On Combat

An interesting article has made the rounds on Small Wars Journal and Government Executive: Let Soldiers Blog, Post YouTube Videos, General Says By Greg Grant

Soldier and Commander access to digital media may be part of redefining maneuver warfare. Getting inside the enemy’s decision cycle now means time from observe-orient-decide-act-and now, report (i.e. put the story out).

Getting the word out first and fast may mean getting it out from the bottom up. Opening digital pipes at the bottom means more transparency, but more risk…some things will be good news, some will look bad. On average, we have to be rely on the motivation of US troops to be “strategic corporals” in getting the word out. The US must be proud and open about what our warriors are doing and should keep the digital gateways open.

To compete in the global information war played out on Web sites and e-mail, soldiers in Iraq should upload videos of their experiences in the combat zone to YouTube and post their personal stories online, a top Army general said recently — a recommendation that appears to run counter to Pentagon policy.

Digital age warfare requires that the Army change its “attitudes and the organizational culture,” which has discouraged soldiers from posting to YouTube or blogging, said Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell

Insurgents in Iraq frequently post videos of roadside bomb and sniper attacks on Web sites for propaganda purposes. “The first images broadcast become reality to viewers,” Caldwell said. “We have to get our images out first.” He suggested that unit leaders be given camcorders to document combat operations and daily life.

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 of their work.

A recent Central Air force news release: Air Force Sharpshooters Watch Over Troops in Iraq gives us a window into the USAF sniper’s world:

Motivation: Protection of friendly forces is a significant personal and institutional motivation of Air Force snipers. Protection comes ion the form of long-range and persistent surveillance and over watch of US forces operating outside the protective perimeter of an Airbase (outside the wire”):

Close Precision Engagement provides us with the ability to see into the future,” said Special Agent Christopher Church, OSI detachment 2410 commander. “They provide us with a situational awareness that we would not have without them. Having them watch over us during missions makes an enormous difference.”

“We respond to routes that get hit by IEDs a lot or an area that is known for launching IDFs,” said Sergeant Huffman, deployed from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. “We’ll set up somewhere concealed along that route or that area where we can watch people setting stuff up so we can get them before they can hurt our guys. We could be there from 24 to 72 hours.”

The counter-snipers accomplish many missions here at Kirkuk, but they find the most rewarding thing is being able to over-watch soldiers or OSI agents.

“This is the reason why I joined,” Airman Leeper said. “When we are out there giving them info and providing cover I feel like I’m doing my job. I don’t feel like I deserve a medal, nothing like that. This is what my job is and what I joined to do. I joined to come to Iraq and I went through sniper school to be an asset to the Air Force.”

The Air Force institutionally values the protective mission by labeling the specially trained Airmen “counter-snipers” suggesting a defensive role.

The Tiger Teams consist of Air Force security forces counter-snipers whose expert marksmanship and ability to practically stay invisible allow them to sneak up to an enemy undetected and neutralize them if needed.

Killing: A prominent role of any sniper is to kill enemy combatants. Taking an enemy life with a long-range sniper rifle might seem to offer psychological distance from the task, but the realities of using a single-shot to take a specific life after considerable surveillance and tracking of that individual indicates considerable intimacy, and an inevitable psychological impact on the sniper team.

CENTAF’s news release suggest there are several coping mechanisms in play:

Collective Killing: The killing is a group activity. In the case of sniper teams, the spotter and sniper play mutually supporting and necessary roles, diffusing responsibility between them. This creates a sense of mutually reinforcing affirmnation of the team’s actions. Diffusion also plays an emotional role, allowing one to shift responsibility away from oneself as part of coping:

Each sniper team consists of two people – the spotter and the shooter. The spotter’s responsibility is to determine things like the distance to the target, wind direction and then provide the shooter with corrections, which are adjustments on the rifle.

Technically demanding tasks: If the task is technically demanding, there is less time and opportunity to reflect on emotional or psychological aspects of killing.

“Spotters do all the mathematical equations for range estimation, windage, everything from start to end,” said Airman 1st Class Matt Leeper, CPET member, also deployed from Eielson AFB. “The spotter definitely has the more difficult job. Your spotter has to be quick and accurate when giving the corrections. There is no time for the shooter to think twice. Your spotter is always right.”

Protective Mission: The moral calculus that killing is necessary to save friendly lives is a valuable aspect of moral justification.

The sharpshooters’ skills also help save lives during counter improvised explosive device and counter indirect fire operations.

Compartmentalization, dehumanization, and use of non-descriptive terminology: Emotional distance can be created through the substitutions of less-descriptive euphemisms. Use of words like “neutralize” rather than “kill”, or “target” rather than “man” are significant sources of emotional distance.

“Only about five percent of our job is taking that shot and the other 95 percent is intelligence gathering,” he said. “But when you are in a situation where you have to neutralize a threat, you can’t really think about anything except you have positive ID on that target, they have a weapon or you know they are placing an IED. You put that target in your cross hairs, you imagine it’s just a blank target at your school house and you pull the trigger. You don’t have time to think about anything else.”

Today I had the privilege of listening to Dr Stuart Rochester and Dr Frederick Kiley discuss their book Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973. Dr Kiley recounted examples of duty and endurance under the harshest conditions. He described the brutality of the North Vietnamese torture and how American POWs found ingenious ways to communicate and support one another.

We were graced by the presence of five Vietnam POWs, three USAF, two USN who amplified several of Dr Kiley’s points and took questions from the audience. When asked whether they harbor any hatred towards their captors, their message was “No. Hatred harms the hater much more than the hated.” I had to agree, when I went back to war over Iraq after having been a POW in Baghdad there was (surprisingly) no emotional content behind the combat missions I flew in Southern Watch, or behind the missiles I fired. Emotion clouds clear thinking. Their modesty and humanity were evident throughout.

Listening to the Vietnam POWs stories made a connection in me that I hadn’t been aware was there before: when I was a cadet at the USAF Academy from 1976-1980, there were several POWs on the faculty: Col Bud Breckner, Maj John Fur, Lt Col Jon Reynolds. My classmates and I listened to their stories on the edges of our seats, and retold them again and again in our dormitories. When we went through resistance training (SERE–survival resistance evasion and escape), we wondered if we could ever measure up, and thought maybe we should shoot it out after a bailout (like Frank Luke), saving the last bullet for ourselves.

When I was captured by the Republican Guards in 1991, I didn’t shoot it out to the end. I knew what the standard would be from the stories that I was raised on at the Academy. I knew my honor would be on the line, and I knew how those who had gone before performed under the most challenging circumstances, so I resisted to the utmost of my ability. My desire to resist had its foundation in the stories from the previous generation, and was educated through SERE training learned in Jack’s Valley in my sophomore summer in 1977. The connection from one generation of warriors to the next was deep down, I just hadn’t realized it until now. The warrior ethos is there, and it is reinforced by role models from one generation to the next. So the long blue line continues.

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 units; commanders work to ease the transition through decompression, counseling, and briefings before returning home and follow up after getting back. (for details of the Marine Corps program, see Commandant of the Marine Corps message on Operational Stress Control, for the US Army program—including videos, see Battlemind).

Despite all the things the services are doing right, adjustment is an individual experience that goes on between the ears. A recent article by former soldier William Quinn in the Washington Post “I’m back home but Still in Iraq’s grasp” illuminates some of the challenges returning soldiers face. A few quotations:

The only feeling I’ve ever had that was more surreal than arriving in a war zone was returning from one.

The war didn’t just seem to be taking place in another country; it seemed to be taking place in another universe. There I was, in desert camouflage, wondering how all the intensity, the violence, the tears and the killing of Iraq could really be happening at the same time

I’ve been out of Iraq for more than two years now. I have a different life, as a college student. But some of those feelings are still with me.…college feels a bit mundane, and it’s inexplicable to me that people here seem to be entirely untouched by the war.

This is a timeless dilemma for the returning warrior, the family and friends she returns to, and our society. Paul Fussell argues in his book Wartime that WWII was tragic and ironic, and the home front could know none of it (pg 268). Since America was not bombed, the war was inaccessible to those back at home. Fussell was featured in PBS’ series The War, and relates here some of his frustration regarding the gulf between these two worlds.

Despite the 24/7 news cycle, military blogs, digital photography, handheld camcorders and You Tube, people back home can not be expected to appreciate fully the realities of combat. Bridging the gap and adapting to the realities of home have fallen and will continue to fall on the shoulders of American warriors. Hopefully with the support of leaders, comrades, families, and communities, memories of the stark experiences of war will take their appropriate place in the minds of soldiers over time

As the volunteer US military is heavily deployed around the world fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need to recruit and keep soldiers is getting more difficult. Organizational incentives are oriented towards each end of the motivation chain. At the front end, money and eduicational benefits are aimed at attracting potential recruits. At the back end, incentives are oriented towards keeping soldiers through re-enlistment benefits.

Phil Carter’s recent Slate article provides a tabular look at the incentives the Army is offering soldiers today: I Want You … Badly: A Complete Guide to Uncle Sam’s Recruiting Incentives

The article also summarizes some of the standards that have been lowered to allow a larger population of potential recruits to enlist.

Rising costs and lower standards are causes for concern: the costs can be argued as temporary, only as long as the war on terror keeps forces stretched. The question arises how long will the current levels of troop commitments be sustained?

The lowering of quality standards is alarming considering we are asking more from each soldier in moral standards and intelligence to wage counterinsurgency effectively.

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 the bomb) Tibbets said “I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing…We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.”

How did Tibbets cope with the feelings as he led the crew of the Enola Gay towards Hiroshima on Aug 6 1945? An interview with Studs Terkel in 2005 provides some ideas through his recollections:

Crowd out moral considerations by focusing on the technical tasks at hand. Flying in combat is a technically demanding task, and like golf, perfection in execution is sought but rarely achieved. Concentration and focus on a difficult job can dominate one’s thoughts, crowding out time for moral considerations:

The airplane has a bomb sight connected to the autopilot and the bombardier puts figures in there for where he wants to be when he drops the weapon, and that’s transmitted to the airplane. We always took into account what would happen if we had a failure and the bomb bay doors didn’t open: we had a manual release put in each airplane so it was right down by the bombardier and he could pull on that. And the guys in the airplanes that followed us to drop the instruments needed to know when it was going to go.

The importance of the mission was clear, Tibbet’s commander General Ent had told him:
“Paul, be careful how you treat this responsibility, because if you’re successful you’ll probably be called a hero. And if you’re unsuccessful, you might wind up in prison.”

Flying a perfect mission was clearly on Tibbet’s mind: “On the way to the target I was thinking: I can’t think of any mistakes I’ve made.”

Diffusion of agency: All members of the crew of the Enola Gay had do perform their jobs to drop the bomb. Tibbets was part of a team, and each member had to contribute to the task if it were to succeeed. Collective action disuses the agency and responsibility of killing to the group, diminishing each individual’s part and responsibility. Here is a glimpse of the duties of the bombardier (to operate the bomb sight) vs those of the pilot (to look out for enemy defenses while the others focused on the bomb aiming and drop):

10 miles from Hiroshima, his bombardier, Maj. Thomas Ferebee, broke in on the intercom: “OK, I’ve got the bridge.”A T-shaped span over the Ota River was the target.
“As we approached the aiming point,” Tibbets remembered, “I watched for the first signs of anti-aircraft fire or fighter planes.”

Diffusion of responsibility within a wider community and Support of Experts: Tibbetts met regularly with Nuclear scientists, including Oppenheimer, as well as the community of experts and technicians from the Manhattan Project. Interaction with this dedicated group, and his role as the point man in this massive endeavor was sure to impart pressure and reinforce legitimacy of his actions.

I think I went to Los Alamos [the Manhattan project HQ] three times, and each time I got to see Dr Oppenheimer working in his own environment. Later, thinking about it, here’s a young man, a brilliant person…

Support of the highest authority and clear unambiguous guidance: Tibbets was handpicked by General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Air Corps, related below through Tibbet’s recollection of his initial conversation with General Ent, the 2nd AF commander:

“The other day, General Arnold [commander general of the army air corps] offered me three names.” Both of the others were full colonels; I was lieutenant-colonel. He said that when General Arnold asked which of them could do this atomic weapons deal, he replied without hesitation, “Paul Tibbets is the man to do it.” I said, “Well, thank you, sir.”

Afer the war, Tibbets met with President Truman, who reaffirmed Tibbet’s actions:

[Truman] looked at me for 10 seconds and he didn’t say anything. And when he finally did, he said, “What do you think?” I said, “Mr President, I think I did what I was told.” He slapped his hand on the table and said: “You’re damn right you did, and I’m the guy who sent you. If anybody gives you a hard time about it, refer them to me.”

Tibbets stated he never lost sleep over the mission, and stated he would be willing to do it again if needed.

Would I do it?

As a USAF fighter pilot, I had the mission to sit on “nuc alert” many years ago. As I went through the nuclear certification process and prepared for this mission, I thought to myself: “If ordered, how will I do this?” Thousands of uniformed military men and women of the world’s nuclear powers have had to face this question since 1945.

I thought that if the war had reached the point of a nuclear weapons, I wouldn’t have the luxury of pondering questions of why or right/wrong, and I would have to focus on the demanding aspects of piloting a single seat fighter across a heavily defended border, evading defenses, locating my target, and delivering the bomb. I figured it might be a one-way mission and it would take all my skills and concentration to make it back. I wouldn’t have time to think, to moralize and ultimately I would have to become a part of a machine.

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 give up hope of individual survival to carry on the mission, and that they had to have faith the unit would carry on:

“It is the individual soldier’s final full acceptance of the fact that his name is already written down in the rolls of the already dead,” wrote Jones, that allows the soldier to function well under fire (WWII, p. 54).

Through the character Private Bell, Jones writes: “Some men would survive, but no one individual man could survive. It was a discrepancy in methods of counting. The whole thing was too vast, too complicated, too technological for any one individual man to count in it. Only collections of men counted, only communities of men, only numbers of men” (Thin Red Line, p. 238).

Whether one lived or died, was not an outcome the individual had control of. The realization that survival is a matter of chance does not come easily to the warrior:

“In spite of all the training you get and precautions you take to keep yourself alive, it’s largely a matter of luck that decided whether or not you get killed. It doesn’t make any difference who you are, how tough you are, how nice a guy you might be, or how much you may know, if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time, you get it. . . . It’s all luck” (James Jones to Jeff Jones, 28 January 1943, To Reach Eternity: The Letters of James Jones, ed. 26-27.)

Should soldiers resign themselves to the possibility of death before entering battle? This is not unknown from the distant or recent past. Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, USMC exhorted his men forward at Belleau Wood (June 1918) with: “Come on, you sons of bitches-do you want to live forever?” Interestingly, one might take this in more than one way, a reminder that one can’t live forever and death is not to be feared, or perhaps that to advance is the path to immortality (as it was for Daly, who had already earned two Medals of honor and survived the war.

Some commanders in Operation Iraqi Freedom I (the initial assault to Baghdad) advised their men to make peace with God, resign their fate to fight with a “happy heart” [discussions at the National War College, November 2004]. This attitude is captured in Lt Col Brian McCoy’s Passion of Command, in the words he used to prepare his Marines for the assault into Iraq:

We will take casualties in combat; men will die. Accept that as fact now and resolve to stay above the emotion and remain focused on the mission. Do not allow casualties to slow our speed. The best way to take care of our wounded is to finish the enemy off.

Dedicate yourself to the unit and mission. Trust in your brothers. Make peace with your maker, then fight with a “happy heart.”

This is a tough psychological prescription, pressing ahead while resigning oneself to the possibility of death. To appreciate the possibility of death or grievous injury and to press on in spite of them is the essence of courage.

Jones quotations from Sharon Ritenour Stevens George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, Virginia

The Air Force Chief of Staff announced on 8/28/07 that the Air Force would expand Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training to more airmen. (see CSAF’s Scope highlights SERE training ) This move is tremendous step to better prepare American Airmen for what could be the gravest challenge of their lives: capture in battle.

American prisoners of war rely on training (for tools to resist coercion), faith in one’s comrades (to come get them), faith in America (that they will not be forgotten and their families will be taken care of), and faith in God (for personal strength). The resistance portion of SERE provides the tools necessary to resist the enemy and return with honor. Today resistance training is taught by the USAF Survival School at Fairchild AFB, WA.

Lt Col Rob Sweet was captured by the Iraqis in Desert Storm after ejecting from a striken A-10. Sweet was a former SERE school instructor and noted “the Iraqis threw everything at me I’d already seen…out of my weeks of captivity, I only saw one trick I wasn’t expecting.” [Read more →]

In 1999, Korean War civilian deaths at No Gun Ri (click for an in-depth summary) captured prominent media attention. After a joint US-ROK investigation, President Clinton formally apologized for the incident.

Although the investigation did not find any USAF or USN tacair involvement, a contemporary memo was found in the National Archives within the 5th AF regarding requests to strafe Korean refugees (posted directly below).

CNN interviewed AF pilots flying at that same time, and found some that were willing to comment on similar contemporary incidents. [Read more →]

Recent news on America’s use of torture has resurfaced a searing debate that defines who we are, what we stand for, and what price we’re willing to pay for security:

“Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations”
New York Times
October 4, 2007

By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales ’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency .

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. . . .

The use of torture demeans America and Americans. It undermines the values we stand for. When I was shot down over Iraq in 1991, I expected to be tortured by my Iraqi captors. I was.

Once in the hands of what he or she considers to be ultimate power and ultimate evil, an American prisoner of war relies on training (for tools to resist coercion), faith in one’s comrades (to come get you), faith in America (that you will not be forgotten and your family will be taken care of), and faith in God (for personal strength).  The individual’s well of strength ebbs and flows between hopes for the future and the depths of despair when facing torture and isolation. A powerful reservoir of strength comes from the knowledge that one is on the side of right, on the side of rules, on the side of good. I expected to be tortured because I was in the hands of the bad guys. As I was beaten, I had a sense of moral superiority over brutal men who had a monopoly on physical power in the interrogation room. This moral superiority came from the knowledge that we were the good guys. We didn’t treat our prisoners that way. We were better than they were. We cannot ever afford to give that up.

Bill Andrews

Col USAF

POW Operation Desert Storm