“OK, listen up, all you pussies who’ve never been in a fight. If you can fuck or play baseball, you can fight. It’s all in the hips.” Law looked more like a librarian than a Marine machine gunner. He described himself as “skinny but fat,” tall and thin but soft. He was one of the platoon’s only combat veterans, with a handful of Balkan firefights in his past. His “skinny fatness” didn’t inhibit his skill as a semper fu artist.
The Marines mimicked Law by slamming someone, preferably of higher rank, to the mat. Having been stomped two or three times in the past hour, I was relieved when one of the company clerks came rushing up the ladder with a message. “Lieutenant Fick, the skipper needs you in TACLOG right away. Important message traffic.”
Captain Whitmer waited in front of a computer. “Nate, I’ve just been called over to the Peleliu for mission planning. I want you and Patrick to come with me. No time for questions right now. Pack a bag for two or three days and be ready to go in five minutes.”
A dry-erase board hung on the wall behind Captain Whitmer. Our current list of missions, under the heading “Be Prepared To,” was written in blue marker: “BPT reinforce USEMB Islamabad, BPT secure forward airfield at Zhob, BPT reinforce Jacobabad.” This mission didn’t sound like any of those. I ran down the passageway to my stateroom and threw my planning paperwork, some workout clothes, and a paperback copy of Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose into my waterproof bag. After closing the door, I realized I had forgotten my plastic Dubuque coffee mug and went back for it. Mission planning meant late nights. I climbed back to the top deck and told the platoon I’d be gone for a couple of days but would be in touch as soon as I knew more.
Captain Whitmer and Patrick were waiting for me. “No helos flying. We’re going by RHIB.”
The Dubuque carried two eleven-meter rigid hull inflatable boats. They were small black craft, grossly overpowered, and usually used to insert SEALs on clandestine missions. We climbed down narrow ladder wells to an open cargo door in the ship’s side. Ten feet below, the ocean foamed past. One of the RHIBs maneuvered off the ship’s beam, and beneath us dangled a rope ladder.
As the boat slid beneath the ladder, we swung our way down and clambered aboard. The RHIB crew seemed intent on showing off their boat’s performance to a group of Marine officers, and we shot away from the Dubuque as if it were steaming in reverse. Open ocean lay ahead. We rocketed along at forty knots for ten minutes before the Peleliu’s hulking profile loomed in the haze. Coming alongside, we reversed the earlier process and climbed up a rope ladder into the cavernous hangar bay. The Peleliu’s flight deck stretched from bow to stern, like an aircraft carrier, and the MEU’s whole squadron was aboard. Inside the hangar bay, helicopters and Harrier jets crouched on their landing gear in the dim light, while maintenance crews scurried around and a group of Marines practiced semper fu on a blue rubber mat.
The Battalion Landing Team (BLT), composed mostly of infantry Marines from 1/1, planned its missions in a room the size of a Manhattan studio apartment. Computers lined one wall, and a huge map of Pakistan and Afghanistan covered the opposite bulkhead. Exposed pipes and fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, and some wag had taped a drawing of Osama bin Laden to the door. Its caption read, “You can run, but you’ll only die tired.” Battalion officers and staff NCOs filled the scattered chairs.
When Captain Whitmer, Patrick, and I walked in, the battalion’s executive officer called the room to order. He freed up chairs by dismissing several Marines from the room. “We’re keeping details on this one close to our chest, gents. Sorry.”
They walked out, looking hurt, and the door was closed behind them. This was starting to sound interesting.
“Welcome, Bravo Company,” he said with a nod in our direction. “What I am about to say will not leave this room. You will do your planning, theorizing, and bullshitting within these four walls — not on the mess deck, not in the wardroom, and not in the gym. Is that clear?”
We all nodded as he continued. “As you know, the United States has been dropping bombs on Afghanistan for the past nine days.” He explained that there was a small CIA and Army Special Forces presence on the ground, mainly in the north. There was as yet no ground presence in the country’s south. The executive officer paused for effect. “That is about to change. On Friday evening, October 19, Task Force Sword will conduct a mission into southern Afghanistan to seize an airfield and attempt to capture a high-value leadership target.” Pause. “We have been tasked with providing a Bald Eagle for that mission.” Pause, and a slow turn to face Captain Whitmer, Patrick, and me. “Bravo Company, you’re it.”
The three of us glanced at one another. A Bald Eagle was a company-size reserve element, ready to help in case a raid force ran into trouble. The question on all our minds was “Why Bravo?”
Captain Whitmer was too self-effacing to say it, but I knew the answer. Among the battalion’s company commanders, he was the iconoclast, the outcast stepchild who trained his Marines to be good instead of look good. He pushed us hard, questioned authority, and couldn’t even feign obsequiousness. But when the first real mission called, the battalion turned to him.
“Task Force Sword is composed of SOF currently embarked on the Kitty Hawk,” the executive officer continued. The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was being used as a floating base for special operations forces working in and around Afghanistan.
“Here’s your mission statement.” He handed us a sheet of paper marked SECRET in bold red letters. I read, “On order, Task Force Bald Eagle launches from PEL in 4 x CH-53 to OBJ RHINO, links up with TF SWORD mobile reserve, and conducts relief in place. Defend RHINO with Bravo Company for up to twenty-four hours. O/o turn over OBJ RHINO to TF SWORD and withdraw to ARG shipping.” This prompted more questions than it answered.
After a more comprehensive brief, I thought I had a good idea of the plan. On Friday night around dusk, elements of Task Force Sword, mostly Army Rangers and Special Forces, would launch from the Kitty Hawk. They would fly into Pakistan, securing a small airfield near Dalbandin, code-named Honda, to use as a refueling and rearming point. From Dalbandin, part of the force would parachute into a desert airstrip in southern Afghanistan code-named Rhino, while the other part would raid Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s residential compound outside Kandahar. We would serve as a reserve in case something went wrong during any part of the mission. This sounded complex, I thought, and a lot could go wrong.
Bravo Company flew over from the Dubuque the next morning. While the NCOs settled the troops in their temporary berthing and began distributing ammunition and gear for the mission, Captain Whitmer, Patrick, and I continued with planning. Every MEU mission ran through three planning stages. First came a warning order from some higher command notifying the MEU to “be prepared to” execute a given task. That task may have been distributing food to the people of East Timor, evacuating the embassy in Islamabad, or serving as the quick reaction force for a mission into Afghanistan. Once the warning order was received, the MEU staff went into overdrive, developing a course of action for how the MEU would accomplish the mission.
It is a central tenet of the Marines’ war-fighting philosophy that each subordinate must provide options to his boss — tell him what you can do, rather than what you can’t. Depending on the situation, two or three or four courses of action would be developed and then roughed out into basic operational plans. For the Sword mission, helicopter pilots calculated distances and fuel burn, charting different paths through the mountains. Infantry officers studied maps to memorize the layouts of Rhino and Honda and decided how many men they’d need in different scenarios. All the hypothesizing came together in the final construction of three possible courses of action — put the Bald Eagle on the ground at Honda in case it was needed, keep it airborne over the ocean until called, or keep it on the Peleliu, ready to launch on a few minutes’ notice. The MEU commander reviewed the options and decided to keep the quick reaction force aboard the Peleliu. Its response time would be almost as fast and at greatly reduced risk. With a course of action chosen, the MEU fleshed out a detailed concept of operations for accomplishing the mission.