Letter from the Balkans: American Armor in Albania, A Soldier’s Mosaic

American Armor in Albania, A Soldier’s Mosaic

As this issue was going to press, there were reports that TF Hawk would redeploy to Macedonia to support a settlement in Kosovo. – Ed.

Rinas Airfield, Tirana, Albania – Go anywhere in the world the U. S. Army has troops and you are likely to find specially tailored task forces at work. That is no surprise to a soldier of a globally projected Army. Armor and Cavalry units in the Balkans? Nothing new there. The Bosnia mission is a familiar one, so is duty in Macedonia. So what’s new? Well, there’s American armor in Albania.

This is going to be a good news story, because what is happening here is good news. I chose to write to let you know there are thousands of success stories daily — soldiers, NCOs and officers making it happen. Sometimes the situation hasn’t been perfect, but what is important is how soldiers and their leadership tackled challenges and continue to do so.

I arrived in time to deal with the last of the mud. I worked with others to make the mud go away before wooden tent floors arrived. I filled and humped a soldier’s share of sandbags too. Dwell on that and you will miss what has really happened and continues to unfold. There have been thousands of small victories, and there will be thousands more. If you want to know about the handful of mishaps, most well beyond the control of the leadership here, go and read the recent column by COL (Retired) David Hackworth, who printed apparently verbatim the gripes of a disgruntled soldier here. You will read about being deployed to a mud hole, confusion upon landing, being detoured around the command group to get to the latrine, and other gripes meant to suggest leadership was broken here. The column portrays, amplifies, and distorts the very rare “exception.” I’ll give you the rule, and I’ll use the words of as many soldiers as I can. I’ll do my best to represent the troops I know best and love — soldiers forged with the thunderbolt. I have done my best to piece together a mosaic of feelings, ideas and observations that belong to our soldiers and express what its like to be here in Albania.

Since I’mon a solid soapbox, I hope this article finds it way to you, Colonel (Retired) Hackworth. Many here are disappointed that your article published the complaints of a whiner. All you have to do is come to see what has been done to take care of soldiers. We would all like the PX to be operational, and all the tents to have floors before the first soldier arrives, but it doesn’t work that way. Sir, you should have checked it out. I want the leader who is ultimately responsible for every American life here to have the clearest head possible, and if a couple of pieces of plywood help give him fifteen minutes more quiet time to make decisions, then send him everything Georgia-Pacific can clear cut. Okay, that is off my chest; now let’stalk about what has been going on here, in Albania. I deployed here this spring with a Training and Doctrine Command Lessons Learned Team. Here, in the southeastern corner of the Balkans, I found a rather unique Army task force, Task Force Hawk, which stood poised and ready to strike, secure, or support as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe required. The task force was built around Apache helicopters and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) artillery. I moved around the task force assembly area, Camp Reichert, and saw forces that might surprise. Tankers and scouts, part of a “heavy” task force, serving as an integral part of Task Force Hawk’s force protection team. This “cold war anachronism” gave the task force commander the ability to conduct limited offensive or defensive operations at a time when the situation was not very clear.

The tanks and crews I saw belonged to Company C, 1st Battalion, 35th Armor, “Conquerors.” The company’s parent unit for this operation was Task Force 1-6 (TF 1-6), an infantry-heavy task force that included the headquarters and headquarters company and two mechanized infantry companies of 1st Battalion, Sixth Infantry, a rifle company from the 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and “Charlie Tank.” TF 1-6 was further augmented by the scout platoon of 1-35 Armor.

Charlie Company’s commander, Captain Steve Lutsky, deployed from Baumholder, Germany, explained that there were several facets to the infantry battalion task force mission that also fell within the capabilities and mission of a combined arms team. April and May found the task force focused on force protection. The tank company was task-organized into a tank-heavy company team, swap-

Charlie 33 pulls security along the berm at the east side of the TF Hawk perimeter. C Company, 1-35 Armor, is part of TF 1-6 IN at the airport base near Tirana, Albania. 8 ARMOR — ping out one of its tank platoons for a mechanized infantry platoon. CPT Lutsky said his company team was here to provide an armor punch to any and all operations. “We can secure, surveil, defend, attack, and move to block, ensuring uninterrupted operations by Task Force Hawk units operating in and around the Tirana — Rinas Airfield.” Naysayers might accuse CPT Lutsky of being overly biased towards the employment of armor. Nope, that wasn’t the case. The factors of METT-TC (mission, enemy, troops, terrain – time and civil) were different here, but the principles of employing armor had significant utility. Summing up comments by the battalion task force commander, LTC Jim Embrey, Charlie Company was an essential part of his team. CPT Lutsky said his fourteen tanks, their command and control and support had deployed by C-17 Globemasters. “We were given three weeks notice. We used two weeks to prepare and move to Ramstein Air Force Base, and deployed a week later.”

Deploying by C-17 was just one more first for the 35th Armor Regiment. U. S. Army Europe units are used to deploying by rail and sea. Air deployment was not a mission essential task for many heavy units stationed in Germany. Charlie Company didn’t accomplish this feat alone: there was great support from the parent battalion, which also deployed its scout platoon to Albania. I was eager to hear what the troops would have to say, and wondered what had made the strongest impressions on them. Many readers will probably remember reading about the conditions Task Force Hawk found itself in during the early days. Rain and mud were not shortage commodities for this military enclave north of Tirana, and I expected that to be the strongest impression, but I was only partly correct.

Sergeant First Class Randall Sumner, a Tennesseean who serves as platoon sergeant for 3d Platoon, explained how the company team was able to remain agile. It was in great part due to the unit’s preparation, he said: “Company training included mission-oriented classes covering defense, observation posts, tactical road marches and movement, hand and arm signals, occupation of hasty and deliberate positions, sketch cards, quartering parties, assembly area procedures.” The list went on to include individual and crew duties, boresighting, prep-to-fire checks, and crew level (tank) maintenance.

SFC Sumner credited the unit’s preparatory training at home station, including force protection, taking and securing prisoners, base camp operations, media awareness, and time on the UCOFT (Unit Conduct of Fire Trainers). The company showed its Bosnia experience through buddy equipment checks, weapons security and good field hygiene. SFC Sumner shared his platoon’s excitement. There was even a good chance his platoon would get a chance to shoot, maybe sooner than later. Task Force Hawk had developed plans to build and operate live-fire ranges for tank gunnery and small arms marksmanship. The company goal was to shoot tank tables four to eight, or at least modified tables five and six. SSG John Demey said he would always remember setting up the perimeter security, the process of building and occupying towers, establishing, coordinating and recording fields of observation and fire. There was a great deal of work involved in getting the berms built, commo working, and building vehicle fighting positions. What else? “The mud, he grinned.” His platoon hadn’t gotten a tank stuck, he said, but a soldier had sunk past knee-deep, requiring three of his buddies to extract him.

Specialist Anthony Housey, a tank driver, said “tank wise,” the units were somewhat limited in where the tanks could go in and around the assembly area and airfield. When not on the perimeter with their tanks, these armor crewmen could have been mistaken for military police, engineers, or even infantry. Multifunctional soldiers were in high demand and SPC Housey would proudly remember how his company answered the call. This was a first deployment for Specialist Jeremy Freeman, a tank loader. I wondered how the comments from a soldier unbiased by other deployments might differ. First, his loader’s machine gun could be his weapon of choice over a loaded 120mm tank cannon. SPC Freeman was also adapting to a different set of employment factors. Five hundred meters was a pretty long distance in some cases. Finally — and it was coming out again — tankers made pretty darn good dismounts when more “crunchies” were needed.

Freeman was appreciative of the creature comforts that were materializing. The Army and Air Force Exchange Service had brought in several semi-trailers set up as mobile “shoppettes.” His company, when not pulling perimeter security had showers less than two hundred meters away. Chow was good. These were all “morale multipliers.”

Above, even after weeks of dry weather, there is some mud parking still available.

At left, the TF HAWK Welcome Center, where each new soldier assigned passes through for a briefing prior to linking up with his unit. Continued on Page 50 ARMOR — 9