Posted on 12/06/2016 3:58:04 PM PST by RoosterRedux
Two weeks into the war in Iraq, Marine Col. Joe D. Dowdy concluded the crowning military maneuver of his life, attacking an elite band of Iraqi troops and then shepherding 6,000 men on an 18-hour, high-speed race toward Baghdad.
But no praise awaited the First Marine regimental commander as he pushed into the tent of his superior, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, on April 4, 2003. Instead, Col. Dowdy was stripped of his command, which effectively ended his 24-year Marine career. In a final blow, Col. Dowdy says, the general asked him to empty his sidearm and turn over the ammunition. "He thought I was going to try to kill myself," the colonel says.
Assuming a battlefield command is the pinnacle of a Marine's career. Being removed is near the nadir, exceeded only by a court martial. It's extremely rare for the modern U.S. military to relieve a top commander of duty, especially during combat. Col. Dowdy, 47 years old, was the only senior officer in any of the military services to be dismissed in Iraq. He says he would rather have taken an enemy bullet.
Col. Dowdy's firing was even more unusual because he didn't commit any of the acts that normally precipitate a dismissal: failing to complete a mission, disobeying a direct order, breaking the rules of war. "It was a decision based on operating tempo," says Lt. Eric Knapp, a spokesman for the First Marine Division. He wouldn't elaborate.
The colonel's removal sparked media coverage and intense speculation in the Marine Corps. The reasons for his firing weren't clear, mainly because the colonel and his superiors refused to talk about it. Now, interviews with Col. Dowdy and a score of officers and enlisted men show the colonel was doomed partly by an age-old wartime tension: Men versus mission...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Not going to sign up to read the rest of the article.
Good teaser, though.
My thoughts exactly.
Anyone who knows the details care to fill us in? I’d rather not subscribe to the website just to read the rest of the article.
Same here WSJ crossed the line with me.
Mattis knows how to win.
Have watched this on “Generation Kill” and have read the accounts. Mattis got it right.
Generation Kill isn’t best account but it’s reasonably good.
Am reading Nate Fick’s “One Bullit Away”...Very good.
Long, probably worth bookmarking. I would point out that the original article is from 2004.
Use your noggin to get around the firewall.
Here’s a bit more:
http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-story-of-colonel-joe-dowdy-mattis.html?m=1
WSJ is a pro-lawbreaking screw the American worker through mass illegal immigration rag.
F*** Paul Gigot!
Simply copy the title (less the editorialized comment in brackets) into Google and it will get you the whole article without having to sign up with the WSJ.
Place any WSJ headline into Google and you can get a URL to read the entire WSJ article.
Read it when it first came out. Good account, but I remember it not flowing very well - unlike Bing West who has a true writer's grasp of construction.
According to a deep understanding of maneuver warfare I acquired in three minutes of googling, Col. Dowdy was relieved for not being sufficiently aggressive in pressing the front lines of assault. Depending upon which source you read, he did so because he chose to take a detour, held up advancing for three days , feared casualties or chemical weapons, realized his unit was a decoy, didn’t want to sacrifice his men just to beat the Army into Baghdad, didn’t understand maneuver warfare doctrine, and/or got conflicting orders from higher.
Probably, the reason he was relieved was that he wasn’t sufficiently aggressive in his advance for Gen Mattis and Mattis wanted to take a shot across the bow to his other officers that he wanted hard chargers in the advance. Possibly he was relieved because Mattis wanted the Marines in Baghdad before the Army, and Dowdy ruined their chances by being cautious. With the fog of war and spectre of chemical warfare still a realistic threat, it’s unlikely anyone did anything wrong. It’s not like he slapped a malingerer
Thanks for the link.
Summary (Based on some historical knowledge of the battle and reading articles on it). The Marines 1st Divisiion was supposed to arrive in a synchronized fashion with the ARmy’s 3d Division to focus combat power at a single point on Baghdad at the same time, and at a speed that would ensure the Iraqi command would be in chaos because they couldn’t react to such a rapid advance. Mattis made it clear in mission pre-brief the day before that optempo was THE critical factor, no excuses to his regimental commanders. COL Dowdy halted his regiment due to a strongpoint near Nasiriyah, when he could and should have plowed through the gap, and was relieved of duty in order to make an example of the consequence of failing to follow the commander’s intent.
My thoughts exactly.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mine too.
Wow, I remember that event. Suffice to say that i was close to what happened and had a chat with Col Dowdy later, after the fact. Good Man, BTW. That is the essence of Command; do what is necessary to get the job done.
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