II-hour was to be 0500 hours. After the attack, we were supposed to make it to a clearing about a mile away, and at 0600 hours, helicopters would extract us from there.
The entire patrol set out from the attack position at about 0300 hours — moving very cautiously. An hour later, my team split off and headed for the enemy position north of the dam. As we approached it, we could see the fire and at least two aggressor guards near the ditch line on the far side of the road. They were in a cut, and the bank behind them was about ten feet high. We crossed the road and circled behind them, using the bank as cover, then crawled the last couple hundred yards until we were directly above them.
At 0555 hours, the message came over the radio that the rest of the patrol was in position to launch the attack. Moments later, four of us jumped off the bank, right on top of the bad guys, and slammed them to the ground. Before they knew what happened, we had them bound and gagged.
About that time, we heard the rest of the patrol launch the attack on the dam — although there wasn't much shooting, maybe ten rounds or less. This sounded a little strange (we normally put out a great volume of fire), but we had been using our weapons as pikes in order to climb the steep, ice-frozen slopes, and the end of most of our rifle barrels had been too plugged with ice to fire.
Meanwhile I took advantage of the fire the bad guys had built and turned my back to it. I stood that way for what couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes — but that was long enough for me to doze off and fall over backwards into the fire, igniting my field jacket. Thank goodness for the snow. Needless to say, I woke up in a hurry, and managed to roll over and put it out — though the entire back of my jacket was burned out.
I didn't have much time to reflect on that. It would soon be daylight, and we had to get over to our pickup zone before dawn.
We began to run.
By then the weather had begun to clear, and although the weather had delayed the completion of our mission a couple of days, the helicopters were coming for us. And as we approached the clearing, we could hear the roar as they approached. Then snow was blowing everywhere as they set down — the most beautiful sight I had seen in seven weeks.
We flew back to the Ranger Base Camp at Dahlonega, where we were met by quite a reception. The Ranger department commander, a colonel, was there, along with a team of doctors and a chaplain. The docs checked us all, but found nothing major (there was a little frostbite — ears, fingers, and toes). Next came a hot meal-all we could cat. Then we were put on the buses and sent back to Fort Benning.
On the way back, I learned from one of the Ranger instructors that the two men we had pounced on by the fire had actually been civilian members of the waterworks fixing a busted water main. They had not been "bad guys" at all.
The next morning we had a company formation to find out who had earned the Ranger Tab. No guests were invited. When your name was called, you stepped forward. When the calling was done, approximately twenty men were left behind who'd gone all the way through the training, but for some reason had failed to earn the tab. 1 felt sorry for them, but that's the way it is. The standard has to be met.
TRAINING
Carl Stiner has always been known in the Army as an expert trainer, and many of his Army assignments directly involved training. Here are some of his thoughts on that experience:
Early in my career, I realized that military training offers a unique opportunity — not only for preparing men for combat, but for preparing them for the most important of life's values: personal attributes, principles, ethics, motivation for the right reasons, love of country, and seff-respect — in other words, the values that should be manifested in every citizen of our great nation. No other institution in our society can possibly provide the same kind of environment, together with the caring and dedicated leadership, for molding and shaping the young men and women who elect to serve their country. Not every soldier will turn out as we hope, but the great majority certainly will, and they will always be grateful for the opportunity and the caring that gave them a greater perspective on life.
In my judgment, training is the essential element for the readiness of any unit in any service. The very best equipment is great to have, and I'll never turn any down, but well-trained people win wars. No impersonal piece of equipment or technology can ever replace a well-trained soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or Coast Guardsman.
In our army, the objective of training must be to maximize the competency and proficiency of every individual and unit.
To that end, a commander must be personally involved in the development and structuring of his unit's training program. This must be based on a detailed analysis of the unit's mission requirements. From this is derived the Mission Essential Task List (METL); and then from this METL, all subordinate units at every level develop a METL of their own.
Next comes an analysis to determine the specific tasks inherent in the METL for successfully accomplishing their respective mission, and under what "conditions" and to what "standards" each must be performed successfully.
These critical elements, "METL, tasks, conditions, and standards," are the "core" element of the training program. This is the Army system, and 1 know of no better system in any army in the world.
Once the training program has been determined, we must turn to the way training is conducted. That is what makes the ultimate difference between soldiers who will survive and win in combat and those who don't.
I, myself, have always enjoyed tough, realistic training, and have made it my number-one priority in all the units I have commanded. Of course, "taking care of your people" ranks equally; the two are inseparable and synonymous. I have never had a soldier complain about too much tough, realistic training. Soldiers understand its value when it comes time to lay their life on the line.
Each soldier, therefore, should be required to fully perform every task to the standard expected of him for success in combat. This kind of training builds confidence at the individual and unit level — the kind of confidence and teamwork between the soldiers and within the unit that allows them to fully perform their mission without fear of being killed by friendly fire. No "simulation" or technology can ever take the place of this.
Realistic scenarios developed from unit war plans and other contingency requirements should serve as the basis for all training. Training should then always be conducted under the most demanding and realistic conditions possible — simulating nothing except for the safety of the participants. In other words, all training, particularly at the small-unit and combined-arms levels (battalion and below), should be live fire, and conducted at night. If this is not possible, then MILES devices, which are lasers, accompanied by receiving devices on each soldier, should be used to let soldiers know when they have screwed up and been hit.
Here are a few training principles that I have tried to live by:
• A commander should always have his unit ready to go to war, without any required train-up period. If he has been given the resources he needs, there is no reason why his unit should not be ready at all times. If some reason is beyond his control, he should have identified it a long while back and brought it to the attention of his commanders, so something could be done about the problem.