More Than Courage (38 page)

Dulles Airport, Virginia

20:45 LOCAL (00:45 ZULU)

Unable to sit calmly and pass the time as the other members of the official party somehow managed to do, Brigadier General 294

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James Palmer paced back and forth like a caged panther at mealtime.

Every time he passed his aide de camp Palmer would stop, look at that officer, and growl. "How much longer?"

Making a great show of it, the aide would lift his arm, look at his watch, and make the necessary calculations to determine how much time remained before the private jet bearing the Reverend Brown and Specialist Four Davis arrived. "Fifteen minutes, sir."

Mumbling to himself, Palmer would turn and storm off as he resumed his pacing.

Seated at one end of the lounge was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, a four-star general who would serve as the senior military representative at the homecoming the Reverend Brown's people had set up. When Palmer's nervous prowling brought him within a few feet of the Deputy Chief, the senior general called out to him. "For Christ's sake, Jim. Sit down. You're making me nervous."

Unfazed by this mild rebuke, Palmer stopped. "Damn it, sir!

How can you sit there while the Reverend Lucas Brown is making a mockery of us? Why the Sec Def agreed to let that charlatan have his way and bring Davis straight home is beyond me."

Though he agreed with everything Palmer was saying, the Deputy Chief of Staff folded his hands in his lap and looked up at the enraged brigadier. "Both the State Department and DOD made it clear that this was Brown's show. Because he is a private citizen neither agency has any right to dictate to him how he does things.

To do so now would seem as if we were trying to horn in on his success.

As much as it might rankle our cockles, the dear reverend made the effort and therefore deserves his ten seconds of fame."

Palmer glared. "Oh, but if it were only ten seconds."

The Deputy Chief of Staff chuckled. "Relax. As my wife likes to say every time I get a gallstone, this too shall pass."

Finding no solace in his superior's quip, Palmer was about to take up his pacing where he had left off when a beeper being carried by the Deputy Chief of Staff's aide went off. As one, every f

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eye in the room was drawn to him. Paying no attention to anything but his duty, the aide looked at the number displayed on the beeper. Setting it aside he pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number. "Colonel Shafter here."

When he was finished the aide clicked the off button, stood up, and looked over at his general. "Sir, that was the tower. The private jet carrying the Reverend Brown and Specialist Davis has just declared an emergency."

Blinking, the Deputy Chief of Staff came to his feet. "How far are they out?"

"Five minutes, sir. The tower has cleared all traffic and is scrambling the crash trucks."

On cue the sound of sirens coming to life broke the silence in the waiting lounge where the army delegation had gathered.

"General Palmer," the Deputy Chief of Staff announced slowly, deliberately. "Get out there and find out what's going on."

Standing on the ground before the executive jet, Palmer, the pilot of the jet, and the senior rep from the Department of Transportation, stood in silence looking up at the open door. "I had just made the announcement that we were beginning our descent into Dulles," the pilot explained in hushed tones. "Everything was in order. There were no problems, not a peep from the cabin. And then, pow, everything Went to hell."

Pausing, he bowed his head as he reached up to wipe away beads of sweat that trickled down his forehead. "According to the flight attendant," he stated in a voice that still quivered from the adrenaline that lingered in his veins, "everyone was in their seats, strapped in and ready for the landing. Before she realized what he was doing your man Davis undid his seat belt, came to his feet, and calmly walked to the door."

For a moment the trio stood there, gazing at the damaged aircraft as if they were waiting for it to provide an answer to this 296

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troubling mystery. Finally Palmer broke the silence. "And he said nothing?"

The pilot shook his head. "From what I've been told he spoke to no one the entire flight. The flight attendant said he just sat there, staring out of the window as if he were looking for something."

After a long pause, the investigator from the DOT turned to Palmer. "General, do you have any idea what could have caused the man to do something like that?"

Tugging on the hem of his uniform blouse, Palmer looked once more at the open door before turning to face the others.

"Guilt. Shame. Anger. Take your pick, gentlemen."

"I can't put that in my report!"

Palmer considered the civilian bureaucrat for a moment. "Sir, I don't give a damn what you put into your report. You asked me to come here and render an opinion. I have done so. Now, if you will excuse me there are other matters far more pressing than this postmortem that demand my full attention."

Without another word Palmer began to make his way to where his aide waited with the sedan. As he walked slowly through the quiet hangar the man responsible for saving what was left of RT Kilo could not help but compare his current plight to the children's ditty that seemed so apropos to this operation.

"Then there were six." And tomorrow, if the Syrians kept to their word there would be but five.

Fort Irwin, California

22:50 LOCAL (05:50 ZULU)

The young officer who had led the OPFOR during that evening's exercise stood up, walked to the front of the assembled officers, and took his place. Try as hard as he might, he found that he was unable to keep himself from smirking whenever his eyes lit upon Emmett DeWitt. Knowing full well what was about to come, the best DeWitt could do at the moment was give his former com padres one of those Fll-get-you sort of looks.

As he had done a hundred times before, First Lieutenant Clarence Archer introduced himself and discussed the operations from the OPFOR's perspective. He described the role his unit had been playing during the just-concluded exercise, how he had deployed his people, and presented a concise narrative on what he saw as the engagement unfolded. It had been both a dress rehearsal and the first company-level training event DeWitt's Company had conducted with the Land Warrior. Archer's people had been playing the part of a garrison unit charged with the internal security duties of a military compound. As such the bulk of his men were lightly armed with a few crew-served weapons.

To augment this force and add realism to the exercise a number of soldiers ordinariy assigned to administrative duties with the OPFOR's parent unit had been locked away in various rooms throughout the building Archer's men were protecting. DeWitt's mission was to secure these captives and withdraw from the objective with minimum casualties.

Like so many terms the American military uses, no one ever quantified exactly what the term minimum casualties actually 298

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translated into. If ten officers were asked to give a percentage of what they considered to be minimum casualties each of them would respond with a different answer. One thing was clear, though, even before the after-action review got under way. The simulated losses Alpha Company suffered that night would have exceeded even the most sanguine estimate. In their attempt to take down the building defended by Archer's men, DeWitt's company had lost eight dead and twenty-eight wounded, with half of the wounded winding up as prisoners.

"Just about the time it finally became clear to the commanding officer of the assault force that none of the prisoners being held in the facility were American," Archer stated as he discussed the events, "I had finished rallying and reorganizing the survivors of my garrison at the far end of the building. When it was reported to me that the assault force was scattered in groups of three and four men searching for prisoners, I seized the opportunity to launch local counterattacks aimed at inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. In two cases my soldiers' superior knowledge of the facility allowed them to slip a blocking force past the attackers and cut off their line of retreat prior to the commencement of our local counterattacks."

Since this was essentially a training exercise designed to familiarize Alpha Company with the capability of the Land Warrior, Lieutenant Colonel Kaplan used every opportunity he could to make important points about that system. "The Land Warrior enhances the combat ability of your soldiers," he stated, doing his best to ensure that his tone was neither demeaning nor scornful.

"It doesn't make you or your people any smarter. As the OPFOR

commander pointed out, their intimate knowledge of the terrain allowed them to overcome your technological superiority. While your people were reduced to groping about in a portion of the building that they had not been briefed on, the OPFOR was able to move along secondary passages and through conduits swiftly and with confidence. By the time your people who were isolated MORE THAN COURAGE

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by these tactics became aware that they were in trouble, it was too late."

Though he knew better than to do so at an after-action review, DeWitt felt compelled to respond in his own defense.

"Had the captives we were sent to secure been in the building anywhere close to where they were supposed to be, my company would have been long gone before the enemy had time to recover from their initial surprise and mount an effective counterattack."

It was now Lieutenant Colonel Shaddock's turn to pounce upon the hapless company commander. "I know you have heard of Son Tay," he stated in a low voice. "I intentionally had the S-3

design tonight's scenario based upon that raid. I wanted you to be faced with the same dilemma that the American commander of that operation faced when he broke into that North Vietnamese POW camp and found no POWs to liberate. The big difference between Son Tay and tonight was that the American ground force commander didn't leave any NVA guards alive."

"Sir," DeWitt responded, doing his best to maintain his calm,

"my primary mission was to find the prisoners. When the team assigned to secure them failed to locate them I made the decision to dispatch additional search parties."

"And while doing so," Shaddock pointed out, "you turned your back on an enemy force that was battered but far from broken.

Your decision to increase the number of teams searching for the captives was sound; Your failure to continue to maintain pressure on the enemy was not. In throwing every resource you had to achieve one part of your stated mission you set yourself up to blow another aspect of it, i.e., minimum casualties."

"So you want me to kill every one of those little suckers I can while I'm there?" DeWitt asked in frustration.

"Dead men," Shaddock stated in a tone that was as cold as the look in his eye, "can't counterattack. Besides, the bastards deserve it."

Realizing that he could not possibly win this round and 300

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accepting the fact that he had royally screwed the pooch, DeWitt nodded. "Yes, sir. I understand."

"Good," Shaddock stated perfunctorily. "Continue."

Following their well-established format, the officers of Fort Irwin's training cadre who had been observing that night's exercise stood up, moved to the front of the small expandable van used for these after-action reviews, and discussed every aspect of that night's operation. Everything was addressed in its turn; command and control, tactics, the unit's use of intelligence, procedures employed by the unit as a whole, actions taken by individual soldiers to deal with wounded, captured enemy soldiers, and the redistribution of ammunition. For a unit commander and his staff the experience of being evaluated in this manner is pretty much the same as getting a root canal without the benefit of Novocain.

This sort of inquisition is not without its benefits. Even the harshest critic of this technique is unable to discount the long-term value an unvarnished evaluation by the officers and enlisted men of the National Training Center can yield. Many veterans of the first Persian Gulf War owe their success and their very life to the lessons they learned in the crowded little vans in the Mojave Desert of California. If anything, one recurring comment after that war was that in comparison, the real thing was easy. "Not only did we have to fight the Gulf War only once," one officer stated in all seriousness after returning from the Gulf, "we didn't have to sit through one of those damned after-action reviews when it was over."

Completion of the after-action review did not close out the day's work. With much left to do, the participants belonging to the 3rd of the 75 th and those helping it get ready adjourned to Shaddock's humble headquarters. Anyone entering the outer office where Shaddock's XO, sergeant major, and adjutant worked was greeted by a sign Shaddock had ordered Sergeant Major Harris to MORE THAN COURAGE

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post next to the door of his personal office. On it there was the photo and name of every member of RT Kilo. In a box above the photos of those who had made it out was a large blue X. Below the photos was another box. In the case where a member of RT

Kilo was known to be dead, a red X of equal size was placed. For those who were in Syrian hands or still missing in action, there was nothing in either box. Shaddock had briefed his commanders and staff when the sign had been posted that it was there to remind each and every one of them what they were preparing for.

"Those who have earned the blue mark deserve an atta-boy, but not from us. The men who bear the red are to be honored and mourned. We can do nothing more for them. It is for the others

that we must bend every effort, every conscious thought. Until they are free this battalion has but one purpose, one goal."

Upon entering the outer office that evening Shaddock was greeted by the sight of Lieutenant Colonel Delmont standing next to the battalion adjutant as that officer was placing a red X under the photo of Sergeant Yousaf Hashmi. Shaddock watched