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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 8, 2004 LessonsBy GreyhawkSome time back I was asked about steps being taken to counter low-tech improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Here's partial answer, from the Washington Post's details on "lessons learned" from the troops departing Iraq. (Warning: graphic discussion of violence in the linked article.) As the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle was heating up last fall, Lt. Col. Steve Russell was dealing with a new wave of attacks in which bombers were using the transmitters from radio-controlled toy cars: They would take the electronic guts of the cars, wrap them in C-4 plastic explosive and attach a blasting cap, then detonate them by remote control. Emphasis added to the following: As one of the biggest troop rotations in U.S. history gets underway in Iraq, with almost 250,000 soldiers coming or going, the seasoned units that are leaving are doing their best to pass on such hard-won knowledge to their successors, in e-mails, in essays, in PowerPoint presentations and rambling memoirs posted on Web sites or sent to rear detachments. And in the process, these veterans of Iraq have provided an alternate history of the Army's experience there over the past nine months -- one that is far more personal than the images offered by the media and often grimmer than the official accounts of steady progress. An "unexpectedly hard small war"? Packed with amazing revelations (the people of Saddam's home town hate us) the stories from the troops will be used to justify "quagmire" claims from many of the same folks who predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees. And with a decidedly different set of lessons learned, here from one of those "memoirs posted on Web sites" is Arkhangel, ("I'm a soldier in the U.S. Army. Currently, I'm in the eighth month of a scheduled year-long rotation in Iraq.") Yet, we based virtually all our planning on the best-case scenario, and refused to plan for the worst-case scenario. This became more and more obvious the higher you ascended the Pentagon's chain of command. For example, it wasn't until early August that the highest levels of command admitted that we were fighting a guerrilla war--even though we had already lost more men than in the Bosnia and Kosovo operations combined by that point. Not sure who Arkhangel's "we" are, but I doubt he actually was one of the planners of the war. But for a soldier in Iraq (which claim I do not dispute), Arkhangel's thoughts on our progress there seem to draw more on feelings (to which he is absolutely entitled) without any cited facts supporting his statements. (Or with a careles disregard of facts: Bosnia and Kosovo were bombing campaigns; hard to lose soldiers in those.) Though thoughtful and informed, most of the claims could have been lifted without question from any lefty blog. The same tone is used when discussing the situation in Afghanistan. And like the lefty blogs, the Bush hate shines through loud and clear. Still, Arkhangel offers the first evidence I've seen yet from a military person that the Iraq mission is an unjustified failure. And he's certainly in a better position than I am to judge. I suppose only time will tell. Although from the military vantage point I think the toy car remote control is a more useful lesson learned. Hat tip: Tacitus UPDATE: From the WaPo story: "We had to learn the hard way," Capt. Daniel Morgan, an infantry company commander in the 101st Airborne Division, writes in an essay that is rocketing around military e-mail circles. Perhaps it is, but it's also an Army Times story available here. Long, but worth the effort. Should be required for those readying for downrange. Excerpt: An explosion rocks the vehicle in front of you, throwing soldiers onto the street. You see the vehicle rise up onto two wheels before settling and rolling to a stop. AK-47 fire and RPGs are heard almost simultaneously. Your soldiers stagger about trying to shake off the effects of the concussion. Some fire wildly in different directions because the cracking of the AK-47s are echoing off the buildings, so you cannot pinpoint the direction of fire. The battle drill says to clear the kill zone, but you have competing priorities. First, you have casualties that need to be secured, assessed and stabilized. Second, if you run, you won’t kill the enemy or deter them. You must fight back and hopefully kill them. Do you stay in the kill zone and fight? Posted by Greyhawk / February 8, 2004 2:13 PM | Permalink 2 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
I received the following comment to my original post on this subject which I subsequently posted here. I can't confirm the source of the post although it did come from a .gov ip #:
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Comment posted by Joe P.>>
There is no reason but stupidity and cost as to why more jammers are not deployed. The Israelis have used them for over ten years to successfully limit their vulnerability to IEDs.
The Dept of Defense is spending a fortune on building many sophisticated electronic devices, most of which never are used. Nobody cares about the grunt in the field until it becomes a threat to reelecting the President.
Jammers can be bought off-the-shelf. One similar to what the Pakistan President had cost about $10K. They block all Rf, no matter if at a cellphone frequency or in the junk band (garage door openers). In volume, the military could deploy one properly rigged jammer to protect a convoy that would cost $5K.
It is not just the lack of jammers that is astonishing, but how about the Hummers with canvas doors being used in combat zones. Pure stupidity. A BB gun could shoot through that canvas.
Better than a jammer, the military can easily deploy devices that ring cellular phones. By randomly doing that, you would blow-up the bombs before the convoy approached, if they used a cellular phone.
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If Joe's comments are correct, someone needs to get busy.
-Jim.
http://pub107.ezboard.com/biraqiblogbbs
assorted iraqi blogs