On going to war

On 9/11, Nate Fick is on shore leave in Darwin. An Australian motorist gives him and a buddy a ride back to the USS Dubuque, the assault ship cum aircraft carrier that was to have been the Marines' floating home for a six-month deployment in the Pacific. They are to steam immediately for the Persian Gulf. Says the lieutenant, himself probably only twenty-two years old: "Looking at the Marines, I saw football stars and thugs and baby-faced eighteen-year-olds." These are the men he will lead into Afghanistan. (Or so I suppose. I haven't read that far yet.)

I've caught on to the title. One Bullet Away refers to the odd angry shot that could make Lieutenant Fick the Recon company commander--or, by the same token, could make his platoon sergeant his replacement as platoon leader. A convincing, thoughtful book. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

One Bullet Away

I am hugely enjoying One Bullet Away, in which Nate Fick tells the story of his introduction to the Marine Corps in the summer of 1998. I was surprised and impressed that Officer Candidate School in the USMC sounds a whole lot tougher than the basic training I went through in the winter of 1956 at the hands of Korean War veterans who had learned the hard way that untrained troops are a menace to themselves and their comrades. Evidently the Marines never unlearned this basic truth.

I particularly liked what young Mr. Fick says about his motivation for joining up: "I wanted to do something so hard that nobody would ever talk shit to me." He was a junior at Dartmouth, and OCS was his summer vacation; he'll become a Marine second lieutenant in June 1999. This is the same Lieutenant Fick who was chronicled in the HBO mini-series, Generation Kill. As portrayed by Stark Sands, he's appealingly decent and thoughtful--and regularly rebuked by the headquarters POGs for caring more about his men than the orders he's been given. It will be interesting to see what the real-life Nate Fick says on this subject. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Nate Fick

Last night I watched the sixth episode of the hugely enjoyable Generation Kill mini-series. For the first time (I think), the sympathetic lieutenant's full name was spoken--previously it's been "Nate" or "Lieutenant Fick"--and I was sure I'd heard it before. So like a good child of the internet, I Googled the name, and sure enough: he's the author of One Bullet Away, which some of my classmates in War in the Modern World called the best of the 21st century accounts of warfare. I haven't read it but will soon be doing so. Meanwhile, I hope to catch the final episode of "Generation Kill" before heading off to Aspen for the annual ski week. It's a great show; pity about the title. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Meet the FETs

As the French have discovered, bracing someone in a burqa is a bit dicey: is this a housewife going to market or her husband with explosives around his waist? In Afghanistan, one can't cope with this problem by banning facial coverings, so the U.S. Marines have deployed Female Engagement Teams to do the bracing. Here's a great video from the NYT today. (You see what a newspaper can do when it does the news instead of ideological oversight?) Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

The chaplain's assistant

There's a wonderful story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: A Chaplain and an Atheist Go to War. The chaplain is Navy lieutenant Terry Morna, right; the atheist is Religious Programs Specialist 2nd Class Philip Chute, on the left with the assault rifle. "We're here for security," RP2 Chute explains. "We're not junior chaplains." They are a wonderfully mismatched pair. Not only is the chaplain a believer; he really seems to think he's bullet-proof. And not only is RP2 Chute an unbeliever; he's a committed atheist who will quote scripture to correct the chaplain on matters of faith.

My favorite line in the story (by Michael Philips) is the anguished cry by a Marine gunnery sergeant when Lt. Moran dallies before taking cover: "Tell the [expletive] chaplain to get behind the goddamn vehicle!" Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Iraqi takeout

It seems that Iraq veterans have acquired a taste for shawarma, a spicy grilled-lamb sandwich popular in the Middle East. Here the US Marines get a fix at a fast-food stand operated by Crisantos Hajibrahim and his wife. But here’s the thing: Mr Hajibrahim (of Palestinian and Mexican heritage) himself served a four-year hitch in the USMC ... and the family stand is located at Camp Pendleton, California. Only in America! See the story in the Wall Street Journal. Blue skies! – Dan Ford

Taking the war to Marineistan

The WaPo has an article that would have gladdened the heart of John Boyd, the advocate of offensive counter-guerrilla ops:

The Marines are pushing into previously ignored Taliban enclaves. They have set up a first-of-its-kind school to train police officers. They have brought in a Muslim chaplain to pray with local mullahs and deployed teams of female Marines to reach out to Afghan women.

The Marine approach -- creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox -- has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

It all sounds wonderfully reminiscent of the Combined Action Platoons that the Marines so successfully applied in Vietnam--except for one thing. The WaPo article notes that they're building a 3,000-man 'outpost' with 'two airstrips, an advanced combat hospital, a post office, a large convenience store and rows of housing trailers stretching as far as the eye can see'. The Vietnam-era CAP contained twelve Marines, augmented by triple their number of local police and militia, and they lived in The Village for months at a time. They took casualties, but they were never overrun, though the Viet Cong tried repeatedly to run them off. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

First, let your hair grow

Elisabeth Bumiller has an engaging story in the New York Times about what the US Marines painfully call a Female Engagement Team, which no doubt will be rendered and pronounced as FET. They're training at Fort Pendleton CA for deployment to the 'Stan. The idea--more than eight years after the Marines landed--is that if American women accompany American men into Afghan villages, then Afghan women are less likely to take fright. The Marines think of everything: “If you have a pony tail,” said Marina Kielpinski, the instructor, “let it go out the back of your helmet so people can see you’re a woman.” Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Teach us to sit still

"I'm not a big fan of the population-centric approach," says a Marine colonel in Afghanistan, as reported in the Washington Post. "We can't sit still. We have to pursue and chase these guys. I haven't seen any evidence [that the strategy of protecting the population is] working. The only thing that's working is chasing them."

Fascinating stuff. In Vietnam, the Marines pioneered the Combined Action Platoon, in which a handful of Americans and a larger number of Vietnamese worked together over the long haul to protect a community. Bing West memorably wrote about the project in The Village. I was so impressed by it that I used the experience in my concluding thesis at King's College London: Let the Americans Live in the Village, in which I apply the thinking of military theorist John Boyd to the problem of counterinsurgency. (The thesis is available only as an e-book for the Kindle reader, but you can read Kindle editions on your PC by downloading the free software.)

Meaning no disrespect to the colonel, but he ought to pick up a copy of T.S. Elliot's Ash Wednesday and ponder the lines: "Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still". They're especially appropriate right now, with Ash Wednesday falling on the 17th. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Lucky son of a bitch

The New York Times website has a fine sequence of photos by Tom Hicks, showing a Marine patrol in the 'Stan, in the course of which Lance Corporal Ryan Mathison (left) stepped on a mine that didn't explode. 'Lucky son of a bitch,' said his corporal. Indeed. The story, by C J Chivers, is here, and in Saturday's paper. Blue skies, Ryan! -- Dan Ford