Battle Company Is Out There

New York Times Magazine ^ | 24 Feb 2008 | ELIZABETH RUBIN

[lentulusgracchus]

This is an important story of the worst and most dangerous spot in the whole WOT - these incredible troops deserve recognition and to not be forgotten =

Five-thousand-pound air-delivery bump.

I hope someone is studying hell out of these small-unit engagements.

In the encounter in which Brennan got mangled and then died, it would seem the bad guys managed to maneuver unseen and then isolate on two guys in the unit and put five or six guys down on them in a rush.

I'm no tactician, but that is what seems like happened. As the narrator's narrator said (the guy who got cited for valor), all of a sudden his guys weren't there, and he was taking fire from their position.

[lentulusgracchus]

Also, all wars have their ebb and flow, priorities shift and reshift as situations develop.

Still, remember the SAS motto: "The mission first, but your people always." The "people always" part sounds like it might be flagging here. This guy's how many weeks on deployment, and he's got a morale problem with his guys just wanting to start wasting people? Which would be one thing the bad guys want -- an information warfare win. Like the moo's who I think set up Haditha as a IW operation, making sure the good guys saw them by "turkey-peeking" at them and then running into the house where all hell broke loose. And later on the family went to the press, making sure everyone heard about it.

BTW, did you see there's going to be/has been a Frontline story about Haditha?

[Grimmy]

I’ve been keeping up on Haditha since before the story went public.

As a former Marine, keeping up with who’s gunning for my brothers is always on my front burner.

As for the morale problems... that’s why God invented Staff NCOs. Soldiering is hard, tiring, exhausting, demoralizing, frightening and generally all round hard work. Always has been. Always will be. Nothing new under the sun in that area.

The SNCOs are the men that’ve been around long enough to have developed the sort of perspective that allows them to snatch a young soldier up by the scruff of his neck and shake the silly out of him, what ever form that silly might be taking... and with young men isolated in a hostile environment, silly springs up in lots of weird ways.

These soldiers are tough and well led. They’ll get through this. And they’ll have better days ahead, and probably worse.

[Grimmy]

“”The mission first, but your people always.” The “people always” part sounds like it might be flagging here.”

The soldiers are there because there is where the soldiers need to be. Not all command decisions are easy or can be comfort oriented.

War is an ugly business. These men are not forgotten or abandoned. They are where they need to be for the purpose of what needs to be done.

There is very rarely ever a perfect solution to anything in war. There is always cost and pain in every decision.

[lentulusgracchus]

They need a break and/or some extra boots

Yeah, both -- pull out of the line, re-equip, rest, retrain, and reinforce, all in-country. Ready to go back later overstrength, but all veterans.

Like the British army used to do, 200 years ago -- senior regiments like the Queen's Own and the Blues filling gaps from junior regiments of foot numbered in the teens and twenties, those regiments' officers then going to the bases of the regiments numbered in the twenties and thirties and on down the line, so that e.g. the 93rd Foot was a depot regiment -- recruit some men, watch them march away to the junior regiments that had been picked over by senior line regiments.

No boot recruits in the mountains (MHO) except in the lightest units, let them break in at some other base area. MHO.

[lentulusgracchus]

Not all command decisions are easy or can be comfort oriented.

I wasn't thinking in terms of comfort so much......guys talking to themselves and a threat to "go off" on some civilians and wipe out months of political work, now that's a problem.

[Grimmy]

You seem to be of the opinion that those who are tasked with commanding in that area are clueless fools with no concept on how to manage their duties?

[maine-iac7]

it would seem the bad guys managed to maneuver unseen and then isolate on two guys in the unit and put five or six guys down on them in a rush.

I'm no tactician, but that is what seems like happened. As the narrator's narrator said (the guy who got cited for valor), all of a sudden his guys weren't there, and he was taking fire from their position.

The terrain is some of the hardest in the world - in the porous range of the infamous Hindu Kush - you need to be a mountain goat to get around it - and when you have 100 pounds of gear on you, and getting shot at - from such terrain, it gets dicey real quick. Ninety percent of the time, you are either climbing up, with all said gear, of coming down treacherous mountainsides with sliding rocks, and have the added danger of breaking legs, ankles, etc.

The enemy doesn't have to be very far away to be 'out of sight' behind the trees, behind the hill -

To give you a small idea of the terrain:

aerial view of the Korengal

the Taliban slip in and out of the valley from/to Pakistan like water through a colander - the white line is the Paki border -

...

The Korengal is AKA "Taliban Central" and OBL considers it home territory - has spent winters there, down in the villages, has trained his minions there. The villagers who aren't outright Taliban are relatives of them -

The embeds all got out of the valley before winter - our Sky Soldiers, (Battle Co, is with the 173rd Airborne) suffered through the brutal Hindu Kush winter - one of the most inhospitable to life in the winter on planet earth...up on the high mountain sides, And on that little rock perch, no heat - 24/7. They had MRE's and ammo and some other 'essentials' dropped off at the beginning of winter - and were basically isolated - even more - until the snows melt and the 'roads' to the firebase can be traveled again = I wish they had had embeds to record what their winter was like -

[Grimmy]

“I wasn’t thinking in terms of comfort so much......guys talking to themselves and a threat to “go off” on some civilians and wipe out months of political work, now that’s a problem.”

That is also a very common occurrence in blowing off steam type chatter between soldiers under stress. That’s all it is, blowing off steam.

Do try to remember that your picture of this issue is provided to you by a tourist with no real understanding of either its environment or those who inhabit it.

Journos are expert at nothing and confusers of everything.

[lentulusgracchus]

Senators Biden, Kerry and Hagel were forced down, during a helicopter trip from Pakistan to Bagram

Damn, I didn't hear about that. That could have been embarrassing.

For somebody.

[lentulusgracchus]

Oh? Based on what post?

[Grimmy]

“Oh? Based on what post?”

I’m not sure what specifically you’re refering to but I’ll SWAG at it and see if I get close.

The impression that commanders have no clue comes from #21, 22 and 25.

That your impression is based on a rather low grade rendition of reality as put forward by the usual suspects in the industry of non-perspective (journalist) comes from the general tenor of your posts through much of this thread.

These are professional soldiers doing a hard job that is being done because it needs to be done. Such is the, unfortunately, common lot of soldiering since there’s been soldiers.

I’m not trying to pick a fight with you or insult you, actually. And if I have done so, I do apologize.

Perspective is a very hard thing to hold onto in the best of times. These times are not the best.

[maine-iac7]

"The mission first, but your people always." The "people always" part sounds like it might be flagging here. This guy's how many weeks on deployment, and he's got a morale problem with his guys just wanting to start wasting people?

In the first 4 1/2 months on this deployment, Battle Co. was in some 450 firefights - day and night, getting shot at, seeing your buddies killed and wouned at a KIA/Wounded rate of 1 in 4.

These extended deployments, brainchild of Gates, for the army take no account of the ferocity of the engagement area.

they are suppose to get an 18 day 'vacation' in the middle of the deployment - I know at least some were just told to forget it...

The rules of engagement, as others here have said, need to change - fast.

If you want to see the battles written about in this piece, go to this link for some clips

http://abcnews.go.com/search?searchtext=The%20Other%20War&type=

...

See for yourself the actual battles and soldiers this NYT piece writes about - You will be proud - you will need a tissue box - (take note of their dog, Tank - after the film, the Taliban got ahold him and tortured him near to death. He managed to crawl back to camp, but they couldn't save him - they had to put him down. He was not just their very real watchdog - but a piece of normalcy.

[Grimmy]

If you haven’t yet, you might want to read up on some of our actions and efforts during the Philippine Insurgency in the early 1900s.

The knowledge on how to handle such areas of barbaric culture are known and well proven. We just need to wait until the nation as a whole gets its head out of its tail pipe and snaps to reality.

There’s no value in doing what must be done, only to spend the rest of your life in prison for doing it because a bunch of home-fronters get their feelings hurt by it.

Until then, the soldiers just have to soldier. If the situation gets so bad that the unit is in real morale trouble, they’ll be pulled off and replaced.

They are not forgotten. They’re manning a hard duty station.

[maine-iac7]

These are professional soldiers doing a hard job that is being done because it needs to be done. Such is the, unfortunately, common lot of soldiering since there’s been soldiers.

And I can tell you that they totally believe in their mission - and are still upbeat - and they are awed by the boxes of food and baby wipes etc they have been getting since the public became aware of them. It has been a BIG boost to their morale.

The lib pols back here make them sick - But the refusal of Americans back home to let the scum protesters to demonstrate un-confronted - that now confront the Code Pinko types, the Berkley commies, etc,. mean a lot to them. They see that we are not going to allow the politicians and great unwashed to do to them what they did to our Viet Nam soldiers.

And it's about time that the "Silent Majority" is standing up and being heard - fighting fire with fire.

This is driving the rats back into the gutters where they belong.

This is the little bit we can do to let our troops know we are with them - and we will fight for them

[maine-iac7]

We just need to wait until the nation as a whole gets its head out of its tail pipe and snaps to reality.

Got that right -

well, maybe not wait too patiently - maybe get in some faces up real close and personal...

This is the most crucial election of my lifetime - and I'm a great grandmother.

We need to get this one right -

[Grimmy]

“This is the little bit we can do to let our troops know we are with them - and we will fight for them”

Amen.

But I’ll add this. What you described is the basic, entry level, duty of every single citizen in this nation. Anyone not confronting the betrayers where ever, when ever, how ever they are able to do so is just another form of betrayer.

The home-front is also a war time duty obligation.

[lentulusgracchus]

See my FReepmail reply.

The actual source of the problem IMHO is the fact that it's hazardous and remote duty, but the real remoteness is from home. This is an expedition for us, a backyard operation for the bad guys. They go home to their families every night, and they have this "different reality" that allows them to put women and kids at risk, deliberately, to make an info-warfare score, a propaganda coup. Ruthless.

But the bad guys are a) superbly maladjusted, precisely what our troops are trying not to become, and b) at home every night with all the comforts they're used to, and an ambush or overnight operation is a backyard project to them. They lose people, but they're fanatics and don't care.

This creates an asymmetrical strain on our guys, something I'd like to see the leadership cadres solve somehow. In WW II, boot replacements were thrown into combat to keep units at paper strength so they didn't have to be taken out of the line to rest and refit. So a lot of young, green troops got killed the first day. You have to wonder if they weren't wasted, like the Russians who were taken off rail cars and thrown right into attacks on prepared German positions defended by multiple machineguns with overlapping fields of fire. That kind of thing.

Here, the challenge is different, but I'm interested in what might be done to prevent both operational and eventual retention losses to the service through combat fatigue and PTSD (and sometimes suicide), which is common enough to want to prevent it if at all possible. How can we reduce these asymmetrical strains on our people (as opposed to the enemy) and increase their effectiveness?

We know it's a modern malady since armies didn't usually stay in contact for days and weeks at a time, until World War I. Before that, combat was at most a four- or five-day affair. Gettysburg was three days, Antietam one, Shiloh two, to give three Civil War examples. Sieges like Vicksburg and Petersburg were somewhat different, but even the battles along the Chickahominy didn't last three days each -- they were strung out over a period of days, and the campaign wrapped up in a couple of weeks; and not every unit was engaged every time. Although it only needed to be once, at a setpiece meatgrinder like Malvern Hill.

Today it's different, and despite the journalistic prism and its distortions, one can see that we still have a big problem with that dimension of combat, which the enemy apparently does not. I hope someone is working on erasing his advantage.

[maine-iac7]

But I’ll add this. What you described is the basic, entry level, duty of every single citizen in this nation. Anyone not confronting the betrayers where ever, when ever, how ever they are able to do so is just another form of betrayer. The home-front is also a war time duty obligation.

But I’ll add this. What you described is the basic, entry level, duty of every single citizen in this nation. Anyone not confronting the betrayers where ever, when ever, how ever they are able to do so is just another form of betrayer. The home-front is also a war time duty obligation.

But I’ll add this. What you described is the basic, entry level, duty of every single citizen in this nation. Anyone not confronting the betrayers where ever, when ever, how ever they are able to do so is just another form of betrayer. The home-front is also a war time duty obligation.

Bears repeating!

[Grimmy]

Everything you described is a known, known. There is nothing unknown in your concerns.

I do understand, and appreciate, what you’re driving at, but at the same time feel it a bit condescending that you could assume that such basic comprehension is outside the realm of those who’s professional lives have been devoted to the study and conduct of our warfighting.

Take any battle area and you’ll find good men in hard situations. It’s part of the reality. There is no perfect solution where everyone’s needs, either individual or collective, can be addressed to any civilized degree of satisfaction.

Now, contrary to popular belief, our military knows full well the ins and outs of fighting barbarians. We’ve done it in one form or another for the entire existence of our nation.

I tell you true... this is nothing new. The only new thing is the degree to which our cultural mechanism for dispersal of public information (msm) has willfully gone over to support of the enemy’s agenda.

I do not imply that the journalists in this particular issue are doing that, but it is a very well established pattern across the multi battle front spectrum that our military must constantly defend itself against.

I do take issue with the reporters in this piece implying the need for a pity party for these soldiers. Pride is what’s required. These men are standing up against a hard duty and standing up tall.

As for your freemail, the pharma issue, I have no knowledge of so can’t comment. I would remind you though, that some of our greatest advances in medical understanding come from war required adjustments to medical practice and or procedure. Maybe this is not a good thing in this case, maybe it is. I’m not a psych or a doc so can’t say.