One Million Steps: A Marine Platoon at War (37 page)
Read One Million Steps: A Marine Platoon at War Online
Authors: Bing West
CHAPTER 10: THE ROUTINE
1
“spirit of the body”
Col. Ardant du Picq,
Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle
. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
2
“Got PID”
BBC video, January 20, 2011.
3
“We watched him”
BBC video, January 25, 2011.
4
Time and again
Cpl. Brett Sullivan stopped a man driving by on a motorcycle with a car battery strapped on the rear. Sullivan pitched the battery into a canal and turned the man over to the police, who promptly released him.
5
Palma took fire
While LCpl. Dylan Nordell led his fire team in a long loop to flank a PKM machine gun, Alvarez’s fire team reinforced Palma.
6
“a person of no account”
Gina Cavallaro,
Marine Corps Times
, January 21, 2011.
7
another Marine
This was Lance Corporal Marcum.
8
the squad was listening
It was Lance Corporal Gonzalez who was listening.
CHAPTER 11: END OF TOUR
1
On February 8
On February 3, 3rd Squad had uncovered in Q1C a cache containing 300 pounds of explosives, six pressure plates, 200 feet of wire, and a soldering iron. A few days later, the camera on the blimp above Kilo Company headquarters showed a man hiding an AK on the riverbank in P8T. Second Squad searched the spot and uncovered another large cache of IED materials. At a nearby crossing point, Yazzie discovered and blew two IEDs.
A few days later, 3rd Squad found a pressure plate and two IEDs up in P8Q. Second squad, patrolling in the same area, saw movement in a set of compounds long abandoned. Inside were several families of destitute squatters. They had moved in because they believed the original owners were never coming back.
Garcia took this as a moderately encouraging sign. Although the families were dirt poor and likely had nowhere else to go, they were the first civilians to migrate into P8Q. One family moved in next door to the compound where Wagner had found two IEDs. Garcia hoped the local Taliban would warn the squatters which fields and houses were mined.
2
“We have finally gotten”
Gen. David Petraeus interview, February 9, 2011.
3
“have lost the support”
Jim Michaels, “General: Heart of Afghanistan Insurgency Beaten,” USA
Today
, February 14, 2011.
4
71 percent
smallwarsjournal.com/documents/moshtarak1
.
5
99 percent
January 2011 ICOS survey released in June 2011.
6
sooner or later
The next day, 3rd Squad went back to P8Q. Inside one compound they found an 82mm mortar shell hidden behind a false wall. Once a pressure plate concealed in the dirt floor was connected to the shell, the resulting blast would kill all Marines in the room. The technique came from Pakistan and had been used a year earlier with devastating results in another district.
7
On March 5
On March 4, 1st and 2d Squads had pushed into Q5H on parallel paths, hoping to trap some Taliban between them. A running firefight broke out, with intercepts of Icom chatter suggesting the enemy was trying to trap one of the squads. Dy laughed. Knowing Stevie was translating every word, the Taliban had pulled out, hoping to avoid pursuit by faking an imaginary attack.
8
The machine gun crew
They were aided by Lantznester with his Squad Automatic Weapon.
9
Dy decided
Corporal Halcomb was also firing his SAW.
10
As the enemy pulled back
The Marines stepped out in Ranger file behind the engineer, Corporal Bradach, who swept a lane to the next tree line.
11
every Taliban gang
On one out of every three patrols, the average Marine saw at least one Taliban. Obviously, many of the same Taliban were seen on different occasions. In total, the Marines believed they had hit 221 of the enemy with small arms. It cannot be judged how many others were hit by mortars, bombs, and rockets. Even allowing for exaggeration and double counting, by direct and indirect fire 3rd Platoon probably killed more than 200 Taliban over the course of 400 patrols.
12
psychological toll
You become much more hesitant and cautious when you know the other side is diligently patrolling in a random fashion. Let me give an example.
In 2009, I had embedded with a British adviser team farther to the south. A Marine battalion moved into the area and, as in Sangin, patrolled extensively. The translator with the British team said the Taliban were radioing back and forth, asking where all those Americans had come from. After several days, I said good-bye to the Brits and hopped in a Ford Ranger with three Afghan soldiers to return to base.
But when we reached a stretch of open road, the driver abruptly stopped and the soldiers peered around, whispering. I sat silently, cursing my stupidity for not having a weapon. Why had I trusted renegade Afghan soldiers? What a dumb, brainless way to die.
Ignoring me, however, the askaris dashed into the field and within seconds were back inside the truck, clutching a half dozen watermelons. Off we sped. The Marines were paying the farmers a dollar per melon, a princely sum. They would come down hard on any Afghan soldier for stealing. The chances of getting caught in the vast fields of the Green Zone seemed low to me, but not to the thieves.
The melon heist illustrated the pressure the Taliban were feeling as 3rd Platoon rolled forward like a steamroller.
13
“Since October”
Remarks by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Sangin, March 8, 2011, as reported in
Leatherneck
.
14
“The president doesn’t trust”
Gates,
Duty
, p. 557.
15
“I was torn”
Ibid., p. 359.
16
“dramatically weaken”
Ibid., p. 572.
17
“rooting the Taliban”
Ibid., p. 571.
18
“a tighter focus”
Ibid., p. 570.
19
“the troops had become”
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf,
It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography
. New York: Bantam, 1992, p. 188.
20
203 casualties
David W. Taylor,
Our War: The History and Sacrifices of an Infantry Battalion in the Vietnam War 1968–1971
. Medina, Ohio: War Journal Publishing, 2011, p. 634. (Parenthetically, this book is superb in describing the daily combat south of the DMZ.)
21
Forty-five percent
Moni Basu, “Survey: Veterans Say Afghanistan, Iraq Wars Not Worth It,”
CNN.com
, October 5, 2011.
22
hashish
Vivienne Walt, “Afghanistan’s New Bumper Drug Crop: Cannabis,”
Time
, April 1, 2010.
23
feeling very much alone
Cpls. Richard Hur and Oscar Orozco were the first to see they were missing and run back to provide supporting fire.
CHAPTER 12: THE ENDLESS GRUNT
1
“I put out a memo”
Gen. David Petraeus interview, June 3, 2011.
2
“The more time you spend”
Gates,
Duty
, p. 563.
3
“As I strolled”
Eugene Sledge, quoted in “The
War
: Face of Battle: Aftermath,”
http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_war_battle_aftermath.htm
.
4
“Lady”
E. B. Sledge,
China Marine: An Infantryman’s Life After World War
. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 135.
5
“Some were very angry”
NPR interview, October 30, 2011.
6
Old Breed
3/5 was proud of its brotherhood. For example, in Iraq in 2005, Cpl. Larry Hutchins, a squad leader in Kilo 3/5, killed an Iraqi civilian in mistaken retaliation for the death of a Marine. In 2013, Hutchins sent me this letter from the brig.
Someone once told me that “where the Institution will sacrifice one of its own to save itself, the Brotherhood will sacrifice itself to save one of its own.” I never really understood what this meant
.
Seven years ago when I was arrested for the murder of an Iraqi, I felt abandoned by the Marine Corps. I’ll never forget arriving in the middle of the night, pulling up to the prison and seeing parallel lights running in straight lines for what seemed to be miles. It was the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” I had never felt more alone in my life
.
Here I sit today, understanding the differences between the Institution and the Brotherhood. Men from all over our country have written to me, telling of their battles in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. One man set up an allotment for my wife. Another has become like family, seeking out congressmen and coming to the brig every week. I prayed asking God send me help, not knowing he had sent me angels
.
My heart is with my wife and children. They are my home. Every home needs four strong walls. These men are the walls of my home
.
I am a proud member of the “Old Corps” Brotherhood. It is because of the Brotherhood that I have regained my pride in being a Marine. Because of the Brotherhood, I fought in Iraq, and would fight again. As I sit writing this in prison, I have come to believe there are those of us who are Semper Fi
.
Hutchins’s letter is testament to a strict institution that imposed hard punishment for wrongdoing, and yet remained a brotherhood that did not sever its bonds. The Marine Corps is so small that a first sergeant can call his contacts to get an informal evaluation of every Marine in his unit. When the enemy is rushing the wire, a commanding officer can call on Marines decades in their graves to motivate the living. No one scoffs when a captain like Johnson stands in the muddy waters at Patrol Base Fires, invoking the memory of a long-dead corporal named Sledge.
CHAPTER 13: WHO WILL FIGHT FOR US?
1
“What does Sangin mean?”
Marine Corps Times
, May 14, 2014.
2
“Violence has subsided”
Marine Corps Times
, April 26, 2012.
3
“Sangin is like”
Azam Ahmed, “Afghan Army Struggles in District Under Siege,”
New York Times
, September 11, 2013.
4
“It’s difficult”
Ibid.
5
highest percentage of drug addicts
Tahir Qadiry, “Afghanistan, the Drug Addiction Capital,” BBC News, April 10, 2013.
6
A majority in 3rd Platoon
See Appendix D.
7
handed several outposts in Sangin over
Afghan News Agency, December 16, 2013, and
Marine Corps Times
, December 17, 2013.
8
“Local residents and officials”
Azam Ahmed and Taimoor Shah, “Local Turf-Sharing Accord with the Taliban Raises Alarm in Afghanistan,”
New York Times
, December 18, 2013.
9
“The war doesn’t stop”
Fresno Bee
, January 18, 2014.
10
“Write this down”
Peter Baker,
Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House
. New York: Doubleday, 2013, p. 219.
11
one trillion dollars
Linda J. Bilmes, “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets.” Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP13-006, March 2013.
12
“Soldiers and Marines”
Foreword,
FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency
. Department of the Army, December 2006.
13
“Afghanistan is the war”
New York Times
, July 15, 2008.
14
“What was interesting”
Anne E. Kornblut, Scott Wilson, and Karen DeYoung, “During Marathon Review of Afghanistan Strategy, Obama Held Out for Faster Troop Surge,”
Washington Post
, December 6, 2009.
15
“a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy”
Gates,
Duty
, pp. 342 and 367. It is worth noting that Gates, McChrystal, and Petraeus all agreed that the strategy was based on the “oil spot” or “ink blot” technique used in the Malayan War (1948–1960). In Malaya, then a British colony, the oil spot consisted of placing villagers inside stockades guarded by Malayan soldiers commanded by British officers. The oil spot in Malaya was a means of controlling the villagers, regardless of what they wanted.
Unlike in Malaya, the American oil spot in Afghanistan would not control the villagers; instead, it would win their support. After “clearing” (killing) sufficient Taliban, the Americans would move on to another district, spreading the oil spot, while Afghan government officials and soldiers moved in behind them.
In Vietnam, the Marines had used the oil spot in the villages along the coast. By 1970, Marine squads were living in 117 villages. Each shared sleeping quarters and patrols with the village militia. The Marines moved on, usually after a year rather than a few months. It took that long to provide the militia with the training, combat experience, and self-confidence to stand up to the guerrillas still remaining in the area. The oil spot succeeded against the local guerrillas, but eventually the weight of the North Vietnamese army crushed South Vietnam.
In Afghanistan, the oil spot strategy was an arithmetic impossibility. Sixty coalition battalions could not be scattered across 300,000 square kilometers (an area equivalent to the distance between Boston and Atlanta) to protect eight million tribal Pashtuns living in 5,000 villages, while the president of Afghanistan whipped up popular opinion against the coalition and the Taliban enjoyed a 2,600-kilometer-long sanctuary called Pakistan.
