Lessons Learned [or not] from the Black and Tans

War has been defined as "the continuation of political intercourse with the admixture of different means."  Carl von Clausewitz  in his major work, Vom Krieg, analyzed and classified war to an extent that surpassed any comparable work.  He did, however, relegate to insignificance an aspect of armed conflict which has become one of the realities of the modern world.  That overlooked area of belligerency was revolution and insurgency.  Referred to as a ^"phenomenon of the nineteenth century, an intensification of the fermentation process known as war," and "similar in character to all others fought by second rate troops;"  Clausewitz much underestimated its impact upon the larger spectrum of politics.  Perhaps the contemporary expert in the field of revolution, insurgency, and protracted war was Mao Tse-Tung.  According to the former chairman of the Peoples Republic of China, revolutionary war is an antitoxin which not only eliminates the enemy's poison,  "but also purges us of our own filth. Even his accounts are subjectively written from the vantage point of the insurgent and though they address the singular repetitive technique of "encirclement and suppression," they fail to address a strategy for effectively combating the unconventional warrior.  One might contend that no such strategy is necessary for this country as the majority of our national movements manifest themselves in media campaigns or in the established political process.  Our national interest, however, has extended well beyond our borders for the majority of this century.  One has only to look at the last twenty years to realize that United States military forces have become involved in every aspect of unconventional warfare.  From fighting a combination of guerilla and regular units in Vietnam, to the establishment of a Peacekeeping Forces that are thrust into the very lifelines of the communities they are sent to protect , to the variable scale of  involvement  of military forces in the war on drugs; U.S. forces have embarked upon expeditions into aspects of warfare for which there was no clear doctrine or national strategy.  Our own experience in using trained combatants in a less than clearly defined, limited scale conflict has been less than successful. Before we engage in such future actions, we should examine a broader base of historical precedents.  The case of the Anglo-Irish conflict which manifested itself in violence in the early part of this century falls rather cumbersomely into both the category of conventional warfare and into those varieties of conflict collectively termed unconventional. Of the two adversaries, the methods and forces employed by the British government to suppress the Irish rebellion were by far the most brutal, and were exemplified by a unit known as the Black and Tans.  The use of this infamous, counterinsurgent force in Ireland resulted not in the restoration of subordination to England, but in an increased alienation of the Irish population from the English nation.  The Black and Tans were unsuccessful because they faced an enemy which they could not discern  from the population they were to protect, and as such t could not focus their combat power upon him.

Anglo-Irish politics never existed in an international vacuum.  At the close of the eighteenth century, Britain and France were at war with each other, William Pitt and King George III were in total disagreement upon the question of Catholic emancipation, and Ireland, in hope of French aid, was ripe for revolution. (1  Keir)  With hope of reconciling domestic problems peacefully, Pitt devised a twofold solution.  The first component would create the legislative union of Ireland with England, which when coupled with Catholic emancipation, offered prospective tranquility on the whole of the British Island.  In order to achieve any degree of success, both measures required enactment; however, Pitt approached each problem separately.  The idea of union met little resistance in England, and the promise of religious emancipation won the support of a majority of the Irish Catholics.  In the summer of 1800, Parliaments at both Dublin and Westminster enacted the Act of Union.  The promise of Catholic emancipation was not so easily fulfilled.  George III, believed to have been constantly on the brink of insanity, absolutely refused to permit any degree of Catholic emancipation.  In order to preserve his honor as a statesman, Pitt resigned; but the Irish Catholics had to wait thirty years and once again threaten revolt before they received their promised emancipation.  The Union Jack became a stigma of political treachery, not a symbol of union.  The seeds of political discontent were sewn.

Approximately one hundred years later, the English were once again at war on the European continent.  The cabinet was formed by coalition and definitely not of homogeneous thought, and the Irish again threatened revolt.  Ireland, except for the Ulster counties, was determined to achieve home rule.  John Redmond~ leader of the Irish Party in parliament, was set on winning self-government by supporting the British cause of defeating Germany.  Much to the annoyance of his fellow countrymen, whom he did not consult, Redmond pledged Ireland's loyalty and her resources to England.  Many Irishmen served England faithfully, but many did not.  ~s their predecessors had sought Spanish or French aid, Irishmen desiring home rule looked upon the German aggressors as a potential ally.

In all previous wars, the Irish had thrown their hats in the air and hustled off, as many of them as could, to join Britain's enemies.  It was tradition to do so and good Irish patriotism.  Any enemy of Britain's was a friend of Ireland's, and when the Irish regiments of the British Army were embarking for the Boer War, they cheered the Boers whom they were going to South Africa to fight. (2  Wibberly)

Irishmen, in fact, did seek German aid.  Even with Sir Roger Casement as their primary advocate, the actual assistance received was minimal.  The major resistance to the British came from within Ireland in the form of Sinn Feiners, a de facto appendage of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.  Sinn Fein in Gaelic meant "ourselves alone" and that is precisely what its members desired.  While Redmond worked for a negotiated transition to home rule, the Sinn Feiners prepared for a turnover of a more radical nature.  Sinn Fein's best recruiters were not members of the movement per se, but dissident members of Redmond's National Volunteers. The will to resist British rule was as strong in this group as it was in any other Irish society dedicated to the same cause; however, it was the actions of these dissident Nationalists that distinguished them.  Their leaders were Padraic Pearse and James Connolly, and their most provocative action was known as the Easter Rebellion.  The rebellion was scheduled for Easter Sunday 1916, but shortly before the time designated for its execution, Sir Roger Casement and a supply of German arms were intercepted by the British.  An attempt to cancel the rebellion was made, but through thoroughly decentralized communications, the revolt was attempted one day late, henceforth known as Easter Monday.  British intelligence sources concluded that nothing more than a demonstration would take place on that historic weekend.  They were wrong.

When James Connolly stepped out of Liberty Hall just before noon on Easter Monday~ he was smartly dressed in a uniform becoming his rank.  The Headquarters Group, on the other hand, might have startled a conventional observer.  There was a small detachment from the Irish Citizens Army, but its members were not all clothed in the Army's dark green uniform, far from it; nor were all or nearly all the Irish Volunteers in the group wearing their heather green.  Uniforms were always in short supply   Most men had merely bandoliers, and brassards:  and for arms they displayed a curious panoply--old German Mausers from Howth or rifles or a more ancient make of shotguns or pickaxes or pikes.  Such was the headquarters of a revolutionary army which set out to confront the British Empire.  (3  Dangerfield)

Pearse and Connolly enjoyed success for a period of one week, at the end of which, his headquarters surrendered.  Pearse and fourteen of the revolt's leaders were executed.  To a nation at war with Germany, these harsh actions were simply pragmatic.  The Irish populace had a different perspective.

In short, the swift and savage suppression of the rebellion! which was followed by the arrest of several hundred people on dubious evidence, did what Padraic Pearse, a tenth century bard living in the twentieth century, failed to do.  It united the Irish in militant hatred of Britain.  Pearse's Easter morning rebellion was attributed by the British government to the Sinn Fein movement--that somewhat pacific nationalist organization which had attempted to present the wonder of Irish-grown tobacco to the world.

Sinn Feiners accepted the accusation readily and proudly. People who were not Sinn Feiners became Sinn Feiners.  An organization which sought Irish independence by legal methods became a militant force.  And it found a leader in a strange man with the monstrously un-Irish name of de Valera.  (4  Wibberly)

Born in New York City in 1883~ De Valera was the son of a Spanish father and an Irish mother.  During the Easter rebellion he hand commanded a battalion of activists involved in minor skirmishes.  Of the fifteen primary leaders of the revolt, only he was not executed, and that was due to his American citizenship.  Initially sentenced to death, that judgment was commuted to life imprisonment, and then because of the unpopular sentiment aroused in the United States over the handling of the prisoners, he was released after only a year's incarceration.  De Valera returned to Ireland a hero and emerged before the British as a leader of the Irish cause.  The general election of 1918 sealed the doom of Redmond's constitutionalist policy by overwhelmingly electing the Sinn Feiners. This mandate had been foreshadowed by the rejection caused by Unionist opposition in the coalition cabinet to an agreement between Redmond and Lloyd George which would have granted immediate home rule to Ireland with the exception of the six Ulster counties.  The Sinn Feiners elected were pledged to sit in a parliament in Dublin, but never in Westminster.  While the Sinn Feiners did attempt to set up a parliament in Dublin, the actual importance of their election was as a symbol of national resolve and as such those not in hiding or in jail, renewed their declaration of independence.  The arena of conflict had forever been changed from the British Parliament to the Irish streets.

Both the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood, and the military commander at Dublin House, General Sir Nevil Macready, believed that only harsh methods would win the fight against what they termed treason and murder.  This punitive attitude prevailed and resulted in the recruitment of two quasi-military police forces.  One was a large unit of former British soldiers who served as constables.  This unit was not, as once proclaimed, the sweepings of English prisons; the soldiers, in fact, had been carefully screened.  Even so, their military demobilization had not removed the painful scars of participating in a world war, and their experience in that realm of world-wide, but conventional combat did not prepare them for their mission much closer to home.  This detachment was outfitted in khaki tunics, breeches, puttees, large tam-o'-shanter bonnets, belts, bandoliers, and holsters of black leather.  The members of the unit, eventually numbering twelve thousand₇ acquired the colloquial name of Black and Tans, which was derogatory in that this was also the name of a well known pack of fox hounds in Limerick County.  (5  Asprey)

The other unit was the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary.  Known as Auxies,  this unit eventually numbered about fifteen hundred men, most of whom were former British officers who wore their uniforms without rank.  Later they wore dark green and khaki uniforms and were organized into one hundred man "shock companies."   While both the Auxiliary Division and the Black and Tans engaged in bitter fighting; it was the Black and Tans alone that acquired notoriety.

Neither group was trained in counter-insurgency operations, and from the start they presented easy targets to the Irish "terrorists."  In attempting to flush out the Sinn Feiners, their heavy hands often fell innocent civilians; moreover, the British government inadvertently sanctioned this sort of action by emergency legislation enacted in July 1920.  The bill approached attainder and was known by its dissenters in Parliament as the "revival of the Star Chamber."  It gave wide powers to the military command to arrest and imprison without trial, to try civilians by court martial, and to hold witnesses in custody for failing to produce evidence.  Macready pleaded with the British government for the authority to declare martial law, and in 1921 his request was granted.  In effect, the British government had lifted all restraints on the forces occupying Ireland, and those forces, especially the Black and Tans, exercised little in the way of self-restraint.  The British government, in an attempt to quickly resolve this conflict, had permitted the operating forces, which were not trained for this sort of combat! to enact their own rules of engagement

One of the earliest incidents involving the Black and Tans occurred when a Royal Irish Constabulary officer was shot and killed in Limerick. Within an hour of his death. twenty to thirty Black and Tans, many of whom were well inebriated, began destroying houses of local residents. Destruction was arbitrary and regard for military necessity was abandon. The drunken avengers had no well defined enemy force from which to exact retribution.  They rationalized that all Irishmen were "shinners'¹ in order to avoid the confusion, more appropriately the frustration, of distinguishing the enemies of England from those bystanders involved only by geographical coincidence.  The ensuing actions resulted in one Black and Tan Casualty, and that was from friendly fire.  A veteran of both the first world war and the Boer War, he was killed by mistake by one of his own comrades as the residents of Limerick offered no resistance; however, the casualties accrued by the Black and Tans were far more damaging than this singular victim.  Standing operating procedures had evolved from frustration and inebriation and not from the calculating minds of once professional soldiers.

A second major incident took place in the town of Balbriggan.  The triggering event for this second rampage was the shooting of the Head Constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary while he was in a hotel at Balbriggan.  The news quickly reached Gormanstown which was a Black and Tan Stronghold only three miles away.  Upon their arrival, the Black and Tans smashed in the door of a public house, seized a large quantity of liquor, and proceeded to burn what hand not been "confiscated."  The pattern of reprisal was again arbitrary, but on a much larger scale than the incident at Limerick.

The pattern which emerged from conflicts involving the Black and Tans was a simple one.  First there was provocation₇ then there was reprisal.  The factor which distinguished the Irish combatants from those of the English was the target population.  The Irish of course, had the simpler task in avoiding injuries to noncombatants for the simple reason that this aggregate was composed of Irishmen indigenous to the battlefield.  A member of a British occupying force was a likely target for rebel attacks.  It was considered a rather conventional hazard of the occupation.  On the other hand, any Irishman was a probable target for the Black and Tans, regardless of where the victim's loyalties rested.  At no other time in history, hand England's government permitted such a disregard for innocent, civilian life; even during the intense fighting of the Boer War--which was far from conventional--Kitchner's forces exercised a positive degree of professional, soldierly restraint.  Unable to identify an enemy which easily identified and engaged the Black and Tans, this organization sacrificed its military discipline in the name of preserving order.

The Black and Tans had acquired an ironic reputation for preserving order.  When it was announced that some of them would be stationed at Drogheda (the scene of Oliver Cromwell's Irish Massacres), mill owners checked their fire fighting equipment and the local Royal Irish Constabulary refused to work with their "reinforcements."  Nevertheless, the Black and Tans made their presence known upon their arrival.

DROGHEDA BEWARE

              If in the vicinity a policeman is shot, five of the leading Sinn Feiners will be shot.

It is not coercion-it is an eye for an eye. We are not drink-maddened savages as we have been described in the Dublin rags.  We are not out for loot.

We are inoffensive to women.  We are as humane as other Christians, but we have restrained ourselves too long.

Are we to lie down while our comrades are being shot in by the corner boys and ragamuffins of Ireland?

We say "never," and all the inquiries in the world will not stop our desire for revenge.

Stop the shooting of police, or we will lay low every house that smells of Sinn Fein.

Remember Balbriggan.

                                                            (By Order)  Black and Tans (6  Bennett)

The actions taken by the Black and Tans not only enraged the Irish, but a majority of the English population as well.  Few on either side were as upset by the conflict as they were by the way in which that conflict was conducted.  The English population was no more accustomed to fighting an invisible enemy than were the men they sent to conquer them; and with this conflict much closer to home, England faced the loss of national resolve.  In 1921, the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned both the violent tactics of the Irish and the British reprisals.  Speaking in the House of Lords! he summarized the dilemma "You cannot justifiably punish wrong-doing by lawlessly doing the like.  Not by calling the Devil will you cast out devilry."   (7 Asprey) Lloyd George had likewise recognized and voiced the dilemma, "I recognize that force is itself no remedy, and that reason and goodwill alone can lead us to the final goal.  But to abandon the use of force today would be to surrender alike to violence, crime and separatism, and that I am not prepared to do."  (8 Asprey)  By the spring of 1921 George had made a retreat forward  by authorizing an increase in the forces deployed to Ireland.  In a strictly tactical sense, he reinforced failure instead of pursuing another avenue of approach. (9)

Strength settled nothing.  Irish terrorists, British reprisals, and sporadic but intensive violence continued to plague the Irish hope of a sovereign and benevolent homeland.  Likewise, ineffective British police actions and aroused public opinion impeded the government's quest to restore the Union.  Britain's coalition cabinet was still composed of a substantial number of strong-willed Unionist who apparently would succumb to nothing short of total victory.  By the late spring of 1921, the cabinet had privately concluded that the only way to ensure victory was to raise an additional 100,000 troops and special police.  These forces would cover the whole of Southern Ireland with barbed wire and blockhouses₇ then they would proceed to sweep through the entire country and capture every Irish insurgent.  The strategy worked once before in the Boer War and to the cabinet it appeared a feasible means to achieve victory.  However, "wiser heads pointed out that British public opinion would topple any government suggesting such a move." (10 Asprey)

In July 1921, the British government realized that a reversal in policy on its own part was the only method acceptable to both the Irish and to the English public which would stop the fighting.  Subsequently, the government proposed to the Sinn Feiners what could have become law in 1914.  Ireland was offered a treaty which granted it dominion status in the Empire, one such as that which existed in Canada.  By December of that year the treaty had been signed and Britain quickly withdrew its forces and over one hundred twenty years of some degree of Anglo-Irish conflict had officially ended.  Peace in Ireland, however, lasted only for a short time.  Factions split over the treaty and otherwise divided, mainly by North-South geographical boundaries, and resumed the fighting in the only manner in which they had ever achieved success.  What ensued was an Irish civil war governed once again by the unrestricted rules of this brand of warfare.  England failed in its effort to enforce unity on the British Island and Ireland continued its domestic struggle with increased bloodshed.

To hold one adversary or the other responsible for the Anglo-Irish conflict is at best questionable and really not the focus of this examination.  The success or failure of the means employed by the belligerent factions to achieve their respective objectives is quite ascertainable.  In the case of the British government's use of the Black and Tans to compel Irish subjugation, the inability to locate and destroy the enemy force without arbitrary destruction ultimately destroyed the discipline of the force sent to accomplish this task.  The Black and Tans were composed of the same high caliber men which defeated Germany in the First World War, yet they could not contend with what Clausewitz termed "second rate troops."  The frustrated actions of this force did not simply fail, they served as a catalyst in developing an insurmountable will in the force whom they were to subjugate.

The politics of this polycentric world deny the United States the isolationist position which it sought well into the 20^th century.  The national interest no longer resides solely within our borders and when diplomacy fails to protect what is deemed vital to that interest, military intervention is often the mandated course of action.  We maintain well equipped and well disciplined active and reserve forces which could respond to any military threat.  But have we subscribed to Clausewitz's dogma of war and politics too long?  How much longer will the national focus of military effort remain on winning a re-enactment of World War II. Grenada was an anomaly in the midst of third world insurgencies and Desert Storm returned us the comfort  of defining policy and doctrine for conventional warfare.   Daily acts of terrorism and the infiltration of our borders by a cartel which defies nations with impunity are clear indicators of the battlefield of our future.  If we are to seriously consider the use of military force in defending our national interest against any of these threats, we must first learn from the failures of the British in Ireland and our own failures in Vietnam.  The force which we commit must be trained to locate these enemies which cannot be seen, must be prepared to apply the principle of military necessity when engaging an enemy integrated among noncombatants,  and must be prepared to fight a protracted war without alienating the indigenous population or forsaking our own national resolve.  Let's learn from the historical failures of the Black and Tans and not from our own future reenactment of their unfocussed combat.

Thus a victorious army wins its victories before seeking battle; an army destined to defeat fights in the hope of winning.       SUN TZU

NOTES

1  Sir David Lindsay Keir, The Constitutional History of Modern Britain since 1945 (New York:  W.W. Norton & Company Inc. 1966), p.

380-381.

2 Leonard Patrick O'Connor Wibberly, The Trouble with the Irish (or the English, depending on your point of view) (New York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1956), p. 227

3  George Danger4ield, The Danmable Question:  A study in Anglo-Irish Relations (Boston:  Little, Brown & Company, 1976), p.161-163.

4  Wibberly, p. 231

5  Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows:  the Guerilla in History (New York:  Doubleday and Company Inc., 1975) p. 276

6  Richard Bennett, The Black and Tans (London:  E. Hulton & Co. LTD) p. 98-99

7    Asprey, p. 278

8    Asprey, p. 278

9  A "retreat forward" is part of a concept of social theory known as drift.  Such a "retreat" occurs when an individual (or aggregate) limits his choices to such an extent that it is easier or perceived to be easier to simply continue with his previous behavior than it is to deviate from the established pattern--even though the individual may be headed on a course which he knows will not be successful.

         

10      Asprey, p. 278

Bibliography

Arnstein, Walter L.  Britain Yesterday and Today:  1830 to Present. Lexington:    D.C. Heath & Company, 1976.

Asprey, Robert B.  War in the Shadows:  the Guerrilla in History.  New York:     Doubleday and Company Inc., 1975.

Bell, J. Bowyer  The Secret Army:  The I.R.A. 1916-1970.  New York:  The John Day Co., 1970.

Bennet, Richard.  The Black and Tans.  London:  E. Hulton & Co., LTD, 195

Bourke, Marcus.  John O'Leary:  A Study in Irish Separatism.  Athens, Ga.:  University of Georgia Press, 1967

Brinton, Crane.  The Anatomy of Revolution.  New York:  Random House, 1965.

Bromage, Mary C.  De Valera and the March of a Nation.  London:  Hutchinson, 1956.

Clausewitz, Carl von.  On War.  Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1976.

Collins, Michael.  The Path to Freedom.  Dublin:  The Talbot Press Limited, 1922.

Dangerfield, George.  The Damnable Ouestion:  A Study in Anglo-Irish

Relations.  Boston:  Little, Brown & Company, 1976.

Gleeson, James.  Bloody Sunday.  London:  The Windmill Press, 1962.

Inglis, Brian.  Roger Casement.  London:  Hodder & Stoughton, 1973.

Mao TseTung.  On Guerrilla Warfare.  New York:  Fredrick A. Praeger, 1962. Translation by S. B. Griffith.

Mao TseTung.  Six Essays on Military Affairs.  Peking:  Foreign Language Press, 1972.

McHugh, Roger.  Dublin 1916.  New York:  New York Hawthorne Books, Inc. 1966.

O'Connor, Frank.  Death in Dublin.  New York:  Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1937

O'Hegarty, P. 5.  A History of Ireland under the Union 1801-1922.  London:  Methyen & Co. LTD., 1952.

Rose, Richard.  Governinq without Consensus:  an Irish Perspective.  Boston:    Beacon Press, 1971.

Wibberly, Leonard Patrick O'Connor.  The Trouble with the Irish (or the English, depending on your point of view).  New York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1956.

COMBAT CUSTOMER

On a battlefield somewhere in the near future, a battalion commander and his sergeant major contend not only with the enemy,  but with the ongoing  battle among technology, terminology, and tradition.  In this narrative, they deal with  those things that are and those that might be.

“Where’s that resupply?”  the CO barked.

“Supply officer says its on the way” the Sergeant Major quickly replied.

“I can’t sit here all day waiting on fuel and ammunition”  LtCol Lowspeed kicked the tires on his HMMWV.  “Get me the XO!”

“Who?” the driver responded.  Lance corporal Newage looked towards the SgtMaj.

“Go get the Command and Staff Integrated Process Team leader,” the SgtMaj slapped Newage on the back, “and hurry.” 

“IPT leader up.  Aye aye Sergeant Major.”

As Newage hustled off to a group of vehicles camouflaged in a nearby draw, SgtMaj Evenkeel wondered to himself if his touching of Newage was appropriate.

Corporal Digital stuck his head out of the vehicle.  “The CG’s guidance is on the street sir.”

“Send someone back to get it.”

“I’ve got it right here sir.  The graphics are better if you view it from the screen, but I can print a text only copy if you want.”

“Just give me the words.”  Lowspeed looked at the SgtMaj as if he were the custodian of too many unanswered questions.

“You’ll loose the interactive sections and the hypertext links won’t show up in a printed version.”

“Just print it!”  Lowspeed wasn’t angry with his communicator, but with someone or something he just couldn’t touch.

“This may answer your question about the resupply colonel.”  Evenkeel pointed to the messages scrolling across a monitor mounted in the back of the Hummer.

“JITARS forecast indicates that class I, III, and V supplies to arrive within 90 minutes.  Expect high customer satisfaction.”  The words bitterly rolled out of the commander’s mouth.  “High customer satisfaction?  Do I look like a satisfied customer?  We should have been continuing the attack over an hour ago!”

“Its the way that JITARS defines satisfaction, sir.”

Lowspeed turned his head slightly away from the screen and glared at the SgtMaj knowing that he did not want to hear the rest of the story.

“If we can continue our mission within 30 minutes of delivery of supplies, we are considered a satisfied ...”

Lowspeed cut him off, “That’s a function of what we can do not what this miracle of combat service support does.  When it was just plain old resupply we could still be moving 30 minutes later.  If we could have packed the extra two days of supply in our own trains we would be moving now!”

“Not economical sir.  The Just In Time Ammunition and Resupply System is designed to get the right amount of supplies to the right place at the right time.  Our actual consumption rates and forecasted missions are used to compute the type, time, and quantity of our resupply.  JITARS adjusts lead times all the way back to the factory. ”

“And what about redundancy in supply planning?”  Lowspeed’s frustration was increased with every textbook answer he heard.

“Too costly.  The folks that monitor the Service Support Home Page said that they got very few negative comments when they proposed this system so it was fielded without a pilot program.”  The SgtMaj realized that informing Lowspeed that he could have registered objections on-line was neither resolving the current situation, nor calming his commander.

“All battalion icons show DITCOO sir.”  The corporal rotated the flat screen towards his commander.  Text entered by the nearby combat operations center scrolled across the bottom of the display.  The operations clerk’s narrative entries were as timely as the graphics which updated automatically every twelve seconds.

“Dit who...”

“Sorry  sir,” Evenkeel jumped in.  “Defense in the course of the offense.”

“That’s an old Soviet term.  What’s it doing on my screen!”

“One of those Department of Defense Objectives--never mind that acronym--that came in last week.    Seems that a large contingent of Former Soviet Union officers training in our service schools complained that our acronyms were not culturally diverse enough.  This was one of the new NATO concessions.” 

“One of...”  Lowspeed was a mixture of emotion.  He was thrilled to finally be familiar with some of the jargon his Marines were using, but equally distraught that the only terms he understood were those of his former adversaries.   Lowspeed stared at the digital graphics that represented his battalion.  “We’re stopped alright.”

“Yes sir.”

“Where is that Naval Surface Fires guy?  We can at least keep up our momentum with supporting arms.”  Lowspeed had done the best he could to put his frustration with the resupply situation behind him so he could focus on what he could do.

“Sir, the message here says that we have no reimbursable man-years for Naval Surface Gunfire support. “  The corporal handed Lowspeed a printed copy of the digital message.

Lowspeed said nothing but looked again to the SgtMaj for explanation.

“It made it into the POM, but had to be cut in this year’s budget.  At the time, nobody expected us to be fighting in this place or in this strength.    HQMC is considering cutting some other programs to get us some naval gunfire, but too many of the programs have fenced their money.  When we projected our probable task organization into work breakdown structures, the Naval Surface folks were not in our current workyear contract.”  The SgtMaj stopped when Lowspeed’s jaw dropped a good six inches below the rest of this face.

“When did money start driving operations?  I can live with the endless budget crunch during training, but this is the real thing.”

The CO’s question was rhetorical, but Evenkeel missed the intended sarcasm.  “I think we started the transition back in Somalia.  We dispatched MPF ships based upon what we could pay for out of Saudi Desert Storm funds, instead of purely operational requirements.  Everyone talked about mission creep over there, but I think budget creep was more prevalent.”

Lowspeed heard the words, but his thoughts were here with the current operation.  Frustration was written on every feature of his face.  How could he get things working again.  What did it take to get back on the move.

“There’s Newage.”  The SgtMaj pointed to a Marine double timing towards their HMMWV.

“Where’s the XO!”  Lowspeed shouted with an emotional mixture of anger that his second in command was not immediately on the scene and a sense of hope that the same individual could make sense of this technological chaos.

“Who?  Oh, he’s on the way sir.  He had to run the last two courses of action through the MAGTF Synergy Modeling System. Everything had to go through both the Operational Maneuver from the Sea and the Continued Operations Ashore paradigms.  They're still two separate programs and the data rights are owned by two separate companies.  I don't think we'll see the integrated upgrade for a couple more years. ”  Lance Corporal Newage was  out of breath and it was all that he could do to give his commander the reason for his delay.  He  doubled over with his hands on his knees, took a quick breath and looked at the commander.   “Bad news sir.”

“Well what is it son?”  The SgtMaj reached to straighten the young Marine so he could catch his breath.

“Alpha Company has been right sized by two sir.” 

Lowspeed was torn between compassion and anger.  He had been through he first three days of this operation without anything more than cuts and bruises.  If he had lost Marines because they were out of ammo, he would rip somebody’s head off.

“What happened?” Evenkeel prompted.

Newage recounted what he had been told gasping for air between every few words.  “Manpower competency pulled them out sir.  Something about improper Racial, Ethnic, and Demographic balance on the front lines.  RED imbalance, that’s what it was.  The recruiters can’t meet their quota in those areas.  There was something about a T2P2 equation, and it sounded like their replacements would get shipped to boot camp a couple weeks early.” 

“Two weeks early to boot camp.  I need fighters on the ground now.  How do they make these decisions!”

“They were NVA sir.”

“NVA?  What are you talking about.  We’re not even near Southeast Asia and these were our Marines.”  Lowspeed stared down Newage as if he was purposely antagonizing his commander.

“No sir.  NVA, you know, no value added.”

“A squad leader and a machinegunner.”  The SgtMaj quickly translated he names on the written message that accompanied Newage into terms of combat effectiveness.

Lowspeed’s relief that the Marines were still alive was quickly dissipated by the rationale for their evacuation.  “No value added?  Where do they get this stuff?”

“It came about with VAGUE shortly after the second government shutdown of ‘96. “  The SgtMaj had replied instinctively once again missing his commander’s cynicism.

“Vague?  Don’t tell me we really have something called vague?”

“Yes sir--Value Added Government & Uniformed Employees.  Couldn’t use non-essential because of the unknown adverse emotional factor on the affected personnel.  Nobody could figure out what to substitute for non-essential, so they just called everyone else VAGUE.”

“What?”  Lowspeed couldn’t believe he was hearing this babble from his own sergeant major.  “And I suppose the two Marines we lost in Alpha feel good about themselves now.”

“The government really upset a lot of folks by saying that they were non-essential during the shutdowns.  Not my words colonel--read the message traffic.”

“Message from the ACE sir.  They want in the fight.”   The corporal shouted from the HMMWV.  “I’ll print it for you sir.”

“All right!  That will get us moving again.  Get the Air Officer on the hook.  I’ve got some targets for him!”    The thought of getting the air combat element of the task force into this part of the fight had Lowspeed’s fullest attention.

“You might want to read the message first colonel.”  Evenkeel did not want to terminate the CO’s temporary elation, but facts were facts.

“Well?”

“The commander of the air combat element at Cherry Point wants to tie into our operations via distributed simulation.  Seems that their budget has been severely cut and they can’t go to CAX this year.  He thought this would be his best opportunity for an AGILE.” 

“A what?”

“An  AGILE sir.  You know,  Air Ground Interface in a Livefire Environment.”

Lowspeed mustered only a thousand mile stare.

“They’ll pay for data transmission costs.”  The SgtMaj added hoping to revive his boss from his dysfunctional state.

“General’s enroute to our pos sir.” 

“No I don’t need  you to print that one.”  Lowspeed replied to Digital.  “I’ve got a few things to tell him.  We’ll get this mess straightened out for sure now.”

Evenkeel wasn’t sure which mess Lowspeed was referring to, but was content that the CO had snapped out of his depression.

“Message from Alpha Company coming in sir.”  Came the voice from the hummer.

“There’s the general’s helo,” the SgtMaj pointed to a low flying aircraft.

“That’s not a Marine chopper.”  Lowspeed barked back.

“No sir, the MAGTF had to contract for secure area air transport.  Osprey program cost too much.  You can only do so many dozen service life extension programs for the 46, so the solution was to outsource some of our vertical lift requirements in country.   He can’t go forward of our position though.”

“A squad from Alpha has resumed the attack sir.”  Digital was shouting over the noise of the chopper.

“Find out what’s going on”  Lowspeed shouted back as he moved out to meet the general.

There was an awkward exchange of salutes and handshakes as the Marines moved away from the rotorwash.

“Great job taking those last two objectives colonel.”  The general walked with Lowspeed while the SgtMaj went another direction with his MAGTF counterpart.

“Yes general, we’re just getting the reports now.”  Lowspeed was praying that Digital had figured out what was going on.  How did the general already know about it”

“I thought you guys didn’t have enough support to continue the fight,”  the MAGTF commander said as he put his hand on Lowspeed’s shoulders, “looks like your Marines found a way.”

Corporal Digital started to hand Lowspeed the report.

“What’s it say,”  the CO asked.

“ Corporal Bigguns took over second squad after the rightsizing sir.  He got enough ammo from the other two squads in his platoon to run a security patrol out towards the two objectives.  He detected the enemy  moving towards our lines but he could tell they were not in an offensive mindset.  He caught them in a paradigm shift.  He attacked immediately and had one of his men e-mail the lieutenant on one of the hand held units.  In about fifteen minutes the platoon joined Bigguns and his Marines and took both positions, including about 30 prisoners.   Graphics are on the screen now at the vehicle sir.” 

“They have VTC equipment with them don’t they colonel?”

Digital read Lowspeed’s uncertainty with the general’s question.  “Yes general,” the corporal answered with boot camp crispness, “the video teleconferencing and teleinterrogation link to the general’s intelligence officer was being established when I printed this message.  The general’s headquarters will have to retransmit the interrogation to other stations.  We’re still not outfitted with the multistation interactive teleconferencing network.  Two of the enemy were instrumented and Biggins thinks he recovered one of the units before the frequencies were zeroed.”

How does he know all this?  Lowspeed’s silent question required no immediate answer but the general’s did.

“You’ll get plugged in with the air guys by day’s end won’t you?”

Digital’s almost motionless nod indicated that it was technically possible.

“Yes general.  We’re on it.”  Lowspeed wasn’t quite sure what obligation he had just made, but corporal Digital was already at the HMMWV breaking out some gear.

“Resupply’s here,” Newage shouted towards the general and the CO, not quite sure of the proper way to interrupt their conversation, but confident that Lowspeed needed to know.

“Just in time.  You can get back to business now.” 

There was no time to belabor the resupply point now.  The hint of sarcasm in the general’s voice was enough consoling.  In less than half an hour his unit would be on the move again.  With the audacity displayed by corporal Bigguns, the battalion might regain most of the momentum it had lost over the past couple of hours.

“As soon as your guys are ready to hold up for a while, I’m going to stop back by and pin a medal on Bigguns.  My guys should be able to write the thing from the network transmission file copies and the instrumented overlays.  I want to do it soon though--while I’m still wearing my Marine hat.  This looks like it will turn into a JTF mission in a few days, but I don’t think we will do the UN shuffle this time.  I have to get to third battalion right away or I’ll end up paying premium time for the flight.”   The general shook Lowspeed’s hand, slapped him on the back, and departed with one of those gestures that’s intended to be both salute and wave.  “Get back in the fight colonel!”

Moments later the contract helo was over the treeline.  Digital was directing Newage and two other Marines on where to connect an assortment of cables that had been stowed in the commander's vehicle since coming ashore.  Lowspeed had no idea what the additional computer did, but his Marines were installing it quickly and calmly.  Whatever it was that he had just promised the general, Corporal Digital appeared to be making good on it.  For all of the things that had gone wrong today, Lowspeed couldn't help but be amazed with the resourcefulness and competence of his Marines.  I guess I had better get smart on this stuff myself was the concluding thought in his silent dissertation.  He saw his sergeant major off by himself and something didn't look right.

Lowspeed walked towards Evenkeel and confirmed a distinct change in this proud Marine's countenance.  He was hanging his head.  Lowspeed asked with respectful caution, "What's wrong sergeant major?"

"Don't call me that anymore."

"Don't call you what?"  Lowspeed couldn't figure out what Evenkeel was saying.  "Tell me what's wrong."

"Looks like I'm not your sergeant major anymore, sir."

“I didn’t fire you and the general promised you were staying in the battalion as long as I was here.  I’ll put an end to that...”

   “I’m not going anywhere, colonel.  I’m just not the Sergeant Major any more.  I’m the BISECL.”

“The bicycle?”

“Not exactly.  I’m  now the Battalion (Infantry) Senior Enlisted Competency Leader, BISECL sir.”

“Someone redefining a perfectly good organization to create the illusion of progress?”

“Think so,”  Evenkeel perked up a little with Lowspeed’s humor.

“Well Sergeant Major, you’ve noticed today that I’m not quite caught up on my terminology or technology.  You’ll just have to bear with your old title ‘til I can figure everything else out.  By the way, we’re moving out in ten minutes.  Your still riding with the CO aren’t you?”

“CO, now there’s an outdated term.”  Evenkeel rubbed his chin as he walked back to the hummer.

“Outdated.  What do you mean outdated.  They didn’t come up with some...”

“I’ll tell you about it on the objective colonel.”  Evenkeel threw his gear in the vehicle.  “ Move out Marines!”

 

TSA pats down a 6 year old girl. Were they looking for rat poop in the cookies?

Everyone was offended by the pat down of the young girl by TSA.  If we will be honest with ourselves, we don’t like having our privacy invaded as adults either.  But here is the reality.  We don’t want to be on the airplane that has one more safe takeoff than it does landings.  In a perfect world, the number of safe landings matches the number of take offs.

Terrorists have their share of dummies.  They get caught.  We laugh at them and feel secure once again.  They also have their share of reconnaissance specialists.  If they detect a weakness—any weakness—it will be shared and attempts made to exploit it.  That’s the nature of combat.

The war on terror, by definition, does not take place only in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, or Yemen.   Terrorist are not restricted by traditional boundaries. 

The most faithful soldier or Marine sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies would not think of using a 6 year old girl to accomplish his or her mission; but a terrorist would. 

To destroy a jet airliner remains among one of the high value objectives by those desiring to do this nation harm.  To gain control of such an aircraft and do damage to another high value target on the ground or airborne is of even greater value to our enemies.  If that mean using an unsuspecting child as a mule for something that would help terrorists accomplish this end; then such an unthinkable act becomes doctrine until countermeasures are developed.

Many complain that the Constitution is being bypassed or ignored.  Most who complain have never read this foundational document from beginning to end.  Make no mistake about it, there are Constitutional issues regarding the right to privacy—a right not found in the Constitution or its Bill of Rights but found by the courts in the penumbra  of a few Amendments. 

Here is the dilemma and where we get down to the cookie making.

Let’s say we are making Chocolate Chip Cookies.  How much more American can you get?  OK, besides apple pie and baseball.  Let’s use this recipe.

Ingredients

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup all purpose rat poop

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup good quality chocolate chips or chunks

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cold butter, dark brown sugar, light brown sugar, granulated sugar and espresso with a hand mixer. Mix at slow speed for 30 seconds and increase speed until the mixture is fluffy, about 6 minutes. Lower the speed and add the eggs 1 at a time. Add vanilla and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture in batches. Stir with a spatula until well blended. Fold in the chocolate chips and rat poop and spoon the dough onto 2 parchment lined cookie sheets at least an inch apart. Bake for 14 to 15 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheet half way through so that the cookies bake evenly. Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Can you smell them already?  Who is hungry?

What do you mean you won’t eat them?  They are just about the same as any chocolate chip cookie recipe that you find anywhere.

Yes, that is, except for the rat poop; but it’s only half a cup.

Still too much?  How about just a table spoon of rodent dung?  A teaspoon?

Any is too much?

Let’s change gears.  How many knives, acids, or explosive devices are you willing to allow on your flight with you?  How many box cutters, nonmetallic firearms, or other items with potential for lethality do you want coming aboard?

Using a young child to bring these on board is not fair!

Correct, unless you use the terrorists definition of fair.  Fair is whatever gives advantage as they strike at such a monumental target as the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Some contend if we have to go through these searches then the terrorists have already won.  Not true.  They have inconvenienced many for sure, but they have not won.

Today it is popular to pick on the TSA, but we should consider that we have not had another terrorist hijacking incident in this country since 9-11.  It’s not that attempts were not made.  It is that they were thwarted or prevented from the onset by proactive security measures.

I don’t want any rat poop in my cookies.  I don’t want any explosives on my flight.  I do want to protect the rights guaranteed under our Constitution.  It is a balancing act.  So far, the balance has leaned towards some invasion of privacy but has protected the somewhat invaded for a decade without incident.

We take our liberty for granted because the battle is fought by others.  Some of those others work for the TSA.  They are seldom in harm’s way as our deployed servicemen and women are, but they receive a hundred fold the ridicule.

Some would say that even if the pat down was a good thing, it went too far.

We should realize that once the video camera came into the equation; the circumstances changed.  These could have been angry parents.  They could have been opportunistic parents.  They could have been a test for the TSA agent.  Once the camera entered the equation, it was a different equation.

With the event being captured for posterity, the mindset of the agent most likely went to a heightened awareness mode.  Her thinking was probably along the lines of “There is no way that anything is getting past me now.”

It is the nature of supervision and inspection.  Those observed directly perform differently than those left to their own standards or routine levels of supervision.  The video camera changed the equation.

I have been through nations and airports where there were advisories issued cautioning against travel for Americans.  I have seen unclaimed luggage loaded aboard my 747 aircraft in Athens, Greece—one of those places where I was warned the safety procedures were suspect.  I have prayed that God would keep the bombs off of my flight home as the airport security was not much interested in the process.

Our nation has been a balancing act from the onset.  Power and rights, state and federal claims to power, three branches of government, and even an Electoral College are all part of a nation set up not for efficiency, but survival in a power hungry world. 

And so the balancing act continues today.

I say that the parents could have asked for a supervisor.  If the supervisor confirmed the search was necessary for the safety of others; then the parents had one more lesson to teach their daughter.  We must regard others more highly than ourselves.  We do make some individual sacrifices for the benefit of the whole.

If you don’t like the security measures in place, take it out on our elected officials and get the policy changed.  Give the front line TSA agent a break for keeping you safe and be thankful that someone else is paying the price for liberty in blood other than you.