May Newsletter - sfa-chapter

MAY 2014
VOL 51
Chapter 16 Newsle er Organiza on and Responsibili es:
President’s Message Why is it that so many journalists sensa
onalize reports at the expense of their professional integrity and whoever might collaterally get in their way? I, like many others in the na on, was grief stricken when the news broke about the a acks at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and the Village Shalom Re rement Community in Overland Park this past month. Who wouldn’t be? A boy and his grandfather cruelly and callously gunned down, and a daughter visi ng her invalid mother, the same. I was equally grief stricken when I read the following in a report published the next day: “The 73‐year‐old former Green Beret and Ku Klux Klan member accused of killing three people at two Jewish centers in Kansas has a long history of hate‐fueled behavior and violent threats, including repeated tangles with authori es and civil rights groups.” With a single thoughtless stroke of the brush, the en re SF community was painted as a cesspool of intolerant hatemongering racists. There was, of course, no men on that Frazier Glenn Cross (AKA Glenn Miller), the perpetrator, was discharged from the Army for distribu ng racist literature. Here is a case where military jus ce and core values worked Suspense:
st
exactly as intended, and s
ll some journalists chose to irresponsibly imply Newsle er published (Web):
1 of each that the very organiza on that acted decisively to expunge this odd numbered month malignancy was somehow culpable. I am sure that the authors of this th
Input due to editor: 20 of each informa on will deny that it was their intent, but without a doubt they even numbered month are all well aware of how this type of sensa onalism both gains readers Dra due to President: 27th of each and influences views. It is, a er all, their cra . even numbered month Racism is an especially sensi ve subject within the Special Opera ons Final Dra due 29th of each community, which has long been spotlighted for having dispropor onately fewer minori es than the military as a whole. While even numbered month this is not news, efforts on the part of civilian and military leaders to aggressively recruit more minori es into Spec Ops to counter those percep ons might be to some. In fact, the DOD funded a Rand study in 1999 a er nearly 10‐yrs of debate on the ma er in the hopes that Rand might bless us with some sort of divine revela on that would have minori es running for Spec Ops units. Interes ng, a er 25‐years of a en on the sta s cs are not much be er that they were in 1989. I personally believe that the concern is legi mate; my ra onale being that it is in the best interest of na onal security to avoid having organiza ons that are too homogenous with regard to race, ethnicity, or religion. That, being fairly easy to iden fy, is much more complex to change, because people can’t be forced into jobs they either don’t want or aren’t qualified for. Nor should longstanding and established standards be tailored to improve appearances by making way for people who are not of sufficient caliber. Senior leaders in the DOD are claiming that this is a priority issue Editor:
Glen Craig Sec ons:
Message from the President: Dave Shell Treasurers Report: Kevin Pa on Sec. Rpt (Staff Mee ng Minutes):
John Pa erson Sick Call/Obituary: Chaplain Butch Hall Blast from the Past: Glen Craig Special Recogni on: John Pa erson Upcoming Events: John Pa erson Calendar: John Pa erson Human Interest Story: Chapter at large SFA Na onal HQ Update: Dave Shell A er Ac on Report: Jim Lessler Membership Info: Roy Sayer Adver sements: Glen Craig Page 1 because partner na ons prefer/respond be er to Spec Ops troops who look more like them or share the same ethnic roots. This is absolutely misguided and is indica ve of senior leaders who possess li le prac cal experience working hand‐in‐hand with indigenous peoples. As Americans we are unlikely to ever encounter a member of a foreign military who is ethnic American; however in our country we have groups of Americans who are members of larger global Diasporas. Our military, like our country, is representa ve of the mel ng pot that defines us demographically. As such, it’s not uncommon for members of the US armed forces to have local, cultural, and family kinships when deployed. It is also true that when par cipa ng in military exchanges some foreigners are quick to try and gain advantage from these kinds of links. If you understand them it makes perfect sense, because you would know that their iden ty as a member of a specific ethnic group is o en much deeper than their iden ty as na onalists (read Pashtu’s and the GOA). For a US service member to (as I’ve seen many do) reject the embrace of distant or not so distant cousins by poin ng out that they are American first can come as quite a shock to the solicitor, and o en leads to anger. A high profile case in point is the very recent example of Ambassador Gary Locke, former US ambassador to China. Though ethnic Chinese and, from what I have seen, from a conserva ve and tradi onal Chinese family, he was not well liked by the People’s Republic of China. As a result, he was given measured respect and was only extended the obligatory diploma c protocols. Upon his departure the Chinese News Service vindic vely cri cized him, prin ng comments such as: ‐ ‐ ‐ Locke was a "yellow‐skinned white‐hearted banana man". “Mr. Locke not only does not understand the wri ng of his ancestors, but also failed to understand Chinese law,” “If your ancestors had known about [your professional record], they would have thrown you out of the house,” All indica ons are that Ambassador Locke was filial in his duty by represen ng the best interest of the United States at all mes, and the Chinese despised him for it as if his ac ons were treasonous. While Ambassador Locke is clearly a worthy patriot, it also goes without saying that we have to be careful not to put people at risk who are ill equipped or ill prepared for the fe ng and the seduc on that is always the first and preferred COA by foreign military intelligence services and foreign contractors. For those who s ll have family members who reside in‐country, the use of coercion, if COA 1 fails, is always a real possibility as well. Another example of how this could play out would be a planned mil‐to‐mil engagement between the US and another country, say, like Vietnam. Imagine the recep on if we sent an en re A‐Team of Vietnamese‐Americans over to train their troops, na ve speakers at that. At best, they would be asked to leave, and at worst they could be arrested and imprisoned, and I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you why. Here again is another illustra on; what if we sent an A‐Team of ethnic Pakistanis to train elements of the Indian Army? They’re kind of the same, right? I can tell you what; we would never be invited back. That senior leaders fail to see these salient and obvious points is disappoin ng. With regard to claims and concerns of racism within Spec Ops, I’m sure that there are plenty of examples, and I myself have firsthand experience with it on both sides of the finger poin ng; no different from anyone or anywhere else in the military or government. But more o en I have been witness to a genuine respect, brotherly love, and a commitment to one another that transcends race. I think part of what makes Spec Ops special is that in spite of any perceived differences, pride in our accomplishments and our Unit bonds us in a way that becomes bigger than our disparateness. What I am trying to say here is that we might not have a lot of minori es in SF, but the ones we have are our brothers and we would give our lives for each other. Also worthy of note is that Spec Ops seems to have a dispropor onate abundance of mul ‐racial/cultural families, to include mine. My observa ons are that if racial a tudes in Spec Ops are different from those of other military units or the na on as a whole, it is because fewer members are racially biased. Any racists in our midst either keep their mouths shut or they get put on the road. To conclude, as stated above, I don’t know why more minori es aren’t interested in Special Opera ons. What I do know is that from the start of training to the last day of service, no ma er what your race, color, creed, ethnicity, or religion, Special Opera ons units will give you a fair shake and nothing more. It’s all on you, and you be er be loyal and commi ed, and you be er bring your A‐game every single day. That’s all I wanted and that’s all I got. Keep the faith, Dave Chapter XVI SFA, William R. Card Chapter
Mee ng Minutes April 12, 2014
Call to Order: President Dave Shell called the mee ng to order at 11:03 in the 1st SFG can na Ft Lewis. Page 2 Pledge of Allegiance: How did we all forget to do this? Opening Prayer: Chapter Chaplain Butch Hall gave the opening prayer. Welcome and President’s Report: President Dave Shell welcomed all members, wives and guests. He emphasized the necessity for periodic changes of execu ve commi ee office holders to be er reflect the Chapter as it con nues to grow and evolve into a dynamic organiza on representa ve of re red and ac ve duty members of the Special Forces family. The Vice President and Secretary posi ons will have new members assuming the chapter vote supports the change. The current President & Treasurer will retain their posi ons for another 2 yrs if supported by the membership and not challenged this elec on. Elec ons should be finalized by the next mee ng in June. Members Present: (at least those that signed in) Bud Lawson, Jim Beisley, Willi Lindner, Jesse Basher, Dennis Guiler, Bryan Rowe, Carey Pennington, Butch Hall, Dave Shell, John Pa erson, Paul Bagshaw, Marshall Beck, Dan Burwell, Brian Hess, Harlow Stevens, Walt Hetzler, Keith Looker, John Gebbie, Jim Lessler, Jay Lathrop, Ramiro Alonso, Ron Rismon, Glen Craig, Mike Cassidy, Eric Heid and Nick Marvais. Wives Present: Elaine Lessler and Carol Stevens. Guests: Jesse Bashar Nat’l Guard (SF qualified) currently on ac ve duty suppor ng the 5th SFG (and now the 1st SFG?). He plans to join the Chapter XVI. Rachelle Schmid. Sick Calls: Yu B is on hospice and appears to be doing well with good symptom management. Ed Booth is being treated for cancer. John Gibbons will begin radia on treatments and Jim Lessler is recovering well from a “silent” hemorrhagic stroke (take note you members on blood thinners). Secretary’s Report: The Secretary made a mo on for the general membership to accept the February Minutes as wri en. The mo on was seconded and passed. The Secretary then expressed his heart felt thanks for the support he received from the Execu ve Commi ee and general membership during his 4 yr tenure as Chapter Secretary (inspite of the fact I was voted into office during my hospitaliza on for pneumonia). Treasurers Report: Treasurer Kevin Pa on was not able to a end the mee ng so the report is unavailable. Quartermaster’s Report: Mike Cassidy says sales for the last quarter was only $75.00. No new inventory. He says we need to sell the merchandise on hand. Mike will not be facilita ng acquisi on of name plates. Roy Sayer has offered to collect names and submit to either Tacoma Rubber Stamp and/or Coleman Stamp. Past (Old) Business: Ongoing plans to hire an administrator to manage our online web site. A target date has not been established to complete this process. The SF Associa on has again been asked to be a presenter at the Sniper School gradua on. This usually includes the presenta on of a donated weapon from Remington and a bo le of our own labled wine. The membership was reminded to contribute stories and photographs thru Glen Craig for publica on in our chapter newsle er or Bill Gates for the Drop. Talk around the Associa on is that Chapter XVI may have the best newsle er out there (well done Glen). Neary award winners John Armazzini and Walt Hetzler will receive their awards in June at the SF Assoc Conven on in Columbia, S.C. Present (New) Business: Chapter elec ons for execu ve commi ee is upon us. Ballots will be disbursed to chapter members via email. Results to be compiled by the Secretary for the next mee ng in June. Eric Heid has agreed to run for Vice President giving VP Emeritus Captain Ron the freedom to con nue “flying life’s longitudes and la tudes“. Paul Bagshaw SGM re red has agreed to run for Secretary. Unless there are write in votes these candidates should be running unopposed. 1st SFG has asked the Associa on if we would do the presenta on (knife) at the NCO/Soldier of the year ceremony. We will con nue to par cipate in the 1st Group Organiza on Day by providing the beer. The rededica on of the 1st Group Memorial Wall will be May 15th. Rachel Schmid is coordina ng. She further explained that there is a 2 year window for families to par cpate in the dedica on of the Ft Bragg Memorial Wall. A coin is struck from the original wall and given to next of kin. 1st SFG conven on is 6/9‐6/21/2‐14 in Columbia, S.C. The Chapter will be represented by Walt Hetzler since he needs to pick up his Neary Award anyway. Outgoing Vice President Captain Ron Rismon will be hos ng the Chapter Picnic Aug. 9th. He whets our appe te with promises of Crab and fresh fish (halibut?) flown in fresh from Alaska thru his many connec ons in the Airline industry. The Roller Girls will once again be present to serve up the liba ons. For the Good of the Order: First in Asia board member Rachel Schmid says a Jim Dietz print will be sold for $100 a print and $250 for ar st proof raising funds for the organiza on. Rollout will be in Aug but a presale online will be available. The Mayfield Coffee Stop s ll has slots to fill for the Labor Day weekend 8/25‐8/29/2014. Chapter needs 2 purchase an addi onal 2 coffee pots with a 100 cup and 60 cup capacity. Priced at between $80 and $112. A special shout out to members Willi Lindner and Jim Beisley for their extraordinary efforts reconnec ng inac ve members to the chapter. It’s members like this that guarantee the health of our chapter. Well done! Closing Prayer: Chapter Chaplain Butch Hall Mee ng Adjourned: 11:58 followed by another outstanding chapter potluck. Respec ully Submi ed:
John Pa erson Secretary Chapter XVI SFA Page 3 Dinosaurs Luncheon, 2‐28‐14
Chapter 16 members and guests were in a
endance: Bob & Joanne Dimond, Bud Lawson, Rich Reilley, Dennis Guiler, Glen Craig, Jim & Elaine Lessler, Ed & Erma Booth, Mike & Joy Cassidy, John & Jenny Gebbie, Butch Hall, and Captain Ron Rismon. Chapter 43 members in a endance: Skip & Sung Hee E nger. J. K. Wright Memorial Breakfast, 3‐1‐14
Chapter 16 members and guests were in a endance: Jim & Elaine Lessler (IMO Ernie Jamison), Dennis Guiler, John & Jenny Gebbie, Nick Marvais (IMO Eulis Presley), Carl (Ed) Mires, Glen Craig, Ed & Erma Booth, Butch Hall, Ted Wicorek, Paul & GG Waldburger (IMO Bart & Mike), Rob Wekell, Ken Garcy, Bryan Rowe, and Dave Shell (IMO Jack Savant). Chapter 43 member in a endance: Skip E nger. Dinosaurs Luncheon, 3‐28‐14
Chapter 16 members and guests were in a endance: Bob & Joanne Dimond, Mike & Joy Cassidy, Jim & Elaine Lessler, Ed & Erma Booth, John Gebbie, Butch & Regina Hall, Juan Fernandez, Wayne & Yoko Karvonen, Bud Lawson, Ken Garcy, Lisa Dracobly, Dave Shell, Kevin & Tammy Pa on, Captain Ron Rismon, and Jesse Basher. J. K. Wright Memorial Breakfast, 4‐5‐14
Chapter 16 members and guests were in a endance: Ed & Erma Booth, Dennis Guiler, Glen Craig, Vim Brown, Nick Marvais, John & Jenny Gebbie, Wayne & Yoko Karvonen, Walt & Lynda Hetzler, Mike & Joy Cassidy (IMO Del Richards), Butch Hall, and Jim & Elaine Lessler (IMO Tony Green). Chapter 43 members in a endance: James & Vin Yu‐B (IMO Eulis Presley), and Skip E nger. We had a surprise birthday party this morning for Skip E nger. James Yu‐B and his wife brought a wonderful birthday cake that was shared by everyone. Dinosaurs Luncheon, 4‐25‐14
Chapter 16 members and guests were in a endance: Jim & Elaine Lessler, Ramiro Alonso, Ed & Erma Booth, Mike & Joy Cassidy, Roland Nuqui, Glen Craig, John & Jenny Gebbie, Dennis Guiler, Bud Lawson, and Rich Reilley. Chapter 43 members in a endance: Mike Sherlock and Kevin Underwood. Page 4 Pastor Butch’s Corner
A blind man once asked Saint Anthony (the saint of lost people): "Can there be anything worse than losing one’s eye sight?" To which he
replied: "Yes, losing one’s vision!" We must never lose our vision; of the fellowship of our comrades, our duty to country, and our God and
our families. May Lord help us keep our vision, our hearts and our minds on each other and Chapter 16 un l we meet again!
Enjoy the Summer
Forget Birds and Stones: Bri sh Sniper Kills 6 Terrorists With 1 Bullet
Posted by bulletsfirst on Apr 2, 2014 As the old adage goes, it is a good thing to be able to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
How great is it then for the (as of now) unnamed 20 year old Lance Corporal to stop a violent terrorist a ack from ever happening when he
shot the TRIGGER SWITCH from a suicide bomber from over 930 YARDS AWAY.
In making this incredible shot not only did the Lance Cpl kill the bomber but also the five fellow Taliban terrorists next to him.
While this ac on happened in December it has only been recently made public. The incident took place in Southern Afghanistan in an area called Kakaran.
Lt Col Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, said the Lance Cpl. prevented a major a ack by the Taliban, as another suicide vest packed with 44lbs of high explosives was found nearby.
And don’t go thinking this soldier is some one trick pony either.
On a previous engagement the Lance Cpl. shot an enemy machine gunner from a distance of 1465 yards (about 1 football field shy of a mile).
But back to half dozen kills with a single bullet.
The snipers group was under assault by 20 or so insurgents.
LTC Stack explains the events:
“The guy was wearing a vest. He was iden fied by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch. He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun. They were in contact and he was moving to a firing posi on. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said, ‘I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber’. The rest of them were killed in the blast.”
The sniper was using his army issued L115A3. This is the Brits most powerful sniper rifle. Not a par cularly good looking weapon to the US Army’s M‐82, but hell, this Lance Corporal can make it sing when he reaches out and touches someone so who am I to judge? All in all a hell of a shot by this Lance Corporal. Page 5 Army's M4 Carbine Complicates Chances for Survival
In 2011, a decade a er the Sept. 11 a acks, the Army announced that it was conver ng M4s to the commando version with a heavier barrel and automa c trigger firing.
Some of the problems uncovered in 2001 and 2002, such as stoppages or jamming, became evident in the conven onal firearm, most infamously in the 2008 Ba le of Wanat in Afghanistan in which nine U.S. troops lost their lives.
“Realis cally speaking, there’s been loss of life that is unneeded because there was a dumbing‐down of the weapon system,” said Sco Traudt, who advised the Army on how to improve the M4 a decade ago.
Today, he is a special adviser at Green Mountain Defense Industries of Strafford, Vt., a Colt compe tor that is manufacturing a new rifle that it hopes to sell to special opera ons.
Replaced by SCAR
In an independent overall survey of soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan, 20 percent reported that the M4 jammed during ba le, and one‐fi h of those said the stoppages made a “large impact.”
Faced with inac on by the Pentagon, soldiers such as Warrant Officer Kramer have taken ma ers into their own hands, even at the risk of discipline.
“There are enhancements you can do to your weapon to bring that reliability level up. While we’re not authorized to change our weapon or modify them in any manner, obviously there are some guys out there, including myself, we’ll add some things to our guns to bring that reliability level up,” he told The Times. “I’d rather face six of my peers in a court mar al versus being 6 feet down.”
The M4 has brought consistent complaints about at least three shor alls: At a 250‐yard effec ve‐kill distance, it lacks range; its 5.56 mm round lacks killing power; and the gun requires constant maintenance — cleaning and lubrica ng — in sandy condi ons or is prone to jamming. Soldiers also complain that the magazine dents easily and the springs break.
The short‐barreled weapon was suited for house‐to‐house figh ng in Iraq. But in Afghanistan, its lack of range meant that the Taliban could operate at a safe distance.
Mr. Traudt said there are M4 failures in ba le that do not get publicized. The fact that M4s broke down at Wanat was not known publicly un l Army historians chronicled the ba le and released their narra ve in 2010. Even the general in charge of buying the gun said he had not heard of the problems un l the press reported on the Army history.
There does not appear to be a comprehensive assessment of the M4 by any oversight agency — even though the weapon is the ground warrior’s most cri cal asset. The Government Accountability Office, Congress‘ auditor, has not assessed the M4 since it entered service in the mid‐1990s. Likewise, the Pentagon’s top opera onal tester has not conducted live‐fire tests of the M4 or the commando M4A1.
Alarmed a er the 2001 test, SoCom developed its own gun, the Special Opera ons Forces Assault Rifle (SCAR), and handed it out to Army Rangers, Green Berets and Navy SEALs. Delta Force, the Army’s elite counterterrorism unit, bought a German‐designed rifle. Sources say SoCom is not en rely happy with either gun and s ll relies on the M4A1.
“The 5.56 [caliber] SCAR was a failure from the viewpoint of the men,” said Ryan Zinke, a former member of SEAL Team 6, the elite terrorist‐hun ng unit.
A ques onable standard Army Senior Warrant Officer Russton B. Kramer, a 20‐year Green Beret, has learned that if you want to improve your chances to survive, it’s best to personally make modifica ons to the Army’s primary rifle — the M4 carbine. Warrant Officer Kramer has been dropped into some of the most ferocious ba les in the war on terrorism, from hun ng Islamists in the mountains of northern Iraq to disrup ng Taliban opium dealers in dusty southern Afghanistan. He was awarded the Silver Star for his bravery in Opera on Viking Hammer to crush the terrorist group Ansar al‐Islam in Iraq. The warrant officer said he and fellow Special Forces soldiers have a trick to maintain the M4A1 — the commando version: They break the rules and buy off‐the‐shelf triggers and other components and overhaul the weapon themselves. “The reliability is not there,” Warrant Officer Kramer said of the standard‐issue model. “I would prefer to use something else. If I could grab something else, I would.”
Documents obtained by The Washington Times show the Pentagon was warned before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars that the itera ons of the M4 carbine were flawed and might jam or fail, especially in the harsh desert condi ons that both wars inflicted. Cover‐up? Army historian says report on deadly Afghan ba le was altered to absolve
faulty gun
Survivors of bloody ba le report M4 jams
U.S. Special Opera ons Command in 2001 issued a damning private report that said the M4A1 was fundamentally flawed because the gun failed when called on to unleash rapid firing. In 2002, an internal report from the Army’s Pica nny Arsenal in New Jersey said the M4A1 was prone to overhea ng and “catastrophic barrel failure,” according to a copy obtained by The Times. The test findings also carried ramifica ons for the regular Army. By 2002, soldiers were carrying thousands of the conven onal, light‐barrel M4, of which the service ul mately would buy nearly 500,000 and send them into long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The M4, at mes, has been called upon to perform the same kind of rapid fire as the M4A1. Colt Defense LLC of Har ord, Conn., which lost exclusive M4 design rights in 2009, has steadfastly defended the rifle through years of controversy. The Army contract went to another manufacturer last year. Colt did not respond to requests for comment. The gun manufacturer’s website states that “throughout the world today, the Colt’s M4 reliability, performance and accuracy provide joint coali on forces with the confidence required to accomplish any mission. Designed specifically for lightweight mobility, speed of target acquisi on, and potent firepower capability, the M4 delivers. Proven in military combat opera ons all over the world, it is in a class by itself as a first rate combat weapon system.” Colt’s monopoly on the Army’s weapon ended in February 2013, when the service awarded the M4 contract to FN Herstal, a global firearms manufacturer owned by Belgium’s regional Walloon government and the operator of a plant in South Carolina. Colt had a good run. Since the mid‐1990s, the Army has spent $600 million to buy more than a half‐million carbines. Page 6 Cri cs say the SoCom and Army reports should have prompted the Army to pursue a be er design in the early 2000s. The Army periodically improved the rifle, but did not conduct a comprehensive upgrade un l a senator pressured the top brass years later.
A former Army historian who chronicled the infamous Ba le of Wanat in Afghanistan, where nine U.S. soldiers died a er their M4 carbines jammed, tells The Washington Times that his official account was altered by higher‐ups to absolve the weapons and senior officers. M4 cri cs have long pointed to the Afghanistan ba le on July 13, 2008, as evidence that the rifle’s design was flawed. They cite reports from soldiers on the ground that their guns overheated and jammed that day. But the gun’s supporters have pointed to a single sentence in the official Wanat history issued in 2010 by the Army’s Combat Studies Ins tute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. It blamed the gun’s sustained rapid fire that day, not its design, for the malfunc ons. “This, not weapons maintenance deficiencies or inherent weaknesses in weapons design, was the reason a number of weapons jammed during the ba le,” the sentence read. Higher‐ups inside Army command edited that sentence into the history, the report’s author says. “That was not my conclusion,” said Douglas R. Cubbison, a former Army ar llery officer and principal Wanat history author. “That was the Combat Studies Ins tute management that was driven from the chief of staff’s office to modify findings of that report to basically CYA [cover your ass] for the Army. You know how that works. “Other soldiers have informally told me of similar problems they had with the M4 at high rates of fire,” said Mr. Cubbison, who is now curator of the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum. Higher‐ups made other changes, such as removing much of the historian’s cri cism of senior officers for not be er preparing the outpost for an a ack. “The Army tried to manipulate that study a er it was basically done. They significantly changed things to a classic CYA,” Mr. Cubbison said. Lt. Col. James Lowe, a spokesman at Fort Leavenworth, said the Army s cks by the changes it has made. “The way that our studies are done, it’s a staff process,” he said. “And they disagreed with some of his conclusions about the weapons, and they firmly believe that the analysis supports what’s actually in the report.” M4 cri cs say exonera ng the M4 at Wanat follows a pa ern: The Army vigorously defends its front‐line rifle in public; behind the scenes, it works to correct its flaws. The Times reported Thursday that documents it obtained show the Pentagon was warned as early as 2001 and 2002 that the M4A1 carbine — the commando version — had flaws that made it more likely to jam in desert condi ons. The edi ng to absolve the M4 was important because Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, was waging a campaign to convince the Army that the gun was faulty and needed replacing. Cri cs said Mr. Cubbison’s history showed the gun was not designed for America’s longest war, in which triggers, magazines and pistons must withstand sand and be called on to unleash rapid fire. An interes ng footnote is that, un l the history was first leaked in 2009 and published a year later, no one had reported publicly that mul ple M4s failed soldiers that day. A lengthy TV documentary on Wanat never broached the subject. Mr. Cubbison said the history spoke for itself and did not need changes by managers. “It was also not the assessment of numerous soldiers at Wanat,” he said. Unlike Desert Storm, a war fought mostly with planes and armor, counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan put rifles to the ul mate test in a series of fire fights, year in, year out, making the M4 the soldier’s most important weapon. Failure in the heat of ba le The history recounts in detail the day a Taliban force assaulted a combat outpost in Wanat in the Nuristan province of northeastern Afghanistan. Manned by 49 U.S. soldiers, including 40 paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, the outpost sat in a bowl surrounded by mountains from which the soldiers predicted in homemade videos that they would be a acked one day like si ng ducks. Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips, a seasoned combatant who had been awarded the Dis nguished Service Cross, burned out three M4s trying to defend a mortar posi on. “In par cular, the M4s experienced difficulty maintaining such a rate a er the barrels got excessively hot. When that occurred, the weapons would jam, as happened to Phillips,” the history said. These soldiers were experiencing the types of weapon failures found by testers in 2001 and 2002. “Six years later, we can’t fix a known problem in the middle of a war,” Mr. Cubbison told The Times. Spc. Chris McKaig told of firing from a crow’s nest as a comrade, its only other inhabitant, was gunned down. “My weapon was overhea ng,” he said. “I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half‐hour or so into the fight. I couldn’t charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down.” The historians wrote that “most of the weapons that jammed at Wanat were M4 carbines.” S ll, they concluded it was not the M4’s fault. In the official Army history, the full management edit — not performed by the authors — reads: “The M4 was the basic individual weapon carried by U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan and was not designed to fire at the maximum or cyclic rate for extended periods. Enemy ac on and weapons disposi ons forced the defenders to use their M4s in uncharacteris c roles. This, not weapons maintenance deficiencies or inherent weaknesses in weapons design, was the reason a number of weapons jammed during the ba le.” Rescinded punishments Sco Traudt, a small‐arms specialist whose company, Green Mountain Defense Industries, is manufacturing its own assault rifle, called the finding a whitewash. “Fielding a ba le rifle whose barrel blows up in sustained fire a er only 490 rounds is criminal negligence,” he said. “[The] weapons failed because they were designed around some arbitrary, ‘average’ combat situa on by somebody oblivious to the present and future high consump ve, mobile, asymmetric wars and insurgencies we face.” Mr. Cubbison said there was talk inside and outside the Army that the soldiers were to blame for not maintaining their M4s. “I can tell you, I guarantee you, weapons were cleaned in that platoon,” he said. “I’ve talked to just about every guy who was there. They knew it was a bad loca on. They expected to get hit and get hit hard. Nobody was going to neglect weapons maintenance when they’re expec ng to be in the soup at any moment. Weapons cleaning wasn’t an issue.” Mr. Cubbison said he has a contact inside a small‐arms unit of Program Execu ve Office Soldier, the Army command that equips warriors. “I know that those guys have done a lot of work on reviewing and evalua ng the weapon and trying to figure out what the problem is with it,” he said. Re red Army Col. David Brostrom lost his son, 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, that day in Wanat village. A er reading early post‐ac on reports, he became convinced those soldiers were let down by superiors who failed to take basic steps to protect the outpost and heed intelligence reports. He pushed for further inves ga on, which led to an extensive U.S. Central Command report in June 2010. It found that the company, ba alion and brigade commanders were derelict in their du es. A four‐star general disciplined three officers but withdrew the punishment a er they provided addi onal informa on. Col. Brostrom says today he should have pushed the inquiry to focus more a en on on performance of the M4. “Maybe it was my mistake. I didn’t focus on the jamming,” he said. “I knew about the gun, and I knew it wasn’t great. It took a lot of fire discipline among your soldiers to keep the gun working. “Because they were so close to the enemy, some were just s cking their weapons above the sandbags and spraying and praying. Pu ng the weapons on automa c and le ng it go. “A li le bit of dirt in that thing, it won’t sustain that high rate of fire at all. The barrel gets hot and everything melts in the dang thing. They were firing their weapons trying to save their lives and just about everything jammed.” Page 7 Magazine malfunc ons Col. Brostrom said he does not know whether some M4s jammed a er limited fire while others quit a er rapid automa c rounds. He does know that by the me his son made his way to the outpost under intense fire, virtually all the weapons had shut down. A corporal had no working gun when Lt. Brostrom arrived. The corporal “jumped down to the lower step and tried to go a er them with his bare hands. They shot him point‐blank in the chest,” he said. The Taliban shot his son mul ple mes. “I know now if the weapons were be er and they would not have jammed, there would be more soldiers alive, maybe even my son,” Col. Brostrom said. Chief Warrant Officer Tyler Stafford knew the M4 had drawbacks months before a wave of rocket‐propelled grenades hit the Wanat outpost that day. Then‐Spc. Stafford had experienced two gunba les during which his M4 jammed because of what he considers a substandard 30‐round magazine. He contends that, while Army higher‐ups say soldiers pushed the carbines beyond their firing capacity that day and burned out the barrels, faulty magazines could be the culprit in some of the stoppages. “The Army never looked at the type of magazines that were used,” he said. “That’s what we found would cause a lot of failures. If you used the standard old Army n magazines that had been used in a couple of deployments, they really wore down and would cause a lot of jams just because of failure to feed and the springs were worn out in them. “They just don’t get replaced readily, and when they do, they s ll get replaced by a standard‐issue magazine that just isn’t a very good magazine at all.” To improve the M4 on the run, Chief Warrant Officer Stafford said, “A lot of us went out and bought our own magazines. They worked far be er.” Defending the carbine Chief Warrant Officer Stafford has le the gri y job of infantryman for the world of Army avia on, flying AH‐64 Apache helicopters. Since the 2008 ba le, he took the me to research the M4’s history — the spo y tests, the soldier surveys, the a empts to improve it — and compared the data with his own experiences. His assessment: “It is my personal belief that the M4 is a substandard front‐line weapon and lacks the reliability and firepower that many infantrymen are in need of. “Everybody’s biggest problem with the M4 is that it’s such a high‐maintenance weapon, that con nually you have to keep it very, very clean, very well‐oiled,” he said. “In the infantry world, that’s tough to do, especially when you’re living in the dirt and figh ng every other day.” Whatever the internal discussions, the Army has defended the rifle in public for more than a decade. Lt. Col. Donald Peters, a spokesman at the Pentagon, said the service has made 41 improvements since 2001 that were among 90 engineering changes to the M4 and commando M4A1 since the gun was in development in the early 1990s. The plan now is to revamp M4s into higher‐performance M4A1s beginning this winter. “The M4A1 the Army is currently producing has a slightly heavier barrel than the M4, which increases the weapons system’s ability to withstand heat and therefore gives it a greater sustained rate of fire,” Col. Peters said. “The M4A1 also has full auto capability and more consistent trigger pull, along with ambidextrous fire control.” The Army o en cites surveys to defend the M4. It ques ons every unit that returns from combat and finds that eight out of 10 like the gun. The Center for Naval Analysis found the same results in a 2006 independent survey of 2,600 soldiers who had been in Afghanistan and Iraq. But soldiers did complain about a lack of lethality. One of the major gripes was from re red Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a highly decorated ar llery officer. Perhaps more important, 20 percent reported that the M4 had jammed during a firefight. Of those, 18 percent said the stoppage had a “large impact” in ba le. Put to the test Gen. Scales said the problem with such surveys is that they do not focus on the soldiers who engaged in the most intense combat during which the M4 is fired and relied on the most. “The people who use the M4 seriously, the close‐combat soldiers, when they use it seriously for a Wanat, their vote is the same in these surveys as the kid who is a computer operator at Camp Victory,” he said. “So when you lump it all together, the whole thing seems to be perfectly fine.” As for Chief Warrant Officer Stafford’s firsthand experience with M4 magazines, Gen. Scales said: “If my son were in the infantry, for his birthday I would buy him about 50 [German] Heckler and Koch magazines, not just for him, but for his buds. Why do we die for a dollar‐and‐seventy‐cent item when a fighter plane costs $550 million?” Exactly one year a er Wanat, the Army began fielding what it said was an improved M4 magazine. The survey numbers on jamming alarmed Mr. Coburn. He took on a large group of Army supporters — its huge following of lawmakers and staffers in Congress and re red top brass who sit on the boards of various muni ons manufacturers — to advocate a be er rifle. By December 2007, the Army was tes ng the M4 against compe tors at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The compe on matched the M4 against three European‐designed assault rifles, all firing 6,000 rounds in sandstorm condi ons. The three interlopers recorded 233 or fewer stoppages. The M4 racked up more than three mes as many: 882, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Army and manufacturer Colt Defense LLC later said the M4 had much fewer shutdowns and blamed the high count on M4s that were not combat‐ready. Next came the Army’s most extensive M4 review to date: a small‐arms capabili es‐based assessment. By January 2009, the Army was telling Congress that its rifles and machine guns, including the M4, had 25 “capability gaps,” including a need for greater lethality and for a gun that did not need constant cleaning and lubrica on — in other words, what cri cs had been saying about the M4. With the report completed, the Army embarked on a major M4 upgrade, though it contended the gun’s basic design remained sound. Cri cs persisted. One was Sgt. Charles Perales, at the me sta oned at Fort Bragg, N.C. He wrote a le er published in Defense News: “My unit — B Company, 2nd Ba alion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment — was deployed to Afghanistan from April 2005 to March 2006. While there, we were a ached to Special Forces at Camp Tillman on the Afghan border. I saw first‐hand what happens when your weapon jams up because of the harsh environments we have to call home there. An 18B weapons sergeant was shot in the face due directly to his weapon jamming. I just can’t believe that a er things like this happen, the Army is s ll buying more M4s. Soldiers’ lives are on the line. Why is it a hassle to make an improvement that could save lives? The M4 isn’t a bad weapon; it just needs improvements. It’s about me people stop figh ng to keep things the same and start moving toward a be er weapon system.” A er the shootout Green Berets have a method to prevent a “Wanat” from happening: They upgrade the rifle themselves. Senior Warrant Officer Russton B. Kramer, a 20‐year Green Beret, said he realized during training that the M4 was subject to malfunc ons. Shells would not extract. Overhea ng. The gun got too dirty. “It’s a maintenance queen,” he said. “It’s an incredibly finicky gun. You have to run it with the right amount of lubrica on. You have to keep it clean. You’ve got to be kind of delicate with it to make it func on right.” But he never experienced jamming in ba le because he took precau ons — by performing unauthorized upgrades on the gun himself. Senior Warrant Officer Kramer recalled the five‐day ba le of Opera on Siege Engine. The military dropped five Special Forces teams into Afghanistan’s Helmand province in 2008 to take down a Taliban opium lab. While one group destroyed components, the others defended a perimeter against waves of Taliban. “I don’t have me to perform maintenance,” he said. “I don’t have me to pull back to a safe perimeter and clean my gun. I may not have me to pull a li le bo le of oil out of my pocket and fix my gun. “If we don’t make these changes to our guns out there, I don’t feel like it’s going to be a reliable weapon,” he added. Gen. Scales said he wants to see a debate in Washington on “Why does the world’s greatest superpower have less capable small arms than the enemy? For whatever reasons, we are perfectly happy to give soldiers and Marines crappy small arms and not pay any a en on to it.” Page 8 Mr. Coburn tried to spark such a debate. He sent le ers, gave interviews and delayed Pentagon appointments — all over the M4. The Army appeared to be on the edge of moving toward a more advanced carbine. To find the next light, short‐barreled rifle, the Army started a grand shootout in 2011 pi ng some of the world’s most renowned rifle makers: Colt, which designed the M4, along with Bere a, Fabrique Na onale, Adcor Defense, Heckler & Koch, Remington and Lewis Machine & Tool. By March 2103, the Army got a blunt warning from the Pentagon’s top fraud and waste inves gator. Lynne Halbrooks, principal deputy inspector general, told a House panel that the Army could not guarantee the gun would be any be er than the M4. She also said the service wanted to buy thousands of new rifles as its soldier force was shrinking. The Army apparently got the message. When the smoke cleared in June, it scheduled a press conference to update the compe on. The winner: no one. The M4 remained the champ, by default. A er the Army called off the compe on, the Defense Department inspector general scolded the Army again — this me in a wri en report — for conduc ng the shootout. It said the service’s 2009 small‐arms assessment did not iden fy a need for a new carbine, just an improved one. “The final report stated that none of the solu ons for mee ng small‐unit effec veness, lethality, and survivability start with replacing the M4,” the report said. “As a result, the Army wasted $14 million on a compe on to iden fy a source to supply new carbines it does not need.” In the end, Mr. Coburn, who declined to be interviewed for this report, did not get soldiers a new gun. But he did prod the Pentagon to improve what it had. “The senator fought a long ba le to get the soldiers a be er gun,” said Mr. Traudt. “The Army is powerful. It can close bases and send jobs elsewhere.” Special Forces funding to be ‘reined in’ by Obama administra on:
By Douglas Ernst The Washington Times Friday, February 21, 2014 
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Mul ple defense sources told the Army Times to expect “flat” funding star ng in fiscal 2015 for special opera ons forces (SOF). Another source told the military news outlet that “reined in” would also be an appropriate phrase to describe future budgets, even though budget analysts had expected the Defense Department and White House to con nue growth for SOF. U.S. Special Opera ons Command’s total force increased from 38,000 in 2001 to 63,000 by 2012, according to a recent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment report. “What we’re trying to do is, we’re trying to get rebalanced in terms of our O&M, our opera ons and maintenance money, and our procurement and [research, development, test and evalua on] money,” Special Opera ons Command chief Adm. William McRaven said earlier this month during a defense conference in D.C. Special Ops Forces: A University of Their Own
BY BOBBIE O'BRIEN
Pic 1. U.S. Special Opera ons Command Deputy Commander, Army Lt. Gen. John Mulholland, served as keynote speaker at the symbolic groundbreaking for the new university campus. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media Pic 2. Dr. Brian Maher serves as president of the Joint Special Opera ons University. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media Pic 3. Part of the audience that a ended the groundbreaking for the 90,000 square‐foot university facility. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media Pic 4. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn (le ) and Army Lt. Gen. John Mulholland, deputy commander of U.S. Special Opera ons Command based at MacDill AFB. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media Pic 5. The $34 million Joint Special Opera ons University facility will include 16 classrooms, cer fied areas for classified briefings, a research library and auditorium. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media Pic 6. Dr. Brian Maher, president of the Joint Special Opera ons University, says their new facility withstood budget cuts because Dept. of Defense plans to use more special ops forces in the future. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media Page 9 Pic 7. Le to right: Command Sgt. Maj. David Betz; JSOU President Brian Maher: Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn; re red Army Gen. Doug Brown; Army Lt. Gen. John Mulholland; Re red Vice Adm. Joe Maguire; Air Force Col. Andre Briere; Army Lt. Col. Thomas Nelson. Credit Bobbie O'Brien / WUSF Public Media About 100 people turned out under gray skies for the groundbreaking. The Tampa Bay area will soon become home to a new university. It is not another state university like Florida Polytechnic. Instead, the university has a highly‐specialized curriculum with a global reach. A hub campus for the Joint Special Opera ons University (JSOU) is under construc on near the U.S. Special Opera ons Command on MacDill Air Force Base. There was a symbolic groundbreaking Thursday, but the JSOU has been holding classes for the past three years in a former bank building just outside the Tampa air base. The school is working on accredita on, but is not yet a degree‐gran ng university. Dr. Brian Maher, president of the Joint Special Opera ons University, said the curriculum is at the core of the Department of Defense’s plan to use more teams of special operators. “The secretary of defense just the other day said, ‘Hey as we’re cu ng back some of the forces, we’re going to see the special operator on the ba lefield,’” Maher said. “And they’re going to be in small teams and they’re going to be needed to have the skills and that intellectual capacity to talk back to chiefs of staff of services and ministries of defense and be able to help formulate and ar culate what the United States is trying to do.” The JSOC was created to train special opera ons forces in 2000, a year before the 9‐11 terrorist a acks. But what started as training courses and workshops has developed into an educa onal ins tu on. Now, it serves special forces and conven onal forces as well as interagency and interna onal partners. “We want to take the niche, and it will be primarily for the non‐commissioned officers,” Maher said. “Help them get a higher level educa on, but in the things that are going to be meaningful for the rest of their career ‐ cri cal thinking skills, solving complex problems.” Maher said a majority of the special operators’ work is building security coopera on and partnerships with other government agencies and na ons and that only 5 to 10 percent of special forces’ work is “direct ac on.” “It’s something that we call phase zero or before the bang,” Maher said. “We don’t ever want to get to where there’s an armed conflict.” Instead, the aim is to provide training and work with partner na ons to solve local problems before they grow into regional conflicts. The university facility is being built as an extension of the U.S. Special Opera ons Command where Army Lt. Gen. John Mulholland is deputy commander. “Nowhere in the world, literally, will you find such an academic ins tu on dedicated to the professional study and prac ce of special opera ons,” Mulholland said at the symbolic groundbreaking. “This building will support JSOU evolving into a fully‐accredited, na onally‐recognized degree gran ng university. Providing a variety of academic programs and elec ves specifically designed for special operators.” The new 90,000 square‐foot JSOU facility is scheduled to be completed in 2015 and become home to 130 faculty and staff. The Future of Special Forces
David Tucker Published on March 3, 2014 The capture of Kabul in 2001 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 are the bookends of a remarkable decade for America’s Special Opera ons Forces (SOF). Indeed, these two feats of arms, whatever the delay in accomplishing the second says about U.S. intelligence, may well take their place among the most famous military ac ons in history. Be that as it may, these events are already se led squarely in the past. What about now or, because it is already too late to do anything about today, what about the future? Linda Robinson’s One Hundred Victories says much about SOF, but li le about future warfare. David Kilcullen’s Out of the Mountains says much about future conflict, li le about SOF. Together, however, they say something about the role SOF may have in the future of American warfare. Robinson is an established chronicler of SOF and a serious, substance‐focused journalist. Her 2009 book Tell Me How This Ends studied the effort to turn the Iraq War around, and this new book provides a compelling descrip on of SOF’s final years in the Afghanistan campaign. Focusing on the ac vi es of a handful of SOF personnel, she recounts the slow development of Village Stability Opera ons (VSO). This effort put SOF in villages not only to provide security but also, and most importantly, to train local villagers to provide their own. This required SOF to win and hold the confidence of village elders, so that their training efforts could take root in village life and survive their departure. In many cases, establishing themselves locally required that SOF first engage and destroy Taliban forces. The figh ng was o en bloody and vicious but necessary to win hearts and minds. The VSO effort focused on southern Afghanistan, an area neglected, according to Robinson, as U.S. forces searched for bin Laden and fought with Taliban and al‐Qaeda forces along the border with Pakistan. The Taliban insurgency had come back to life in the south and VSO were a last effort to deprive the Taliban of control as the American commitment to Afghanistan wound down. VSO had four phases: shape, build, hold and transi on. In the first of these, SOF would meet with local leaders to determine if they supported a self‐defense effort. This was the phase in which they a acked local Taliban units, to “reduce the insurgent presence and to create breathing room for villagers to begin to take charge of their affairs.” If the village elders responded favorably, then SOF would move into the village or nearby and begin the building process. This required more than training and equipping a local force while figh ng off the Taliban. For the best results, it had to include various aid projects—a new road, for example—and the involvement of Afghan district government officials and the Page 10 na onal police or armed forces. As village capabili es increased, the holding phase would begin. Finally, SOF would ease out of village life, allowing the fourth phase, a transi on to local control, to take place as SOF moved to another village to start the process all over again. Robinson calls VSO “poli cal‐military warfare.” Neither the term nor any summary of what it covers could do jus ce to this village‐level war or to the skills of those who dealt with its bewildering mix of ancient prejudices, modern technology and contemporary Afghan poli cs. This kind of war was different from the campaign fought with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in 2001. In that case, SOF worked with and o en led an organized, if some mes poorly trained and equipped, foreign military force in conven onal military engagements against another military force, defea ng that force and capturing its capital city. In the village war, SOF worked with civilians to establish secure and func oning local governance. Wholly sympathe c to SOF, Robinson does a good job of conveying what they did and how they did it. Although emphasizing successes, she does not ignore failures. Some of these occurred because SOF personnel failed. Most o en, according to Robinson, failure came because the village war was embedded in a larger conflict with both U.S. and Afghan aspects, the impact of which proved as harmful to success as the Taliban. First, SOF did not “own” the areas where they operated. General‐purpose force commanders, “regular” Army generals, were in charge. These commanders o en did not see the village campaign as important. They failed to support SOF or tried to use them in other ways. Second, while SOF tried to focus on areas where the Taliban was strongest, Afghan poli cians worked to have them deployed to areas the poli cians controlled, since the village war brought money, weapons and military skills that would be important in future intra‐Afghan figh ng for poli cal control. Many American military officers on the ground did not grasp at first or fully how Afghan poli cs affected the effort. Nor did most American poli cians understand the demands and limits of poli cal‐military warfare. SOF were likewise divided against themselves. Robinson deals only in passing with the conflict between those engaged in the village war and the SOF focused on tracking and killing or capturing high‐value targets, such as the special mission unit that raided bin Laden’s compound. So important did this la er ac vity become a er 2001 that it largely supplanted the poli cal‐military warfare that Robinson values so highly. She even offers several examples of SOF involved in VSO who longed to engage in the straight‐ahead combat carried out by the special mission units and general purpose forces. If, as Robinson claims, there is something to be learned about the future of American warfare from SOF VSO in Afghanistan, it is important to understand that the command structure and opera ng culture of SOF are dominated by the special mission units and their alumni, not those who were part of the VSO effort. This internal conflict is a sensi ve subject in the SOF community, but Robinson should have paid more a en on to it. She might also have been clearer in her judgment that, however brave, bold and crea ve U.S. SOF have been in Afghanistan, they did not save the mission as a whole from falling short of its objec ves. Anyone familiar with the history of SOF, or the war in Vietnam and subsequent irregular conflicts, will recognize everything Robinson reports, especially the poli cal problems. Indeed, One Hundred Victories more appropriately might have been sub tled “Special Ops and the Same Old American Way of War.” Apart from the recent technology involved, there is nothing really new in Robinson’s rather narrow, present‐tense account. As already noted, it contains li le about the future either, except the assurance that SOF will be relevant: SOF “have played an increasingly prominent role over the past decade in many ways, and the trend is likely to con nue in the future for two reasons: technology and poli cal preference.” But if SOF maintain their prominence, will they be the SOF that led the Northern Alliance to ini al victory over the Taliban in 2001, the SOF of the later village war, or the SOF that killed bin Laden? David Kilcullen’s Out of the Mountains can help answer this ques on. Having made a name for himself as an Aussie counterinsurgency expert advising various U.S. government agencies, Kilcullen has now turned his a en on to the trendy issue of urbaniza on, as interest in counterinsurgency fades. According to Kilcullen, the future will be different: increasingly crowded, urban, networked and coastal, as the megatrends of popula on growth, urbaniza on, li oraliza on and connectedness con nue to shape human existence. Kilcullen illustrates this future by giving us guided tours of some densely populated, outlaw urban areas, such as San Pedro Sula, Honduras and the Tivoli Gardens “garrison community” of Kingston, Jamaica. To give his readers a sense of what conflict might be like in such areas, he also describes the terrorist a acks in Mumbai in November 2008 and the fight between SOF and the forces of Mohamed Farah Aideed’s Na onal Somali Alliance in Mogadishu, October 1993. As these examples suggest, Kilcullen believes the future is dark, feral (a word he uses o en) and violent. Unless, that is, we work to prevent it. “Because we have the data”, Kilcullen writes, “we can bend the curve . . . in the direc on of greater resilience, unlocking the adap ve resources that are already present in ci es under stress.” (How fortunate that Kilcullen is the CEO of a consul ng firm that happens to do exactly that sort of work. His firm features prominently in his book.) Though it focuses on the new urban future that awaits us, Out of the Mountains ignores the actual data about future urbaniza on, and thus not only says nothing new about it, but repeats some persistent untruths. According to the UN’s World Urbaniza on Prospects (2011 Revision), 51 percent of the world’s popula on is urbanized, and that figure will rise to 59 percent in 2030 and to 67 percent in 2050. These figures hide a good deal of regional varia on, however. La n America’s popula on is currently 78 percent urbanized, will be 83 percent urbanized in 2030 and 86 percent urbanized in 2050. For Sub‐Saharan Africa the figures are 36 percent, 45 percent and 56 percent, respec vely. For the more devel‐
oped world, the figures are 77 percent, 82 percent and 85 percent, but for the least developed countries they are 28 percent, 38 percent and 49 percent. So yes, urbaniza on will increase in the future, and the trends in all regions are upward, but even in 2050 many people will s ll be living in rural areas. Kilcullen’s focus on urbaniza on suggests that the rural VSO that Robinson touts will have no place in the future, but the data suggest otherwise. However much urbaniza on may increase, does it follow that a more urbanized popula on will be more feral and violent? All of the megatrends Page 11 Kilcullen men ons have been going on for some me. He offers no evidence that there is any correla on between these trends and increased violence and lawlessness in urban areas. A number of studies suggest the contrary: declining levels of state, civil and criminal violence over the past decades, even as urbaniza on has increased. Historically, insurgents and terrorists have o en started their campaigns in rural areas, where the governments they oppose have less presence and it is therefore easier to hide and organize. With rural popula ons remaining significant in the future, Kilcullen offers no argument as to why this pa ern would not persist. What he does offer is a clutch of theories and terms to explain and discuss facts he has not established. He even confesses that there is nothing especially new in his theories or terms. For example, Kilcullen devotes a chapter of the book to what he calls the “Theory of Compe ve Control” and uses it to explain what is going on in the supposedly feral ci es that concern him. The Theory of Compe ve Control turns out to be much the same as standard counterinsurgency theory. What’s new about it, Kilcullen seems to argue, is his recogni on that once insurgents establish control and begin to adjudicate disputes, those who gain from this adjudica on are locked in to the new insurgent system. This is hardly a compelling argument, since, to simplify, people o en rebel against adjudica on systems (that is, governments) when they deem the costs of such systems greater than their benefits. The American Revolu on would be one per nent example. There are also numerous examples of Iraqis and Afghans willingly breaking free of insurgent “government.” One of the virtues of Robinson’s book is that it reports in detail exactly how SOF helped bring these libera ons about in Afghanistan, a process that is much kno er in prac ce, of course, than an appeal to bloodless, cost/benefit analysis suggests. Although the theory is not new, Kilcullen does use it effec vely to explain the contests for control between states and their non‐state compe tors, whether poli cal or criminal. Anyone unfamiliar with this kind of analysis (the book seems intended for them) will find Kilcullen’s exposi on useful. Throughout it, however, he also uses an assortment of buzzwords (“dark networks”, “swarming”, “emergent”, “web as witness”, “social netwar”) that do nothing to improve our understanding of what is going on in the world or how we should respond. Take one example: swarming, which he defines as autonomous, rule‐based maneuver . . . like the individual birds in a flock, each vehicle and its troops follow a few simple rules to maintain forma on and react to the enemy. . . . [The] forma on constantly shi s and changes . . . (without orders) in response to changes in the terrain and the tac cal situa on. Kilcullen uses the term “swarming” to describe the figh ng in Mogadishu and Mumbai, despite the differences in command and control and objec ves in each case, and the others to which he applies this term. The term appears to be a synonym for small unit tac cs. Applied indiscriminately, it becomes an obstacle to careful thought about what happened in each of the fights he describes. Nor does Kilcullen make any serious effort to assess the effec veness of “swarming.” He simply assumes its effec veness, ignoring in the case of Somalia, for example, the significance of the hugely dispropor onate casual es among the swarmers, and the poli cal context that influenced decisions in the United States a er the figh ng in October 1993. Kilcullen’s Out of the Mountains leaves two overall impressions. The first is that what is true in it is not new, while what is new is not true. The second is that its reach (Kilcullen claims twice that his account “is a theory of everything”) far exceeds its author’s grasp. If it were not published by a respectable house, one might think it a promo onal piece for his consul ng business. Even so, Kilcullen makes some useful points. Three in par cular bear on the future of SOF and American warfare. First, though Kilcullen oversells urbaniza on, in the future there will be more of it, and at least some of those urban areas will be dense, violent and beyond the control of the established legal order. Second, though Kilcullen does not emphasize it enough, he does acknowledge that unconven onal order exists in even the most ungoverned areas. Third, to accomplish their objec ves, outsiders should learn to iden fy various forms of order and learn how to work with those inside them. To acknowledge that more people will be living in urban areas, and that some of these areas will be ungoverned in a formal sense, does not mean that U.S. military forces will have to operate in them. Kilcullen simply assumes they will. Based on this assump on, he devises an appendix to offer his advice about how military forces should be structured and organized to conduct urban opera ons in the future, and do so without completely destroying the urban environment in which they are opera ng. That said, much more thought would have to be given to both the necessity and character of urban opera ons before redesigning our forces in that direc on. Given the difficulty of such opera ons, it is arguably more important to sort out how to accomplish various poli cal and security objec ves without engaging in them. Even if we can avoid such major engagements most of the me, it would nevertheless be useful to have the capability to deal with terrorists or those prolifera ng weapons of mass destruc on based in urban areas. S ll, the urban area itself is not the problem but merely an environmental feature of it. An urban area provides cover under which enemies can carry out ac vi es harmful to us, but the key remains knowing the enemy, not its cover. SOF appear to have something to offer if we are interested in avoiding major urban opera ons or in dealing with par cular threats like terrorism and prolifera on. The same skills Robinson describes SOF using in rural Afghanistan to understand and influence village life could be just as relevant in urban neighborhoods anywhere in the world. (Urban counterinsurgency has already occurred in Iraq.) Kilcullen speaks of the need to recognize the order that exists in ungoverned areas and work with it. In brief, that is what the SOF of the village war do. Urban social and physical infrastructure differ from their rural counterparts, but these differences are not too great for SOF to navigate. Kilcullen offers some useful star ng points for how to think about urban infrastructure, par cularly physical infrastructure. In calling for “pre‐conflict sensing”, for example, Kilcullen is using a buzzword that captures something inherent in the everyday, year‐round deployment of SOF to countries around the world. It refers to a func on that SOF already try to perform, even in urban areas, by opera ng out of U.S. embassies. For good reasons, not the least of which are wire‐crossing coordina on issues, some of these opera ons have run into opposi on from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Future efforts can avoid raising opposi on and suspicion to the extent Page 12 coordina on difficul es can be overcome. If more than sensing and influencing became necessary, the special mission units part of SOF would provide a strike capability. Arguing that SOF could have important roles to play in future urban and rural military opera ons is not to argue that they should be the model for structuring U.S. forces overall for the future. Kilcullen, like others, touts the virtues of small units. He argues for the effec veness of aggrega ng and disaggrega ng such units to meet various opera onal requirements, in effect contending that we must learn to swarm to deal with our swarming opponents. This is akin to arguing that “it takes a network to defeat a network”, a well‐worn mantra from the early days of the net‐centric fad. Like the advice to counter‐swarm, the advice to network appears useful only to the degree that we ignore the problems in what we are being told to imitate. More generally, SOF succeed, whether in VSO or raiding, not because they are small units but because they are units composed of unusually skilled, experienced personnel. This experience and these skills cannot be replicated across a large force, even if it is organized in small modular units. Therefore, SOF are not a model for future American forces. Nor, as Stephen Biddle has insigh ully argued, is the opening campaign of the Afghan War in the late autumn of 2001 likely to be a generally applicable model of warfare.1 It will work only in the rela vely small number of cases in which our opponents lack sufficient tac cal skill to counter it. The key to understanding the importance of SOF now and in the future is not in the military aspect of poli cal‐military warfare, and certainly not as a generic model for U.S. forces, but in the poli cal aspect. This is so because in any large‐scale military deployment the effect of SOF is likely to be negligible compared to the effect produced by the other larger deployed military forces. SOF are likely to have their greatest effect, and their greatest strategic u lity, therefore, in peace me or in conflicts involving much smaller military forces than we have seen in recent mes. In such conflicts, as in peace me, poli cs is likely to be more important to the outcome than military force. This is true even of the raiding that special mission units do. If not part of an effec ve poli cal strategy, the raids amount to li le more than a ri on warfare, which usually turns out to be ineffec ve against non‐state opponents who are not following a ri on strategies. Robinson’s book, with its clear focus on the poli cs and its effect on the success of SOF, would have been more useful had she exposed and analyzed at least some of these interac ons at greater length. The poli cs of SOF is both domes c and foreign, too. SOF are caught between the poli cal preferences and expecta ons of Americans and their leaders and those of the people and leaders of the countries in which they operate. As former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry explained in a recent Foreign Affairs ar cle, the conflict produced by these compe ng preferences and expecta ons can defeat even the most skilled operators in the village war—a point illustrated in Robinson’s account.2 SOF can help establish security but cannot pull effec ve governance out of a hat in the absence of an agreement about what such governance is and a willingness on the part of in‐country partners to bring it about. Similarly, SOF can train foreign forces in military skills, but they cannot create the values and preferences in a bureaucracy or within poli cal leadership to sustain those skills. SOF got into Afghanistan because, through unglamorous, relentless training deployments to Central Asia, they had built rela onships that, with generous supplies of money, allowed them to stage from there into Afghanistan. This kind of below‐the‐radar military‐to‐military influence‐building, unlikely to be chronicled, is likely to remain a cri cally important contribu on to U.S. security, given the uncertainty about where we may need to operate in the future. Once SOF did deploy to Afghanistan, they improvised on their basic infantry and cultural skills. This improvisa onal skill and adaptability is also likely to be a cri cal contribu on to U.S. security, since no one can predict the future. Finally, the concept of what Robinson calls poli cal‐military warfare, like counterinsurgency doctrine, rests on assump ons originally ar culated during the Kennedy Administra on, when SOF enjoyed their first heyday. They include assump ons about the liberal thrust of history, and others drawn from liberalism’s rough academic equivalent, moderniza on theory, that virtually all Americans share one way or another. These assump ons need to be rethought root and branch, at least with regard to SOF, if we are to operate more effec vely in the future. Pentagon’s Top Doc Outlines Tricare Changes
Apr 03, 2014 | by Bryant Jordan The Pentagon's top health official conceded before a House panel on Wednesday that the Defense Department's plans to increase Tricare fees spurred concerns among service members, their families, and the veterans and military groups that support them. "But I want to make clear that the Tricare benefit will remain one of the most comprehensive benefits in this country and it will modernize the program for the first me in many years," said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Jonathan Woodson. Veterans groups that represent the interests of the ac ve duty as well as veterans and re rees have already signaled to Congress that they oppose any change to Tricare that may include reduc ons or rolled back services, new or increased fees, or increases to out‐of‐pocket expenses. But as Pentagon leadership con nues to argue that its ever increasing personnel costs – including health care – threaten their ability to maintain a ready force, they're out to scale back costs. The goal is to consolidate the Tricare Prime, Extra, and Standard plans into one, and adjust deduc bles and co‐pays that will incen vize troops and family members to use the most affordable care, Woodson said. The plan, once rolled out, would also offer users more choice in where they get care, according to Defense Department officials. Woodson, alongside the surgeon general’s for the Army, Navy and Air Force, made a case for the Defense Department's proposed 2015 health care budget before the House Appropria ons Commi ee. The Defense Health Agency is seeking about $47 billion for 2015, according to Woodson. Page 13 Changes to Tricare are intended to save money, in part, by ge ng troops and family members to be more prudent in how they use the benefit, according to Woodson. He got some help in making his case from Rep. Jim Moran, D‐Va., who underscored the official view that a dispropor onate share of health care can be laid at the feet of people who seek more expensive services when they don't need to. For example, he said, someone who takes a child with a cold to an emergency room instead of seeing a nurse. "It's my understanding that the [DoD] has substan al data that shows it's a fairly small percentage of Tricare users, that are termed ‘super‐users' of the system," that account for a significant share of the costs, Moran said. "They have much higher cost because they tend to use the most expensive forms of health care and use it more frequently." Throughout a two and a half hour hearing, however, lawmakers voiced no serious opposi on to the proposed Tricare changes. While members of Congress agreed that health services to troops and their families' must be second to none and readily available, none disputed the arguments made by Woodson or the service medical chiefs that costs must come down. Woodson said the 2015 budget will sustain medical resources for the services, including in research and technology, but includes changes to Tricare and other areas in order to meet challenges coming from reduced budgets. Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Dr. Patricia D. Horoho said that some of her concerns are "losing the momentum toward building the health, resiliency and readiness of our armed forces [and] the loss of science and technology that has accelerated medical advances that have the American public the confidence to allow their sons and daughters to serve." Air Force Lt. Gen. Dr. Thomas W. Travis said that even with fiscal challenges, "we have a clear responsibility to make sure military medics are well trained and well prepared for whatever con ngency the future brings." Woodson said the proposed budget is down from a $54 billion high in 2012, but con nues to represent a higher por on of the base DoD budget. It is currently about 10 percent of the base, up from about 4 percent in the early 1990s. Page 14 Chapter XVI Special Forces Associa on Quartermasters Store The Quartermasters Store has Special Forces Crest Uniform and Blazer Bu ons for Sale. They can replace the Army Dress Uniform or the SF Associa on Blazer Bu ons. They really look sharp. The Bu ons are $5.00 a piece. A set of 4 Large and 6 small are $50.00. If you would like them mailed there is a shipping and handling cost of $4.50. We also have a number of other Items of SF interest. We also have SF T-Shirts, hats, jackets, SFA Flashes, SF Door Knockers, Belt Buckles, Money clips and numerous other Items of Special Forces interest. 1st SFG(A) Ar facts The current 1st SFG(A) Commander is solici ng support from former 1st SFG(A) unit members for dona on of ar facts that could be displayed in the units Regimental Mess area at Fort Lewis. He has his PAO officer working on the project and he is asking for items that could be secured in display cabinets for viewing by guests who use the facility for ceremonies, re rements and other ac vi es. Hank Cramer is planning to donate some uniform items that his dad wore in Vietnam and others from SFA Chapter and First In Asia Associa on are pu ng out feelers to our community. If interested, please contact Major Jason Waggoner at [email protected] Looking For Historical 10th SFG(A) Items ‐ Assistance Requested ‐ for Group Foyer POCs: SSG Ryan Sabin OR Andy Tyler Public Affairs NCOIC [email protected] 10th SFG (A) 719-524-4528 [email protected] We are looking for any historical items and photos that will cover the following areas. I a ached the history outline that we will be following. These items will be used in the HHC foyer and we are trying to tell the 10th SFG(A) story. - 1952- Ac va on of 10th SFG (A) - 1953- Bad Tolz - 1954-1955 Authoriza on of the wear of the Green Beret - 1962- CPT Roger Pezzelle Trojan Horse Unit Insignia - SF Soldiers opera ng in; western and eastern Europe, clandes ne organiza ons in England, France, Norway, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. - Fort Devens - JOINT ENDEAVOR and PROVIDE COMFORT - Opera on Desert Storm - Panzer Kaserne - Task Force Viking Page 15 I am delighted to invite you to join me in celebra ng the recent publica on of my book. Titled Captain Ron Flying Life’s Longitudes and La tudes The book Explores the fascina ng life and mes of Ron Rismon. I am looking forward to seeing you all enjoy and share my work. “To Order” Books will be sold for $66.00 + $20.00 Shipping. Call (253) 670‐2760 Or E‐mail: [email protected] Page 16 at the
Hosted by the First in Asia Association
THURSDAY
204
St Helens Ave
Tacoma, WA
11:00am - 11:00pm
253.212.2725
nd
May 22
A portion of the days' proceeds
will be donated to
The green beret foundation
POC
matt schleupner 443-987-2725
[email protected]