist christian church.
Despite what you might think, “public diplomacy” these days is not about the public talking with people in other countries. Instead, it means a government (and I do mean this here thing we’ve got across the back of our necks) outreaching to a public. What you call your basic “We care” message distributed to folks in other countries where we have need for their natural resources and don’t want them to get all upset when they find our hand in their pockets.
A good example was Karen Hughes when she was the Assistant Secretary of State for - I forget the exact title – maybe it was “Bullshitting the Third World” or something like that.
In Ms Hughes’ much ballyhooed tour through the Middle East the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs traveled through a number of countries speaking to women’s groups. The “listening tour” mainly consisted of Ms Hughes telling the various Muslim women’s groups how the United States intended to spread democracy in the region. The women were expected to listen, which was probably not what they expected, having thought Ms Hughes’ “listening tour” meant she would listen.
The Bu$h malAdministration has invested a lot of effort in public outreach in the US. When we see this sort of effort in dictatorships we call it “propaganda.” Umm. I may have made my point here.
Mountain Runner has a wealth of information about this topic, and explains what’s good and what isn’t.
Swedish Meatballs specializes in Information Operations and public outreach. You can learn a great deal there. Just put the kids to bed before you dial ‘em up, OK?
One of the best forms of public diplomacy was something I remember fondly – and vaguely, because it was a long time ago – that always happened on Christmas Eve. Way back in the dim mists of time, when the danger to our nation was outside the country, the intrepid airmen of NORAD kept watch 24 hours a day, ever on the alert for Soviet bombers, and later missiles. coming to get us with their dread thermonuclear bombs of socialism. NORAD operated a string of radar stations across the far north, always on watch.
We’d sit around the living room, listening to Christmas records on the radio, watching the tree, and I’d be fighting to stay awake because I wanted to see those lovely wrapped packages appear from Santa’s bag. Starting around 7:30 there would be an announcement on the radio from NORAD about unusual traffic around the North Pole and the game was on!
When you’re seven years old you didn’t consider the logistical difficulties of Santa visiting millions of homes in one evening; you just believed. And NORAD confirmed the truth!
NORAD doesn’t do those Christmas Eve alerts on radio or TV any more. We’re in the 21st century now and the intertubes are usually available.
But he’s still put there, braving the cold, flying through the skies at about a zillion miles an hour, making children’s wishes come true, I know it’s true because NORAD says so.
This, and the Marine Corps’ “Toys for Tots” are probably the best public diplomacy the US Armed Forces, and hence the USG, are still doing. So, thank you, gentlemen and ladies, for what you do. And may you all be home for Christmas next year.
US Soldiers occupying Iraq have been advised by MNF-I that Iraq has changed, and they’re expected to show it. McClatchy Newspapers has a leading story today about new travel requirements for US Army vehicles.
U.S. convoys struggle to adjust to policy change
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — In the first month that they were in Iraq, someone threatened, shot at or tried to blow up the soldiers of the Kentucky National Guard's B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery 12 times. Last month, there were only three such incidents.
But confirmation that the roads have become safer came a few weeks ago when a flier went up in the 2-138's office at this base 20 miles north of Baghdad.
"Effective immediately," it read, "assume all civilian vehicles are friendly."
The order admonished soldiers throughout Iraq to yield to civilian drivers, allow vehicles to pass and avoid firing their weapons as they escorted convoys of concrete barriers, generators, water and food to U.S. military outposts.
This is going to be an acid test of the Bu$h malAdministration’s claim that the surge has worked its magic. I’ll bet the troops are just delighted.
"The world we've been living in, we own the road," said Staff Sgt. James Rawlings, a factory worker, student and father whose ride back home is a Mazda 626, not an armored M1083, the Army's standard cargo truck. Now, the U.S. military is "giving some power back."
Rawlings admitted that the new rules have put the 2-138 on edge. There's no doubt that violence in Baghdad is down, but it wasn't so long ago that car bombs targeted convoys. If things worsen again, the 2-138 figures it'll be among the first to know.
"We're the guinea pigs," Rawlings said. "Sometimes I think it's a little better; sometimes I think they're just waiting for it to cool down."
If this test works – don’t laugh, it might, as long as they stay in fully pacified areas. (Those fully pacified areas would be areas which have been ethnically cleansed, of course.) But if this test works the troops are going to start asking why they’re still there, which brings up an interesting question.
Just what will it take to get the troops home?
A cynical man might insist the troops are there as long as the oil is there – not just Iraq, but Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and any other country in the Middle East with oil.
Even in the face of the new rules, the troops exert the same caution as before, when no one pretended the country was safe. Convoys were planned four days in advance, and every step was carefully detailed. Escorting gun trucks were carefully checked and serviced; weapons were always ready. Two days before the mission they ran through the route on a sand table, reviewed intelligence reports, and sweat it through until they are actually on the road.
While actually driving the mission they are in a world of darkness, lit only by their headlights and spotlights, suspicious-looking piles of trash illuminated by chem-glow sticks tossed out by the convoy commander in the first gun truck.
Occasionally the mission runs late and they are still on the road when daylight comes.
The few times the 2-138 has been caught in daylight — when a mission runs late or requires quick delivery — the soldiers are shocked to see traffic jams and streets packed with people.
"Sometimes, we're blissfully ignorant of what we're really driving through," said Capt. Steve Mattingly, the unit commander from Bardstown, Ky.
The roads are safer, Mattingly said, but still he worries that they're courting disaster by changing their road policies. It was easier when they could stop traffic instead of trying to judge how dangerous it is.
The new rules will remain in effect until there is a reason to change them back. That will happen if the resistance starts up again. That will indicate the progress of the post-surge period was in fact just a dream.
Regardless, our good friend Cernig points out in a post that be read in its entirety that the “progress” so gleefully hailed by the never-right is speculative at this point.
I can't be the only one who is hearfelt sick of wingnut crowing that, because violence is dramatically down in Iraq, they have won the war with liberal "Defeatocrats" as well as the war with Al Qaeda, all from the safety of their Cheeto-strewn beanbag chairs.
There follows a list of things we warned the assholes would happen. They laughed at us and ignored us because they were too busy creating a New Reality and an Overseas Imperium. The things happened. Attacks and deaths multiplied after the Samarra mosque bombing.
The debacle following the bombings of Samarra redefined the scale of violence to such an extent that, even now, the fall in violence from that high is only back to levels that destroyed Iraqi society in the first place. Even the members of the War party realised that Iraq was a disaster of monumental proportions - although they blamed their cronies rather than themselves. Some threatened to revolt until the Bush administration and its neocon enablers found a pet general willing to nod as they passed those good ideas they had previously ignored off as their own work.
In the two years between liberals saying these things and the extreme Right deciding to pass them off as their own fresh, new ideas a couple of thousand US servicemen and women died, thousands were wounded. Many more Iraqis died or were wounded while more than 4 million became exiled from their own homes.
The failure of the Iraq central government to capitalize on this relative peace is a very dangerous sign. The stagnation in Baghdad is caused by many things: jostling for power, sectarian dissension, simple personal jealousies, and undoubtedly a refusal to move on because the American teat might dry up.
Sooner or later those on the outside of the central government will get tired of waiting and things will take off again. The never-right will repeat its classic dance of denial, somehow it will be all our fault once more, and more soldiers will die needlessly.
A cynical man would probably figure that when conquering new countries our first step should be to establish a central government that will have a degree of support from the conquered people. It doesn’t have to be a Vidkun Quisling government, so Ahmed Chalabi might as well take up some other hobby. The second step should be to immediately create Swiss bank accounts for the government figures, with initial deposits in the range of $5 million each.
That way our soldiers might not have to wonder whether the mean streets of NextConquestistan will remain safe.
I’ve discussed the operating problems of the M-16 rife and the M-4 carbine in May and August of this year.
The M-16 was designed to fight off the Communist hordes in the Fulda Gap, and didn’t fare well in the hot steamy jungles and paddies of South East Asia. Its smaller carbine model, the M-4, doesn’t function well in the sandpit of South West Asia.
There were design errors with both the M-16 and its ammunition that contributed to the deaths of US troops in Viet Nam and it took the Army time to get up to speed. Eventually they produced a pretty good weapon, even if the DuPont company refused to change its production line to manufacture a powder idealized for the weapon.
The M-4 suffers from several faults apparently, including an inability to prevent heavy sand and dust fouling and a round that is now outdated for combat. More about the 5.56mm round later.
Complaints about stoppage failures with the M-4 got no attention from the Army’s Ordnance Department until the issue got Congressional attention. Tom Coburn, the anti-science republican from Oklahoma, stepped up to the plate on this matter and has been pressuring the Army for an extreme dust test because the dust is an extreme problem. He placed a hold on the approval of Pete Geren as Army Secretary earlier this year until the Army agreed to give it a look.
A new article has details about the test, as well as possible solutions to the problematic M-4, which BG Mark Brown, the Army’s lead procurer, says is “a world-class weapon," adding that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan "have high confidence in that weapon, and that high confidence level is justified, in our view, as a result of all test data and all investigations we have made."
I suppose the high level of confidence is what spurred the complaints to Congress. By the way – we pretend this is a family blog, so no commentary about BG Brown’s position as lead procurer.
After firing 6,000 rounds through ten M4s in a dust chamber at the Army's Aberdeen test center in Maryland this fall, the weapons experienced a total of 863 minor stoppages and 19 that would have required the armorer to fix the problem. Stacked up against the M4 during the side-by-side tests were two other weapons popular with special operations forces, including the Heckler and Koch 416 and the FN USA Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle, or Mk16.
Another carbine involved in the tests that had been rejected by the Army two years ago, the H&K XM8, came out the winner, with a total of 116 minor stoppages and 11 major ones. The Mk16 experienced a total of 226 stoppages, the 416 had 233. [emph added]
So, the weapon that did the very best, H&K’s XM8, is no good. Can you spell NIH*, friends? The M-4 had 863 “minor “ stoppages and 19 failures that would require second-level repair. That’s generally things like a broken firing pin, a separated case during extraction, or a broken ejector.
The Army was quick to point out that even with 863 minor stoppages -- termed "class one" stoppages which require 10 seconds or less to clear and "class two" stoppages which require more than ten seconds to clear -- the M4 functioned well, with over 98 percent of the 60,000 total rounds firing without a problem.
98%!!! Awright…. So does that mean that we’d only lose 2 GIs out of every 100 to weapon failure during sustained firefights?
Excellent…. Well done, Army.
A cynical man would wonder how BG Brown would consider matters if the Army only got his monthly pay right 98% of the time. After all, statistics is just numbers, right General?
So how did those other weapons fare?
[A Congressional] staffer offered a different perspective of how to view the Army's result. If you look at the numbers, he reasoned, the M4's 882 total stoppages averages out to a jam every 68 rounds. There are about 30 rounds per magazine in the M4.
By comparison, the XM8 [NIH] jammed once every 472 rounds, the Mk16 [OK, built here but a Belgian company] every 265 rounds and the 416 every 257 rounds. Army officials contend soldiers rarely fire more than 140 rounds in an engagement.
Let’s watch that 140 rounds figure. It’s important.
By the way, the US Special Ops community thinks so highly of the H&K 416 that they got themselves budgetary approval to purchase 416 upper receiver/barrel units and they graft them unto M-4 lower receivers.
Army officials say the staffer's comparison is "misleading" since the extreme dust test did not represent a typical combat environment and did not include the regular weapons cleaning soldiers typically perform in the field.
So the Army is sticking by the M4 and has recently signed another contract with manufacturer Colt Defense to outfit several more brigade combat teams with the compact weapon. Service officials say feedback from the field on the M4 has been universally positive -- except for some grumbling about the stopping power of its 5.56mm round. And as long as soldiers take the time to clean their weapons properly, even the "extreme" dust testing showed the weapon performed as advertised.
So, as long as GIs stop in the middle of firefights and clean their weapons after 4 magazines, we’re good to go?
There is a lot of grumbling about the 5.56mm round. Its lethality might have been oversold during the Viet Nam era. It’s a potent round, and quite fast, but its small size doesn’t deliver a lot of foot-pounds down range, where you need it. I witnessed people hit at 200 meters with a 5.56mm and, not always, but sometimes, still stand there, banging away with their AKs. Conversely, getting hit with an AK’s heavier 7.62 round puts you down, and that’s the only purpose of using a rifle.
Many end users feel the Ordnance Department needs to get their asses out into the field and actually be forced to use the weaponry they supply to the GIs. The bitter ash-taste of failure is remembered long after the sweetness of a Legion of Honor award is forgotten.
Though Army testers and engineers are still evaluating the data, officials with the Army's Infantry Center based in Fort Benning, Ga., said they planned to issue new requirements for the standard-issue carbine in about 18 months that could include a wholesale replacement of the M4. But the Army has been resistant to replace the M4, which has been in the Army inventory for over 18 years, until there's enough of a performance leap to justify buying a new carbine.
There’s a weapons company in the US named Barrett Rifles. They make that superior sniper rifle chambered in .50 caliber. Snipers love it because you can say “good night” to someone at 4,000 meters. The US military has purchased over 5,000 of these weapons.
They also have designed a new intermediate rifle cartridge, the 6.8mm, which has much more stopping power than the 5.56 currently used.
They designed a new infantry rifle to carry the 6.8 mm round and the M-468 is superior because of the round. It’s basically an M-4 reconfigured for the more powerful cartridge. It’s built to take all the bells and whistles available for the M-4 – the rail system is exactly the same. Because it’s an adapted M-4, you can buy just the upper conversion kit.
Though Army testers and engineers are still evaluating the data, officials with the Army's Infantry Center based in Fort Benning, Ga., said they planned to issue new requirements for the standard-issue carbine in about 18 months that could include a wholesale replacement of the M4. But the Army has been resistant to replace the M4, which has been in the Army inventory for over 18 years, until there's enough of a performance leap to justify buying a new carbine.
Eighteen months. Uh huh.
*NIH – Not Invented Here. The distressing tendency among US military to refuse to consider weapons systems produced in other countries
The V-22 Osprey is in fact operating in Iraq, as has been questioned. The short video clip below is a cut of a longer story about a USN SeaBee battalion searching for water. Water is scarce in Iraq. It seems everywhere you drill for water you end up finding oil.
The cut shows two of these planes landing, which means they do actually fly over there. It takes no special skill to observe the level of sand scour created by the landing.
In related Osprey news, we’ve noted in the past that the V-22 Osprey is remarkably unprotected for a combat assault vehicle.
The machine itself is a big step forward for the Corps and I know we’re all rooting for it to deliver the snuffies somewhere near the crash and clangor of battle – but not too close, since they only carry one .30 machine gun for defensive fire, and the rear ramp has to be lowered to use it. Current plans are to fly near the battle site and unload the troops there and let them march to the sound of the guns, as Napoleon ordered his generals 200 years ago.
Because of this rather depressing lack of defensive fire, the Marines had apparently planned to either escort the Ospreys with their SuperCobra attack helicopters and pound the sand out of the LZ before landing or land some distance away and walk in to the fighting. Ex-Corporal of the Marines Gordon has opined this is the way things are done in the Corps. Having some slight experience in visiting strange lands with hostile inhabitants by helicopter I think you want to get as close as possible to the “point off interest” and start your tourism there. If you land four or five klicks away you have to carry all your extra stuff with you, and you risk encountering some toll booths the unfriendly locals might have set up before you get to where you want to be. If you ask for some new supplies the Ospreys will have to drop them off at a safer distant point and then someone has to walk that ammo resupply in.
Having your resupply near at hand when you need it: priceless. The Marines know all this, because the institutional memory of opposed landings is pretty strong. Marine LTG John G Castellaw was interviewed recently by Stars and Stripes.
WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps’ MV-22 Osprey might be getting more firepower.
The aircraft, which is currently making its combat-zone debut in Iraq, has the ability to hover like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft. It is meant to replace CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, the Corps’ aging workhorse.
Ospreys come equipped with a gun at the ramp in the rear of the aircraft, but they might also get a gun with a 360-degree field of fire, said Marine Lt. Gen. John G. Castellaw.
“One of the options would be to install within what we call the ‘hell-hole’ — but that, that’s where the cargo hook is — a gun in there that would have the ability to shoot 360,” said Castellaw, deputy commandant for programs and resources.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Castellaw said the Osprey has significant advantages over the Sea Knight, most notably its speed and ability to climb rapidly, which means it requires less in the way of defensive systems.
“I told you I’m a -46 pilot; you know, the reason, the main reason I got .50 cals that are on either side (of the CH-46) is when I go into the zone, because I’m so slow and my acceleration rate is just a little bit better than a Volkswagen, then I want something that’s going to keep their heads down until I get enough speed and get away from there,” he said.
I’m pretty sure the “hell-hole” would be on the bottom of the craft. Think of a belly turret on a WWII bomber. However, (just guessing here,) this would be the right place for one of those Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS) stations that are being retrofitted onto US Army HumVees. You can see two photos here, and read the backstory here.
Speaking about speed, and the danger of hostile fire, LTG Castellaw said,
Not only can Ospreys get out of the path of the bullet quicker, but they are also built to take hits, Castellaw said.
I was always under the impression that planes are not built to take hits. I’ve seen helicopters take rounds through the oil cooler and the transmission, at which point they attain the aeronautical stability of a rock. I have the impression that these Ospreys are on the leading edge of flight stability, and I wonder how well they’d handle taking fire. Let’s not find out.
I think with time the Corps will realize that the V-22 is an unhappy compromise. They needed to replace a badly aged transportation fleet and Boeing/Bell has a nifty new experiment they wanted to try. Still, the V-22 has only been in development for 25 years, and the CH-46 helicopter flew for the Marines for 36 years. There’s lots of time to develop operational doctrine as experience improves.
This morning’s USA Today has a nice update piece about MRAPs and the slow de-emphasis on these vehicles as the panacea that would solve all the problems of our occupation of Iraq. The article includes some good photos and a short video clip. The perceived lessening of violence in Baghdad has caused the Army and Marine Corps to cancel some of their orders.
In the past few weeks, the Marines have determined they need fewer MRAPs, and the Army has indicated it will probably follow, mostly because violence is down in Iraq and counterinsurgency efforts are taking hold. Where deployed, MRAPs are helping to tamp down IED attacks by making it safe for troops to move deeper into neighborhoods to find IEDs and the insurgents who plant them, officers in the field say. A USA TODAY team embedded with combat units here in early December found that the news from the Pentagon had not dampened the demand for MRAPs on the front lines.
Troops like these vehicles because they feel safe. Further, they are larger than Humvees and Strykers, with more headroom, which provides a better environment for getting into your battle rattle.
These are the vehicles, by the way, that the Pentagon saw no need to expedite until Secretary Gates had replaced the incompetent and disgraced Donald Rumsfeld.
And, despite the recent notices that overall requirements will be cut — as many as 15,000 were once contemplated — Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week that MRAPs remain a major priority. "As it stands right now, we continue to buy as many MRAPs as can be produced, and that has not changed."
They are not the perfect answer to the resistance of course.
Although proven lifesavers — only a few troops have been killed riding in MRAPs — the vehicles are not failsafe. Armor-penetrating explosives, called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, have breached them in Iraq.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army deputy chief of staff, says, "Whatever we put a soldier or Marine in, ultimately there is a bigger boom possible, something that can undo that particular design."
No matter how much protection is loaded onto a vehicle, a determined enemy will always find a way to penetrate the armor. I discussed this dynamic at some length back in August.
The real solution is to reduce the threat or remove the challenge that produces the threat. Since we’ve committed the nation’s armed forces to a 40 or 50 year occupation in order to extract Iraq’s oil, we’re probably going to need quite a few of these vehicles in the years to come.
Stars and StripesArmy Times published a long and perhaps confusing article yesterday about a nasty subject: mutiny. Because it’s convoluted, I want to delineate it enough to make sure all twenty-six of my readers understand the history, so they can understand the story.
The 1st Bn/26th Infantry (1st Infantry Division) was operating in the general area north of Baghdad. Its 2nd Platoon was operating from Combat Outpost Apache, located in the area known as Adhamiya, northeast of Baghdad.
By June the 45-man 2nd Platoon had been in Iraq for 11 months, and had lost four men. On June 21st they had been ordered to patrol a road and a Bradley ran over a bomb buried in a road. The explosion flipped the Bradley over and the platoon watched helplessly as the five men in the Bradley died, at least one of them screaming in the flames.
Something like this will unnerve the best of troops. Command understood this, and withdrew Company C’s 2nd Platoon, moving them from COP Apache to Camp Taji in order to allow them some decompression time.
[SFC] Tim Ybay, 38, served as 2nd Platoon’s platoon sergeant, but also its father figure. The former drill sergeant teased constantly and tried to treat his men like family. At memorial services for lost soldiers, he cried the loudest. He’d been on patrol June 21 when the five 2nd Platoon soldiers died in the Bradley. When he came back, his grieving platoon circled him as the weight of the loss forced him to his knees in the sand. He’d promised to bring all his boys home.
Now he would concentrate on the ones that remained.
“I knew after losing those five guys, my platoon had to get out of there,” he said. “These were the guys they slept with, joked with, worked out with. I don’t think they’d be able to accomplish the mission.”
The tears came again as he spoke, and he looked away.
“And I was having a hard time losing my guys.”
If you haven’t served in the military, and more importantly in combat, you can’t really understand the effects of losing friends. It’s like losing a family member because nothing bonds men more closely than facing danger together. The grief is usually followed by a consuming rage. The instinct to strike back is powerful. Wise leaders understand this emotion, and the ability to prevent your men from “getting some” is one of the greatest challenges a combat leader faces. Many have failed this challenge, as Ernest Medina and William Calley learned to their shame in 1968.
At Taji, the company had a week off… Ybay and his sergeants sat at the picnic tables drinking frozen coffee concoctions. The guys bought Persian carpets and brass lamps to send home as souvenirs — as if Taji were a vacation spot. But the anger over Adhamiya emerged even poolside, and erupted at the mental health clinic, which they visited in groups.
“You never really get over the anger,” said Staff Sgt. Robin Johnson, a member of Charlie’s scout platoon who had been especially close to Agami [gunner of the burned Bradley]. “It just kind of becomes everything you are. You become pissed off at everything. We wanted to destroy everything in our paths, but they wanted us to keep building sewer systems and handing out teddy bears.”
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