Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

by Tom Clancy

  In earlier pages of this book we said, "Quality soldiers and leaders whose full potential is realized through the application of information-age technologies and by rigorous and relevant training and leader development." It does not always happen the way it was envisioned, but sometimes it does in the Army profession. When that happens it is the result of a lot of teamwork, shared vision, decisive change, and courageous continuity.

  PEOPLE, TRAINING AND LEADER DEVELOPMENT AND THE ARMY PROFESSION

  Yet with all the doctrine evolution, the leading with ideas, the experiments that proved their worth on recent battlefields, the wise investments in information technologies that have dramatically assisted commanders and soldiers on those battlefields, one issue stands paramount and that is people. Army Chief General Pete Schoomaker has said, "Train and equip soldiers and grow leaders."

  What the Army really pays attention to is people. You develop your soldiers and leaders from a value base with the ability and confidence to adapt, to think their way through situations where there is no precedent, where they have to apply their expert knowledge gained from years of study and practice, to situations they have never seen before, to be able to operate effectively in ambiguity. It is the essence of military professionalism. Nothing makes a difference in battle like training and leadership. Colonel Arnie Bray, commander of the 82d Airborne 2d Brigade in combat in Iraq in 2003, said, "Especially useful were the heavy light drills in the pre-command courses and the two rotations in which my battalions were involved at the NTC . . . These skills were developed by repeated live fires . . . training that always included some twist that made the conditions more unpredictable" (Bray, notes, December 2003).

  Each of the Army's capstone doctrinal manuals since 1976 has said a version of this: "Once the force is engaged, superior combat power derives from the courage and competence of soldiers, the excellence of their training, the capability of their equipment, the soundness of their combined arms doctrine, and, above all, the quality of their leadership."

  To get that, you need a continuing investment in professional education and training. That investment is a combination of actual classrooms for study, interaction, and reflection; realistic computer simulations for war games with opposing forces as in BCTP; and open-air classrooms in relevant terrain and urban environments with field work with full equipment and live fire where all the normal frictions of lots of moving parts apply against an opposing force who has an equal opportunity to win. All this must be done under the watchful eye of mentors and trainers who can coach and teach, helping participants to be better able to interpret their experiences. It requires an investment so that professionals can educate and train professionals. Each of the military services has made such a continuing investment and, even in the budget-scarce times of downsizing, has protected those investments and adapted them to the current security environment because they knew the battle payoff.

  Following Desert Storm TRADOC showed in various briefings noncommissioned officers and officers from the time they had entered the force and the opportunities they had to develop through the Army's intensive training and leader development system. We did that because every unit and commander paid tribute to the importance of training as key to winning in battle. The Army reached the same conclusion after Afghanistan and Iraq.

  That absolute focus and passion for training soldiers and units and developing leaders continued through the 1990s to the current war. Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki commissioned a series of studies on training and leader development in early 2000, done by a TRADOC team under the leadership of Lieutenant General Mike Steele (later Lieutenant General Jim Riley) and Major General Dave Huntoon at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They concluded that you must develop leaders who are "adaptive and self aware." The studies resulted in needed adjustments, as well as revised training doctrine, FM 7.0, faithful to continuing battle-focused training but more relevant to the current operational environment. As the noncommissioned officer study said, you also develop leaders with a warrior ethos, a credo recently restated and reinforced by General Pete Schoomaker for the entire Army.

  By the time of Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq in 2003, the U.S. Army had a generation of battle commanders, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers who trained with a single-minded passion for meeting combat-ready standards. Combat Training Centers, begun in the mid to late 1980s and only available a short time before 1991, are a way of life for this generation. One battalion commander had more than seventeen rotations through these major training areas before commanding his battalion in combat in 2003. Those training centers at Fort Irwin, California, Fort Polk, Louisiana, and Hohenfels, Germany, along with the Battle Command Training Program (BCTP) made a huge difference even more so than in 1991 for all ranks. Also making a difference is a generation of noncommissioned officers schooled in the Army's Noncommissioned Officer Education System (NCOES). Moreover, all ranks of Army officer and NCO leadership benefited from assignments during the 1990s in actual operational areas like the Balkans or other unit deployments where they could gain valuable command wisdom from conducting actual operations. The result would be a savvy group of deployment and operationally experienced battle commanders in both Afghanistan and Iraq, who also knew each other from other operations, thus further enhancing teamwork and trust.

  As before, all unit post operations reports, as well as individual discussions have credited tough training to battle standards as making the difference in combat performance. Some of that training and leader development took place in those training areas in Kuwait. Devotion to combat readiness is interwoven in the total fabric of Army culture. That the U.S. Army kept such a focus during the 1990s, unlike the similar period from 1945 to 1950, is evidence of a significant permanent transformation in the culture of the Army.

  Finally, during the late part of the 1990s and early twenty-first century, the U.S. Army began renewed thinking about the nature of the Army as a profession to draw attention to both institutional Army values and to the role of the military as a learned and honored profession in America.

  In 1997, U.S. Army senior leadership spent the better part of their winter commanders' conference agreeing on a new set of Army "values." It was not that the U.S. Army had no values before. It was just that they had not been part of the official language, part of the ways to evaluate behavior and performance, part of the ways the Army could speak to itself in a common language about what it held inviolate as it served our nation. Those commanders, led by then Army Chief of Staff General Denny Reimer, devised a set of values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. One could argue (and correctly) that such values were present at Valley Forge, at Gettysburg, in WWI at the Marne, in WWII at Buna and Normandy, in Korea at Inchon, in Vietnam in the Ia Drang Valley and Cambodia, in Panama, in Desert Storm, and in the streets of Mogadishu. Yet, the fact of such focused work by the senior leadership said two things: First, here are the values that are not negotiable as the Army serves the nation, and second, they are now an official part of the profession.

  These developments in the professional fabric of the Army are examples of the U.S. Army changing its culture even as it was embarked on tough operations for the nation, recording these thoughts in its manual FM 1, 14 June 2001. As former Army Chief General Eric Shinseki would say on 8 November 2001,

  "People are central to everything else we do in the Army. Institutions don't transform, people do. Platforms and organizations don't defend this nation, people do. And finally, units don't train, they don't stay ready, they don't grow and develop leadership, they don't sacrifice, and they don't take risks on behalf of the nation, people do."

  General Pete Schoomaker, as he seeks to accelerate the Army's transformation to fight and win this war and meet warfighting needs of the future, has said those seven values are not negotiable. From General Creighton Abrams who reaffirmed, "the Army is people" to focus rebuilding the Army from the
early 1970s to the present, there is an unbroken and unshakable commitment to focus on people, to training soldiers and growing leaders. That commitment has only grown stronger with this generation of soldiers and leaders in the 1990s as it has in this early twenty-first century of service to America.

  CONCLUSIONS

  What then of war in 1991 and war now? Of the continuing readiness of the U.S. Army to be of service to our nation in peace and war following the attack on our citizens on 11 September 2001?

  Our earlier statement still holds true today:

  "And in the end it got done. That it did so was the result of quality people, vision, hard work, and perseverance in the face of obstacles--the very same characteristics that win on the battlefield. It was a successful partnership among the Congress, the Army, the Executive Branch, and the American people. It was [and continues to be] a good-news story for America."

  I went back and looked up some words we were using in October 1994.

  "We are at the end of the beginning (borrowing from Churchill), but much work lies ahead . . . the future is never certain nor the outcome assured, but with the course we have begun we are confident that our Army can continue to meet the demands of the present and the future with an edge to future generations of soldiers and leaders similar to what we have now. That is our trust and we will do it. . . . And we must continue . . . to remain a strategic force capable of decisive victory when called in service to our nation now and into the twenty-first century."

  The job did get done then, despite obstacles and uncertainty and is still getting done now. There was no timeout from 1991 to 2001 or any strategic pause. That rebirth we described from the early 1970s to Panama in 1989 and Desert Storm in 1991 continued and was accelerated by this new generation of professionals. It is a great good-news story for America and it continues now.

  I have fought with my fellow soldiers in the 11th ACR (Blackhorse) in Vietnam and VII Corps in Desert Storm and follow this war closely. It just does not get any better than this. This is as good as it gets in battle execution for the Army and for the joint team. That is not to say that this war does not point to changes for the future because it clearly does. It is not magic how all that happens. When I see campaigns that accomplished what this team did, I immediately go to the people to discover the keys to victory. I think there are two that are enduring.

  I believe the first key to victory that transcends all others is motivated, courageous, disciplined, and adaptable soldiers and leaders, joint and Army, at all levels.

  The other is that officer and noncommissioned officer leaders at all levels have developed professional judgment over years of the right kind of training practice and operational assignments to make timely decisions to adapt plans to battlefield realities at all levels and as part of a joint team.

  Additionally, the level of joint interaction, integration, and teamwork in these campaigns is unprecedented. I mention nothing of technology, except that common situational awareness enabled by cutting edge information technology clearly allows those professional judgments to be made at a tempo and in a way as never before.

  I am certain such innovation and transforming will go on to continue the same battle edge in the future. What is also going on is the remarkable way young men and women are volunteering to serve, knowing what it takes. Their families are also part of this remarkable story. This world war will go on because it must on many fronts and campaigns.

  As President Bush said on 7 October 2001,

  "Since September 11th, an entire generation of young Americans has gained new understanding of the value of freedom and its cost and duty and its sacrifice.

  The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail"

  Many who fought in Afghanistan and in the attack to Baghdad and then transitioned rapidly to another phase are back home. Many serve again forward deployed on missions, and others will soon go again. Their duty is all about the values they hold precious for our nation. Some who fought did not come back. They gave, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "that last full measure of devotion" to protect and defend our freedoms. They are the personification of the inscription at the base of the soldier statue at Antietam, Maryland, that commemorates that 1862 Civil War battle: "Not for themselves but for their country." They follow in the long line of their fellow Americans on other fields of battle who gave their lives so we and others might be free. There is nobility to what these Americans are doing. They know that and have a fierce devotion to each other and to their duties. America can remain proud of and inspired by her Army and military.

  Before we attacked into Iraq in 1991, I was visiting a tank company in the 1st Armored Division with Sam Donaldson. The passage is earlier in this book. One of those soldiers, Specialist Shawn Freeney, said, "It lets you know that, when it comes down to it, you're around family. All of us here are family--right here is my family."

  In a larger sense we are all family in this war. Americans with our allies soldier on in this fight as I write this. They deserve our undying support and thanks for what they do for us all. When you see them tell them thanks. When you see their families tell them thanks as well. And when you see the families of those who did not come back and who gave it all they had, tell them thanks and say a prayer for them as they endure the pain of that loss.

  SERGEANT FIRST CLASS PAUL R. SMITH

  On 4 April 2003, TF 2-7 IN ordered B/11th Engineers to build an enclosure to hold enemy prisoners of war. Bravo Company moved into an Iraqi military compound and began to emplace wire to connect with the walls of the compound to serve as an initial cage to hold prisoners taken by the task force.

  Desert Storm veteran Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith, platoon sergeant of the 2nd Platoon, was directing the efforts of his soldiers. At one end of the compound, a 1st Platoon armored personnel carrier pushed in a gate to gain access to the compound--revealing some fifty to one hundred SRG troops. Simultaneously, the SRG soldiers reoccupied a tower in the compound and began firing RPGs, small arms, and directing mortar fire onto the engineers. The enemy wounded three soldiers in the armored personal carrier that knocked down the gate.

  Smith immediately ran to the wall near the gate and lobbed a grenade over the wall, momentarily driving the enemy back. Smith dragged the wounded out of harm's way and then jumped in the APC and backed it into the center of the compound. He then moved to the vehicle commander's position to fire the .50-caliber machine gun. Using the .50, Smith engaged the enemy in the tower and those attempting to rush the gate. Private Seamen came to his assistance and supported him by passing ammunition cans up to Smith. By suppressing the enemy and killing a great many of them, Smith enabled the Company First Sergeant to organize a counterattack that ultimately stopped the enemy.

  Sometime during that fight, enemy fire mortally wounded Smith. The action at the compound was part of a large enemy counterattack that, if it had succeeded, may well have reached the tactical operations center of the task force. Sergeant First Class Smith's courageous action saved the wounded and enabled Bravo Company to withdraw from the compound, thus enabling CAS and artillery to destroy the remaining defenders. (On Point, final draft, p 369).

  Acknowledgments

  There are a great many people to acknowledge in the preparation of this work, and their sheer number prevents us from recognizing them all in this brief space. I will let Fred Franks speak for both of us here, since there is no need to duplicate his remarks and he expresses them most eloquently. I would be remiss, however, if I did not single out one man. This book would not have been possible without the tireless collaboration, constant encouragement, and extraordinary knowledge and experiences of the "Quiet Lion" himself. It's been a privilege to know you, Fred.

  --TOM CLANCY

  OVER two years ago, and with much encouragement from members of VII Corps, I found that my friend Tom Clancy thought I had a story worth telling, and he invited me and
three fellow commanders from Desert Storm each to do a book on command with him. This is the first of four, and I feel privileged to bat lead-off.

  The book is, strictly speaking, not a history book, although it has taken over two years of intense personal research to compile much of the material. Much source material came from interviews and from former JAYHAWKS who volunteered because they wanted the VII Corps story to be told. In doing so, we have attempted to be as historically accurate as possible.

  This is a long book, yet even so, much has been left out. One area in which I feel a particular lack is in the story of Vietnam and Cambodia. Editorial decisions did not permit us to go as deeply or as emotionally into that story as I felt was necessary. Because I continue to feel a tight bond with all those who served there, that is left for me to tell in my own voice in another venture. There are other areas. The rebirth of the U.S. Army from the 1970s to the late 1980s is a good-news American story that has many lessons for all government agencies. We only scratched the surface. The actual deployment, then redeployment, to and from Saudi Arabia was an enormous logistics feat and deserves much fuller treatment, especially our deployment from Germany and the role of NATO nations. Actions in Washington by the Department of the Army during Desert Storm are a model of how Goldwater-Nichols 1986 envisioned military service departments working in a crisis, yet we could mention that only in passing. Finally, to show the intensity of the ground war, we included descriptions of some combat actions by VII Corps U.S. and British soldiers and commanders who fought those actions. More of the ground action needs to be told and shown. In other areas we did our best.