prolly not worth reading......
.... just kidding. A bit lengthy, but as they say, "from the mouths of babes" Enjoy.
___________________________________________________________________
David Goldich Speaks From Iraq
My name is Corporal David Goldich. I graduated from the University of
Virginia in 2004, and armed with a history degree took a job in Florida
negotiating commercial property insurance claims stemming from Hurricane Charlie.
I found success but little pleasure in it and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in May 2005.
I am currently assigned to TOW Platoon, 2nd Tank Battalion, whom I
deployed with from April 6 to October 30, 2006 as a Humvee Driver,
Dismount, and Turret Gunner. I deployed again with TOW Platoon April
20 to November 2, 2007
as a Vehicle Commander, Assistant Section Leader, and eventually Section
Leader. My platoon provided MSR Security along a well known highway in
AO Raleigh, in Anbar Province Iraq. Our platoon was divided into four
sections of four Humvees (and later MRAPs), each composed of 14-19
Marines plus corpsman. Between the two deployments I have been on over
three hundred combat patrols, and the issues I discuss below stem
largely from these experiences. I am scheduled to finish my enlistment
with a third tour in the fall of 2008.
----
There has been tremendous change in AO Raleigh (Fallujah) over the
course of and between my 2006 and 2007 deployments. In 2006 my platoon
directly encountered approximately 155 IED emplacements (found or
detonated) over the course of our seven months in theater. In 2007,
tasked with the same mission in the same AO, my platoon encountered
about 15 IED emplacements. The concern of most Marine grunts headed to
Iraq these days is whether or not they will get their Combat Action
Ribbon. I have been told that only about a quarter of the platoon
commanders from a recently returning infantry battalion that was
stationed in AO Raleigh received their CAR (Combat Action Ribbon).
Although I would not argue that this metric from the officer perspective
is indicative of combat intensity, it is certainly instructive. Marine
grunts are largely getting put to sleep in Anbar, with interesting
unexpected side effects.
Some thoughts.........
Provisional Security Forces (PSF) work! PSF started showing up in our
AO around mid to late may 2007 around one particularly well known access
road off of the MSR we patrolled. They fashioned a checkpoint and began
to check every vehicle coming through. This example spread quickly and
suddenly there were checkpoints popping up everywhere being manned by
locals whose sheiks were pro-Coalition. More than the language barrier,
these men are from the areas that they police, and therefore know who
should and should not be driving through their checkpoints. They are
worth their weight in gold.
At first PSF checkpoints would be rudimentary, with unshaven men wearing
civilian clothes carrying rusty AK-47's milling about. Despite their
appearance, the PSF managed to eliminate IED culvert bombs (thousands of
pounds of homemade explosive [HME] packed under the road) completely
from their immediate area. We saw the difference and
quickly made it a point to introduce ourselves and give the PSF
concertina wire, glow belts, water, coolers, and just about anything
else we could steal. As the deployment went on, PSF developed started
making checkpoints in conjunction with the IP's all over the AO, to the
point that nearly every major access road leading to our MSR had a check
point. PSF acted as an amazing force multiplier that denied the enemy
freedom of movement in a manner we could not. Areas in 2006 that were
enemy safe havens have been taken back by the PSF. AQI's presence on
the ground is no longer felt in most areas we operated, either by the
Coalition, ISF, PSF, or Iraqi civilians.
Rules of Engagement/Escalation of Force (ROE/EOF) hinders freedom of
action, is run by lawyers who do not understand the combat reality on
the ground, but is absolutely essential to our COIN mission in OIF.
I hate ROE and EOF. Every grunt does. Once a month we would have
classes by our platoon commander and a Navy lawyer (a LAWYER!!!) telling
us about different examples of when/what you can or cannot shoot, what
constitutes Hostile Act/Intent, and the necessity of Positive
Identification (PID). The RCT required us to carry a wallet-sized
ROE/EOF card with us on combat patrols at all times, as if during a
firefight I would consult it. The entire program is run in a somewhat
demeaning manner toward the grunt that is allegedly too stupid to
understand what is going on around him. Its presentation is so flawed
that the underlying message is largely discarded by those whose reality
it effects on a day-to-day basis. This is a shame because restrictive
ROE/EOF saves civilian lives, and the war on the ground in Anbar now is
less about killing the enemy than not screwing up and antagonizing the
local population.
We are in a war where an errant warning shot can ricochet and
accidentally kill a sheik's daughter in the backseat of a car with dire
consequences. It is important to show self-restraint. I remember
reading an article by Nate Fick in the Washington Post along these
lines. No one likes having a loaded gun pointed at them, and if
avoiding accidents means I have to present my weapon, wave a flag, fire
a flare, then a warning shot, then a tire shot, then a grill shot, and
finally a kill shot, then so be it. But if you are going to insist on
these rules, than accordingly it should be explained how in the long run
they are actually benefiting that Marine who in the short term takes
increased personal risk in showing restraint for the sake of the
mission. Most Marines that I know are disdainful of ROE/EOF procedures
because this benefit is not properly described. More importantly the
long-term positive trends of the past year are sometimes difficult to
quantify within the individual Marine's universe. We should be doing a
better job of connecting the dots for those on the ground outside the
wire between extreme self-discipline in a dangerous environment and the
positive developments that such action allows.
Military bureaucracy stifles positive developments and hinders our
capabilities on the ground. When we first arrived in theater this last
deployment, AQI was packing culverts full of thousands of pounds of
explosive, and detonating them as our vehicles drove over. This
happened repeatedly. It took more than a month, several concussions, a
couple of destroyed vehicles, and a security contractor's right arm
before the engineers finally got the go ahead to weld grates to the
culvert openings.
At the time we (the sections going out on patrol) kept insisting, "Why
don't we just bury the entrances in dirt?" (The Iraqis won't let us),
"Why don't we put claymores inside?" (A child could get killed), etc.
This problem had to allegedly go all the way up the MEF ladder before we
received permission to weld these grates. In the meantime I would
tighten in my seat as we drove over one of nearly 50 culverts in our AO
almost every day.
Similarly, when PSF started popping up in May, our company level command
(our company commander was on his first deployment to Iraq) was clueless
about PSF. They did not understand the positive effect they were having
on our mission because they did not witness it day-to-day, only in the
abstract academic sense could they conceivably grasp the enormous change
that was happening. We could not get supplies for the PSF, such as
clothing, HESCO barriers, bulletproof glass, better weapons, food,
C-Wire, etc. What we gave them we stole from base, and probably would
have been punished if caught. These PSF checkpoints were very primitive
and vulnerable in the beginning, and took losses that were unnecessary
because they did not have the support or equipment that very easily
could have been given to them to help. The early lack of cooperation
from USMC toward PSF on the company level probably delayed their
influence and success in certain areas. Also, I don't think it is too
much to explain to the squad leader on the ground that the
non-uniformed, raggedy 20 year-olds wielding AK-47's on the side of a
road at a rudimentary vehicle checkpoint are a part of something, what
that something is, and how it effects us. What I knew about PSF and
the Awakening I got from the (alternative) media, and having the good
fortune of talking to a senior MEF civilian tribal expert early in my
deployment.
The nighttime flare recognition debacle is another instructive example
of administrative malfeasance. Usually at night we would have our lead
gunner identify an oncoming convoy in the opposite lanes. If Coalition
or Iraqi, we would have our lead gunner flash his Surefire flashlight
three times from the turret. Their lead gunner would do the same, than
flash two times, than one. This was banned by MNF-W rather suddenly,
probably for the increasing POG (Person Other then Grunt) supply convoy
blue-on-blue incidents. In its stead the nighttime flare recognition
method was imposed from above: An oncoming convoy approaches, you halt
then fire a red flare into the sky.
The opposing convoy halts, and fires a green flare into the sky. We had
six-hour patrols on the main east-west highway in the country. Besides
turning every night into the Fourth of July, draining our pyro
resources, and leaving us halted and potentially exposed to attack, this
brilliance let the enemy know our exact position, and also made red
flares (once reserved for dire emergencies) become the military
equivalent of a car alarm that everyone ignores. Infantry units
uniformly ignored the flare guidance and kept doing the 3-2-1 flash
anyway.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)/Force Protection is
counterproductive to COIN ops. The latter is, I think, a now
widely-held view amongst "experts." Excessive PPE not only inhibits
movement, but it sends the wrong message to locals. By excessive, I
mean wearing glasses, gloves, and a face mask at all times. I
understand the justification for wearing these things in certain
situations, but otherwise I ignored it. If you are an Iraqi civilian,
you are already probably intimidated by a Marine wearing a flak jacket
with helmet and rifle. But being able to see my face humanizes me and
makes me more accessible to the civilian on the street. I would almost
never wear gloves and never when shaking a man's hand or giving a child
a high-five. It's insulting to them and counterproductive. Risk
mitigation is necessary but excessive and rigid PPE guidelines can hurt
more than help.
During one patrol in June our section had to stop and turn around on the
same lanes and drive through the oncoming civilian vehicular traffic
that had built up in our wake (we don't allow civilians to pass in
either lane). As the rear vehicle we were providing security as the
section turned around and began come back around. I got out of my
Humvee without my rifle, walked up to the side of the road, and began to
wave the vehicles through in the right lane
(ours were passing by in the left). And as they came up within feet of
me, they honked, waved, smiled, and offered me cigarettes, and I even
got a few rock concert fist pumpings. What they were applauding, I am
sure, was the fact that I felt confident enough in them to approach
weaponless. My gunner had an overwatch position for me anyway.
When you are going outside the wire every day it is easy to lose your
humanity. The patrol becomes your life and primary if not sole reason
for existing. Events become statistics and every Iraqi civilian is
viewed as a potential threat. Interacting with the Iraqis and seeing
them in a human light that day was the defining moment of my deployment,
and I would like to think that being treated like people instead of
threats left them with a similarly good feeling.
The best way to stay alive is to think like the enemy. In both
deployments in all my successive billets (Driver, Dismount, Turret
Gunner, Vehicle Commander, and Section Leader) I would play and
encourage others to constantly think, "How would I kill me?" Enemy TTPs
changed gradually to deal with our own changing TTPs, and I encouraged
everyone to literally spend each patrol thinking how we were vulnerable,
and imagine as an insurgent how I would implant an IED to kill us. How
would I use a decoy IED hoax for a sniper shot? Would a secondary IED
emplacement be effective? How about laying a 122 mm shell painted white
lengthwise over a white stripe in the highway at night? Gaming the
enemy's probable courses of action should be at the forefront of every
grunt's existence in Iraq. This kind of thinking is too often neglected
by junior marines whose seniors do not encourage creative thinking. We
were able to dodge some new IED developments because we had thought
about similar possibilities in advance. Unfortunately too many Marines
are dead from not constantly thinking about the possible threats they
face. Getting shot for standing still outside, having improper geometry
of fires, setting up negligible OP perimeter defenses, having bad comm.
equipment, and not being familiar with geographic specific IED threats
have all killed Marines and will unfortunately continue because units do
not game all the possibilities, however improbable they might seem.
Reservists are a mixed bag. Infantry reservists are universally bad,
while POG reservists are much better than their active-duty
counterparts. Marine reservist grunts hardly ever deploy and possess
neither the training nor innate desire to perform as an active duty
grunt. The reservists I know say it is difficult to take seriously one
training weekend a month when you are at parade rest the other four
weeks. Active-duty affords better training opportunities, and a more
realistic idea of what a deployment environment will feel like. You live
and work with your unit and get to know personality quirks, as well as
individual strengths and weaknesses in a way that periodic, piecemeal
training cannot.
POG reservists such as engineers are fantastic. Their civilian jobs are
usually very closely related to their MOS and they usually surpass their
military counterparts in technique and proficiency. In the civilian
world they have to be good at what they do otherwise they get fired,
sadly an option not available in the military. It should be.
SLOW DOWN!!! Our huge bases with a notionally small force require
constant supply by convoy. Gas, food, and other supplies have to be
driven to base from somewhere, and this has to be done every day. And
for some reason, convoys of all sorts insist on driving too fast. Our
section maximum speeds while on patrol were 20-25 mph during the day and
10-15 mph at night. Especially at night, when visibility is greatly
reduced, driving over 15 mph for any reason other than a
Medevac/Engagement is asinine. Yet every night patrol I have ever been
on (well over a hundred) has been filled with convoys passing us in the
opposite or left/right lanes because presumably we were driving too
slow.
It was our job to move to contact to find the IEDs that kill these
convoys! And they insist on going around us because we are going too
slow! Driving too fast at night is probably the number one cause of
getting hit by IEDs, and the easiest thing to stop. Drive slower, stay
alert, and treat every suspicious curb, piece of trash, dead dog,
whatever as if it were an IED. I would institute a MNF-W nighttime
speed limit of 15/20 mph for most non time-sensitive convoys, with
certain exceptions. I guarantee even now that lives would be saved at
little cost other than annoyance of having to drive slowly. If a
nighttime speed limit had been set in 2006, dozens and possibly over a
hundred Marines would be alive. Driving slow saves lives.
Blue Force Tracker has the potential to be a great tool but as employed
is nothing more than an expensive toy. All units have icons that pop up
on the Blue Force that move on the rolling map as they travel (it is
updated by satellite every few seconds). Every convoy leaving the wire
should update its Blue Force to state their radio frequency, full unit
name without abbreviations, convoy commander, number of vehicles and
personnel, where they are headed from and to, what their mission is, and
what their status is.
There should also be an RCT/MEF section whose sole purpose is to
evaluate current conditions on the ground and constantly update Blue
Force to reflect on a daily basis. For example, IEDs show up as a green
circle icon, but they stay up for months on the screen after the event.
Current IEDs should be given one color, and old IEDs or obstacles should
be given different colors based on how old they are. Furthermore all
IED icons should have a detailed description of the type of
round/attack, exact emplacement method and area, what time of day it was
found and by who for contact information. Telling me that there was an
IED/Booby Trap three months ago with no further information is not very
helpful. We need somebody to police what icons go on the Blue Force to
minimize clutter, and the icons we have should include much more
detailed descriptions of events happening.
This is another example of a theoretical good idea where somebody throws
money at a problem and we get a useless technological mess. I could
have operated a section without Blue Force Tracker the entire deployment
and it would have been 95% the same without any major hindrance or loss
of ability. That is a shame and a waste. Lack of user feedback to
update the software is keeping this possibly invaluable tool from
reaching its potential. Technology is the domain of the young and I bet
if you put three 19 year-old lance corporal technogeeks in charge of
revamping Blue Force Tracker the system could be overhauled in about a
month for the better.
JERRV/MRAPs are advantageous but nowhere near as useful as the initial
hype. I understand why USMC has backed off their initial plan to
completely replace the Humvee with MRAPs. It just is not practical. The
vehicles are monstrous and provide excellent protection/comfort at the
expense of visibility and mobility. EOD and route clearance units have
been using MRAPs for a while now, but 2007 marked their first widespread
use among regular units. My section actually went on the first MRAP
non-EOD patrol for MNF-W. Murphy's Law went into effect as to be
expected; one of the MRAPs broke down and had to be towed back to base.
Once the kinks were worked out it became obvious that MRAPs provided
protection against the most dangerous threats in the AO at the time:
Huge SVBIED's and the aforementioned culvert bombs. If you wanted to
check out a possible IED on the side of the road you could literally
just drive up to it and peer out the window. If traveling down a dirt
road, a convoy could place an MRAP as lead vehicle and thus virtually
eliminate the threat of buried pressure plates on the rest of the
convoy. The vehicles are relatively quick considering their size, have
great creature comforts, and the class III large variants we had have
seating for eight plus one gunner in the turret. If need be in a pinch
I could easily fit a squad and probably in a dire emergency around two
dozen marines with full gear inside. I would recommend modifying the
class III as a convertible medical vehicle; one large MRAP could fit up
to four litters while having two corpsmen provide medical care without
interfering with operation of the vehicle at all.
MRAPs are not without severe limitations. The largest variant weighs
40,000 lbs. During the summer dry months, and on a paved MSR, we had
little problems. However during the winter rainy season, it remains to
be seen how well these tremendously heavy vehicles can trudge along
through the mud without getting stuck, leading to the next problem. An
MRAP cannot be towed by another MRAP, you have to call Regiment and get
the engineers out with a wrecker to tow it once stuck. This is
immensely time consuming and leaves the crew/convoy potentially
vulnerable. If a Humvee breaks down outside the wire, you can hook it
up to another Humvee with chains, a tow bar, tow strap, etc. The
hooking up and towing process should take less than a minute or so when
time is of the essence. Waiting for the engineers to come tow your MRAP
can take hours. What is the expected number of MRAPs to break down per
day and how long will the average wait time be in the future? I
envision these vehicles getting stuck in the mud all the time and having
maintenance issues once they have had some serious miles put on them.
Furthermore, MRAPs can simply not travel down certain dirt roads that
are too narrow or too unimproved. Once our platoon moved to half MRAP
vehicles it became evident that we simply did not need a 100% MRAP
force. Having two Humvees mixed with two MRAPs in a four vehicle
section allowed us to negate the IED threat while still maintaining
mobility. I was told by an officer allegedly in the know that the
original plan was to replace almost 90%+ of RCT-6 Humvees with MRAPs by
the end of 2007, and I'm glad to see that the MRAP full replacement
policy has stalled in light of the decreased violence in the province,
in addition to the issues mentioned above.
M4's are great weapons, however at much past 400-500 yards their shorter
barrel becomes a hindrance. I have experienced this firsthand in Iraq,
and more recently at my latest rifle range last week at the 500 yard
line (needless to say I still shot expert). All turret gunners should
be equipped with A4's, and definitely I would not want a squad with all
M4's for the exact same reason.
In Iraq pistols have become a vanity weapon for Officers and Staff
NCO's. If we are going to have pistols at all, which is a whole other
question, I recommend going back to the .45. A 9mm bullet is even less
effective than the 5.56. But really, why are pistols being issued at
all? I can see pistols being effective in close quarters battle in an
urban environment, but this is not being done by the Officers and SNCO's
who are the ones primarily being issued these things in the first place!
I really have no problem with senior officers being issued a pistol for
practical reasons, but I will say that when the Sergeant Major of the
Marine Corps spoke at Camp Fallujah he was carrying an M4 not a pistol,
and he did so the entire time he was at base. If we are going to issue
pistols at all, make them .45 caliber, give them to the squads going out
on patrol who might conceivably use them, and make junior officers lug
around all seven lbs. of their M4 around base.
The 5.56 round is not effective against insurgents who are doped up. My
section has slugged it out with insurgents who were as fearless as their
methamphetamine pills made them. Increasingly AQI/insurgents will get
all doped up on whatever pain relievers/narcotics are available, and
then go out in a blaze of glory. Some light was made about the
ineffective nature of the 5.56 during the siege of Fallujah and how
units were picking up discarded AK-47s for that little extra oomph. The
same problem is true today. Its hard to believe that a human being can
get shot 5 or 6 times and keep on ticking, but I have had seen it happen
one too many times to remain blind to the fact that the 5.56 is simply
too weak a caliber against a drugged out enemy. The 7.62 bullet will
blow the barnyard door out of the back of an insurgent's chest, but for
the grunt on the ground the problem of increased weight/reduced ammo
capacity remains. I would argue that we should be looking at the 6.88
caliber round for M16 variants, which I believe the Aussies have used
with great success. It's a good compromise between weight and stopping
power. I am not arguing for automatic weapons at all; I have never used
the burst setting on my M4.
I just think that our enemies in the near future will continue to be
irregular and use every advantage possible, such as narcotics. Drugged
out urgents/terrorists/paramilitaries are the wave of the future that we
will be facing and our primary rifle caliber should be able to tackle
them and reflect this reality.
From experience, I would mandate that every marine outside the wire
should have a 10 magazine load at all times. Every grunt unit develops
their SOP for what they should be carrying outside the wire, and the
standard issue is 7 magazines, this obviously lessens or increases with
each unit and what particular patrol is being conducted. I carried a
minimum of 12 magazines at all times on my person, and at one point was
even carrying 18. This is a bit excessive in the abstract, but I had
definite reasons at the time borne out by experience for doing so.
The MK-19 is the make or break weapon of the CAAT/MAP section/convoy.
It is the most intricate crew-served weapon in our arsenal, the most
likely to not function in combat, and the most devastating if employed.
The MK-19 should be manned by the most senior gunner, and I would even
have an otherwise experienced vehicle commander as the MK-19 gunner just
so I know that it would be ready when necessary. This weapon constantly
malfunctioned outside the wire during situations where its presence
would have ended events rather quickly.
I would like to bring back the M-79 Vietnam Era Thumpers. The MGL (A
revolver-like 6-shot 40MM weapon) is a nice tool but a little too bulky
to carry around in addition to your regular weapon. You still see
Special Forces carrying old M-79's around and senior fire team and squad
leaders have M203's, but the M203 lacks the speed, portability, and easy
aiming of an M79.
All Humvee turret gunners should have a SAW as a secondary rifle in case
their primary weapon goes down. Ideally it should be already
side-mounted (this is what I had last year as .50 cal gunner) but a lot
of the newer turrets render this nearly impossible.
Automated turrets are a bad idea. The video recognition system is
apparently good and the aiming system works fine, but nothing can
replace having a human being in the turret. A turret gunner can hear
where a gunshot is coming from, smell leaking gasoline from a fuel tank
that has been sniped, and most importantly feel the situation as it
develops. As a turret gunner there were times that I just felt
something wrong and was able to anticipate what happened next.
The larger point about automated turrets, Blue Force Trackers, MRAPs,
etc. is that technology is not a panacea. All the technological
advances in the world will not prevent poorly trained personnel from
killing themselves and others. My Humvee had a Chameleon CREW anti-IED
device for the non-existent RCIED threat that we would regularly not use
because it completely ruined our radio communications. We also had a
Blue Force Tracker that provided virtually 0% strategic capability. I
had a Boomerang audio sensor that could track what direction and how far
away a sniper shot was coming from that was used sparingly and that any
good turret gunner could emulate. Finally, I had a video camera with
zoom function that could extend to a height of about 20/25 feet for
monitoring...something---I never put it to good use. This is hundreds
of thousands of dollars of useless technology. I would rather have the
USMC spend that money developing better trained marines who understand
how to think for themselves in a rapidly changing environment. Or maybe
raise salaries to entice better people to think about enlisting. I am
aware of no technology or combination of technologies that can on the
whole replace a quality man on the ground. I would rather minimally
augment the well-trained grunt with some gadgetry than completely
submerse the poorly trained grunt with the latest technologies.
We have no lightweight fast infantry anymore. Here is another situation
where technology has improved our casualty situation at the extreme
expense of our killing ability. Thousands of troops are alive because
of their flak jacket and body armor, but how many more thousands of
enemy are alive because the Marine wearing 50+ lbs or armor could not
chase the insurgent more than 500 yards without having a heart attack?
I consider myself in pretty good shape, but having a flak jacket with
ESAPI armor plates, side SAPI plates, a Kevlar helmet, a standard
magazine load, and rifle is very cumbersome. I could not conceivably
chase down a determined insurgent who wanted to run away over any
appreciable distance. The body armor situation I think represents a
microcosm of larger trends happening in society and/about the military.
Our society has placed so much emphasis on protecting the troops that
our military has acceded to it. My job is to defeat the enemy, not
protect myself.
Although I have no way of proving it, I am willing to bet that if we had
adopted a lighter weight form of body armor (even at the expense of
protection), increased mobility would have offset increased casualties
with the killing of more enemy. When you fail to kill the sniper because
you cannot run his position down, he returns to kill more of your
friends the next week. When you fail to kill the AQI cell leader
because you cannot climb over a wall in your body armor, he lives to
organize a SVBIED that detonates on your friends along an MSR several
days later. Our sense of force protection projected from the top-down
is so misguided and permeates every aspect of our training, fighting,
and mission. It disgusts me. I accept that I am expendable so why
can't everyone else?
All units need to coordinate movement on the ground better. Every convoy
traveling anywhere should submit an online itinerary of pertinent
details that should be forwarded to every command through which they
will be traveling, and this information should be forwarded through
radio or Blue Force to the boots on the ground. It will save a lot of
confusion and more than a few lives. These convoy lead vehicles should
always be a MRAP or a Humvee with rollers.
Every Marine should know how to operate a .240 medium machine gun. This
needs to become an annual training requirement immediately. It is the
crew-served weapon of choice for turret gunners and, being essentially a
7.62 SAW, the easiest to use.
Company Commanders in Anbar are largely dictating on the ground policy
just in the same way that first term Corporals are implementing it on a
day-to-day basis. This is a huge departure from the past. I remember
reading Michael Yon's suggestion for aspiring journalists coming to
Iraq: Talk to the battalion commanders to find out what is going on in
their battle space on the ground. His reasoning was that in Iraq the
fighting has devolved so far down that it is no longer a division or
regimental fight but a battalion fight, and therefore the Battalion
Commander in charge of his AO is most likely to know the most about the
area and situation and give the most frank assessment. I would take
this one step further, at least in regards to Anbar, and argue that the
infantry Company Commander (Captain) has widely become the most
important rank/billet in Iraq. Company Commanders in AO Raleigh have
their own personal fiefdoms and control entire suburbs of Fallujah. They
are responsible for organizing local ISF and coordinating civil projects
in addition to maintaining security.
There are too many troops in Anbar right now. AO Raleigh is the most
dangerous AO in Anbar, and is immeasurably better than in 2006. Ramadi
has been pacified to the point that Camp Ramadi, I have been told, is a
saluting FOB. Saqliwiyah, Zaidon, and even to some extent Karma (AO
Raleigh suburbs of Fallujah) have been largely pacified. I am not a
policy expert, but by the time we left in November 2007, virtually every
grunt unit I talked to saw boredom as their primary adversary. It seems
to me that we could draw down significantly in Anbar in probably every
AO with little effect on the security situation. Marines could be
better used elsewhere.
On the other side of the coin, we have too many support troops doing
absolutely nothing in Iraq. There was an article in the Marine Corps
Times about how the average marine now gains 10 lbs in Iraq and their
cholesterol shoots up tremendously. I found this funny, as I lost 25
lbs. in 2006 and 15 lbs. in 2007. This weight loss is typical of most
other grunts I worked with. The weight gain, however, is coming from
support troops who are staying on base living a sedentary lifestyle and
doing not much at all. There are ways we can trim the fat of our total
force in Iraq without suffering any ill effects by eliminating these
support troops who are doing nothing. Walking around Camp Fallujah or
any main FOB will open one's eyes to the excess personnel we have in
Iraq. Similarly, I see little point in transforming the USMC from
180,000 to 203,000 troops unless the bulk of those troops are combat
arms. As is we are only adding essentially one regiment of grunts, and
these are the troops who are overworked and over-deployed. We need more
grunts!!!
The amount of violence in Anbar is indirectly proportional to the level
of garrison nonsense imposed by higher. In 2006, Anbar was very
violent. Accordingly, my platoon stationed aboard Camp Fallujah (one of
very few infantry units stationed on base) issued ourselves the moral
authority to ignore whatever BS was coming from the top about petty
issues. If someone (read: POG SNCO) decided to "hawk" one of us for not
having a haircut or some equal nonsense, you could pretty much get away
with telling him what you did that day on patrol and asking him when the
last time he went outside the wire was. (My personal favorite riposte
was asking them how many bodies they had on their pistol, that always
shut them up real good.)
In 2007, because of the perceived and real drop in violence, more and
more stupid rules and garrison "stuff" seeped into life on base. For
support troops this is of minimal importance, their life in Iraq is
largely the same as back in the US. But having the Headquarters
Battalion Sergeant Major tell me how to properly clear my weapon upon my
return from a patrol in which I faced considerably more danger than the
errant paper cut is more than demoralizing. It is sad. The joke is
that CF is actually called Camp Flejeune. When I talk to Marines about
redeploying, the biggest worry is not about the enemy but how stupid the
garrison mentality will be when we return. There is something wrong
with that picture.
The notion that current luxuries afforded troops in Iraq is somehow
different from past wars is wrong. Occasionally I read about how the
troops in Iraq have too many luxuries, how great our food is, how we
have internet, etc. The tone of these comments is generally disdainful,
and suggestive that we could minimize our convoys and exposure if we
would just live a more Spartan lifestyle. I readily concede that we
have great food and internet access in Iraq, both luxuries unavailable
in say, Vietnam. Of course we do not have cold beer, women , and big
time celebrities on the USO tour. Imagine going 7 months without a cold
beer or companionship. It is not fun. Every war is different, but they
are universal in their misery. I would ask veterans of past wars to cut
current troops some slack on this account.
Besides, largely these luxury benefits are least available to those who
deserve them most, those who are stationed (like we often were for weeks
at a time) at Observation Posts and Firm Bases scattered throughout the
AO. This, as I have been told, is unchanged from past wars.
Kids uniformly love the troops. We shower them with candy, cold water,
and toys, and have secured their loyalty. Beyond the superficial, kids
are going to new schools, playing outside, and often receiving coalition
medical outreach care. They will remember it. Like most Arab
countries, Iraq is young, and the children of today will be the leaders
of the next generation. On this subject, we got it right from the
beginning. The most positive reactions I got on patrol were inevitable
from children of all ages and both genders.
Negative comments from politicians played over television have a
dramatic effect on morale, especially on troops who are otherwise
indifferent and disdainful of politics in general. I cannot tell you
how many times I have overheard marines and soldiers talking about
various inconsiderate comments made from the likes of John Kerry,
Murtha, Reid, and Pelosi about how we cannot win, how we should be
brought home, etc. The Kerry comments really cemented his reputation
with the troops and upset people more than anything else. It is
unnerving to volunteer for service during wartime hoping to be deployed
and having to listen to a politician explain how the troops need to come
home, especially when we clearly have not finished what we started.
There is a widespread perception amongst the Marines I know, even those
uninterested in politics, that the Democratic Party does not want us to
win in Iraq for whatever reason. This is true even amongst Democrats
who still maintain the party viewpoint on almost every other issue but
the war. Morale is always a tricky issue to deal with, and it is
difficult to tell a Marine to buck up when he sees important people back
home undercutting his primary reason for existing at the moment.
The news cycle in the mainstream media is about 4/6 months behind events
on the ground. The evolution of the IED threat is a perfect example. I
remember seeing an article in the Marine Corps Times about a new "speed
bump" IED appearing in Iraq. This was about 6 months after we first
encountered them. Likewise there was an article in the Washington
Post/MSNBC about pressure plate IEDs several months ago that made it
seem like this threat, which had been around for over a year, was
somehow new. The same thing is true with the effects of the surge.
The most accurate news reporting on the ground in Iraq is coming from
bloggers and the alternative media. When I was in Iraq I would read
Michael Yon and Michael Totten when possible for great stories on what
was really happening elsewhere around the country.
Every returning unit from Iraq should be given uncharged "basket" leave
for post-deployment. Even if you have to offset the cost by taking out
money of the paycheck elsewhere, this would have a huge positive effect
on morale. I earn 30 days of leave per year and between pre- deployment
and post-deployment leave in 2006 and 2007 there is none left should I
so desire to take some time off. My unit is an extreme example with
back-to-back-to-back deployments, but this problem exists everywhere.
Marines are burned out and should be able to spend 20 days with their
families when they return home from Iraq, regardless of their MOS.
The Iraqi Army (IA) and Iraqi Police (IP) in Anbar are tremendously
better than they were in 2006. The IPs in particular are much better in
AO Raleigh. In 2006 they were infiltrated by insurgents and AQI and
could not be trusted. The ones that could be trusted were afraid to
leave their bases and do any policing, which to be fair essentially
amounted to military style patrolling. The IP's are now out on the
streets, proud and unafraid. They look more professional! , have better
weapons and vehicles to include flak jackets, interact with a grateful
population that respects them (the old Saddam-era civilian disdain
toward police officers has evaporated), and will not back down from a
fight. In the city of Fallujah, the IP's are largely running the
security show and the US presence has been reduced to MITT/PTT teams and
essentially one company of grunts. They more and more act and gradually
look like a professional forcee, largely because they are becoming one.
IP's maintain an overwatch p position in front of the main exit of CF
and guard the most important bridge in Anbar for coalition convoy
traffic. These jobs could not have been provided in 2006, and I would
have laughed should someone have suggested them. My 2007 deployment was
in many ways emasculating because of increased ISF presence, and I could
not be happier.
The weakest link in the USMC right now is the Staff NCO. Most joined
before 9/11, and do not share the post 9/11 enlistee's motivation to
enlist: knowing he will probably be going to war. Many if not most are
stuck in a garrison mindset of the late 1990s: Med-Floats and West-Pacs
which hold little meaning now with Iraq at the forefront. The strategic
first-term corporal/sergeant is in charge on the ground. He made his
bones in Iraq not stateside at a training evolution. You cannot teach
an old dog new tricks and the current lot of staff sergeants, gunnery
sergeants, and even some first sergeants are stuck in a peacetime
mindset. Over the next two years many of the first crop of post-9/11
re-enlistees will be picking up Staff Sergeant and things will slowly
change for the better. Some examples I have experienced would be
comical if peoples lives weren'tt at stake. Maybe my viewpoint is
radically different than others. But the trend of inadequate SNCOs
seems to permeate the ranks of combat arms amongst almost every unit I
have become acquainted with. Rank is not an indication of talent, and
many senior Marines, both enlisted and officer, have confused the two.
___________________________________________________________________
David Goldich Speaks From Iraq
My name is Corporal David Goldich. I graduated from the University of
Virginia in 2004, and armed with a history degree took a job in Florida
negotiating commercial property insurance claims stemming from Hurricane Charlie.
I found success but little pleasure in it and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in May 2005.
I am currently assigned to TOW Platoon, 2nd Tank Battalion, whom I
deployed with from April 6 to October 30, 2006 as a Humvee Driver,
Dismount, and Turret Gunner. I deployed again with TOW Platoon April
20 to November 2, 2007
as a Vehicle Commander, Assistant Section Leader, and eventually Section
Leader. My platoon provided MSR Security along a well known highway in
AO Raleigh, in Anbar Province Iraq. Our platoon was divided into four
sections of four Humvees (and later MRAPs), each composed of 14-19
Marines plus corpsman. Between the two deployments I have been on over
three hundred combat patrols, and the issues I discuss below stem
largely from these experiences. I am scheduled to finish my enlistment
with a third tour in the fall of 2008.
----
There has been tremendous change in AO Raleigh (Fallujah) over the
course of and between my 2006 and 2007 deployments. In 2006 my platoon
directly encountered approximately 155 IED emplacements (found or
detonated) over the course of our seven months in theater. In 2007,
tasked with the same mission in the same AO, my platoon encountered
about 15 IED emplacements. The concern of most Marine grunts headed to
Iraq these days is whether or not they will get their Combat Action
Ribbon. I have been told that only about a quarter of the platoon
commanders from a recently returning infantry battalion that was
stationed in AO Raleigh received their CAR (Combat Action Ribbon).
Although I would not argue that this metric from the officer perspective
is indicative of combat intensity, it is certainly instructive. Marine
grunts are largely getting put to sleep in Anbar, with interesting
unexpected side effects.
Some thoughts.........
Provisional Security Forces (PSF) work! PSF started showing up in our
AO around mid to late may 2007 around one particularly well known access
road off of the MSR we patrolled. They fashioned a checkpoint and began
to check every vehicle coming through. This example spread quickly and
suddenly there were checkpoints popping up everywhere being manned by
locals whose sheiks were pro-Coalition. More than the language barrier,
these men are from the areas that they police, and therefore know who
should and should not be driving through their checkpoints. They are
worth their weight in gold.
At first PSF checkpoints would be rudimentary, with unshaven men wearing
civilian clothes carrying rusty AK-47's milling about. Despite their
appearance, the PSF managed to eliminate IED culvert bombs (thousands of
pounds of homemade explosive [HME] packed under the road) completely
from their immediate area. We saw the difference and
quickly made it a point to introduce ourselves and give the PSF
concertina wire, glow belts, water, coolers, and just about anything
else we could steal. As the deployment went on, PSF developed started
making checkpoints in conjunction with the IP's all over the AO, to the
point that nearly every major access road leading to our MSR had a check
point. PSF acted as an amazing force multiplier that denied the enemy
freedom of movement in a manner we could not. Areas in 2006 that were
enemy safe havens have been taken back by the PSF. AQI's presence on
the ground is no longer felt in most areas we operated, either by the
Coalition, ISF, PSF, or Iraqi civilians.
Rules of Engagement/Escalation of Force (ROE/EOF) hinders freedom of
action, is run by lawyers who do not understand the combat reality on
the ground, but is absolutely essential to our COIN mission in OIF.
I hate ROE and EOF. Every grunt does. Once a month we would have
classes by our platoon commander and a Navy lawyer (a LAWYER!!!) telling
us about different examples of when/what you can or cannot shoot, what
constitutes Hostile Act/Intent, and the necessity of Positive
Identification (PID). The RCT required us to carry a wallet-sized
ROE/EOF card with us on combat patrols at all times, as if during a
firefight I would consult it. The entire program is run in a somewhat
demeaning manner toward the grunt that is allegedly too stupid to
understand what is going on around him. Its presentation is so flawed
that the underlying message is largely discarded by those whose reality
it effects on a day-to-day basis. This is a shame because restrictive
ROE/EOF saves civilian lives, and the war on the ground in Anbar now is
less about killing the enemy than not screwing up and antagonizing the
local population.
We are in a war where an errant warning shot can ricochet and
accidentally kill a sheik's daughter in the backseat of a car with dire
consequences. It is important to show self-restraint. I remember
reading an article by Nate Fick in the Washington Post along these
lines. No one likes having a loaded gun pointed at them, and if
avoiding accidents means I have to present my weapon, wave a flag, fire
a flare, then a warning shot, then a tire shot, then a grill shot, and
finally a kill shot, then so be it. But if you are going to insist on
these rules, than accordingly it should be explained how in the long run
they are actually benefiting that Marine who in the short term takes
increased personal risk in showing restraint for the sake of the
mission. Most Marines that I know are disdainful of ROE/EOF procedures
because this benefit is not properly described. More importantly the
long-term positive trends of the past year are sometimes difficult to
quantify within the individual Marine's universe. We should be doing a
better job of connecting the dots for those on the ground outside the
wire between extreme self-discipline in a dangerous environment and the
positive developments that such action allows.
Military bureaucracy stifles positive developments and hinders our
capabilities on the ground. When we first arrived in theater this last
deployment, AQI was packing culverts full of thousands of pounds of
explosive, and detonating them as our vehicles drove over. This
happened repeatedly. It took more than a month, several concussions, a
couple of destroyed vehicles, and a security contractor's right arm
before the engineers finally got the go ahead to weld grates to the
culvert openings.
At the time we (the sections going out on patrol) kept insisting, "Why
don't we just bury the entrances in dirt?" (The Iraqis won't let us),
"Why don't we put claymores inside?" (A child could get killed), etc.
This problem had to allegedly go all the way up the MEF ladder before we
received permission to weld these grates. In the meantime I would
tighten in my seat as we drove over one of nearly 50 culverts in our AO
almost every day.
Similarly, when PSF started popping up in May, our company level command
(our company commander was on his first deployment to Iraq) was clueless
about PSF. They did not understand the positive effect they were having
on our mission because they did not witness it day-to-day, only in the
abstract academic sense could they conceivably grasp the enormous change
that was happening. We could not get supplies for the PSF, such as
clothing, HESCO barriers, bulletproof glass, better weapons, food,
C-Wire, etc. What we gave them we stole from base, and probably would
have been punished if caught. These PSF checkpoints were very primitive
and vulnerable in the beginning, and took losses that were unnecessary
because they did not have the support or equipment that very easily
could have been given to them to help. The early lack of cooperation
from USMC toward PSF on the company level probably delayed their
influence and success in certain areas. Also, I don't think it is too
much to explain to the squad leader on the ground that the
non-uniformed, raggedy 20 year-olds wielding AK-47's on the side of a
road at a rudimentary vehicle checkpoint are a part of something, what
that something is, and how it effects us. What I knew about PSF and
the Awakening I got from the (alternative) media, and having the good
fortune of talking to a senior MEF civilian tribal expert early in my
deployment.
The nighttime flare recognition debacle is another instructive example
of administrative malfeasance. Usually at night we would have our lead
gunner identify an oncoming convoy in the opposite lanes. If Coalition
or Iraqi, we would have our lead gunner flash his Surefire flashlight
three times from the turret. Their lead gunner would do the same, than
flash two times, than one. This was banned by MNF-W rather suddenly,
probably for the increasing POG (Person Other then Grunt) supply convoy
blue-on-blue incidents. In its stead the nighttime flare recognition
method was imposed from above: An oncoming convoy approaches, you halt
then fire a red flare into the sky.
The opposing convoy halts, and fires a green flare into the sky. We had
six-hour patrols on the main east-west highway in the country. Besides
turning every night into the Fourth of July, draining our pyro
resources, and leaving us halted and potentially exposed to attack, this
brilliance let the enemy know our exact position, and also made red
flares (once reserved for dire emergencies) become the military
equivalent of a car alarm that everyone ignores. Infantry units
uniformly ignored the flare guidance and kept doing the 3-2-1 flash
anyway.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)/Force Protection is
counterproductive to COIN ops. The latter is, I think, a now
widely-held view amongst "experts." Excessive PPE not only inhibits
movement, but it sends the wrong message to locals. By excessive, I
mean wearing glasses, gloves, and a face mask at all times. I
understand the justification for wearing these things in certain
situations, but otherwise I ignored it. If you are an Iraqi civilian,
you are already probably intimidated by a Marine wearing a flak jacket
with helmet and rifle. But being able to see my face humanizes me and
makes me more accessible to the civilian on the street. I would almost
never wear gloves and never when shaking a man's hand or giving a child
a high-five. It's insulting to them and counterproductive. Risk
mitigation is necessary but excessive and rigid PPE guidelines can hurt
more than help.
During one patrol in June our section had to stop and turn around on the
same lanes and drive through the oncoming civilian vehicular traffic
that had built up in our wake (we don't allow civilians to pass in
either lane). As the rear vehicle we were providing security as the
section turned around and began come back around. I got out of my
Humvee without my rifle, walked up to the side of the road, and began to
wave the vehicles through in the right lane
(ours were passing by in the left). And as they came up within feet of
me, they honked, waved, smiled, and offered me cigarettes, and I even
got a few rock concert fist pumpings. What they were applauding, I am
sure, was the fact that I felt confident enough in them to approach
weaponless. My gunner had an overwatch position for me anyway.
When you are going outside the wire every day it is easy to lose your
humanity. The patrol becomes your life and primary if not sole reason
for existing. Events become statistics and every Iraqi civilian is
viewed as a potential threat. Interacting with the Iraqis and seeing
them in a human light that day was the defining moment of my deployment,
and I would like to think that being treated like people instead of
threats left them with a similarly good feeling.
The best way to stay alive is to think like the enemy. In both
deployments in all my successive billets (Driver, Dismount, Turret
Gunner, Vehicle Commander, and Section Leader) I would play and
encourage others to constantly think, "How would I kill me?" Enemy TTPs
changed gradually to deal with our own changing TTPs, and I encouraged
everyone to literally spend each patrol thinking how we were vulnerable,
and imagine as an insurgent how I would implant an IED to kill us. How
would I use a decoy IED hoax for a sniper shot? Would a secondary IED
emplacement be effective? How about laying a 122 mm shell painted white
lengthwise over a white stripe in the highway at night? Gaming the
enemy's probable courses of action should be at the forefront of every
grunt's existence in Iraq. This kind of thinking is too often neglected
by junior marines whose seniors do not encourage creative thinking. We
were able to dodge some new IED developments because we had thought
about similar possibilities in advance. Unfortunately too many Marines
are dead from not constantly thinking about the possible threats they
face. Getting shot for standing still outside, having improper geometry
of fires, setting up negligible OP perimeter defenses, having bad comm.
equipment, and not being familiar with geographic specific IED threats
have all killed Marines and will unfortunately continue because units do
not game all the possibilities, however improbable they might seem.
Reservists are a mixed bag. Infantry reservists are universally bad,
while POG reservists are much better than their active-duty
counterparts. Marine reservist grunts hardly ever deploy and possess
neither the training nor innate desire to perform as an active duty
grunt. The reservists I know say it is difficult to take seriously one
training weekend a month when you are at parade rest the other four
weeks. Active-duty affords better training opportunities, and a more
realistic idea of what a deployment environment will feel like. You live
and work with your unit and get to know personality quirks, as well as
individual strengths and weaknesses in a way that periodic, piecemeal
training cannot.
POG reservists such as engineers are fantastic. Their civilian jobs are
usually very closely related to their MOS and they usually surpass their
military counterparts in technique and proficiency. In the civilian
world they have to be good at what they do otherwise they get fired,
sadly an option not available in the military. It should be.
SLOW DOWN!!! Our huge bases with a notionally small force require
constant supply by convoy. Gas, food, and other supplies have to be
driven to base from somewhere, and this has to be done every day. And
for some reason, convoys of all sorts insist on driving too fast. Our
section maximum speeds while on patrol were 20-25 mph during the day and
10-15 mph at night. Especially at night, when visibility is greatly
reduced, driving over 15 mph for any reason other than a
Medevac/Engagement is asinine. Yet every night patrol I have ever been
on (well over a hundred) has been filled with convoys passing us in the
opposite or left/right lanes because presumably we were driving too
slow.
It was our job to move to contact to find the IEDs that kill these
convoys! And they insist on going around us because we are going too
slow! Driving too fast at night is probably the number one cause of
getting hit by IEDs, and the easiest thing to stop. Drive slower, stay
alert, and treat every suspicious curb, piece of trash, dead dog,
whatever as if it were an IED. I would institute a MNF-W nighttime
speed limit of 15/20 mph for most non time-sensitive convoys, with
certain exceptions. I guarantee even now that lives would be saved at
little cost other than annoyance of having to drive slowly. If a
nighttime speed limit had been set in 2006, dozens and possibly over a
hundred Marines would be alive. Driving slow saves lives.
Blue Force Tracker has the potential to be a great tool but as employed
is nothing more than an expensive toy. All units have icons that pop up
on the Blue Force that move on the rolling map as they travel (it is
updated by satellite every few seconds). Every convoy leaving the wire
should update its Blue Force to state their radio frequency, full unit
name without abbreviations, convoy commander, number of vehicles and
personnel, where they are headed from and to, what their mission is, and
what their status is.
There should also be an RCT/MEF section whose sole purpose is to
evaluate current conditions on the ground and constantly update Blue
Force to reflect on a daily basis. For example, IEDs show up as a green
circle icon, but they stay up for months on the screen after the event.
Current IEDs should be given one color, and old IEDs or obstacles should
be given different colors based on how old they are. Furthermore all
IED icons should have a detailed description of the type of
round/attack, exact emplacement method and area, what time of day it was
found and by who for contact information. Telling me that there was an
IED/Booby Trap three months ago with no further information is not very
helpful. We need somebody to police what icons go on the Blue Force to
minimize clutter, and the icons we have should include much more
detailed descriptions of events happening.
This is another example of a theoretical good idea where somebody throws
money at a problem and we get a useless technological mess. I could
have operated a section without Blue Force Tracker the entire deployment
and it would have been 95% the same without any major hindrance or loss
of ability. That is a shame and a waste. Lack of user feedback to
update the software is keeping this possibly invaluable tool from
reaching its potential. Technology is the domain of the young and I bet
if you put three 19 year-old lance corporal technogeeks in charge of
revamping Blue Force Tracker the system could be overhauled in about a
month for the better.
JERRV/MRAPs are advantageous but nowhere near as useful as the initial
hype. I understand why USMC has backed off their initial plan to
completely replace the Humvee with MRAPs. It just is not practical. The
vehicles are monstrous and provide excellent protection/comfort at the
expense of visibility and mobility. EOD and route clearance units have
been using MRAPs for a while now, but 2007 marked their first widespread
use among regular units. My section actually went on the first MRAP
non-EOD patrol for MNF-W. Murphy's Law went into effect as to be
expected; one of the MRAPs broke down and had to be towed back to base.
Once the kinks were worked out it became obvious that MRAPs provided
protection against the most dangerous threats in the AO at the time:
Huge SVBIED's and the aforementioned culvert bombs. If you wanted to
check out a possible IED on the side of the road you could literally
just drive up to it and peer out the window. If traveling down a dirt
road, a convoy could place an MRAP as lead vehicle and thus virtually
eliminate the threat of buried pressure plates on the rest of the
convoy. The vehicles are relatively quick considering their size, have
great creature comforts, and the class III large variants we had have
seating for eight plus one gunner in the turret. If need be in a pinch
I could easily fit a squad and probably in a dire emergency around two
dozen marines with full gear inside. I would recommend modifying the
class III as a convertible medical vehicle; one large MRAP could fit up
to four litters while having two corpsmen provide medical care without
interfering with operation of the vehicle at all.
MRAPs are not without severe limitations. The largest variant weighs
40,000 lbs. During the summer dry months, and on a paved MSR, we had
little problems. However during the winter rainy season, it remains to
be seen how well these tremendously heavy vehicles can trudge along
through the mud without getting stuck, leading to the next problem. An
MRAP cannot be towed by another MRAP, you have to call Regiment and get
the engineers out with a wrecker to tow it once stuck. This is
immensely time consuming and leaves the crew/convoy potentially
vulnerable. If a Humvee breaks down outside the wire, you can hook it
up to another Humvee with chains, a tow bar, tow strap, etc. The
hooking up and towing process should take less than a minute or so when
time is of the essence. Waiting for the engineers to come tow your MRAP
can take hours. What is the expected number of MRAPs to break down per
day and how long will the average wait time be in the future? I
envision these vehicles getting stuck in the mud all the time and having
maintenance issues once they have had some serious miles put on them.
Furthermore, MRAPs can simply not travel down certain dirt roads that
are too narrow or too unimproved. Once our platoon moved to half MRAP
vehicles it became evident that we simply did not need a 100% MRAP
force. Having two Humvees mixed with two MRAPs in a four vehicle
section allowed us to negate the IED threat while still maintaining
mobility. I was told by an officer allegedly in the know that the
original plan was to replace almost 90%+ of RCT-6 Humvees with MRAPs by
the end of 2007, and I'm glad to see that the MRAP full replacement
policy has stalled in light of the decreased violence in the province,
in addition to the issues mentioned above.
M4's are great weapons, however at much past 400-500 yards their shorter
barrel becomes a hindrance. I have experienced this firsthand in Iraq,
and more recently at my latest rifle range last week at the 500 yard
line (needless to say I still shot expert). All turret gunners should
be equipped with A4's, and definitely I would not want a squad with all
M4's for the exact same reason.
In Iraq pistols have become a vanity weapon for Officers and Staff
NCO's. If we are going to have pistols at all, which is a whole other
question, I recommend going back to the .45. A 9mm bullet is even less
effective than the 5.56. But really, why are pistols being issued at
all? I can see pistols being effective in close quarters battle in an
urban environment, but this is not being done by the Officers and SNCO's
who are the ones primarily being issued these things in the first place!
I really have no problem with senior officers being issued a pistol for
practical reasons, but I will say that when the Sergeant Major of the
Marine Corps spoke at Camp Fallujah he was carrying an M4 not a pistol,
and he did so the entire time he was at base. If we are going to issue
pistols at all, make them .45 caliber, give them to the squads going out
on patrol who might conceivably use them, and make junior officers lug
around all seven lbs. of their M4 around base.
The 5.56 round is not effective against insurgents who are doped up. My
section has slugged it out with insurgents who were as fearless as their
methamphetamine pills made them. Increasingly AQI/insurgents will get
all doped up on whatever pain relievers/narcotics are available, and
then go out in a blaze of glory. Some light was made about the
ineffective nature of the 5.56 during the siege of Fallujah and how
units were picking up discarded AK-47s for that little extra oomph. The
same problem is true today. Its hard to believe that a human being can
get shot 5 or 6 times and keep on ticking, but I have had seen it happen
one too many times to remain blind to the fact that the 5.56 is simply
too weak a caliber against a drugged out enemy. The 7.62 bullet will
blow the barnyard door out of the back of an insurgent's chest, but for
the grunt on the ground the problem of increased weight/reduced ammo
capacity remains. I would argue that we should be looking at the 6.88
caliber round for M16 variants, which I believe the Aussies have used
with great success. It's a good compromise between weight and stopping
power. I am not arguing for automatic weapons at all; I have never used
the burst setting on my M4.
I just think that our enemies in the near future will continue to be
irregular and use every advantage possible, such as narcotics. Drugged
out urgents/terrorists/paramilitaries are the wave of the future that we
will be facing and our primary rifle caliber should be able to tackle
them and reflect this reality.
From experience, I would mandate that every marine outside the wire
should have a 10 magazine load at all times. Every grunt unit develops
their SOP for what they should be carrying outside the wire, and the
standard issue is 7 magazines, this obviously lessens or increases with
each unit and what particular patrol is being conducted. I carried a
minimum of 12 magazines at all times on my person, and at one point was
even carrying 18. This is a bit excessive in the abstract, but I had
definite reasons at the time borne out by experience for doing so.
The MK-19 is the make or break weapon of the CAAT/MAP section/convoy.
It is the most intricate crew-served weapon in our arsenal, the most
likely to not function in combat, and the most devastating if employed.
The MK-19 should be manned by the most senior gunner, and I would even
have an otherwise experienced vehicle commander as the MK-19 gunner just
so I know that it would be ready when necessary. This weapon constantly
malfunctioned outside the wire during situations where its presence
would have ended events rather quickly.
I would like to bring back the M-79 Vietnam Era Thumpers. The MGL (A
revolver-like 6-shot 40MM weapon) is a nice tool but a little too bulky
to carry around in addition to your regular weapon. You still see
Special Forces carrying old M-79's around and senior fire team and squad
leaders have M203's, but the M203 lacks the speed, portability, and easy
aiming of an M79.
All Humvee turret gunners should have a SAW as a secondary rifle in case
their primary weapon goes down. Ideally it should be already
side-mounted (this is what I had last year as .50 cal gunner) but a lot
of the newer turrets render this nearly impossible.
Automated turrets are a bad idea. The video recognition system is
apparently good and the aiming system works fine, but nothing can
replace having a human being in the turret. A turret gunner can hear
where a gunshot is coming from, smell leaking gasoline from a fuel tank
that has been sniped, and most importantly feel the situation as it
develops. As a turret gunner there were times that I just felt
something wrong and was able to anticipate what happened next.
The larger point about automated turrets, Blue Force Trackers, MRAPs,
etc. is that technology is not a panacea. All the technological
advances in the world will not prevent poorly trained personnel from
killing themselves and others. My Humvee had a Chameleon CREW anti-IED
device for the non-existent RCIED threat that we would regularly not use
because it completely ruined our radio communications. We also had a
Blue Force Tracker that provided virtually 0% strategic capability. I
had a Boomerang audio sensor that could track what direction and how far
away a sniper shot was coming from that was used sparingly and that any
good turret gunner could emulate. Finally, I had a video camera with
zoom function that could extend to a height of about 20/25 feet for
monitoring...something---I never put it to good use. This is hundreds
of thousands of dollars of useless technology. I would rather have the
USMC spend that money developing better trained marines who understand
how to think for themselves in a rapidly changing environment. Or maybe
raise salaries to entice better people to think about enlisting. I am
aware of no technology or combination of technologies that can on the
whole replace a quality man on the ground. I would rather minimally
augment the well-trained grunt with some gadgetry than completely
submerse the poorly trained grunt with the latest technologies.
We have no lightweight fast infantry anymore. Here is another situation
where technology has improved our casualty situation at the extreme
expense of our killing ability. Thousands of troops are alive because
of their flak jacket and body armor, but how many more thousands of
enemy are alive because the Marine wearing 50+ lbs or armor could not
chase the insurgent more than 500 yards without having a heart attack?
I consider myself in pretty good shape, but having a flak jacket with
ESAPI armor plates, side SAPI plates, a Kevlar helmet, a standard
magazine load, and rifle is very cumbersome. I could not conceivably
chase down a determined insurgent who wanted to run away over any
appreciable distance. The body armor situation I think represents a
microcosm of larger trends happening in society and/about the military.
Our society has placed so much emphasis on protecting the troops that
our military has acceded to it. My job is to defeat the enemy, not
protect myself.
Although I have no way of proving it, I am willing to bet that if we had
adopted a lighter weight form of body armor (even at the expense of
protection), increased mobility would have offset increased casualties
with the killing of more enemy. When you fail to kill the sniper because
you cannot run his position down, he returns to kill more of your
friends the next week. When you fail to kill the AQI cell leader
because you cannot climb over a wall in your body armor, he lives to
organize a SVBIED that detonates on your friends along an MSR several
days later. Our sense of force protection projected from the top-down
is so misguided and permeates every aspect of our training, fighting,
and mission. It disgusts me. I accept that I am expendable so why
can't everyone else?
All units need to coordinate movement on the ground better. Every convoy
traveling anywhere should submit an online itinerary of pertinent
details that should be forwarded to every command through which they
will be traveling, and this information should be forwarded through
radio or Blue Force to the boots on the ground. It will save a lot of
confusion and more than a few lives. These convoy lead vehicles should
always be a MRAP or a Humvee with rollers.
Every Marine should know how to operate a .240 medium machine gun. This
needs to become an annual training requirement immediately. It is the
crew-served weapon of choice for turret gunners and, being essentially a
7.62 SAW, the easiest to use.
Company Commanders in Anbar are largely dictating on the ground policy
just in the same way that first term Corporals are implementing it on a
day-to-day basis. This is a huge departure from the past. I remember
reading Michael Yon's suggestion for aspiring journalists coming to
Iraq: Talk to the battalion commanders to find out what is going on in
their battle space on the ground. His reasoning was that in Iraq the
fighting has devolved so far down that it is no longer a division or
regimental fight but a battalion fight, and therefore the Battalion
Commander in charge of his AO is most likely to know the most about the
area and situation and give the most frank assessment. I would take
this one step further, at least in regards to Anbar, and argue that the
infantry Company Commander (Captain) has widely become the most
important rank/billet in Iraq. Company Commanders in AO Raleigh have
their own personal fiefdoms and control entire suburbs of Fallujah. They
are responsible for organizing local ISF and coordinating civil projects
in addition to maintaining security.
There are too many troops in Anbar right now. AO Raleigh is the most
dangerous AO in Anbar, and is immeasurably better than in 2006. Ramadi
has been pacified to the point that Camp Ramadi, I have been told, is a
saluting FOB. Saqliwiyah, Zaidon, and even to some extent Karma (AO
Raleigh suburbs of Fallujah) have been largely pacified. I am not a
policy expert, but by the time we left in November 2007, virtually every
grunt unit I talked to saw boredom as their primary adversary. It seems
to me that we could draw down significantly in Anbar in probably every
AO with little effect on the security situation. Marines could be
better used elsewhere.
On the other side of the coin, we have too many support troops doing
absolutely nothing in Iraq. There was an article in the Marine Corps
Times about how the average marine now gains 10 lbs in Iraq and their
cholesterol shoots up tremendously. I found this funny, as I lost 25
lbs. in 2006 and 15 lbs. in 2007. This weight loss is typical of most
other grunts I worked with. The weight gain, however, is coming from
support troops who are staying on base living a sedentary lifestyle and
doing not much at all. There are ways we can trim the fat of our total
force in Iraq without suffering any ill effects by eliminating these
support troops who are doing nothing. Walking around Camp Fallujah or
any main FOB will open one's eyes to the excess personnel we have in
Iraq. Similarly, I see little point in transforming the USMC from
180,000 to 203,000 troops unless the bulk of those troops are combat
arms. As is we are only adding essentially one regiment of grunts, and
these are the troops who are overworked and over-deployed. We need more
grunts!!!
The amount of violence in Anbar is indirectly proportional to the level
of garrison nonsense imposed by higher. In 2006, Anbar was very
violent. Accordingly, my platoon stationed aboard Camp Fallujah (one of
very few infantry units stationed on base) issued ourselves the moral
authority to ignore whatever BS was coming from the top about petty
issues. If someone (read: POG SNCO) decided to "hawk" one of us for not
having a haircut or some equal nonsense, you could pretty much get away
with telling him what you did that day on patrol and asking him when the
last time he went outside the wire was. (My personal favorite riposte
was asking them how many bodies they had on their pistol, that always
shut them up real good.)
In 2007, because of the perceived and real drop in violence, more and
more stupid rules and garrison "stuff" seeped into life on base. For
support troops this is of minimal importance, their life in Iraq is
largely the same as back in the US. But having the Headquarters
Battalion Sergeant Major tell me how to properly clear my weapon upon my
return from a patrol in which I faced considerably more danger than the
errant paper cut is more than demoralizing. It is sad. The joke is
that CF is actually called Camp Flejeune. When I talk to Marines about
redeploying, the biggest worry is not about the enemy but how stupid the
garrison mentality will be when we return. There is something wrong
with that picture.
The notion that current luxuries afforded troops in Iraq is somehow
different from past wars is wrong. Occasionally I read about how the
troops in Iraq have too many luxuries, how great our food is, how we
have internet, etc. The tone of these comments is generally disdainful,
and suggestive that we could minimize our convoys and exposure if we
would just live a more Spartan lifestyle. I readily concede that we
have great food and internet access in Iraq, both luxuries unavailable
in say, Vietnam. Of course we do not have cold beer, women , and big
time celebrities on the USO tour. Imagine going 7 months without a cold
beer or companionship. It is not fun. Every war is different, but they
are universal in their misery. I would ask veterans of past wars to cut
current troops some slack on this account.
Besides, largely these luxury benefits are least available to those who
deserve them most, those who are stationed (like we often were for weeks
at a time) at Observation Posts and Firm Bases scattered throughout the
AO. This, as I have been told, is unchanged from past wars.
Kids uniformly love the troops. We shower them with candy, cold water,
and toys, and have secured their loyalty. Beyond the superficial, kids
are going to new schools, playing outside, and often receiving coalition
medical outreach care. They will remember it. Like most Arab
countries, Iraq is young, and the children of today will be the leaders
of the next generation. On this subject, we got it right from the
beginning. The most positive reactions I got on patrol were inevitable
from children of all ages and both genders.
Negative comments from politicians played over television have a
dramatic effect on morale, especially on troops who are otherwise
indifferent and disdainful of politics in general. I cannot tell you
how many times I have overheard marines and soldiers talking about
various inconsiderate comments made from the likes of John Kerry,
Murtha, Reid, and Pelosi about how we cannot win, how we should be
brought home, etc. The Kerry comments really cemented his reputation
with the troops and upset people more than anything else. It is
unnerving to volunteer for service during wartime hoping to be deployed
and having to listen to a politician explain how the troops need to come
home, especially when we clearly have not finished what we started.
There is a widespread perception amongst the Marines I know, even those
uninterested in politics, that the Democratic Party does not want us to
win in Iraq for whatever reason. This is true even amongst Democrats
who still maintain the party viewpoint on almost every other issue but
the war. Morale is always a tricky issue to deal with, and it is
difficult to tell a Marine to buck up when he sees important people back
home undercutting his primary reason for existing at the moment.
The news cycle in the mainstream media is about 4/6 months behind events
on the ground. The evolution of the IED threat is a perfect example. I
remember seeing an article in the Marine Corps Times about a new "speed
bump" IED appearing in Iraq. This was about 6 months after we first
encountered them. Likewise there was an article in the Washington
Post/MSNBC about pressure plate IEDs several months ago that made it
seem like this threat, which had been around for over a year, was
somehow new. The same thing is true with the effects of the surge.
The most accurate news reporting on the ground in Iraq is coming from
bloggers and the alternative media. When I was in Iraq I would read
Michael Yon and Michael Totten when possible for great stories on what
was really happening elsewhere around the country.
Every returning unit from Iraq should be given uncharged "basket" leave
for post-deployment. Even if you have to offset the cost by taking out
money of the paycheck elsewhere, this would have a huge positive effect
on morale. I earn 30 days of leave per year and between pre- deployment
and post-deployment leave in 2006 and 2007 there is none left should I
so desire to take some time off. My unit is an extreme example with
back-to-back-to-back deployments, but this problem exists everywhere.
Marines are burned out and should be able to spend 20 days with their
families when they return home from Iraq, regardless of their MOS.
The Iraqi Army (IA) and Iraqi Police (IP) in Anbar are tremendously
better than they were in 2006. The IPs in particular are much better in
AO Raleigh. In 2006 they were infiltrated by insurgents and AQI and
could not be trusted. The ones that could be trusted were afraid to
leave their bases and do any policing, which to be fair essentially
amounted to military style patrolling. The IP's are now out on the
streets, proud and unafraid. They look more professional! , have better
weapons and vehicles to include flak jackets, interact with a grateful
population that respects them (the old Saddam-era civilian disdain
toward police officers has evaporated), and will not back down from a
fight. In the city of Fallujah, the IP's are largely running the
security show and the US presence has been reduced to MITT/PTT teams and
essentially one company of grunts. They more and more act and gradually
look like a professional forcee, largely because they are becoming one.
IP's maintain an overwatch p position in front of the main exit of CF
and guard the most important bridge in Anbar for coalition convoy
traffic. These jobs could not have been provided in 2006, and I would
have laughed should someone have suggested them. My 2007 deployment was
in many ways emasculating because of increased ISF presence, and I could
not be happier.
The weakest link in the USMC right now is the Staff NCO. Most joined
before 9/11, and do not share the post 9/11 enlistee's motivation to
enlist: knowing he will probably be going to war. Many if not most are
stuck in a garrison mindset of the late 1990s: Med-Floats and West-Pacs
which hold little meaning now with Iraq at the forefront. The strategic
first-term corporal/sergeant is in charge on the ground. He made his
bones in Iraq not stateside at a training evolution. You cannot teach
an old dog new tricks and the current lot of staff sergeants, gunnery
sergeants, and even some first sergeants are stuck in a peacetime
mindset. Over the next two years many of the first crop of post-9/11
re-enlistees will be picking up Staff Sergeant and things will slowly
change for the better. Some examples I have experienced would be
comical if peoples lives weren'tt at stake. Maybe my viewpoint is
radically different than others. But the trend of inadequate SNCOs
seems to permeate the ranks of combat arms amongst almost every unit I
have become acquainted with. Rank is not an indication of talent, and
many senior Marines, both enlisted and officer, have confused the two.
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That's a great post !
Some things never change ..... turtle's and Garrison heroes permeate all branches... in all wars.
In VN caught a turtle leg First Sergeant chewing on one of our team members because he needed a shave (had just come in from a mission) and I returned the favor by chewing him. We saw the Colonel and they transferred that guy to Leonard Wood.0 -
good stuff! is that from SOF Mag? 0 -
I took your advice and did not read, I am just responding to get my post count up. 0 -
Thanks NS.
Would make a good PME.0 -
Great post! An interesting perspective on some very relevant issues. 0 -
Excellent commentary! And, just like my Bible, the really important parts are in red. 0 -
Kinda hard to believe he's only a Corporal.He has an amazing grasp for what's right and wrong. He should be a GENERAL.!!![^] 0 -
quote:Originally posted by He Dog
I took your advice and did not read, I am just responding to get my post count up.
[:D][:D][:D]0 -
Long read with interesting observations. The M4 vs. AK comments will tick off some AR affection-ado's But stopping power is a plus when dealing with a doped up insurgent. 0 -
Great Post, I was at LeJeune not long ago seeing my Son Off. He is a Corpsman with the Infantry. I could see not much had changed since my time there. Keep up the Great Noble Cause,... 0 -
quote:Originally posted by fishmasty
Great Post, I was at LeJeune not long ago seeing my Son Off. He is a Corpsman with the Infantry. I could see not much had changed since my time there. Keep up the Great Noble Cause,...
Thank you sir for your service and pass our thanks on to your son.0
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