Our New National Divide
The Wall Street Journal
January 13, 2012
Last month I was running the Central Park loop when a runner wearing a U.S. Marine Corps shirt approached. I alerted the two boys in the jog stroller and my eldest, who met this world with a father in Iraq, shouted, “Semper fi!”
The man saw the emblem on my visor and said, “You hear about Doug Zembiec?” If most Americans have six degrees of separation, Marines have no more than two. I nodded and stopped my watch. But all he managed to say was, “That one hurt.” Then he plunged down the hill toward 72nd Street, cutting his own path against the flow.
I tried to make sense of it. Not the encounter but the sheer madness of the surroundings. Runners were chattering about school applications and subprime predictions. Yet most of them told pollsters that Iraq was the single largest anxiety in their lives. Like the majority of the nation, they were exhausted by a war in which they had no role. And they wanted out.
Leadership from the Rear
Marine Corps Gazette
September 1, 2005
This account of an ambush won the USMC 2005 Leadership Essay Contest
Captain Brent Morel, USMC
Proof that combat leadership knows no traditional boundaries.
Brent Morel was a captain, but in the be-a-good-officer leadership case studies his role was always cast with a 2nd lieutenant. Morel had done well enough in his initial tours to land a reconnaissance platoon. But he had missed Iraqi Freedom I. Most of his men were combat veterans who had spent time walking the point for the entire 1st Marine Division during its bold dash into Baghdad. They had seen things he hadn’t.
The miss bothered Morel—a seasoned Marine who had enlisted in the reserves while in college—but his platoon didn’t really care. They valued guts as much as experience. And Morel had plenty. They’d seen him stand up to seniors on their behalf when others would have yielded. They sensed Morel was a hunter, just as they sensed a fight was looming. Fallujah had erupted only weeks into their deployment. Brent Morel was the kind of platoon leader you wanted in a collision.
Dismissed!
June 1, 2005
Slate.com
By Owen West & Phil Carter
We won’t solve the manpower crisis by keeping our worst soldiers.
After combat, recruiting may be the toughest duty in the military today. Both the Army and Marines—who shoulder the casualty burden in Iraq and Afghanistan almost to the exclusion of their Navy and Air Force brethren—have failed to meet their recruiting targets for the last few months. The Army has assigned more recruiters, pledged more money, and lowered quality standards in an effort to hit its recruiting targets. Both active-duty and reserve recruiting has suffered. For the most part, the Army and Marines continue to meet their retention targets, thanks to a labyrinth of incentives. But current operational demands make retention increasingly uncertain. Many military experts predict a manpower meltdown at some point in 2006.
Our Soldiers are Warriors, not Victims
April 7, 2005
National Review
By Owen West and Bing West
The Culture of Victimization Must End.
Outside Fallujah a year ago today, a small convoy was ambushed by fifty insurgents. A rocket-propelled grenade hit the first Humvee, robbing one Marine of his hands and raking the others with shrapnel. Machinegun fire swept the kill zone.
Captain Brent Morel was in the second Humvee. “Stop and dismount,” was all he said before opening his door and sprinting off toward the ambush position. A small band of Marines followed him over two berms, splashing across a chest-deep canal as they closed on the ambushers.
As the surprised enemy broke, the Marines shot them down. It was the last time a large group of insurgents attacked an American convoy on that route with small arms, notwithstanding numerical advantage.
Twelve hours later, the casualty assistance teams were at the doorstep of Brent’s widow, Amy, and his parents, Mike and Molly.
The Few
March 24, 2005
Military.com
The Story of a Marine Shot 4 Times in Fallujah.
The path Darrell Carver chose out of his Salt Lake City high school was similar to that taken by other overachieving classmates. He’d married his Granger High sweetheart when he was 20, had three wonderful kids by the time he was 26, and was leading an elite team for his company by the time he was 28, sating his mild addictions to fitness and hunting when the occasional free hour presented itself.
But Carver followed a calling imbued in just a sliver of the population. On November 20th, 2004, while most of his peers were in office parks earning money with keyboards, Darrell Carver was approaching a tin-plated door in the heart of Fallujah, Iraq, with his rifle stock held firm in the crook of a shoulder tattooed with “USMC” and two terrorists praying to end him on the other side.
Baby Helps Sox Win
October 30, 2004
An 18-month-old does his part for the Sox.
Evil has fallen. Following the mythological hero’s journey outlined by the late Joseph Campbell, the Red Sox hurdled heretofore insurmountable obstacles, entered the belly of the whale, and vanquished the beast. Osama, watch your back. Like Campbell’s heroes, the on-field protagonists are supported by the living network that is Red Sox Nation, a brigade of Obi-Wan Kenobis connected across the ether by two emotions— hope and regret—and the latter has yielded the field. The players did their part. But to lift The Curse, the Fenway Faithful employed their own black magic. Here’s one toddler’s contribution.
Turn Loose the Marines
October 1, 2004
Los Angeles Times
Don’t make the same mistake in Fallujah twice.
For weeks, Marines have paced like chained bulldogs on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Fallouja, lunging and growling but restrained from going in.
On Thursday, the U.S. and Iraqis sent these forces to conduct raids inside this bastion of Sunni violence, while Iraq’s interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, warned that unless insurgents turn over a notorious terrorist the Marines and Iraqi troops will storm in and take control once and for all.
The last time Marines marched into Fallouja, they were promptly ordered to do something that runs counter to their creed: pull back short of the goal. That was a mistake. But the decision-makers this time have apparently learned.
The MIlitary’s Broken Medals System
September 1, 2004
Slate.com
Who really deserves the Bronze Star?
The General got the Croix-de-Guerre,
The son of a gun was not even there
—From “A Mademoiselle From Armentieres,” a World War I soldier’s song banned in most Army camps at the time.
The Bronze and Silver Stars that John Kerry earned in Vietnam, his crewmates will tell you, were the result of his bravery. No, counter his political enemies, Kerry contrived to earn them in order to serve his political aspirations. What permitted him to collect so many medals in so short a time, in fact, was neither extraordinary heroism nor political scheming but the bar on his collar. Kerry was an officer, and like thousands of other officers who have served in combat operations, he was subjected to a more liberal awards process than enlisted men who performed similar feats.
Behind Enemy Lines
August 30, 2004
Slate.com
A pro-war Marine walks with the anti-war establishment.
I’m a Red Sox fan who lives in New York. Marines are taught to focus on the enemy perspective before any clash, so each year I don my Sox cap and ride the subway to some Yankee games to try to grasp how the other side thinks. My toes involuntarily curl when I hear women say, “Jeter is so hot.”
Yesterday, on the same premise, I hopped on the subway and headed to the antiwar/anti-Bush rally. Like most Americans, I’m somewhere in the middle of two parties, though I heel starboard in rough seas. I support the war in Iraq and hoped to better understand the counterargument by walking among the electrified.
Three Strikes in Iraq
August 20, 2004
By Bing and Owen West
Stop Using Soldiers as Pawns in Iraq.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said offensives against rebel cities like Fallujah would be conducted jointly with Iraqi forces expected to be ready for combat by December. That raises the question of who will be in charge of those battles – Iraqis or Americans. After Vietnam, American commanders vowed that our soldiers would never again be buffeted by erratic political currents. In the recent battles in Iraq, however, politics altered the missions of our troops after they had suffered substantial casualties fighting for initial objectives. While political decisions should control military actions, policymakers must be careful lest our soldiers conclude that political tactics are flicking them on and off like a light switch.