Task Unit Bruiser had just arrived in Ramadi, and we learned much from the Marines who had been in the fight for several weeks. The 3/8 Marines were an outstanding unit of professional, courageous warriors. Both Lima and Kilo companies, with whom we worked alongside on numerous combat operations, were tasked with securing some of the most violent sectors of downtown Ramadi. They bravely patrolled into dangerous enemy territory, aggressively engaged and maneuvered when attacked, and endured frequent large-scale, well-coordinated enemy assaults on their outposts that involved dozens of enemy fighters attacking simultaneously from multiple directions with machine guns, mortars, and huge VBIEDs. These Marines fearlessly stood their ground and beat back those attacks every time. We were proud to work with the Marines of 3/8 in Ramadi. They added to the proud heritage and storied legacy of the U.S. Marine Corps earned in places like Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Chosin. The Marines conducted “census operations” at night—but while the name sounded like a simple administrative accounting of the civilian populace, the missions were anything but easy. They inserted under cover of darkness and patrolled on foot into some of the most contested neighborhoods of the city. The Marines knocked on doors, entered homes, and spoke with the families living there to find out who occupied the house, learn how U.S. troops could help them, and ask about enemy activity they might have seen. Before sunrise, the Marine squads would occupy buildings and set up sniper overwatch positions, remaining there through the hours of daylight. Once the sun set and it was dark, they would reemerge to continue the census.
For this, my first combat mission into downtown Ramadi, two sections of Charlie Platoon SEALs and our Iraqi soldiers planned to support the Marines in a “remain over day” operation that would last about thirty-six hours—a full night, period of daylight, and through the next night. Before we launched, and as we built our plan for the operation, the Marines advised us to be prepared for significant enemy attacks. We learned that some of the previous attacks they had endured in this area of operations were substantial, with dozens of enemy fighters hammering them with belt-fed machine guns and RPG-7 rockets simultaneously from multiple directions, along with accurate enemy sniper fire. But the Marines would not call for help from the Quick Reaction Force of armored vehicles and dismount troops unless they took serious casualties. The high IED threat in the vicinity of Firecracker Circle made the roads too dangerous to drive—too risky for the vehicles’ crew and dismount troops—unless it was absolutely necessary. That meant we would be largely on our own, with only the firepower we carried in with us to beat back attacks from any of the hundreds of insurgents who occupied the area.
We better be ready to get some, I thought.
I had learned early in my SEAL career that planning for contingencies was crucial to the success of any mission. Thinking through the things that might go wrong for each phase of the operation and preparing for each contingency would enable us to overcome those challenges and accomplish our mission. I had never been into this sector of Ramadi, but I had listened to frequent calls over the radio net describing enemy attacks and U.S. casualties. I’d read the after-action reports and seen the wounded and dead hauled into “Charlie Med,” the Camp Ramadi Charlie Medical Facility. I knew the area was a nasty place. So I got after my contingency plans with a vengeance. Thanks to the insight and experience of Charlie Platoon’s exceptional SEAL platoon chief, Tony Eafrati, we had solid SOPs in place for the standard gear load-out each man should carry in his load-bearing equipment on every operation: seven magazines for our primary weapon, the M4 rifle; three pistol magazines; one personal radio, antenna, and extra battery; two M67 hand grenades, which were our standard-issue fragmentation, or “frag,” grenades; one battle map; one flashlight; one headlamp; one pair of night-vision goggles; one extra night-vision goggle mount; spare batteries for every device; Kevlar helmet; soft Kevlar body armor for frag protection along with heavy ceramic ballistic plates to stop enemy small-arms fire; food and water as needed; and so on.
Just the standard gear alone was heavy, particularly on a foot patrol in the Iraqi heat. It was late spring and the temperatures were already pushing 110 degrees Fahrenheit at the height of the day. Even at night, temperatures were generally in the nineties.
Beyond the standard load-out, I typically carried additional gear. Attached beneath the barrel of my M4, I carried an M203 40mm grenade launcher. I carried a grenade in the chamber and six additional 40mm high-explosive grenades in my load-bearing equipment. I also carried an extra one-hundred-round box of 7.62mm linked ammunition for our machine gunners and a set of flares to use for marking and signaling to other U.S. troops.
But for this operation, I felt I better go heavy. I opened up my rucksack and thought about what else I could possibly need. Different contingencies raced through my mind, many of them worst-case scenarios.
What if we are under sustained attack for hours and start to run low on ammunition? I thought. I threw in four extra fully loaded magazines for my M4. I also added a bandolier with twelve additional 40mm high-explosive grenades.
What if I need to mark the enemy position for tanks or aircraft? I thought. I threw in an additional magazine loaded entirely with tracer rounds, whose visible glow sent an orange streak along the bullet path. I also added several smoke grenades to my ruck.
What if we get overrun during an enemy attack and we need more hand grenades? I thought. I added three more M67 frag grenades to my ruck.
What if somebody else needs some? I added two more frag grenades.
What if my radio goes down or I burn through my extra battery? I put an extra radio in my ruck and two more spare batteries. Even if I didn’t need them during the operation, perhaps someone else in our squad could use them.
Next, I needed to load-out my water and food. We expected to be gone for about thirty-six hours.
What if the operation gets extended to forty-eight or even seventy-two hours? I thought. I didn’t want to run out of water, especially in the Iraqi heat. We carried our water in 1.5-liter plastic bottles. I had needed five to seven bottles on previous operations. But just in case we got extended, I increased that to twelve bottles. That equated to about forty pounds of weight just for water alone. I also added some extra food just in case.
I took every precaution, planned for every contingency I could think of. But even before we departed our camp, I knew I had overdone it. My rucksack was jammed so full of gear, I could barely zip it closed. Then, as soon as I “jocked up” in my op gear—put on my load-bearing equipment—and shouldered my ruck briefly to move it out to the vehicles that would transit us to the Marine base on the other side of the river, it felt ridiculously heavy. I began to sense the weight was going to be a problem.
When we launched on the patrol on foot, I learned that the Marines utilized a method of “Sprint and Hold.” We used Cover and Move in short bounds. But the Marines’ version of Cover and Move required two shooters to hold security while the next two sprinted as fast as they could, all the way to the end of the block. It was a way to mitigate the risk of enemy snipers—they would have to hit a moving target. This process was repeated two by two as the entire patrol moved kilometer after kilometer through the city, block by block, in a series of sprints.
Very shortly into the foot patrol, I knew I was in trouble. The crushing weight of the rucksack bore down on me. My chest heaved from the effort to breathe and sweat soaked my clothes. My “eye pro”—the ballistic glasses we wore to protect our eyes—fogged up completely and I had to remove them just to see.
As SEALs, we took pride in hard physical training and maintaining a high level of conditioning. But I had completely overestimated my ability to carry the weight I’d brought with me. It was far too much. As my BUD/S instructors said when I went through the basic SEAL training course, “If you’re gonna be stupid, you better be strong.” The heavy load-out was foolish, and now I was paying the price. Time to suck it up and BTF, which stood for “Big Tough Frogman,” th
e unofficial mantra of Charlie Platoon and Task Unit Bruiser. We used BTF as a noun, and adjective, and, in this case, a verb.
I was the senior man, the leader of the entire element of Charlie Platoon SEALs and Iraqi soldiers. But I had become so fatigued from the load I carried, I lost all situational awareness for the greater team and the mission. All I could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other and trying like hell to keep up. When we finally completed the operation the following night, I took with me extremely humbling lessons learned.
Misery can be a remarkably effective teacher. And this was a lesson I would never forget: don’t try to plan for every contingency. Doing so will only overburden you and weigh you down so that you cannot quickly maneuver. Yes, contingency planning is extremely important. But I’d gone too far. I should have regulated my planning for contingencies with these questions in mind:
What if I’m carrying too much weight and can’t keep up with the patrol?
What if I get so fatigued that I’m focused on myself and unable to effectively lead?
What if my gear is so heavy that I can’t quickly maneuver and become an easy target?
Such considerations would have helped me to balance my contingency planning and ensure I didn’t overplan and cause a worse situation.
This lesson to not overplan, to not try and tackle every contingency, applies not just to individual leaders but to teams. It was something I learned from Jocko back in our training prior to deployment. We’d get assigned a target package from the training instructors for a direct action raid to capture or kill a specific bad guy. I’d want to stack the assault force with as many SEAL operators as I could to enter and clear the house.
“You don’t need that many assaulters,” Jocko said, looking over our plan. “It’s just going to add to the confusion inside the house.”
Jocko had a ton of experience with direct action raids in Iraq. I had none. But it didn’t make sense to me. We were going after a known bad guy. He might resist or have others in the house who would resist. Wouldn’t more SEALs on the assault force—more shooters inside the house—be better?
Only after Task Unit Bruiser deployed to Ramadi and I gained real-world experience in these missions did I finally understand. After our first few capture/kill direct action raids, I learned that Jocko was right. When we overplanned for too many contingencies and sent a very large assault force to clear the target building, too many SEALs inside the house only added to the confusion and chaos, particularly when Iraqi soldiers were a part of all our combat operations. A smaller number of troops inside the house was far easier to manage, much more flexible, and far more effective. If more troops were needed inside the target building, it was easier and much more controlled to send SEALs who were outside holding security into the house to help out. But it was far more difficult to send SEALs from inside the house to help outside, where we had far less control and a greater array of problems. Once I understood this truth, it was remarkable how much better we performed on target. I now understood that overplanning—trying to solve every problem that might occur—could create many more challenges, put our troops at greater risk, and detract from our ability to most effectively accomplish the mission.
This holds true for planning itself. When I was operations officer at a SEAL Team, I watched as some platoons and task units planned out the microscopic details of a mission—who was moving to what room or exactly where each person would set security on a target. But missions never go exactly how you plan them. So time was wasted on this level of detail, and it caused confusion among the troops when things didn’t unfold exactly as they had expected. The lesson learned was that flexibility trumped minute details when it came to planning. The most effective teams build flexible plans.
* * *
But on the other side of this dichotomy, thorough planning is critical. Not preparing for likely contingencies is to set the team up for failure.
While combat requires those participating in it to face the possibilities of grave injury and death, you cannot be paralyzed by fear of such things. You must accept that it’s dangerous, that you could die. But a little bit of fear—the nervousness felt before launching on a big combat mission, the constant thinking through of contingencies and wondering what might have been missed—is healthy to help fight complacency and prevent overconfidence. Leaders must consider the risks they can control and mitigate those risks as best they can through contingency planning. When proper contingency planning doesn’t take place, it is a failure of leadership.
In the Battle of Ramadi in 2006, Task Unit Bruiser took extraordinary risks. We volunteered to penetrate deep into enemy-held territory, often where other U.S. forces couldn’t respond without great danger and difficulty. Task Unit Bruiser received some criticism from SEAL and other special operations units for the high level of risk that we accepted to support U.S. and Iraqi forces in such counterinsurgency operations in Ramadi. They didn’t understand that we took great steps to plan for contingencies and mitigate the risks that we could control. And what the critics didn’t know about—what was not discussed in Extreme Ownership—were the combat operations that Task Unit Bruiser turned down. We were asked to participate in or support some combat operations, yet when we evaluated the situation in detail, it was clear that proper contingency planning had not taken place. The risk was not worth the reward.
In one such case, another U.S. special operations unit requested support from Charlie Platoon and our Iraqi soldiers. They needed an Iraqi partner force to help receive the necessary approval to execute a combat operation. The mission was planned to launch into a violent and dangerous area of the city, firmly controlled by enemy fighters. The special operations unit was fairly new on the ground in Ramadi. They had arrived a couple of weeks earlier and were still familiarizing themselves with the battlespace, the U.S. forces that operated there, and the enemy fighters’ tactics and capabilities. The unit’s leader was motivated and aggressive, eager to get after it and participate in heavy combat operations. I knew that in this battlespace, he would have ample opportunity.
The special operations unit’s plan for this mission was bold, to say the least: drive through the city center in broad daylight down a main road known to harbor heavy concentrations of deadly IEDs. As I looked over their plan, I didn’t see any contingencies in place for this likely scenario.
“What happens if we lose a vehicle to an IED on the drive in?” I asked the leader.
“We won’t,” he answered, insisting their armored vehicles and electronic countermeasures would protect his troops from such a scenario.
In Task Unit Bruiser, we learned to set up contingency plans for our routes in and out of the target on every operation. There might be an IED, a roadblock that prevented passage, or a route we thought was passable that turned out not to be once we got there. For every mission, we learned we needed not only a primary route, but also a secondary and tertiary route as well. That way, if the primary route was blocked or impassable, we could quickly shift to the next alternative because of careful contingency planning.
“Do you have a secondary or tertiary route to get to the target as an alternative?” I asked the leader.
The unit’s leader shook his head to say “No.”
“We don’t need one,” he said. “This is the best way into the target.”
From everything I’d heard about this particular route through the city that the special operations unit planned to travel, it was one of the most dangerous roads in Ramadi—which would place it high in the running for most dangerous worldwide. We’d been told by other U.S. units that had been operating in the area for months in no uncertain terms: Don’t drive on this road or you will get blown up. Yet the special operations unit did not have a contingency plan for alternative routes. I recommended to the leader that they look at alternative routes, but my input was dismissed.
If one of their vehicles hit an IED, even if it didn’t kill or wound any of our troops, it would preve
nt us from hitting the target, significantly degrading the probability of mission success. Additionally, an IED strike was not the only concern: once an IED immobilized a vehicle, the enemy could engage with small arms and rocket fire to further devastate a patrol, now pinned down and unable to leave the vehicle or its occupants. These were all likely contingencies for which there should have been a solid plan. The whole team needed to understand what to do in such a scenario and how to vector in support. But the leader of the special operations unit was so sure they could make it, he had not planned for any of these contingencies.
Is there something I’m missing? I thought. Am I just being risk averse?
As planning continued, I drove across Camp Ramadi and consulted a highly experienced conventional U.S. Army company commander who had been on the ground in Ramadi for over a year. The company commander and his troops had a wealth of experience. They were Army National Guard, which meant back in the States they were reservists: part-time Soldiers who trained one weekend a month and two full weeks every year. In the civilian world they were carpenters, salesmen, schoolteachers, store managers, and business owners. But having been on the ground in the most violent battlefield of Iraq for fifteen months, they had been transformed into hardened combat warriors. We trusted their experience and leaned on them for guidance.
I knocked on the company commander’s door. He welcomed me and ushered me in.
Over the map, I talked through the special operations unit’s proposed plan, pointed out the intended route, specified the target buildings, and asked for his opinion.
He just shook his head and remarked: “You won’t make it halfway down that road before you hit an IED. You will never reach the target.”
The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win Page 23