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| West Point Military Academy scraps Vietnam for Iraq |
| 2006-08-05 |
| Three soldiers crouch in the dust behind a plastic barricade and peer up the road. They know something's coming — maybe out of the deep scrub lining the road, maybe somewhere ahead on the asphalt, already steaming hot. They watch and wait. Then they see it. A man with his hands over his head, two cylinders and a detonator strapped to his chest, walking steadily closer and pleading in broken English: "Help me. I've got a bomb on me. Help me!" The soldiers bellow at him to stop, to stand still. Don't touch that detonator! Now the troops get their orders, shouted from their squad leader down the road — don't go to him and don't let him come to you. Just wait. The man with the bomb pleads, he begs, he gets angry and steps forward, he stops and begs again. "Sir, one more step and we will open fire on you," says one of the soldiers, his helmet low over his eyes, his rifle gripped tight. Is the man aiming to get close enough to kill them? Is he innocent? Can they convince him to wait, while they wait, for a bomb expert? Above all, how do they find their way through these questions with loaded weapons, a ticking bomb, the confusion of shouted commands from behind and mangled, Arabic-inflected English ahead? The bomb isn't real. The soldiers' guns are loaded and heavy, but the bullets are not deadly. The Iraqi man is actually an American soldier, an instructor. The road is half a world away from Baghdad, winding through upstate New York's leafy woods where West Point cadets translate classroom lessons into action. This year, for the first time, the U.S. Military Academy has scrapped its Vietnam-era summer training for scenarios drawn straight from Fallujah and Ramadi. The idea is to train tomorrow's military leaders in warfare that's emerging today in Iraq and Afghanistan — a stew of tactical maneuvers, police actions, cultural conflicts and negotiations, all framed by the laws of war. A day with the cadets shows what they're up against. The man — call him the Iraqi victim — tells his story in a jumble: Men came in a van. They told him the bomb would go off in five minutes. He has a wife and family. Won't the Americans help him? The three soldiers at the front barricade try to keep him calm. "We'll help you, just be patient, sir," says the female soldier. The victim quiets, his breath ragged. The squad leader, also a cadet, tells the three that they can't let the victim get any closer or they will be endangering themselves and the FOB — the forward operating base they are guarding. Each of the three soldiers tries to talk to the victim, until the squad leader orders: "Just one do the negotiating." The female soldier, delegated to backup, grumbles just so the other two can hear: "But I was doing the best job controlling him." The negotiator sticks his head up a little higher over his plastic wall and tries to get more information: Who grabbed you? What did they look like? Did they say anything else? But the victim is too distraught. He rambles. He steps forward again. The squad leader yells out from behind his barricade: Fire a warning shot. If he keeps coming, engage. "Stop right there!" the negotiator shouts. The backup's foot rocks side to side, again and again, her toe digging deeper into a rut of mud, leaves and spent bullets. Sweat shines on the negotiator's face. Alongside him is the big guy on the M249 — they call it a SAW for Squad Automatic Weapon, but it could as well be named for the ripping sound it makes when fired. Be patient, the soldiers say. The bomb expert is coming. Five more minutes. "But you already say five minutes," the victim shouts and lurches forward. The backup raises her rifle to her eye. The victim steps forward again. The backup fires a single shot into the ground. It seems that even the insect buzz in the brush quiets for a moment. The victim stands still, the dust floating around his feet. Hearts pound. Nobody speaks. Then another "Iraqi" comes down the road, says he is the victim's cousin, demands help. Together now, they complain even louder and step forward and the negotiator warns them once, twice, not to come any closer. He tells the big guy on the SAW to fire at the next step. And the victim takes that step. The big gun bursts a half-dozen shots and the victim falls to the ground, holding his leg, shouting in pain. His cousin yells: "American bad! American bad!" Now it is confusion among the soldiers and their commander. Why did you fire? He kept advancing. Don't shoot! He's still alive? Is he coming closer? The soldiers fire again. Now, the victim is dead. Lesson over. A few moments later, the soldiers, now clearly students, flop down in a circle on the grass to discuss what went right and what went wrong — the AAR, short in the acronym-loving military for After Action Review. With a body on the ground, can this be called a good morning? Or is it a bad one? If only it were that easy. The cadets' superiors break down what went right and wrong. The good: they survived. "You'll die here two or three times a day," Maj. David Phillips tells them. "But you only die down the line once." And they successfully followed some key steps: Taking it slow and steady — by talking, then warning, then firing a warning shot, then firing a lethal weapon. Staying calm, trying to negotiate. But they wound up with a dead man who may have been innocent, an enraged cousin bound to fuel anti-American sentiment or more direct action, and a live bomb — if they hadn't exploded it with the imprecise machine gun and injured or killed themselves. Some students ask if it would really take that long to get a bomb expert. (Probably longer, they're told). Another cadet warns that the way it played out would just do more damage to the perception of the American effort in Iraq. (Agreed). And then Robert Pecha, a 19-year-old from Sonoma, Calif., pipes up. "Sir, I've got a question about shooting him again. Is that allowed at all or are you going straight to jail?" Phillips nods his head: The victim was no longer a threat, so no follow-up shots should have been fired. "It was a serious moral dilemma," Phillips says. "It was a brutal lesson." |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #7 Also, don't approach a dead bomber. Somebody with a remote detonator may be watching. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-08-05 22:58 |
| #6 Well, I'd rather go straight to jail than let my squad get blown to bits by a wounded bomber... |
| Posted by: gb506 2006-08-05 22:55 |
| #5 Personally, I think the scenario played out about right. Often, there is not the luxury of time to do what these soldiers did. Such a delay might result in the deaths of your own soldiers. The lessons of the Pacific island campaign of WW II should not be forgotten--don't do too much "navel" inspection and don't fret too much about moral ambiguties in heated combat. Winning the war has a way of sorting things. Heard the other day that Faleuja is one of the safer places to be in Iraq. Might have something to do with the Marines pacifying this city in the second battle of Faleuja. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2006-08-05 22:54 |
| #4 The victim was no longer a threat, so no follow-up shots should have been fired Wrong, he still had an IED strapped to his chest, he was still a threat. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2006-08-05 21:39 |
| #3 The lessons of Vietnam could be even more brutal. A SF LTC told us this one: Way behind enemy lines, his small band of Hmong had just come back from a long mission and were exhausted, when they get an emergency mission: a major flight of US aircraft will be flying over a significant SAM battery in three hours. Unless that SAM battery is destroyed, those aircraft will be chopped to ribbons. They grabbed whatever weapons they could and literally had to run through the jungle to get to the SAM site. En route, they chanced across an NVA soldier out by himself, and captured him. Here was the problem. They couldn't leave anyone to guard him, or take him to their secret base; and they couldn't take him with them. What would you do? |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-08-05 21:31 |
| #2 We owe them all we have |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-08-05 20:55 |
| #1 These cadets are getting IED detection training, live fire exercises in the field, and a lot of discussion about professional ethics and behavior -- plus some who are close to graduating are spending time with GEN(ret) Tommy Franks talking about leadership in combat. The rising seniors chose as their class ring insignia a '911' in which the '11' is formed by the Twin Towers of the WTC. It's not a game. Most graduates have a good chance of seeing or directly supporting combat, and they know it. And came and stayed anyway. We owe them a lot. |
| Posted by: USMAer 2006-08-05 20:33 |