Hello All!
I graduated TBS (The Basic School) and have already begun instruction at IOC (Infantry Officer Course). IOC is a 3-month school for Infantry Officers and Ground Intelligence Officers (scout sniper commanders), and it is the last school before I join the Fleet. I’ll get orders with my unit/duty station in a week or two, and I’ll graduate IOC September 22. Training is tough, but I love it.
TBS was a great experience. Day to day it certainly didn’t feel like a life changing experience (I never got the opportunity to slay the lava monster like in the commercials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tnJtLBQzQ). However, looking back at 6 months I got a lot out of it. TBS is the sculptor that works with a small chisel. Little by little you learn “those things you must do to be one of us, to be part of our tribe.” I don’t think I noticed along the way, but my mind, body and soul are not the same as they were when I showed up.
These things may sound trite or somehow unremarkable, but these simple words mean a lot in light of my experiences. For instance, you just get a different perspective on character when you look over at your roommate day 4 of a training exercise and see him persevering – and he’s a lawyer!
Training At Its Best
The last part of TBS was filled with great training and experiences, but I’d like to share one experience in detail because it represents the training and creation of Marine Officers at its best.
Our last field training exercise covered MOUT (military operations on urban terrain). About 10 miles North of Camp Barrett there is a small 15 building Afghani Village. The buildings are made of cinder blocks and range from 1 to 3 stories. The buildings include anything from 1-room homes to a 4-story hotel. They’ve gone to some lengths to make it realistic. Buildings are furnished, signs are up outside and the streets are cluttered. The restaurants even have prepared food laid out (plastic props unfortunately). As you can see in the photos they even have a big billboard with Hamid Karzi’s face on it. Stuffed sheep line the street.
We spent 4 days there learning fundamentals of urban combat: isolation of the objective (i.e. prevent reinforcement), suppression of the objective (i.e. make the enemy take cover so your assault force can approach), obscuration, breaching and room clearing. They outfitted us with a special laser tag kit for added realism. Our rifles sent out laser beams that were picked up by receptor vests. If you were hit the vest would let you know if you were a casualty. As you can imagine it lead to quite a bit of competition.
On the 3rd day of the FEX I was tasked with leading a platoon assault against an urban squad defense. It was one of three repetitions of the culminating training exercise. I was very fortunate to be selected. At 1500 I received the order from my “company commander”. My mission was to clear buildings A1-A4 in order to allow the company to continue offensive operations farther North against the enemy. See map.
After some hot field chow, I reconnoitered the battlefield. I quickly identified A4 as the key terrain feature. It was a two level schoolhouse, 8 rooms per level with a roof. The other structures were simple homes with about 2-3 rooms. From A4 one could dominate the area, particularly from the roof. It was also the most defensible since all 16 rooms and roof would have to be fully cleared. I referred to A4 as the citadel (a reference to the Battle of Hue City). Conventional wisdom called for establishing a foothold in a smaller building (i.e. A1) and work in number order to the final objective. Whoever designed this training program did so in order to demonstrate and validate the textbook answer. The problem I figured is that my opponent would prepare for precisely that kind of assault. He would push forces out in front of A4 in order to execute a collapsing defense. He could inflict substantial casualties during my advance (A1, A2, A3), but escape in order to mount a committed defense in A4. (these were my assumption prior to the battle, which were later confirmed to be 100% correct).
I knew that fighting against a full squad defense in A4 would be disastrous (his center of gravity), even with my 3-1 advantage in men. The defense has a tremendous advantage on urban terrain. However, he had necessarily divided his forces in order to employ the collapsing defense (his critical vulnerability). This left me an opportunity. If I were to swing around the objective and strike A4 first I might encounter an undermanned defense. I would then be able to seize the most important objective, and one that would allow me to dominate the others, before he could bring his combat power to bear (my exploitation plan). Why fight 16 dug in defenders when you can fight 8 and destroy the rest piecemeal in the other buildings?
After lights out I walked over to one of the other buildings to get a little quiet to write my order (it’s pretty tough to keep focused when Marines are sharing colorful bedtime stories, I mean straight outrageous stories of libo exploits). As I said the Marines went to great pains to construct a realistic town, and I found a fully furnished office in one of the empty buildings. It looked like Oakdale, CA City Hall had liquidated all their furniture sometime in the 80’s and it all ended up on Marine Corps Base Quantico. I sat down to write at about 11 pm. It was about 95 degrees and I stripped down to boots and trousers to prepare my order in the DMV style environs. At about 1am I couldn’t see straight so I went back to the Hotel to get a few hours of sleep, leaving the logistics, admin and communication elements of my order to the next morning.
We were billeted on the 4th floor of a hotel (unfurnished of course), which was blazing hot even at 1am. Unbelievably somebody had left the balcony open where it was just cool enough to actually sleep. I flopped down on a foam mat in just my shorts to get a blessed 3 hours. An hour later I heard a medium machine gun rip off about 10 rounds. I shook my head thinking some idiot would have to explain a negligent discharge to Major Antolino. Then he tore off a 30 a round burst and I heard the whistling of an incoming artillery simulation round. Its burst was deafening in the cement block city. Within ten seconds I had my boots on and rifle loaded (blanks Mom, relax). I must have looked quite odd holding my rifle and wearing nothing but shorts, boots and my war face. Then the order came, uniform on, bring a pen, flashlight and rifle. As we assembled outside my platoon commander explained we would be taking a tactics written exam. In the glow of a red lens flashlight, with bangs and flashes going off around us, I worked through the short response exam. It focused heavily on weapons capabilities and principles behind defensive operations. I actually found the test fairly simple, but it was long and we didn’t finish until about 3am. Back onto the mat I crawled.
I awoke at 0400 and finished my writing my order. I rehearsed as I wrote the order, so that I had most of it committed to memory. At 0520 our self-appointed Company Motivator, Lt. Deiters screamed: “10 minutes to light, 10 minutes to lights, 10 minutes lights.” You may not be able to appreciate how much we wanted to shoot that guy if you haven’t been to Quantico, Parris Island or San Diego, but that was the daily warning for reveille at OCS/Boot. I hadn’t heard it since then, and the timing could not have been more ironic.
After a little ammo/chow/water coordination I brought the platoon in on a terrain model of our objective. I walked them through a detailed explanation of the situation and scheme of maneuver. We were located East of the objective near A1, and via a large swinging motion to the North, would move around and attack A4 from the West. We would call for 81mm mortar suppression to begin the attack. 3rd squad would “isolate” A4, meaning that they would orient fires down MSR Tampa to prevent reinforcements coming from the other building. This was key to my plan. I wanted to take A4 before other forces could get back. On order 2nd squad would open fire on the building to “suppress” the enemy. This would force the enemy in A4 to take cover, which would allow my assault unit, 1st squad to approach the building. Smoke grenades would obscure the last 20m of 1st squads advance and they would breach by the back window. As 1st squad approached 2nd squad would shut-off fires (to prevent friendly fire). 1st squad was to begin clearing with 2nd squad following in trace. I wanted to ensure my forces were overwhelming once inside the building.
I finished delivering the other parts of my order, the brief taking about 30 minutes in total, and we stepped off. Besides hitting an enemy observation post early I was able to position my forces fairly easily. We arrived undetected and set in. Earlier that morning I added a little deception to the plan (4th tenet of the infantryman, “make deception a part of everything you do”). I dispatched a 5-man team to create a diversion to the East, where the enemy expected my main force to come. I hoped to fix his forward positions long enough to start my assault on A4. The feint worked perfectly and kept my enemy focused east. I picked up my radio and called for the mortars. Real mortars didn’t start firing, but the laser tag system makes them take cover or they become a casualty. This allowed 3rd squad to move into position. My call sign was White 6. I called my 3rd squad leader, “White 3 this is white 6, we have effective suppression, move into position.”
“Roger that white 6, Oscar Mike, over!” (on the move). Shortly I would call over to my other units and get them moving. Then I still heard my 3rd squad leader talking to his squad. After his last transmission my 3rd squad leader had gotten his radio stuck on talk. We call it a “hot mike” and it prevents anybody else from talking on the net. I screamed for him to get off the net, but too far away and with rounds already cracking off he couldn’t hear me. 3rd squad was in position, and I had to radio for the other forces to get moving. The momentum of the attack halted. 2nd squad waited and waited for the radio call to start firing. The enemy soon figured out what was going on and began falling back to A4. 3rd squad sat too long unassisted by the rest of the platoon and was nearly wiped out. My hopes of assaulting an undermanned A4 were slipping away.
This all happened in a matter of half a minute. Realizing my radio was worthless I sprinted through the woods to 2nd squad. Some had started firing and others were hanging back. I would find out later that their squad leader was an early casualty. I took personal control of 2nd squad and got them into firing position. Ok I thought to myself, we’re getting back on track. By then my radios were back up and I called for 1st squad to assault. Smoke grenades poured out of the woods and soon I could see Marines flying through the billowing smoke.
Then all of the sudden something weird happened. My assault team piled up on the window and then stopped. I couldn’t understand. The one unequivocal law of urban combat is you’re always safer inside a building. The instructors were standing over the quickly dying team screaming to get inside the building. By this time I had already cut off 2nd squads fires, so I ran down to the breach point 100m away.
The appointed breach windows were barricaded and the assault team just stopped. Never mind there were six other open windows on the same side of the building. I grabbed Lt. Grant Hundley who had just showed up. “You, grenade in there!” Clunk, clunk, bang! I smashed the barricade took a knee and motioned for Marine use my leg as a step and get inside. About 8 Marines got inside, and I followed them through. My 1st squad leader, Lt. Matt Baumann did a magnificent job clearing the building. In about 3 minutes we had A4 secure. The instructors turned towards me and started firing questions. Where are your forces?! What are you going to do?! I looked around and only had the 8 Marines with me - many more lying on the ground, their laser vests buzzing with casualty information. I called in vain to my other squad leaders, both of whom were casualties. I knew that we’d taken serious casualties and we needed to consolidate before moving against the other buildings. I eventually got a hold of my platoon sergeant who picked up the last 4 members of 3rd squad and brought them into A4. I made a situation report to higher, “Godfather this is White 6, we have seized A4. We have a mass casualty situation, estimate 25 casualties. Dispatch QRF (Quick Reaction Force), over.” We had seized the main objective, but the unit had culminated.
At that point the instructors called “end exercise” and held a debrief to discuss my performance individually and that of the platoon as a whole. The general consensus was good plan, good order delivery, but mediocre execution. Some of that can be left up to the fact that it was our first platoon sized urban operation. There will always be hesitation the first time. Some of it was also laid upon the communication situation. We sustained the majority of our casualties during or as a result of the period of lost comm. As devastating as it was to lose communication during the crucial minute of the operation, I couldn’t blame my squad leader. Here was the great lesson of the operation. The “hot mike” was his error, but it is my fault that I did not have a robust “no comm plan.” As I wrote my order in the middle of the night I left out alternate signals using smoke, whistles etc.
As frustrating as it was, I learned a valuable lesson. Contingency plans, whether for bad communication or anything else, need to be well considered and detailed. The difficulties herein discussed could have been overcome with good alternate plans. When my assault team paused at the barricaded window there were 6 other ground floor open windows on that side of the building. A simple alternate breach plan would have kept the momentum up. Instead the team stacked up and stalled. This is a crucial lesson for leaders and one I will take to the Fleet.
At the beginning of this letter I said I would talk about “training at its best”. Mediocre execution with a bunch of hang-ups may not seem like such great training. However, these difficulties are realistic, and its good that we experienced and coped with them in training. It is much better to feel the effects of fatigue, confusion, and poor communication and achieve a 70% solution, than to execute an elegant scripted maneuver free of difficulty and friction. For an unsupported infantry assault on an urban objective, taking such heavy casualties seizing an objective should be expected (N.B. we do not do unsupported infantry assaults anymore, we call for air). In the end, what made this “training at its best” was that we experienced friction and still took the objective.
A Few More Things
I recently picked up at IOC. The Infantry Officer Course requires a high degree of confidentiality so I cannot say much about it. However, after getting a little familiarity with the school, I feel mentally, academically and physically prepared. I give credit for that to my platoon commander who enforced a high standard at the Basic Officer Course. We are through Week 1 and I am eager and ready to keep going.
As I close this letter I want to thank everybody who has kept in touch. Your emails, calls and letters mean a lot. Thank You. The first two photos are of our urban combat facility. The last two are me with my roommates from TBS. I am in a very good frame of mind to tackle the last obstacles of training. I keep on thinking back to a piece of scripture the TBS Chaplain cited at our graduation. It captures my frame of mind. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, Here I am Lord. Send me.“ -Isaiah 6:8. There are two Good Books in the Marine Corps. The Bible and the Catalog of Medal of Honor Citations. You can never go wrong with either one.
Semper Fi,
Dominic
