Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

  The Iraqi Army under the dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Saddam claimed that Kuwait was a province of Iraq. Believing that no nation would come to the defense of tiny Kuwait, he intended to take over its rich oil fields, adding billions to his coffers. He misread America, believing we were indifferent. President George H. W. Bush spoke out strongly against the aggression, declaring, “This will not stand.” While this was going on, I was in the backcountry of the Sierras, far away from any television news, concentrating on a three-day march to a dirt airstrip.

  My regimental commander called at midnight. Colonel Carl Fulford was a Vietnam veteran. A true southern gentleman, firm yet unfailingly polite, he never had to raise his voice. He simply assumed you would meet his high standards. And you did—because you did not want to disappoint him. In the midst of one exercise, for instance, he told the battalion commander that he and all his officers had been killed. That required the sergeants to direct the live fires and seize the objectives. The exercise was a success and all officers in the regiment learned the lesson. It wasn’t how well any one of us performed; our test was how well the unit functioned without us.

  “Jim,” Colonel Fulford said, “get your battalion back here.”

  “Sir,” I said, “we’re stepping off for a fifty-mile trek. I’ll arrive on base in about four days.”

  There was silence on the phone as the colonel contemplated being saddled with the least astute battalion commander in the Marine Corps.

  “I expect your advance party here by morning,” he said. “Everyone else tomorrow. And you may want to read a newspaper. We’re going to war.”

  I’d just received a blunt education about any unit commander’s role as the sentinel for his unit: You cannot allow your unit to be caught flat-footed. Don’t be myopically focused on your organization’s internal workings. Leaders are expected to stay attuned to their higher headquarters’ requirements. In the military, we exist to be prepared.

  For me and my men, it was time to stand and deliver.

  PREPARATIONS

  A fellow battalion commander, Nick Pratt, was tasked with bringing me up to strength. He sent me his top 125 performers—squad leaders, snipers, and top-notch infantrymen who immediately filled our gaps. When you have to give up personnel, the tendency is to hang on to your best. Nick’s example stuck with me: When tasked with supporting other units, select those you most hate to give up. Never advantage yourself at the expense of your comrades. Thanks to Nick’s support, I was able to fill critical leadership gaps, reinforcements joining us literally on the way to the airport. Subsequently, when my unit was tasked with attaching an infantry company to a tank battalion, I sent my best.

  Two weeks after leaving the Sierra Nevadas, my battalion was arrayed in the blistering, humid desert of Saudi Arabia. For five long months, the mission was to defend the kingdom in case the Iraqis attacked south out of Kuwait. We were superbly fit when we landed, but the suffocating heat and the constantly blowing sand in our eyes, noses, and mouths caused dysentery. It was crude living, without any creature comforts. Going over tactical plans, rehearsing and patrolling, we gradually ground down. I wasn’t unique in losing twenty pounds.

  In mid-November, the mission changed to forcing Saddam out of Kuwait. Our diplomats were sending the message Get out. If that didn’t work, the alliance assembled by President Bush would shift to offense and throw out the Iraqi Army. The strategy was simple. After our air had bombed the Iraqi forces, our ground forces would attack. Two Marine divisions would charge straight north from Saudi Arabia into Kuwait, fixing the Iraqi Army in place. While the Iraqis fought us, U.S. Army and allied divisions would swing around to the west and deliver a knockout left hook against the exposed Republican Guard divisions on the Iraqi flank.

  The 1st Marine Division had assigned our regiment the responsibility for breaking through the Iraqi forward defensive lines. Colonel Fulford organized the assault. My beefed-up battalion of 1,250 Marines, sailors, and Kuwaiti troops, mounted in Humvees and amphibious tracked vehicles and supported by eighteen tanks, would open corridors through two obstacle belts and associated minefields. Then we would overrun the front lines of the dug-in, armored enemy.

  I chose my two most cunning captains to open parallel breaching lanes through which thousands of Marines would follow. Each captain’s team had tanks, engineers, and infantry. I organized the battalion into thirteen elements, melding infantry platoons with tanks and organizing minefield-breaching and anti-armor teams. Once in the fight, I would not rearrange the organization. If a team bogged down or took heavy casualties, I would flank the enemy using another team. Strangers don’t fight well together, and it’s a precept with me not to reorganize in combat. I wanted the members of every team to know one another so well that they could predict each other’s reactions.

  Most of the troops would be buttoned up inside dark vehicles with no portholes and no glimpse of what was going on around them. In training, I saw my sergeants throwing rocks at the amtracs so that the Marines inside would grow accustomed to hearing shrapnel rattling off their vehicles. The assault element leaders peering out their hatches would decide how close they could get to the enemy before the vehicles became targets rather than protection. They would then drop the ramps for my young wolves to pile out and attack while our air and artillery pounded the enemy.

  We planned our maneuvers every Sunday, rehearsed in the desert for six days, and refined the plan the next Sunday. It was a methodical rhythm as each week the blade got sharper. Colonel Fulford came by occasionally, but he ran on trust. He assumed your professionalism was equal to his. His quiet confidence and competence were infectious throughout the regiment, which was called Task Force Ripper. The Marine Corps is a general-purpose fighting force, but this time we would not be fighting on a beach or in a jungle. This would be the Marines’ first mechanized assault against a fully dug-in, armored enemy. Fulford stressed one thing: Do not bog down once in the attack. If one thing isn’t working, change to another. Shift gears. Don’t lose momentum. Improvise. His message was simple: Do it. My fellow battalion commanders and I were absorbing the sure-footed spirit of this understated yet fierce warrior. Fulford left me confident that once the battle began, I wasn’t expected to call back for instructions. Use your aggressive initiative according to his intent.

  I and the assault element leaders practiced mechanized maneuvers until we could do them in our sleep. To save fuel and wear and tear on mechanized vehicles, the commanders would drive a handful of much lighter Humvees into the desert, where we’d spread out and talk over our tactical radio nets as if we were commanding our entire units. We worked out our command kinks without wasting the time of our subordinates, who were relentlessly rehearsing. I had the battalion break camp and move every few days so that everyone was accustomed to immediately reassembling in battle order, night or day.

  I adapted a technique used by Roman legions, which built rectangular camps. I organized our camp (or laager) in a triangular shape so that every man knew where he fit. The triangle always pointed north toward the enemy. Day or night, regardless of where we made camp, everyone knew the exact locations of the mortar pits, the communications tent, the fuel compound, and his command element. We were oriented toward the enemy, so all hands could roll out in battle formation at a moment’s notice. Having only a few night vision goggles and GPS sets, the compass was our navigation tool. We practiced night movement until our breaching techniques were second nature. Frequently, I had our air controllers run Marine jets over our laager site. When an F-18 roars over your head at five hundred miles an hour, you know what’s going to happen to your enemy.

  We continued this routine for months, sleeping on the ground without cots. At night we sat together like Horatio Nelson’s lieutenants, arguing tactics by moving rocks to simulate units. Sitting on sand dunes, I pulled out books I carried in my rucksack that revealed how othe
rs had handled desert warfare. They allowed me to image chaos and what could go wrong.

  On elaborate sand tables, some as large as football fields, every platoon commander and squad leader walked through his tasks. Covered by our air and artillery fire, our engineers explained how they would detonate explosives to open a path through the minefield. One lance corporal explained how, following the lead tanks, he would drive his armored bulldozer to cover the enemy trenches. All sergeants would keep their “bump plans,” detailing which troops switch to another vehicle when one is knocked out. The infantry assault leaders described how they’d widen the breach in the enemy lines. The corpsmen and doctors described the medevac procedures to pull wounded Marines from knocked-out vehicles in the minefields. We rehearsed each drill and contingency ad nauseam, until my troops were glaring at me as if I thought they were idiots. We all knew one another’s jobs so well that we could adapt to any surprise. My intent was to rehearse until we could improvise on the battlefield like a jazzman in New Orleans. This required a mastery of the instruments of war, just as a jazz musician masters his musical instrument.

  Colonel Fulford took me aside during our Christmas Eve service. From the shadows we watched our troops singing Christmas carols, laughing and smiling. They’d been five months in the desert, living rough a long way from home. I had told them this would be their best Christmas or their worst—it was up to them what attitude they adopted. They decided to make it their best. Colonel Fulford quietly warned me of what lay ahead.

  “The Army has run a series of test exercises for breaching the Iraqi obstacle belts,” he said. “Anticipate taking very heavy casualties when you assault.”

  I asked how many.

  “Nearly half killed and wounded.”

  The regiment on call would have numerous aircraft and more than forty-eight artillery tubes to bombard the Iraqis overwatching their minefields. We had constructed a fire plan that we thought was sufficient to isolate the breaching point, in the shape of an inverted U to our left, right, and front. But Colonel Fulford’s words had sobered me. I lay awake in my sleeping bag after he left.

  On Christmas Day, I called in my fire support team. Proud of their plan, they were dismayed and dumbstruck when I ripped it in half. I wanted to disprove those test results about heavy casualties in the minefields.

  “Start over,” I said. “Inside that U, I want everything dead, including the earthworms.”

  PSYCHOLOGICAL TUNING

  My battalion was trained infantry. But, other than a dozen Vietnam vets, they hadn’t experienced actual battle. Combat involves a level of intensity that is difficult to prepare for even with the most grueling training. How do you prepare your men for the shock of battle? For one thing, you need to make sure that your training is so hard and varied that it removes complacency and creates muscle memory—instinctive reflexes—within a mind disciplined to identify and react to the unexpected. And once your men have been trained, you need to ensure that they are in the same unit long enough to know their brothers and develop trust and confidence in one another. Once this building block is accomplished, the next training step is rehearsal as they focus intently on the skills that will constitute their repertoire in battle. Mentally, this is a step beyond combat skills training, one that must continue during any pause in combat, whether before a patrol or before a deliberate attack. We would use any opportunity to rehearse.

  I was conscious of what George Washington wrote to the Congress early in our war for independence: “Men who are familiarized to danger meet it without shrinking; whereas troops unused to service often apprehend danger where no danger is.”

  The key to preparation for those who hadn’t yet been in battle was imaging. The goal was to ensure that every grunt had fought a dozen times, mentally and physically, before he ever fired his first bullet in battle, tasted the gunpowder grit in his teeth, or saw blood seeping into the dirt.

  I wanted my troops to imagine what would happen, to develop mental images, to think ahead to the explosions, yelled orders, and, above all, the deafening cacophony. Battle is so loud that it is hard to hear—let alone make sense of—what someone is trying to direct you to do in the midst of the chaos. At that instant, the muscle memory of training and rehearsals must kick in; swift decisions have to be made with inadequate information. Every warrior must know his weapon, his job, and his comrades’ reactions so well that he functions without hesitation. A hitter has a quarter of a second to gauge the arc of a curveball and swing his bat. He doesn’t have time to think. He has practiced so many times that calculating whether to swing is automatic, grooved into his muscle memory. The same is true of the grunt engaged in close combat.

  Verbal clarity requires the same intense practice. We have all heard recordings of 911 calls by frantic people who are talking incomprehensibly. Imagine, then, trying to give clear, terse, accurate descriptions and orders over the radio when you are under fire. So, day after day, I had my platoon sergeants and platoon commanders on the radio, responding to sudden scenarios designed to inject stress.

  In the Saudi desert, there was no end to the workday, no weekend off, and no email. I walked the lines at night; troops will tell you things when they’re on guard duty in the dark. Back home, television news and graphics about the anticipated casualties were disturbing to the families. Mail call fed that back to my Marines and Navy corpsmen.

  Everyone has a plan, Mike Tyson said, until he gets punched in the mouth. The prepared fighter knows he’s going to be rocked back on his heels. He’s anticipated that before the brawl begins. So I expressed out loud to my troops how our assault might be screwed up. “What if I went down?” I asked them in informal sessions. “What if radio communications are lost at night during a chemical attack?”

  “Corporal, your fire team is advancing behind the cover of a tank, bullets bouncing off the armor. To your left, you see a bulldozer throw a track. What do you do? Who do you notify?”

  By having all hands share a mental model, each man learned the bigger picture and could adapt to changing circumstances. By walking through sand tables and imaging through setbacks, casualties, and chemical attacks, we built grim confidence in our ability to adapt. I’ve found this imaging technique—walking through what lies ahead, acclimating hearts and minds to the unexpected—an essential leadership tool.

  To show how our casualties would be cared for, I gathered my battalion to watch a rehearsal. Sand dunes were our amphitheater. With Sergeant Major Dwight Walker holding a stopwatch to time the procedure, our medical staff drove up in two trucks. Our two surgeons hopped out, followed by the battalion cooks, who established a defensive perimeter while the Navy corpsmen set up the tents and generators. Inside twenty minutes, the battalion aid station was ready to receive patients. I wanted to demonstrate that no Marines would languish without immediate aid.

  All this preparation gave me confidence in my men, but no less important was making sure they had confidence in me. Even as letters and magazines from home foretold heavy losses, especially for the first in, we knew we were more cunning and better prepared than the enemy.

  FOCUSED TELESCOPES

  Although in the flat desert I could see most of my units, I still delegated tactical command to the lowest capable level. Once in the attack, I wasn’t going to shout orders to corporals. The leaders of each element knew my intent: Open the lanes through the minefields and, once in close combat, kill the enemy. When they were maneuvering, they would also be calling for fires and evacuating casualties.

  Keeping me informed would be a lower priority. By listening over their tactical radio nets, I could gather information without interfering. But I needed more than that. Using a technique I had found in my reading, I intended to gather information that bypassed normal reporting channels by means of “focused telescopes.” I copied this technique from Frederick the Great, Wellington, and Rommel, among others.

>   From my readings, I knew I needed to know more than I could expect distracted commanders engaged against the enemy to deliver. I wanted to know the fatigue level of my subordinate commanders, the morale of their units, and the enemy situation. I used officers who had sound tactical judgment, unfailing tact, initiative, and empathy in order to deliver to me impartial reports in concise terms, bypassing normal reporting channels.

  There is no battalion unit that uses the call letter J. So I designated my focused-telescope officers with the military phonetic “Juliet.” For instance, I had reassigned my personnel section to help with the incoming casualties. That left my adjutant, who understood my battle plan and my intent, without a job. He would act as a Juliet officer. I selected three Juliets, who met with me many mornings. They knew our plan and understood what information I needed, so I wouldn’t be caught off-balance. Understanding my intent, they’d then circulate among my dispersed elements. Their sole priority was to keep me informed while also putting a human face to my intent. If you have multiple avenues of information coming to you and you’re out and about yourself, you develop an enhanced understanding.