Army Colonel’s Memo Foreshadowed Doomed Soldier’s Email
10.16.2012 at 12:06am
Army Colonel's Memo Foreshadowed Doomed Soldier's Email by Howard Altman, Tampa Tribune.
"A gross lack of concern for subordinates," Tunnell wrote, "manifests itself in guidance that 'zero' civilian casualties are acceptable and coalition soldiers may have to be killed rather than defend themselves against a potential threat and risk being wrong and possibly resulting in injury or death of a civilian."
Tunnell’s letter can be found here: http://goo.gl/0wLIG
COL Tunnell’s comment on both the employment of COIN methods in RC-South and British leadership are interesting. Regarding the former, it sounds as if COL Tunnell, in response to what he perceived as an extreme application of COIN tactics, responded by going to the other extreme in his application of counter-guerilla tactics which may have led to some of the incidents that occurred during his tour. Ensuring that we incorporate the lessons learned from Afghanistan and Iraq into unit METLs and our educational institutions may help future leaders at all levels better navigate their way through pop-centric COIN fights.
Regarding the latter, do his comments about British leadership and staff indicate a need for a closer working/ training relationship with our allies? Closer relationship as in more opportunities for more US and UK (and Canadian, Australian, New Zealander) officers (and NCOs if possible) to get exchange assignments to allied militaries and learn about their military cultures, doctrine, and “battle-speak” (for instance, US bubbas on occasion talk of “flexing” forces from A to B….where in doctrine is that? So do we need to go easy on Brits who talk of “discombobulating” the enemy?)? I know of at least one US officer who commanded a UK para company. Do we need to look at doing this more often and with larger units….UK LTCs commanding US battalions? An Aussie commanding one of our divisions?
Should we look at closer integration of our forces, even a permanent coalition element akin to the Franco-German Brigade (the ABCANZ BDE), which should force all contributing members to align their doctrine and integrate operational methodologies?
Side note—the good COL does not mention in his letter that he had a number of “walks in the desert” with several GOs as BCT Cmdr when his unit was going through the NTC.
He also does not dicuss the Counter Guerrilla baseball caps he and his staff were wearing during their LTP cycle at Ft. Erwin—the LTP mentors were totally unable to convince the COL and his Staff that COIN was the current doctrine—he believed and still does that it was a counter guerrilla fight.
There were serious discussions about the red lining (and placing them back into the ARFORGEN cycle for retraining)of the unit as their performance was massively sub par to the point that a large number of OCs were constantly shaking their heads with some of the discussions they were having with the COL and his Staff officers.
The good COL set the tune and his Staff followed his led and one wonders about the events that occurred within the unit while it was in AFG.
“zero civilian casualties are acceptable and coalition soldiers may have to be killed rather than defend themselves against a potential threat and risk being wrong and possibly resulting in injury or death of a civilian.”
Has this been confirmed that this statement was actually made? If so this dude needs his ass kicked. I guess this goes along with the Courageous Restraint medal mentality.
I apologize for not offering anything of value to this dicussion, but sometimes you just gotta call bull####. COIN, at least in Afghanistan is bull#### and I personally believe it is degrading our force. How can you make headway with a group of people who are offended at everything you do -blow your nose, swear, pet a dog, hold a Koran without gloves on, etc? Let SF, CA, and MPs do COIN in the extreme. Our COIN efforts in Afghanistan kind of remind me of the 90’s relationship book called Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus (we are the men:)
COIN reminds me in some ways to Problem Oriented Policing and Community Policing. Both were retarded ideas. It failed because you are trying to reason with unreasonable people.
As far as this colonel – I don’t know the guy, but I agree with his letter.
This may sound a crude to some of the “elite” studied and polished gents who so often write nonsense here. But until we do the below, the above is will going to keep happening. I am going to restate a few things most should already know. If it is worth going to War over, then it is worth WINNING… This will require getting rid of Political Correctness, Politics and pandering to the media. It will also require stopping the investigation of every single stupid thing that happens (if you took all the officers assigned to preform 15-6 investigations, you would have a lot of troops available for something useful, like killing the enemy). We must realize the Fog of War is still present, Murphy’s Laws of Combat are funny but true and that we cannot second guess or Monday Morning Quarterback every decision made by a subordinate. We must hold the man accountable for the action, not everyone around him less they be at fault. It will also require getting rid of non preformers and what I mean by non preformers is non-warriors…And I don’t mean non-combat arms. I mean those who are most happy counting beans, complaining about uniforms and yes those who don’t work. How many non-deployables do you think Al Qaida has? Next it is going to require a mind set of killing the enemy. We must stive to kill the enemy at every single opportunity. We must strive to prevent civilian casualties, but not at the risk of adding to our own. We need to do the best we can and if we smear a some, well you really can’t have a bloodless shooting War. Nor can an omelet be made without breaking some eggs. And if I am not killing the enemy, how am I harrassing him? And if I can’t do the first two, how and where do I find him so I can continue the first two. We need to make better use of our snipers and turn them loose, make the infantry squad an independant fighting unit again and turn them loose and stay in the feild. Oh and no matter what the clowns in the TOC see on the Predator feed, we are going to have to return full and absolute control to the man on the ground. We are also going to have to realize that those combat arms boys didn’t join the military to be safe. They joined looking for adventure and glory and if they didn’t we should try to get them another job or thank them for coming and send them on their way. We need not waste their lives in Banzai attacks against castle walls, but they signed up to go places other were afraid to go, and do what others are afraid to do. We keep them safe by giving them world class training, and turning them loose to do what we trained them to do. This is are going to get it done. We have spent billions on artillery development and yet, we get fires less than and they take more time than WWII and Vietnam, WTH??? We spend billions on technolgy to find the enemy and after 12 years we still haven’t found them all yet. We spend billions on protection, where the enemy spends less than $100 on the IED that kills a million dollar+ MRAP. We are going to have to get back on the ground, use the parachute and the Helo and just plain old walking it in to move. Then we are going to have to dig them out of their holes, engage them in feilds and mountains and kill them. And keep doing so until, the very sight or sound of a US Soldier causes bowel evacuation and mind numbing fear. This will need to continue til they realize that they can never, never win and give up or die. In the long run we will save more of our lives, more of their lives, spend less treasure and get a desired endstate or at least one closer to what we want. The bottom line is this: The Romans didn’t build the Roman Empire by going to meetings, worrying about what other tribes thought, going to pointless meetings and PowerPoint. They did it by crushing all who opposed them, by skill and feats of arms. Until we do this as well, we will drivel along… This is not a “cave man” mentality. It is a course of action. Hope is not.
It seems fairly evident that Colonel Tunnell 1) operated well outside of the commander’s intent; 2) fostered a negative command climate; 3) commanded a unit that was tactically ineffective in Afghanistan. Whether he has been overly-villified for the actions of a few of his Soldiers is open to debate (I do agree that bad things can happen to good units and the logical extension that bad Soldiers serve in good units and can do bad things while in those units). However, if a Soldier does not operate within the commander’s intent, fosters a negative command climate, and is tactically ineffective, why would anyone want to promote him or extend his career?
As for the CG vs. COIN debate, from what I saw during my time in Kandahar Province (where 5/2 operated), COIN and VSO has been successful. 1/4 ID (and especially 1-320 FA) did some great COIN (which, by the way, does include killing the enemy) ops driving the Taliban out of Arghandab but then captitalizing upon that by engaging the local population, gaining their support, empowering the local government, and training and empowering ANSF. 2/4 ID took the baton from 1/4 and continued to expand GIROA and ANSF influence. 2/4 ID did especially well integrating with SOF Village Stability Ops to further extend security.
Various concepts of military doctrine each have thier own time and place. From my perspective, COIN (which, again, does include killing the enemy) was by and large the right doctrine at the right time and place in Kandahar Province especially because the right guys were on the ground executing it. COIN might not be right for the next fight and I think it’s important to maintain mental agility and not get ideollogically attached to one doctrine as the be-all-end-all.
Two comments on this article:
1. 5/2 SBCT and its CO has taken a lot of flak in the press since before the killings. I remember reading shortly after the 5/2 was relieved of its sector, and sent to guard MSR’s, about company-commanders being shut down or relieved when they wanted to be less kinetic in Arghandab. That COL Tunnell disagreed with COIN is clear. That his unit got mawled (by small wars standards) is also clear. That 5/2’s presence in sector “seemed” to make things worse is also peculiar. But a lot of this is mud-slinging. I have yet to see an actual assessment that wasn’t from Tunnel et al or from his critics. The article’s effort to connect Tunnel’s letter with the opinions of a SSG is also strange, seems like heart-string tugging. If Arghandab continues to be a problem, that is the problem.
2. On the NTC issues of the 5/2 SBCT. I did an HBCT rotation a month or two after the 5/2 did its pre-OEF run under Tunnel. Our O/Cs complained quite vocaly about a 2ID SBCT that kept screwing up at the platoon and company level lanes. I thought it was a strange thing to bring up over and over again to another unit, but they seemed genuinly frustrated (caviat: this is from a troop level POV). That the 5/2 issues were emerging at the platoon/company level does point the finger at command climate. I find it hard to believe that an AC SBCT would be genuinly incompetent when it came to small unit tactics, so its probably more an issue of their selection of tactics, which is probably more a leadership issue.
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