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January 22, 2003 12:51

An 'Army of Many' Can't Hack It

By David H. Hackworth

If the Butcher of Baghdad bolts or someone in his inner circle sells him out, George W. Bush will score the same points Ronald Reagan did for winning the Cold War without pushing the red button. As Sun Tzu wisely said 2,500 years ago, "To win without fighting is best."

But if Bush resorts to the long-planned military solution, I fear that our conventional Army troops tagged for down where the bullets snap won't be fully combat-ready for the cruelest test of all - ground fighting.

The units that whipped Saddam's sorry militia in 1991 are no longer the same razor-sharp outfits that realized that magnificent victory. Back then, from division commanding general down to rifle and tank platoon sergeants, most of the leaders - after being blooded in Vietnam - spent years training the way they would fight before setting off to smash Saddam's finest. But like Stormin' Norman, most of these leaders are retired and will be watching "Desert Storm: The Sequel" on the tube.

For sure, taking out most of the Iraqi army will be as easy as the Oakland Raiders whipping a high-school football team. But as in Afghanistan, there could be some bad scraps where grunt skills will be more important than wonder weapons - not to mention the odds for future hard fights in this long war of terrorism that mandate maintaining a well-trained, well-disciplined Army.

Despite the "Army of One" TV ads, the standards of today's Green Machine remain criminally softened, the training from basic to brigade frayed by political correctness, risk aversion, senior-brass denial and general-to-captain micromanagement.

"Over a quarter of the new troops I received in my rifle company couldn't qualify with their M-16-A2 (rifle) or pass the Army Physical Fitness Test," reports a stud of an infantry captain who was a contender in the Army's Best Ranger competition.

A tough platoon sergeant who was well-trained by his sergeant-major dad says: "I've watched my beloved Army disintegrate since Desert Storm. Most officers only care about their careers. They're afraid to make decisions and micromanage everything. They've damaged their sergeants' ability to make decisions."

Reprising Sun Tzu - "Vacillation and fussiness are the surest means of sapping the confidence of an army" - a June 2000 study supports the platoon sergeant's comments, stating that the Army suffers from "stifling micromanagement and a promotion system driven by bureaucratic needs."

"I graduated from West Point in '97," says recently resigned Airborne Ranger Capt. Taylor Hanes. "The tragedy is that young men are joining the Army today for all the right reasons. However, they become quickly disenchanted and disgusted. And most real leaders want no part of the line infantry because it doesn't involve challenge or the warrior ethos. In my unit, the majority of the excellent junior officers were either resigning or going Special Forces. The senior leadership doesn't understand the problem quite simply because they are the problem."

A retired combat-savvy Army colonel whose tanker son is with a supposedly top-line Army unit says, "Makes me scared if he gets deployed."

The Army brass must get back to the basics and take to heart what Edward Cline, author of Whisper the Guns, wrote: "The military is a rights-minimal social environment; its purpose is to make war, not culture or civilization."

Although conventional Army combat units performed like amateurs in Afghanistan in early '02, the Army warrior units - Special Forces and Rangers - fought there with great skill, daring and professionalism. So the brass have a standard to follow to shape up "that other Army."

If Army generals from Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki on down would slam shut their computers, ditch the PowerPoint briefings, get out of their choppers and put in real time down in the dirt with their platoon sergeants - with no one around higher than first sergeants - they could turn the Army around in a year.

If I were calling the shots, I'd delay the war until '04 - to make sure our soldiers were truly good to go. Ike did exactly that at Normandy, and he saved thousands of lives.

But it's not likely that that's in the cards, since not even one national politician's son is on the list to take that dangerous trip to Iraq.

Editor's Note: DefenseWatch as part of this Special Report is publishing four letters "from the field," in which Army soldiers directly report on specific examples of failed leadership and mismanagement that they say are seriously weakening the effective of the force.

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).