Duty First

by Ed Ruggero

  The cadets, eager to participate, begin to call out their concerns.

  “Where are the nearest friendly units?” one asks.

  “That’s right,” Abizaid says, referring to the note on the board. “Don’t expect a fair fight. If they are terrorists and they start shooting at you, you’ve got to be ready.”

  The cadets warm to the task.

  Where are the nearest reinforcements, they want to know, and how long would it take them to get there? How do I get to them on the radio? Who’s in command? Can I talk to the commander? Can we do a reconnaissance? Can we get a helicopter to fly us over the area?

  “Good, good,” Abizaid encourages them as they think through the problem.

  “How many of you studied what happened in Mogadishu?” he asks, referring to the fierce battle, in October 1993, between elite American forces and Somali militias.

  Twenty hands go up.

  “Part of our problem was that we went in there thinking these were a bunch of dumb tribesmen. But they turned out to be a bunch of smart tribesmen. They sat around every day watching the Americans and thinking about how they could kill our men, how they could embarrass us in front of the whole world. Don’t you think the Serbs and Muslims, who’ve been killing each other for seven hundred years … don’t you think they’re thinking about how they can kill you?”

  The problem isn’t that American forces don’t have the weapons or the training; the problem, Abizaid says, is a mental letdown. The problem is complacency.

  “There are captains and lieutenant colonels and old generals who will tell you, ‘Lieutenant, it’s a routine mission, there’s no need to get all worked up about it.’ I’m telling you right now … that’s bullshit.”

  There is a silent moment. The cadets sit in their rows, upright and attentive. In a year or two, some of them will be in this position, in Bosnia or Kosovo or some other country whose name they do not know today. The Commandant sits on the desk, pointer in his hand, feet swinging gently back and forth. Because he’s been there, he can picture them as they will be: K-pot crammed down, rifle slung over one shoulder, dirty notebook and GI pen in grubby fingers, looking for the answers that will accomplish the mission and keep their soldiers safe. Abizaid is passionate about preparing these young men and women as well as he possibly can.

  “So what happens?” Abizaid says, standing and picking up a marker. He draws a couple of rectangles on the road leading to the village.

  “The platoon moves out in column …”

  There are groans from the audience; the cadets know that vehicles in a tight line cannot protect themselves or each other.

  “The lieutenant sets up a road block right in the middle of town, down here in the low ground.”

  The roadblock is ineffective; the soldiers manning it cannot see more than a block in either direction. Their radios can’t reach over the surrounding hills, which means they can’t call for help if they need it. The other vehicles are set up in places where they couldn’t support one another if they came under fire. It’s Custer, splitting his column, the pieces too far apart to help one another. It’s his platoon leader in Grenada, wandering out in the road to inspect his kill, far beyond where he could control things.

  “Turns out the Muslims were smuggling weapons in, and the Serbs were preparing to attack. But this platoon leader didn’t know it because he wasn’t set up properly. Fortunately his company commander came down and saw what was wrong and got everything straightened out and peace prevailed.”

  Abizaid turns off the overhead projector and picks up a photocopied article from a professional journal.

  “Leadership is the most dynamic aspect of combat power,” he reads. He looks up. “No technology can give you the advantage that good old-fashioned leadership can give you. You can have spy planes overhead and all kinds of information downloaded to the G-2 [the intelligence section]. If the lieutenant and sergeant on the ground don’t do their duty, we will fail.”

  “When you hear stories like this, you should have a couple of reactions: First, you should think, ‘But for the grace of God, that could have been me.’ This lieutenant [in Bosnia] was lucky. His company commander was looking out for him.”

  “Second, you should read about these disasters because you don’t want it to happen to you. You don’t want them writing a book about your big screwup.”

  “Your job,” he tells them, “is to wargame, to think through what might happen. We want you to be tactical leaders, to avoid the mistakes of the Little Bighorn, of Grenada. If I had given that lieutenant [in Grenada] clearer instructions, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten shot. I have no excuse. I take responsibility.”

  When the meeting is over, the cadets head back to their rooms. Abizaid rides the elevator to the first floor, then steps through the big front doors of Washington Hall and into bitter February cold. Big lights on the barracks paint the scene white and gray, making everything look colder.

  “I’m passionate in the belief that we train lieutenants to fight our wars,” Abizaid says.

  There are dozens of cadets, most of them in sweat suits, hustling by. They salute the Commandant.

  “Are you staying out of trouble, Joe?” the Commandant calls to one cadet he recognizes.

  “Sir, I’m out looking for it.”

  “What did you wind up choosing, Joseph?” Abizaid asks. The cadet is a firstie; the Comm wants to know about his recent choice of a first duty assignment.

  “The eighty-deuce, sir,” comes out of the night air.

  Abizaid continues to walk, a small smile on his lips. He served two tours with the 82nd Airborne Division, including his first assignment out of West Point. “I’ll alert them that you’re coming,” he tells the cadet.

  The six floors of MacArthur Barracks loom above him as he walks, the windows glowing brightly; it is the beginning of study barracks, and everything is quiet. No stereos playing, no music coming from the building. There is no rule forbidding music during evening study period, but each company is responsible for enforcing good study conditions.

  “Preparing for war doesn’t just mean we do military stuff all the time,” Abizaid continues. “We need flexibility, people who can think. One criticism I have of West Point is that we turned out automatons. We were famous for our rigidity. That’s not good, not in Custer’s time, certainly not in the Bosnian situation I just described.”

  He passes the statue of MacArthur and, in a few steps, is across the street from the Superintendent’s quarters; the big windows of the old house glow warmly.

  “None of these changes would work without the Superintendent,” he says. “He inspires people. They want to do well for him.”

  This is, of course, the attitude the cadets have about the Comm, the same attitude the new cadets of Alpha Company had toward Greg Stitt and Grady Jett. It is part of the formula. The other part is the team, and John Abizaid will address that in the morning.

  At 6:25 the following morning, the sky above the eastern mountains is pearly with the cold. Ice covers the sidewalk leading to Arvin Gym. Out front, a sign notes the hours: it opens at 0515. There are already scores of people about, though the Corps of Cadets is at breakfast.

  The chlorine smell points to Crandall Pool, the home of Army swimming. There is an Olympic-sized pool in one end of the huge room and a diving pool at the other. The floating bulkhead that divides the two has been lowered this morning. In an overheated, glassed-in room that overlooks the pool lay dozens of gym bags, towels, athletic shoes, and Army PT sweat suits. The owners of all this clothing—the staff of the United States Corps of Cadets, the nearly one hundred people who work for the Commandant—are in the pool.

  The PA system blasts rock and roll. Above that thunders the voice of this morning’s instructor, Captain Carol Anderson. She wears the black shorts and gray shirt of the Department of Physical Education; a headset microphone is clamped over her short hair.

  “Get off the side of my pool!” she calls, her voice absurdly a
mplified. “Tread water, tread water, tread water!”

  The heads visible above the churning water push away from the side. Most of them are smiling; a few of them look frightened. There are a few flotation vests, visible just below the surface of the water, on the weak swimmers.

  Brian Turner is with the other tactical officers. Without his glasses, Turner squints as he looks around. The whole scene shakes with the music as Joan Jett belts out her love for rock and roll.

  “Hands up, hands up!” Anderson calls out. “Run in place!”

  Hands come out of the water, some higher than others. A lot of these people are outstanding athletes, and they can’t help showing off. The Tacs splash one another like kids at the neighborhood pool.

  This is unit physical training. The Commandant calls all of his people together a few times a year, not because they need more exercise than they’re getting, but to reinforce the sense that they belong to a team. There is a danger, as they work in their widely dispersed offices, that they might forget that crucial point. Here, in the pool, all they have to do is look around.

  As Garth Brooks twangs, “Ain’t comin home til the sun comes up,” Sergeant First Class Tim Bingham, a broad smile on his face, laughs with his mouth wide open.

  In this culture, if it’s supposed to be fun, if it’s supposed to be good for the organization, it’s probably built around physical activity.

  All the team-building has immediate results: The academy runs better when everyone has the sense of working toward a single purpose. But running a good school isn’t the ultimate end, and there are reminders of that everywhere.

  On the wall of the room overlooking the pool is a large frame with several photographs and a long piece of text. One shot shows Cadet Paul Bucha, ‘65, in his graduation photo. Another shows Bucha, captain of the Army swimming team, kneeling by the pool, all smile and lean muscle. Another picture shows Captain Bucha in dress uniform, the Medal of Honor hanging from a sky-blue ribbon around his neck.

  Paul Bucha won the Medal of Honor for combat actions over a three-day battle in 1968, near Phuoc Vinh, Vietnam. The official citation, written in the stilted, artificial style of awards, compresses the events of three remarkable days into a couple of paragraphs.

  Captain Bucha distinguished himself while serving as commanding officer, Company D, on a reconnaissance-in-force mission against enemy forces near Phuoc Vinh, Republic of Vietnam. The company was inserted by helicopter into the suspected enemy stronghold to locate and destroy the enemy. During this period Captain Bucha aggressively and courageously led his men in the destruction of enemy fortifications and base areas and eliminated scattered resistance impeding the advance of the company. On 18 March, while advancing to contact, the lead elements of the company became engaged by the heavy automatic weapon, heavy machinegun, rocket-propelled grenade, Claymore mine and small-arms fire of an estimated battalion-size force. Captain Bucha, with complete disregard for his safety, moved to the threatened area to direct the defense and ordered reinforcements to the aid of the lead element. Seeing that his men were pinned down by heavy machinegun fire from a concealed bunker located some 40 meters to the front of the positions, Captain Bucha crawled through the hail of fire to single-handedly destroy the bunker with grenades. During this heroic action Captain Bucha received a painful shrapnel wound. Returning to the perimeter, he observed that his unit could not hold its positions and repel the human wave assaults launched by the determined enemy. Captain Bucha ordered the withdrawal of the unit elements and covered the withdrawal to positions of a company perimeter from which he could direct fire upon the charging enemy. When the friendly element retrieving casualties was ambushed and cut off from the perimeter, Captain Bucha ordered them to feign death and he directed artillery fire around them. During the night Captain Bucha moved throughout the position, distributing ammunition, providing encouragement and insuring the integrity of the defense. He directed artillery, helicopter gunship and Air Force gunship fire on the enemy strong points and attacking forces, marking the positions with smoke grenades. Using flashlights [while] in complete view of enemy snipers, he directed the medical evacuation of three air-ambulance loads of seriously wounded personnel and the helicopter supply of his company. At daybreak Captain Bucha led a rescue party to recover the dead and wounded members of the ambushed element. During the period of intensive combat, Captain Bucha, by his extraordinary heroism, inspirational example, outstanding leadership and professional competence, led his company in the decimation of a superior enemy force, which left 156 dead on the battlefield. His bravery and gallantry at the risk of his life are in the highest traditions of the military service. Captain Bucha has reflected great credit on himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

  This citation is one of the few complete versions displayed prominently at West Point, but the cadet area is filled with bronze tablets commemorating other Medal of Honor winners. They are fixed to the barracks walls, to the library, to Eisenhower Hall. They are like the statues of famous men in that they honor heroes, but they are different in a profound way.

  The cadets who walk past Eisenhower’s statue, who pass MacArthur and Patton and Thayer, might reasonably expect that their careers will not take them to four or five stars and the command of hundreds of thousands of soldiers engaged in a global war. But any cadet might one day find himself or herself faced with an unforeseen crisis, with the chance to do something courageous. The plaques and the statues tell the cadets what feats others have accomplished in their crucial hours. Like Bucha’s Medal of Honor, which hangs in a shadow box outside the entrance to Crandall Pool, they remind cadets of what they may be called upon to do.

  The Superintendent’s office sits high in the stone tower of Taylor Hall, at the top of a staircase of polished stone. Embedded in the walls are trophy cannons from the Mexican War. There is a large foyer outside the Superintendent’s office: The floors gleam, the leather furniture is sedate, the lighting muted, and the whole area feels more like a cathedral than an administration building.

  Just outside the big oak doors sits a colorful display of photographs showing a wide look of cadet life. In one photo, taken at a football game at Michie Stadium, the Superintendent, Lieutenant General Daniel W. Christman, USMA ‘65, leaps into the air to bounce off the chest of A-Man, a caped superhero in black and gold, Army’s unofficial mascot.

  The cadets love Christman for this exuberance.

  “He’s great at the football games,” Cadet Jacque Messel says. “Running around with A-Man.”

  Christman’s energy is on display as he strides into the Cadet Mess amid the crowd of gray pouring in for lunch. He is a big man, six two, two hundred pounds, broad in the chest and shoulders. He has white hair and a healthy, florid complexion; he is almost always smiling.

  “Hello, hello,” he greets the cadets, many of whom he knows by name. They move to get out of his way, but they aren’t scattering. They move because he’s the Supe, a three-star general, and military courtesy demands that they make way. But they don’t move far; they linger in his line of sight, meet his eyes, smile when they greet him. They like being around him. He gives them hearty, two-handed handshakes, pats them on the shoulder, leans close when they talk to him.

  Christman has just come from three long hours trapped in his office: meetings with his staff and speechwriters, telephone calls and letters, strategic planning, and community relations. He’s come to the Mess Hall specifically to congratulate the women’s basketball team on the weekend’s victory over archrival Navy. Here among the troops, Christman is like a kid let out of school.

  Around him, hundreds of tables are crammed in tight quarters, and there is a din of noise as the cadets jostle each other, shout to friends, give commands to plebes. Christman attracts attention, and the cadets at nearby tables crane their necks to catch a glimpse. In the short wing of the old mess hall, which dates from the twenties (and where Cadet Christman ate many of his meals) he finds the women’s basketball tables. H
e greets the firsties, who have played their last game against Navy. The seniors introduce the underclass players to him.

  “Don’t get up,” he tells the underclass cadets, who push their chairs back at his approach. The team captains stand deferentially, happy to be singled out for the honor of a visit. When the cadet adjutant calls the corps to attention, Christman snaps to, straight as any plebe, until the command, “Take seats.”

  “I’m going to say hello to the hockey team,” Christman tells his aide as he heads to another wing of the Mess Hall.

  Under a twenty-foot stained-glass window depicting Washington, Christman greets a headwaiter in the same way he does his favorite athletes. He finds the hockey team in the corner, shakes hands with the cadets at the head of the table and chats them up amid the deafening roar of the Mess Hall. They are all smiles and good cheer because the leader has come to see them, has walked over on his way home to say a few words to the troops.

  “It takes a great deal of talent to be a good Superintendent,” Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Weart, of the Commandant’s staff, says. “There aren’t many guys out there who have what it takes. You’ve got to have the intellectual ability and the academic credentials to head up a major college. Christman has that.”

  Daniel W. Christman was first in his class of 1965, a singular honor the Academy mentions in every press release and official introduction.

  “The guy earned a law degree in his spare time while he was working at the Pentagon,” Weart says, shaking his head in disbelief, not at Christman’s considerable intellectual ability, but at the fact that someone could find free time while working at the Pentagon.

  In addition to the Doctor of Jurisprudence from George Washington University, Christman holds two master’s degrees from Princeton (in Systems Engineering and Public Administration). He can hold his own with any college president.

  “A Supe also has to have all the Army credentials. He has to have done the general thing.”