On Combat

Mass reenlistments are a significant affirmation of American fighting men and women’s fighting spirit. On 4 July, 2008, nearly 1% of all American service members in Iraq elected to reenlist in a ceremony committing them to 5,500 man-years of military service. (See Army.mil/news: 1,215 Servicemembers re-up in Iraq). This ceremony more than doubled last […]

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This week’s testimony of a Marine Lieutenant in a hearing on a shooting in Iraq (”Marine Snipers’ Killing Rules Weren’t Clear, Lieutenant Testifies” Los Angeles Times, 2 July 2008) probes the gray areas between use of force and restraint in a counterinsurgency campaign:
“Lt. Dominic Corabi said that as he and his Marines deployed to Iraq, […]

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The Department of Defense released recent Al Qaeda video of Iraqi children being prepared for terror missions. An estimated 250,000 children are being used as soldiers in strife-ridden areas such as Africa. Some of the data collected to date on child soldiers may help better understand this crop of potential child terrorists:
Recruitment Motivation: Forced […]

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The USAF has approximately three hundred and fifty specially-trained snipers, many serving in “close precision engagement teams.” Close is a relative term for the USAF, which operates long-range strike aircraft such as the B-2, air-launched cruise missiles with hundreds of mile ranges. Precision is an appropriate term for a sniper due to the extreme accuracy […]

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The transition between the world of war and the “real world” back home can be jarring. The US military has come a long way since Vietnam when American soldiers flew as individuals straight from the war back to civilian life. Today, the predominant experience is a communal one, unit rotations mean American servicemen rotate as […]

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Brigadier General Paul Tibbets died Thursday, 1 November 2007, age 93. He was the pilot of the Enola Gay and dropped the first atomic bomb. Tibbet’s passing gives pause to wonder: how were a few men able to apply such a killing force?
In a 2005 interview with The Columbus Dispatch (on the 60th anniversary of […]

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Clausewitz defined war as a trinity of violence in pursuit of a political purpose, affected by chance.
The possibility of death or injury from violent action is a powerful element of battlefield realities WWII soldier and author James Jones (From Here to Eternity, and The Thin Red line, among others) wrote that soldiers had to […]

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Why are civilians attracted to the fight in Iraq and what keeps them there? Motivations are more complex than simply the appeal of money. The Washington Post’s Steve Fainaru’s narrative of four security guards abducted in Iraq provides a small glimpse into the motivation of some of the thousands of armed civilians at war.
Many contractors are […]

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This week combat commanders rejected a recommendation by Army psychiatric community to control operational stress through frequent in theater rotations. (See USA Today 19 June 2007: “Troop’s 1-Month Break Blocked“) The specific recommendation was for units to rotate out of the line for one month out of every four. The benefits would include maintenance of unit […]

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Last month’s publication of the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) mental health assessment indicates a long-term problem for American warriors: repeat deployments are drawing from a finite well of courage, and the well isn’t re-filling between deployments.
Last month the Army Surgeon General’s office posted its fourth OIF Mental Health Assessment Team (MHAT) report dated November 2006. […]

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