Sunday, November 21, 2010

Afghanistan Update

Greetings all. Its been awhile since I have posted anything. Part of that is due to the lack of internet access (can't get it in my room and the computer lab is a long walk) and the other is the fact that I can't talk about much of what I do.

I am having a great time over here. My job is great, I get to blow things up nearly every day, the targets are all legitimate, and I get to see, use and access devices that are Sci-Fi level stuff. And that's the rub. Just about 75% of everything I have going on is classified so I can't share it with everyone which is a drag because I am sure the conversations would rock. So the reality is I can't post a whole lot.

I can post that I just got back from Qatar from a WEPTAC (Weapons and Tactics) Conference in Al Udied AF Base. Very good use of time, lots of discussions, lots of meeting with people who are good to know, and a cool tour of the CAOC. That's the Air Defense/Control Cell for all of CENTCOM. Think "Wargames" control room, but much more updated.

I can also say that we are firing a great deal more than I thought we were going to be. I have seen some mentions in the press about our various operations, so if you have been paying attention you will know we are conducting operations against the Taliban in and around Kandahar City. We have flushed a lot of them which results in more business for me. We have also found lots of weapons caches, and booby-trapped buildings which is also more business for me. Compared to Iraq we are much more kinetic here which is saying something. We are also much better at keeping civilians out of the way here than Iraq which is a very good thing.

Not much else right now. Stay safe everyone.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

I am at Kandahar



Hi everyone. I am safely arrived at KAF (Kandahar Air Field) and inprocessing. I have included a couple of photos. The TGIFriday's is real and on our boardwalk (tell me I am not a REMF). The other photo is 3 Mile Ridge. Its the dominant terrain here and gets used that way occasionally by the insurgents. We actually have lots of facilities here that are pretty nice. MWR, nice PX, several nice foriegn PXs (German, Dutch, and French), some restaurants, a couple gyms (the NATO one is NICE). This place is packed with NATO. We have Brits, Aussies, French, Germans, Yanks, Canadians, Slovaks, Romanians, Poles, Dutch, and of course the Afghans. Truely a multinational effort. NOt much else right now. I will be facebooking but I will try to post photos here occasionaly so until then.

Monday, August 9, 2010

What some words mean to me

WARNING: RANT

Most of you know I had a hellish job for a year working at a Furniture Chain back in 2003. Part of my civilian experience before I came back on active duty. I don't begrudge it one bit as I see it as a very valuable experience and something that has made me much more open minded about somethings when compared to other officers who have never worked outside of the military.

Everyone knows I hated that job. Specifically I hated the people I worked for, who were mostly bullies, people who didn't know that they could have done much better, or vicious careerists who would sell you down the river in one second; and the people we did business with that I had to interact with which were usually low income, racist as all hell (I had never been called a "cracker", "honky", "white trash", or "gringo" until I worked here), and usually had zero sense of honesty, keeping an agreement/your word, or just paying what you owed.

Which leads me to the rant.

"Free-Spirit": a worthless thief who feels no obligation to pay for anything, or to keep his/her word, or feels that they have any obligation to anyone other than themselves. These scumbags usually prattle some BS about the evil of wealth, or some progressive babble about equality while they felt free to come in and order the most expensive TVs, stereos and other electronic equipment we sold and then would make off with it. Most of them usually ended up stiffing their roommates for shares of rent (I heard lots of that), or pissing them off by using them to co-sign and then leaving them on the hook.

"Spiritual": a worthless jackass who wants to have their religious/spiritual cake and eat it too. I mean it like so: religions are fine and they address a simple issue (what happens when we die, aka our souls). Religions have all developed rules over time, and all of them usually have some caveats to the tune of "if you want a heavenly reward, you need to try and do the right thing while on earth". This usually means you have to do some not fun things, and attempt to make amends when you (inevitably) screw up (we are humans, and humans are by definition imperfect, so we are expected to screw up). In other words, try to do the right things, even if not fun. Someone who touts being spiritual usually is saying (and this is my experience) "I don't want to ignore my soul, and the possibility of what might lie in the great beyond, but I want to have fun and I don't like guilt. Religion gives me guilt and I would just rather not deal with it. I'll continually bring up organized religion's problems and since I don't belong I can be smug and condescending about it without feeling bad."


Both of these groups are continually found within the "progressive" community. They are not very damn progressive, they are lazy, opportunistic slobs who get off by getting over and feeling smug about it. "Spiritual"? Bite me, if you are going to worry about your soul then that means you need to have some guilt, not a get of jail free card. You should feel bad when you do something wrong. Of course if you haven't been taught right from wrong by your progressive parents, you are going to have an uphill battle. "Free-spirit"? Again, bite me. Get a job, stop stealing, stop screwing over your roommates and figure out that you actually ARE hurting someone with your BS world-view.


For the curious, this rant is brought to you courtesy of an article I read earlier today extolling "a simple, progressive life" that mentioned these two terms in gushing, glowing words. I knew a lot of "free-spirits" and "spiritual" people in Austin, and they were all thieves and self-righteous prats. And no, I am not perfect or sin-free. I jack up all the time, and have plenty of sins to worry about. But I will damn well call a jackass a jackass when its called for.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

General McCrystal

I figured that I am going to get some folks wanting to know what I think about this so here it is.

General McCrystal was the POTUS' hand-picked commander on the ground in Afghanistan and he resigned today due to some remarks he made to a Rolling Stones reporter about the political leadership.

Short and sweet of it is that General McCrystal made the one mistake you CANNOT make when you are a general and that is make comments like this on public record. The POTUS is the boss and generals must obey the final orders or quit. You can disagree behind closed doors, you can complain, but when you get the word that this is what it is, that's it! Running down your civilian partners (the ambassador), your potential boss (he made some choice comments about the VP), and your boss' staff (White House Clowns was the phrase I believe) is NOT allowed.

This is a very solid rule and generals who have violated it have all been punished. McCellan and MacArthur are two of the big ones historically that come to mind but there are others as well. Generals must not cross into political realms, or if they do they must be doing so with the full backing of the POTUS (Petraus was doing this some in Iraq during the surge, but he had briefed the plan and the POTUS was on board along with all the other team). The bad thing about this is that with the Joint environment we now fight in, politics is becoming a bigger issue for generals. You are expected to deal with politics when overseas, but not with the US? Hard to keep the two separate.

McCrystal blew it, and he is gone. And that is the right thing to do.

Now, how does this hurt us? And hurt us it does, there is no silver lining to this.

First, the man with the plan who was hand picked to fight the COIN strategy and the mini-surge and had planned and overseen it and was to fight it all the way through is gone. That will hurt. Second, we are pulling General Petraus out of CENTCOM Command to take command in Afghanistan. That is actually a demotion for him as he goes from combatant commander to theater commander and furthermore he now will not be finishing off Iraq and running other things that need attention. Third, it effects the POTUS. He did the right thing, but McCrystal was HIS handpicked choice for whom he removed someone ELSE in order for him to take over. That doesn't help the POTUS' image in terms of things military and Joint (getting the Civilian/Military Team working together). Fourth, the Afghans liked McCrystal, and he was about the only guy over there that they did like and could deal with (dumb comments or not, the ambassador is not exactly high on Karazi's list).

This really brings home a major point, the US Army just doesn't have a whole lot of bench when it comes to COIN operations (Counter-Insurgency Operations). We have to demote someone to fill the gap because we have no one else who can step up. But we could do worse than Petraus so I can't complain about that.

Things just got much harder for us. Not impossible, just harder.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Book Review: The Echo of Battle

The Echo Of Battle is written by Brian McAllister Linn. Its topic is simply a in depth discussion of the US Army Way of War, or more accurately how it rotates between three focal points. Mr. Linn holds that there are three "traditions" in the army that influence how the army thinks, prepares, fights and reviews its conflicts. These three traditions are the "Heroic" (man is the key), "Guardians" (Fortress America types who focused on looking inward versus overseas), and "Managers" (bring order to the battlefield, science can remove the grey area and men are merely parts of the whole).

This book is a great look into how the US Army has thought strategically for its entire existance and how it has gone through changes, often painfull. The US Army has rarely been ready for the war it actually ends up fighting and it is pretty clear in this book. But the intersting part of this book is how the Army then veiws its lessons from the war and what it takes away. Linn's main thesis seems to be that the army usually gets it wrong, or somewhat wrong and then runs on the fly to fix and overcome (which seems to be a major strength of the US Army).

This book is not a light read. Parts were somewhat dull, and there is practically no "action" to relieve the discussion of army theory and strategic thought. I am not sure that I agree with all that the author says and I think he does a bit a shoehorning to make people and ideas fit into his three major traditions. But he does give a good run down of how the Army thought about doing its job and how the three traditions have morphed over time.

A couple of other items that this book brought up. First, the author makes a great point that I don't think he quite realizes. The Army, despite its mistakes and its muckups, still has always been able to pull it out when push comes to shove (with one exception). When the shooting starts, the learning curve explodes. The biggest thing I have seen out of this is that one can't seem to replicate the conditions for the "explosion" except during war. In some cases you can come close, but not perfect. So you could argue that while being prepared for war is a good thing (it certainly is) it might be better to be an organization that can learn fast once the shooting starts.

Second, he points out that in the 1990s the US Army had poor senior leadership. The major threat had gone away, the world was changing and the Army failed to change with it. In 2000, I did an NTC rotation and our training was a stand up Fulda Gap Force on Force Scenario. Why? Who was going to try and fight us like that ever again? While our senior leadership was focused on Berets, we should have been trying to figure out how to fight in a failed nation state.

His third point is an interesting one. The current wars have been going on for quite some time now. What that has brought about is something very intersting. Just about every officer and soldier has seen combat. Instead of having a service dominated by a "clique" of officers (such as what happened after Desert Storm) who had been in the fight, EVERYONE has been in the fight. You can't just bring in an expert and expect them to not get questioned by people who can say "I was there and this is what I saw, why are saying different?" This is VERY good for the army. Everyone feels that they have the right to pipe up and provide input. A debate where just about everyone is taking part if you will.

And that is good stuff.

Ok, overall an okay book, but a tough read. Unless you are really wanting to dive into a historic focus of how the army has learned over time, this one is not for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Korea

I have been asked by several folks about my take on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. The three reasons for this are that I have been there (stationed at Camp Stanley for a year), I am in the military, and I constantly study stuff like this. So I will put in my two cents worth.

My humble opinion is that militarily the North Koreas are in a world of hurt, but the situation is really bad politically for the US.

The NKs have two strong military cards to play. The first is the King Of Battle, their artillery. They have Corps of Artillery, and by that I mean whole Army Corps made up of nothing but FA, and its all aimed at Seoul. Thousands of MRLs (Multiple Rocket Launchers) and tube artillery (cannons) that can range Seoul and do a world of hurt. These units are in hardened positions (bunkers and caves) and have pre-surveyed firing positions and stockpiled ammunition. It would take a lot of counter-fire missions and air strikes to knock them out, figure (my estimate here, not anything offical) at least 48-72 hours to knock out over 50 to 60% of them. In that time, Seoul would be pretty badly banged up.

However, this isn't as war winning as it seems for several reasons. First off, most of this artillery is OLD, 1960s technology, and so is the ammunition. A high dud rate can be expected and accuracy is not all that (of course with this many guns and rockets you don't need much). Plus there is the fun fact that the really heavy Koksong guns have a design flaw that makes them brust after about 6 to 8 rounds of rapid firing. We know exactly where all these weapons are so knocking them out is just a function of shooting a lot. The ROK and the US Army have some pretty good systems in place to do this. Our Air Forces of course (NK ADA is probably about as good as Iraq's was and their AF is a joke), but also our counter-fire artillery systems. We and the ROKs have MLRS systems that were pretty much designed for just this. And we now have GMLRS that can outrange the NK artillery (80 Km range to their 40 to 60 kms) and never miss. 1 MLRS load of GLMRS will destroy 12 NK FA Systems and it can be fired in less than 1 minute. Computing data is already done since we know were everything is already. The only issue is there is so much of it.

The second big punch the NorKs have is their Special Forces (SF). This is a big item to worry about. They have one of the largest Special Forces in the world and they train constantly to do their worst to the South in the event of a war. They have commandos, ranger-types, SEAL-types, sniper-types, recon troops, fifth column types and air-assault types. They have special miget subs (one is suspected of the torpedo attack that started this), they have Hughes Helocopters modified to look like ROK army or civilian models, they have a whole mess of spies and people who have been passing info for years. Nasty stuff.

However, historically these guys have turned out to not be as good as thought. In 1968, the so called "Second Korean War" was fought. Lots of raids, ambushes on the DMZ, and commando raids into the South to attack ROK government facilities and an attempt on the ROK President. The deep raids failed miserably and no one in the world really noticed because this was a side show compared to Vietnam. While the SF has been training more than the standard army, they have still been cut back on. Worse, the effects of the famine have hurt them as the eligible pool of recruits is much smaller to pick from. The ROK has been training on defending against these guys for years and have gotten better at detection and interception. Even these tunnels dug under the DMZ are not such a big deal as they don't go that far behind them (if you pop up in the middle of a battalion defensive position you are in trouble, SF or not). Once they have shot their bolt, there is no way home. No sub could make south after the shooting started, and the AF would be shot down after about 2 days. Once you are on the run, you are going to get hunted down. The South doesn't have anywhere to hole up and their are no guerrilla bands to join. They would do some damage, but not enough.

And that is the main point. The two major strengths of the NorKs are not enough combined to finish off the south, only enough to do damage and make them MAD. Mad enough to decide to finish the stupidity once and for all and END it. The ROKs have enough men to do it, and their equipment is now 50 years more advanced than what the NorKs can throw (think WWII armies fighting the Coalition in Desert Storm).

The NorK Nuke threat only works on the defensive by the way, they have no method of delivery. No missile they have can carry their bomb design, they have no planes that can carry it. They could bury it and set it off after someone rolls over it, but even that is limited thanks to the mountainous terrain (blast would be channelled so small area of effect on your own soil).

So why is this bad politically for the US? Simple, what if the ROK decides to pick a fight? Or vice versa? The ROKs have every right to confront a rouge nation and the world is actually standing aside on this one. If it escalates, the US is bound by treaty to aid the south. The ROKs are in the clear to DO SOMETHING right now if they want so their is no "we can't help because they are the aggressors".

So the POTUS would get another war, and a nasty, knockdown, bloody one at that. He can fight with the allies and loose support from his base, or he can pull out and loose a LOT of international clout and a LOT of independent votes. Loose Loose if you are the current POTUS. Even worse, he has a ROK that is set up to actually want to do something, and CAN do something this time around.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Book Review: The Soviet-Afghan War

The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost was a book written by the Russian General Staff after the end of the USSR and translated by Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress. It is the third in a triology of books by Grau, the other two being "The Bear Went Over The Mountain" and "The Other Side Of The Mountain", both dealing with the tactical level of the fight, Soviet and Muj sides.

This book is, or was, to be the offical Soviet General Staff study of the war. The Soviets had made a point to do this after every fight (starting with WWII) for future study. Since they lost, this was somewhat of a backburner project. When the USSR became Russia again, there was really no offical desire to write it. But being a "free" society, a couple of officers got together and published it on their own dime with some help from Grau. So its a pretty interesting book to start with just for that.

This is the offical look at the war as fought by the Soviets. The "Big Picture" if you will. Not a whole lot of tactical fights (some examples to explain a point usually), but lots of "This was the doctrine, this is what worked or didn't, this is what we developed" and so on. As a division staff officer, I found this to be very useful reading.

I learned a couple things that went a long way to explaining why the Soviets blew this fight. First, the book explains the Soviets focus on being an "Operationally Based" army. Since most of you won't get that term here it is: The Soviets don't fight battles at a battalion or BCT (Brigade) level, they fight in terms of Divisions, Corps, Armies, and Army Groups/Fronts. Like us (NATO/US) they viewed Western Europe or Northern China as the next big fights and were looking to repeat WWII. Lots of tanks, troops and FA moving straight ahead. Where we would be maneuvering a company or battalion, they thought in terms of moving a division or corps. Scale is vastly increased.

Now, for Europe this idea has a good deal of merit (Northern European Plain is ideal for this, not so much Central or Southern Germany though excepting the Fulda Gap). Afghanistan, not so much. Mountains, deserts, few roads, high altitude and so on. Afghanistan is a TACTICAL fight. In the US Army, a Corps is the highest level of tactical fighting you get. Usually we mean something like a company or battalion, maybe a platoon or BCT (Brigade Combat Team), a small combined arms team. Its our great strength. And the Soviets greatest weakness. The leaders in this fight are NCOs and junior officers, again our great strength. The USSR had a absolutely pathetic NCO corps and its junior officers were pretty much overpaid sergeants. Which was exactly the thing they couldn't afford to have and win. They didn't win so you can figure out how it worked for them. That fact alone was worth the read.

This book had sections on every branch and service and how well they did or did not do. FA, Transportation, Supply, Maintenance, Air Support (fixed wing and helio), armor, special forces, engineers, chemical (smoke and flamethrower units, no gas although there were rumors of its use), and even PXs and pay. A very useful insite to how they did business and where they came up short which was all too often.

The other major issue that this book brought out was one I thought interesting. The political lens that the 40th Army had to put on everything in order to be in line with the communist party political views. You would think that wasn't something you needed to worry about but it ended up being a major issue. The Soviets could not successfully explain what was going on to the political leadership due to this war being something that didn't exist. According to Marxism-Leninism theory, a country that has become communist will never want to be anything but that so it will never have a home grown revolution against it.

I am NOT making that up. The Russians tried to pin this on the US, Pakistan, China, Britain, Japan and Gulf Arabs, but since none of them actually ever showed up to actually fight they had to conclude that it WAS a home grown anti-communist revolution. But they couldn't tell that to the political bosses, or if they did (once or twice) that couldn't be sold to the people. So they couldn't devise a political strategy to support the military one (sound familiar? not for Iraq though, we did manage that). Confusion at the top had some bad effects.

I have to admit this book was very interesting, but it was hard to read. It took me about 3 months off and on to finish. General Staff Officers are not exactly great writers to begin with, but the topics were not exactly light reading either. You can't make a chapter on the Theater Maintenace Program for vehicles to be very exciting even if you hire Tom Clancy to write it. But it was very informative and I really have an understanding of how the USSR fumbled this war.

As a counter to what we are doing I can say that it appears we are not making nearly as many mistakes as the Soviets did. We are doing vastly better at the Combat Support and Combat Service Support functions the Soviets jacked up and we are doing much better at the political side of the house in that our problems are completely different than what the Russians faced. Yes we have major ones, but we managed to make ours original so at least we are not guilty of repeating past mistakes on that level.

This book is also great for its huge amount of "They did WHAT?" items they hit on as well as explaining many confusing items due to different army setups. Things like the fact that Soviets counted smoke artillery as chemical rounds so technically they did use chemical weapons in Afghanistan were as we count them as a type of artillery round. Or that they used LOTS of flamethrowers on about everything that moved. Or that 67% of their entire force serving in Afghanistan was hospitalized due to sickness at one point in time (we haven't ever gone past 5%, and probably not even that).

One of my favorite items: when the Soviets pulled out 6 regiments of troops in 1986, they laggered them together prior to moving them home. They had a Hepatitus outbreak and rendered all six regiments combat ineffective for 2 months until they could get them healthy again. They didn't identify it in time, they didn't contain it well and they couldn't get their soldiers to obey simple hygine rules to stop the spread.

Another fun fact: pay for a Soviet soldier was between 350 to 8 rubles a month for pay. 350 for senior officers, 8 for lowest private. Each ruble was worth (offically) $1.59. That was including the combat pay bonus, so if you were a private you made offically less than $15 a month for serving in Afghanistan. The comment was that a soldier who saved his money might be able to buy a pair of bluejeans when he mustered out. And to add another fun fact: the actual exchange rate of a ruble at this time was actually about 20 cents. Nice, thanks for your service.

The list goes on and its full of stuff that makes you do double takes. And this is written by the Soviet General Staff, which makes me wonder what they didn't talk about.

Over all, a very good book. This book is not meant for a casual read or someone with a superficial interest. You need to want to know what this book has in it to finish it or to read all of it and not skip parts that seem dull. I recommend it for people who also really want an understanding of how different our militaries worked and function.

As a professional aside, I have heard from several sources that the Russians are of two minds about our involvement in Afghanistan. One, many want some payback so are for us being there. But many others are really pissed that we are doing so well compared to them. We have been there going on nine years. We just hit the 1000 KIA in Afghanistan. The Soviets lost in a same amount of time at least 25,000 KIA (new number, numerous sources in Russia have published this number as the actual loss number instead of the offical 13,000, and its been independently verified that the 25K is correct).

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Why I like Rifts

Rifts: a role-playing game by Palladium Books that combines every type of game style in existence (D and D type stuff, Sci-Fi, modern combat, superheroes, supernatural, etc.) and combines it into one system. Rifts itself is based on a future earth where a huge disaster killed nearly 7 billion people and destroyed pretty much everything else. Rifts are rips in time and space and they suck stuff in and dump stuff out (like aliens, monsters and demons). Magic and physic powers returned to the world and basically the entire earth had the Wackyland sign put on it (IT CAN HAPPEN HERE).

This of course makes for a great game where you can play any type of character and use magic, technology, superpowers, physic powers, magic swords, summoned terrors from beyond and so on.

I love this game for many reasons, but the biggest one has to be the storyline. They start with the Golden Age of Man (late 21 century) with high tech stuff, the disaster itself (which you can actually play in the game Chaos Earth), and then the Dark Ages where mankind barely hung on. And then the period known as "NOW".

NOW in the time period rocks. You have new nation-states and groups, some good, some bad, some with parts of both because lets face it people, grey is the standard human color. You can be the noblest nation on earth and still do bad things in the name of good because they need to be done (such as dropping two nukes to end a war, or assassinating someone in order to stop a genocide or a war, possibilities are endless).

Palladium Books is the one group that really captures that aspect. They even encourage play like that. You can be good guys fighting for a bad nation for a good reason. Nice mix that.

The chat boards have a lot of people who really don't get that part though. Coalition (the High Tech, human supremest nation in North America) is bad period. Anyone fighting them is good period. Not really in depth viewpoint for some of these folks. Also not very military either. The Coalition is THE military powerhouse in North America. So when it starts a fight, its usually going to win.

The biggest thing I love about this game is centered around that aspect. Palladium Books avoids the "good guy" trap that so many other games fall into. This is know to many gamers as the "Star Wars Trap", "The StormTrooper Rule" or the "Rebel Alliance Clause". Because the rebels/non regular military establishment/militia are the "good" guys they will win, no matter what the real ground military truth is. Any professional military force will be defeated by a rag-tag bunch of heroes, and the nameless soldiers in bad guy armor can't shoot straight except during the opening scene when we are establishing the fact that they are the "bad guys" when they gun down some unarmed women and children. Unless of course the "military" is a group of scruffy, unshaven, graffiti all over their armor and vehicles misfits who are constantly in trouble for doing things "their way" in which case they will pull it out after being ordered not to do something by an superior officer who graduated from the academy.

The Tolkeen War (a recent storyline) focused heavily on that. The Tolkeens (a magic focused kingdom in Minnesota) fought against Coalition invasions. They won some fights, but the Coalition professional military machine ended up crushing the entire kingdom. Which makes perfect sense as the Coalition Military was well equipped, well trained, and after some sorting out, well lead. But many were surprised by this, as the Tolkeens were the "good guys" so they should have won. They didn't and I am thankful that the storyline worked out that way.

I bring this up because I just got "Triax 2" which deals with the other big human technological power: The New German Republic. I won't get into the huge details behind this group, but they are fighting for their lives against Gargoyles and Brodkil demons in Europe. And they just scored a huge victory by using actual military strategy and thought. In the book/series timeline, they were able to cut the demon zones in two by using an amphibious/airborne assault behind the lines and have wiped out nearly a third of their enemy using realistic military tactics. The NGR's army is disciplined, shaves, keeps their equipment clean and well maintained, and has officers that are smart and listen to their NCOs on occasion. In short, completely opposite of every effective Sci-Fi military in existence. I so love that about this game.

Yes, I know its a game. Yes I know we are talking about fantasy and sci-fi. Yes, I know none of this is real. But its nice to see some realism in certain things.

Book Review: Queen Victoria's Little Wars

Well, I have finally finished a book after having been stumbling around reading four different ones over the period of the move from Fort Sill to Fort Drum. And this one is a recent purchase I saw at Borders about a week ago. So here we go.

Queen Victoria's Little Wars was first released in 1972. Written by Byron Farwell, it is about the various conflicts, expeditions and outright wars fought during the reign of Queen Victoria starting in 1837 and going up to 1900 when she died. Quite a lot of area to cover historically speaking.

First off, this book is considered a classic by many history and war buffs. It gives a pretty fair listing of and short run downs of the whole expansion of the British Empire and how its politics changed. It hits on how the Empire actually did expand, the politics behind it and how they shaped and pushed things. And often as not, how the guys on the ground did stuff that was opposite of what the guys in charge (but back in England) wanted, but once done couldn't be undone. Pretty much how most Empires happen really.

It was a great read, but for me that was all it was. Due to the size of the topic, it couldn't give more than a short chapter to many huge topics (The Second Boer War was only one chapter as an example, and the Indian Mutiny was three). If you were looking for huge amounts of detail and information, this book isn't for you. If you are looking for a starting point, this is a good one. I did learn a lot about conflicts I knew nothing about or very little, but I knew much more about the Boer War and Zulu War than was presented.

I also need to add that this book had two great features going for it that makes it worthy of reading. The first was the bibiliography that was included. The author pulled from a HUGE amount of sources, so if you want to learn more about one fight or war, you have the prefect list to work off of and he linked it to each conflict so instead of having to hunt down books throughout the whole list, it was already done. Second was the list of medals and the appendix dealing with the British Army Regimental system. If you have never dealt with the British system, the regiment can be a difficult thing to understand. This appendix (read it first before the book) is a great source of info and explains a lot. It also includes an explanation of all the medals given out so you can figure out what all the "VC, DCO, SRC, etc" mean in terms of who did what when.

I recommend this book, I enjoyed it.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Fort Drum and Watertown

Hi everyone. We are now in week three of Fort Drum after PCSing from Fort Sill (aka we moved on the army's dime to a new assignment). And we are LOVING it.

First off, Tamara had a tough year in Oklahoma this last year. I won't get into details but she had been living there for 15 years and the shine was off. She was really unsure about this move as I had never been to Fort Drum and there were plenty of horror stories about this place usually involving weather and the area being serious banjo music land.

The weather stories are probably true. It has been nice much of the time, but it has been cold (really cold) several times and it snowed yesterday. It has all melted, but still getting snow in late April was a bit off-putting. But when its nice, its NICE. No harsh wind, no nasty sticky heat (yet), just pleasant cool weather, perfect for a sweatshirt.

As for the area around here. This place beats Lawton hands down. The nearest major town is Watertown, population about 25 to 30K. It gets bigger if you include the rather large number of small towns surrounding Fort Drum and on the lake (Lake Ontario) and the St Lawrence Seaway just an hour north. Lawton was 100000 and had maybe a quarter of the things that this place offers. Much more outdoors stuff that is family friendly (Fort Sill had some stuff but it was OUTDOORS outdoors, no kids or wives stuff). River cruises, Lake Cruises, lots of nice shops and places to eat. Hunting up the ying yang. Easy gun laws (unless its a pistol then brace yourself), all sorts of guns shops and outdoor places (they even have a firearms section in the PX, how cool is that?). The Mall is easily as good as any in OKC, and there is a much bigger one in Syracuse an hour south. Lots of GOOD chain resturants (unlike Lawton). TWO Drive In Theaters (we went to one last weekend, first time for Tamara and she loved it). And the people go out of their way to show that they are NOT like people in NYC. I have had two people apologize to me about NYC and how it must have "ruined" my expectations of what "real" NY is like.

Reminds me about how everyone in Nebraska keeps saying don't judge us by Omaha.

The only issues I have here is that housing is a pain. We are on the wait list for a house on Fort Drum and there isn't a whole lot of rentals. What is here is too small, too old or not easily leasable for less than a year.

On the whole, this is looking like a great move. I highly encourage my friends and relatives to visit us while we are here, this is a great place. But wait until after July so we can get a house first.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

On the Road Again

Hi everyone. I am typing this from Hammond, Indiana where we (Baby Girl, Wife and me) are staying for a few days to visit her parents and brother. We are in route to Fort Drum, New York for my new assignment in the 10th Mountain Division.

Fun times to say the least. The actual packing was simply insane. Tamara had to watch the baby and I had to supervise everything, so it was not 2 people moving it was 1 person moving two people. And it worked out that way, we had a bunch of stuff packed accidently when I had to step out for a few minutes to get the car weighed. So I have to show up early to get some gear.

But overall it has been a good trip so far. Baby girl has been enjoying it (the windmill farm in Iowa had her attention and then some), and even Tamara is relaxing some.

Army-wise Fort Sill was pretty good to me. I had a tough job but enjoyed it. I had two very good battalion commanders and I did some good work while there. I was able to get a couple VERY good schools before I left which will help a lot in the new gig. I got a wife and a baby girl, so even better. I also got Branch Qualified and then some with my tour as Bn XO (you need a minimum of 1 year in one of three different slots, and I got 2 years and 2 months), and a GREAT OER. I am pretty pleased with my last two years+ at Sill.

Fort Drum is going to be a whole new thing though. I am trying for base housing, and I have a job in Division Staff. A pretty high up one artillery-wise too. I have never worked higher than BDE, so this will be interesting.

The last thing is what is coming up in the fall. Some of you may not have heard yet, but I am heading to Afghanistan this fall. I will be working at Division Staff and I am working in RC South area. Yes, the area where most of the action is going on. But my job is a staff pouge so I shouldn't be doing anything too dangerous (of course, I said that the last time and look what happened).

Monday, March 15, 2010

Purple

Yes, Purple. That is the topic today. It is a color and in the military it stands for JOINT. Not the smoking kind, but the very cool world of Joint Operations.

Joint Operations are simply operations involving all the services (Army, Navy, AF and USMC), some of them, other Government agencies (say DOD, DOS, ATF, DEA, CIA, or FBI or any combination there of), and other countries (the Superfriends: Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, or others such as South Korea, Japan and other NATO types). While this may not sound like a major thing (hey that is how we always do things right?) it is actually a fairly new development.

Sort of.

We (the US military) have been working as a team for quite a while. Earliest examples are the Mexican War and several impressive operations in the US Civil War (see Grant's Western Campaigns along the Mississippi). But these were not doctrine, they were usually ad hoc and much depended on how well the CO's got along or what the orders from Washington said. But in the late 1980's Congress passed a neat law known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act. This act forced the services to actually work as a team by law.

For example: instead of having a fleet, an air force, and a army in an area of the world working through their branches in the rear, you had a defined theater in which their was one boss. You could have an Army General commanding Navy and AF units, or Navy commanding the same or AF (even a Marine in theory). This commander reported directly back to the SECDEF and not through the parent services. This mean you had truly one team. And to make sure everyone worked together the DOD put out Joint Doctrine to get everyone "speaking" the same language.

All of this may sound "duh", but it is a unique development in the world of warfighting. The US (and the Superfriends) are really the only countries that do this. And it shows, the US has been running Joint Operations since Panama and has had pretty much major successes in just about every one. Panama, Desert Storm, OIF all successes (yes OIF is pretty much a done deal and we have won, someone tell MSNBC). Somalia not so much, but that could be argued as a break in method (Clinton set up two task forces, not one unified command). OEF is ongoing so we will see.

Purple is the color code of all Joint Doctrine and I have been attending JOFEC (Joint Operations Fires Effects Coordinator) these last two weeks and we talk nothing but Joint. It is extremely interesting, and also a major challenge. Getting everyone synched is huge challenge and it is a complex process. We are still working the kinks out of it. But kinks or not, this makes for a incredibly successful military as well as other elements. Please note we include civilian agencies in this so we usually get a full up team effort or this with everyone more or less pulling together. It also makes the movies about the army running off and doing craziness on its own rather funny for anyone who knows about this (if you have to work together for everything how do you do things without someone else finding out and diming you out?).

As military history goes this is an exciting time to be in the military.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Motivation



And for those requiring motivation...

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

War On The Western Front

Book review time. I finished this yesterday, due to paternity leave and the snow storm I had enough time to polish it off along with the book "Afghanistan". I want to review this one first as it was much more interesting.

The War On The Western Front by Dr. Gary Sheffield was focused on the soldiers and tactics used on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 in WWI. It was very interesting and kept my attention the whole time. The first half of the book discussed a "typical" example of a French, German, British and American Soldier. Why they joined (or if they were drafted), basic training, how the training changed over time, equipment used, and so on. Food, medical treatment, life in the trenches and so on where hit on in good detail.

The second half detailed the equipment and tactics and how they evolved over time. This to me was the really fascinating part. I have become convinced that WWI is one of the most poorly understood wars of all time. I think it has suffered from "Vietnam" syndrome, which I mean that it was so politically charged for so long that you really had to have most of the people involved die off before you could have some real discussions about it. And when it came time to start having them, other things were in the way. 20 years after you had WWII, which kept everyone focused. Then 40 years after you had Vietnam, and no one wanted to look back that far. Now everyone involved is dead, so we have no more first hand accounts. There are lots of books out there on WWI, but most are pretty rare.

The part about this book that is very fascinating is the discussion on tactics. WWI is commonly viewed as a mindless bloodbath in which everyone was blundering around until one side finally caved in due to exhaustion. This is only part of the truth. WWI is a great example of technological impact on people and how difficult it can be to understand, especially if you are trying to get huge organizations and bureaucracies to work FAST. Modern staffs and organization like we have now did not exist back then, and you had commanders who thought the telephone was suspect for field use and had earned their spurs charging Arabs in the Sudan (Germans and British). People who couldn't figure out how best to use a machine gun. WWI was an example of a world (literally) trying best to figure out dozens of new ideas, concepts and machines in the worst possible conditions. Results were of course messy and very misunderstood. This book brought it out and showed that contrary to popular belief, change was constant and progress was made. And that for every new change, more work was then needed to figure out step two.

A very good book, I highly recommend it.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Victoria Maria Eason





Here is my baby girl, born 31 January 2010 at 1949 hours. She weighs in a 7 pounds and 10 ounces, had her mother's eyes (brown), 21 inches long, and according to everyone asked she has her father's toes (I have no idea how that topic came up, but there you are).

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Day 3

As punishment for posting an AAR the power died at 2200 Thursday and has not come back on yet. So we have been on generator power ever since. Yesterday I had to go to Lawton for gas and the drive was scary. Every tree in the area has been coated in ice and most have broken in half. The temperatures have not gone above freezing yet so no ice has melted except on the roads. All the power and phone lines are sagging nearly to the ground.

But we are ok. My 4400 watt generator is running like a clock. It produces 3500 watts regular with surge capacity of 4400. After reading the guide and some experimentation we have figured out our setup.

One tank of gas (4 gals) gives us ten hours. We can power one space heater, two floor lamps, tv and dvd. We can use our G Foreman grill/hotplate with either the heater or lamp. So we had noodles and vension stew and borscht for supper. We use the garage as the fridge. We also discovered that our hot water heater is well insulated and we have hot water (well warm this morning) so we have able to take short showers too.

I have I'd'd a couple of changes I think I will put in. One, I need to have some items with easier access for plugging in (aka the fridge). Two, I should get the fuzebox modified so I can plug directly into the house instead of running cords. I also need the switch to prevent returning power from blowing up the fuzebox (you turn the house from grid to generator and back). Three, a bigger generator may be in order. 4400/3500 watts does ok, but I can barely use 2 space heaters on this one. A 5500 watt would be able to handle a bigger load so we could use more of the house (more heaters).

The generator is use is a PowerMax 4400. Its made in China originally for RV power and its pretty good. It cost me 450 dollars through Amazon. It was one of their top ten recommended choices and it was a good buy. It was several hundred dollars cheaper than compable models. It is a pull start but it has started on the first pull each time. You can get these models with an electric start and I may do that for my wife's sake next time. PowerMax also makes 5500 models and that will be my next step up.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Being Prepared

Well, I got my fill of being justified today. I have always been someone who believed that if you do something "just in case" then it usually doesn't happen. And if it does, then you are ready for it. However this does tend to make me have a bunch of stuff that usually just sits around gathering dust waiting for that "just in case" moment.

We had that moment starting at 1100 today when the Ice Storm hit Fort Sill. WE have just finally dug out from the huge snow storm and everyone was thinking we were ready for this one. But it occurred to me that this was an ICE storm, not snow, and that is a world of difference.

Good thing I was thinking ahead a bit. Part of my JIC stockpile is a propane camp heater, two lanterns (one battery and one hand crank), and a generator with all necessary items to provide heat, light, coolness (a fan really), power to charge cell phones and even allow me to watch TV should I be bored. I even have a small gas tank (15 gallons). But since we are moving I had drained it and no gas. But I had a bad feeling about the coming storm and took some lunch time to fill a 5 gallon can.

We were released from Sill at 1300 (I left at 1400 due to an emergency in the unit), and the drive home was really making me nervous. Ever tree was coated in 1/2 inch thick ice and many had snapped off or snapped in half. Power lines were also coated. Being from where I am from, I knew this storm was going to screw up the power royally. When I got home I pull out the emergency locker and got ready.

At 1500 our power went out and it stayed off till about 2100 tonight. The power company couldn't give me a definite time so I got to break out the gear. My wife, who tends to give me grief for some of this stuff, has repeatedly stated that she married correctly after I got everything going. My generator worked fine, we had lights and heat and comfort.

What I learned:

1. Know your gear. I initially tried to used a smaller electric generator (think a big car battery with a built in plug set) to power the heater and figured out that it didn't pack nearly enough juice to do anything. However it was great for cell phones and small stuff. I am still needing to figure out how much stuff I can really use on my generator, but it worked great for the basics.

2. Have your stuff set up. My gear was mostly ready to use, but I had to re-arrange my garage in order to get the generator into a workable place (can't keep it indoors due to exhaust), and get the power cords strung. Spent about 30 minutes outside in an ice storm due to this, not fun.

3. Test gear prior to use. I violated this twice, I hadn't tested my generator or my propane heater. Both worked well, but what if?

4. Back up to the back up. I had several light sources ready if the generator didn't work, and two heaters (well, one heater and the other was a small cook stove but in a pinch it could provide some heat).

5. Have the plan ready. I had already figured out how to use what I had for best effect. In this case, one floor lamp and one space heater in the master bedroom with the rest of the house closed off. Heat is trapped in one area, and the floor lamp gives tons of light. Plus I was able to counteract the loss of heat due to having to crack a door for the power cord by running under several other doors which "sealed the leak" in a manner of speaking.

6. Know you emergency. Figure out what are likely problems in your geographical area for preparing. And then figure out what MAY happen and be ready for that too (ICE in Ok? Who would have thought THAT?). This isn't so hard actually, when you boil it down, most emergencies end up needing the same stuff (food, water, medical supplies, power, commo, tools) so in preparing for one, you can in many case prepare for all.

We were able to be warm and do a lot of stuff (I read some important stuff for my next assignment and Tamara worked on some accountancy paperwork) while some other folks were having to stay in their cars for warmth. And being that my wife is pregnant, I don't like the idea of my wife and baby being in an unheated house should this storm linger. So I have some serious piece of mind.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

We Win

Just in case you missed it (and since it certainly didn't make MSM I am sure you did). Yesterday the USMC pulled out its final unit in Iraq and handed it's areas of responsiblity over the the US Army and Iraq Military.

Area of Responsibility? Anbar, part of the Sunni Triangle and most heavily fought over area in Iraq (aside from some areas in Baghdad). No explosions, no attacks, no nothing bugged the ceremony. Which was unlike the one we had for FOB Danger, when we had a rocket attack during the handover (missed of course, but a PR coup for the insurgents).

No more Marines in Iraq and the Army will be down to 50,000 troops by summer's end. Hmmm, sounds like victory to me.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Words that make you go "DAMN"

From General Gulzarak Zadran (Afghan Army General and Mujahideen Commander):

"I should mention here that the Russian Army is a worthless military institution and that no professional soldier will give them a high mark in discipline or the will to fight. They are useless."

I took this quote from "The Other Side Of The Mountain" by Lester W. Grau. He made this statement in 1988. There is a lot to be said for an all volunteer force and this quote hits it home. You can't make a professional military when your basic building blocks are fear and brutality.

Book Review: "Hitler's War"

Hitler's War is the latest Harry Turtledove book. The change in history this time is that the war starts in 1938 when Chamberlain DOESN'T appease the Nazis and Czechslovokia is attacked. That and General Franco doesn't become the head of the Nationalist Forces in Spain (the original leader doesn't die in a plane crash).

First off, I have to say that I loved the concept. I have often wondered how something like this would have played out. Turtledove had some interesting twists such as Poland allying with Germany because they were more afraid of Stalin than Hitler in 1938 (and really who can blame them). He also added the twist where the Germans don't have the plane crash with the invasion plans in Belgium so the attack through the Ardennes Forest doesn't happen and we have a conventional attack through the Low Countries and Belgium instead. End result is another almost successful drive to Paris, but the Germans again can't quite pull it out against an intact BEF/French Army that has comparible numbers and tanks. The fun twist is that in 1938 the Germans were tooling around in Panzer 2 tanks armed with 20mm cannons so not only do the Germans have worse tanks but they have a lot less than in 1940 and are still not quite up to Blitzkreig level stuff. They never are able to break through and can only drive the Allies back.

But the counter is that this book wasn't all that well written. I read the Amazon Reviews and they were mostly negative and I can see why. Very disjointed writing and its execution isn't quite up to his better stuff. I am hoping the sequel is better as I love the idea. Stalin is still blundering around shooting everyone, Poland jumped on the Nazis side, and the Germans start the war on much more equal footing and are not the world-beaters they were in 1940. But I think I am going to wait for the paperback on the sequel though.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Lord's Resistance Army

This is a REDFOR post about a practically unknown group of terrorists/insurgents/guerrilla fighters that are responsible for destabilizing a rather large chunk of Central Africa. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was founded 16 years ago by a guy named Joseph Kony. It was one of the numerous militias that spun up around the time that a lot of the third world dictators left over from the Cold War starting dying off and their countries spun into civil war.

The LRA got its start 16 years ago in northern Uganda. Its roots are tribal (Acholi), and its started with the usual complaints that the government was favoring other tribes over them. Religion also played a part (this area is where Christians, Animists/traditionalists, and Muslims all meet). Kony started up a revolutionary movement that rapidly got nasty. The Sudanese government provided some support to destabilized Uganda and Southern Sudanese rebels and things got out of hand.

While I would normally go into detail about tactics, weapons and capabilities of this organization there isn't much to hit on. Kony's force is estimated to be less than 1000 hard core fighters, but they have had an impact way out of proportion to their numbers. The LRA has raided Uganda, Central African Republic, Sudan, Congo and Chad in its history (and all them in the last 2 years). They have raided for slaves (for their use and to sell on the slave markets in Sudan, yes they exist), child soldiers (they are one of the big users in Africa), food, supplies, and sometimes just blood. In 2007/08 Christmas season the LRA launched a series of attacks in various countries (mostly Uganda) where LRA fighters hacked dozens of people to death in churches (45 in one attack alone).

The LRA was based out of Garamba National Park in the Congo until early 2008 when Ugandan and Congo/UN troops swept the area. Since then the LRA has been constantly on the move hitting anyone and anything they can, usually civilians.

Despite numerous attempts to make peace with this group, the LRA appears to be a group that needs to be hunted down and wiped out. The main reason negotiations have failed is that Kony has been indited on numerous counts of War Crimes ranging from mass murder to using child soldiers. He is looking at life and since he can't get amnisty he appears to want to go down fighting. Uganda and the Congo are refusing to let the criminal charges go, so this won't end nicely.

This is prime example of how Africa was set up for failure when Europe left. One group with ties to various tribes in several areas has moved from place to place causing huge amounts of suffering and disruption. Kony's extended tribe is spread out over at least two countries and he has recruited followers from a total of five countries. He isn't a problem for one country, but for the whole region.

This is also a great example of the MSM's failure to provide real news. The LRA is something that should be front page and should be a major focus of effort to run down. The UN is kinda sorta involved in finding him, but if the US ran this bozo down and killed or captured him, that would do more good in central Africa than any 10 USA For Africa Concerts would. It would make us a lot of friends and do something tangible for regional security. But its Africa and the US MSM could care less.

Learning To Eat Soup With A Knife

Book review time. "Learning To Eat Soup With A Knife" is a book written about COIN operations (COIN: COunter-InsurgeNy) by a US Army Officer (Lt. Colonel at the publishing time). I don't have the book at hand right now so you will have to forgive me on the name.

This book book is a contrast between two counter-insurgency operations, one successful and one not. In this case its the British in Malaya and US in Vietnam. The book was very good and took a hard look at both sides. The final point is that the British were able to win due to them being a "learning organization" where as the US Army (at the time) was not. This book pulled no punches and I have to admit that the US Army really botched it. When we were fighting in Vietnam we (the Army) did a pretty good job, but we totally fumbled everything else. And that is the whole point of COIN in many cases.

The British had their issues as the book shows. But they had a military much more open to ideas and willing to try everything in order to win. Having a military with vast experience in the "colonies" and a police force and political department with equal amounts of experience and the ability to work together were major points. I found it odd that the British were the ones more open to "bottom up" ideas in this case, but then again I am in a different Army than the one my dad was in.

The thing that really stood out for me was the parallels I saw in the book in modern day. But I am glad to say that the US Army I am in seems to be more in line with the British in this book. Not quite (we had some serious infighting to get the COIN experts listened to in order for things like the Surge, and the Son of Iraq created), but definately better than Westmoreland and the MACV. However, I will put out that we need some serious education in other branches of government. We have some work needed there (and in the Army for working with them).

If you want to get an education on guerrilla warfare, this isn't the book. But if you are interested in some (reasonably) clear explanations of COIN, and what works, and what you need to have to find things that do work (there is no one solution to insurgency, every case is different as the book repeatedly explains), this is a great read. The biggest thing I learned is what factors make an organization a "Learning" Organization. If you have that, you have a military (and government) that can probably pull off a successful COIN operation.