FOBBIT travels

FOBBIT travels
My alarm beeped annoyingly, it was 0130, I fumbled for the light switch, fighting the urge to lay back down and go back to sleep, just a few minute more. No, not this morning. This bleary eyed AM the Fobbit was to leave the Shire. I rolled from my rack and grabbed my tooth brush and razor and walked down the darkened corridor, opened the door and stepped out into the cool night. Our ‘ablution’ tent was located about fifteen yards away. The cold air woke me up a bit. After shaving I headed back in to the Frat House to prep for the trip. I liked travelling a s light as possible. This was to be a two night trip. Travelling light these days was very difficult. For one the armor weighed almost sixty pounds by itself, when you added rifle, pistol, ammunition and day pack forget about it. How we expect our infantrymen to go foot mobile I do not know.
I was travelling with Matt the “Fires guy” an artillery officer, and our two new Information Operations (IO) Officers. Fires are easy to understand- artillery, mortars, rockets and missiles rather traditional stuff, though entirely high tech with more computers and networks than you can shake a stick at. Too bad the Taliban wouldn’t hold still for us to rain fire on him. IO that was a relatively new warfighting concept. We have had them for years in various forms yet they have truly just started to come into their own in the recent wars. They did great work in Iraq and now we wanted them to do the same in Afghanistan. They produce our message, they attack the enemy through unconventional means, I think of it as empathetic warfare. Through IO we develop and understanding of our foe and turn that understanding against him. We attack his pride, his fear; we separate him from the people by showing his actions as weak and pathetic. It is a constant battle. It is the true struggle.

We arrived at the hanger by 0230, I felt good. It was nice to get off the FOB. It felt good to don the warriors garb again even if it was for a short time. The job with Task Force Zabul had fallen through, the command felt I was too valuable to be sent off on a boondoggle for a few months. I do good work, it is the work that allows the primary staff do other more important things.
The Helos, monstrous CH53’s, spun up, giant rotors stirring the air. We boarded quickly and I struggled to get the four point harness over the body armor. It was like trying to strap in two people. It took a long time to get to Deleram. We stopped several times picking up bearded special operations soldiers, dropping them off, picking up some more folks then dropping them in another place. It was like riding a very big, very loud flying bus. Shortly after dawn we swooped into yet another FOB, though this was more rugged. A small fortress built on a high rise overlooking the low slung, mud brick town of Deleram.

The fort dominated the only bridge over the Kash Rud, a river in name only. It was a huge dry bed with a tiny trickle of water. The banks, steep cliffs upon which perched the city, were so high the local police and army used them as a back stop to for rifle practice.

I went to Deleram to confer with infantry battalion’s operations officer. For despite our great communications gear this remained a personal face to face ( F2F as some a-holes liked to call it in these text message days) business. We had to cover some issues with plans we were developing. For one we had to cover our rules of engagement (ROE). Here in NATO country we had to follow different procedures. NATO is a bureaucracy that could, can and does drive you nuts. ROE is designed for two purposes, one is to try to regulate the use of appropriate force and two I believe is simply to annoy.

Case in point- our allies have come to war with us but they each have different rules. We have the right to self defense, meaning if we felt threatened, if the bad guys were armed and dangerous (demonstrating hostile ac t and or intent) we could kill them in a proportionate manner whatever that meant. Dead is dead regardless of whether it was by bullet or bomb. But each of our allies minus the Australians, who, God bless em, followed the same rule as us. All the other nations’ ham string themselves with all the encumbrances of the full force of their interpretations of international law and the laws of armed conflict. These variances in application of the laws of armed conflict are called National Caveats to the ROE. Some of it seems spiteful like the Belgian refusal to support units that operate under Operation Enduring Freedom ROE. (Note: There is a separate OEF ROE that was set up by the US in the initial invasion of Afghanistan, NATO then came in and established ISAF ROE, we here and now as a NATO command follow ISAF ROE, however, there are many forces-mainly the US Special Forces who retain OEF ROE…Are you confused yet?). I think that the French have it the worst, they have great troops, outstanding pilots but when they come to the fight forget it. By the time they have consulted with their lawyers the enemy was always long gone. Perhaps that was the plan. I don’t blame the French troops, they are good, it is their government that I find at fault. Get in the fight or go home. But, it has been that way for the French from Camerone to Dien Bein Phu to Algiers great troops, bad wars, weak governments.

The only folks without rules are the insurgents. This however has been a truism of counter-insurgency since the UN was created. The powers that be, nation states have the burden of law and order which in the end is a good thing. It just can be confusing at times.

This confusion with the rules had caused delay in the planning effort and I was able to parley that into an all expense paid trip to Deleram. AND I had the extra benefit of being the ‘guy from higher headquaters’ who got to say “Hi I’m with higher headquarters and I am here to help.” Stand the frick by.

Now let’s talk a little bit about forward operating base Deleram. FOB Deleram was another one of hundreds of HESCO fortresses strewn from Baghdad to Bagram. Complete with tents, ammo dumps, and fuel farms. This one was somewhat unique in that it was built on the remnants of a Russian fort that was built on the remnants of a British fort, which was in turn built on the foundations of a Persian fort; I think if we dug deep enough we would find a Macedonian design. We just took it over from the Italians. The central compound had a low brick and rough stone wall, an old tower dominated the scene, two shell holes marked it an unsteady relic. Outside the FOB there was even an Old Russian tank hulk lawn ornament.

Deleram is a unique place. Here the Afghan forces share the same ground with our troops. They stand guard together, they go on patrol together. Our Marines work side by side Afghan Army and Police. It is the only way to do this business right.

The OPSO, Reggie, for the Infantry battalion at Deleram is a great guy. High energy, lots of talent. It did not take long at all to show him the ROE and intricacies of planning the NATO way. His battalion had been training for Iraq prior to this deployment; they were redirected to Afghanistan about three months prior to getting in country. They had to learn a lot on the fly. They did it very well for a pick-up game.

The good thing for me was that since it did not take long to conduct the training Reggie suggested that Matt and I go to check out the rte 515 and the combat outposts they had just built.

Combat outpost were nothing more than small forts, a Roman legionnaire or Blue Jacketed member of the seventh cavalry would have recognized them in heart beat. The cool thing was that they were built in less than 48 hours. Once again proving what bulldozers, HESCO and Marine strong backs can do. These posts where set to ‘outpost’ the dirt track euphemistically called route 515.

Outposting is a concept by which you build a string of strongpoint’s across a threatened line of communication to secure it from enemy influence. When we arrived in country Rte 515 was bad-guy country. It was the 2nd most IED strewn strip of road in the whole theater (including Iraq). After a week of our Marines operating on this ground it became the #1. After a month with the COPS in place the Marines there had significantly impacted the enemy ability to emplace IED and the number of IED’s emplaced began to drop drastically. The going price paid by the Taliban to emplace an IED started at $100. The Marines there changed that.