Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force

by Tom Clancy

  Today the unit commanded by General Keane is a very different animal from that commanded by General Ridgway in 1944. Back then, XVIII Airborne Corps was composed of only two divisions and was limited to parachuting and airdropping forces within a few hundred miles of its bases. Today, it has four divisions, 85,000 personnel, and a global mission with seven-league boots. Let’s let General Keane tell us about it.

  Tom Clancy: XVIII Airborne Corps, which you command, is a rather special unit from a mission perspective. Would you please lay out that mission for us?

  General Keane: It certainly is a rather unique organization, not only in the U.S. Army but in all of the armed services. XVIII Airborne Corps’ mission is strategic response/crisis force, deployable by air, land, and/or sea. From there the Corps’ job is to fight and win! Actually, it is a pretty simple mission. On the other hand, though, our organization probably makes as much of a statement about who and what we do as the mission itself. To be able to accomplish the kinds of missions we do takes a lot of different skills and capabilities. Usually, whenever there is an armed [American] response required, we’re involved. That’s been our history and our legacy. We have never failed the American people, and we never will.

  Lieutenant General John Keane, the Commanding General of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps (center) and General Gary Luck (right) at General Luck’s retirement ceremony.

  OFFICIAL U.S. ARMY PHOTO

  As far as the mission itself, when you break it all out, we really do two kinds of operations here at XVIII Airborne Corps. We can do lots of other things, but we specialize in two major types of missions. One is a forced-entry operation, which means that the enemy situation or the hostile government will not allow us to make a “permissive” entry into the territory in question. The U.S. National Command Authorities [NCAs: the President, Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc.] currently hold three capabilities to do such forcible-entry operations. One is a parachute assault, the second is an air assault (helicopter-borne), and the third is an amphibious operation from the sea. Obviously the Marine Corps is the centerpiece for the amphibious-type assaults, and XVIII Airborne Corps provides the units for the parachute and air assaults.

  In these missions we can act as a Joint Task Force [JTF, a multi-service military force], or as a part of a JTF. As such, we train more with our sister organizations [Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force] than any other organization in the U.S. Army. The amount of work that we have done with the other services over the years has grown and matured. It’s friendly cooperation. Given the potential levels of fighting that are possible, we are interested in one thing only, and that is accomplishing the mission with the minimum loss of life. As such, we have no time down here for inter-service rivalries. We only have time to get the job done, working with others if that is the best way. Each service component brings, in many cases, unique capabilities that while they are important to that service, can achieve a certain synergy when you bring them together with those of the other services. It also give us here additional capabilities which can prove overwhelming when dealing with an enemy, as well as helping provide a more rapid resolution to a combat situation. The “joint” business [with other services and allies] is what we do here in XVIII Airborne Corps.

  On the flip side, our other specialized mission is to operate as a U.S. Army corps in the field, which is the foundation unit of large Army warfighting organizations. This is how we organize and operate our divisions and other units under a three-star [Lieutenant General] commander. Our history tells us that normally when we do that, the United States and our allies are probably in a relatively large conflict like we were in Desert Storm, fighting an army on a deployed battlefield. We could see ourselves doing that back in Southwest Asia or someday perhaps in Korea. In any case, these are the two ways in which the XVIII Airborne Corps packages itself, and in each instance it is a little different.

  Tom Clancy: In addition to the more traditional combat roles, XVIII Airborne Corps has developed quite a reputation in the areas of peacekeeping and humanitarian operations over the last few years. Tell us about it, will you?

  General Keane: These short-of-war operations are just as important to us as our combat ones, because they bring stability to countries and areas that may be struggling with famine such as in Somalia, or a lack of political stability such as we encountered in Haiti. The mission that XVIII Airborne Corps received in both cases was to provide some stability to those countries and their people. The corps is ideally suited for that kind of mission, because it can move rapidly, and we can tailor our forces to the particular mission of the moment. In addition, we have a history of dealing with battlefields that are not conventional in the sense that our soldiers have to constrain their use of combat power and deadly force. In addition, we recognize the value of civil affairs and psychological warfare operations on that kind of battlefield.

  XVIII Airborne Corps also uses special operations forces [SOFs] extensively. In fact, no other unit in the U.S. Army uses SOFs in concert with its mission to the degree that we do. We plan for their use all the time, work with them regularly during training exercises, and they are of enormous value to us. SOFs provide us with knowledge of the country we’re operating in, break down cultural barriers for us, give us the capability to have valuable human intelligence [HUMINT] resources out to great distances from the front, and provide us resources for direct-action [covert] missions should that be required, on the ground, sea, or in the air. I think that we understand their capabilities, and have a history of taking advantage of their special talents and skills, and using them properly. Conversely, I think that they have confidence in our abilities to properly use them. This is a special concern of SOFs, because of their traditional worries about conventional force leaders possibly misusing them. I think that XVIII Airborne Corps has proven that this is not the case. We have very close relations with them. Remember, a lot of our officers and leaders have served in both.

  Much like the United States Marines, the troopers of XVIII Airborne Corps proudly wear their berets with a “can-do” spirit and a powerful sense of history. Let the general explain it in his own words, as well as telling some more about his command.

  Tom Clancy: Is it fair to say that if XVIII Airborne Corps has a spirit or ethos, that it has derived from the airborne units and their history/ traditions?

  General Keane: I think that the airborne ethos is as good an expression of the pride, esprit, and high standards of discipline that you find throughout the XVIII Airborne Corps. The airborne certainly set a standard for us and our army for such things. The corps clearly has a special spirit and capability.

  Tom Clancy: You command a unique mix of units in XVIII Airborne Corps. Could you tell us something about each of them?

  General Keane: We have four divisions in the XVIII Airborne Corps, out of only ten divisions in the entire U.S. Army, and each of them is different. We have four basic types of divisions in the Army (armored/mechanized, airborne, air assault, and light infantry), and one of each type is in this corps. That is by design, not by accident. That variety gives us the versatility to organize and package those units based upon our mission, the intentions and organization of our enemies, and the overall political and military objectives that we have to achieve.

  You can see that packaging manifested in deployments like Desert Shield/Storm, where we pretty much packaged up the entire corps and took it to the Saudi Arabian desert, and actually had other units like the French 6th Infantry and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment attached. Now contrast that with a quite different organization that we put together for Operation Just Cause [the 1989 invasion of Panama]. There, we operated as part of a Joint Task Force [JTF], where we used some of our own units [the 82nd Airborne], and we also brought in special operation forces, as well as the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. We work well with those organizations, and package/tailor our forces based on the type of conflict that we encounter, as well as the terrain.

  Our
corps is 85,000 personnel strong, which is a formidable force in itself. It has four divisions (3rd Mechanized Infantry, 10th Mountain (Light), 82nd Airborne, and 101st Air Assault) that make up 50,000 of the 85,000 personnel on strength. The other 35,000 are assigned to the thirteen separate [attached] brigades. Certainly in the U.S. Army, there is no parallel for that type of an organization, with that particular mission, and also with the enormous versatility that we bring to bear. Now, with regards to the individual units, let’s run them down:

  82nd Airborne Division (the “All Americans”). They represent a completely unique capability as the only parachute division in the U.S. Army. It is a strategic response force in the sense that from the time that they receive an alert order, within eighteen hours they can begin movement to virtually any place in the world. That is a formidable capability, and it is clearly an instrument that the NCAs have at their fingertips to use. I do believe that it is also a deterrence force as well, because its capabilities are well known. Any country is very rapidly approachable by the 82nd, and they know that we have the aircraft and resources to get our soldiers and their equipment there very quickly. The 82nd, probably more than any other division in our Army, sends a message when it is deployed. When we commit the 82nd, it’s an expression of the political will of the nation. It’s also a statement to anybody who is involved or observing that the United States is really serious. They have just put their best on their airplanes, and they are coming!

  One interesting thing about the 82nd, though. When people think of the 82nd, they certainly think of the paratroopers with their rifles, packs, and machine guns. But it’s much more than that. When the 82nd goes someplace, it takes lots of combat power with it. We deliver parachute artillery with them, along with air defense systems, command and control vehicles, and all the other instruments of war the 82nd needs to do its business. This gives them a lot of combat power upon arrival!

  101st Air Assault Division (the “Screaming Eagles”). Another unique organization, one of the two specialized divisions in the XVIII Airborne Corps and our Army. Like the 82nd, it was born out of the history of the airborne and its rich tradition. It still has the same esprit and spirit that it has always had. Its special capability is that it can take, within a theater of operations (like the Persian Gulf or the Balkans), brigade-sized task forces and move them out to distances of up to 93 mi/150 km ahead of the forward lines, and do it within hours. It’s the only organization of this kind in the world that can do something like that. During Desert Storm, they moved 155 mi/250 km deep into Iraq in just twenty-four hours, a maneuver that today is still being studied by military academicians. It was an incredible performance. How they were able to move so far, so fast, into the northwest part of the Area of Operations [AOR] is still a marvel to most folks. Then General Schwarzkopf ordered them within a day or so to move to Basra, over on the eastern side of the AOR, flying across corps and divisions to accomplish the task. Making a lateral move of this sort was unheard of in military operations. Since they operate independent of the tyranny of terrain, their mobility gives them an enormous capability. It is a very flexible organization, and with seventy-two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters as part of their organization, they pack one hell of a wallop!

  10th Mountain Division (Light).9 The 10th Mountain Division is our foot-infantry division. Our lightest force, and smallest in terms of personnel and equipment, even compared to the 82nd. By way of comparison, the 10th Mountain has 8,700 personnel compared with 15,000 for the 82nd and 17,000 for the 101st. Those 8,700 soldiers are split between a pair of foot-infantry brigades with a very high leader-to-led ratio, not much of a logistics or sustainment base compared to our other divisions, and very few vehicles and aircraft. The idea behind all this is to be able to quickly move them to a theater of operations, conducting either a permissive [i.e., unopposed] entry, or as part of a follow-on force to a forced entry. The 10th Mountain Division has been deployed quite a bit over the past few years, participating in peacekeeping operations in Somalia and disaster relief operations following Hurricane Andrew, and the primary force during Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti. In fact, since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, they have been the busiest infantry organization in the whole U.S. Army.

  3rd Mechanized Infantry Division (Formerly the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia). The 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division [MID] is a typical armored force, what we refer to as a “heavy” division. They represent raw combat power when you need an iron fist. In fact, they are the largest such unit in the Army today. They have 250 M1A1 Abrams tanks alone, with hundreds of other armored vehicles like M⅔ Bradley fighting vehicles and other systems. In and of themselves, the 3rd MID would have no problem utterly destroying two or three equivalently organized units, given their technological and training advantages and overmatches. This is especially true using sensors, night-fighting capabilities, and raw firepower.

  2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR)—Based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, this is a light armored cavalry regiment currently undergoing a review of its organization and equipment. Presently, 2nd ACR’s cavalry squadrons are supported by their own organic artillery and engineers. This is a very flexible unit capable of rapid deployment, it was a major contribution to our success in the Haiti operation.

  Attached Corps Brigades. Along with the major component units, we have thirteen separate attached corps brigades. They include a military intelligence [MI] brigade, which gives us an enormous capability on a daily basis to reach into the national intelligence assets, and also to supply intelligence products to deployed operations overseas. Obviously, this unit has the capability to tie into all the various platforms, agencies, and systems, manned and unmanned, that supply intelligence at all levels. The MI brigade has the necessary downlinks to their headquarters, and we can see all of this data real-time. It’s an extraordinary capability, though some of what we have now we did not have during Desert Storm and some of our other earlier operations.

  This improvement in our MI capability has a lot to do with the criticisms of General Schwarzkopf and other senior leaders following the Gulf War. Remember that back then our field commanders and units did not have access to the full variety of tactical intelligence products, particularly those from national-level sources. Since then, the intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense [DoD] have worked hard to make that [information] available to us. Not only to push it out to us, but also to give us the capability to pull on it as well, right into our operations centers within the XVIII Airborne Corps. We can display lots of that information real-time in our operations center, and provide that intelligence information to our units. This is a very powerful organization in terms of what it can provide to us in both basic information and intelligence data. In addition, they provide a robust analytical capability to take information and data, and then turn it into something that is useful for our field commanders and units.

  In the artillery business, we’ve got units equipped with both tube artillery and the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System [MLRS], firing both rockets and the Army Tactical Missile Systems [A-TACMS]. So we have lots of rocket artillery, in addition to tube artillery. We also have two AH-64 Apache battalions in the XVIII Airborne Corps aviation brigade, as well as all the other helicopters necessary for us to move and support our soldiers on the battlefield. The corps also has an entire air-defense brigade with Patriot and Avenger/Stinger surface-to-air missile [SAM] systems. There’s also an entire engineering brigade in support of the corps, with a number of different and specialized battalions in it. Those are the combat support organizations that keep us functional, along with the logistics units. In fact, the toughest part of our business may be logistics.

  No other army in the world is doing what we do with the numbers of people and things that we deploy. So the capability we have to organize ourselves and do that, to use airlift as well as sealift, takes logisticians of the Army and the other services, and it is an enormous undertaking. Then t
o sustain that army in the field is another thing entirely.

  We as Americans sort of take it for granted that we are taking an army, in many cases, to an immature [i.e., undeveloped] theater of operations, where from the minute that we arrive we cannot even drink the water! And yet everybody in that army has to drink to survive. They also have to eat in a place where the food may be tainted, and we obviously have to protect ourselves from disease. So logisticians have got to get these things right, in terms of how they organize themselves and our sustainment operations. It goes back to the ways that they put things on ships and in airplanes, so that they arrive in the theater of operations in concert with when we need them.

  This is an area where our National Guard and Reserve components are especially useful to us. Now, while the XVIII Airborne Corps probably has a larger active-duty logistics force than most other units because of its rapid-response mission, we depend heavily on the Reserve and Guard for logistics, as well as areas like civil affairs and psychological warfare operations.

  The logistics side of XVIII Airborne Corps operations, which we call the COSCOM [Corps Support Command], also includes our personnel and finance groups, which are very important to us in sustaining our operations.

  You know, our army has a history of producing and conducting excellent logistical efforts. World War II was an example of our mastery of the logistical art, with the way we projected our combat power into Africa, Italy, and Normandy. We’re still doing that kind of thing today, but we’re having to do it much more rapidly as well.