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Category: military

Published on Leave a comment on Tarawa and Tora Bora

Sixty-two years ago on November 23, the Battle of Tarawa came to a close. Here is one account:

On the morning of November 23rd, the 6th Marines counted 300 Japanese bodies scattered around their positions. As it turned out, this group of Japanese had been the last large contingent on Betio with only small pockets of resistance remaining. And following a painstaking mop up of the eastern side of the island, Japanese resistance, with the exception of a few snipers who would continue to take pot shots at marines for the next several days, came to an end. For at 1:12 P.M., after 76 hours of fighting, Betio was declared 'secure'. Upon arriving at Betio that day, General Holland Smith ordered both the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack to be raised over Betio (for Betio was to revert to the British as a Pacific trust after the war). The general then toured the island west of the airport. He noted that only seventeen Japanese had surrendered while only 129 Korean laborers had survived out of a total of 4,700 troops and construction workers.

Read the whole story. Reading the history of the exploits of the Marines and the other armed services as they reclaimed the Pacific in WWII, it is hard to fathom why the senior administration did not let them have at it in Tora Bora four years ago, when the best information available placed Osama Bin Laden in that network of mountains and caves. We would have lost an awful number of brave young men, but we would have lost them in the purpose for which they joined the service.

For more on the parallels, read this excellent post (and the NYT article to which it links) at the blog, Arms and Influence.

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Published on Leave a comment on In Praise of Nathaniel Fick

Our honored guest this evening was more impressive than I could have imagined, particularly in his willingness to answer direct questions with honest and thoughtful answers. Here is how I introduced him:

The name Nathaniel is derived from the Hebrew phrase, “Gift of God,” and Captain Fick’s presence here on Veteran’s Day reminds us that we should be thankful for the members of our nation’s and our allies’ armed forces who have stood as the front line in the defense of liberty around the world. Many of them have been buried not far from where they made that stand.

Captain Fick served tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, in the latter leading a platoon of an elite Recon Battalion that was at times the northernmost one in the march toward Baghdad. He is now enrolled in a dual-degree program at Harvard’s Business School and Kennedy School of Government. Tonight, he joins us to speak about “Eating Soup with a Knife: A Marine Officer's Perspective on Afghanistan and Iraq.”

It was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who made an observation sixty years ago that has become part of the Marine Corps lore. She said:

The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have
ever seen. Thank GOD for the United States Marine Corps!

Even a quick glance at the role of the military in American society shows that the life of an American soldier is full of contradictions. There is no easy way to reconcile the world’s most lethal military force with the world’s most open society. But the two are inextricably linked. The more representative is the democracy and the freer is the republic, the more it is worth fighting for.

We can do our best to bridge this gap by hearing the stories from the veterans themselves, and although some experiences are off limits, old soldiers do like to tell of their adventures. As a result, the list of fascinating books about military campaigns is long. It has just gotten one book longer and a whole generation better. I believe that Captain Fick’s One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer is destined to be the classic military memoir for our times.

What do we learn from Captain Fick’s treatise? We see example upon example of how American soldiers use force deliberately rather than indiscriminately. We come to realize that operational mistakes in war are inevitable, but when they occur, Marines on the ground have been trained to overcome them. And we feel reassured that having a Dartmouth classics major at the helm of an elite platoon in Iraq makes for not just a great read, but it helps get the mission accomplished and keep the troops alive.

We are grateful to Captain Fick for being with us today to share the insights he has gained from his unique experiences. Earlier today, he had lunch with the Rockefeller Center’s PoliTalk discussion group and students in the Dickey Center’s War and Peace Studies program. He met with some of Dartmouth’s ROTC cadets. Tonight, he will lead a session of the Rockefeller Center’s Leadership Fellows program. It’s not quite a day of training at Quantico, but it is more than enough to show Nate’s affection for his alma mater.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Captain Nathaniel Fick.

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Published on Leave a comment on Happy Birthday Marine Corps

The birthday of the Marine Corps is November 10, 1775, at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. Read a brief history here.

Tomorrow, the Rockefeller Center celebrates Veteran's Day by hosting Captain Nathaniel Fick '99, author of One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer. Here is what one reviewer had to say:

Fick signed up for the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School after receiving a B.A. from Dartmouth in 1999 because he wanted a challenge. He got one. He made it through the school and eventually into the First Recon Battalion (the elite of the elite), and he served in Afghanistan and Iraq before leaving the corps as a captain. The classics major proceeds in classic form, covering his training succinctly but thoroughly and his field experience in well-narrated detail, and concluding with a short epilogue. One of the corps' attractions for him was the chance for leadership in fighting. He quickly learned that the trust between platoon and leader can make the difference between life and death for both, and he builds his combat descriptions around that principle. One Bullet Away can be recommended to anyone wanting a frontline description of this country's recent combat theaters and to anyone seeking a personal account of the contemporary Marine Corps. Marines are people, and Captain Fick puts proof of it on paper. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Here's an article from the local paper, previewing his talk last week. I'll post more about his visit over the weekend.

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Published on Leave a comment on The Homeland Security Industrial Complex

I took a trip to Washington on Thursday and kept feeling like everywhere I looked, there was some new encroachment of Homeland Security enterprise into a new sphere. Advertisements on Metro platforms are a good example. I go to DC maybe a half dozen times a year, and I have never picked up that vibe before.

In his farewell address to the nation, President Eisenhower spoke of an emerging military-industrial complex and the threat it posed to liberty:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Today, the buzzwords are homeland security rather than military, but the admonition should remain the same. As we have watched the problems unfold in the Gulf Coast this month, we have seen a large element of this bureaucracy failing in critical ways to do what it was intended to do. The usual response in Washington will be to make that bureaucracy larger, without necessarily making it smarter.

Maybe not this time. On my trip, I also had the chance to meet with some recent alumni of Dartmouth. It was encouraging to see some of these bright young people finding their way in this new field. But, in a broader sense, their choices illustrate another way to understand the costs of our current struggles--against natural and manmade threats--bright young people are being siphoned off into a field that protects existing assets, rather than building new ones.

Published on Leave a comment on In Praise of Thomas Friedman

Like a lot of people, I "discovered" Thomas Friedman after 9/11, and he was for many months thereafter the most lucid voice anywhere on the subject of the terrorist threat and how the world had changed. I still keep Longitudes and Attitudes handy in case I want to read any of his excellent columns from that period.

He has another good one in the New York Times yesterday, "Arms Sales Begin at Home." The column begins:

For the life of me, I simply do not understand why President Bush is objecting to the European Union's selling arms to China, ending a 16-year embargo. I mean, what's the problem?

There is an obvious compromise that Mr. Bush could put on the table that would defuse this whole issue. Mr. Bush should simply say to France, Germany and their E.U. partners that America has absolutely no objection to Europeans' selling arms to China - on one condition: that they sell arms to themselves first. That's right, the U.S. should support the export to China of any defense system that the Europeans buy for their own armies first. Buy one, sell one.

But what the U.S. should not countenance is that at a time when the Europeans are spending peanuts on their own defense, making themselves into paper tigers and free riders on America for global policing, that they start exporting arms to a growing tiger - China.

I'm an economist. I'm wired to think the free-rider problem is pervasive and to look for external solutions to the problem. But I'd take issue with any plan to have individual European nations arm themselves. History suggests that Europeans have a propensity to use their armaments on ... each other. But Friedman has other concerns:

But what really concerns me is Europe. Europe's armies were designed for static defense against the Soviet Union. But the primary security challenges to Europe today come from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. If you put all the E.U. armies together, they total around two million soldiers in uniform - almost the same size as the U.S. armed forces. But there is one huge difference - only about 5 percent of the European troops have the training, weaponry, logistical and intelligence support and airlift capability to fight a modern, hot war outside of Europe. (In the U.S. it is 70 percent in crucial units.)

The rest of the European troops - some of whom are unionized! - do not have the training or tools to fight alongside America in a hot war. They might be good for peacekeeping, but not for winning a war against a conventional foe. God save the Europeans if they ever felt the need to confront a nuclear-armed Iran. U.S. defense spending will be over $400 billion in 2005. I wish it could be less, but one reason it can't is that the United States of Europe is spending less than half of what we are. And the U.S. and E.U. really are the pillars of global stability.

Okay, I'd say he's made his "paper tiger" point stick. And he closes very well:

If Europe wants to go pacifist, that's fine. But there is nothing worse than a pacifist that sells arms - especially in a way that increases the burden on its U.S. ally and protector.

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Published on Leave a comment on In Praise of Rafael Peralta

Via Powerline, I learn about the death in combat of Marine Sargeant Rafael Peralta in the Battle for Fallujah last month. The Seattle Times was quick to carry the report. The critical sequence of events:

Peralta, 25, as platoon scout, wasn't even assigned to the assault team that entered the insurgent safe house in northern Fallujah, Marines said. Despite an assignment that would have allowed him to avoid such dangerous duty, he regularly asked squad leaders if he could join their assault teams, they said.

One of the first Marines to enter the house, Peralta was wounded in the face by rifle fire from a room near the entry door, said Lance Cpl. Adam Morrison, 20, of Tacoma, who was in the house when Peralta was first wounded.

Moments later, an insurgent rolled a fragmentation grenade into the area where a wounded Peralta and the other Marines were seeking cover.

As Morrison and another Marine scrambled to escape the blast, pounding against a locked door, Peralta grabbed the grenade and cradled it into his body, Morrison said. While one Marine was badly wounded by shrapnel from the blast, the Marines said they believe more lives would have been lost if not for Peralta's selfless act.

Blogging has been light these past couple of days because I've been turning the pages on Flags of Our Fathers. Written by James Bradley, it chronicles the stories of the 6 men in the famous flag-raising picture on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, one of whom was John Bradley, the author's father. If you are like me, then you don't know enough American history to know the brutality of the War in the Pacific and the many ways that this famous image is widely misunderstood. Read the book.

John Bradley shunned the limelight that followed his inclusion in that photo, saying little to his son about the battle in the nearly fifty years he lived thereafter. He refused to allow people to glorify him as a hero, saying "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back." He was talking about the 26,000 Marines who perished in the battle for that island. He could just as well have been talking about Rafael Peralta nearly sixty years later.

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