On Combat

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times, “Chopper Pilot Heads Back To A Riskier Iraq” by Richard Fausset (3/27/07), illuminated some difficulties in sustaining combat motivation in the face of repeat deployments. Initial passions are eroded over time by dangers, losses, the environment, and thoughts for family. Warriors with families face have to reconcile conflicting obligations to the cause, the band of brothers, and their family.

Major points illuminate this conflict for a 3^rd ID aviator facing his third deployment to Iraq:

Although service as an Army aviator has fulfilled many aspirations:

• “the Army has lifted his family into the middle class. It has helped fund a college education he is close to completing, and provided him with the pilot’s life he dreamed of as a child”

The risk has increased considerably:

• “Since January, eight U.S. helicopters have been downed in Iraq, most of them after taking enemy fire, and insurgents have claimed in recent Web postings that they are specifically targeting helicopters….Iraqi insurgents, like the Viet Cong, are learning that downing a U.S. helicopter serves as powerful propaganda.”

The risk is aggravated by the environment, dangers inherent to flight, and inexperienced pilots:

• “Theirs is a world of dust and sand and heat. Echevarria said the temperatures in the cockpits, which lack air conditioning, can be as high as 140 degrees when they are flying over the desert.”
• “Compared to an airplane, a helicopter is a fickle machine that requires constant attention to stay aloft. Pilots like to say that a helicopter is always trying to kill you.”
• “As he prepares for his third deployment, one of Echevarria’s biggest worries is the prevalence of the FNGs” [F’ing new guys]

Pilots use ritual and notions of agency to face an environment governed by danger and chance:

• “Each time he receives the order to fly a Black Hawk helicopter over Iraq, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Hector Echevarria tidies up the personal effects he leaves behind”
• “Perfectionism and fatalism are two traits common in Army helicopter pilots, and both are being sharpened here”
• “Echevarria is a stickler for details and safety precautions. He figures that’s what has kept him alive so far.”

Although the motivation to serve in harm’s way was intense at first:

• A new pilot reflected on his own motives to serve: “I don’t want to sit in an office…I want some excitement in my life…[and] Ech has his family, and I really don’t…So I’m rarin’ to go.”
• “Echevarria remembers feeling that way. He was in pilot school when the planes hit the World Trade Center towers, and he itched to do his part. …But Rebeca has had enough.”

Facing repeat deployments, sustaining motivation to serve has to be balanced with obligations and aspirations for family:

• “[He] wonders whether the war has forced his daughter to grow up too fast. Sometimes he feels guilty about the two years he has lost with her….It really impacts the family a lot,” Mariah says. “Just little things — like, he’s not there when I come home from school.”

• “I didn’t want to leave my wife a widow,” he said. “I wanted to see my little girl grow up.”

Which may have some impact on mission effectiveness:

• On his first tour, he thought a lot about helping the Iraqis. On his second tour, he focused mostly on surviving.