Military vs. Civilian

So, in all the debate over gays in the military, one comment left by our polite commenter kinda jumped out at me, and I'd like to devote a post to my response. The comment was (and I'm paraphrasing here) "It's time for the military to play by the same rules as everybody else."

And I'm going to have to respectfully disagree.

The military is unlike any other job, situation, or lifestyle that you can find, except for perhaps the police and firefighters. Our job is to walk into hell and start pissing on the flames to put them out. And whenever you do that, somebody is going to get burned.

The military is a job where failure to obey an order instantly can result in the death of you or your fellow soldiers. The lives of the soldiers in my squad depend on two things: My competence, and their acceptance of the orders I give. The lives of my platoon mates rely on the Platoon Sergeant's competence, and his acceptance of the orders the platoon leader gives. So on and so forth, up the chain, until you can extrapolate that the lives of everyone in my Brigade rely on the competence of the Brigade Commander, and his acceptance of the orders handed down from Division. And this whole grand scheme can be boiled back down into just a couple issues - the trust that soldiers place in their fellow soldier, and the fellowship between troops. "Brothers in Arms" isn't just a romantic ideal, or the name of a nifty HBO series, it is what the military tries to foster within the ranks, because it is a huge part of what keeps soldiers going when everyone else would have quit long ago. We may have signed up for our country, but we fight for our brother on either side of us.

When I first enlisted, my father began to talk to me about his time in combat, a subject that previously had been off limits. He'd told me plenty of stories about his time in the military, but the lessons from combat were something that he wouldn't share. Right before I raised my right hand, we went on a three-day sailing trip, just the guys. My father, my brother, and myself, on Lake Coeur d'Alene. Fishing, sleeping under the stars, drinking a little scotch, and talking. And one of the things that he tried to relay to me was the importance of fostering that brotherhood within the ranks. He told me of a platoon where the leadership had been wiped out, and a Corporal ended up leading the troops to fulfill their mission. Everything had gone to hell, the Platoon leader and Platoon Sergeant had been taken out, the troops were running around trying to make sense of it, and yet they were still able to do what they needed to do because of two things:

The competence of the troops, and
The brotherhood the troops had with each other.

When things go to hell in a handbasket, the biggest motivation to fight rather than to flee is the fact that your brother is out there, getting shot at, and there is no way in hell that you are going to let him die. You're going to kill the bastards shooting at your brother, and he would do the same for you in a red hot minute.

This spirit, this brotherhood cannot be compromised, or the whole thing begins to fall apart.

But just as important as that brotherhood is the willingness to follow orders, instantly and without question. Not as mindless automaton, but as a thinking individual. It's a fine line, but it has to be accomplished. Let me give you a little example of why.

Little PFC Dave, way back when, was a SAW gunner. Every time he was out with his unit on training, he was given a post. Other gunners were given other posts. And at each post, the gunner fills out a range card. What's a range card? Well, very simply, it's a small sketch of my field of fire. It shows on paper the limits of my field of fire. Obstacles that the enemy could hide behind, or dips and depressions in the ground that are obscured from my sight. It lists the range to different points in my field of fire, so that if I see an enemy by that oak tree over there, I know that he is 200 meters out. And it lays all this information out in a map type form. I fill out my range card, and then I copy it exactly onto a second range card. One card will stay in that fighting position, so that the gunner who relieves me at my post has all that information right in front of him, without having to redo it all from scratch. The next gunner can add any information that he thinks is important, but he cannot take anything off the range card.

The copy of my range card is collected by my squad leader. He takes every range card from his squad and puts them all together in a sector sketch. The different fields of fire, obstacles, everything. This allows him to get an overall view of his squads responsibilities, and allows him to correct any discrepancies that could crop up. He might shift one gunner over to a new spot to better cover an area where the enemy could creep up. He might move another gunner to avoid a big obstacle. He makes his sector sketch, and then copies it. The Platoon Sergeant picks up the copy.

He does the same thing as the squad leader. Compile and review. Make any adjustments that need to be done. He then copies his sketch, which is collected by the 1st Sergeant and sent up to the company. So on and so forth. All the way up to the highest HQ. And by the time it gets to that HQ, it's not some little sector sketch, it's a massive map showing where each unit is, what kind of weapons they have, where their field of fire lays, and who has what responsibilities. The top commander can look at that little symbol that represents me and my rifle, and know what kind of weapon I have, what unit I belong to, who my commander is, and any other information he might need.

Got the big picture? Good.

Now, let's say that the enemy attacks that night. Not in my sector, but somewhere else. Reports come back and say that the defenders need some help, more firepower. The top CO looks at the map, sees the little symbol that is me and my gun, points at it, and says "Get that SAW gunner over there NOW!"

Orders go down. Brigade, Battalion, Company, Platoon, Squad, Team, and I'm hauling ass to the other sector to lay a smackdown on some jihadi splody-dopes. That is, as long as every link in the chain obeys that CO's orders. Should anyone fail to obey those orders instantly, the entire thing falls apart. If my Company Commander says "But, I need him here!", if my platoon sergeant says "Well, maybe in a minute, let's hold off and see...", if my squad leader says "Hell with the Platoon Sergeant, he's an asshole anyways.", if my team leader says "Hell, my squad leader doesn't know what he's doing!" If any of the above happen, then I don't get to where I need to go, the defenders don't have my M249 backing them up, and people start to die.

Let me restate that: If the orders don't get followed, then people die.

Yes, that's a very simplified example, but even in that simplified state you begin to see just how a huge, complex operation boils down to a couple simple things. I as a PFC don't have the whole picture in front of me. I don't have that huge map of the Area of Operations. But I have to do two things - trust that the leadership above me DOES have that view, and obey their orders.

Now, you're probably saying at this point, "Dave, quit your blathering and get to the point!" The point is this: In order for the military to work, you must foster a culture of brotherhood. You must have instant obedience to orders, while at the same time have soldiers able to think for themselves. Yes, that's a bit of an oxymoron, but it has to happen! And you have to have absolute trust in the abilities of your fellow soldiers, faith that your command isn't going to throw away your life on some stupid mission.

And you cannot foster that culture or those qualities in a civilian type environment. It. Just. Doesn't. Work. The military cannot play by the same rules as everyone else. Let me give you a small example from my own past of how the current "rules" forced onto the military are impeding it's combat effectiveness.

I was Military Police for the first five years of my Army career. Anyone who thinks that we just rode around in shiny police cars needs to check their preconceived notions at the door. MP is a combat arms branch, who might occasionally do some law enforcement work. We carry some damn big guns, and we know how to use them. By the time I left Ft. Riley, out of a two-month period I would spend perhaps two weeks doing LEO, while the rest of the time was spent training and in the field.

Now, a combat MP company is divided into platoons, squads and teams. The three-man team consists of a team leader, a driver, and a gunner, all in one humvee. Got that so far?

Each MP team needs to be proficient in team combat drills, and there are quite a few drills you have to know. One of those drills is dismounting the main gun from the humvee's turret and setting it in place on the ground. You have a certain amount of time in which to dismount, set up, and get the gun up and ready. This requires some fast movement and a bit of skill. But it also requires strength. You have the driver setting up the tripod, the gunner dismounting the gun, and the team leader setting security and directing operations. Each person has their job, and they need to perform it flawlessly. There is no time for errors. And to this date, I have only seen ONE MP team with a female on it that was able to perform that drill in the time allowed. Why? Because they cannot perform the physical tasks that are demanded of them. That gun up top is heavy. A full ammo can for a Mk-19 can weigh up to seventy pounds. The gunner has to be able to lift the gun off the turret mount and pass it to the driver. The driver needs to be able to take that gun from the gunner and set it into the tripod mount. If the soldiers cannot do it by themselves, that means that each soldier is now waiting on the other soldier to get the job done.

And females, as a rule, do not have the upper body strength needed to do those jobs on their own. Which means that someone else has to help them, and that takes time. Thirty seconds can be the difference between being set up and putting rounds downrange, or getting overrun by an attacking force.

Another MP drill involves setting up an antenna for communications relay. You have five minutes to get the antenna assembled, erected, and operational. Again, with a three man team, and one of those team members is pulling security. It's a bitch and a half to accomplish, and it takes one hell of a lot of strength. You have one soldier literally throwing the antenna cone up and then rushing to lift the pole while the other soldier is pulling like mad on the guide ropes to get this thing in the air.

And again, I have seen exactly ONE team with a female on it able to get that antenna up in the allotted time. They just don't have the strength needed to do the job.

Now, do you think that I completely trusted the females in my squad to be able to do their jobs fully? No, I did not. And it was through no fault of their own, by the way. I don't expect many females to be able to deadlift a main gun with one hand. BUT THAT IS SOMETIMES WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN. I don't know of ANY female in my current unit who could lift me and carry me out of a firefight if I was incapacitated. BUT THAT IS WHAT THEY NEED TO BE ABLE TO DO. So here is an example of the military playing (in part) by the rules of the civilian world, where men and women are integrated together, and it detracts from the combat effectiveness of the unit. It's not a woman's fault that she doesn't have the upper body strength of a man. Men and women are built differently. But at the same time, we need to keep those differences in mind when you're trying to build up a unit for combat. We cannot afford to say "Oh, but the chance of this or that happening is small, so we shouldn't worry about it." That way of thinking leads to dead soldiers. Don't plan just for what you think will happen, plan and train for what CAN happen. Because sure as shit, the moment you least expect it something unexpected will pop up and you'll have to completely change your plan. There's an old saying - No plan survives first contact with the enemy. That saying is an old one because it is true, no matter what branch you're in or what your plan is. There is no perfect plan. The fact that these females needed assistance to accomplish a task that males could do without assistance caused me to lack the trust that these female soldiers could get the job done no matter what. And that trust is an integral part of what makes the military work!

Again, anything that detracts from the combat effectiveness of the unit needs to be removed. THAT is why the military cannot afford to play by the rules that the rest of the country operates under.