Goodwill Hunting, III

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions
which a minute will reverse
--The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
T.S. Eliot

I thought when I was a young man
That I would conquer the world with truth.
I thought I would lead an Army greater than
Alexander ever dreamed of,
not to conquer nations but to liberate mankind.
With truth. With the golden sound of the word.
But only a few of then heard.
Only a few of you understood
--How Green was My Valley (1941)

We are turning into a nation
of whimpering slaves to Fear—
fear of war, fear of poverty,
fear of random terrorism,
fear of getting down-sized
or fired because of the plunging economy,
fear of getting evicted for bad debts
or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp
on vague charges of being a terrorist sympathizer
--Hunter Thompson
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Do we think beyond the buzz words and the emotional, feel-good rhetoric of false logic and weak-kneed patriotism? These are further thoughts on the bogus military mission of "goodwill".

It is as if we are trapped in the lyrics of a cheap country western song espousing uber-patriotic themes. We may be able to wrap ourselves in the flag and award magnificent medals for the expenditure of lives, but this does not justify the tableau.

Where in the Principles of War is that of Goodwill? Doesn't a forced U.S. entry into an Afghan valley simply reinforce their militancy and further disconnect them from our goals and the ephemeral hold of their make-believe government? This not about us, and their definition of Goodwill might sound a lot like the statement, "Stay our of my valley!"

The question seems, "How does one dare disturb this universe created by a warrior mentality (ours) that bumps head-on with another entrenched warrior society (theirs)?" It is clear that we can back off, but they have too much skin in the game to do so.

A clean, sterile award ceremony in the White House cannot relieve the stench of death surrounding our leaders. This stench belongs to them, and not men like Medal of Honor recipients Meyer, Miller or Murphy.

O Sole Mio

But she goes not abroad,
in search of monsters to destroy
She is the champion and vindicator
only of her own.
She is the well-wisher to
the freedom and independence of all
--John Quincy Adams

You can't do Right

Wrong,

and you can't do Wrong,

Right!

--seen in American Craft Magazine

(Dec/Jan 2012)

______________________

Terrorism is often called "War on the Cheap", and one must wonder if that is true of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), also.

We say the U.S. is the lone Superpower, and that We Support the Troops, but sometimes things aren't as hoped for. In the Waygul battle, and in the three Medal of Honor scenarios (Murphy, Miller and Meyer), the troops received sketchy support -- conduct not meet for the world's sole Superpower.

Waygul (503rd) featured a U.S. Platoon with an inexperienced platoon leader, non-existent engineer support and an inadequate supply of water (Ranger bets the insurgents had adequate water sources). The Platoon could not be reinforced by road or air cover, to include drones -- a dodgy force protection posture, at best. Yet this did not spur anyone in the chain of command to review the mission statement.

The troops soldiered on until nine were Killed in Action and 16 Wounded in Action, causing one to question the logic of utilizing far-flung command outposts that lack proper support, mutual support or adequate logistical support. Is this how Superpowers support their troops in the face of the enemy? Ranger tabs and jump wings will not stop a bullet, contrary to popular belief.

There is a systemic infection across the spectrum of these actions, and this is a weakness in planning and execution. With Lt. Murphy we have three men killed and "one lone survivor", and award a MOH based upon one live witness. The other witnesses were on the other end of a radio link.

Staff Sergeant Miller's MOH was foreshadowed by Lt. Murphy's three years earlier, and was a precursor to Meyer's fight. RangerAgainstWar has discussed each of these engagements per available open-source material, but all leave uncomfortable, unanswered questions.

And the rest of the leading quotation is below. Our esteemed leaders might take some guidance from a not-so-distant luminary in America's intellectual and political arsenal:

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

--John Quincy Adams, On U.S. Foreign Policy (1821)

Dancing in the Dark

Stay on the streets of this town
and they'll be carving you up alright
They say you gotta stay hungry
hey baby I'm just about starving tonight
--Dancing in the Dark, Bruce Springsteen

Look, there is one statement that bothers me
more than anything else, and that's the idea
that when the troops are in combat
everybody has to shut up.
Imagine if we put troops in combat
with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning
and troops were dying as a result.
I can't think anyone would allow that to happen,
that would not speak up.

Well, what's the difference between a faulty plan
and strategy that's getting just as many troops killed?
--General Anthony Zinni (USMC, ret'd, former
CENTCOM Commander in Chief)

You are a fear prisoner.
Yes, you are a product of fear
--Donnie Darko (2001)
_____________________

Recent discussion of Waygul and the Medal of Honor actions in Afghanistan returned the lessons of a distant classroom to mind.

Once upon a time the Army had a doctrine that Captains fight battles, and Colonels and Generals get them there. They also arrange for the ash-and-trash items needed to fulfill the mission. Waygul and Murphy, Miller and Meyer's battles should have been fought by Captains committing their forces to destroy the enemy. All of the units did this to the best of human capacity, but that was not enough. Why?

This led me to ponder the history of the U.S. Civil War (since surely that is what the current wars will devolve into for their own respective peoples). Until Gettysburg, the Army of the Potomac was kicked around every battlefield by General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The Union Army was never out-fought or out-soldiered, but they were always out-Generaled, until Gettysburg.

Gettysburg was the first battle in which Union Generals actually generaled their Army and allowed the Captains and enlisted soldiers to fight the enemy on their own terms. The fights in Afghanistan are similar as our soldiers always fight properly, but the Colonels and Generals are not holding up their end.

The soldiers arrive at the battlefield, but they do not get a level playing field because the battlefield is never properly prepared: Items like fire support, medical evacuation, maneuver plans and follow-on forces and reserves are conspicuously missing. Pressure is not maintained on the enemy, and he is allowed to break contact after inflicting predictable casualties upon U.S. soldiers.

The U.S. Army in Afghanistan resembles Lee at Gettysburg without his cavalry screening his Army. Without this screen, Lee had no idea what forces he was facing until he developed the situation, which is what he did, at a disadvantage. U.S. forces in Afghanistan have that same feel of desperately trying to develop the situation, which must be the reason for the lopsided fights that we are seeing.

Meanwhile, what are the Colonels and Generals contributing to the effort? It is strange that the mighty U.S. forces are being out-generaled by folks fighting in shower shoes. This would not make Generals Lee or Meade very happy.

Like Lee at Gettysburg, the U.S. is fighting in the dark.

Knocking on Heaven's Door

--Iain Green, The Scotsman

Old Army joke:

Q: What's the difference between
the Army and the Boy Scouts?
A: The Boy Scouts have adult leadership

The lieutenant's battle was over
His bravery had little impact on the course of the fight.
He could not rescue the men on Topside,
and those who survived would have done so anyway
--Echoes from a Distant Battlefield,
Mark Bowdon

The worst is yet to come
--Arthur Schopenhauer
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Before analyzing the action of latest Medal of Honor recipient, Dakota Meyer, it is important to place it in context of previous Afghanistan engagements. The U.S. has been fighting a war that looks instead like a series of meeting engagements. At its worst, this looks like blind men bumping into each other in the dark.

The brave yet futile actions of Lt. Brostrom in the gunfight at Waygul (503rd) keeps intruding in Ranger's thoughts because it typifies so much of the warfare being conducted over there.

All Afghan MOH scenarios were gunfights like Waygul -- meeting engagements that could have been developed into a real tactical issue, save they lacked an exploitation phase; they had a movement to contact and a contact phase, and then disintegrated. Battles should proceed well beyond this simplicity of action.

The action at Waygul typifies the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) Afghanistan campaigns, characterized as they are by hubris, accompanied by incompetence and tactical and strategic blundering. Though the soldiers fought bravely, their actions take us nowhere.

Military missions follow statements, which outline goals and methodology for success. They serve a larger purpose which is to win more than just the immediate skirmish. But in Afghanistan we have failed to develop most of these situations (engagements) by breaking contact, thereby violating every military rule for success. At least, that is what the recent Medal of Honor citations suggest.

In comparison, in World War II at Iwo Jima there were 27 MOH's in some of the deadliest ground combat U.S. forces have ever experienced. However, every one of these acts of bravery took the U.S. one step closer to victory in the Pacific. In the PWOT ©, we can't even define victory, but that does not stop us from expending our soldier's valor in search of that unquantifiable goal.

Adult leadership, be it from politicians or military leaders, should provide something other than the flimsiest of reasons for fighting, killing and dying based on the John Wayne pretext of "killing bag guys". The soldiers at Waygul and all the other gunfights did what U.S. soldiers always do, they fought as ordered. But where were the adult leaders? Unfortunately, the Army command structure does not ask this question, the answer to which would provide the key to analyzing any action and understanding its success or failure.

The platoon at Waygul was left flapping in the breeze, building a Command Outpost (COP) sans additional support. A platoon whose Company Commander was completing a 15-6 investigation statement rather than addressing the tactical concerns of a unit flung far forward in a dubious tactical environment.

The Commander was covering his ass doing paperwork, and he was doing so with the concurrence of the Battalion Commander. This is the Army. The Company Commander was prioritizing administrative over combat tasks, and therefore could not provide adult leadership. However, the Battalion Commander could have solved the problem by re-assigning the mission to a Company whose Commander was not otherwise occupied with administrative issues. Men die when priorities are skewed.

Key questions from the Wanat battle:

• Why even establish a COP flung forward without proper support? This is a kin to putting cannons on the Titanic to ward off icebergs.

• Did the Brigade Commander, Executive Officer (XO), S-2, S-3 or Command Sergeant Major (CSM) ever walk the terrain or do a map study? Was the feasibility of the venture war-gamed? Where were the adults?

• Ditto Battalion Commander, XO, S-2, S-3 and CSM.
  

• Where was the Company 1st Sergeant?

It is clear that the Platoon was sent on a mission that the Platoon leader was incapable of completing, and his effort was not weighted for success as the iceberg approached. All the adult leaders were elsewhere or otherwise occupied to do more than cast a passing glance at a platoon ground pounding on heaven's door.

If a U.S. Platoon as part of a Company in a Battalion as part of a Brigade in an Airborne unit cannot build a COP, then we must consider seriously what they can do! The same comment applies to the Murphy, Miller and Meyer MOH actions.

All the actions seen in these Afghan campaigns lead one to question the state of training of units and individuals, officers and enlisted men, alike. No amount of valor can trump a lack of technical and tactical expertise. The fights considered here are conspicuously lacking these features.

Waygul, the most discussed small unit action in the Afghan experience, provides a microcosm of the systemic failures eroding an entire Army's ability to fight a nebulous succession of engagements in the no man's land of a tribal society.

The bravery of our soldiers cannot counter these failures.


NEXT: Meeting Engagements

The Medal of Honor and The Messenger

Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan
--Lawyers, Guns and Money, Warren Zevon

Studies and Observations Group (SOG) joke:

I was recommended for the Medal of Honor

but it was downgraded to a letter of reprimand

____________________

Suggestions of inconsistencies in the citation of the most recent Medal of Honor recipient, Dakota Meyer, is in line with Ranger's thinking on most of the recent MOH awards (Marines promoted inflated story for Medal of Honor recipient).

McClatchey News reports, "[C]rucial parts that the Marine Corps publicized and Obama described are untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated." Before this allegation, RangerAgainstWar had suggested that the Murphy, Miller and Guinta's citations shared the same problems, as well. This overview was written before reading the source article, because he does not want that writer's views to affect his thinking. (After surveying the materials, he will write a detailed abstract.)

Some recent history on military commendations is in order. Ranger has been where Medals of Honor used to grow on trees when he was assigned to 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in 1970-71 in the Vietnam War. When Bennie Adkins was nominated for his deserved MOH in the late 1960's, General Westmoreland went on record to ask the 5th Group Commander if they were "running a Medal of Honor factory"; Bennie did not get his medal.

The awarding of the Medal of Honor -- the military's highest valor award -- has often been contentious. Army SF scuttlebutt Vietnam era was that Captain Donlon received his MOH because President Johnson wanted to ramp up support for the war; Captain Carpenter's MOH was rescinded because the facts did not corroborate with the citation. General MacArthur and General Wainwright received what could be described as political awards of the coveted honor (in 1941 and '45).

Ranger contends that the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) MOH winners have exhibited conspicuous tactical bravery that did not translate out to anything of military value for anybody concerned. Fighting and killing with no larger purpose is butchery, not soldiering. The purpose of combat is to achieve tactical success to influence the strategic goals of a Commander. Or, battles are fought to achieve a decisive conclusion to an otherwise dull brawl. While this should be the case, in actual execution it is not always achieved.

In the Civil War, General Lee produced brilliant tactical victories (at Seven Pines, Antietam, Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg), but he never exploited his successes to achieve strategic dominance. All the killing was simply a butcher's bill. Likewise, General Meade did not exploit his success at Gettysburg, hence it was much motion with little strategic progress. Unexploited victories are wasted motion.

When Medals of Honor are awarded simply for killing and tactical prowess sans further benefit, they are meaningless, like the above cited battles which were also filled with overwhelming examples of conspicuous gallantry.

Back to 5th Group in Vietnam, and specifically the MOH's awarded to the classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG). The SOG MOH's differ from Murphy's, Miller's, Meyer's and Guinta's in this way: They were all awarded for strategic reconnaissance and/or exploitation of strategic intelligence gathered by the teams. The death and killing served a larger strategic purpose.

Whenever a SOG reconnaissance team was shot out of an Area of Operation, these were always bloody meeting engagements. When our exploitation or hatchet forces would go in to exploit the meeting engagement or the intel derived therefrom, this would then be a planned attack. The ensuing violence had a military purpose.

The mentioned MOH's awarded in Afghanistan lack any purpose beyond the immediate slugfest. The violence served no larger purpose, and violence without purpose is not a military concept.

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NEXT: Commonalities in the Afghanistan Medals of Honor citations