Conducting Homeland Security: Moving Swiftly into a New Era of Defense

The call came from my battalion commander and AGR Deputy Director for Training and Mobilization in my state. “I need you in here ASAP,” he said, “You will be doing mission contingency planning for critical infrastructure sites in the state….” “What time do I report?” “This afternoon, as soon as you can get here. I’ve got one of the captains stopping to pick you up on his way here.” “Fair enough, sir. I will see you soon.”

That phone call, on September 18, 2001, initiated the first of my three separate tours of duty planning Homeland Security (HS) missions for my state. It is highly illustrative of the nature of this new mission that it began with no written doctrine or necessary guiding terms and definitions. As my battalion commander said when I arrived at his office, “…We are making this out of whole cloth — there’s just nothing already written on this to go from….” Indeed, the planning and missions I was involved with should have been written and rehearsed no later than September 10, 2001 — we just did not know that at the time. This article will discuss the nature of planning and executing missions for HS, which, as I found in a very recent Army document, is defined as “…the preparation for, prevention, preemption, deterrence of, and defense against, aggression targeted at United States territory, sovereignty, domestic population, and infrastructure; as well as the management of the consequences of such aggression; and other domestic civil support….” Since we are all in the infancy of this most important of efforts, I believe it is important to discuss how it was done in my state and to share tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) useful in accomplishing this new mission. My personal perspective comes from conducting reconnaissance for and drafting three site security contingency plans (CONPLANs), assisting in drafting my state’s OPORD for Operation Noble Eagle’s airport security mission, and observing the deployment of airport security support teams during the heightened state of national alert on or around 31 October 2001. My battalion commander has also weighed in with comments and suggestions. I also write this article with reference to several remarks made by General Eric K. Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA), to the Association of the United States Army’s Seminar this past November 8th. I believe his comments about transformation of the Army are highly pertinent in the context of HS. Right off the bat, the CSA’s comment below sums up my initial deployment well, and is an indicator of the kind of response units should be prepared to provide for HS missions: “…So we are going to go faster — to win today’s fight against terrorism, and to win all those fights yet to be defined in our future, we have to go faster... Where we used to deploy in weeks and months, we must now deploy in hours and days….” (General Eric K. Shinseki, AUSA Seminar, Washington, D. C., November 8, 2001.) I wish to stress that homeland security is evolving an order of magnitude even as I type these words. If ever there was a need for a sense of urgency, I cannot think of a better time or place because this mission holds implications for us and the lives and property of our families, friends, and neighbors. Arriving On Station and a First Mission When I reported to my battalion commander at the state training office, his in-briefing was short and to the point. Along with a captain ending his tour as an NTC Project Officer, I was brought in to draft CONPLANs for the security of key and critical infrastructure in our state. This was to be my first time drafting plans at the state level. A key point to make here is that planning to secure key and critical infrastructure in the state should be a state-level staff mission. The state’s military department (along with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies) is responsible to the Governor, and ultimately the President, for the defense of these sites as the military first responder. They serve as the echelon of command that provides logistical support for any overall task force command structure that commands and controls these missions. In my state’s case, it is the military department and the Office of Emergency Preparedness 8 ARMOR — (OEP) that have ties to the managers of the state’s critical infrastructure and local government and law enforcement agencies. And for any designated task force command structure, state-drafted CONPLANs facilitate the commander of troops’ orders process. An overall challenge here is that the state training office is not organized with a planning cell because they function primarily to coordinate training and training support matters already planned for by subunits (the major commands, or MACOMs) in their state. There is no G3 Future Ops staff available for HS campaign, operational, and contingency planning, so in order to conduct the planning mission, the state has to mobilize augmentees. Prior to my arrival, the state’straining office, key state directorate heads, and the Adjutant General (TAG) conferred to determine what were to be designated as “key” and “critical” infrastructure assets within the state. This is perhaps the first instance where new doctrinal definitions had to be crafted. For the purposes of prioritizing support, the TAG and state staff determined that ‘key’ assets held some national and/or strategic implications, and ‘critical’ assets held state strategic and/or economic implications. The recommendations for assets to be listed came from existing state military files that required significant updating, institutional knowledge of state infrastructure by our OEP, and from agencies who contacted the state’s OEP, or the Governor’s or TAG’s offices directly. Based on the criteria above, the list was compiled, sites were categorized as ‘key’ or ‘critical’, and then they were prioritized, based on the Governor’sand TAG’s intent and the overall impact each site might make to national and state security. We contacted 5th Army and the National Guard Bureau on September 18th to provide them with this list, classified as SECRET – NOFORN. I recall that, since the draft of “The List,” various state political and military offices have had to define for several facilities and corporations what was meant by ‘key’ and ‘critical’ and how that translated into prioritization of our support to them. It seemed, too, that EVERYONE wanted additional security, which is perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but not too far off the mark. Without these initial definitions, however, we would not be able to explain to some companies why they could not be immediately supported while their next-door neighbor, in a similar industry, could be. (For instance, you might have two crude oil processing assets in your state whose fence lines abut each other. One processes 10,000 barrels of oil per day for local distribution. The other one pumps 10,000,000 barrels per day throughout the United States. Common, military sense dictates the latter would have priority for support and the former might not. But that kind of logic still had to be explained numerous times.) Simultaneously, we began to coordinate, through our OEP, for meetings with critical infrastructure security and site managers. The OEP has a combination of institutional knowledge of personnel at these sites and holds close ties to local (parish) OEPs and agencies.

Avenues of Approach (AAs):

• Hard – Surfaced/gravel routes (RTEs) into site

• Cross-country routes into site (fields, trails, footpaths, etc.)

• Water-borne routes into site (i.e., rivers, streams, bayous, swamps, etc.) Observation:

• Inter-visibility (IV) lines along AAs out from the site (recon once occupied)

• Best locations from which to observe IV lines above (recon once occupied)

• Best places from which the enemy (EN) can observe the site/last place short of IV line EN can pull off of AA before IV line/open areas where mortars could unmask and fire on site (recon once occupied) Key Terrain:

• CLASS I and water locations

• Emergency CLASS III (diesel) locations

• Possible CLASS V storage area/unit CP location

• Local hospitals in the area

• Possible maintenance/vehicle storage site

• Possible areas to billet troops

• Local police and fire stations

• Possible locations EN can acquire transportation (public service, utilities, truck rental, truck stops, airports, marinas, etc.)

• Utility and water lines into site

• Closest local media outlets (TV, radio, newspapers)

• Locations of concern for possible local terrorist threat

• Hazardous materials on site Obstacles:

• Natural/manmade obstacles in place around site

• Obstacle material in the local area

• Obstacles necessary to limit access into the site Cover and Concealment:

• Natural/manmade cover and/or concealment around site

Table 1 – Initial IPB Checklist ARMOR — 9

My state’s military leadership knew instinctively that any work we did would be a joint, multi-agency effort that included local political, governmental, and law enforcement agencies. Not doing so might produce hurdles too significant to clear and could undermine the security process. Before we could conduct site security visits, however, we had to have a checklist of some sort to go by. Since this effort was designed to protect apiece of ground, I thought we should use an OCOKA-like (Observation, Cover & Concealment, Obstacles, Key Terrain, and Avenues of Approach) checklist. I looked at what we were doing, however, and determined the proper order to answer site questions was actually AOKOC. Taken from the IPB checklist we used, Table 1 is a list of what we were looking for when we went to a site. Answers to AA questions help define how a terrorist or terrorist group might infiltrate a site. Based on any local terrain situation, the three types of routes listed may not cover all eventualities. Conspicuously absent from this list are air AAs. This is primarily because the Air National Guard has the overall mission for that battlefield dimension. What is helpful about this section from a planning perspective, (for both us and potential enemies) is that many of the answers to these questions are found in a good atlas or local map. This is beneficial to units because there is a dearth of military maps for areas in the state not associated with military facilities. But you still must ‘see the dirt’ to completely appreciate the terrain situation. As a note here, we went to my civilian employer at the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development – DOTD – and requested some Global Information System (GIS) mapping and product support. The state of Louisiana is one of the most GIS product-covered states in the nation in terms of databases available. Louisiana’s DOTD possesses many products we could use to aid our reconnaissance. Assistance from DOTD is one of several instances where close (and personal) ties to local governmental agencies have been invaluable to mission accomplishment. You will notice after each sub-topic under the “Observation” section a note in parentheses that says ‘…recon once occupied….’ This could actually be accomplished by an initial recon team and be annotated on an IPB checklist. However, we found that there were so many sites to visit with our limited planning cell that we deferred this action for a later time. I personally think this was not a detractor, however. I believe a local commander of troops on the ground should always define his own battlespace. It is, after all, his turf and his responsibility. The “Key Terrain” section included locations to find pertinent classes of supply, maintenance, medical, and local law enforcement and fire department support. Locations where terrorists can obtain less-suspicious transportation that might possibly allow them access to a site are something of a difficulty in the scheme of contingency planning. It is investigative in nature, and as such, more of a law enforcement tasking than one for a commander of troops on the ground. It does, however, allow a local commander to focus his observation on particular AAs wherever there is a clear indicator of more of a threat from one direction than from others. Of particular interest here is that most of this information, to include maps to these location, can be found using ‘Yellow Pages’ — like search engines on the Internet. Key questions individuals must answer in this regard might be:

• How far out from the site should I look?

• Wouldn’t a terrorist steal a vehicle farther away — as in maybe the next state — for use at your local site as that would be less obvious?

• When would they steal it? Twelve hours before they attacked? Twenty-four? Locations of utility and water lines into the site need to be known by the security force, along with the effect they have on the site’s overall operation. I added ‘Closest Media Outlets’ under the assumption the greater the proximity to the media, the more likely a site was to be a target. ‘Locations of concern for possible local terrorist threat’ is something that local law enforcement is again in a better position to answer. Based on threat patterns of organization, potential terrorists have to meet somewhere in order to craft their plans, and tend to do so where they are the most comfortable. Finally, the locations of any hazardous materials on site have to be known for purposes of unit force protection. The short-shrift we all tend to give NBC individual and collective training needs to end. These types of hazards — both from what might be a threat on site to what might be introduced separately by a terrorist — demand we know how to work in an NBC environment. To this end, Civil Support Teams (CSTs) are invaluable for the information they possess on-hand or have access to. Were I King-for-a-Day, I would provide a CST Team for every state and also to enhance active duty unit deployment as far down as the battalion level. Consequently, my reconnaissance of sites included one of the NCOs from our state’s certified CST. This soldier has access to chemical hazard modeling software and information on protective equipment that is needed to enhance force protection. From the documentation each company provides to the government by law (such as Tier II Reports, and MSDS and MPR sheets), a recon element can orient on potential hazards in the area that will require further inves-

Louisiana Army National Guardsmen protect an infrastructure site in their state. 10 ARMOR — tigation. Call this preventive NBC reconnaissance, if you will. Keep in mind, too, that if hazardous materials are present, the on-site unit has to learn and rehearse emergency procedures should there be a release. Obstacles information is pertinent to either narrowing enemy AAs or eliminating them. Natural and/or manmade cover and concealment concurrently defines both friendly and enemy-use areas since the advantage in such terrain always lies with the occupier. Both of these sections also serve to assist any commander of troops’ definition of his overall battlespace. Armed with a prioritized site listing, having conducted the necessary coordination with OEP to visit these sites, and possessing an initial IPB checklist to take and complete, we began to conduct our site security inspection mission. Our TAG’s intent, stated prior to the first coordination meeting, was that any mission we were to undertake would be to augment a site’s existing security posture, not to take over the site’s security operations. With this as the initial, ice-breaking posture and language at all meetings, any fears held by security and site managers that we were coming in to take over their operations were put to rest. At least I assume so, as none were ever expressed and we have had nothing but the best of relationships with each site we visited. In these meetings, great pains were also taken to ensure that representatives from nearby local and state government and law enforcement agencies were present so as to build a site security coalition. We believe that this is critical to any site security mission’s success. We discovered four, key lessons learned once we began our site security recons. First, something was missing in our IPB checklist. We had to have answers to two additional, key questions:

1. What are the national military implications of this site, and how would its loss disrupt the national military strategy?

2. Where are the site’s Single Points of Failure (SPOFs)? The answer to the first question both defines the need for troops and the site’s priority on any critical asset list. Going back to my example above, the loss of a 10,000,000-barrel-per-day crude oil site would have a significant impact on the national economy and the availability of fuel for the military. Such a facility would likely be very high on any prioritized list of assets to secure. At the site, you also need to know the SPOFs. This is another term that needed defining. We believe these points to be any one, particular thing that — if it ceased to function — would bring normal facility operations to a halt. As such, these points need to be safeguarded as part of the overall site security plan in order to assure uninterrupted operations. The answers to these two questions are now spelled out in any state site security CONPLAN we write. Secondly, our prioritization as ‘key’ or ‘critical’ did not properly define the overall infrastructure system. As we continued to recon, it became apparent to my battalion commander that there was a significant level of interconnectivity to these sites. When you understood that one site fed others, who in turn supplied others, etc., and that the loss of one or another particular site could halt other critical infrastructure operations, it was not too difficult to see the logic in restructuring and re-prioritizing our critical infrastructure list. By way of illustration, return to the theoretical 10,000 and 10,000,000 barrels-per-day crude oil facilities I mentioned above. When you initially listed them, the 10,000,000-barrel site might have been placed on your list of ‘key’ assets. The 10,000-barrel site might possibly have been placed on your ‘critical’ asset site. Also on your ‘key’ asset list was a large power-producing facility. You did not realize until you began to recon that the power facility provides all power needs of the 10,000,000-barrel site, as well as three other, similar-industry sites placed on your ‘key’ asset list. The correct answer then becomes to change your ‘key’ asset list, placing the 10,000,000- barrel site, the three other, similar-industry sites, and the power-producing facility all in the same ‘tier’ of the overall ‘key’ asset list. The fact that the power-producing facility also supplies energy for the 10,000-barrel site simply means their power source might receive increased security support simply by association. It does not, by default, mean the 10,000-barrel site needs to be moved up the prioritization ladder. A third lesson we learned with each site security reconnaissance was that we did not know everything we needed to in order to properly define the security support requirements of that facility beforehand. So we had to: tour a facility; learn how it is operated and what its SPOFs and vulnerabilities are; determine how it is linked to other infrastructure; and compare each site to all others. Only after this was done could we then properly justify the prioritization of our infrastructure asset list. I cannot stress enough that you have to physically visit these sites to appreciate the magnitude of the mission you may have to undertake to secure them. It is also why the thought occurred to me, on the very first recon, that any unit with a potential mission to augment security at a site should have its leaders visit them as well as soon as it is practical. This process underscores why reconnaissance is one of the key steps in our troop-leading procedures. Finally, we learned that each site has several, potential security levels that we must plan for. It did not take us long to determine there were at least three basic tasks and purposes corresponding to particular security levels any deploying unit might have to execute. One might be to ‘…provide a visible security presence… to deter a possible attack….’ This is the least restrictive-tothe-workforce level of support we can provide that still allows for an increased, overall facility security posture. It also requires deployment of fewer soldiers. Another possibility is to ‘…secure the site to assure no Threat intrusion….’ By far, this is the most restrictive-to-the-workforce level of support we can provide. A point of order here is that our presence still needs to be in concert with the site’s security policies and plans of local law enforcement officials. But this mission posture is likely to require checkpoints and roadblocks that keep individuals from entering a facility unless they are necessary to facility operations. This, in effect, requires a ‘Black and White List’ similar to those produced for deployments to the NTC, JRTC, or CMTC. I believe those lists to be the purview of the facility management and

ARMOR — 11 law enforcement agencies. Facility management provides the ‘White List’ because they tell us who comes in to support operations and who is due to make deliveries for operational support. Law enforcement agencies (with facility input) in effect write the ‘Black List’ through the intelligence updates they provide. They also dictate specific individuals or groups whose entry into a site is unauthorized. And a final, possible task/purpose for a task force is to ‘…(conduct) evacuation, search and rescue, and security missions to assist with mitigation of the effects of an attack or disaster….’ Under developing Army definitions, this latter task/purpose seems to be a ‘Consequence Management’ (CM) mission. In my book, this is the worst-case scenario because it means we failed to acquire the proper intelligence picture to posture against, and therefore deter, an attack. Not being able to describe the magnitude of such an event beforehand, this mission may require a small number of troops we would deploy for the first two threat conditions, or it may take many times more. Regardless, it would certainly stretch the bounds of soldier and leader individual and collective training and experience. We were on Day Four of initial site coordination meetings when the overall state mission evolved…. At the conclusion of my first, solo recon of a key infrastructure site for the purposes of drafting its security plan, I returned to give a short briefing to my battalion commander/state Deputy Director for Training and Mobilization. He let me finish before he said, “…OK. Now, shift gears. We have a requirement to stand up an airport security task force based on the President’s comments yesterday about placing Guardsmen in the airports to increase security and public confidence. There has been an initial meeting already with the directorates, and they have all been tasked to provide us with their annex to the order by noon tomorrow. You and the boys are going to spend the weekend putting the order together for the TAG’s approval by noon on Sunday. Questions?...” I did not need to ask any. I have been my commander’s S3 for four years and through our NTC rotation. I understand and completely believe in his desire to retain flexibility to ensure success in every endeavor. To borrow from comedian Eddie Murphy, I am the very picture of Gumby. This was another time and place defined by one of General Shinseki’s comments to the AUSA Seminar: “…While operations were planned as sequential events on a linear battlefield, we now look to master continuous and simultaneous operations on noncontiguous and distributed battlespace in the future….” As we were in the process of contingency planning for multiple critical infrastructure sites, which might need to be manned tomorrow, we now had to simultaneously plan for deployment of a security task force spread across the state in multiple airports. As we began to receive the director-ates’ annexes, the task force, dubbed Task Force Noble Eagle (TFNE) was already making moves to stand up. Defining the very essence of agility, email and telephonic messages went out to each major command (MACOM) telling them to solicit volunteers to be interviewed, selected, trained, and deployed for the mission. It was a Friday afternoon, and interviews were to commence on Saturday morning and continue through Sunday. Our TFNE commander (a deputy United States Marshal), his command sergeant major (a state policeman), and the state’s Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) command sergeant major, would lead the interview team. Over two days, they flew via Blackhawk helicopter to several sites around the state, interviewing more than three times the number of volunteers called for by the mission. To facilitate command and control, the state was divided into several regions, most of which included more than one airport. Regional commanders were then assigned to oversee security support chains-of-command in each airport. The NTC Project Officer that picked me up from work on September 18th was selected as the operations officer for the TFNE and was hot on the trail of coordinating training events, locations, and support. A site was selected, complete with billeting, classrooms, and weapons ranges. The TFNE operations officer tied in directly with the regional Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) representative to coordinate for required FAA classes prior to deployment. Monday was reserved for SRP of the selectees. The task force’s FAA training was scheduled for the Tuesday and Wednesday after the interview weekend, making our state one of the first two to receive the mandatory training sessions. The day after FAA training was completed, the unit would fire 9mm pistol qualification. Because of the unique nature of the mission and its proximity to civilians, the TFNE leadership reassessed weapons qualification

Guardsmen completed 9mm pistol training to civilian police standards. 12 ARMOR — requirements. Due to the task force commander’sand CSMs’ experiences in their full-time employment, it was quickly decided that traditional weapons qualification would not meet the mail. They determined that, for this mission, the Professional Officers’ Skills Test (POST) qualification course was more appropriate. This qualification standard is the same that all police officers complete and involves such tasks as engaging targets from behind a barrier. This qualification regimen raised the qualification standard and actually eliminated a few soldiers from the potential deployment list. The unit completed the FAA training and weapons qualification by Thursday, one week after the President’s announcement. Our state OPORD was completed to provide for the direction and support of the mission on schedule, and the mission support apparatus was set in motion. My only other direct encounter during the airport security effort was a detail to travel to the New Orleans airport to receive a request for National Guard support signed by the airport’s security manager. This request would make its way through the state and federal government chain and acts, in all instances, as the justification for the funding of each mission. Until that date, all visits to any site had been conducted in low-key, civilian clothing, but in this case and on such short notice, I traveled in BDUs. By then, everyone who worked in the terminal had heard Guardsmen were inbound. I believe I experienced probably the best moment of the entire tour of duty when the airline workers there warmly greeted me, wanting to know when we were coming and saying that they were glad we were on our way. After receiving the letter and learning more of the intricacies of our national economy — and by extension, our national defense — as it pertains to airports, I walked out, feeling obliged to move down the concourse and thank several of the airline workers for their perseverance in this critical time. The entire airport security mission, currently ongoing, has its own complete story of lessons learned. But I would not be paying proper respect to our state’s (and other states’) volunteers for this mission if I did not quote a base tenet of General Shinseki’s entire campaign to transform the Army, again from the AUSA Seminar: “…More than equipment, more than technology, transformation… is all about our soldiers — they remain the centerpiece of our formations….” I believe this quote also extends to the great employers, schools, and especially families, whose support underscores each volunteer’s effort. If it were not for their patience and understanding, this mission — and others as they have and will become necessary — could not be accomplished. ‘…The End of Tour One, and Notes From Tour Two…’ By the time our troops had deployed to the airports, I was moving toward the end of my first tour of duty planning for HS missions in Louisiana. I was told to continue my work on a particular site security plan to ensure its completion before I returned to my job with DOTD. A few notes on sidebar conversations from this last week and during my second, short tour of HS duty are noteworthy… “…And even as we describe the future capabilities and characteristics we seek, we remember that we are a nation at war… and an Army readying for battle….” General Shinseki’s comments here could not be more prudent. It did not take long for questions about the airport security detail’straining readiness with their units to surface. Soldiers have to maintain NCOES training levels even while they are deployed for this duty. That is why such efforts as PLDC video tele-teach for the first, combined, active Army and Army National Guard Sinai observation mission were begun. In the case of our TFNE soldiers, it was determined that those deployed soldiers could still attend their scheduled NCOES training. But if that training was scheduled for dates during their deployment, they would either have to reschedule their class or be removed from the task force and replaced when it was time to attend their course. As a bottom line, the TAG and the state command sergeant major did not want to penalize an individual soldier for volunteering for duty. They also did not want to adversely affect a unit’s USR Personnel Rating by not allowing a soldier to attend their required schooling. This is one reason that TFNE is always prepared to conduct initial soldier training for airport security deployment. (They also conduct refresher training at regular intervals, to include requalification with weapons.) I learned on my second, short tour that critical collective training already scheduled within units was just as important as NCOES requirements for members of TFNE. Coming from the tank battalion in the 256th Infantry Brigade, my commander and I quickly realized that the airport security element’s period of duty would encompass our annual tank gunnery qualification. Less than 10 crews’ tank commander and/or gunner positions were affected by deployment. But if all of those crews did not fire with the battalion, we would not meet our annual STRAC requirement of qualification for at least 85 percent of the battalion’s assigned tank crews. For our unit, this is not an option as we are currently part of the Major Theater of War Backfill strategy until next year’s NTC rotation guides another heavy unit into the chute. To our soldiers’ and the TFNE staffs’ credit, they worked out airport schedules in order to allow these key soldiers to attend drill with their units for mandatory training events such as the Tank Crew Gunnery Skills Test, our upcoming Tank Crew Proficiency Course, and the gunnery MUTA-9 scheduled in the coming months. I mentioned above my ‘second tour.’ After almost two weeks back at my ‘civilian’ job, I was called in again when the President and Secretary Ashcroft announced a heightened state of alert was necessary for the nation just before Halloween. This call came even as we were deploying soldiers to six critical infrastructure sites around the state. On that Monday afternoon, I was returning from a computer training class when I received a call telling me to ‘Stand By.’ I returned to work and notified my supervisor and section head of the phone conversation, and went home for the night. On Tuesday morn-

ARMOR — 13 ing, I was almost half way to work when the call came asking me to turn around, go to a particular site and conduct the initial recon. I was to meet with the site’s staff, tour the facility, determine their needs as far as augmenting their security force, and report back to my battalion commander at the state training office. As I was doing so, members of my brigade’s MP platoon were mobilizing for duty at this location. After reporting to my commander, I continued on to my brigade headquarters in order to directly brief the task force (MP platoon) commander. Having done so, I finished the day drafting the security plan at my brigade headquarters, and acted as a liaison of sorts between their Emergency Operations Center and the state training office. I traveled on Thursday to another infrastructure site to conduct a further recon. After that initial meeting and recon, I continued to state headquarters to deliver the first CONPLAN I had written and verbalize what I would write for the second one. I also thought I would receive further assignment to conduct another site survey. As you can tell from above, and depending on the site itself, it takes about 48 hours to complete an initial site survey — one day to recon with the site security manager, and one day to draft the

CONPLAN.

Instead of being detailed for further critical asset reconnaissance, my commander hit upon what was bothering me on Tuesday as I learned our soldiers were deploying to these sites. To meet mission requirements, we deployed our initial forces within 24 hours to all six sites. But these soldiers had not completed individual, leader, and collective task training pertinent to the missions at hand. My task was therefore to assist him in determining what those tasks were. In the grasping-for-straws mode, I initially came up with the chart at Figure 2, at right, as a means of beginning to define the training problem: The ‘Percentage of Mission’ above was my roundabout-logic method of attempting to show my commander what was called for on actual sites and, because it was done most, required a higher prioritization of training effort. Upon showing it to my commander, his response was, “…Great. Now tell me the individual, leader, and collective tasks that go with each mission….” Immediately prior to me pulling out a library of MTPs, I remembered an earlier conversation with members of my unit’s Training and Support Battalion (TSBn). They mentioned that TSBn soldiers had trained the Texas Army National Guard’s forces mobilized for installation security of military posts in Texas. Through the trappings of modern technology, in short order we received a PowerPoint presentation detailing the tasks my commander sought. From this list, we determined what tasks were METT-TC-pertinent to our training situation, and then matched them to time required to conduct the training. I received support in this endeavor from my battalion’s AGR XO, master gunner, and training officer. We determined that individual and collective tasks could be accomplished in one, MUTA-4 (weekend) period, leaders’ training could be completed in one additional MUTA-4 period, and a task force HS STX could be conducted over a further, 36-48 hour period. All three training events were necessary in order to meet task, conditions, and standards for properly training our soldiers for HS missions. I must return to General Shinseki’s quote above where he reminds us we are an ‘…Army readying for battle….’ We still, as an armor unit, must maintain an annual, minimum proficiency level of Tank Table VIII qualification and platoon maneuver proficiency. The HS tasks and events are also training requirements that I do not believe are going to end in the foreseeable future. The individual, leader, and collective task list was prepared and state training guidance was issued to the MACOMs. The MACOMs received further guidance to stand up Ready Reaction Forces (RRFs) prepared to provide HS mission support. When it made its way down to our battalion, we were tasked to prepare a force that could deploy within hours. That tells me, as an old-timer on the planning side, to train at least 30 percent more soldiers than are required by the order, and as an optimum, everyone in the battalion. To meet the initial requirement, however, we are training the requisite soldiers to deploy our Homeland Security Missions/Personnel/Percentages of Mission Type Location/

Stationary CPs Roving Patrol

Defend

Spt

Site 1 – II 16 11

4 1 1 1 1 Site 2 – IA 12

Site 2 – IB 20 44

8 1 2 2 1 Site 2 – II 24 77

Site 3 – II 14 4 11 4 1 2 2 1 Total # of Soldiers 314 Soldiers Required by Mission 100 138 11 37 7 7 10 4 Percentage of Mission 31.8% 44% 3.5% 11.8% 2.2% 2.2% 3.2% 1.3%

By rank order and type of missions:

1. Roving Patrols/Inspections (Mounted and Dismounted)

4. Defend a Position

7. Unit Command and Control

Figure 2 – HS Facility Support Missions

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RRF. In order to meet the goal above for HS training requirements in this new era, I am highly likely to recommend the training schedule in Figure 3, at right, to my commander for TY03. As a lead-in to a most important comment, I need to underscore my unit’s new requirement to ‘…prepare a force that could deploy within hours….’ The two requirements I see as necessary for attaining this end are, first and foremost, possessing good threat intelligence, and second, having a unit of trained and prepared soldiers. We are going to train our soldiers to standard. But the current intelligence situation requires some comments here. Our entire nation should know that we are being observed. It is one of several sources of the continuous state of increased vigilance under which our nation currently exists. During General Shinseki’s AUSA speech, he said of intelligence and transformation: “…We’re talking about… capabilities that will give ground force commanders real-time intelligence, real-time situational awareness, and robust capabilities to fight on our terms…which enable us to watch an enemy think, sense his worries, undercut his confidence, attack him where he’s vulnerable, and accelerate his collapse….” We, as the military, do not have all of the capabilities mentioned above that lead to the actions we would take to defeat this enemy. But we have to develop them. Yesterday. And I would argue for a host of reasons that we, as a nation, do not hold the operational mindset to meet that which the General says intelligence will enable us to do. But we have to learn and adopt it. Again, yesterday. Since September 11th and the onset of daily intelligence briefings, I have noted several instances of infrastructure and site surveillance. Some of these incidents have been very skilled and extremely difficult to detect, so we are likely to have missed a significant percentage of these events. There is absolutely no reason to recon unless the reconnaissance objective holds some kind of purpose in your scheme of activity. So if we are to defeat terrorism before any more attacks occur, we have got to have a good means of sharing intelligence across the spectrum of military, governmental, law enforcement, and public sectors at all levels. It is one thing to gather and analyze intelligence. It is another challenge entirely to disseminate it. As has been reported in the news, law enforcement agencies have had to radically change how they operate. To this end they provide intelligence that feeds into what I like to call ‘The Daily Classifieds.’ When on duty, I always read them so I can establish and modify the picture in my head of what potential threats we are dealing with. But some of what they provide, and a lot of what DoD presents, in my daily readings are classified. That means we cannot share it — with the management at sites we are charged to protect, with law enforcement in some cases, and with the public at large. This puts all of us who read the information in a very awkward position. To work on this productively, several ideas have come to mind:

• All units down to at least battalion level need to stand-up secure means of communication.

• All units must develop a method of securely transporting classified intelligence information to their RRFs deployed in the field. Accomplishing these two solves the initial problem of our units not having the intelligence they need to both prepare for their HS mission properly and to implement necessary force protection measures for unit survival.

• If it is possible, come up with ONE daily source of classified information all government agencies can draw on and work from. This may require anew security classification definition of some sort. But we need a common sheet of music to all sing the same tune.

• Find a means of alleviating the awkward position in which soldiers reading classified information find themselves. This means actually providing an unclassified version of those same ‘Daily Classifieds.’ The challenge here is that the unclassified version cannot be so scrubbed of substance that it is not pertinent to assisting a site and local law enforcement with their security missions.

• Develop an emailing (or other means of transmission) list for the unclassified intelligence version that includes the critical infrastructure sites, government agencies, law enforcement, and the public as a whole. I might be out of line to suggest that for the last three ideas above Secretary Ridge’s Office of Homeland Defense could serve as our common source, but I feel obliged to do so anyway. I am a simple, sometimes humble tanker, but I do know this. If we fail to provide a solid intelligence picture at all times, we are going to have more casualties on our home soil. The time to move out down this path has already come and gone. We now have to act quickly just to catch up to any terrorist

AUG 02 – AT02 Recovery; Leaders’ Training for CTT and Individual Weapons Qualification (IWQ) SEP 02 – CTT/Individual HS Training and

OCT 02 – TCGST Prep of Instructors; Combat Lifesaver; CTT/Individual HS Training and IWQ Retraining NOV 02 – Record TCGST DEC 02 – APFT; Organizational Day; Family Day

FEB 03 – MUTA-9 Gunnery MAR 03 – No drill for the unit; Brigade HS Leaders’ Training and CPX APR 03 – Task Force HS STX MAY 03 – No drill for unit JUN 03 – AT Maintenance and Leaders’ Prep JUL 03 – AT 03 [Platoon Attack and Hasty Defense plus TTXII (TWGSS and/or live fire)] AUG 03 – AT03 Recovery; Leaders’ Training for CTT and Individual Weapons Qualification (IWQ) SEP 03 – CTT/Individual HS Training and

Figure 3 – Possible TY03 Tank Battalion Training Plan ARMOR — 15 cell harboring plans for today or tomorrow’s attack. We cannot under any circumstances accept failure as an option in this area or we face ruin. Conclusions As I write this article, I am on duty for my third tour since September 11th, this time as my state’s operations officer for the Louisiana National Guard’s Super Bowl Task Force. We are preparing to join in and synchronize ourselves with the largest coalition of site security, government, and law enforcement personnel I have ever been a party to. It gives even more meaning to the lessons learned in this article and summarized below. Homeland security is an evolving operation requiring the drafting and understanding of new doctrine and doctrinal terms on the fly. It is, as has been said around our headquarters often, not a mission for the faint of heart. One day, HS doctrine will be as well known as tasks, conditions, and standards for a tank platoon attack. But for the moment, it is new, challenging, and exciting, and it brings out the very best in the individual soldier and leader. I believe planning to secure key and critical infrastructure within a state should be a state-level staff mission. It is the National Guard’s responsibilities to the Governor, as State Commander-in-Chief, the state itself, and its citizens and institutions that make this so. We have the direct, and often personal, ties to citizens, industry, and local and state governmental and law enforcement agencies necessary for proper coordination of synchronized efforts. What we do not have is a state headquarters TO&E that includes a future ops planning cell. To conduct planning missions, the state currently requires augmentation by traditional, drilling Guardsmen in order to meet mission-planning requirements. This is a shortcoming that can be addressed internally, but would be better served under current, national threat conditions by modifying that state headquarters

TO&E.

In order to plan for security support at critical infrastructure sites, designated locations, or special events, we have found producing CONPLANs that detail how a deployed force would augment the site’s existing security plans is the best course of action. In doing so, we found a modified IPB checklist based on the principles of the acronym OCOKA — modified as AOKOC — to be of great use. Answers to these questions, plus defining how a particular site holds national military implications and what its Single Points of Failure are, provide you with the basis for drafting CONPLANs. As with potential terrorists, a good portion of this checklist can be produced using such assets such as an atlas and the Internet. However, it cannot be emphasized enough that a team must physically go to the site and conduct on-the-ground reconnaissance or they will fail to truly appreciate the magnitude of the potential mission. We have also found, once analysis was completed, that three, basic tasks and purposes for infrastructure security remain common across the board: …provide a visible security presence… to deter a possible attack…; …secure the site to assure no Threat intrusion….; and …(conduct) evacuation, search and rescue, and security missions to assist with mitigation of the effects of an attack or disaster…. Each task and corresponding purpose demands different levels of troop deployment and logistical support. And finally from the planning perspective, it is of vital importance in prioritizing support to understand the linkage of critical infrastructure. We also determined four, further lessons learned about the effects of HS missions on a unit’s normal, warfighting requirements. First, soldiers have to maintain NCOES training levels even while they are deployed for this duty. Not doing so potentially harms a soldier career-wise and as a bottom line can adversely affect unit USR Personnel Ratings. Second, critical collective, warfighting-mission-related training already scheduled must still be conducted so Guard units are prepared to backfill deployed, active duty forces as needed. It is not impossible to train for both missions. However, an actual deployment for HS missions can create training challenges to overcome. Third, in drilling National Guard unit terms, we determined that training necessary individual and collective HS tasks could be accomplished in one, MUTA-4 (weekend) period, leaders’ HS training in one additional MUTA-4 period, and a task force HS STX conducted over a further, 36-48 hour period. This is the approximate time necessary to meet tasks, conditions, and standards for required events. And last, but most assuredly not least, if we are to defeat terrorism before any more attacks occur, we have got to have a good means of sharing intelligence across the spectrum of military, governmental, law enforcement, and public sectors at all levels. Some of the intelligence shortcomings can be overcome at unit level. Others require what I believe to be a national intelligence-sharing standard. It is our hope that this article provides soldiers throughout the force a starting point down the Homeland Security trail that is blazing before us. Share this information, improve upon it, and tell us all what you have done so that we may continue to improve our positions for as long as the mission requires. Failure in this endeavor is not an option for any of us.

LTC Ronnie D. Johnson is the deputy director for Training and Mobilization with the Louisiana National Guard. In addition, he serves as the M-Day Battalion Commander of the 1/156 Armor Battalion, located in Shreveport, La. He has served at platoon, company, battalion and brigade levels both on Active Duty and the National Guard. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University and currently enrolled in the USAWC DDE program.

MAJ Mike Pryor is currently mobilized as the operations officer, Super Bowl Task Force, for the Louisiana National Guard. In addition, he serves as the M-Day S3 of the 1/156 Armor Battalion located in Shreveport, La. He has served at the platoon, company, battalion and brigade levels, both as a drilling Guardsman and as an Active Guard and Reserve officer. He is a graduate of the University of North Texas and CAS3.

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