Table of Contents

Hack's Target For The Week:

Stand Tall Or Lose It All

By David H. Hackworth

We've seen another week in the Middle East even bloodier than the week before - where the Kamikaze Kids are finally being thumped by alternate realities they understand: cells or coffins.

Kibitzers watching while the Israeli war machine smashes through Palestine are repeating what Col. Kurtz - a.k.a. Marlon Brando - said in the motion picture Apocalypse Now: "The horror, the horror."

Many protest that military solutions are wrongheaded, that Israel has become as bad as Nazi Germany.

Give peace a chance, goes their mantra, and the Middle East nabe of the global village will light up with balloons, lollypops and sunshine. Of course, none of these good people has been visiting morgues, viewing pieces of loved ones blown to whatever's left while at prayer, dining out or disco dancing.

Israel is a house invaded by rattlesnakes. The Israelis can either cut and run or kill the snakes.

When Super Snake Moammar Gadhafi tried his terrorist tactics on Ronald Reagan, he got hit so hard he's still digging a deeper hole. Notice that there's been nothing overt from this fruitcake since he felt the pain of 2,000-pound U.S. bombs. Nor have there been any hits on Israeli citizens since the April blitzkrieg against Palestinian terrorists.

Vietnam, where the USA fought a long war against terrorism, was another story. We lost there because our brass never understood the nature of that war, and our casualties kept climbing until the peace movement and the polls prevailed. Instead of fighting the terrorists to the finish, we followed the 1938 Munich peace-during-our-time pap that enabled Hitler and his barbarians to pummel Europe. Now, millions of decent Vietnamese live in a communist state where a blink of dissent gets you dead.

In Francis Ford Coppola's film, Col. Kurtz tells how after his medics inoculated a small village, the Reds chopped off every child's left arm. "My God, the genius of that. The genius," Kurtz said. "The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure! And then I realized they were stronger than me because they could stand it." He goes on to describe the kind of soldier it would take to beat the communists: "You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill - without feeling, without passion, without judgment. Without judgment, because it's judgment that defeats us."

This is the civilized world's dilemma. Terrorist havens such as Palestine - where the chief cop ran a bomb factory at home and kids are programmed almost from birth to be body bangs - can handle the murder, the destruction and the madness. But this time around, we, too, need to somehow handle the horror - because the only way to deal with terrorists is to out-terror them. That means make the kitchen so hot the snakes either run or burn. Contrary to White House demands, Israel must be allowed to act on what millions of Americans were taught before we marched off to past wars: kill or be killed.

Reagan got it right when he said, "Never negotiate with terrorists."

Right after Sept. 11, George W. Bush followed that dictum, adding that any state supporting terrorism in any way would be our enemy. Now he seems to be backpedaling, doing a poll-watching dance when he should be bombing Baghdad and Tehran rather than asking Israel to back off.

None of the Palestinian terrorists would even have a firecracker without financial and material support from rogue states such as Iran and Iraq. Even the dumbest camel probably knows that these countries are doing unto Palestine what Red China and the Soviets did unto the North Vietnamese - who couldn't fire the stuff fast enough at American boys in Vietnam. Today, Iran's fingerprints are all over tons of Israeli-captured munitions, while Iraq's Saddam Hussein recently doubled the payoff he gives every Palestinian martyr's family to $25,000 - blood money the Mustached One knows is fueling the mayhem, delaying his own Day of Reckoning.

The first dead American soldier I saw was killed by one of Tito's terrorists 56 years ago. Harry Truman's policy was to shoot back. We did, and we won. Since then I've spent a lot of time either fighting or writing about terrorists - and I know if they aren't losing, they're winning. And you can't make them lose with sweet talk or double talk, only with hot steel.

http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831.

© 2002 David H. Hackworth

By Paul Connors

The war on terrorism following the 9-11 terrorist attacks has prompted the Defense Department to order widespread call-ups of reservists and National Guard members. The mismanagement of that mobilization is a controversy simmering beneath the surface that will soon explode into public view.

Not only have Army and Air National Guard personnel been dispatched to patrol the nation's airports, but significant numbers of Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard (ANG) units have witnessed full or significant partial mobilizations. In the case of the USAF Reserve Command (AFRC) and ANG organizations, most of the activations have occurred in flying units, especially those providing tactical airlift, aerial refueling and aerial port services managing the movement of air cargo to operating forces deployed overseas.

With the requirements for security personnel rising dramatically, the service-wide shortage of USAF security personnel has resulted in the wholesale activations of complete Security Forces squadrons from numerous AFRC and ANG flying units. Many have been used to backfill stateside active-duty units deployed overseas, while others have deployed to operational theaters to support active duty missions.

While the public patriotic fervor may have flagged a bit since 9-11, most Americans have been extremely reluctant to criticize the armed forces leadership as thousands of men and women in uniform carry out their assigned missions, including combat operations. News media reports indicate that most Americans, feeling more secure than they did in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks, have shifted their attentions to surviving the economic downturn that has plagued the economy.

It should be no surprise, then, that most civilians are unaware of growing concerns within the military community itself over what is happening in the ongoing conflict. But after more than six months of reserve and Guard activations, the wall of silence is starting to crack and individual voices of concern are beginning to be heard.

One of the many issues that have come to the attention of SFTT and DefenseWatch has been the questionable nature of many of the unit activations and individual call-ups. Once again, mobilization planning efforts between the active Air Force and its reserve component partners can be characterized as one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

For example, while the ANG has complete responsibility for the protection of U.S. aerial sovereignty, that mission, greatly expanded since 9-11, has resulted in non-air defense units and personnel from across the active force and reserve component being assigned to the mission.

In addition, AFRC and ANG personnel are suffering from a serious case of "mission creep" as local commanders - eager to show what their units can perform - have volunteered their personnel and units for an expanding number of missions worldwide such as support for assorted Air Expeditionary Force packages that Air Force planners need staffed.

What has becoming increasingly apparent is that some reserve component commanders are speaking for their units without giving due consideration to the financial, familial and civilian job concerns of their part-time military members. Many reservists and Guardsmen have started to question the true motives behind the activations, as well as their military necessity. The prolonged deployments have hurt morale, increased financial hardships and led to breakdowns in unit cohesion as the call-ups continue, in many cases without real rhyme or reason.

In one reserve airlift wing, almost 100 percent of its Aircraft Generation Squadron (AGS) members will have been activated on a piecemeal basis by May 2002. In fact, DefenseWatch has learned from some unit members that the squadron commander has volunteered more people for activation than the active-duty support role even requires.

The number of reservists deployed overseas have become so numerous that over-manning has become a real problem. In one overseas site, there is actually not enough work to go around and personnel are splitting 12-hour shifts with two people working six hours apiece. Each member of the squadron works four days on with three off. Members of this unit, rotating back to their stateside base after 90-120 days overseas, have told other unit members that they intend to leave the Air Force Reserve as soon as they can because they are fed up with the constant deployments and the lies from their own leaders. By one senior NCO's estimation, this AGS squadron will fall to 50 percent manning by the end of this deployment period because of the anticipated exodus of angry and disillusioned personnel.

Active-duty members, ever thankful for the extra hands provided by members of the ANG and AFRC, have weighed in on the subject, too. The regulars realize that for them, deployments are an everyday fact of life, for that is the career they have chosen. Many have contacted DefenseWatch to tell us how much they were impressed with the dedication of ANG and AFRC members who served side by side with them in deployed locations. But they confirmed that many reserve component members, fed up with the constant recalls during the Clinton years and now the involuntary recalls for the war on terror, have voiced their intentions to leave the military as soon as they return to CONUS.

One active duty senior NCO, recently returned from the Persian Gulf after 156 days deployed, told DefenseWatch that among the career reserve component NCOs with whom he had served, all had announced their intentions to leave AFRC or ANG when they rotated home, despite the loss of service time and pension benefits they had earned. The NCO also confirmed widespread criticism of the chain of command for poor planning, pay problems, substandard living conditions and bad food.

Throughout the late 1990s, a booming civilian economy made it seriously difficult for active component of the U.S. military to recruit and retain a quality force. Today, it is the mismanagement of the reserve component mobilization for the war against terrorism that has created a looming personnel crisis. The constant strain on reserve component aircrews, maintainers and other support personnel will soon come back to haunt the Air Force and the other services.

Reservists and Guardsmen - like their active-duty comrades - are all volunteers. They should not - and will not - tolerate bad planning, poor leadership and open-ended and constant deployments where the mission is vague and the need for their presence is questionable.

If ANG and AFRC leaders continue to ignore the legitimate concerns of their subordinates, they may find themselves unable to support the next international conflict or national defense mission for which they are summoned.

Paul Connors is DefenseWatch Air Force Editor. He can be reached at paulconnors@hotmail.com.

By Jon Barrett III

Please pardon my prolonged absence from these pages - my reserve unit was sent somewhere. I was a bit busy with the preparations, and now I would like to comment on one of the issues I have perceived through the entire War on Terror.

In an earlier column ("Lost At Sea: Naval Reserve Mobilization," DefenseWatch, Jan. 23), I commented on the mobilization of the Naval Reserve continuing an old story of bureaucratic bungling and mismanagement. I am sad to report that nothing has really changed, even after we were attacked on our own soil.

In my earlier piece, I discussed the fragmented nature of Naval coastal warfare units. Recently, the Navy mobilized a contingent of Naval Coastal Warfare forces to Vieques Island in support of the USS George Washington carrier battle group.

The contingent was comprised of a Mobile Inshore/Undersea Warfare unit (their mission is coastal surveillance - surface and subsurface), a Harbor Defense Command unit (an administrative/liaison unit between the Navy and Coast Guard) and augmenting personnel from the Naval Coastal Warfare Group 2.

Taken together, all these units formed the Naval Coastal Warfare Det A. They were mobilized to Vieques to augment the security forces at hand, which consisted of Marines, naval security forces from nearby Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, Puerto Rican Forces for Rapid Action (FURA) police units, and assorted police support. The mission: to provide detection and detainment of any intruders who attempted to get onto the target range and prevent the battle group's gunfire exercise.

On the surface, this would appear to be a straightforward mission - easily executable by reserve forces. However, the mission duration is about 30 days. Since reservists are required to do a 12-day annual training (AT) each year, an augment of AT funding was required to cover an approximate effort of 2,000 man-days.

Instead, it took a mini-guerrilla war in the Navy bureaucracy to get the mission off the ground.

After the U.S. Atlantic Fleet assigned the mission to Group 2, and the unit's acceptance, the Naval Reserve Personnel Command in New Orleans promptly stated that it would not approve the required man-days to support the mission. It took three weeks of wrangling by an E-6 at the unit before the personnel command allotted enough man-days to support the deployment.

Never mind that this is a group-level function. Never mind that with several other similar units deployed to the Mideast, there are now a surplus of AT days within this particular Navy community. Never mind that this E-6 should have been coordinating travel arrangements and orders, instead of dealing above his pay grade with major command bean-counters.

Naval Coastal Warfare has a mission deployment checklist of things required to effectively mobilize a unit. The timeline of this checklist provides sufficient time for a mission planner to accomplish his planning, his confirmation briefs, and issue operational orders. For this particular mission, the individual in command promulgated his order the day before all the participants left for the mission. If a problem developed with his comms, tactical employment, mission planning or rules of engagement, when would the issues have been addressed?

In fact, there were problems: The security forces at Roosevelt Roads have decided to take a more aggressive posture with protestors and intruders than they have in the past.

So a Navy lieutenant (O-3) in charge of the security forces issued a draft document of the rules of engagement via email. This draft document referenced the rules of lethal force for the security forces, defining a number of levels of response using less-than-lethal munitions (LTL). However, the security officer neglected to consider that the coast watcher forces would not be issued these LTLs. Under existing regulations, they would be carrying 9mm Beretta sidearms, to be carried locked-and-loaded.

Moreover, the coast watchers anticipated being confronted by protestors known to turn violent, potentially armed (as in the past) with Molotov cocktails, slingshots, clubs and projectiles to throw or shoot from the slingshots (in previous incidents they have used sparkplugs, rocks, glass, etc.). Thus, under the draft ROE, the watch-standers were directed to use LTL that they did not possess before resorting to deadly force. They were also directed to call in the security response force that did have the LTL munitions.

The likely scenario faced by the initial coast-watcher team member was either to run, hide, and shout, then resort directly to his 9mm sidearm while waiting for the security forces to respond over a 40-minute drive across rutted cart paths.

Does anyone besides me smell disaster brewing?

Add to this bubbling cauldron the following: The final OPORDER (issued the day before deployment) directed the team to adopt the draft ROE originally provided by the Navy lieutenant. In other words, the ROE was never authorized by higher Navy authority with the statutory ability to promulgate those rules. God forbid, had deadly force actually been used during this mission under a draft document written by a non-lawyer and never approved by official Naval channels.

To my knowledge, this ROE has not yet been approved since the beginning of the mission. I am also aware that, in a moment of sanity, the commander of the coast-watcher unit instructed his personnel to observe and report only. Under no circumstances were they to engage the intruder. Rather, they were to report any incidents to the command center, call in the security response and let them go. This may have saved some careers, but the mission was to prevent intrusion, so now the battle group operations will probably be delayed anyway.

I guess that is better than getting court-martialed for shooting someone under non-existent ROE.

The hilarious counterpoint to all of this is that in the middle of all this flailing about, the Navy made an announcement: It seems the Navy in future will no longer be relying on reserve coastal security units, but instead is standing up an active-duty command to take over this part of the naval mission (did they read DefenseWatch in January?) The commodore commanding Coastal Warfare Group 2 is scheduled to be relieved, and at least six active-duty captains have been ordered in to the group, evidently to command the new units being formed.

Stay tuned for further details in this exciting, but shameful chapter in U.S. Navy history.

Contributing Editor Jon Barrett is the pen name of a Naval Reserve officer who has served in both the surface Navy and Naval Special Warfare. He can be reached at jbarrett@computermail.net.

By John Szelog

Second of Two Parts

The most common reason cited by the Air Force for not training all of its personnel in Air Base Ground Defense (ABGD) is that dedicated Security Forces are there to do that job, and both Army soldiers and Marines are available to aid them should it be necessary.

There are several fallacies to this policy.

First, the USAF security forces are limited in number and are also limited in the amount of training they receive. Until recently, Air Force commanders only gave half-hearted support to Security Forces (formerly Security Police or Air Police) in terms of equipment and logistical support. On top of this, Security Forces also get the bottom of the barrel when it comes to personnel quality - this is certainly not to say that there are no competent or dedicated members, but they get more than their fair share of "problem children" from the service's ranks.

This makes the task of training, maintaining discipline and standards, and consequently - successfully defending the base - even more difficult.

Combined with a service-wide manpower shortage caused by losses to retirement and discharge, as well organizational under-manning, the Security Forces today are not as capable and effective as they could, and should, be.

This situation alone seems to point out the need for all Air Force personnel to be trained in at least rudimentary weapons and security tactics. Without such preparation, it is unrealistic to expect that a group of administrative, supply, medical and maintenance personnel could immediately take up weapons and start running patrols of the base. But with adequate training, they could easily and effectively fill fighting positions, checkpoints, and help man mortars and other crew-served weapons.

Second, the idea that the Army or Marine Corps would be able to come to the aid of the Security Forces is a very risky one. It automatically assumes that Army or Marine commanders nearby would have the resources available to dispatch to an airbase, regardless of the tactical and strategic situations.

Currently, the Army is having a difficult time finding enough bodies to fill all of its own infantry slots, so it is questionable whether that service would even be able to provide more than an augmenting security force to an airbase. The ability of the Marines to send troops would, of course, depend on their location, mission load and, again, the availability of Marine forces.

Third, even if the Army and/or the Marines were able to provide an augmenting force, it cannot be simply assumed that there would be enough combat personnel to close all the holes in the perimeter and provide enough patrols to watch the entire base twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Finally, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps aviation units, and allied air forces, have initial and recurring air base ground defense programs, because they have a requirement to defend their own air bases and aircraft. In the U.S. Navy, all personnel on board ships are trained in firefighting, disaster control, security, or some other critical function, in addition to their primary duties. All of these services do this because they understand that their units can't rely on the expectation that outside help will arrive, and must be able to fend for themselves as long as the situation requires.

So we come full circle to the glaring lapse in Air Force preparedness: The Air Force remains the only U.S. military service that does not train its personnel in common unit tasks, including ABGD, in addition to their specialized duty training.

What makes this situation impossible to comprehend or defend is that on every Air Force base, the aircraft maintainers, administrative personnel, and supply troops are already positioned to form an effective second tier of security: They are already dispersed throughout the base, operate constantly around the most likely targets, and are the most likely to make the first contact with an enemy team that successfully penetrates the perimeter defenses.

Officers, NCOs and enlisted personnel who want to receive at least rudimentary training for themselves and/or their troops have several options today, even though the service leadership remains inattentive to devising a formal training regime for the Air Force as a whole.

The most obvious, and most desirable, route is if a local base or unit commander supports implementation of a formal training program. A base's Security Forces organization can be an excellent resource for training courses, information, and resources, particularly their training NCO. Another source would be any Army and Marine units, if those types of units are nearby and willing to help.

Training does not have to be elaborate or done in a vacuum, but can easily be integrated into deployment training drills, regular base exercises, etc. This training can include having the Security Forces or other units provide "aggressor forces" to conduct mock attacks against personnel and targets, to carry out advanced field first aid, and instructing personnel on how to better function in Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) gear in a combat environment. One very valuable training tool is having personnel act as aggressors against their own, and other units. Doing so gives people a very different perspective on the things they normally do, and allows them to identify weaknesses in their training and tactics.

In the absence of local base or wing leadership support for a formal training program, personnel can organize unofficial training on an individual basis. If necessary, conduct training during off-duty hours. The chain of command may not be happy about the training being conducted, but, unless there are over-riding safety or mission concerns, they won't have any room to complain.

Air Force people can come up with all the excuses they in the world for why they shouldn't have to carry a weapon or sit in a fighting position. They can rationalize a million times how the USAF Security Forces or the Army or Marines are going to come to their rescue in an emergency. But none of that will help when you find yourself under attack from a terrorist or enemy sapper team that managed to slip through the fence to attack you and your bases, and you lack the means to stop them.

(The first part of this report, "Ground Combat Training for the Air Force," appeared in DefenseWatch on March 27.)

John M. Szelog is a Contributing Editor to DefenseWatch. He can be reached at streetgang52@hotmail.com.

By Donald E. Vandergriff

As the Pentagon rethinks the long-term consequences of transforming the U.S. armed forces to the new post-Cold War realities, reshaping the force structure and incorporating new technological advances for a military designed to fight terrorism and other volatile issues of the 21st century, it is crucial that planners recognize the importance of what can be termed "cultural changes" that will play as important a role as the development of new hardware and strategy.

To borrow from the oft-repeated slogan from the Clinton years, "It's people, stupid."

Pentagon officials in the past year have made several comparisons of the ongoing transformation to Germany's military revolution between the world wars that led from static trench warfare to the fast-moving "Blitzkreig" of World War II that enabled the Third Reich to enjoy the conquest of most of Western Europe in less than a year.

But this is where the analysis ends. The current Pentagon transformers make the mistake of stressing technology while failing to focus on the intangibles of leadership and personnel management.

Germany's emphasis on speed and mobility in World War II was based on the ability of its officers to deal with maneuver (or "third generation" warfare) by employing agile units to quickly respond to battlefield changes.

When I observe the Pentagon's fixation of technology, I just shake my head and ask, "When are they [the establishment] ever going to listen?" Readiness is more than the operational rate of machines: it is the ability of people to adapt to the changing face of war. And they do this through unit cohesion, with leaders who have vast experiences in dealing with varying tactical and operational situations.

Of course it incredibly more complex than that to fix the "system." A comprehensive study of warfare and the relationships between human beings must embrace a spectrum of studies, including psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as military history. And this leads to the understanding that an effective military force begins not with weapons, equipment or even tactics and strategy - but with its culture.

As the late Col. John Boyd, an influential military theorist of the late 20th century, noted, an effective military places people first, ideas second, and the necessary technology, third. This is adverse to what the U.S. military has historically practiced.

In that vein, it is probable that the current Pentagon "transformation" effort will fail because the United States continues to take a 19th century industrial approach to war - where humans are only "cogs in the machine" - even in the 21st century.

There are several complex reasons why the U.S. military will likely be unable to transform itself in a comprehensive manner as the Germans fared after World War I.

First, the U.S. military has yet to discover, comprehend and capitalize on a simple but profound concept: trust. The Germans understood how important the practice of trust is to an effective military, and they did everything to build a culture of trust within their military culture. The U.S. military, even today, demonstrates the opposite, a culture of mistrust from the top down (and as a result, from the bottom back up) that is best characterized by the "zero defects" mentality that drives the military in both peacetime and wartime.

One can easily surmise how the fear of mistakes (and casualties) led the multitude of command layers in Central Command's recent Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan to exercise rigid control of operations better left to those directly involved in the fighting.

Having said that, the answer to beginning a true transformation of the U.S. military is to begin with the one institution that most directly dictates the level of trust - and mistrust - that personnel experience, whatever their rank. That is the military personnel system.

For true transformation to succeed, the Pentagon planners must refocus their studies and analysis on how current personnel laws and policies help undermine trust in the military. Current service documents on transformation just scratch the surface on addressing reforms to the personnel system.

When a military effectively transforms itself in reaction to the evolution of warfare, it achieves what I term "parallel evolution" with simultaneous changes in several institutions within the overall culture (a point of focus in my forthcoming book Path to Victory: America's Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs (Presidio, May 2002). The closest the U.S. Army came to this achievement in its 226-year history was from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s under the leadership of Gens. Edward "Shy" Meyer, Donn Starry, William Otis, Walt Ulmer, Robert Elton and other thoughtful.

During this literal renaissance of the U.S. Army following the Vietnam War, these individuals saw how the U.S. Army had destroyed itself in Vietnam based on poor assumptions on how war was to be fought - driven by a devotion to management science -- and moved dramatically to change it. Several generals, particularly Meyer and Starry, even had the moral courage to tamper with the Holy Grail of the military, its personnel system.

The German Army of 80 years ago provides a strong case study of how the U.S. armed forces of today can still succeed in the "parallel evolution" to genuine transformation.

First, the Germans for more than a century had evolved - a key word, evolve, not revolutionize - a culture that espoused an officer who was commissioned to do what he felt what was right based on his higher-ranking leader's intent, and what the current enemy and terrain situation dictated. A German officer was expected to disobey orders that were either out of date or stupid. A German officer was expected to make decisions in the face of adversity, both from the friction and harshness of combat, and in contradiction to the views of peers and superiors if the immediate situation warranted.

How did they achieve this? The German system bore fruit in combat, especially during World War I, when they transformed their doctrine and structure, and increased their leader selection criteria in the middle of a war.

First, the personnel system freed officers from an obsession with promotions, a fear of constantly "pleasing the boss," and allowed them to focus on the profession of arms. They did this with a strenuous selection process the equaled other professions such as medicine and engineering, and by using an "up or stay" system based on seniority. (The U.S. military has feared this in the past because of its immigrant fear of a European-style professional officer corps, and instead used a "militia" system for selection resulting in less than satisfying results).

After World War I, the German officer evaluation - not efficiency - system after World War I took a large amount of time to focus on the character of the individual being reviewed. The system did not focus on the short term. Since the hard selection - approving an officer's commission - had already been made, German officers could then focus on development of the individual officer - placing the right strengths of the individual to best benefit the organization.

This in turn allowed the German officer culture to be highly selective on whom they commissioned in the first place. The "cut line" was up front - at the point of accession to the Army - in contrast to our system, where it occurs annually throughout one's career. This assisted the German officer on focusing on the profession of arms, instead of having the constant anxiety of "promotion fear," which is universally recognized having a negative impact on overall military effectiveness.

The Germans were so adamant about maintaining commissioning standards that at the beginning of World War I, the German Army entered Belgium and France with a shortage of 3,000 officers. Why? Because the German Army said there were not enough qualified applicants! (The American solution would have been to look at the shortage, lower the standards in ROTC and establish OCS courses that would have pumped out more officers with lowered criteria).

The final concept that the German Army religiously believed and practiced was unit cohesion.

Despite German society's entire hallmark of efficiency, the Army centered its policies around maintaining unit cohesion even as it evolved from a small professional force in the late 1800s to a larger system based on mass mobilization. It was ready to fight as soon as it entered combat, and required little build-up and train-up time in contrast to the U.S. military's lackluster history of mobilization.

This has great relevance to the ongoing debate over U.S. military transformation.

If Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is going to succeed with creating a new military doctrine that embraces new technology, then the Pentagon needs to be equally bold in transforming the institutional culture of the U.S. military. The Pentagon must create officers who can handle the incredibly rapid battlefield tempo the doctrine writers are advocating that future technology will create. This is a vastly different culture from the one we have now. We cannot continue to write glowing documents advocating an "agile" officer, yet subtly support peacetime practices which uphold bureaucratic qualities when officers come up for promotion.

Rumsfeld and the Bush administration need to stop, take a deep breath, and focus on fixing the antiquated and dysfunctional military personnel system. Unfortunately, this is going to mean they have to make some hard calls to do this. And this means taking on the entrenched bureaucratic interests within each service, the military contractors who get their support from Congress and special interest groups who are more concerned with the own agenda of social engineering than on an effective military.

In short, Rumsfeld will have to fight and win an entirely different war if he is to avoid a failed military transformation. Merely spending more money for high technology - while ignoring the roots of current U.S. military culture - will transform nothing.

Vandergriff, a major in the U.S. Army, has published numerous articles on military culture and effectiveness, and is author of the forthcoming book, Path to Victory: America's Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs (Presidio Press, May 2002) available from www.d-n-i.net. He can be reached at vandergriffdonald@usa.net.

By Matthew Dodd

As a taxpayer, I am outraged. As an active-duty service member, I am embarrassed. The issue that attracted my ire was a front-page article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 25,headlined, "Pentagon Is Struggling To Reform Its Finances - Chief Financial Officer Says It Could Take 7 Years to Fix Military Accounting."

The headline and article may be new, but this financial fiasco is not. The problem has been around for years. I am sure that I will be accused of looking at this issue too simplistically, but I cannot understand why those in positions of responsibility for managing and accounting for Defense Department funds have been irresponsible, and why those irresponsible people were allowed to remain in their positions and to pass on their problems to their successors.

I take responsibility for being a part of the problem. I have occasionally heard about shady accounting practices and looked the other way, laughed at jokes poking fun of the lack of Defense Department financial integrity, and barely paid attention to stories about $600 military toilet seats. I accepted the status quo, and rationalized my indifference with an "it's-not-my-job" attitude.

After a quick review of the recent articles appearing in the Pentagon's daily Early Bird summary of national security and defense reporting, my response was, "What the heck are we doing to ourselves?"

Let me share with you some selected excerpts from the articles to give you an appreciation of the enormity of the problem …

* The Pentagon's chief financial officer, Dov Zakheim, said that if the Defense Department were a private company, it would have been bankrupt years ago.

* One Pentagon study estimated that $15 million a year could be saved, or put to proper use, if the Pentagon fixed its financial practices.

* Rep. Steve Horn, R-Calif., chairman of the House panel on government efficiency and financial management, observed, "For the sixth consecutive year, the department's inspector general has been unable to render an opinion on the reliability of the department's financial statements."

* The Pentagon has $700 billion in undocumented accounting entries, down from $1.3 trillion at the beginning of last year.

* There are 673 major systems for managing finances that are incompatible with each other, backed up by perhaps 1,000 other systems that also don't jibe - a labyrinth that wastes time and money and makes it virtually impossible to trace the money trail.

* "Today, DOD faces financial management problems that are pervasive, complex, longstanding, and deeply rooted in virtually all business operations throughout the department," said Gregory Kutz, director of the General Accounting Office's financial management and assurance section.

*As of November 2001, more than 46,000 Defense Department employees had defaulted on $62 million in credit card charges, and the bad debts are accumulating at a rate of about $1 million a month.

A major theme in the articles was an over-emphasis on reducing numbers and improving processes and procedures. Granted, people made the systems that produced the numbers, and those systems can be corrected if they are faulty or inaccurate. System fixing and analysis is the easy and obvious solution.

But the real problem is not systems, processes, and procedures. The real problem is the cult-like worship of the status quo in the Pentagon.

Confirmation of this core problem appeared in several articles: "Some observers also cite a longtime lack of leadership accountability and an institutional resistance to change .… Military officials have other priorities, and it's their successors who'll benefit from better financial management."

One article quoted an anonymous Pentagon official who rationalized the status quo: "It's like having a flat tire and trying to change it while you're going 60 miles an hour," he said. "It doesn't happen overnight, especially when you've got to keep the place rolling."

The scary part is that we are rolling like a runaway train headed to financial ruin if we do not make drastic changes, starting with holding people accountable for their financial irresponsibility.

In response to the enormous problems listed above, I learned that drastic, transformational changes are being made and closely monitored by the highest levels of the Defense Department. I guess my Chicken Little gut feeling was all for naught.

Tina Jonas, deputy undersecretary for Defense and Financial Management, recently told a subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Reform, "The financial departments are paying bills closer to their due date to reduce interest payments, collecting from contractors that owe, cracking down on credit card delinquencies by garnishing paychecks, and reducing overpayments or duplicate payments."

Oh, now I feel much better. C'mon, gimme a break!

Lt. Col. Matthew Dodd is the pen name of an active-duty Marine Corps officer stationed at the Pentagon. He can be reached at mattdodd1775@hotmail.com.

By Robert G. Williscroft

Autumn Gold, Eager Bell, Copper Head, Scarlet Sage, Shady Grove - these innocent-sounding names contain a sinister secret.

All six were experimental projects conducted in the early 1960s under the umbrella of Project SHAD: Shipboard Hazard and Defense. SHAD was part of the joint service chemical and biological warfare test program, whose tests were designed to "identify US warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability," according to Deployment Link, the information disseminating branch of the Directorate of Deployment Health Support, itself a part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

If you haven't heard of it, don't feel bad; neither has anyone else.

But as the Pentagon and other federal agencies race to develop defenses against the threat from chemical and biological warfare attacks, the emergence of a long-hidden military experimentation program - which used unwitting military servicemen as guinea pigs - offers a cautionary warning about the need for honesty and candor in the ongoing effort.

Project SHAD is classified. Nevertheless, under orders from the White House and pressured by the U.S. news media, the Department of Defense has declassified some - but not all project details.

The basic problem with these releases is that they contain only an outline of the specific project goals, and discuss briefly how these goals were approached. They contain no detailed information about the experiments, nor do they reference specific dates, exact locations, or personnel involved.

In researching the declassified documents, I have discovered dramatic differences between the published reports and the experiences of some of the personnel who actually participated in these experiments.

Perhaps the most significant discrepancy is the difference between the official report and the accounts of participants. For example, all the reports specifically state that degree of safety awareness and training preparation were high. As one report stated:

A sailor aboard the destroyer USS Power (DD-839), on what the crew was told was a routine January 1965 cruise from Florida to Newfoundland, writes that no one had said to expect anything different. The crew loaded sealed crates aboard the vessel in Argentia, Newfoundland, but, he added, "We were never told what was in them."

The sailor said that on four or five occasions during the next few weeks in the North Atlantic, an American military jet over flew the ship. Minutes later a mist descended. "Some of us were inside the ship," another sailor recalled, "but most of us were outside when the stuff came down."

Several sailors had been ordered on deck into the mist with pump-like devices to collect air samples. They talked among themselves, wondering what was happening. One sailor who asked what was going on, was told by his division officer: "Nothing. Nobody's doing anything."

Other discrepancies include the use of ships not named in the reports, ships in locations differing from those reported in the reports, and the inclusion of actual biological agents instead of simulants for part of the tests.

In May 2000, CBS News aired a two-part investigative report on Project SHAD. According to that report, aircraft would release a mist onto or near ships at sea, to determine the vulnerability of ships to biological or chemical warfare agents. CBS reported that Pentagon experts considered the live agents essentially harmless to people, but noted that later several of the substances used in SHAD were determined to be dangerous to the human respiratory system.

Based on this CBS report, several sailors submitted claims to the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the VA has had difficulty confirming the information they supplied, no thanks to the DoD's piecemeal and spotty release of details of the experiments.

A subsequent article will examine in greater detail exactly what is known about these tests, and what possible remedies exist for the participants who suffered as a result.

Robert G. Williscroft is DefenseWatch Navy Editor. He can be reached at dwnavyeditor@argee.net.

By Andrea West

North Korea, not so isolated from the world as in previous years, has been making an effort to improve its international standing. The means chosen has nothing to do with "engagement" or "sunshine," but rather with what Stratfor.com calls the "crazy fearsome cripple" gambit.

North Korea is using its carefully-cultivated reputation as an unpredictable, unbalanced, and homicidal regime to promote its own interests. Central to those interests is keeping the U.S. and its allies off balance, so that we are not tempted to do something about the current power structure centered around Kim Jong-Il. Above all, it prevents the United States from doing something to stop North Korea's missile development program.

North Korea has signed many treaties pertaining to nuclear nonproliferation, but has not followed through on compliance. In 1985, it signed the Nonproliferation Treaty, which called for verifying inspections. No inspections were allowed until 1990, at which time the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered undocumented plutonium production. A dispute over inspections remains unresolved to this day, although the DPRK went on to sign the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Under the terms of this treaty, neither North nor South Korea would possess nuclear weapons. The treaty banned reprocessing and enrichment, and outlined an inspection regime. Following months of political confrontation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United States over access to the Yongbyon nuclear facility - where experts concluded the regime had indeed reprocessed spent fuel rods into an unknown amount of bomb-quality material - North Korea in 1994 signed the Agreed Framework that halted its existing nuclear program and required the DPRK to "consistently take steps to implement" the 1992 agreement and allow the agreed-upon inspections.

None of these agreements, however, seem to have stopped the DPRK from working on its ballistic missiles and satellite launch vehicles. In 1998, North Korea test-launched the Taepo Dong-1 missile, with the intent of deploying a satellite. While the satellite failed to deploy, the third stage of this rocket passed over Japan. This display of technical aptitude demonstrated the DPRK's newfound ability to strike U.S. forces in the region, as well as states that might seek to contain North Korea. Following this launch, North Korea unilaterally imposed a moratorium on launches until 2003, at which time it is thought that the Taepo Dong-2, which in three stages may have a 9.300-mile range, will be tested.

North Korea's ballistic missile program depends on three things: reverse engineering of known technology, assistance from foreign states and domestic development. The DPRK likely gets a great deal of information from declassifed and unclassified U.S. missile research, and has obtained missile technology both openly and clandestinely through Europe and Japan. It has also collaborated with Russia and China in the past, although sources in both of these countries indicate that in recent years, most technological advances have been made by North Korean engineers themselves.

Of even greater concern are North Korea's collaborations with other states in the trafficking of ballistic missile technology. North Korea, in a perennial hard currency crunch, sells its ballistic missile technology to states that either have an urgent need for off-the-shelf weapons technology, or which lack the means to develop their own missiles, or both. Its partners include Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates. It is also suspected that North Korea has sold missiles or missile components to Iraq.

Perhaps the most interesting sales partners of North Korea are Syria and Iran. Iran is in a tight development spot. Russia cooperated with Tehran on the development of the Shihab-3 missile, but does not appear willing to help them develop the Shihab-4, which has a longer range. Following this reduction in Russian missile technology aid, Iran formed a partnership with Pakistan to acquire North Korean missile technology.

GeoStrategy Direct reports that U.S. intelligence sources have identified the specific technology purchased as the third stage of the Taepo Dong-1, and indicates that in addition to this technology, Iran has also purchased the means to extend the range of Scud missiles without a major redesign.

Syria is another case in point, although with a twist: President Bashar Assad appears to know nothing of his country's missile development program, which is thought to be controlled by Lt. Gen. Ali Aslan, who is Syria's Chief of Staff. According to U.S. intelligence sources quoted in GeoStrategy Direct, Syria is interested in the 800-mile No Dong and appears willing to work with North Korea on nuclear development. Syria already has chemical weapons in warhead format, and has been actively seeking foreign help on its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea appears to be using its weapons sales as a means to destabilize regions that the United States and its allies want stable, undoubtedly in the hope that this will keep us off-balance and busy elsewhere. This is a huge gamble for North Korea, which may have misinterpreted Washington's determination to stabilize the Middle East. While the United States and the Western world were caught napping with regard to North Korea's technological advances, Washington has no illusions about the DPRK's intentions with its missile sales to despotic anti-American regimes.

President George W. Bush's inclusion of North Korea in his controversial "Axis of Evil" indicates that the administration is not willing to take for granted the antics of the "crazy fearsome cripple" in northeast Asia.

Andrea West is DefenseWatch Veterans editor. She can be reached at defensewatchvet@yahoo.com.

By J. David Galland

I believe that my young son should be free. I also believe that he should be able to play safely in his small back yard, with his little trucks, and in his sandbox with his bucket and shovel. I believe that he should be free from the chance of a hateful murdering extremist lunatic, killing him and his little friends, his parents, and all his neighbors who go innocently about their daily lives. I believe in freedom.

I believe that your son or daughter should have the same freedoms my son has. And I believe that no child, born to a free society, which has worked diligently and sacrificed over generations, as have America and Americans, should have a fear of such heinous danger. I believe that our children should not be aware of any threat to their security and birthright. I believe this is freedom also.

It was 227 years ago on April 18th, 1775, that a humble silversmith from Boston's North End placed his life on the line for what he believed in as he rode out to sound the alert that the enemy army was on the move. Today, the challenges that lay before this artisan are before us again.

Paul Revere blazed his niche in history, prepared to die for an ideal that has withstood many challenges since that early spring night so many years ago. I believe this ideal deserves our reaffirmation and stalwart commitment.

Today, after all these years, after all the challenges met and overcome, after all the soldiers who have been lost defending what has become a comfortable and deserved birthright in America, our enemy - tyranny - is once again threatening us. An evil force is threatening the future of our way of life with unprecedented violence and hatred. I believe this force must be soundly defeated.

An ideology is running amok that seeks to deny freedom to my child and yours. This tyrannical force is striving to cast asunder any hope of a bright future for those who were raised to believe that hard work and honesty translate into reaping the rewards of a free society. It is closing around our great country and our way of life and it is intent on destroying our national dream and vision. I believe this must not be allowed to happen.

America is founded and established on individual and societal freedoms. These are the guiding lights in the dark night, when all other hopes may have fallen by the wayside. It is the burning desire for freedom and the call to record America's legacy through its defense of its hard-earned and hard fought-for liberties. We mourn the blood of our soldiers who have protected freedom, even as we salute them for taking up arms in our defense.

I refuse to leave a legacy without freedom. We cannot deal a foul hand to our children, making freedom only a fleeting memory cast aside by evil in a land where one's young life is in the lurch, every moment of every day. I believe this to be cowardly, sinful, and delinquent of us as a people.

Thirty-three years ago, I arrived at the 90th Replacement Battalion in Long Binh, South Vietnam. If someone at that time had asked me why I was there, I would have likely come up with a snappy answer befitting the wisdom of an 18-year old. But, in hindsight and with the benefit of frequent reflection, I think that what is important is to reflect on what we tried to do in Vietnam, not on what we failed to accomplish. America and American soldiers tried to bring peace to Vietnam and to foster and sow the seeds of freedom, an admirable undertaking. I believe that this is the salient point of America's honorable involvement in Vietnam.

Over the past quarter-century, America's experience in Vietnam has been defined, quantified, revised and re-evaluated by many. I think that in the future, an equal effort will be made to analyze America's current military campaign against terrorism, and some will also very likely be critical. But I believe that record will affirm that our soldiers gave their all, as they always have.

So, now we find ourselves trying again, responding to an evil attacker who struck us on the streets of New York, at the Pentagon and in the countryside of western Pennsylvania.

America has come full circle after all of the sacrifice and loss of the years between Paul Revere's ride and the ongoing war against terrorism. Freedom must still be protected from those bent upon its destruction.

No matter where the call, no matter who the foe, and no matter what the political fallout may be, America and Americans, must not falter in their honor to those military men and women who have gone before us. This is our duty.

But history will judge America for its ongoing defense of its ideals and freedom. We must sustain the fight as voiced by Abraham Lincoln more than a century ago: "Freedom Shall Not Perish From This Earth."

J. David Galland, Deputy Editor of DefenseWatch, is a retired veteran of over thirty years of service in military intelligence who resides in Germany. He can be reached at defensewatch02@yahoo.com.

Rank and organization: Private 1st Class, Company G, 382d Infantry, 96th Infantry Division.

Place and date: Hen Hill, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, 31 May 1945.

Entered service at: Santa Ana, Calif. Birth: San Bernardino, Calif. G.O. No.: 97, 1 November 1945.

Citation: He was a rifleman when his platoon spearheaded an attack on Hen Hill, the tactical position on which the entire Naha-Shuri-Yonaburu line of Japanese defense on Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, was hinged. For 12 days our forces had been stalled, and repeated, heavy assaults by one battalion and then another had been thrown back by the enemy with serious casualties.

With five comrades, Pfc. Craft was dispatched in advance of Company G to feel out the enemy resistance. The group had proceeded only a short distance up the slope when rifle and machine gun fire, coupled with a terrific barrage of grenades, wounded three and pinned down the others.

Against odds that appeared suicidal, Pfc. Craft launched a remarkable one-man attack. He stood up in full view of the enemy and began shooting with deadly marksmanship wherever he saw a hostile movement. He steadily advanced up the hill, killing Japanese soldiers with rapid fire, driving others to cover in their strongly disposed trenches, unhesitatingly facing alone the strength that had previously beaten back attacks in battalion strength.

He reached the crest of the hill, where he stood silhouetted against the sky while quickly throwing grenades at extremely short range into the enemy positions. His extraordinary assault lifted the pressure from his company for the moment, allowing members of his platoon to comply with his motions to advance and pass him more grenades. With a chain of his comrades supplying him while he stood atop the hill, he furiously hurled a total of two cases of grenades into a main trench and other positions on the reverse slope of Hen Hill, meanwhile directing the aim of his fellow soldiers who threw grenades from the slope below him.

He left his position, where grenades from both sides were passing over his head and bursting on either slope, to attack the main enemy trench as confusion and panic seized the defenders. Straddling the excavation, he pumped rifle fire into the Japanese at point-blank range, killing many and causing the others to flee down the trench. Pursuing them, he came upon a heavy machine gun which was still creating havoc in the American ranks. With rifle fire and a grenade he wiped out this position.

By this time, the Japanese were in complete rout and American forces were swarming over the hill. Pfc. Craft continued down the central trench to the mouth of a cave where many of the enemy had taken cover. A satchel charge was brought to him, and he tossed it into the cave. It failed to explode.

With great daring, the intrepid fighter retrieved the charge from the cave, relighted the fuse and threw it back, sealing up the Japanese in a tomb. In the local action, against tremendously superior forces heavily armed with rifles, machineguns, mortars and grenades, Pfc. Craft killed at least 25 of the enemy. But his contribution to the campaign on Okinawa was of much more far-reaching consequence, for Hen Hill was the key to the entire defense line, which rapidly crumbled after his utterly fearless and heroic attack.

Craft, one of 149 living Medal of Honor recipients, passed away on March 28 in Fayetteville, Ark.

Editor's Note: If you know of any MOH recipient who is hospitalized or has passed away recently, please email DefenseWatch MOH Editor Jim H. at bulldogleader@mindspring.com.