Table of Contents

Special Report: The Undiminished Threat

FROM THE EDITOR:

Lessons From the Morocco Terrorist Cell

By Ed Offley

We scored a major victory in the war against terrorism last week, and that's the bad news.

In Morocco, government agents arrested a suspected cell of al Qaeda terrorists accused of plotting suicidal bombing attacks against U.S. and British warships transiting the Strait of Gibraltar that separated Spain from Morocco.

Three Saudi Arabian citizens, Zuher Al Tbaiti, Hilal Alissiri and Abdullah Al Ghamdi, along with a handful of other accomplices, were arrested following intense Moroccan surveillance for more than a month after they received an initial tip from the CIA of al Qaeda plans to infiltrate into the country. Then several days later, Moroccan agents nabbed Abu Zubayr, a senior agent for Al Qaeda with links to the group's former operations chief Abu Zubaydah, who himself has been under interrogation since being captured in Pakistan on March 28, 2002.

The Moroccan plot allegedly involved a replay of the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. The conspirators planned to purchase a zodiac boat, load it with high explosives and blow it up alongside an American or British warship either transiting the narrow strait or during an in-port refueling stop. This would mark the third attempt of this nature, since it has been previously disclosed that al Qaeda originally planned to attack another U.S. warship, the USS The Sullivans, several months before the Cole bombing succeeded.

On surface, it is hard to disagree with officials who told Time magazine that the arrests last week constitute "one of the most successful counter-terrorism operations since Sept. 11." But as disclosed by Moroccan and U.S. officials to several major news media organizations last week, the good news and the bad news are the same: the accused terrorists should never have gotten that far in the first place. As Time reported:

According to a separate account in The Washington Post, the terrorists were acting on the direct orders of Bin Laden himself through a lieutenant, Mullah Bilal, a Saudi, who FBI officials have identified as a senior al Qaeda leader: "The … prisoners described a final ceremony in which the men pledged allegiance to bin Laden and swore themselves to martyrdom through suicide operations, according to Moroccan officials."

Of course, counter-terrorism experts already knew that al Qaeda was still active. The Apr. 11, 2002 bombing of a Jewish synagogue in Tunisia - which killed 14 German tourists and five Tunisians - and last week's car bombing of the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan - where another 12 people died and 44 were injured - are two successful al Qaeda terrorism operations organized and carried out in the aftermath of the U.S. military "victory" in Afghanistan.

It is now acknowledged that the Morocco plotters were among several hundred al Qaeda fighters who slipped through the encirclement of U.S. and Afghani troops at Tora Bora and Gardez. Thanks to the vigilance of American and Moroccan counter-terrorism officials, we know what they did next.

They proceeded, as if only slightly inconvenienced by their ejection from Afghanistan, to continue their diligent and patient plotting to kill Americans wherever they can find them.

A small but growing number of political commentators have begun complaining that the Bush administration is over-using the word, "war," to describe the ongoing fight against terrorism. They note, in the statistic calculations of a Robert McNamara, that there are currently fewer U.S. troops in Afghanistan than serving in peacekeeping missions in the Balkans.

"Everyday life has pretty much returned to being everyday life. The inconvenience the everyday citizen experiences, the expectations of sacrifice, are clearly minimal," retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, who teaches international relations at Boston University, told USA Today this week. "To the extent there's a war on, it's a war in which the American people are not engaged."

With all respect to Bacevich, this is dangerous, self-delusional thinking. Most Americans at sunrise on Sept. 11, 2001, did not believe that they were involved in a war with international terrorists. But the terrorists were clearly on a wartime footing as they assembled at the target airports in Boston, Newark and the Washington, D.C. area - just as they are today, more than three months after their supposed defeat at the Battle of Gardez, planning future attacks.

Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.

The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 showed that the self-anointed Islamic "holy warriors" had moved on from World Trade Center I, when they exploded a Timothy McVeigh-type fertilizer truck bomb, to the big-bang passenger planes from hell that brought down the twin towers.

Based upon the recent arrest of Jose Padilla and other current intel buzz, you can bet our murderous opponents are busily working on upping the ante to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) for their next go against the United States.

Most intelligence agencies say it's not a question of if, but when - before we get blistered with genocidal-caliber weapons. Vice President Dick Cheney recently warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that the Brits should consider themselves in the cross hairs as well.

The billion-dollar question is: Since most global terrorist leaders such as Osama bin Laden claim they're independent operators and don't march under any state flag, who's accountable if we get nuked, bugged or gassed?

Within hours after 9-11, our Washington intelligence folks fingered bin Laden and were able to confirm a few days later that he was indeed the twisted mind behind WTC II. A month later, he and his boys were hugging the bottoms of caves in their Afghan sanctuary while U.S. air power let them know exactly how we felt about their evil act. And around the world, his rats were not only on the run with a posse on their tails, they were already having a hard time sucking cash out of ATM machines and were seriously unhappy about their cell phones being tapped.

But the creeps who killed and wounded a score of American civilians last September with anthrax are a completely different story. Sure, feds and local fuzz are on the case, but so far we're still scratching for fingerprints, and no one's been nailed. All we have are computer files crammed with reports. No one's even been ID'd, let alone terminated with extreme prejudice for using a WMD against Americans on American soil.

I'm worried that this same scenario will play out when we're hit with a whopping WMD that kills and wounds tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocents. The living will pick themselves up from the dead and wonder what hit them, while whoever's left at our agencies will start scurrying around again looking for clues.

So before any Armageddon, let's consider bringing back the strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) - the strategy that prevented the Soviets and the USA from destroying civilization once both sides figured out that if they didn't keep a grip, Planet Earth would be fried.

No, I haven't morphed into Doctor Strangelove. In fact, having witnessed the consequences of war up close and personal on every major continent over the past 56 years, I believe so strongly in peace that I became a leader and spokesman for the Australian anti-nuke party during the 1980s. For trying to get the superpowers to stop that decade's nuclear-arms-race nightmare, I was presented the United Nations Peace Medal, an award I still cherish above all others. But I've also studied terrorism long enough to conclude that the only way to win against the Islamic extremists is to out-terror them. And that can't be done by making nice.

Despite their constant protests of innocence, we know that citizens - and in some cases the governments - of countries such as Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and North Korea actively support or sympathize with the international Islamic terrorist movement in its war on the United States and most other Judeo-Christian states.

MAD recycled will tell these colluding terrorist countries that their cities are now targeted by USAF and Navy ballistic missiles, just as Soviet cities were during the Cold War, and that if one WMD is used anywhere in this great land, they'll get a radiated eye for an eye.

You can bet your survival boots they'll stop supporting the terrorist madmen with money, equipment and recruits quick smart.

If we're lucky and MAD works, the most fanatical crazies the world has seen will think twice before committing their fiendish WMD deeds. Hopefully - when they consider the destruction of their families and realize martyrdom won't mean much in the glowing craters that were once their back yards - even these misguided monsters will get the word.

http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. Look for his new book, "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts," (Rugged Land LLC, New York City).

© 2002 David H. Hackworth

By Robert G. Williscroft

For several months, U.S. news reports, citing various intelligence sources, have suggested that the al Qaeda terrorists still pose a threat to the United States. It is my assessment that we face both the threat of a biological attack and possibly even a nuclear weapon attack from the terrorists, but not in the scenarios most commonly cited in news reports.

I have been convinced for some time that al Qaeda will attempt a biological attack by disbursing a deadly mix of biological agents over a large number of college campuses across the United States. The most likely scenario appears to be a distributed biological attack. It is easy to pull off, and requires no special training or equipment: just a bike, a backpack, and a simple dispersion device such as a small, pressurized scuba bottle.

A vast array of biological agents is readily available to al Qaeda. These include dozens of flu strains, which - although not necessarily deadly - can cause massive disruption of our health facilities if hundreds of thousands of people are simultaneously afflicted all over the country. To a lesser extent, the same is true for the entire spectrum of other diseases in the lexicon of things that are bad for humans. Pick your bug: polio, diphtheria, tetanus, TB, plague, smallpox and a host of lesser-known ailments. Add to this mix things like anthrax, rabbit fever, and the other "developed" or "weaponized" bugs and viruses.

Al Qaeda does not need to use a specific agent, or even a very refined agent. Just mix them all together in a witch's brew, partially fill a half-size or smaller scuba bottle with the stuff, pressurize the bottle from a large scuba bottle that has been filled normally at a dive shop, and ride down the street anywhere with the bottle in your backpack spraying through a tube into the air, leaving misery and death in your wake.

Why do you think al Qaeda has shown such interest in scuba diving lately? I doubt these desert foxes are suddenly interested in the underwater world. I don't personally buy the idea that they want to blow up a few ships. This takes more than they have, specifically, magnetic limpet mines. On the other hand, in order to get a scuba bottle filled without rousing suspicion, you must hold a valid diver certification card. Hence al Qaeda's current interest in diving.

I also suspect al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, reportedly captured in Pakistan on March 28, was sent to us to spread disinformation, and to distract us from the real pending operation of al Qaeda. Remember that he pointed us to Padilla in the first place. While we are spinning our wheels with these guys, as many as 10,000 al Qaeda operatives - and an unknown number probably here in the United States - are diligently working towards additional attacks.

News media focus on the threat of al Qaeda using a "radiological bomb" - a conventional explosive device designed to disperse highly radioactive material wrapped around the explosive core in a non-nuclear detonation - has come to the fore in recent weeks after disclosure of the arrest of U.S.-born al Qaeda suspect Abdullah al Muhajir (born Jose Padilla) and his alleged interest in obtaining and detonating such a weapon.

I believe Padilla was sent to distract us from what al Qaeda is really doing. The distraction seems to have worked very well, at least so far as the news media is concerned. During the days following disclosure of Padilla's arrest, calmer voices began to pop up saying that we had better keep our eyes peeled. The guy was simply too obvious. We had him in our sights all the time.

I have been skeptical of reports that al Qaeda has working nuclear devices, and have made light of their ability to detonate a meaningful "dirty nuke" any time soon. My reasons for these conclusions are simple: The conventional wisdom is that Al Qaeda's only realistic source for working nukes is the old Soviet stockpile. These weapons have not been serviced for at least a decade now.

Nuclear weapons are very different from conventional explosives, in the sense that while conventional explosives tend to become less stable with age, nukes actually become increasingly stable, which means that eventually they won't detonate at all. This is especially true for tritium-boosted devices, since they first tend to lose their load of tritium, turning them - in effect - from very large thermonuclear bombs into very small atom bombs.

Then, with time, the small atom bombs lose their ability to fission in a controlled manner, so that they fizzle and poof instead of bang when they are detonated. About the only thing that happens is a short burst of neutrons as pieces of plutonium pass one another, followed by a bit of a contamination mess resulting from powdered pieces of plutonium flying about - a mini-dirty nuke, if you will.

If al Qaeda has any nukes - and this is a very big if - I am relatively certain that they do not have the expertise to make them viable. So the risk of a nuke going off in one of our major cities is very slim. I trust the FBI is not sitting on its hands in this matter, but it should not be taking center stage.

But it appears likely that al Qaeda has another nuclear option, and this should be taken very seriously by our Homeland Security group.

In an earlier article I wrote about the probable Iraqi nuclear arsenal: ("A Nuclear-Armed Iraq Must Be The Next Target," DefenseWatch, Dec. 12, 2001). Our intelligence estimates indicate that Iraq may have three Hiroshima-type weapons, three implosion weapons, and three tritium-boosted thermonuclear devices. As reported in that article, credible evidence indicates that Iraq actually exploded a Hiroshima-type weapon on Sept. 19, 1989, in a cavern under Lake Rezzaza, about 90 miles southwest of Baghdad.

I seriously doubt that if Iraq has these weapons they will willingly part with either the implosion or tritium-boosted weapons. I believe it highly unlikely that al Qaeda has or could acquire one of these weapons.

On the other hand, Iraq may very well have three of the older style, very large Hiroshima-type weapons. These weapons are too big to be manhandled, and certainly too big for normal transport to any specific destination, with one huge exception: transport in the hold of a friendly ship, or built into a specially modified container, and transported with or without the knowledge of the ship's owners.

If the intelligence reports out of Iraq are correct, if Iraq really has these nuclear weapons, then it is also distinctly possible, even probable, that al Qaeda has one or more of the Hiroshima-type weapons.

Exploding one of these devices in a ship in a harbor would devastate the harbor. If they packed additional radioactive material around the device, the resulting plume of steam would carry the radioactive material high into the atmosphere, causing potentially severe radioactive contamination wherever the condensed steam falls.

Remember, this threat is only as credible as the information indicating that Iraq actually possesses the bomb already - has for a decade. It certainly is sufficiently credible to warrant searching every ship approaching our shores, or at least those ships even remotely linked to anything Muslim, Mideast or terrorist.

We cannot search every container - it's physically impossible with our current and projected manpower levels. We can, however, create a monitoring system that causes containers to be inspected and certified at the time of their initial loading, and ensures that they are not subsequently opened. I am aware of at least one such system that was proposed several months ago.

A ship carrying a Hiroshima-type nuke is dependent upon Iraq actually having accomplished the Lake Rezzaza event, and to be accommodating al Qaeda. Both are very likely.

It appears, therefore, that we are faced with an uncertain future. Our Homeland Security people had better keep alert to ensure that we are able to cope with the inevitable biological attack, and that we prevent the loss of critical harbor facilities (and adjoining cities) such as Long Beach, New York, Charleston, Boston, Norfolk or Seattle.

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

By Lt. Col. Matthew Dodd USMC

Just how real is the threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network to the United States and other Western friends, allies, and cultures around the world? This simple question needs to be answered objectively by all Americans, for it drives actions and decisions at all levels of our society from individuals up to the heads of our government.

After almost ten months since the 9/11 attacks killed thousands of innocent people and shattered the lives of thousands more, I sense that both our nation's patience and collective security conscience are slipping. The lure of returning to pre-9/11 normalcy seems to be gaining ground relative to the post-9/11 increased security vulnerabilities practically everyone felt.

I even found myself suffering from an ailment I call, "al Qaeda/terrorism media and information-overload." My self-prescribed treatment was to ask myself the same question as above. I would like to share my answer in the hope that my perspectives may help others similarly afflicted with the same "disorder."

In my analysis, I decided to first examine al Qaeda in terms of its capabilities. Assuming that they were behind the 9/11 attacks, I determined al Qaeda was capable of anything imaginable, and even the un-imaginable. Al Qaeda's capabilities appear limitless.

I knew this quick analysis was not enough, so I shifted my attention to al Qaeda's power.

Since "power" has different meanings to different people, I consulted a dictionary, and two entries in particular stood out: "possession of control, authority or influence over others" and, "ability to act or produce an effect." Next, I looked up the definition of "influence" and two entries again stood out: "the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command" and, "the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways." Those definitions made it crystal clear to me that al Qaeda's influence is its ultimate power.

Al Qaeda has certainly influenced the U.S. government and its citizens since seizing the initiative with the terrorist attacks that killed over 3,000 men, women and children on 9/11. While most of these events fall under the necessary and understandable U.S. response to the strikes, they also represent the amount of influence that al Qaeda has had over us:

* President Bush's plan to reorganize the U.S. government in creating a Department of Homeland Security;

* The Pentagon's overseas deployment of thousands of U.S. and allied military personnel for combat in Afghanistan and security assistance in other countries;

* Speculation by U.S. government officials and outside experts of a planned U.S. military campaign to unseat Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein;

* Creation of a new DoD combatant command for homeland security;

* Major shift in FBI operational priorities to focus on counter-espionage and counter-terrorism;

* Deployment of thousands of security and military personnel to support the Winter Olympics;

* Assignment of National Guard troops for security in airports and at bridges;

* The historic U.S. Marine Corps decision to provide forces to the U.S. Special Operations Command;

* Congressional hearings into alleged intelligence failures leading to the 9/11 attacks;

* Evidence of U.S. citizens who are al Qaeda members or sympathizers;

* Ongoing public fear and speculation about the threat from terrorists armed with radiological "dirty" bombs, chemical-biological weapons and even nuclear weapons;

* Warnings over vulnerability of harbors and ports, nuclear power plants, chemical plants, and food and water supplies to terrorist attacks;

* Daily domination of U.S. news media coverage by terrorism-related articles and broadcasts;

* News media coverage of 24/7 recovery efforts at the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack sites.

I compiled this list quickly, and I am sure that it can contain many more events. However, for me to answer my opening question, this list is more than enough.

In my lifetime, I cannot recall any one single organization whose influence became as powerful as al Qaeda's in so short a period of time. When I looked at my list, I was left wondering about when our nation last experienced such a chain of events as cumulatively monumental in scope.

A quick review of 20th century American history produced the nonsurprising answer: The last time was during the rise of the Japanese Empire and Germany's Third Reich. This realization cured my al Qaeda/terrorism information overload.

Just how real is the threat posed by al Qaeda to the United States and our allies around the world?

It is as real and large a threat as that posed by our enemies in World War II.

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 Andrea West

On Monday, June 17, Lady Margaret Thatcher joined in support of those calling for a renewed military effort against Iraq.

"As somebody once said," she wrote in The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal Online - referring to her own advice to then-President George H.W. Bush after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 - "this is no time to go wobbly."

The former British prime minister adds a powerful voice to those advocating decisive action against Iraq, joining a growing list of commentators who are urging the United States to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Commentators ranging from from Mark Steyn of the British magazine, The Spectator, to The National Review Online's John Derbyshire, in recent days have noted what appears to be indecision within the Bush II administration over how to proceed against Saddam.

Writing in The Spectator on June 15, Steyn pointed out that when Bush administration appointees send signals at odds with the president's avowed policy, they should be reined in. "Something similar seems to be happening on the war front," Steyn wrote, "with every desk-job general dialing every [press] hack in his Rolodex to explain why, whatever Bush and Rummy say, we can't possibly invade Iraq. Too risky. Can't be done. Never gonna happen."

Here we have the spectacle in plain sight, with bureaucrats hostile to the president taking their anti-war position to allies in the press in hopes of blocking a major foreign policy step that they oppose.

Derbyshire, for his part, recently torpedoed the notion that the delay in moving against Iraq is due to a need for the U.S. military to rearm in the aftermath of combat in Afghanistan. In his May 20, 2002 article for National Review Online, Derbyshire cited a message from Col. David Hackworth to columnist Lawrence Henry in The American Prowler.org on June 15, 2002, that affirmed the Pentagon currently has enough missiles and smart bombs "to take Iraq and Iran at the same time."

Many of these pundits have counseled the president to ignore the screaming from the United Nations, the Arab "street" and various and sundry allies, and get on with the plan.

Given that the news media both here and in Europe is largely hostile to Bush and his administration, Lady Thatcher's jump into the debate is a welcome development for the president. Like it or not, the press does play a major role in shaping U.S. public opinion.

And John Derbyshire is correct. We don't have a snowball's chance in hell of making peace between the Palestinians and Israel, nor should we delay action against Saddam until we do. Having a commentator not connected with the administration point this out is most useful to the war effort.

The president is surrounded on all sides by those who say it can't be done, it will inflame the Arab world, turn the U.N. against us (has it ever been with us?), it is cowboy diplomacy, ad nauseam. The implication in such coverage has been that the administration is alone in its opinion that the war on terror is winnable, and that we should all just give up and accept that Iraq is here to stay and terror will be part of our way of life from now on.

In declaring that the administration should push on with its intended military campaign against Iraq, Lady Thatcher and other credible commentators such as Steyn and Derbyshire are affirming the legitimacy of the entire war on terror, and the right of Americans to defend themselves against armed hostiles. They are also pointing out America's duty to carry this out by force of arms if necessary.

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

Editor's Note: The following article profiling Iraqi defector Sabah Khodada and a team from PBS' Frontline and The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, revealed an alleged connection between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda terrorists.

Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, Khodada described what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the United States in May 2001. Although U.S. officials acknowledge terrorists were trained at Salman Pak, they say it is unlikely that these activities were related to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The full article text originally appeared on the Frontline website.

By William F. Sauerwein

For several months my Army has been under attack from all directions of the military community. My blood is boiling and since no one else has the guts to speak out, I find that I must. The Army has been maligned for being unprepared for the war on terrorism, and its leadership meekly played dead. Others, including many within my Army, foolishly demanded that the service become like the Marine Corps.

With all the changes the Army has been through in the past few years, I am amazed that it still functions. It is still the premier land combat force of this nation, and if properly maintained, will kick ass relentlessly. Unfortunately, our political leaders believe that you need well-trained combat troops only after someone has given us a bloody nose. That is a lesson we never seem to learn, despite the mountain of historical evidence, and the countless lives lost in earlier wars.

Our nation found itself in a similar situation following World War II as we are in today. We led the allied coalition that defeated the Axis powers, and the atomic bomb gave us technological superiority. American strategy shifted to focus on air power and the A-bomb since it was deemed cheaper than maintaining an adequate Army.

The brutal ground combat of World War II had provided a stark reminder of the real cost of land warfare. With the atomic bomb, all the ground troops would now have to do is walk in and occupy the enemy's vaporized real estate. This has shown to be a naïve theory, but we did not know as much about radiation as we do now.

So after V-J Day, we demobilized our military forces, especially the Army, shifting our troops overseas for occupation duty. All that changed on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur from his Tokyo headquarters ordered the deployment of Task Force Smith to Korea to repel the invaders. (Task Force Smith consisted of elements of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment stationed at Camp Wood, Japan.)

This "downsized" battalion was brought to authorized strength with "fillers" from the regiment's 3rd Battalion (no 2nd Battalion existed in this "downsized," peacetime regiment). Only six transport aircraft were available, so Task Force Smith "streamlined" itself into B and C Companies of the 1st Battalion, supported by a motley collection of other units: one-half of the battalion's HHC, a 4.2-inch mortar platoon, a composite platoon of 75-mm. recoilless rifles, and A Battery, 52nd Field Artillery Battalion.

Task Force Smith was totally unprepared for combat.

All their weaponry was obsolete, and their radios did not work well in the mountainous terrain. Before departing Japan, the artillery was issued one-third of all of the available anti-tank ammunition - six rounds! But, the soldiers thought, they were American troops and merely had to show up for the enemy to run. Unfortunately someone failed to inform the North Koreans of this plan.

The artillery failed to stop the North Korean tanks in front of Task Force Smith, and the bazooka and 75-mm. rounds just bounced off the North Korean armor. In one key encounter, Task Force Smith managed to destroy four tanks and damage three others, but the rest went right on through the American lines. Unable to penetrate the American defenses, the North Korean infantry merely went around the Americans' exposed flanks.

Attacked from the rear, and unsupported by other forces, Task Force Smith was sacrificed on the altar of a peacetime mentality that tolerated inadequate military preparedness. The bottom line: Task Force Smith soldiers did the best they could, given their conditions, and paid a high price in blood.

Why do our leaders never learn from these sacrifices and always set up our military forces for repeat performances? For the last eight years, my Army bore the brunt of irresponsible defense cuts, and Army leaders said nothing. It seems that once a good combat leader moves to the Pentagon, he loses his balls. Even those officers I fondly remember as hard-core brigade and division commanders became milksops when they advanced to senior Army leadership positions.

Of course, they feared for their careers in the rapidly downsizing Army, and sought favor with the "new" political leadership. Perhaps this is unfair criticism, but the fact remains that they are obligated to speak truthfully to the political leaders on vital issues such as declining readiness. When an Army Chief of Staff thinks that merely changing the headgear will improve troop morale, I rest my case.

My Army has jumped through many hoops during the 32 years I have been associated with it.

During the Vietnam War, the Army's NCO corps became decimated through consecutive tours of duty. Because of President Lyndon Johnson's policy of not mobilizing the National Guard and Reserves and massive draft deferments, the Army had to lower its personnel standards to meet manpower needs. This, coupled with the no-win policy in Vietnam itself, caused many disciplinary problems and almost destroyed the Army.

Immediately following Vietnam, our leaders decided to "streamline" the Army and make it "more lethal." Their first act was to end the draft and create the All-Volunteer Force. Of course, this was accompanied by to reductions in defense spending, which resulted in inadequate pay and compensation for military personnel. Military service remained unpopular and few enlisted, forcing the service in the late 1970s to continue accepting lower-standard recruits. We ended up with a "hollow" Army that was unable to perform its mission, and the disaster of Desert One in 1980 where a top-secret mission to rescue our hostages in Iran failed.

During the 1980s, my Army enjoyed a complete reversal because of the political reaction to the Desert One debacle that in part led to the election of President Ronald Reagan. Suddenly, the new administration gave top priority to rebuilding the U.S. armed forces. Congress legislated a huge increase in military pay and benefits, which helped the services recruit and retain higher-quality personnel. Training and modernization became important in meeting the challenges of the Cold War.

My Army was at the forefront of this force as a dominant partner in the AirLand Battle strategy. We painstakingly built the military forces that a decade later would give victory in Operation Desert Storm and lead to final victory - without combat and bloodshed - in the Cold War.

And after those two back-to-back victories, it happened again: Politicians who never served one day on active duty began the cry to reduce our "massive" defense spending in order to provide the American people a "peace dividend." Once more, my Army bore the brunt of these cuts, losing 40 percent of its force structure in the decade after the Gulf War. And if that weren't bad enough, our national leaders turned the Army into an international "Meals on Wheels" agency where humanitarian missions supplanted combat training, and political correctness took priority over readiness.

Today, nearly 52 years after Task Force Smith revealed the weakness of an under-sized, poorly-trained occupation Army thrust into combat, we need to have a full-strength, well-trained Army to fight the War on Terrorism. While we fortunately have not experienced a full-fledged battlefield disaster as with Task Force Smith, let us not forget that this war has just begun.

In Afghanistan, our technological edge in airpower and "smart" bombs was apparent. But after-action accounts from several major battles have also exposed limits in our high technology and revealed weaknesses in our soldier training that must be corrected. (Recall, we held the technological edge over North Korea, too.)

What far too many Pentagon officials today fail to understand is that it still takes ground troops to go into the mountains and exterminate the enemy. Unfortunately, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld seems intent on cutting the strength of an already inadequate Army, rather than pressing for a substantial increase in front-line combat units.

The Army's leadership has decided to field a future force based on current deployment capabilities, instead of actual threat capabilities. That is exactly how we tailored Task Force Smith in Korea five decades ago, and we can ill afford similar results. We are in the middle of a global war, and our national leaders must build the forces necessary for winning it.

We must build an Army that can overwhelm an enemy force in the "worst case scenario." Before we expand our War on Terrorism into Iraq - or any other country where we will fight an enemy army, rather than a network of terrorists - we must expand the size and lethality of our ground forces.

Contributing Editor William F. Sauerwein retired as a sergeant 1st class in 1994 after a 24-year Army infantry career that included combat service in Operation Desert Storm. He can be reached at mono@gtec.com.

Table of Contents

Special Report: The Army at 227 - A Rich Past, An Uncertain Future

ARTICLE 06

Hail to the Army's Oldest Division - The 'Big Red One'

By J. David Galland

The U.S. Army celebrated its 227th birthday last Friday, June 14. Amid the celebrations, speeches and cake cuttings, my memories drifted back to when I first began soldiering 34 years ago in 1968, just after the Army's 193rd birthday.

Both now and then, my first year as a soldier, American troops are serving in combat against America's enemies overseas. Thinking of that span of time and the Army's rich history, I thought it fitting to remember and celebrate the legacy of the oldest division in the U. S. Army, a unit that has done much to secure our freedom - the "Big Red One."

The "oldest division's" soldiers serve as an integral part of the Germany based U. S. V Corps, forward deployed today as always. This division's lineage and honors span a period of 85 years punctuated by unmatched excellence and gallantry. Heroes and their legendary exploits define the division's legacy.

The 1st Infantry Division was first established in May 1917 as the "First Expeditionary Division" as the United States prepared to send combat troops to France at the height of the Great War. It was formed from regular Army units then in service on the Mexican border and at various posts throughout the United States. The first units sailed from the ports of New York and New Jersey on June 14, 1917, and the rest of the division arrived at St. Nazaire, France, and Liverpool, England over the next few months.

On July 4, 1917, the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment marched through the boulevards of Paris in an effort to boost the downtrodden spirits of the French. It was then, at the Marquis de Lafayette's tomb, that one of Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing's staff articulated the famous words, "Lafayette, we are here!" Two days later on July 6th, the First Expeditionary Division was re-designated as the 1st Infantry Division.

Three months later, the division went into combat against the German Army. On the morning of Oct. 23, 1917, division artillery fired the first American shell of the war, and two days later, the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry suffered the first American casualties.

In April 1918, the Germans were within 40 miles of Paris. The Big Red One then moved into the Picardy Sector to bolster the exhausted French First Army and counter the German threat. To the Division's front lay the small village of Cantigny. The town was situated on the high ground predominating a forested countryside and it would be here that the division's, "Black Lions of Cantigny," would forge their place in history, attacking the town and capturing it and 250 German soldiers after 45 minutes.

The doughboys pushed on and took Soissons in July 1918, a victory that came at a profound cost: 7,000 infantrymen killed or wounded. On Sept. 13, 1918, the division launched a vicious, three-day attack to clear the St. Mihiel salient. On Sept. 26, 1918, the division joined the battle of the Meuse-Argonne Forest, which would be the location of the last major battle of the war. By the time the war ended in the Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918, the "Big Red One" had defeated and rendered combat-ineffective eight German divisions.

When the guns fell silent, the 1st Infantry Division had suffered 22,320 casualties, but had also seen five of its brave soldiers receive the Medal of Honor. It proudly returned to the United States with its colors carrying campaign streamers for Lorraine, 1917; Lorraine, 1918; Picardy, 1918; Montdidier-Noyon; Aisne-Marne; St. Hihiel; and Meuse- Argonne.

Sadly, however, for the 1st Infantry Division the call to arms would come all too soon again.

On Nov. 8, 1942, following training in the United Kingdom, soldiers of the Big Red One landed on the coast of Algeria near Oran as part of the "Operation Torch" invasion force. The initial lessons of combat were harsh and the division took many casualties during the campaign in Tunisia.

After the surrender of Germany's elite Afrika Korps on May 9, 1943, the division moved on to take part in the invasion of Sicily in "Operation Husky." With the help of naval gunfire, its own artillery and that from our Canadian allies, the 1st Infantry Division fought its way over Sicily's hills. The GIs advanced to seize Troina and secured the allied road to the straits of Messina.

But the World War II heroics of the Big Red One were just beginning.

Who can forget the division's performance on D-Day, June 6, 1944? The Big Red One stormed ashore at Omaha Beach. Soon after H-Hour, the Division's 16th Infantry Regiment was fighting for its life on a strip of beach, known as "Easy Red" near Coleville-sur-Mer. It was then that Col. George Taylor, Commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment, told his men "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach! The dead and those who are going to die! Now lets get the hell out of here!"

The division fought through the Normandy hedgerows and pushed on to liberate Liege, Belgium, before pressing ahead to the German border and crossing through the fortified Siegfried Line. It then attacked the city of Aachen, Germany, and after days of pitched infantry battle, the German commander surrendered on Oct. 21, 1944.

The division continued its thrust into Germany, when on Dec. 6, 1944, the Germans counter-attacked in what still stands as the largest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army - the Battle of the Bulge. Ten German armored divisions and fourteen infantry divisions went at the GIs in a massive maneuver in the Ardennes sector.

On Jan. 15, 1945, the 1st Infantry Division attacked and penetrated to the town of Remagen, Germany, on the banks of the Rhine River. There, lay the strategically critical crossing over the Rhine, the Remagen Bridge.

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, the division marched 150 miles to the east of Siegen, Germany. Only seven days later they crossed the Weser River and rolled into Czechoslovakia. Five weeks later, World War II in Europe came to an end with Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945.

By the end of the war, the division had taken 21,023 casualties out of the 43,743 men who had served in its ranks. Its soldiers had won 16 Medals of Honor, and captured over 100,000 German prisoners.

The 1st Infantry Division remained in Germany as occupation troops until 1955, when the Pentagon reassigned it to the old cavalry post, Fort Riley, Kansas, which to this day is its traditional home.

While it took 24 years for the Division to wait and prepare between its first and second wars, the third conflict in which it fought came just 10 years after returning home to the United States. In 1965, the call came again and the Division was ordered to Vietnam. Its highly-decorated 2nd brigade led the division into America's longest war, landing Qui Nhon in South Vietnam on June 23, 1965.

It was not long before the soldiers were in action. The Big Red One's first operations began on July 22nd, when Company B, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry conducted operations in the area around Bien Hoa.

Meanwhile, the division's main body under the command of Maj. Gen. Jonathan O. Seaman began leaving Fort Riley on Sept. 15, 1965.

The 1st Infantry Division launched a series of operations to intended to disrupt Viet Cong and North Vietnamese activity in South Vietnam. It operated in areas known as The Trapezoid, Iron Triangle, Catcher's Mitt, Song Be Corridor, Saigon Corridor and Highway 13, better know as Thunder Road. If you have been there, these names will still send a chill up your back.

The 1st Infantry Division returned to Fort Riley in April 1970 as part of the phased withdrawal of American combat forces from Vietnam. The tolling bell had rang a final time for over 2,000 of its soldiers who had died in action in Vietnam. Eleven Medal of Honor winners were added to the rolls of heroes.

Two more decades of peacetime service came to an end in 1990 when the U.S. Army and its 1st Infantry Division were summoned for war in the Persian Gulf after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Three months after the invasion on Aug. 2, 1990, the division was alerted for deployment in November. During the next two months the division deployed over 12,000 soldiers and 7,000 pieces of equipment to Saudi Arabia, where it joined other VII Corps mechanized infantry and armor units.

In the wee hours of the morning of Feb. 24, 1991, under the command of Maj. Gen. Thomas G. Rhame, the Big Red One spearheaded the VII Corps' heavy armored attack into Iraq. It smashed into the Iraqi 26th Infantry Division, breaking through the enemy lines and quickly taking over 2,500 prisoners.

The U.S.-led ground offensive was brutal, overpowering - and swift. After only 100 hours of combat, at 8 a.m., Feb. 28, 1991, the firing stopped and the Persian Gulf War formally ended several days later when Iraqi and allied negotiators agreed on a cease-fire.

The Big Red One had fought through 260 kilometers of enemy-held territory in 100 hours, destroying 550 enemy tanks, 480 armored personnel carriers and taking 11,400 prisoners overall. Unfortunately the division's victory was not free: 18 of its soldiers were killed.

As the Army celebrates its 227th birthday, the Big Red One, under the command of Maj. Gen. John Craddock, is still on duty. Headquartered in the city of Würzberg in the German state of Bayern, the 1st Infantry Division is contributing significantly to the ongoing stabilization operations in the Balkans.

Today, the silence of its guns speaks of many jobs well done over the past century. But as the United States and its allies continue to prosecute the ongoing war against terrorism, it will not come as a surprise to see the 1st Infantry Division in combat action once more.

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.

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Special Report: The Army at 227 - A Rich Past, An Uncertain Future

ARTICLE 07

Guest Column: Cancel Stryker, Upgrade the M113

The U.S. Army recently announced delivery of its new LAV-III/IAV "Stryker" light armored vehicles to the first two of five planned Interim Brigade Combat Teams, the Army's new medium-weight units.

As their name implies, the IBCTs are viewed by the Army's leadership as a stop-gap measure, an immediate means of covering the deployment differential between the Army's heavy armored and light infantry forces until a future Army Objective Force comes on line sometime around 2008.

As an objective, that makes sense. However, in committing the lives of as many as 15,000 U.S. soldiers to Stryker-equipped units, the Army is assuming risks it need not incur for benefits it could more easily and effectively achieve in other ways. To understand why, we need to examine what tasks the new brigades are intended to perform, consider the ability of Stryker to perform them, and contrast it with alternatives that are achievable in the same timeframe at equal or less cost.

The Requirement: Perhaps the clearest expression of the rationale for the IBCT was offered by Col. Mike Mehaffey, then-director of Army Training and Doctrine Command's Battle Lab Integration and Technology Directorate, in a September 2000 article in Military Review: "Although the Army is capable of full-spectrum dominance," Mehaffey noted, "its organization and force structure are not optimized for strategic responsiveness. Army light forces - the best in the world - can deploy within days but lack the lethality, mobility and staying power necessary to assure decision. On the other hand, Army mechanized forces possess unmatched lethality and staying power but require too much time to deploy."

To rectify that disparity, Mehaffey went on to say, "The IBCT has been designed as a full-spectrum, early-entry combat force. The brigade has utility, confirmed through extensive analysis, in all operational environments against all projected future threats, but it is optimized primarily for employment in smaller-scale contingencies (SSC) in complex and urban terrain, confronting low-end and mid-range threats that may employ both conventional and asymmetric capabilities."

In short, to satisfy the Army's requirements, the IBCT must meet three tests - two explicit and one implied.

First, it must be able to deploy rapidly by air. The Army has further refined that requirement to mean that the IBCT must be transportable by C-130 aircraft, whose availability (510 in service) and ability to use unimproved airfields maximizes their operational versatility compared with larger airlifters such as the C-17 and C-5.

Second, the IBCT must be able to conduct the full range of offensive and defensive combat operations against all but the most serious armored threats, all-weather and in any terrain including urban areas, in addition to performing less combat-intensive tasks such as peace enforcement and stability operations. In effect, the IBCT must be able to handle contingencies similar to those ranging from the initial deployment of ground forces to defend Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield to the tragic snatch-and-grab operation in Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down!) three years later.

Finally, an implied requirement is the brigade's ability to satisfy both needs without subjecting soldiers to unnecessary and politically intolerable risks. In short, the IBCT must be able to deploy and fight with a reasonable expectation of tactical success at an acceptably low cost in casualties. For that purpose, it must combine ground mobility, firepower and protection sufficient - in conjunction with other joint assets - to defeat threats at least as severe as that posed by Iraqi forces in and around Kuwait prior to the build-up of coalition heavy forces in 1991.

But a closer examination of the Stryker IAV reveals potentially major problems in meeting each of these requirements, especially the last one.

To understand why, we need to consider three aspects of the Stryker: (1) Its air-transportability, (2) its ground tactical mobility, and (3) its inherent crew protection capability during both deployment and tactical operations.

First, however, a brief technical description of the Stryker is in order: It is an eight-wheeled armored car with a design road speed of 60 mph. Its tires can be internally deflated and re-inflated to somewhat improve its off-road mobility, and the wheels are built to "run flat" for five miles at 5 mph in an emergency. Designed to carry a nine-man infantry squad in its initial version, Stryker ultimately could be configured in as many as 10 different variants, from a mobile gun platform to an engineer squad vehicle though the latter cannot push a dozer blade. (For a detailed technical description of the vehicle and other "official" information about the program, go to the U.S. Army's Stryker website and for a more honest critique go to our LAV danger website; www.geocities.com/lavdanger.)

Stryker's size and weight - 22.9 feet long, 9.3 feet. wide and 8.75 feet high, and a stated maximum air-transportable weight of 19 tons - impose several important deployment limitations. While a single, empty Stryker can be transported strategically in a C-130, combat-loading Stryker for immediate combat operations on arrival will push its weight up to 19-21 tons. At that payload weight, a C-130 can neither carry a full fuel load nor land at an unimproved airstrip.

This is no mere technical issue: Since the aerial delivery of a Stryker vehicle in a combat-ready configuration dictates transport by C-17 rather than the smaller C-130, this means that the Stryker offers no "transportability" advantage over the far more protected and powerfully armed 33-ton M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (a C-17 can carry only two Strykers or two Bradleys at a time).

And forget any consideration of palletized airdrop delivery from a C-17. The vehicle's 8.75-foot height would strike the aircraft roof during ramp tip-off. Its 9.3-foot width at the hull leaves so little clearance on either side that aircrew members cannot exit the side or rear doors of the aircraft in an emergency without clambering over the vehicle.

The Stryker's strategic deployment limitations are matched by its tactical mobility limitations.

In return for its slight hard-surface speed advantage over tracked vehicles, the Stryker design sacrifices off-road agility and versatility. Although selected to save weight, Stryker's multiple transmission drive shafts, steering and suspension actually have resulted in a vehicle nearly 30 percent heavier than the existing 10.5-ton M113A3 Gavin infantry carrying vehicle.

Combat-loaded, the Stryker's 19-21-ton weight produces a ground pressure of 20 to 40 psi compared to less than 9 psi for the M113. Even with deflated tires, therefore, Stryker cannot begin to match the M113A3's off-road mobility on soft ground, while its 153-foot turning radius pales in comparison to any tracked vehicle's ability to pivot on its own length. Meanwhile, the Stryker's dependence on steerable front wheels precludes attachment of armored skirts to protect its tires from damage.

However, Stryker's most serious defect is its lack of integral crew protection.

The vehicle's ½-inch-thin hull can only defeat overhead fragmentation and direct-fire threats up to 7.62mm soft-point ball bullets, and it needs ceramic tiles added to defeat heavier rounds such as the 14.5-mm heavy machine gun.

But the ceramic tiles cannot be fitted to the entire underbody of the Stryker without interfering with the rubber tires, which are uncovered nonetheless. Thus, the Stryker will not withstand hits by shaped-charge weapons such as the ubiquitous Russian RPG grenade because doing so would require spaced armor; skirts cannot be fitted over the underbody without interfering with steering, and both its added weight and the additional width involved would break the C-130 transportability limits.

Stryker also lacks the engine power and tire load distribution to accept spaced applique armor to defeat RPGs even if its dimensions were more compact to still fit into a C-130. And its thin hull cannot accept the recoil forces of Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) tiles to defeat guided anti-tank missiles.

In conclusion, the Stryker provides the IBCT brigade a vehicle that is not C-130 transportable in a combat configuration. It has only limited off-road mobility, and offers only the most rudimentary protection for the soldiers it will carry. While the Stryker might well be an ideal vehicle for military police in peacekeeping or rear-area security operations, its inherent tactical limitations make it a potential death-trap in combat even against a relatively low-tech threat.

In Mogadishu, for example, the rubber-tired Stryker would have offered no advantage over rubber-tired HMMWVs and trucks that got shot up (it was metal-tracked Pakistani M113s that eventually rescued the beleaguered U.S. Army Rangers. Confronting the sort of threat potentially posed by Iraqi forces during Operation Desert Shield prior to the arrival of coalition heavy formations, Stryker would have been worse than useless, offering the appearance of protection without its reality, in contrast, 197th Brigade M113s lead the way into Iraq during Desert Storm.

The best way to measure Stryker's limitations as the platform of a medium-weight combat formation is to contrast it with a readily available alternative, the up-engined, spall-liner-equipped M113A3, informally known as the "Gavin" after legendary Gen. James M. Gavin, who as Army Research Chief created the Airborne Multi-Purpose Vehicle Family (AM/PVF) non-linear battlefield requirement of protected off-road mobility that became the M113.

In contrast to the Stryker, the Gavin weighs only 10.5 tons empty - the same as an Army FMTV 5-ton cargo capacity truck. Fully loaded, it can roll off a C-130 combat-ready, be air-dropped by parachute, and can even be sling-loaded beneath a CH-47D helicopter. Five Gavins will fit combat-loaded in a C-17 and six in a Boeing 747 commercial transport (even one Stryker vehicle's floor-loading is too great).

At only 98 inches wide, the Gavin fits in the C-130 cargo bay with room to spare, providing a safety aisle for emergency exits. Its metal road-wheels and tracks provide inherent lower-body protection against both kinetic and shaped-charge projectiles, and thanks to its pivot steering, that protection can be further enhanced without difficulty with armored skirts with spaced-applique armor and ERA to defeat RPGs and anti-tank guided missiles.

In terms of crew protection, the Gavin's light weight provides enough spare engine power to augment its 1.5-inch aluminum alloy armor and Kevlar spall liner with both spaced appliqué armor and/or ERA tiles - without exceeding the C-130's cargo bay restrictions, permitting immediate combat operations on exit from the aircraft.

Finally, in terms of ground mobility, the Gavin outperforms the Stryker in virtually every respect apart from hard-surface road speed (equipped with rubber flexible "band tracks," its hard-surface speeds would be the same as the Stryker. Its low ground pressure, pivot steering, and inherent swim-ability enable it to traverse terrain and negotiate obstacles that would stop the Stryker such as soft ground, streams and defiles, wire entanglements and urban rubble.

It even has the same 3.5-mpg fuel consumption rate boasted by Stryker.

The U.S. Army already owns 17,000 Gavins, together with a massive spare parts inventory and a stable of M113-trained mechanics. Most sit unused as war reserve stock. Still others are in service with more than 35 allied armies whose spare parts inventories and rebuild facilities are in many cases closer to potential deployment areas than our own. From an interoperability standpoint, the Gavin thus offers enormous advantages over Stryker. Its cost advantage, obviously, is even more marked.

That the U.S. Army needs a medium-weight force to fill the gap between its heavy and light forces is not in question, as U.S. Army Europe boss Gen. Montgomery Meigs recently demonstrated in a training exercise in Poland. In that maneuver, Meigs used M113A3-based units to conserve airlift that enabled his heavy M1/M2 forces to remain rapidly deployable.

The Army has announced its plans to purchase 2,000 Stryker vehicles at an average unit price of $3 million apiece. For a fraction of that $6 billion acquisition cost, the Army could transform a vehicle it already owns in quantity into an advanced 21st century platform superior to the Stryker in every respect, and in less time at that. The M113A3 Gavin is the Army's B-52, a durable platform with precision firepower technology that gets the job done rain or shine anywhere in the world.

Upgrading the Gavin would include a turret mounting an autocannon and/or fire-and-forget missile system, better protective armor, infrared camouflage, band tracks for quieter and faster road speeds, possibly hybrid-electric drives to double range and enable silent operations, and all the digital technology an information-hungry commander could desire. The result would be a more deployable, more maneuverable, and above all, more fightable combat vehicle than the Stryker ever will be.

The Army should curtail purchase of the Stryker and reassign those for which funding already has been committed to its combat MP brigades. In their place, it should equip IBCTs with refurbished and upgraded M113A3 Gavin fighting vehicles.

It should use the resulting savings to field a genuine tracked light-armored 105mm gun system to accompany the Gavins, thus fulfilling a fire-support need for which the Army's light forces have been waiting for more than two decades. In the process, it will better serve its own soldiers and the nation at a time when both need the best the Army has to offer.

Footnote: For more information on this assessment of the Army Stryker vehicle, please go to www.geocities.com/lavdanger.

Sparks, a former Marine Corps officer now serving in the U.S. Army Reserve, is director of the nonprofit 1st Tactical Studies Group (Airborne), a research institute focusing on new equipment and tactics for the Army. He can be reached at itsg@hotmail.com.

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ARTICLE 08

Things We Like: Don Vandergriff Profiled

Congratulations to DefenseWatch Contributing Editor Don Vandergriff, who was profiled in The Washington Post (Tuesday, June 18, 2002) for his new book, The Path to Victory: America's Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs (Presidio Press, May 2002). Read reporter Vernon Loeb's article, " 'Up or Out' System Should Go, Army Author Writes in New Book."

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Medal of Honor

ARTICLE 09

Medal of Honor Recipient - Pfc. Gino J. Merli USA

Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division.

Place and date: Near Sars la Bruyere, Belgium, 5 September 1944.

Entered service at: Peckville, Pa. Birth: Scranton, Pa. G.O. No.: 64, 4-5 August 1945.

Citation: He was serving as a machine gunner in the vicinity of Sars la Bruyere, Belgium, on the night of 4-5 September 1944, when his company was attacked by a superior German force. Its position was overrun and he was surrounded when our troops were driven back by overwhelming numbers and firepower.

Disregarding the fury of the enemy fire concentrated on him, he maintained his position, covering the withdrawal of our riflemen and breaking the force of the enemy pressure. His assistant machine gunner was killed and the position captured; the other eight members of the section were forced to surrender.

Pfc. Merli slumped down beside the dead assistant gunner and feigned death. No sooner had the enemy group withdrawn then he was up and firing in all directions. Once more his position was taken and the captors found two apparently lifeless bodies. Throughout the night Pfc. Merli stayed at his weapon.

By daybreak the enemy had suffered heavy losses, and as our troops launched an assault, asked for a truce. Our negotiating party, who accepted the German surrender, found Pfc. Merli still at his gun. On the battlefield lay 52 enemy dead, 19 of whom were directly in front of the gun.

Pfc. Merli's gallantry and courage, and the losses and confusion that he caused the enemy, contributed materially to our victory.

Editor's Note: Gino J. Merli passed away on June 12, 2002.

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 moheditor@mindspring.com.