He knows if you've been bad or good...
By John
So be good for goodness sake!
Hotel Tango - OpForian Chris
Great COIN Debate
By Charlie
A very interesting article by NPR's Guy Raz on the Army COIN debate that is currently running under the radar screen. I have frequently put forward the fact that I know many combat arms-types that are decidedly NOT on board with COIN -and think that the purpose of the Army is to kill uniformed enemy armies and break their stuff, and anything short of that is the job of somebody else. (Full Disclosure: I have fully embraced COIN, and see it as the future of warfare until China, Iran, Venezuela, or Russia up-arms to a serious level)
Anyway, here's the beef:
An internal Pentagon report is raising concerns about whether the Army's focus on counterinsurgency has weakened its ability to fight conventional battles. The report's authors — all colonels with significant combat experience — say the Army is "mortgaging its ability to (successfully) fight" in the future.
COIN has obviously been successful in Iraq, and if it is successfully employed in Afghanistan by NATO I imagine it will work there too. However, some interesting (and somewhat worrying) points are raised further in the piece:
Col. Sean MacFarland was among the first to successfully apply counterinsurgency doctrine in Iraq in 2006. And yet he was a co-author of the recent internal Army report suggesting that the Army is far too focused on counterinsurgency training. This singular focus, he writes, is weakening the Army.The report cites field artillery as an example of an area that has suffered from inattention. Since 1775, artillery units have served as the backbone of the U.S. Army. But today, a stunning 90 percent of these units are unqualified to fire artillery accurately — the lowest level in history.
I wasn't aware of that factoid, but I believe it. FA Guys are not doing FA, they are MPs, "Infantillery", convoy security, or other necessary jobs. The COIN doctrine calls for a different force mix than the fight in the Fulda would have required. The days of synchronized artillery strikes and armored brigade charges are over (for the time being). The Army likes to "train the way they fight," and right now, we are not fighting with artillery. While that 90% number makes me a little uneasy, I understand it.
The good news here is that we are having this conversation, and have an Army where officers can come forward with these problems and have an open debate about them. In lesser armies, this would not happen.
That's How you Name a Ship
By Bull Nav
There was some discussion in my post the other day about ship naming and how it has...progressed.
Well, Navy Times is reporting on the name of the last ship of the ARLEIGH BURKE (DDG51) class.
The last Arleigh Burke-class destroyer will bear the name of a Navy SEAL awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Afghanistan.The Michael Murphy, DDG 112, honors Lt. Michael P. Murphy, who led a four-man team searching for a key Taliban leader in mountains near Asadabad, Afghanistan.
Remember that another Medal of Honor recipient was also recently honored this way.
I believe that this is how you name ships: by honoring those who have gone before you. Individuals, battles, prior ships...that is tradition, that is honor.
That is something you can stand behind and hold your head up high.
JCAS Symposium
By Lt Col P
If any loyal Op-Forians happen to be at the JCAS Symposium this week, look me up. I'll be the Marine LtCol with the last name that starts with "P," wearing lead-sled airborne wings.
Beer will flow copiously thereafter.
VMI In Command: LtCol Scott Leonard, USMC, VMI '89
By Lt Col P
First of all, apologies for my absence of late. My wife and I welcomed Honorable Number 2 Son exactly one month ago, and he's been keeping us busy. All hands are doing well too, I'm pleased to relate.
Here's another entry in our irregular series on VMI men in command throughout the military:
In the summer of 92, when I was a Lieutenant on active duty (FDO in A Battery, 1st Bn, 10th Marines), my roommate and BR, who was Motor-T Officer in 3d Bn, 2d Marines, came home one night and said, "Guess who I saw today at 3/2." I gave it the obligatory three tries and was wrong each time; "I give up-- who?"
"Brother Rat Scott Leonard."
"Scott Leonard?? What was he doing at 3/2??"
"Checking in, as an Infantry Officer!"
Sure enough, there he was, having heard the trumpet's blast in 1991, a good two years after we graduated. He sure as hell has made up for lost time, too; check out his bio:
Read More »
"It's Beautiful Out Here"
By Charlie
When you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life. The Khost province has been getting a lot of media coverage recently, and it seems like our forces are just getting better. If there is any war fatigue, its not showing on this frontier.
Another Fast Boat Commissioned
By Bull Nav
080503-N-2888Q-044 WILMINGTON, N.C. (May 3, 2008) Crew members render salutes as they officially bring the newest Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine USS North Carolina (SSN 777) to life during her commissioning ceremony. North Carolina is the fourth Virginia-class submarine to be commissioned and the first major U.S. Navy combatant vessel class designed with the post-Cold War security environment in mind. North Carolina will be homeported in Groton, Conn., as a member of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Lucy M. Quinn (Released)
The VIRGINIA Class SSN's are some incredible boats, with innovative design features.
I hope we build enough of them...
USS Independence launched!
By Pinch
No, not the carrier, silly! The second hull-form of the new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) class, was launched on 29 April in Mobile, Alabama.
What is truly funky about this puppy is its tri-hull catamaran design! Imaging you are a squalid little pirate off the horn of Africa and you see this gaping maw chasing you down:
General Dynamics is honchoing this version of the LCS, with the ship being built by Austal Shipyards in LA (Lower Alabama, for you uninitiated). Lockheed Martin is building the other half of the LCS ships, with a more conventional monohull design. The Lockheed Martin boys have run into some problems, though, with serious cost over-runs to the tune of having the next 2 LCS ship construction programs canceled (ouch).
I'm looking forward to seeing this beast when it hits the bounding main for sea trials. Over at the Instapinch are a few more pictures. Enjoy!
Knowing Your Neighbors
By Bull Nav
A couple of months ago, back when it was still cold and snowy, we were enjoying a Saturday afternoon at home. One of my son's buddies was over as were some other folks when the doorbell rang. It was the 80-something woman from two houses down, and boy was she frantic. Her boyfriend, who was recovering from hip replacement surgery, had fallen off a barstool and could not get up from the floor. She needed some assistance to get him up and into a bed. I put on my boots and headed over to their house where I was able to lift him up and carry him over to the bed. Apparently, his hip had popped out causing him to fall off the stool. Needless to say he was in a lot of pain.
I figured that's what neighbors are for, that's what you do. You help out.
This past Sunday, my family and I were out in the garage getting ready to do some yard work, when Jim (the gentleman I had helped out a couple of months ago) drives up and pulls into our driveway. He wanted to thank me for helping him out, which really did not seem like a big deal to me. He explained all the hip surgeries he has been through, and where he had worked, and we just generally had a nice conversation. I had not really talked with him before as he has only been in the neighborhood for about 2 years and we generally don't see them much.
As we were talking, he noted my crutches and asked what happened. I explained that I had ruptured my achilles tendon at drill at Great Lakes a while back and he answered that his son had gone to boot camp there. He further explained that he had done his boot camp at Parris Island.
We started sharing military experiences, and he stated that the worst time he spent in the Marines was when he was in Korea and trying to sleep on the ground at 30 below zero.
I noted that I had read a couple of accounts of the Chosin Reservoir and how it was bone chillingly cold for the Marines up there.
"That's where I was," he answered.
Needless to say, I was floored.
I didn't have a comeback for that, except to shake his hand and thank him for his service. We continued to talk for a while more until we were done.
He headed on home and my wife and I got on with the yardwork, with a new found respect for the man down the street.
24 MEU On the Attack
By Bull Nav
U.S. Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan's most violent province early Tuesday in the first major American operation in the region in years.Several hundred Marines, many of them veterans of the conflict in Iraq, pushed into the town of Garmser in predawn light in an operation to drive out militants, stretching NATO's presence into an area littered with poppy fields and classified as Taliban territory.
After sitting around for weeks in Afghanistan, waiting for NATO to come to a "consensus" on how the Marines were to be employed, they have finally been let loose. I expect they will be successful and clear the Taliban out of the area. My concern is that the bad guys will simply retreat back into the safe haven of Pakistan where they are untouchable.
But you know they are ready to go:
One Marine in Charlie Company, Corp. Matt Gregorio, a 26-year-old from Boston, alluded to the fact the Marines have been in Afghanistan for six weeks without carrying out any missions. He said the mood was "anxious, excited.""We've been waiting a while to get this going," he said.
Understatement.
Army Embraces Distance Learning
By Charlie
So you're back from your first (or second) (or third) deployment, and returning home... only to have your next assignment orders a couple hundred miles away for a training course. This has been a minor issue in retention for a while, but the Army seems to have devised a way to get ahead of it. Distance learning (online classes) have been used for years in the civilian sector -you can now take college courses online, in addition to a litany of corporate training that many companies have put online to lesson their training budgets. Now the Army has caught on. I think this is a good thing, because of the following:
-It frees up teachers and brick and mortar facilities at schoolhouse installations. These buildings and instructors can be re purposed to better streamline the force.
-It allows the troops taking the training to do so without being separated from their families, especially after long deployments.
Using distributed learning techniques, such as MTT (mobile training teams) and distance learning, is already happening in the force, and is another example of the Army getting it right:
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, April 27, 2008) - Mobile training teams are taking Basic NCO courses on the road and allowing Soldiers who recently redeployed home from Iraq to attend without spending more time away from their Families.Thirty-eight sergeants and staff sergeants graduated Friday from a 25U radio operator maintenance BNCOC course at Fort Hood, Texas. NCOs attending from the 1st Cavalry Division at Hood and the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas, had returned home from Iraq within the last few months.
Normally, the course would have required the NCOs to spend more than six weeks away from their Families at Fort Gordon, Ga., said Command Sgt. Maj. John L. Murray, commandant of the Signal Regimental Noncommissioned Officer Academy.
"The NCOs that graduated were so thankful to the Signal Center for coming to Fort Hood and conducting this MTT," said Murray who attended the graduation at Fort Hood Friday. "I must have been thanked a hundred times from Families that were so grateful that their spouses could come home at night after training, after such a long deployment."
warrior wisdom II
By Richard S. Lowry
Cononel Eddie S. Ray, USMC, is a Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom veteran, recipient of the Navy Cross and a leader among leaders.
“On a championship team, everyone gets a trophy.” -- Colonel Eddie S. Ray
Yeah, You Should Probably Watch This
By John
PBS' Carrier: Life Aboard the USS Nimitz, debuting tomorrow (Sunday) evening.
Weekend Filler
By John
I've got nothing, folks. So here's some Saturday stupid.
Biggest. Rope Swing. EVA.
Sadr City – Reconciliation or bloody fight
By Richard S. Lowry
Last Tuesday evening an Apache helicopter crew noticed three criminals loading a mortar into the trunk of their car in Sadr City. After insuring there were no civilians nearby, the American soldiers fired a Hellfire missile which obliterated the front end of the vehicle. The criminals rushed to the mangled auto and grabbed the mortar, tossed it into a second vehicle and sped away.
Richard S. Lowry is the author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and The Gulf War Chronicles.
Read More »
