-Caveat Lector-
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********** VOICE OF THE GRUNT
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********** 18 August 1999
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ARTICLES
Hack's Column
The Way It Was And The Way It Is
1
Mac Notes
2
>From The Field:
Qual Day - Rifle Range - 160/240
3
Superbowl On A Passing Game 4
"Let He Who Is Without Sin..." 5
A Son Graduates From The USAFA 6
Medal of Honor:
*Shields, Marvin G., CM3C, USN, Seabee Team 1104 7
Dong Xoai, RVN, 10 June 1965
Commentary:
Military Goes By The Book, But It's A Novel
8
*Denotes a posthumous award
===========================================================
ARTICLE 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE WAY IT WAS AND THE WAY IT IS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By David H. Hackworth, 17 August 1999
"Never point a weapon at someone unless you intend to kill 'em,"
roared Sergeant Allen. He slapped my M-1 rifle so hard the butt slammed me
in the jaw. Then, with me shouting "I'm a dumb-ass recruit," he ran me until
I keeled over.
I never forgot that lesson nor, like most recruits who met up with
him, did I ever forget his name. Or the lessons he taught or the discipline
he instilled. His "STAY ALERT, STAY ALIVE" mantra saved my life dozens of
times over the next 25 years. My jaw still tingles whenever I think of him.
Later, when I became a sergeant, I passed his wisdom on to the men
who served with me in Italy during Round One of the Balkan War and during
the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. And I'm sure his savvy saved many a young
grunts life during those years, too.
Sergeant Allen was my Basic Training platoon sergeant in the spring
of 1946. When he shaped up 15-year-old Recruit Hackworth along with 40
other sad sacks, he gave new meaning to the words stress, yell, and cajole.
He demanded exactness 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If we were less
than perfect, there'd be push ups, squat jumps, midnight details like
cleaning the inside of a toilet bowel with a razor blade or shining the
barracks floor with a small piece of cotton and shoe polish until your
fingertips bled.
Sergeant Allen -- 53 years later, I still wouldn't dare call him
anything but Sergeant -- was not a sadistic monster. He'd seen the elephant
and knew what it took to keep men alive. He had just come back from
kill-or-be-killed environments -- Africa, Sicily and Italy -- and had seen
too many
peach-faced kids turned into purple mush because a sergeant hadn't been
tough enough.
During my basic training, the only officers I saw were on payday and
on the firing range. NCOs were gods, and they ran the show.
Now things have changed -- not for the better. The officers and
sociologists have taken over, and few have ever led a squad in combat. These
kinder gentler folks have gotten their learning from books and lectures, and
few have a clue about what's needed to survive. No way can their
"Consideration for others" training help a soldier drive a bayonet in his
opponent's gut or give him the sharp reaction needed when a sergeant yells
"Knock out that machine gun."
I regularly talk with dozens of Army Drill sergeants, and they tell
me this new, politically correct approach is creating an Army that's
marshmallow soft. Here's what they're saying:
"Road marches are now conducted at 4 kilometers an hour. My
seven-year-old hikes faster. No wonder our new privates can't hump a
twelve-miler when they get to a line unit."
"A sergeant was marching his platoon and he shouted at them to get
in step. The brigade CO (a full colonel) locked his heels together and read
him the riot act for yelling at the privates."
"The philosophy here is that the only stress the private should have
is between himself and the task. If we can't create artificial stress, we're
setting ourselves up for colossal failure."
"We have a new Sgt. Major and he told the privates if they think the
Drill Sergeant is being too hard on them to bypass the chain of command,
come see him and he'll take care of it."
"Drill Sergeants are not allowed to make the privates do pushups, or
run on FILL DAY (first day): a no-stress fill. There's almost no training on
Saturday so the privates can take it easy."
"We have to let the trainees go to concerts, a mandatory mall visit
in their 6th week of training, and we have to cancel a day of training so
they can participate in the monthly retirement ceremony. Should I mention
the mandatory museum visit during their 2nd weekend of training? All of this
to reduce 'stress.' Yes, Sir, we're training some warriors over here."
The new Army Chief of Staff better talk to his Drill Sergeants
without any officers around and get the straight skinny. Or invest heavily
in body bags and white flags.
==================================================
ARTICLE 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*******MAC NOTES******
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Robert L. McMahon, 16 August 1999
Seems the mass media has caught on to several topics we have been
discussing for the past few weeks: Military Aircraft and Anthrax Vaccinations.
This Sunday's New York Times had a front-page feature article in its
MONEY and BUSINESS Section titled "Dogfight Over a Must-Win Contract." And
no, it's not about the F-22. The topical aircraft this time is the Joint
Strike Fighter (JSF) a single engine, single-seat fighter to replace the
F-16, A-10, AV-8B, F/A-18, and the F-14 Tomcat.
The Washington Post carried an article in response to SECDEF Cohen's
commentary from a few weeks ago on the potential use of biological/chemical
weapons being unleashed upon our civilian populations by your typical
collection of nut-balls, zealots and celebrity seeking psychopaths. A couple
of Marines are getting into trouble regarding the current battery of Anthrax
shots as well. The Corps is labeling these young men as insubordinate and
pressing the full weight of the UCMJ against them. I think that we all know
now that the FDA hasn't approved these shots, and there are over 30 some-odd
different strains of Anthrax out there. Can you really blame these young men
for trying to opt out of taking something that's "experimental" in nature?
The JSF article's positioning struck me as completely appropriate:
directly under the banner of MONEY & BUSINESS. Talk about your nuts in a
vice business deal. Get a load of the number of planes each of the three
branches would like to purchase: USAF, 2036 planes - USMC, 642 planes - USN,
300 planes. With the UK purchasing about 100 additional you are looking at
an investment of a $100 Billion! That's roughly 3078 aircraft at an average
price of $30 million each. That's without the F-22 Raptor or the MV-22
Osprey. That's without replacing weapons stores, troop training,
shipbuilding, pay raises, etc...
Getting back to my M16 comment last week, the material I have found
on the M16 rifle is fairly in depth and has prompted me to ask the question
of why this weapon was developed in the first place. For a more complete
story you can turn to this webpage:
http://www.wwa.com/~dvelleux/m16rifle.html. And for more information on
military weapons go to http://www.rootquest.org/~amhist/topic/weapon.html.
From what I've been able to glean from these pages and Hack's About
Face, is that this weapon was adopted despite the Army's finding it lacking
in ruggedness and durability and at the expense of a .30 Caliber
standardization that went back to the Krag rifle of 1892. It's amusing now,
but after we convinced the British to adopt a .30 Caliber (7.62 NATO) round
over their own .28 Caliber round, we then adopt a .22 Caliber (5.56 NATO)
standard for our own infantry. Needless to say they were furious.
I also found it interesting that General Curtis LeMay, USAF was the
first General to adopt the weapon as a replacement for the M2 Carbine used
by SAC sentries. The USAF ordered 8500 of the weapons back in 1960. How
could Air Force sentry duty drive a replacement for a mud Grunt's infantry
weapon? Easy, it was then pushed upon Airborne units as a lightweight
replacement for the M14. To a certain extent I can see Airborne units
looking for more of a machine-pistol weapon. The current M4 weapon meets
this need fully and is preferred by SOG units to the M16.
Where was this "need" arising for our infantry to adopt a 5.56mm
round? Was there a real cry going up from the Grunts to replace the M14 -
which was only adopted in 1957 by the way? The way it was adopted also
raises questions about concern for the Grunt.
It was initially billed as a low maintenance, high-reliability
weapon and was ordered without cleaning kits! Many a troop paid for that
mistake with their life in Vietnam. The weapon turned into a
high-maintenance "prom-queen" when exposed to real infantry conditions.
Whenever you want to know why these apparently inane, inexplicable
and oft times dangerous concepts get hoisted upon you, remember to always
follow the money. In June of 1966, when Colt was awarded a $91.7 million
contract for 840,000 M16 rifles, there were several former U.S. Army Generals
running the show there. They helped steer the entire acceptance of a 5.56mm
weapon for the U.S. military. You think there was a vested interest in
knowing how that could be done?
Remember, always follow the money.
*****ATTENTION*****ATTENTION******ATTENTION:
Hack's going fishing. The old Colonel will leave this middle-aged
former Marine in charge of the lash-up while he and Eilhys have fun in the
sun at Block Island from 27 August to 6 September.
There will be no commo with the Man. Period. MAKE A NOTE. Eilhys
says, "He's off the air. I'm Colonel-napping him and taking him to get
rested and in shape for THE PRICE OF HONOR book tour. It'll be sort of a
tough-love Advanced Course."
THE PRICE OF HONOR, a Doubleday and Military Book Club "Main Book" for Fall
1999, will be out in October. Details regarding Hack's book-tour schedule --
what cities and when -- will be down the track. I read the Galleys of the
book, which was three years in the writing. Hack has truly jumped into the
ring with several of your other favorite authors: Clancy, Griffin, Myrer,
Webb, et al. It's great read and a wonderful story.
So, please no emails to Hack during this period. If it's hot contact me.
Have a good week. Don't bunch up.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.freeyellow.com:8080/members7/rlmcmahon/
====================================================
ARTICLE 3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
QUAL DAY - RIFLE RANGE - 160/240
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SUMMARY: An Army Drill Sergeant sounds off about Basic Training. Oh for the
days of Sgt. Allen.
**********************************
By An Army Warrior
I'm writing to tell you a few problems I'm having, and there seems to be no
one who wants to give me the answers! I'm currently a Drill Sergeant. We
started a new Basic Combat Training, not infantry. Already I'm starting to
get burned out, not from the privates, but because of the chain of command
and all the politics. It seems that all the top brass care about is numbers.
I read your tribute to drill sergeants This is kind of a continuance to
that. There are a lot of don'ts that the drill sergeant has to follow.
For example, when we picked up the privates, the BC and CO didn't want the
Joes to run off the bus or hold the bags for too long, because it didn't
seem to serve a purpose. Now, right off the bat, are tools to shock the
civilian-to-soldier method a little more weakened. But the drill sergeant
sucks it up, and drives on.
Then comes the chow hall. Joe can eat whatever he wants: cake, doughnuts, or
whatever. At least we can tell them not to drink soda or coffee. I'm not
saying that we lost all out power, but it is definitely slipping through our
hands. A rule from the officers is that the private will not get harassed in
the chow hall, which I believe, but whose definition of harassment are we
talking about? The drill sergeant yelling, "Five minutes left!
Hurry up and get out!" to some people is too much, yet the drill sergeant
drives on.
One day we're having a meeting, and the CO tells us that we can't drop the
private for flutter kicks on the cement; it might hurt him! In my
experience, never have I heard of anyone getting hurt for that. That blew my
mind.
Our company took a big blow to the chops last week. We started basic rifle
marksmanship. The first, day we grouped, and a storm came, so we had to shut
down. The next day, we had to zero, but we were already backed up and we did
the best we could. Then the Brigade Commander came out and said (like he was
the high priest): no more training, it's too hot. Yes, we had a few heat
casualties, and the sense I'm feeling is that he is worried about too many.
The next day, we did the known distance range, which is a good range, but,
considering our backup, someone should have said to nix the range and get
back to zeroing. The drill sergeants tried to tell the CO and the First
Sergeant that, but they are too worried about rocking the boat. The fourth
day, we had practice qualification, and there were still privates not
zeroed. We shuttled them to a different range, and got them zeroed the best
we could, but there were privates that did not even shoot the weapon at a
pop-up target, and we are qualifying the next day. As you can imagine, the
next day was very ugly.
After the first time through, we had roughly 160 out of 240 unqualified. The
rest of the day, about 15 more qualified. This was a disgrace. There should
be about 80 to 85 per cent of the company qualified the first time through.
I'm still waiting, but my guess is that the chain of command will blame the
drill sergeants for this. This frustrates me to no end. I was actually told
by a drill sergeant in another Bn. that they wavered 30 soldiers to
graduate, even though they didn't qualify.
Another drill sergeant told me that, one day in the chow hall, the Brigade
Commander came in and chewed his ass cuz he didn't know the exact count of
missing salt and pepper shakers!
Shouldn't the commander have a few more important issues on his mind than
that, maybe?
What's wrong without BRM. training? Anyway, the same day the Col. is talking
to a private, the private is standing like a sloppy civilian, and a drill
corrects him, and the Col. turns around, and says to the drill sergeant,
"Don't worry drill, I got it," and then told the private to stand however it
makes him comfortable. What kind of outright slap in the face that is to a
drill sergeant and to the NCO corps? I can't stand the officers worrying
about the privates' feelings, and if he eats whatever he wants, and not
caring if the end product is a soldier that can fight and win, and is combat
ready. I can only hope that this disease has not spread beyond Fort Benning.
If it has, I feel sorry for the day when we see a combat zone that needs a
strong hungry soldier capable of closing with and destroying the enemy.
Am I the only one worried about this, or is this normal? Tell me that the
army will change its view about training a soldier and trusting the drill
sergeant. =====================================================
ARTICLE 4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SUPERBOWL ON A PASSING GAME
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SUMMARY: Two Marine Officers respond to the MV-22 Osprey comments.
*********************************
By A Senior Marine Warrior
The internal battle has guys who want to go long distances with a decent
load of fighters and also have a fair lift capability. That is a big fight
in and of itself. These are the guys who want to fly 400 miles into some
country and do these long distance raids with the small footprint. To me
those are suicide and since you can't stay very long they can wait you out.
Like the British Airborne in "A Bridge Too Far." I see them as the same kind
of guys who think they can go to the Superbowl with only a passing game.
The long pass guys are called the 82nd Airborne in my view. They're placed
forward as part of a combined plan. Marines are a door opener. We're not
supposed to be the 82nd Airborne. We can act in conjunction with them, but
we'll never replace them. I prefer the closer fight with more flexibility in
terms of where the birds can find LZ's.
Years ago I would have signed on with the Blackhawk (a Marine version). We
would have had Cobras, Blackhawks (to replace 46's and UH-1's) and CH-53's.
I am not a big MV-22 fan because it took too long to get it and I wanted
replacement for the 46's ASAP. The big guys are also looking at numbers of
pilots and maintenance folks and are always "sold" that the new one will
require less people. We'll see.
****************************
By Righter of Wrongs
On your comments about the Osprey (just because it burns me up!), an example
of the effect of blinders on our Corps' leaders.
On the 50th anniversary of the assault on Iwo Jima, the "Marine Corps Times"
did a series of articles on the operation. One of the articles asked the
question, 'Could the Marine Corps conduct a successful assault on Iwo
today?' The article answered the question with a "NO" and gave several
reasons:
-Size of the Corps today is smaller
-Not enough sea-lift
-Helicopters couldn't land because "...every inch of the island is
covered with direct and antiaircraft fire"
-Shipping is in danger because it has to go in too close to the
shore to launch AAVs
The article, however, went on to say that the Corps Post-2000 could do it
due to the new and innovative weapons, tactics, and equipment we will be
fielding. Chief among those is the MV-22 Osprey which can conduct a vertical
assault from over the horizon at over 200 knots per hour!
Well, hell, the last time I looked the MV-22 had to do the exact same thing
a helicopter does to land and disgorge it's troops -- it has to move to 0
knots airspeed and land on the deck! And if I remember correctly, on Iwo
"...every inch of the island is covered with direct and antiaircraft fire!"
We as Corps tacticians and planners must remember that the MV-22 does not
give us a greater vertical assault capability... it only changes the
dynamics of number of aircraft and time/distance planning involved in the
assault. All other considerations for vertical assault; enemy, weather,
objectives, aircraft losses (to enemy as well as mechanical) remain
unaffected by the use of MV-22 over any other helicopter. With the MV-22 or
any other helicopter we will still have the same capability to conduct a
vertical assault.
=====================================================
ARTICLE 5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN...DROP THE FIRST CEMENT BOMB..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SUMMARY: In an effort to prevent collateral damage, and I guess play down
our munitions stores lack of serious weapons, the Air Forces will be casting
stones. Imagine, you're strapped in to your F/A-18 on a catapult and on your
wings - rocks!
********************************
By Johnny "Two Shows" O'Hearn (Yeah, that's like an alias...)
I don't know if you have heard this one yet, but our latest
"innovation" in the military is to drop "cement" bombs in northern Iraq. As
in, no warheads, no explosives, no TNT, nothing. A LGB or PGM with a cement
bomb body. They claim it is to limit collateral damage in urban areas. Hmm,
go figure. I guess they've never seen how far a cement bomb "broaches" when
it hits the ground. The bomb body will often travel for up to a mile, before
finally coming to rest. Coming to rest in a school, hospital, Mosque, just
pick one.
Somebody has lost their mind on this one. I call it "de-escalation."
Or in reference to INSTANT THUNDER, how about "CEMENT THUNDER." This will do
nothing but get us into more trouble. When are we going to figure out we
have two choices: kick Iraq's ass once and for all, or negotiate a peace
that is acceptable to all parties. For eight years we've done nothing at all
but enforce a laughable no-fly/no-drive zone, as Saddam laughs all the way
to the bank. Iraq has continued to go further and further downhill, while he
to rearms and harasses the hell out of us.
Once upon a time war meant dropping LIVE bombs on people's heads,
and demonstrating to all their citizens that you mean business. The Iraqis
will double over with laughter once they pick up the first couple of pieces
of a cement bomb.
The only good news is some senior officers have got wind of this,
and I presume the practice will come to a stop sooner or later. But then
again...
===============================================
~~> more articles in Part B ~~>
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