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Labels: Warriors

Something to think about...from Defense News


Gen. James Mattis
Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command
Widely regarded as a man who blends a warrior ethos with a historically grounded intellect, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis is noted for plain speaking about the brutal realities of war fighting.
He led troops during the 2003 Iraq invasion and later worked with Army Gen. David Petraeus to develop the successful surge strategy there. Since 2007, he has headed the Joint Forces Command that shapes the training and operational concepts used by U.S. and allied troops. He says future wars will look different than today's as the lines between regular and irregular warfare blur, demanding more jointness, flexibility and coalitions.

A. War is a human endeavor, a social problem, and we have modest expectations that technology is going to solve a problem as complex as warfare.

Second, no war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote, as we're often saying in the military.
** What do I take from this statement?   Beating the enemy into submission or destroying him from the face of the earth is the only road to victory.

A third point is that what we cannot do is look towards war today as something that we are going to fight on our own. We are going to be fighting alongside allies of some stripe, and we are going to have to create a military that can easily adapt to other allies fighting alongside it as part of our formations, and perhaps us fighting as part of their formations.

But you can't simply transport the lessons from one theater, even one as recent as Iraq, directly to Afghanistan. It's its own country, the enemy is its own enemy, the terrain is different. Most importantly, the human terrain - the complexity of the human connections, the tribal relationships - is different.

A. I've asked for that change: to Joint and Coalition Forces Command. That decision is not yet made.
A. Gen. Petraeus and I came back from Iraq about the same time, he to Fort Leavenworth for the Army, me to Quantico for the Marines. We worked on this with our staffs, then he went back and changed the face of the war in Iraq. I did not go back as operational commander; I defer that success to him and the troops that were over there. I had at best an indirect, perhaps intellectual or training impact.
The real lessons you learn when you try to change an organization as big as ours is that the first thing you must do is define the problem. If you don't define the problem in very stark terms, then you're going to probably solve the wrong problem. We have too often in the 1990s, and perhaps into the first part of this decade, tried to solve the problem by calling things transforma tional or game-changers. We had not, I think, defined the problem well enough.

What Dave Petraeus and I had as an advantage was we were in the middle of a very clearly defined war in terms of the fact that the old ways weren't going to work. We looked for what was working, accumulated it into the doctrine and passed it out, largely written by NCOs and officers fresh from their searing experiences in Iraq.

A. You have to marry your time. You need to bring troops who are skilled in the basics of military operations, then you apply those to the specific situation.

I don't know if there's a really good answer for you, but if I were to sum up what I've learned in 35 years of service, it's improvise, improvise, improvise. You have to be able to adapt on the fly because every enemy is different, and you're not going to know your enemy until you fight them. I don't care how many intel briefs you read, you don't know an enemy until you fight them. And once you start fighting them, then you recognize what the enemy's rhythms are, and you can work to throw those rhythms off course.

A. That's part of it, but also: What are their fault lines? In the case of Iraq, we had an enemy that we knew in 2004 that we could isolate from the people, but it still took us years to get the enemy broken free of the people.

And for the first time in this war that we've been engaged in, we saw an Arab population turn against our common enemy. That was not because they loved us - they finally saw that we were the good guys, and the enemy, the way they were acting, were the bad guys.
 
I would also add that they were dumb. Sometimes wars are won by the side that makes the fewest mistakes, and the enemy made mistake after mistake after mistake. And we, on our side, when we saw we made a mistake, we corrected ourselves. And so the enemy is working amongst the population, and eventually the people identified that we were the ones doing things right and that the enemy was working against the people's best interest. So they turned on them.

A. We want the best technology for our troops, but we want our leaders enabled by technology, not held back or suffocated, whose initiative is subordinated to a system. We want technology that enables them to do their job well.

Where technology improves the human interface, I'm all for it. Where it increases a commander's understanding, I'm all for it. But they must be able to fight without it.

You can take technology and drive so many of your concepts in line with that technology that you forget what you really set out to do. The human factors in war are much more difficult to measure but are much more important to the outcome. The technology must always serve the human beings in the war, not create a mechanistic approach in which "we serviced all these targets, and so we win." That's not the way war is won; history would disabuse us of that.

At Trafalgar, Britain's Adm. Nelson, with a handful of signals from his ship, changed the course of history. In World War I, that same Royal Navy, believing that technology had solved their problems, had selected higher officers based on their responsiveness to headquarters. When that fleet met the German High Seas Fleet at Jutland, they outgunned them, but that German fleet lived to fight another day and got the better of the British fleet. This is what happens when you believe that your leaders are less important than the technology.

A. I don't have a good answer for you. Since 1945, over 85 percent of our casualties, according to a study by Gen. Bob Scales of the U.S. Army, have come from infantry units. We have learned through aviation simulators and shipdriving simulators that we know how to use simulators. But for some reason, we have not used these to replicate the tactical and the ethical decision-making that our lads have to make in this close-quarters fight.

It's coming on line now; it's slower than I want, but it's coming on the right direction. The deputy secretary of defense has just signed a memo supporting us. The Marines at Camp Pendleton are already going through it, but the truth is we need dozens of these to replicate the demands of close combat.

A. It's not if the nets go down but when they go down, because the enemy is going to try to take them down. There is no military in the world more vulnerable to losing its nets than the U.S. military because we are so reliant on them for our worldwide operations. We need to create a corps of officers who are comfortable with uncertainty and ensure that they can give commander's intent - broad guidance to their subordinates - so that when, not if, the nets go down, they can continue to operate at good speed, understanding what the commander needs done.

A. We've raised a generation that, for the last nine years of active operations, have never been out of touch with their higher headquarters. What we're going to have to do is train by turning off the radios - as we did in the Cold War, when by pressing that handset key and transmitting, you were endangering yourself to the enemy's strikes on you. We're going to have to get used to turning off the handsets for other reasons: to see if people can operate on their own initiative.

A. I'm a strong believer that we need all four services, operating on their own domains, air, land, sea. We benefit by having the diversity of cultures that the Navy, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps bring. So long as those diverse cultures are matched by a spirit of collaboration and interoperability, it makes it very difficult for the enemy to fight us.

What we don't want is a U.S. Department of Defense that has a culture in which everyone has to think and fight the same way.

A. No. 1, we must be able to fight in coalitions. No. 2, we must recognize that the information warfare, the battle for the hearts and minds of the global audience, is just as heavy a priority as the military operation itself and the tactical events on the battlefield must feed the narrative: that we are living up to our values, that while winning this fight, we are saving the innocent people that we are out there to protect.
Somehow, we've got to tie together the capabilities to win the information war, at the same time working with like-minded nations to keep these experiments we call democracy alive against people who really don't like them.

A. Absolutely. There are tried-and-tested methods: skip echelons is one - don't replicate every function every echelon; having fewer commands is actually better. I think we're on the right track to follow the secretary's lead right now, and it makes a lot of sense.

Labels: Common Sense, Warriors

The mother of one of the injured soldiers from my sons unit has had enough of the lies and posted something about it.  Her son Kevin was on foot patrol with my son in the Arghandab River Valley last November.  While crossing a wall an IED was triggered that had been placed in the wall by the enemy.  Kevin's proximity to the IED shielded my son from the majority of the blast.  Kevin was injured quite severely and is on a long road to recovery.  I sympathize with Krista and know what she says is true.

Here is what she posted today on Facebook:

We can't even trust our government to be honest about something as trivial as a contact number. First of all, I'm not Republican or Democrat. I do vote, but for the lesser of the evils.

As you all know, my son, Kevin, was in injured in Afghanistan and my son, Matthew, is still in Afghanistan. Kevin was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The Vice President, Joe Biden, visited with him on Christmas morning. He gave me his telephone number and told me that it was his "personal" number and he would answer it if called. He said that his staff would not answer that number, that it was his PERSONAL CELL NUMBER. He said he would like to be advised of Kevin's progress as he was so severely injured.

I had no intention of calling him until he arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio where Kevin had been transferred a month before. I called (202)456-9501, which he assured us that he would answer himself. I was sadly misinformed by the Vice President on this most trivial information. When I called the number to inform him that Kevin was in the physical therapy building with him so that he could see Kevin's progress for himself, it was answered by a member of his staff. I explained why I was calling and that the Vice President had asked us to keep him informed as to my son's progress. I asked to speak to Mr. Biden and was put on hold. A few minutes later, I was transferred to another member of his staff who advised me that he spoke with Mr. Biden and the Vice President would try to fit Kevin into his schedule and he would call me right back.

I regret to inform everyone that I still have not heard from him or his office. Why would our Vice President lie to us about something as trivial as his telephone number? He could have just told us that the number was to his office and his staff would get a message to him if we called. Apparently Mr. Biden can be thrown in with the rest of the politicians and can't tell the truth about ANYTHING!!!! Even stupid things.

The sad thing is that we never asked him to visit or for his telephone number. He made a big point in my son's hospital room to give us his number and told us several times that HE would answer that number and if we needed anything to call him. So, he went out of his way to lie to us.!!!!!

Anyone that wants to call HIS OFFICE regarding the illegal immigration issue should call the number listed above. If the government can't keep illegal immigrants out of our country, then how are they going to keep terrorists out... oh, that's right, THEY HAVEN'T!!!!!!! Anyone that feels this is a major problem should stand up and try to do something instead of letting our country be destroyed. Everyone around the world knows there's a "back door" to the U.S. and it's only a matter of time before terrorists take full advantage of this knowledge. Only our politicians and bleeding hearts seem to be the only ones ignorant of this fact.

For the record, I have no animosity toward the government or our politicians for my son being injured, it was his choice just as it is his brother's choice to fight for their country. I do have animosity for the fact that our soldiers, including my son, have seen them planting IED's outside of their FOBs and were ordered to stand down. A few hours later, or sooner, more of our soldiers are injured or worse from those IEDs. Just wanted to voice my opinion. Thanks for listening.

Labels: Biden, Liberals, Warriors

The Army, Air Force and Navy are always after the latest wiz-bang gadgets and spend horrific amounts of money on R&D for many projects that are often cancelled and over budget.  Now don’t get me wrong, military R&D has lead to many technological advancements for our society.  Equally, if researchers aren’t permitted to fail on occasion we’ll never make the big leaps in technology.

The United States Marine Corps on the other hand has always been on the short end of the stick when it comes to resources, yet they always hit the beach first and are known for getting the job done.  After all, when in doubt send in the Marines.  For that reason I think it is very important that we listen to what a couple of Marine Corps Generals are saying.

General James Mattis, a well known tell it like it is Marine warrior and head of Joint Forces Command had this to say at three-day conference sponsored by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute.

“What are we creating today with our command-and-control systems?” Mattis asked. “I don’t think we have turned off our radios in the last eight years. What kind of systems are we creating where we depend on this connection to headquarters? While we want the most robust communications, we also want to make sure we can operate with none of it.”

Leaders also need to plan on that possible loss of communications, he said.

“Mission-type orders rather than bandwidth are the key to the future,” he said. “We need officers who can operate off a commander’s intent, understand what the boss several levels above wants, and carry them out to suffocate the enemy’s hopes.”

and

“A lance corporal in Iraq is sometimes able to better explain our Iraq policy than all the generals can,”

Read the entire article at Army Times Online: Military should rely less on technology

What I think he is really saying is senior officers and NCOs need to start leading.  You are supposed to be warriors not computer gamers.  We’ve seen the increasing criticism of “death by Powerpoint” and General Mattis is now calling out the techno geeks.  Yes, information is important in making decisions, but, there is never a 360 degree view of the battlefield.   Like it or not, the fog of war is always present.  It’s time to let the leaders in the field make decisions and quit the political cover-your-ass request for authorization to engage the enemy because of over-reaching rules-of-engagement and worries of ending a career.

The field grade and general officers need to start exhibiting the moral courage that the company grade officers and enlisted soldiers exhibit daily, and prove themselves worthy of the rank they hold.  The junior leaders in the field must be given the responsibility AND authority to make decisions without having to ask permission to engage the enemy if they feel such action is warranted.  Who knows better of the need, the leader present or a lawyer sitting in the TOC?

A great example of this is Captain Zinni, retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni’s son, calling to a lawyer to request permission to engage.

When Captain Zinni spotted the four men planting the booby trap on the afternoon of Feb. 17, the first thing he did was call his lawyer.

"Judge!" he yelled.

Capt. Matthew Andrew, judge advocate for 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, advises the battalion about when it is legal to order the airstrikes. He examined the figures on the video feed closely. "I think you got it," Capt. Andrew said, giving the OK for the strike.

Read the entire article at The Wall Street Journal: Civilians in Crosshairs Slow Troops

There are numerous stories similar to this some of which have lead to the death and injury of our brave warriors.

On another front, Marine Corps General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pushed the issue of over reliance on technology  “We need quantity more than quality” and “people want to buy high-end” platforms, like bombers, but the low-end is the war we’re in.”  Army Times Online Expect war for 5-10 more years

The bottom line is wars are won with boots on the ground.  If we are serious about putting an end to the enemy then our warriors need to be permitted to fight and destroy the enemy from the face of the earth.  To do so they need leaders who are willing to lead from the Commander-in-Chief on down to the newly minted second lieutenant.

Four words, back to the basics.

Labels: Common Sense, Leadership, Warriors