High Ground: A Review

I rose this morning and intended to sit down and write a remembrance of Memorial Day that reflected on those whom have given their lives in the service of all of use who live under the flag of the United States. I pondered some past posts, 2011 2010, then remembered an email I had gotten last week from good friend and fellow blogger, Kanani Fong offering to let me view a preview copy of a new film she was helping to publicize. The film, was about a group of wounded warriors who took on the challenge of scaling 20,165 foot Lobuche Peak near Mount Everest in Nepal. Retiring to our study/library, I put on headphones to keep the sound from disturbing my wife, taking the opportunity from her busy life to sleep in. That turned out to be fortuitous, in that I found myself inserted into the story as it unfolded; where the only sound was that of voices of the dozen souls, accompanied by the sounds of war, bleeping horns as they traveled the rural roads to the airport, and a short but hair raising flight, before beginning their trek up the ever inverting slope of Lobuche.

High Ground:The Journey Home is an Uphill Battle was produced by Don Hahn, directed by Michael Brown, five time climber of Mt. Everest, and led by Blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer and his history making team of Everest climbers, led by Jeff Evans.

The film opens by introducing each team member, with scenes of chaos caused by IED's and gunfire, to add understanding to how they came to be at this point in their lives. Some were missing limbs, others suffered from traumatic stress and brain injuries, one was a Gold Star mother, and most remarkable of all, one was blind, and had a severely injured left hand. Each brought their own reasons for taking up this challenge that went far beyond what even the film makers might have hoped for. Beneath the physical effort to traverse the rock strewn pathways, and vertical stairs built against inclines that would bring vertigo to anyone pausing to look back down the steps that seemed to slide off into the valley floor, was the pain that many of those drawn this mountain, related during the outtake interviews that helped setup the next leg of the journey, but added insights into what happens to a warrior, when there are no more wars to fight.

Dan Sidles

One of  those moments came when former Marine Dan Sidles related that he felt making a warrior was similar to creating a nuclear bomb, where training to kill was like releasing nuclear fusion to be an effective soldier. He went on to explain that after the fighting was done, someone had to put out the fire to keep if from bursting into flame time after time. Listening to his reflection on how difficult that transition had been and how it affected his own life, gave immeasurable insight to how thousands of men and women have come home from past wars and felt the same sense of disconnect from society.

Steve Baskis

Chad Jukes

Joining Dan as a vividly memorable member of the team was Steve Baskis, blinded by an IED in Baghdad, who indelible desire to see (feel) the world, and experience all life has to offer, will make you marvel at how strong his heart and spirit shines. And then there is Chad Jukes who bears not only a slight resemblance to actor Owen Wilson, but conveyed the same uber-optimistic joy at being in the mountains, in a voice and delivery you would swear was Wilson's. You will see what I mean when you hear him exclaim in profane joy as he marveled about who had built the steps up the side of an almost vertical incline.

The film allows the viewer a very small window with which to understand that just because your don't wear scars that you are not wounded. Examples abound throughout the film of those who suffered the stress of not being physically injured but came to have what can't be fully understood by many including the military. It seemed that when the summit was at hand, it was the mental challenge that was harder to overcome than the physical challenges of missing limbs and sight, when the final assent was at hand.

For me there have been two really good documentaries made about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first, Restrepo was about a platoon in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, that captured men at war in a gritty portrait, told in much the same format as High Ground, using post combat interviews to support the story. High Ground, is the bookend of what happens to those soldiers who come home, wounded inside and out, and how they feel trying to belong and sensing that as Dan Sidles noted. "Thanks for your service, now go away." I can reflect that much of the same happened forty some years ago, when I returned from my own service. I did not display overt symptoms, but little things occurred to make me in hindsight, feel and act different. I can also reflect back on my fathers service in World War II; with five amphibious landings, and service later on an aircraft carrier off Japan in the final months of the war, left him different and feeling out of place when he returned. Confronting those times, takes awareness that you need to find a way to cope. They say that when one is an alcoholic or an addict, that you are never really cured, only learning to cope. Former soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines know that feeling; the forging of a warrior and the imersion in war, that Dan Sidles said was like nuclear fusion; that leaves spent fuel rods radiating inside even the most stoic warrior until their last breath.

I would strongly recommend going to see High Ground. Watch it, and let yourself join this fine group of Americans as they make their journey home by seeking the high ground.

A River Runs Through It: The Enduring Memory of Events Long Past

Bound for Vietnam 1966

The threads of a life experience begin to cling to our memories from our earliest recollections, and continue to be woven into other threads that bind us even closer to an experience until it becomes a highway that some random event, sends your thoughts careening back to recall that earlier moment.  This blog has as a heading, "Bound for Vietnam 1966" with a photo, and the phrase; "..the beginning of a quest to understand our world." The experience of serving in the Vietnam War with all the attendent experiences has led to shaping my life long pursuit to study history and understand how it affects our world. A couple of things entered my life, to send me hurtling back to reflect on my experience in Vietnam and how it affects my world today. One occurred a couple of day ago, and the other, will take place next week. Both are examples of the six degrees of separation that bind us to events in one's past.

Joe Cook and the Cambodian National Baseball Team

Last Thursday evening, I had the pleasure of being invited to view a film about baseball. This was not your average "feel good" film about a bunch of young men playing baseball, but a film that captured a nation in transition as it tries to still recover decades later, from what would in any terms, be a holocaust on a national scale. The viewing was sponsored by Tom and Chris, the founders of the Pepper Project which has as it's mission statement. "... to get the word out about all the treasures that Cambodia has to offer starting with a spice that is highly regarded in many parts of Europe, but that most people have never heard of." In keeping with that pledge, they provided a platform to introduce Rice Field of Dreams a film that follows Joe Cook a Cambodian, who escaped Pol Pot's "Killing Fields" to become a chef in an Alabama Japanese steakhouse. Joe return to Cambodia in 2002, to visit his long lost sister and soon begins a quest to introduce the game of baseball to the youth of Cambodia. The film captures more than just a group of young men as they struggle to overcome the barriers of language and the rules of the game. The film captures little moments like when they queue up to try on the dozens of donated sunglasses and the smiles that those small gifts generated. I don't want to give away the plot, because it is more than watching a group of kids learn the game. Part of what it reveals, is the fault lines between the founder and the imported North American coaches who can't seem to get their minds around how to motivate the team. I would encourage everyone to make it a point to give this film a look when it is released this April. My degrees of separation comes from both the Vietnam War which in part triggered the events that led to this film's subject, and even the filmmaker being in the position to make this film; and my own personal experience with the people of Cambodia.

Maj. Charles R. Soltes Jr.

Dr. Dang and Rob's sons

Turning to the next event, that is also has it's roots in the Vietnam War, is the dedication next Wednesday January 25, 2012 of the Blind Rehabilitation Center at the Long Beach Veterans Hospital in  the name of Maj. Charles Robert Soltes Jr. My connection to Major Soltes comes from being a patient of his wife, Dr. Sally Dang who tirelessly lobbied Congress to name the center after her husband as an honor to their children, and other's who had lost their lives in Iraq. Besides, the personal connection of being one of Dr. Dang's patients, the thread runs, as Norman McLean novel's title "A River Runs Through It." would attest. Major Soltes father, a career officer in the US Army, served in Vietnam as a pilot during the time of my deployment. We never crossed paths other than serving in the same area at the same time, but the comradeship remains indelible between those who served. Dr. Dang's parents, fled the fall of Vietnam and joined the thousands of refugees who made their way to our shores to begin a new life. Dr. Dang, is a product of their hopes and dreams, and in turn chanced to meet Rob at school, fell in love, and began to raise a family. Rob's life was cut short in an IED attack in Iraq in 2004, leaving Sally to carry on, and not only raise their three sons, but in turn, dedicate part of her life to helping wounded soldiers with traumatic eye injuries.
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I would invite all who could attend to make time next Wednesday January 25, 2012 at 10AM, to attend the dedication at the Long Beach VA Healthcare Center 5901 E 7th Street, Long Beach CA
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The enrichment of people like Davon Ker, the filmmaker of Rice Fields of Dreams, Joe Cook, and Dr. Sally Dang, and the countless others who have risen from the ashes of the destruction visited on Cambodia and Vietnam, add new threads to the fabric of this nation, and will insure that the United States and it's creed that all people are created equal, will endure.

A Sirocco wind of change blows across the Middle East

Bahrain Protests

Lybian Protests

Egypt after the fall

Changes are afoot in the Middle East, or are they? As millions of what Professor and author Oliver Roy, has called the post-Islamist generation have taken to the streets to protest and call for immediate change in the governments that for some, have ruled since aniquity. Professor Roy writing in the New Statesman declares what we are witnessing is not an Islamic Revolution that threatens to underpin the West.

Look at those involved in the uprisings, and it is clear that we are dealing with a post-Islamist generation. For them, the great revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s are ancient history, their parents' affair. The members of this young generation aren't interested in ideology: their slogans are pragmatic and concrete - "Erhal!" or "Go now!". Unlike their predecessors in Algeria in the 1980s, they make no appeal to Islam; rather, they are rejecting corrupt dictatorships and calling for democracy. This is not to say that the demonstrators are secular; but they are operating in a secular political space, and they do not see in Islam an ideology capable of creating a better world.

The same goes for other ideologies: they are nationalist (look at all the flag-waving) without advocating nationalism. Particularly striking is the abandonment of conspiracy theories. The United States and Israel - or France, in the case of Tunisia - are no longer identified as the cause of all the misery in the Arab world. The slogans of pan-Arabism have been largely absent, too, even if the copycat effect that brought Egyptians and Yemenis into the streets following the events in Tunis shows that the "Arab world" is a political reality.

Read More:
This is not an Islamic revolution

And along the same line, comes this first of several reports that will be filed by Andrew Exum, whose blog Abu Muqawama, has been a daily read since Andrew was a student at Kings College in London. Today, Exum is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and is currently in Egypt where he filed this report.

First, there is a sense you get that many Egyptians honestly feel the only thing standing in between the Egyptian nation and greatness was the sclerotic Mubarak regime. Now that Muabark is gone, the military -- and whatever government that follows -- will naturally struggle to meet those expectations.

Second, the Egyptian people have now witnessed a dramatic display of people power: mass demonstrations effectively removed from power a man who seemed immovably secure in his post just one month ago. The incentives are there for every group of people in Egypt with a grievance (which is to say everyone) to now strike or demonstrate to see, in effect, what they can get. The military is growing increasingly frustrated with these demonstrations and has ordered them to cease. But the incentive structure is all wrong: even if you don't think you'll get anything, why would you not demonstrate right now? The worst case scenario is, you get nothing. But heck, you might get something!

One of the sources of the military's frustration leads to my third concern, which is the fact that even if the people have a valid grievance, there is no real authority to negotiate with at the moment. Egypt needs a transitional government of some sort, but right now, you've got people agitating for higher wages, back pay, and more reforms on the one hand, and a military on the other hand that is not prepared in the least to hear these concerns and act on them.

Read more:
Egypt Trip Report Part 1

UPDATE ON EGYPT TRIP
Report Part II

How this will all play out is transformational history in the making. Will leaders emerge to consolidate the youthful passion and start the Egypt down the long road to connecting with the greater global community? As Exum points out the army of Egypt like our own army in Iraq and now Afghanistan is not equipped for nation building. As a measure of the kind of security needed to secure a country and begin recovery, we can pause and look at the U.S. Army in Germany after World War II. We had two armies made up of 12 divisions from 1945-1948 just in the American Sector. Troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan were spread to the thickness of cellophane in comparison.

After many wobbly starts Iraq seems to have a functioning government that is counting the days to when the last American soldier leaves. Afghanistan is a horse of a different color and a people historically and socially operating in a different universe that either Iraq or Egypt and any other Middle East country. Afghanistan a country whose fractured mountain ranges make it's people as remote from each other as if they were living on islands.

Two things caught my eye this week about Afghanistan. Bing West has a new book The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan that looks at the war, the people who are fighting and the way out. Andrew Axum from the the previous piece reviewed West's book for the Wall Street Journal.

Bing West's "The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan" is one of the best books yet written on the war in Afghanistan. I disagree with the way Mr. West characterizes the war at times, but "The Wrong War" is filled with both vivid descriptions of the Afghan fighting and sound advice concerning how counterinsurgencies should be waged.

First, the grit. "The Wrong War" contains some of the most compelling descriptions of small-unit combat that I have ever read. Mr. West has argued in the past that the U.S. armed forces have lost their "warrior ethos" and calls them here "a gigantic Peace Corps." But these claims in no way square with what he depicts.

Read more at.
Small Wars Journal

Going hand in hand with West's book is this article from U.S. Army Combined Arms Center's Military Review. Lt. Colonel Michael C. Veneri, USAF wrote this about his tour of duty training officers at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan this past summer. His observations are the basis for what he describes is a metaphor for the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

I spent a summer as the physical education (PE) mentor to the National Military Academy of Afghanistan’s (NMAA) Physical Education department. My predecessor had recommended that I bring some equipment, so I brought along 30 basketballs, 12 volleyballs, and 12 soccer balls, as well as a few American footballs. Another previous U.S. mentor had provided the PE department with an electric air compressor, one that charges a car battery, has a floodlight, and probably retails for about $50 at any auto store. I used this to pump air into a few balls when I first arrived. About a month later, I needed to fill up a few basketballs for some drills I planned to show the PE instructors. One of the Afghan PE instructors, a lieutenant colonel and the overseer of the air pump, grabbed the balls and began to fill one of them up.

I had been talking with my interpreter for a few minutes when I noticed the basketball was not getting any air. I pulled the pin out and found the clamp at the end of the fabric hose had come loose and some of the fabric had frayed. The pump was pushing air out but, because of the frayed fabric, air was not making it into the ball. The Afghan lieutenant colonel came over and told me it was not broken but that it would take time to fill up the basketball. I told him the pump was broken. He said no, it would take time. The equipment manager, a 47-year-old senior NCO who had been a colonel prior to Karzai’s arrival, came over to see if he could fix the pump, as did the boxing instructor. For the next ten minutes, three men, all 40-odd years old, sat befuddled before this air compressor as if it were some sort of an oracle.

After turning the air pump on and off several times, turning it upside down, and shaking it, the Afghans’ perplexity seemed to diminish when, through my translator, I said the fabric hose was frayed and was preventing a good seal. Ah, they could fix this problem. The boxing instructor knew what to do. He grabbed a role of scotch tape, provided courtesy of the U.S. government, and wrapped the frayed end with scotch tape—not duct tape or maybe even masking tape. While those products may have had a chance at temporarily fixing the problem, such items were unavailable at NMAA, unless a U.S. mentor provided them. In the spirit of the often-cited Lawrence of Arabia—that better they do it tolerably rather than I do it perfectly—I kept my mouth shut, waited, and watched as these three men worked the problem.

Lt. Col. Veneri goes on to discuss a fundemental difference between American and Afghan decision making.

Initiative.

Initiative, as a value, permeates American culture. In every aspect of U.S. society, someone thinks there is a better way; not so with the Afghans. I did not get any sense of a “can do” attitude from the PE department or from any other Afghan I encountered. They readily took what I provided— lesson plans, equipment, textbooks—but when I asked them how they planned on improving their lessons or expanding their curriculum or figuring out a supply system, they had no answers, no notion of how to improve, and no institutional mechanisms to foster improvement. The PE instructors told me I could provide them with improved lesson plans, but they would not do it themselves. I finally figured out that the level above them had to approve every change, which ultimately made the dean the one who determined what was best for the PE department, not the PE instructors themselves. This strict hierarchy prevented any type of decentralization of authority or primary level decision making. It also quashed any initiative from bubbling up from the bottom. While hierarchy is not new to military organizations and is a fundamental trait throughout Afghan culture, it proved incapacitating when I was trying to make changes within the PE department. Instructors could not change their syllabi or their method of teaching without supervisor approval.

Read the whole article
Multiplying by Zero
Major H/T to Kanani at Kitchen Dispatch for sending me this article. She has a major stake in what we are doing in Afghanistan as her "hubs" an army surgeon, just started his second deployment

H-Day Reads

After the somewhat depressing post, looking back from 2050 at how our experence in Afghanistan will end. and entering a second decade of crisis after passing the first, trying to plant western style democacy in the ancient cradle of civilization where the region never really advanced beyond the despots that ruled for the past 5,700 years. Two articles attracted my attention and deserve a deeper look.

The first is from an Op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ms. Ali reminds us of what the late historian Samual Huntington once wrote, and how it relates to the recent controversy surrounding the mosque in New York and other small ripples of conflict between the West and Islam.

What do the controversies around the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, the eviction of American missionaries from Morocco earlier this year, the minaret ban in Switzerland last year, and the recent burka ban in France have in common? All four are framed in the Western media as issues of religious tolerance. But that is not their essence. Fundamentally, they are all symptoms of what the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington called the "Clash of Civilizations," particularly the clash between Islam and the West.

Huntington's argument is worth summarizing briefly for those who now only remember his striking title. The essential building block of the post-Cold War world, he wrote, are seven or eight historical civilizations of which the Western, the Muslim and the Confucian are the most important.

Ms Ali ends her comments with this observation.

The greatest advantage of Huntington's civilizational model of international relations is that it reflects the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. It allows us to distinguish friends from enemies. And it helps us to identify the internal conflicts within civilizations, particularly the historic rivalries between Arabs, Turks and Persians for leadership of the Islamic world.

But divide and rule cannot be our only policy. We need to recognize the extent to which the advance of radical Islam is the result of an active propaganda campaign. According to a CIA report written in 2003, the Saudis invested at least $2 billion a year over a 30-year period to spread their brand of fundamentalist Islam. The Western response in promoting our own civilization was negligible.

Read more:
How To Win The Clash of Civilizations

Iraqi Tribal Map

Afghan Tribal Map

This next read will surly stir some response at least mentally, since it challenges most of the narrative that has been taught the past forty years in U.S. History classes from elementary to the university.

Phillip S. Meilinger a retired Air Force colonel with a PhD in military history penned this next article, posted over at Small Wars Journal. Meilinger takes a unvarnished updated look back at the native societies that populated North America during the Pre-Columbian Era. Backed up by the latest archeological data, Meilinger serves up a concise if somewhat narrow view of tribal culture as it relates to war. In this vein I think it is needed to convey the theme without becoming bogged down in the minutia of this tribe was not as war like at that one. Meilinger opens with this intro.

There is an old saw among political scientists that democracies seldom fight other democracies. Although the accuracy of that statement often hinges on definitions—was 1914 Germany an autocracy because of the Kaiser, or a budding democracy because of an elected Reichstag—it is nonetheless largely valid. It has thus been a tenet of US diplomacy to urge the spread of democracy worldwide. Richard L. Armitage, the former Deputy Secretary of State, said recently in an interview: “every President except John Quincy Adams has been involved in the belief that the world is made better by a U.S that is involved in the protection of human freedoms and human rights across the board.” He went on to assert that “every postwar President has believed we have a duty to spread democracy.”

Cutting to the chase Meilinger contrasts what we now know about the Pre-Columbian cultures living in North America and what most have been taught in the past forty years.

Recent books capitalize on a new cycle of research that began a decade or so ago when archeologists and osteologists looked into Indian prehistory—the two thousand or so years before contact with Europeans. The results have been startling. Researchers discovered that prehistoric hunters/gatherers and indigenous peoples were violent and warlike. Most Indian villages, all over the continent, were surrounded by timber stockades, earthen palisades and berms, and other defensive fortifications.6 Indeed, the supposedly most peaceful of all Native Americans, the Anasazi of the southwest, did after all, often live in barely accessible cliff dwellings carved out of mountain sides. Why would they go to the trouble of hiding their homes and making them so indestructible if they had nothing to fear from each other?

What does this have to do with the war in Afghanistan.

It appears that President Obama also believes that peace and democracy can and sometimes should be imposed on lawless areas, but we need to rethink such a strategy and its implementation. Is democracy a realistic goal in Iraq, Afghanistan or other Islamic countries, and if so, how can it be achieved? Will 34,000 more American ground troops in Afghanistan provide the security and institutions needed to nurture democracy? It would appear that the goal should be to change the mindset and culture of ethnic groups—to accept the notions of diversity, tolerance, freedom and peaceful coexistence. These are not unworthy aims, and their achievement could go a long way to removing the hatred and violence than now reigns in too many areas of the world. The challenge is to determine a methodology for achieving these positive goals.

Read the whole piece
Primitive Violence, Culture, and the Path to Peace

Something Stronger than Bombs and Bullets, The Human Spirit!

Specialist Brendan Marrocco, USA

Soldier Reclaiming his life

I was casting around today looking for something to write about that would inspire pondering and reflection. I was deep into collecting material for comments on subject that I wrote about several times last year, WTF! Didn't they ever watch Fort Apache?  and After Action Report: Wanat Afghanistan. The story I was originally intending to write about, What Really Happened at Wanat coming by way of the USNI Proceedings Magazine  examined the role that weapons failure may have played in the loss of 9 KIA and 27 WIA U.S. soldiers. But before I was able to put it all together, a story came by way of a favorite blog that true to its name, The The Art of Manliness totally manned up, and filed this about someone whom we all can look up to for his courage and grit. As you read this, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, be prepared to have a few touching moments as you read of this young man's determination and the love and support of his parents, brother, and financee.

This story comes from a The New Times article written by Lizette Alverez on July 2, 2010. Apologies to the Times for reproducing the first page of a wonderful seven page article, but I want everyone to get hooked and read the whole story.                 

BRENDAN Marrocco and his brother, Michael, were constructing a summer bucket list, to get them out and about, trying new things. A Washington Nationals game versus their beloved Yankees — sure, since they were stuck here rather than home on Staten Island. Perhaps a ride on the Metro, with its reliable elevators. Pizza: definitely.

How about going to an amusement park? Michael suggested optimistically.

“Would that really be safe?” asked Brendan, a smirk crossing his lips.

The beach? “I don’t do beach anymore,” Brendan replied. Then what about the National Zoo, the one with the pandas? “They got pandas?” Brendan said, razzing his brother again. “Why didn’t you mention that?”

Clutching a pen firmly in his oversize rubber hand, Brendan Marrocco completed the lineup. A trip to Annapolis, Md. A ride on a boat. And, his personal favorite, firing guns. He drew a miniature picture of a handgun next to that one.

Each would be a major accomplishment for Brendan Marrocco, who a year before had come so close to death that doctors still marvel over how he dodged it. At 22, he was a spry, charming infantryman in the United States Army with a slicing wit and a stubborn streak. Then, on Easter Sunday 2009, a roadside bomb exploded under his vehicle, and he became the first veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to lose all four limbs in combat and survive.

In the nearly 15 months since, Specialist Marrocco has pushed past pain and exhaustion to learn to use his four prosthetics, though he can walk for only 15 minutes at a time. He has met sports stars like Jorge Posada and Tiger Woods — and become something of a star himself here at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where his moxie and humor are an inspiration to hundreds of other wounded service members. He has also met, fallen in love with and proposed marriage to a young woman who sees what is there rather than what is missing, though Specialist Marrocco has lately been questioning the relationship.

Now he is preparing for a rare and risky double arm transplant at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that could profoundly improve his independence. One of the first things he will ask of his new arms is to drive a stick shift (the one time he got behind the wheel, in an empty parking lot, his rubber hand became unscrewed and was left dangling).

There have now been 988 service members who have lost limbs in combat since the first of the wars began in 2001, but Specialist Marrocco’s many wounds raised so many questions. Would he crumble mentally? Was his brain intact? How would he ever cope with daily needs like eating, bathing, even simply getting out of bed and putting on clothes?

Now read the whole story and be proud that we still produce men who are the very essence of manliness.
Spirit Intact, Soldier Reclaims His Life

Then take a little longer and visit the multi-media link and the photo essay of Brendan and his support team.
Soldier interactive

Tactical Tidbits from Afghanistan

U.S. Marines shielding an Afghan father and child

The war in Afghanistan has burned in a sporadic fashion, bursting on the news scene whenever a suicide or car bomb explodes in crowded streets killing dozens. The butcher's bill for soldiers and Marines lost in combat has been at a level that only the loss of several at the same time garners any attention by the MSM. Only the most tuned in to military and strategic affairs are aware of the daily efforts of those we ask to step into harm's way.

A few years ago, General David Petraeus coined the most famous phrase of the Iraq War, "Tell me how this ends." when he made an off hand comment in 2003, to author Rick Atkinson who included it in his book, In The Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat. Those words were partially answered this week by a no less critical forum of the war than Newsweek magazine, when they declared Rebirth of a Nation: Something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq. It may not be 'mission accomplished'—but it's a start. What does this then mean for Afghanistan? The war is of a different scale; and tactics that worked in Iraq may not work in what many continue to argue, is a template of tribal culture, unbending to the efforts of conquerors for thousands of years.

U.S. Marines meeting with tribal elders

One recent article posted by the editors of the difinitive go to source for information Small Wars Journal who linked this article by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, of the Washington Post, At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?

The Marines are pushing into previously ignored Taliban enclaves. They have set up a first-of-its-kind school to train police officers. They have brought in a Muslim chaplain to pray with local mullahs and deployed teams of female Marines to reach out to Afghan women.

The Marine approach -- creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox -- has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

The Marines have so upset the Army centric chain of command that some are calling their area of operations, "Marineistan." This has prompted retired U.S. Army General and current Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry to declare that, "The international security force in Afghanistan feels as if it comprises 42 nations instead of 41 because the Marines act so independently from other U.S. forces." It seems from this old ex-soldiers prospective that the old interservice rivalry is alive and kicking in 2010. One only has to possess a smiggen of histoical memory to remember how General William Westmoreland put the U.S. Marines up in I Corps as a static blocking force against the DMZ, instead of down in the Meokong Delta where the Marines amphib experience would have paid major dividends. Istead Westmoreland deployed his beloved 9th Infantry Division to turn itself into a riverine force working alongside the U.S. Navy.

TAO for US Marines in I Corp Vietnam

US Military Rifles 1873-2010

Coupled with this story is another post from SMJ, that raises real concerns that the infantry is having trouble reaching out and touching the enemy. "Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer" by by MAJ Thomas P. Ehrhart.

Operations in Afghanistan frequently require United States ground forces to engage and destroy the enemy at ranges beyond 300 meters. These operations occur in rugged terrain and in situations where traditional supporting fires are limited due to range or risk of collateral damage. With these limitations, the infantry in Afghanistan require a precise, lethal fire capability that exists only in a properly trained and equipped infantryman. While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training do not provide a precise, lethal fire capability to 500 meters and are therefore inappropriate.

Comments from returning non-commissioned officers and officers reveal that about fifty percent of engagements occur past 300 meters. The enemy tactics are to engage United States forces from high ground with medium and heavy weapons, often including mortars, knowing that we are restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet. Current equipment, training, and doctrine are optimized for engagements under 300 meters and on level terrain

This is an interesting series of recommendations that clearly states that if you are going to fight at long distances, you need to adapt by resurrecting the lost art of "marksmanship" along with weapons that can kill the enemy. Imbedded in this report are references and a hat tip to the Marines for teaching not only distance shooting, but for using the heavier and more accurate M16A2 rifle.

The Marines are the only service that still qualifies to a distance of 500 meters, though not under realistic conditions.91 They also retained the full size M16A2 rifle when others adopted the M4 carbine. Though it is more lethal, its overall length makes it less practical.

 
The article is a good source of historical data recounting the "Capability of the Infantry from 1917 to 2003."
Stepping further back in history one can review the tactics and efforts of General Nelson Miles who led the 5th Infantry armed with the long range Springfield Model 1873 Rifle in the Infantry in the Indian Wars:1876-1891.
 
 

Closing out this foray into tactics and strategies in Afghanistan is this remarkable series of reports coming from author, historian and good blog friend, Steven Pressfield who recently returned from Afghanistan where he accompanied Marine General James Mattis on an inspection tour. Steve's vivid description of his journey places the reader right alongside him and gives a fresh prospective. Downrange: An Informal Report on a trip to Afghanistan with Marine Gen. James N. Mattis. I urge all to read it and follow the rest of the four posts.
Part Two, Part Three.

September 11, 2001 in The Rearview Mirror of Time.

September 11, 2001

Rick Rescorla, singing to the evacuees of WTC South Tower

1st Cavalry Division patch

Lt. Rick Rescorla, LZ Xray, 1965

2nd Lt. Mark Daily, Mosul, Iraq 2006

Major Robert Soltes, OD, USAR

The images seared into the minds of all who saw the events of this date continues to fade from the collective memory of many Americans as the years roll by and the toll of those who have given their lives in the long war that began that day, overtook the numbers that then, shocked the world. My small tribute to that day, links three men whose lives are connected to the yellow and black shield of the First Cavalry Division, America's First Team. This division's storied history reaches back through Vietnam, Korea and World War II to the middle years of the 19th century on the American Frontier. Our story begins with a man who saved thousands from sure death on September 11.

Cyril Richard Rescorla was Vice President of Security at Morgan-Stanley the largest tenant in the World Trade Center on that day. When the first plane struck, Rescorla implemented an evacuation plan and was able to get almost every employee from 44th to the 74th floors in the south tower out, before the next plane struck. After getting all his people out Rescorla headed back to help others escape. The tower fell and his body was never found. His story, is told better by his wife who dedicated this web site to his memory, Rick Rescorla.

Rescorla was no stranger to stepping up and doing his duty. His image graces the cover of the book, We were Soldiers Once...And Young by Harold Moore and Joe Galloway taken during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Rescorla, wore that big yellow and black patch and led a company in the battle and also battle at LZ Albany, a day later.

This coming January 15, will be the third anniversary of the death of Lt. Mark Daily, a soldier in the 1st Cavalry Division, who was killed along with four others in a massive roadside bomb while on patrol in Iraq. I wrote about Lt. Daily last year, REFLECTION ON A NOBLE SOUL. His unit, the 2nd Battalion 7th Cavalry was the same unit Rescorla, came to support back in 1965.
Read more:http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mjdaily.htm

A couple of years ago, I needed to go get my eyes checked. Looking over the list provided by the insurance company I selected one, a Dr. Soltes and made an appointment. I was escorted into the exam room and awaited the doctor. The door opened and a women entered and introduced herself as Dr. Dang. As it turns out, Dr. Robert Soltes had been killed in Iraq while serving with the 426th Civil Affairs Battalion, an Army Reserve unit from California. Dr. Dang was his wife, and learning that I was a Vietnam Veteran, told me the story of Major Soltes, and how his father, also a Vietnam Veteran had served with the 1st Battalion 9th Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division as a gunship pilot. We ended talking for some time, and my soul was forever touched by learning about this man and his commitment to family and country.
Read more:http://www.robsoltes.com/
and http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com/oif/profiles/soltesjrcharlesr.html

The link that these three souls share is to that black and gold shield, for two, it was membership, for the last, it was the link from a father, who instilled a sense of honor and service in his son. The First Team as they are called seems to have a special mojo for taking responsibility that infects those who have served in their ranks. It seems in the case of Dr. Soltes, to have been passed from father to son.

As the years turn to decades and the image seared into the mind of that day, begins to fade in the mist of time and the faces of Rick Rescorla, Mark Daily and Rob Soltes standing along side the long road that had led from that place, being to fade in our rearview mirror, I vow to never forget, and will always remember these men for their love for this country and their sense of duty and service.

The words that have come to haunt me, are the ones spoken by President George W. Bush when he told the American people in his famous speech after September 11, that the losses from combat in this new war would be less than those lost in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. How wrong was his vision, and how many more will fall before the inevitable next attack comes. The only sure thing is that in the future, other's will step forward to serve their fellow citizens and in doing so will forfeit their lives.

Riskless War = Losing the High Ground

Small Wars Journal linked this story, Death From Above, Outrage Down Below by David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum in the New York Times Opinion Section.

Their opinion in part:

The appeal of drone attacks for policy makers is clear. For one thing, their effects are measurable. Military commanders and intelligence officials point out that drone attacks have disrupted terrorist networks in Pakistan, killing key leaders and hampering operations. Drone attacks create a sense of insecurity among militants and constrain their interactions with suspected informers. And, because they kill remotely, drone strikes avoid American casualties.

But on balance, the costs outweigh these benefits for three reasons...

Read the whole thing: Death From Above, Outrage Down Below

This next story, goes hand in hand with Death from Above, Outrage down below, and how we are losing the war to win the hearts and minds of those we are supposed to help.

It begins:

With overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to hold the edge. The gap has grown especially wide in the Afghan war zone, analysts say. Using FM transmitters, the Internet, and threatening notes known as "night letters" (TIME), Taliban operating from the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven effective at either cowing citizens or winning them over to their message of jihad. U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke told journalists in March 2009 that "the information issue--sometimes called psychological operations or strategic communication" has become a "major, major gap to be filled" before U.S.-led forces can regain the upper hand.

Read more: Winning the Information War in Afghanistan and Pakistan by SWJ Editors.

Support for the arguments presented above, come from this earlier post at Small Wars Journal, Riskless War Technology, Coercive Diplomacy, and the Lure of Limited War by Dr. Douglas Peifer.

Peifer writes in part:

Few analysts dispute that robots and unmanned aerial and ground systems have already proven very useful at the tactical level, performing the dangerous jobs of IED disposal, minesweeping, and tactical reconnaissance; the dirty tasks of chemical and radiation detection; and the dull duties of aerial reconnaissance, surveillance and presence. Unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Reaper and Predator have rendered valuable support to ground troops engaged in urban combat, and are threatening to displace manned aircraft as the premier providers of air to ground “kinetic action” against insurgents and terrorists.iii Their growing effectiveness at the tactical level has led some to conclude that these systems will have a dramatic impact at the strategic level of war in the medium term future, as unmanned systems and robots become increasingly sophisticated and mainstream. The most enthusiastic visionaries proclaim that in the not so distant future, the United States will be able to wage remote-controlled wars entailing little risk to its military personnel or citizens. Wars, in the words of Peter Singer, will become a matter of “playing God from afar, just with unmanned weapon systems substituting for thunderbolts.”iv A writer for Harper’s, describing the “The Coming Robot Army,” predicts that “Within our lifetime, robots will give us the ability to wage war without committing ourselves to the human cost of actually fighting a war.”

Dr. Peifer draws upon historical examples of Western countries using what at the time were advanced technology to defeat less advanced defenses in order to impose sanctions, win concessions and punish insurgencies. By offering examples ranging from gunboat diplomacy to the use of air power by France and Great Britain to control and punish intransigent subjects in far flung colonies, Peifer builds a case that for the ineffectiveness of riskless war when trying to gain the loyalty and fidelity of those you are trying to bring into your tent.

Read the whole piece. Riskless War.

This all tracks to a couple of posts I had last week, Collateral Damage and A Soldier, His Rifle, His Courage. The current war in Afghanistan is more complicated than Iraq, where much of the country had the human and physical resources to grow and sustain itself as a functioning nation state. Afghanistan lacks all of the elements at this point in time to make that transition. Economy of Afghanistan, Education in Afghanistan, Transport in Afghanistan. If we are to make any kind progress we have to show the citizens of Afghanistan that connecting to the greater world community is better for their children, than what the Taliban offer. This requires not only confronting the Taliban with surgical kinetic force, but with an investment in human terms even greater than the surging battle force we have arrayed to date. The debate we need to have as a nation is whether we are willing to make the kind of investment in what can only be described as a Millennium Project, where we will attempt to move a country's infrastructure and level of connectivity forward 1000 years, in a few decades. The question is has anyone really asked the Afghan people if they want us to do that for them? Or just as importantly, where is the national discussion by our current leadership to convince Americans why Afghanistan matters?

I myself, find compelling arguments for staying. Convincing my fellow Americans is the job of our current administration, now tasked with explaining why we must persevere.

UPDATE: Drone Kills 25; Calls for ‘Moratorium’ Hit New York Times

Mr. Obama's War? - Washington Post

What Next? as Iraq Cools...

Iraq soccer celebration

Bagdad Market

Iraqi Children

Almost lost amid the headlines is the clear fact that Iraq seems have turned back from the cliff of total chaos and be headed down the rocky path towards a semi-functioning state. Three esteemed corespondents who have covered war more thoroughly that any one since the days of Ernie Pyle have all signaled that major hostilities have almost ceased. Their comments below:

Michael Yon Calls for a motion!

The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.

Michael J. Totten Seconds it with these qualifications.

I’m reluctant to say “the war has ended,” as he did, but everything else he wrote is undoubtedly true. The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. That is a mathematical fact.....

What most of us still think of as “war” in Iraq is, at this point, a rough and unfinished peacekeeping mission. Whether it is officially over or not, it has certainly been downgraded to something else, and it’s about time more analysts and observers are willing to say so.

The War in Iraq Is Over. What Next? - Bing West also confirms!

The war I witnessed for more than five years in Iraq is over. In July, there were five American fatalities in Iraq, the lowest since the war began in March 2003. In Mosul recently, I chatted with shopkeepers on the same corner where last January a Humvee was blown apart in front of me. In the Baghdad district of Ghazilia -- where last January snipers controlled streets awash in human waste -- I saw clean streets and soccer games. In Basra, the local British colonel was dining at a restaurant in the center of the bustling city.

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But as Iraq stabilizes, Afghanistan and Central Asia rear their ugly heads and pose an even more dangerous challenge. American forces are worn down, NATO, except for a few nations has remains a paper tiger, more concerned with appeasement and how to fund their social programs than confronting long term threats. The recent developments in Georgia, not withstanding, point to a Europe that had the US not had a third of our forces stationed there during the Cold War, would be eating borst and drinking Stoli today. Tom Barnett has is right, we need to sign up China and India at today's prices in order to counter the threats that seem to be inherit in Russian behavior since Peter the Great! 'Locking in China at Today's Prices' and The Long War as a Joint Sino-American Venture

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Turning to Afghanistan, the following articles see a rough tough slog ahead.

Stronger US Role Likely in Afghanistan - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

'Turmoil in Central Asia' - Olcott and Linn, Wall Street Journal opinion

The Long, Hard Slog - H.D.S. Greenway, Boston Globe opinion