Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

by Tom Clancy

  VERSATILITY

  The Army is sometimes charged with being slow to exit the Cold War mindset. Nothing could be further from the truth. A look at the recent history of some U.S. Army divisions demonstrates nothing so much as a learning institution, showing flexibility to respond to diverse missions and forward-looking adaptability to lessons learned from the first Gulf War and other operations.

  The 10th Mountain Division that fought so courageously at those high altitudes defeating Al Qaeda began the 1990s providing individual replacements for units in Desert Storm. In the summer of 1992 they were helping citizens in south Florida recover from Hurricane Andrew. That same year they were deployed to Somalia to conduct a humanitarian mission that turned into a combat mission. They next flew off the decks of aircraft carriers to land in Haiti in 1994, a change en route when the mission went from forced entry and combat to peacekeeping and humanitarian duties. Afterward, the 10th Mountain went to the Balkans twice for peacekeeping missions in the late 1990s and to the Sinai as part of that continuing mission. When Major General Hagenbeck got a call in the fall of 2001 from the Commander of Forces Command to be prepared to send a force to Afghanistan, elements of his division were in the Balkans and on another deployment. Yet, those who were available were trained and ready, and they and the division command element went from Fort Drum, New York, to Afghanistan where they accomplished their mission with great skill and courage.

  1st Armored Division, Old Ironsides, was formed in July 1940 and for most of its history performed its duty as an Armored Division, right up through its magnificent performance in VII Corps in Desert Storm, where it smashed through Iraqi Republican Guard armored units. In December 1995, it deployed overland from its German bases to Bosnia in Task Force Eagle, for a peace enforcement mission. For that mission the division, reinforced with other units increasing its strength close to 25,000 troops, had some of the same leaders and noncommissioned officers who had fought just four years earlier in the Iraq deserts. Demonstrating versatility in both mission change and in assimilating new units, they rapidly made the adjustment from tank fighting in deserts, to crossing the Sava River in the dead of winter to enforce the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia. Following that deployment the division went to the Balkans three more times, twice to Bosnia, and once to Kosovo, all the while honing its proficiency to fight as an armored division. In 2003 it was alerted to deploy from its base in Germany to go to Iraq to be part of the warfighting maneuver. Upon arrival they replaced the 3d Infantry Division in and around Baghdad to conduct nation building and security operations a difficult mission to which again they skillfully adapted.

  The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) fought in Desert Storm, making air assaults to cut off Iraqi lines of retreat from the Kuwaiti theater. It took them two months to deploy from Fort Campbell. Following Desert Storm, the U.S. Army made an investment in a strategic mobility program that ensured next time deployment would be different. At installations around the country, the Army invested in trains, flat cars and locomotives, shipping containers enhanced with information technology so that each container and its contents could be continually tracked, barges, and staging buildings at airfields. They hired deployment experts for each brigade-sized unit, and conducted training in new deployment methods. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force invested in more capable ships and aircraft to deploy Army forces. The Army invested heavily in prepositioned stocks, placing almost everything needed, including major items like tanks and ammunition, in forward areas. They acquired fast-moving Army ships to move that equipment within the theater of war. As a result, when the 101st deployed this time they did it in about half the time it took in 1990.

  During the three-week attack to Baghdad, the 101st gave V Corps Commander, LTG Scott Wallace deep reach with their air assault and attack helicopter capability. The division, which had also deployed forces earlier to Afghanistan, also gave V Corps needed versatility during the attack. They showed the enormous versatility of American infantry. Whether it was air assault, fighting Iraqi fedayeen at close quarters in cities and towns, protecting supply lines, attacks on Iraqi Army units, or deep attacks by Apache helicopters, soldiers and leaders of the 101st accomplished their missions. After the capture of Baghdad they moved north to Mosul and rapidly switched operations in an innovative and creative approach to nation building and peace operations.

  Finally, it is worth noting the increased versatility shown in this decade by division headquarters. They have served a wide range of command duties directing a wide variety of force packages, from the Balkans to Iraq and Afghanistan. The range of successful missions show the continual Army vision to gain more rapid deployability, while at the same time having the versatility to be able to tailor organizations quickly for what the U.S. Army calls full spectrum operations. It also demonstrates the versatility and adaptability in leaders and soldiers as they make the necessary adjustments to adapt standard organizations to be successful, regardless of the mission, place, or conditions. Learning and adapting from these operations, the U.S. Army continues to provide land power capabilities to Combatant Commanders and the Joint team by making units, including headquarters elements, more "modular" or capable of being tailored and rapidly deployed.

  IDEAS, EXPERIMENTS, AND CONTINUITY

  Ideas. To get to the future with organizations and equipment you have to begin with ideas then experiment while also drawing conclusions from operational experience. How you think about the future determines what you think about the future and what you do about the future.

  How the Army thinks about the future is to lead with ideas. Earlier on in these pages, we described so-called "warning lights" used at TRADOC that were key indicators of when and in what direction to revise key warfighting ideas. They were: threats and unknown dangers, national military strategy, history and lessons learned from it, the changing nature of warfare, and technology. You are always watching those and scanning the horizons for change. Sometimes all those lights are lit and you need to revise your ideas and change your warfighting methods and how you train and equip soldiers, organize units, and develop leaders. So it was that all through those years of its previous post 1970s rebirth the Army revised its basic set of warfighting ideas to lead change.

  The U.S. Army records those ideas in what it calls its capstone doctrine, FM 100-5 and now FM 3.0. The successful rebirth of the Army from the 1970s started with ideas laid out in the 1976 edition of FM 100-5. That book was continuously revised. Following Desert Storm all those indicators were lit again and the Army responded in a new edition of FM 100-5 in June 1993. The manual focused on a set of ideas that described how the Army should think about operations in the post-Cold War world and in an increasingly interdependent joint military team of all services.

  Thus, even though a campaign in Afghanistan was not predicted, in its 1993 edition of FM 100-5, Operations, the Army had recognized the need to break away from the linear battlefield of the Cold War and laid the groundwork for how to think about devising future campaigns:

  "It causes Air Land Battle to evolve into a variety of choices for a battlefield framework and a wider interservice arena . . . the battlefield framework has been revised to allow practitioners of Army operations a wider range of options. . . . Conditions or events that would cause forces to be employed will challenge Army forces. Such conditions include . . . often ruthless extremists who have available for their use all manner of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction." (U.S. Army Field Manual 100-5, Operations, HQ Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., 14 June 1993, pp. vi, 1-1)

  Those thoughts were a marker in 1993 for new conditions as the Army thought they might appear. As those strategic conditions became more clear and national strategy changed, military doctrine would be revised to deal with them. So, there was revision in Army doctrine published in June 2001, called FM 3.0--a set of ideas about Army forces operating as part of the joint military team in the early twenty-first century in what is termed a "contemporary operat
ing environment" and full spectrum operations. It also in ways was a continuum, informing battle commanders that they must create an operational framework to fit the particular situations and missions they were given, just as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq.

  Experiments. How you think about the future also involves using an experimental method, which can inform the Army about what ideas to change and which to retain. Technology investments tied to those ideas in what the Army calls concept-based requirements will provide that continuing battlefield edge for soldiers. Experiments can also sharply cut development time if they are done in a collaborative way.

  The Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) began Battle Labs in 1992 to do just that. Those Battle Labs followed a long lineage of positive experience in all the military services with the experimental method in getting to the future. Specific Force XXI experiments were an outgrowth of the work done in Battle Labs and the overarching Army experimental program Army Chief General Sullivan called the Louisiana Maneuvers. The Battle Labs continue their work, adjusted now for the times, conditions, and technology opportunities needed by the Army in the twenty-first century. The Army has also now invested formally in a "futures center" at TRADOC to accelerate such methods to look ahead to sustain that battlefield edge. The Army is a pragmatic profession, wanting to see proof that concepts work before trying them in battle, so it continues its experiments while simultaneously tapping into operational lessons learned from recent battles and operations. Army Chief General Schoomaker has directed the 3d Infantry Division, so spectacularly successful in its attack on Baghdad, to tap into that experience and explore the formation of a new generation of modular combat units.

  Continuity. One azimuth for experiments in the 1990s was called Force XXI. In the final chapter of this book we had said, "Army Chief General Sullivan directed that an experimental unit named Force XXI (after twenty-first century) be established at Fort Hood, Texas, with the goal of a full-brigade war-fighting experiment at the NTC (National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California) in 1997. The Army had come a long way toward the future since 1991."

  Progress since 1997 would be even more stunning. That unit was formed, and it was the 4th Infantry Division. TRADOC, under the command of General Bill Hartzog, set up that brigade experiment at the NTC in 1997, followed by a division experiment in a BCTP (Battle Command Training Program). For the division experiment, the commander was General Scott Wallace, who commanded V Corps in the 2003 attack to Baghdad, using many of the technologies and battle command techniques he had used in the 4th Division. Major General Buff Blount was able to drill his 3d Infantry Division in Kuwait training areas on live-fire exercises and major maneuvers using these new Force XXI battle command technologies (Blount, notes, February 2004). Just as there was great continuity in the generations in the 1980s to continue that transformation, the Army saw to it there was continuity in this generation to field Force XXI and make it work in battle.

  The best endorsement comes from LTC John W. Charlton, who commands 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry in the 3d Infantry Division. Charlton and his battalion fought eight major engagements during twenty-one days of intense combat operations in Iraqi Freedom.

  "I was impressed with the abilities of the FBCB2 (Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below) system, but was still not confident enough to go fully digital, so I continued fighting from my map (using paper maps and continually changing map sheets as the fighting rapidly moved from one map sheet to another). My complete conversion to digital battle command would not happen until the infamous sandstorm of 25 March 2003 . . . we were conducting a reconnaissance in force to find and destroy Sadaam fedayeen forces. I was planning on using the sandstorm as cover for our movements. . . . The sandstorm made it impossible to see our surroundings and we had several breaks in contact . . . one company commander suggested we all switch from maps to imagery to see the details of the train station. . . . The experience of being forced to use and rely on FBCB2 during a combat mission under impossible weather conditions completed my conversion to digital battle command. I did not use another paper map product the remainder of the war and fought every fight thereafter using FBCB2." (Armor Mag, November-December 2003, pp. 27-28)

  All these ideas and all these experiments, however, must fit within a common set of joint warfighting ideas. Before 1991, and even until the mid 1990s, each military service had relative autonomy in developing their own set of warfighting ideas that were then amalgamated into joint operations doctrine. Services also conducted almost exclusively their own training programs without an overarching program to train their service headquarters to function as a joint command. All that began to change with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin Powell. Their leadership and directions were followed and adjusted as necessary by subsequent Secretaries of Defense and Joint Chiefs Chairmen. They all saw the value and necessity of having a Joint Command lead change first with a set of joint warfighting ideas. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the final decision that calls for all these experiments to go on within the framework of joint experiments by the newly formed Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) at Norfolk, Virginia. The emergence of this Joint Command, not only to write joint doctrine for interoperability among all the services, but also to oversee experiments for future capabilities as well as train headquarters and senior commanders in joint battle command, is a major transformation since Desert Storm in 1991. JFCOM will have a continuing transforming effect on the military services' already impressive abilities to fight and win as joint teams.

  In addition to JFCOM, other external continuity and support has been important to the Army. In the early 1990s I was briefing then Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Perry at Fort Monroe on Desert Storm and some of the "glimmerings" or new concepts of warfare we had seen and where we needed to begin experimenting. As a result of Secretary Perry's interest and vision, as with a previous visit from Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, we got continued and needed support from the Department of Defense. John Hamre, later Deputy Secretary of Defense, at the time was a staffer for the Senate, saw the virtue of the Army's approach to the future and the need for resources. We also had other forward thinkers come to visit TRADOC, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin Powell and then Congressman and later House Speaker Newt Gingrich. They contributed to our ideas and helped us think our way through these glimmerings and their implications for the future. As a result we got needed resources and added dimensions to our ideas. We began those experiments. In a spirit of continuity just as in the previous rebirth of the Army, they were continued by the next generation at TRADOC and the Army, and now they are carried forward within JFCOM. As a result their lineage reached from Panama and Desert Storm to Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. That continuity of Army vision from generation to generation, the very same continuity that had been so successful from the middle 1970s to the early 1990s, was key.

  The Army had seen early the possibilities of a revolution in Battle Command, using that term beginning in 1992 to focus on the art of command and also emerging technologies able to assist command on the move and increase tempo. This generation has made those possibilities a reality. That reality translated into the speed and precision seen as so vital to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 by LTG McKiernan and others in current and future contemporary operating environments (McKiernan, David, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, notes, February 2004).

  Each generation of leaders not only provided for growth in capabilities, but also kept their focus on staying trained and ready. Former Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki reiterated that focus when, soon after he assumed his duties he ordered all combat divisions to be manned at 100 percent of requirements to increase their readiness. He also fended off calls for reductions in the size of the U.S. Army by some who thought wars might be able to be won from a distance. The Army also published a vision in 1999 to increase its deployability in the present while also investing in a future force. Such continuity of vision and
purpose is the same tough-minded strategic leadership that got the Army from the 1970s to victory in Desert Storm and got it from post-Desert Storm to victory as part of the joint team in Afghanistan and Iraq.

  That continuity with room for adjustments as required, combined with those experiments, intense training, wise, talented, and adaptive leaders and soldiers, and rapid fielding led to battlefield realization in Iraq of a vision first expressed in a TRADOC concept pamphlet published in 1994,

  "The Army's vision of future battle command is reflected in the Army Battle Command System (ABCS) . . . The ABCS and software will . . . integrate that information . . . into a digitized image that can be displayed graphically in increasingly mobile and heads-up displays . . . This system permits commanders at every level to share a common, relevant picture of the battlefield scaled to their level of interest and tailored to their special needs." (Force XXI Operations, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5, Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia, 1 August 1994, pp. 3-4)