An Ad Hoc Motorized Platoon in Tal Afar

On 20 December 2005, our platoon parked four fully mission capable M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks and began patrolling the Sarai and Hassan Qoi neighborhoods of Tal Afar in uparmored high mobility, multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs). We went from having more firepower than an infantry company to swinging unstabilized.50-caliber machine guns on rolling boxes of dubious survivability. The last time we conducted missions in these neighborhoods was during Operation Restoring Rights when Sabre Squadron, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, in conjunction with a battalion from the Iraqi army, cleared the insurgent stronghold during a house-to-house mission. While much changed in the three months since that major operation, resulting in afar more stable and far less hostile environment, our platoon did not forget the improvised explosive device (IED) attacks or the hours-long firefights of earlier months. Following Operation Restoring Rights, Grim Troop handed over control of the worst Sunni neighborhoods to a battalion assigned to the 82d Airborne Division and began operating exclusively in the Shia communities further south. Over 800 light infantry soldiers were regularly patrolling an area, approximately 2 kilometers in size, and were unable to completely pacify the area’s neighborhoods. When the 82d Airborne Division redeployed and we resumed control of Sarai and Hassan Qoi on 17 December with only 110 cavalry troopers, it did not take long to understand that we were not going to achieve the same level of coverage as our light brothers. The Sarai and Hassan Qoi neighborhoods are part of the old city, marked by an irregular network of narrow roads, which are very difficult to navigate for armored vehicles in most places and impassable in some. HMMWVs, despite the lack of firepower and armor protection, as compared to other weapons platforms, were actually preferable as a result, and provided the advantage of dismounts. We quickly became the commander’s favorite new toy because of our speed and mobility and were equally as quick to recognize our permanent status as the quick reaction force, though our principle mission was area reconnaissance to protect friendly forces and allow freedom of maneuver. The tankers of Grim had already shared ideas and worked out crew sectors of observation to fit the urban counterinsurgency (COIN) environment and we quickly modified these for the HMMWV. The drivers studied the roads, memorizing every turn and every length, knowing when “that pile of trash over there has been disturbed,” or “that hole was not there last time.” Gunners covered the rooftops dominating the roads, truck commanders (TCs) scanned to the front, and rear passengers watched the flanks and alleys, each studying the people intently, wondering “what is in that guy’s hands,” or “why is that man on the roof?” Of course, the world goes by pretty fast, even at 10 to 15 miles per hour, and it does not take long to drop a grenade onto a gunner from a rooftop, fire a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) at a passing HMMWV from an alley, or signal a triggerman to detonate an IED. We felt comfortable with our sectors of observation and were confident that they achieved the kind of situational awareness we wanted to achieve for the crews and the platoon. It was our reaction time that we wondered about because the urban COIN environment negated the see first-shoot first paradigm since the enemy always had us under observation. Fortunately, our HMMWVs provided us the ability to dismount quickly, allowing us to talk with the only people who were regularly (and knowingly) observing the enemy — the local population. Given the HMMWVs and an entirely built-up area of operations (AO), I initially and incorrectly interpreted my platoon’s mission as reconnaissance of all roads within Grim’s AO, or more simply as a route reconnaissance or route clearance mission. Understanding that interacting with the locals to obtain intelligence on enemy activity was the only way we were going to “observe” the enemy quickly led me to two realizations. Number one, I had been thinking like a tanker. Our mission was definitely not route reconnaissance. It was, in fact, area reconnaissance, but area reconnaissance via engagements with the local population, as opposed to the more traditional methods taught at the schoolhouse. Number two, I had no idea how to do that. During our months in the Shia south, our platoon conducted numerous dismounted and motorized patrols and executed a number of humanitarian missions. While the platoon gained some experience interacting with the locals, I never had reason to practice my skills at tactical questioning and actually try to obtain information from the people. Up to this point, our interactions with the people had been largely limited to handing out claims cards immediately following Operation Restoring Rights, distributing information operation (IO) leaflets and pamphlets, and controlling crowds of people waiting to fill their water tanks. The threat profile was wonderfully low — no one ever shot at us; there were no IEDs or even reports of IEDs; we never detained anyone; and we did not conduct any raids. Most of the time, we did not even have an interpreter as there were so few and priority went to the scouts in the troop. In December, searching for the knowledge necessary to accomplish my task, I turned to the scout platoon leaders and the regiment’s common troop tactical SOP for tips and guidance. The SOP focused on which questions to ask, how to ask them, and came with a list of dos and don’ts. Easy enough; any old soldier can follow instructions. I went to work and immediately got into trouble. Two weeks prior to the transfer of authority, an IED was detonated on an 82d Airborne Division convoy in the vicinity of a school. Since this was a common location for IEDs and the site of the most recent attack, I decided to focus my initial efforts there, but to no avail. My list of tactical questions was utterly useless. I could never follow up with anything because every local I talked to denied even the possibility of insurgent activity in his neighborhood, or responded aloofly to my questions. While distributing tip cards on a street opposite the school, I came across an elderly gentleman. He studied the card for a moment and put it down next to him on the steps where he was seated. The tip card was a business card with a phone number and an email address printed on it that locals could use to anonymously inform on insurgents. “I have many of these,” he told me, “and I do not need even one of them. I do not know any terrorists.” “Well, perhaps you may see or hear something suspicious,” I replied. “Maybe, but I do not think so. There are no terrorists here,” my interpreter translated for him. “We do not allow terrorists here in our homes or in our streets. They are not welcome here.” “Well, there must be terrorists here somewhere, because an IED exploded against an American convoy 2 weeks ago by the school just across the street,” I retorted. The man stood up, shouting and waving his arms around. The interpreter rapidly translated, but I did not need help to understand that challenging his neighborhood watch program was a bad idea. After apologizing profusely, I calmed the man down, thanked him for his support and cooperation and hurried away. A few days later, following reports of anti-coalition messages coming from a mosque just down the street from the school, our platoon stopped a man in the area who claimed to be the mosque’s caretaker. When asked about the messages, he grew angry as well, declaring in English, that “this mosque does not support terrorists. There are no anti-coalition messages that come from this mosque. Anyone who says this is a liar.” Clearly, my engagement techniques were not working. In fact, they were very likely working against the entire platoon. No one else in the troop seemed alarmed by these reactions, but offending the locals could not possibly improve the platoon’s survivability. However, I had learned something important: broad, nonspecific discussions of enemy activity drew aloof responses from the people, and indications of specific instances of enemy activity offended the locals and induced emphatic, rage-filled denials from a people supposedly opposed to the word “no.” In both cases, no intelligence on enemy activity was provided and the venue made no difference. “We felt comfortable with our sectors of observation and were confident that they achieved the kind of situational awareness we wanted to achieve for the crews and the platoon. It was our reaction time that we wondered about because the urban COIN environment negated the see first-shoot first paradigm since the enemy always had us under observation. Fortunately, our HMMWVs provided us the ability to dismount quickly, allowing us to talk with the only people who were regularly (and knowingly) observing the enemy — the local population.” 38 —

Whether talking to people on the streets or in the comfort and protection of their homes after being invited in for tea, the results were the same. I was reminded of a scenario presented during one of my college classes where a Westerner came to a stop at a traffic light in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. An Arabic driver crashed into him while making a left turn and the Westerner was at fault because Westerners do not belong in Saudi Arabia. This scenario reminded me that no amount of tactical questioning was going to charm the people of Tal Afar into turning in insurgents who were likely their brothers, fathers, and uncles. During Operation Iraqi Freedom I, Grim Troop patrolled Fallujah with virtual impunity. According to one of our section sergeants, the locals gave them thumbs up, declaring “G good,” in reference to the large, black “G” painted on the sides of Grim Troop’s vehicles. Eagle, Fox, and Heavy Troops were not so admired; the “E,” “F,” and “H” were detested and regularly targeted. Somehow Grim Troop had managed to establish a rapport with the people of Fallujah, and earned their respect and trust. Developing a similar relationship in the Sarai and Hassan Qoi neighborhoods of Tal Afar became my new goal. Patrols were conducted as usual, stopping along routes to talk to small groups of men, but this time with the intent of simply having conversations instead of seeking actual answers. We began memorizing names and faces and sometimes stopped the patrol just to say hello to a familiar person or ask someone how his father was doing because I remembered he was sick in bed the last time we met. People waved and smiled smiles of recognition as we patrolled the shops on the main street. We spent our money at their shops, buying eggs, potatoes, and canned meats. We bought cigarettes and offered one to the men standing with us as we conversed (a very common custom among Iraqi men who smoke). Arabic culture loves the café scene. Men love sitting and talking over tea and cigarettes and that is exactly what we did. I asked questions, only a few, and was no longer frustrated with the aloof responses. We talked about everything, including the forbidden topics of religion and politics, which the Iraqis typically brought up. We shared with them lessons from America’s history regarding its struggles with disruptive local identities, and how we learned to overcome problems. I indicated the progressive nature of our military and compared it to the Iraqi army, bringing Sunni, Shiite, Arab, Kurd, and Turkoman together toward achieving a single united Iraq. While I was not gaining intelligence, I found that I was countering enemy propaganda by influencing the discussion and acceptance of new and democratic ideas. The locals would not tell me where the insurgents lived, but they would challenge me with their ideas, and concede when I made a legitimate point. The locals also began coming to us with their problems, and while we rarely succeeded in solving them, our obvious interest and willingness to go to great lengths to resolve issues seemed to endear our platoon to them. According to the interpreter, I was becoming permanently red in the face because so many people were telling me what a good man I was. Not everyone seemed to think so, however. On 3 January 2006, the enemy exploded an IED on an Iraqi police dismounted patrol just outside of our patrol base. Given its location at the very end of the wheeled route out of our patrol base, our platoon could not help but think that we were the intended target. As Grim Troop learned later that same day from an anonymous informant, the IED was emplaced by two individuals who had initially attempted to emplace it near the school, but were run off by a shop keeper. Evidently, our new methods were working. On the following day, we began focusing our efforts on developing relationships with the people in the vicinity of the new IED site to prevent future emplacements there. We also conducted intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) based on the enemy’s preferences for IED “Whether talking to people on the streets or in the comfort and protection of their homes after being invited in for tea, the results were the same. I was reminded of a scenario presented during one of my college classes where a Westerner came to a stop at a traffic light in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. An Arabic driver crashed into him while making a left turn and the Westerner was at fault because Westerners do not belong in Saudi Arabia.”

sites as we were able to understand them from earlier pattern-analysis work. This helped further focus our engagement efforts, and the 3 January IED was the last one emplaced in the Sarai and Hassan Qoi neighborhoods in the southern portion of Grim Troop’s primary AO. Having unlocked the secrets behind engagements with the local population — a focus on developing relationships rather than getting answers to a list of tactical questions — did not resolve all our problems. On 20 January, the enemy fired mortar rounds into Grim Troop’s patrol base. Our platoon was already suiting up after the first hit, and when the call came for us to move, we were practically heading out the gate. We drove directly to an area already indicated by the 82d Airborne Division as a suspected enemy mortar firing point and began scratching together stack teams to raid a building. This was not our platoon’s first hasty raid, but it does illustrate a recurring problem. A tank platoon usually has only 16 assigned soldiers; our platoon had only 15 to begin with. Subtract the two required for an ongoing guard requirement, leaving only 12 for any given mission. This means we can take only three HMMWVs total, and unless we take the drivers out of the vehicles, we have only six soldiers with which to conduct the actual raid — in an ideal situation. Now, throw in environmental mid-tour leave, sicknesses, or injuries; factor in a deadlined HMMWV; and leave a seat open for the interpreter in one of the remaining two vehicles. Under these circumstances, we will have to take the drivers out of the vehicles. What if a vehicle has to move; what about the sectors of observation; what about local security and crowd control? As an ad hoc motorized platoon leader, I had to accept weakness in my cordon or stack teams. It was great having the ability to dismount and interact with the local population. Our platoon became so much more flexible and could, in many ways, more efficiently accomplish a wider array of missions as a result. For instance, gaining the support of the locals through contact resulted in preventing IED emplacement; whereas earlier, we had great difficulty in identifying IEDs prior to their exploding against our tanks. We were also more useful in a cordon because our ability to dismount assisted in crowd control and apprehension of people attempting to run the cordon. Initially very concerned about driving through the enemy’s most notorious kill zones in nothing but an uparmored truck with only a single weapon system, the platoon came to love our new wheeled equipment. However, I never lost sight of the disadvantage of the HMMWV, and frustrated myself and my soldiers wondering how best to capitalize on the benefits of the vehicles — the dismounts — to reduce that disadvantage. It is essential to understand that for the ad hoc motorized platoon — the tank platoon stripped of its tanks — there are really only enough dismounts for local security. Cleary, using these few dismounts for other tasks reduces the overall effectiveness of the platoon. Success in the urban COIN fight hinges on a unit’s ability to act imaginatively and unconventional-ly, but too many times we fail to understand exactly how much risk we assume by our actions in this environment. Security is always vital and is of twice the importance in the urban COIN fight. Where I assumed risk — foolishly — was in my security during hasty raids such as that conducted on 20 January. We tried to mitigate the risk during hasty raids by ordering the women and children into the courtyards and the men outside. Before entering, the men were searched and briefly questioned. The HMMWV drivers, even though I preferred to leave them inside the vehicles, were often guarding the men, leaving the vehicles outside, while the rest of us searched the building. During the search, we occasionally questioned the children or elderly women before leaving. We always knocked first on our target buildings, explained the reason for the disturbance, and thanked them for their patience and cooperation before we left. Buildings that remained silent after our knocks (our AO was filled with several abandoned homes and shops) were subject to an actual raid, as opposed to a platoon-size cordon and search, in which case the drivers entered the buildings as well. The threat profile in the area allowed these tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), and our methods enabled us to retain the respect and trust of the people. We were never far from our patrol base and Grim Troop. Other units were also patrolling in the area, so we were never really alone. The search teams were generally able to quickly secure the rooftops of our target buildings and provide overwatch of the HMMWVs from dominating terrain. Still, I made a terrible decision in weakening my cordon — something could too easily have gone wrong. On 20 January, we chose our target building based on the suspicions of my platoon sergeant after seeing various men lingering in the street in the vicinity of the area we were patrolling. When asked to clarify, he could not point to anything beyond certain movements and facial expressions of the people, but I knew that his suspicions came straight from the gut and could only have developed after patrolling the neighborhood and getting to know the people as we had. I trusted him and radioed for the platoon to halt. When “We tried to mitigate the risk during hasty raids by ordering the women and children into the courtyards and the men outside. Before entering, the men were searched and briefly questioned. The HMMWV drivers, even though I preferred to leave them inside the vehicles, were often guarding the men, leaving the vehicles outside, while the rest of us searched the building.” 40 — Continued on Page 48 ing force requires, we need your continued support and constant feedback. In terms of support, the drill sergeant has historically been the most influential noncommissioned officer in an enlisted soldier’s career. This remains true today, but the first squad leader or tank commander the IET graduate receives in the operating force will be an equally influential leader in the soldier’s development and career goals. For this reason, it important for junior leaders in the operating force to understand the content and context of IET and the approaches and techniques we are using to transform civilians into soldiers. Armed with this information, the transition from the training base to the operating force will be more seamless than it has been in the past. As this article points out, IET is not soft. The requirements and standards IET soldiers must meet to graduate produces high caliber soldiers who meet the Army’s needs. The 1ATB very much appreciates constructive feedback. We use various forums to gather comments, which include the web-based annual field surveys sent to IET graduates and first-line leaders (supervisors) in the operating force. We administer the same web-based supervisor survey to the Maneuver Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course (M-ANCOC) and the Basic Noncommissioned Officer Course (BNCOC) for 19Ks and 19Ds. To support the collection of valuable feedback, 1-81 AR has a 63A and 63M BNCOC web-based supervisor line leader survey. The 1ATB has a forum site on MountedManeuverNet with discussion threads posted. Of equal importance is the feedback we receive from IET graduates as they prepare to depart for the operating force. We use web-based surveys to gather feedback on IET with a focus on how well the soldiers learned and the type of leadership they experienced during training. The soldiers of 1ATB know we perform our mission day in and day out for the operating force. It is essential we remain partners with the operating force in this effort because we all have a vested interest in the future of this great institution. With this in mind, 1ATB remains focused on producing soldiers who know “how to think,” who possess the ability to be a combat multiplier, and who will be contributors on arrival at their first operational unit.

SOLDIERS OF STEEL!

Colonel Peter Utley is currently the commander, 1st Armor Training Brigade, Fort Knox, KY. He received a B. S. from The Citadel and an M. A. from the Naval War College. His military education includes The Naval War College, Armed Forces Staff College, U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, and Armor Officer Advanced Course. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include chief, Current Operations and Contingency Plans, Headquarters, Department of the Army, G3, Washington, D. C., director of training, U. S. Army Europe and 7th Army Training Command, Grafenwoehr, Germany; commander, 2d Battalion, 63d Armor, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany; and assistant operations officer, U. S. Central Command, J3, MacDill Air Force Base, FL. Initial Entry Training from Page 11