Women in the Infantry: What? No! Why?

First of all let me say that as an Officer in the United States Army I have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America and to follow the orders of the President of the United States and the Officers appointed over me. I take this oath seriously, as the overwhelming majority of military Officers do. Policy is not dictated by military Officers, but rather by our political leaders. This is a great strength of our republic. The military will execute whatever mission is directed by our Commander in Chief, within the context of the Constitution, and this current issue of integrating women into combat arms is no different.

            With that disclaimer, I think it is useful, from time to time in the course of public debates over policy issues, for those closest to the heart of the matter to offer their own observations and insights for all their fellow citizens to judge. The argument I am preparing to layout should be taken as such: an opinion of someone with some intimate, albeit subjective, knowledge concerning the issues at hand. I do not intend to offend, but rather to seek to enhance our common understanding in a respectful and open way.

            To start, let’s clarify the issue at hand. Until the policy change last week, the status quo in the military had been established by a 1994 law that banned women from serving in “combat arms” positions, or in support positions that were attached to combat arms units below the Brigade level. The policy was effectively modified, though not officially changed, by the creation of the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) force structure, which attached Forward Support Companies–and female soldiers with them–directly to Infantry and Armor and Field Artillery Battalions.

The actual situation is that support personnel attached directly to combat arms companies are only males, but support at higher echelons is mixed. Through the course of the war, there have been some exceptions made, most notably to facilitate the creation of female engagement teams, which have operated all the way down at the platoon level with Infantry and even special operations units. The barrier to women entering combat arms units, however, has remained, which means that large numbers of our infantry soldiers spend entire deployments, or even careers, largely insulated from female soldiers.

Despite this barrier to entry into combat arms, many female soldiers have found themselves in combat over the past decade. How is that, exactly? That women are at once not permitted to serve in combat arms, but are at the same time engaging in combat? The nature of 21^st century combat and the predominately “low intensity” conflicts we have been engaged in so far distort the traditional Western concept of front and rear or area of operations and area of support.

Female soldiers serving as cooks on forward operating bases or combat outposts have been engaged by mortar or rocket fire. Female soldiers serving as military intelligence specialists have been ambushed in transit from one location to another. Females serving in logistics positions have found themselves in engaged by enemy forces regularly. And many of these women have reacted with great valor and completed their mission in the face of enemy fire.

These women have been awarded, in the Army’s case, the Combat Action Badge and other awards of valor and distinction as merited.[i] They have received the exact same hazardous duty incentive and hostile fire incentive pay as the male soldiers serving in infantry units. The role of women on the current battlefield has been recognized and appreciated, by the Department of Defense, by their male counterparts, and by our society as a whole. The barrier to combat arms, despite all this, has remained. Why would that be the case? If female soldiers have already proven themselves a hundred times over capable of doing the exact same job as the infantrymen, then why is this even a discussion? The confusion here stems from a clouded perception of exactly what it is we in the military have been doing over the past decade.

Day to day operations in Afghanistan, or Iraq from 2003 through 2011, are extremely diverse. There are thousands of soldiers doing hundreds of different jobs to bring the intent of the theater commanders to life in a bafflingly large area of operations. And while many, though nowhere near all, of these soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen see some sort of combat, it has continued to be the sole realm of the combat arms units and personnel to conduct combat operations. It is their job to boldly fill whatever breach needs the attention of the country’s roughest, most violent men. They must suffer the worst privations day in and day out; they are the ones who the Commander in Chief sends outside the wire with the explicit purpose of finding and destroying the enemy’s combat forces. The men of our combat arms stand ready to “move further, faster and fight harder” than any other soldier.[ii]

Deliberate combat operations are often quite different from inadvertent combat engagements with enemy forces. A 20-minute firefight is an extremely draining event, both emotionally and physically. I have tremendous respect for the women I have known in the military who have proven themselves true soldiers by enduring such firefights and continuing to accomplish the mission. But these firefights only make up a small portion of actual combat operations. Imagine the four hours of infiltration prior to that first firefight, under terrible combat weights, only to flow into another firefight, then pursuit, then another firefight, then into some sort of static position outside of the wire for a few hours right into another day of the same.  Women in the military, on the whole, have not experienced this, or even trained for this sort of a mission.

The infantry are often called, by others, and even more often, lovingly by each other, grunts. War is organized violence for the purpose of some political end. It is much easier to sanitize it in theory than in practice. Grunts are required in war, because after all the intelligence and the logistics and the cultural and political leveraging, there is still some armed group of determined opposition, otherwise it wouldn’t be war. Raw aggression and unflinching violence are the tools required. These are the tools of the grunt, built over months and years and generations, through physical and mental preparation. This culture of the infantry has been an entirely masculine domain.

I have been happy to be a part of this tradition. I have shared much with my brothers in arms. And so I must apologize to those brothers who will perceive my following argument as a betrayal. All I can say is that I have written here what I felt was required to preserve this great and necessary tradition.

I support not only lifting the Combat Arms Exclusion policy, but also the immediate integration of all qualified female soldiers into combat arms positions.

The policy question of integrating women into infantry or other combat arms units is immense. There are a myriad of concerns and issues; ranging from cultural norms of partner forces to questions of the impact of pregnancies on unit readiness. There are American cultural values to consider, as well as issues of sexual harassment and gender ignorance. Unit cohesion, command policies, questions of hygiene and living quarters. The list goes on and on. In my mind, however, these are mostly the sorts of things that will simply need to be worked through honestly, and painfully at times, by us in the military. The faithful servants of the republic, the Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers, will find a way, as we always have, to accomplish the mission (or perhaps we will die trying).  For me, there is only one question which is of true importance: should women be given the opportunity to serve in the ranks of our country’s combat arms forces?

My answer to that question is yes. I say yes, women should be given the opportunity to serve in the infantry, not because I believe it is their right, or because I think our combat arms units need to be more open or more accommodating. To serve one’s nation in combat is by no means a right, as evidenced by all manner of exclusions of individuals from the military. Nor should our combat arms units, or our military as a whole for that matter, be more open, or accommodating. We should be more disciplined in these uncertain times. We should be more demanding of those citizens who seek the privilege to serve their country.  I say yes to women in the infantry because I was convinced by the argument of Major Mary Jennings Hegar.

In an op-ed piece published on the website of the ACLU, Major Hegar recounts her own personal experience as a MEDEVAC pilot in Afghanistan. While I was not swayed by her anecdote of personal heroism, however impressive it is, I was struck by the force of her final conclusion. She writes “putting the right person in the right job has very little to do with one’s gender, race, religion, or other demographic descriptor.” Rather Major Hegar declares, “it has everything to do with one’s heart, character, ability, determination and dedication.” Major Hegar’s affirmation of our values as a meritocracy is moving. And where in American society has this been truer than in the military? To be sure we have our own politics and forms of nepotism; I am not naïve. But this sort of meritocratic vision is our ideal. It is the goal we must always strive to accomplish.[iii]

I therefore believe the barrier to combat arms should be completely lifted. But we must not, in the same motion, raise also a stepping stool for women into the infantry. As Major Hegar so eloquently put it, putting someone in the right place should have “everything to do with one’s heart, character, ability, determination, and dedication”. Nowhere is that more necessary than in the infantry, where people’s lives and the outcome of the mission will depend on the ability and determination of the soldiers and leaders we send outside the wire. The biological and physical differences between men and women will not matter at the moment of decision on the battlefield and they should not hold sway in the selection of our combat arms soldiers.

I am no biologist and I have already admitted that my arguments here are largely, if not entirely, subjective. But there are biological differences between men and women, which have an impact on our physical abilities. All branches of the military currently account for these physical differences by imposing different physical fitness standards on men and women. Well different is one way to say it. The other way would be clearer: all branches of the military currently hold women to a lower standard of physical fitness than is expected of their male counterparts. The inequality in standards is not such an important issue, when we are evaluating the competence of a helicopter mechanic, who spends 99% of their time in a bay, in the rear of the formation. But for an infantryman, charged with the task of maneuvering on the enemy, physical fitness is an issue of severe consequence. Of course there are women who would be capable of passing the male standards for physical fitness.

I have met many women in my life who could outrun me. I have met even more who could outpace me in water or on a bike. There are thousands of women who would be considered more athletic than me. I have met fewer who could keep pace in push ups or pull ups, though I have met them. But I have never met a woman who could outruck me. Rucking is the most essential infantry exercise. You can be a world-class weight lifter, an Olympic swimmer, but if you don’t have the heart and the shoulders and the back to ruck, heavy and far, then you are a worthless infantryman.

Rucking, for any civilians reading this, is marching with a rucksack, which looks a lot like a hikers pack with an exterior frame. It is the best test of an infantryman’s metal because it tests the carrying of heavy weight, distributed across the body, for long distances and periods of time. In combat, even on the shortest patrols, the average load for any Infantryman probably sits somewhere around 40 pounds. For longer patrols, it is easy to find oneself loaded out with 150 pounds of equipment, ammunition, food, and water. Climbing up a fucking mountain in Afghanistan, all night long, with 150 pounds on your back. There are probably a number of women who can reach deep and find the kind of steel that is required for the task, but the number will be far lower than most advocates of the policy of integrating women into combat arms would expect.

The rugged physical and mental standards of the infantry cannot be compromised. If woman serve in combat roles, they need to rise to the same standards and earn their own right to wear the crossed rifles for themselves. If equality is the order of the day, if the physical differences between men and women are to be ignored, if tradition is to be overlooked, then I say let us step all the way through the breach. I have never been a fan of half steps anyway. Women attending Infantry One Station Unit Training, or Ranger School, or Basic Underwater Demolition School, or any other combat oriented course, should meet the same exact physical standards. They should eat the same food, carry the same load, shit in the same sad hole, sleep in the same hooch and wear the same uniform. Their hair should be shaved like all the rest. The integration should be so complete that, to the outside observer, the women who serve in our combat arms should be nearly indistinguishable from their male counterparts.

Only then will the bond of brotherhood be forged. Only then will the women in combat arms serve as a source of pride and strength, rather than some half measured play towards political correctness. I would serve with immense pleasure with any woman who rucked her way through woods and mountain and swamp. She would be my sister in arms. And those women are out there. I do not doubt it. But we will never know them if we simply allow women to join the Infantry will long hair and separate bathrooms and special considerations and their own physical fitness scale.

I’ll end by saying that I think a lot of the concerns and issues enumerated here can be found in this NPR piece on the subject: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=170471660&m=170494934. It is the right of the citizenry to dictate policy to the military. It is part of what makes ours a great union. But I beg those citizens out there reading this, to please consider what I have shared. I have given this all some thought and I want only the best for our country and this Army.

One last link:

This is the kind of woman I would serve with and smile. I hope some of you can appreciate the richness of this primary document

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Action_Badge

[ii] http://spruill6.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-creed-thanks-mark.html

[iii] http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/women-warriors-are-battlefield-eliminate-outdated-unfair-military-combat

http://tellmehowthisends.com/

The link above is quite interesting. A good friend posted it on facebook and I have to say I was intrigued. The level of detail and the sophistication of the model used is compelling.
It is not your usual call for diplomacy and patience; international consensus and bilateral negotiations and the sort.
The above link is something far more insidious. It projects for its audience a "road map" of the Iranian crisis and the general context of the middle east powder keg we are all sitting on. What frightens me about an argument like the one above, is the certainty with which it makes broad assumptions about the complex chemistry of human interactions, political movements and violent conflicts.
Rather than a true question or policy debate, it proposes to tell us all, proponents and opponents alike, how this will end: desperately mired in a costly conflict we cannot bring to a decision and caught in the throes of a global economic meltdown. It assumes a diachronic model for both American policy and the subsequent and inevitable reactions in the across the globe. The dichotomy of move and counter move is accepted without question.

There are a hundred ways the eventual confrontation between a nuclear arms seeking Iran and the global order could play out. I don't think it will look anything like Iraq or Afghanistan. Or maybe it will look a little like Afghanistan circa 2002, when there were a couple thousand Americans on the ground for the collapse of the Taliban. We will see.

But I have a real question for the people who made this model above: can you tell me how this ends?

Iran gets a nuclear weapon and tests it.

Saudi Arabia develops it own nuclear weapons program, as does Egypt and Jordan.

Iraq and the Sudan start to follow the pack a couple of years later. The non proliferation treaty loses all credibility and significance.

How does this story end?

Any better than the one above? I'm not so sure.

The Shame of the Benghazi Tragedy

Some professional politicians and political commentators have urged that the public discussion over the Benghazi attack be kept apolitical. They have argued that conservatives and Republicans are attempting to hijack this tragedy and use it as a political instrument to attack the President of the United States during an election year. Democrats have come out in strong opposition against making this into a “political issue”, citing the deaths as a tragedy, where Americans should come together in support of the victims. Unfortunately, the cynicism of these comments is for some of us, too rank to stomach.

            First of all, everything is a political issue. That is the nature of politics. When there is a failure or tragedy or even success, of any kind, it will undoubtedly become an issue of public and political discussion. Take the Aurora, Colorado shootings as an extreme example: a terrible, senseless tragedy with very clear lines of right and wrong. For the most part the larger, national politicians kept it that way, but the special interest groups didn’t take long to jump into the political debate that was implied in the tragedy: gun control. And that is a discussion that should be had and Aurora should be used as a point of reference when having that conversation. Is that politicizing the issue? Maybe it is; or maybe the issue, like most, was already saturated in a preexisting political debate. So let’s talk politics for a minute, as a country, unfettered from all this hand wringing and grand standing and moral posturing.

            The current administration failed to heed the reports of its own intelligence apparatus that the security situation was deteriorating. It failed to respond to the requests of its State Department personnel on the ground to shore up the security for the mission in Benghazi. During the attack, which lasted over six hours, the administration failed to respond across departments and organizations in an organized and coordinated fashion. It failed to provide any support to the people on the ground at the time. In the immediate fallout of the attack, the incident was reported to the American people by the administration and most medias outlets as “the activities of a mob” run out of control.[i] In actuality it had been a coordinated, combined arms attack orchestrated by al Qaeda affiliates. In the past two months, the FBI has mounted an uninspiring and largely fruitless investigation into the details of the attack. The various heads of the President’s administration have seemed to deflect blame to one another for the security gap. The administration as a whole has been less than transparent, to say the least, in their reporting of the facts.

            Is this President Obama’s Watergate? I don’t think so. But I do think it raises some real concerns about how we approach the continued threat of militant Islamic organizations. Is it an effective strategy to be apologetic in the face of these terrorist attacks? To write off these events as some misplaced violence caused by the “the activity of a deranged individual ridiculing Mohammed”?[ii] Probably not. Some Americans still believe that Major Nadal Hassan, the Ft. Hood shooter, should have been denounced from the start by the administration as a terrorist. Whether or not you want to call this conflict we are living through “the global war on terror” is less important than simply recognizing publicly that there is in fact a war we are still actively fighting. It is being fought everyday in Washington and London, in Tehran and Wardak, and in North Africa too. To pretend otherwise is less than honest and is disrespectful to our personnel out there risking their lives outside the wire.

            The biggest problem is the complacency in all of this on the part of the American people. The Benghazi attack, and all the fallout and back peddling since, hasn’t even rated for most as worthy of a political discussion. Four Americans were murdered by al-Qaeda on September 11^th 2012 and most of us just seem happy enough to move on. Even for conservatives and Republicans it is not an issue of urgency. Nobody is taking this personally. What would the generation of 1941 think if they could see us with fresh eyes now? Have we lost a certain respect for our own service men and women?

            I understand the empirical barrier for most Americans is probably quite great. After all we are only talking about four Americans, in some far off, largely bush-league nation. I mean, it is a tragedy, but these things happen, right? Most Americans don’t know what it is like to write reports and debriefs for months counseling a serious need for reinforcements just to be told by the bureaucrats to drive on and make do. Most Americans have no idea what “small arms” fire sounds like when you are caught in an enemy kill zone. Very few Americans, very few service men even, have ever watched as mortar rounds impact all around them and the shrapnel explodes into the flesh of their brothers in arms. It is not an easy experience to convey. It is even harder, however, to communicate when one’s audience has no interest in understanding that sort of dread and abandonment. But let me tell you something: in a situation like that, even a simple “show of force” from a couple of jets flying close air support for you, can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

            I don’t know what happened in Benghazi. It will be a few years before the whole story is really fleshed out. But I can tell you from experience, it smells like we left those guys out there high and dry, outside the wire. And that is something we cannot afford to do. We are fundamentally stronger than our enemies in this new global conflict. But we lose our strength the day we refuse to stand by our own people. Someone failed our people in Benghazi and that should be something we as a people take very seriously. We should take it as an affront to our personal honor as Americans. But maybe we are not the people we used to be. Maybe America really doesn’t care for its people outside the wire. Maybe Benghazi just isn’t important enough for a political discussion anymore.

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[i] from the Peter Fenn article in US News, “Mitt Romney's Disgraceful Politicizing of Libya Tragedy”.  http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2012/09/12/mitt-romneys-disgraceful-politicizing-of-libya-tragedy

[ii] from the Peter Fenn article in US News, “Mitt Romney's Disgraceful Politicizing of Libya Tragedy”.  http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2012/09/12/mitt-romneys-disgraceful-politicizing-of-libya-tragedy

The Spirit Between Us

Before I deployed to Afghanistan my brother sent me a gift. It was a six -inch, fixed-blade hunting knife with a leather sheath and classic, simple style. Engraved into the blade was a quote I had never seen before: “Wars may be fought with weapons but they are won by men” –General George S. Patton. Enclosed in the package with the knife was an encouraging and hopeful letter, wishing me a safe deployment. He included the rest of the quote: “It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory over hardship”. I took that letter with me to Afghanistan, where I had many opportunities to contemplate the truth of those words.

               The relationship between “the men who follow and of the man who leads” is vital. That relationship takes on its own nature; its very own spirit as Patton describes it. It is that relationship which stands at the heart of every organization and leads to its ultimate victory or defeat. In our Army today there are two keys to nourishing this spirit and the success of our nation in its future conflicts. Leaders across the Army must look to our history, to the examples of our predecessors in order to learn the secrets of their successes.

               The first key to building a culture of victory in our Army today may seem quite simple, but is of the utmost importance. We must treat our subordinates with respect. We must encourage their better natures, not through degradation or harsh treatment, but rather through empathy, reason and sincerity. When I was in Officer Candidate School, I was required to commit to memory Schofield’s Definition of Discipline:

“The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instructions and to give commands in such a manner and in such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due others cannot fail to inspire in them regard for himself; while he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect toward others, especially his inferiors, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself.”

Today I keep that definition printed on the front door of my office, so that every morning as I start my work, I am reminded of my obligation to the soldiers who serve under me in my unit. It is essential that we as leaders remember our Soldiers are volunteer citizens from the greatest Democracy in the history of the world. We need to talk to our soldiers; we need to communicate to them the importance of the tasks we assign them. Undoubtedly there will be instances when military necessity will force leaders to simply order their subordinates to accomplish a set of tasks, without sufficient explanation. As much as it is possible, however, we must remember that our soldiers are the top-one percent of our citizenry, and they deserve our attention and our care. They deserve to understand the logic behind the missions they will carry out.

The second duty we have as leaders is to always share in the hardships our soldiers are forced to suffer. We can look to the example of BG William O. Darby himself, who led from the front and shared in the greatest dangers of the enemy fire both in North Africa and then again in Italy. We often talk about “leading from the front”, but the trouble is it is often easier said than done. We must demand of ourselves as leaders a higher standard. We must be visible to our men, in all hardships at all times, whether it be in garrison, training, or combat. Our presence or absence will often be the determining factor in the attitudes of our units.

If we as leaders in the United States Army can commit ourselves to these two responsibilities, to treat our soldiers with the respect they deserve and to always share in their hardships with them, then I have no doubt we are fit to face whatever challenges this next century has lying in wait for us. It will not be the victory of our bright leaders, or even the victory of our strong soldiers. Rather it will be the victory won by the loyalty that binds us together as one fighting spirit.  It will be our victory together over hardship and tyranny.

Land Nav Part I (Butterflies)

Last week Bravo Company packed up its bags and went out to the field to spend three nights sleeping under the stars at a small base camp lodged just in between Yankee North and Yankee South. Yankee North and Yankee South are land navigation courses used for OCS, IOBC, NCO courses, and Ranger school. They can be pretty difficult, especially Yankee North, due to the thick vegetation and ruggedness of the terrain. Our object was to have all 154 OCs of Bravo company get a “go” on Yankee South in three tries or less. My personal goal was to gain some confidence in my LandNav abilities, a skill I will need moving forward in the Infantry world, and to get a “go” on my first run if I could. I was nervous as we prepared our sleeping bags our first night out in the field.

My LandNav experiences in the past had done little to build my confidence in my abilities. We had done three different lanes on two different courses at Basic. The first two were extremely easy, but even still, my first time out I became disoriented on our second point and was flustered the rest of our time on the course. The third lane we did, almost at the end of Basic, was much harder. It was a difficult course and in my group we had trouble finding our first point. In fact we spent over an hour and eventually were forced to move on without it, because we simply could not locate the point. We went on to have mixed success with the rest of the course, finding our next two points through terrain association. That felt good. Our next two points eluded us, however, and we became disoriented on our way back to the rallying point. We ended up coming back in an hour late with only two out of five points for the course. It was disheartening.

The hardest part of these failures was that I knew I could do better than I had. While I had never done any formal land navigation before coming into the Army, like some might do in Eagle scouts or in an orienteering club, I had used maps and terrain association quite a bit when scouting out my hunting positions last summer in anticipation of the Fall archery season in Connecticut. I had taken to it with ease and found maps and locating specific points to be enjoyable. I couldn’t, therefore, understand why I was having so much trouble with Army LandNav.

Monday night at 19:30 we paired up into buddy groups to get a practice run on Yankee North before the next morning when we would get our first try on the actual course. I paired up with OC Redemption, a good partner to have because he keeps his cool under stress. He is not a whiner, which is always a relief. There are too many whiners in the Army and they all seem to come out of hiding within an hour of deploying to the field.

We received a lane with 7 points. We had 2 and ½ hours to plot our points on our maps, determine our route, go get the points and get back to our camp. We both knew we would probably not get all of our points, but we still set out with an optimistic plan to take them all. We found our first point with ease, only 100 meters off of Yankee Road, which dissects the two courses. From there we had to shoot an azimuth through the woods, just a shade North of due West, for roughly 900 meters. The vegetation was thick. We struggled to break through thorn bushes and spider webs to keep on course. Redemption was the compass man and I kept the pace count, to make sure we didn’t over or undershoot our point.

When we go to about 850 meters, we slowed down, swiveling our heads back and forth, scanning through the thick vegetation looking for the orange and white signpost of our point. 900 meters came and we hadn’t seen it. 950 meters and we came to a clearing, on a small hill. We couldn’t see it. At one klick we hit an unimproved road at the edge of the clearing. It was on the map and we had overshot our point. We walked up and down the road trying to spy our point for about 10 minutes unsuccessfully. We then double backed to see if we had missed the point the first time. Nothing was found upon closer inspection. We were off track. I kept looking at the map, trying to use terrain association to pinpoint where we were in relation to our point. I just couldn’t visualize it though. My brain was clogged. There were to many hills right in that area. It could have been either North or South of us, I figured. But it wasn’t far, either way. Frustration started to grip my mind as the clock continued to tick.

OC Redemption and I needed a plan to locate this point. We needed to use the dirt road, which was the closest major land marker. Just about half a klick to our south the road intersected with Yankee Road. We figured we could run over to that intersection, shoot an azimuth to our point and track it down from there. And that is exactly what we did. And this time we fanned out, with about 50 meters in between us, to cover more area. So as we tracked our way up North from the intersection, we kept in visual and voice contact, checking with each other every 100 meters or so. We walked over the hill we had searched before, on the edge of the clearing, and I was about 30 meters short of my end count when we hit the northern edge of the clearing and there was a drop off the hill down into a little draw of a dried up creek. I shouted out to Redemption with joy as I looked left and saw our point just another 25 meters in front of me. “Hell yeah!” I high fived Redemption as he ran over, smiling wide, “We got that shit”. It felt great to track down the point after not being able to find it initially. It is that kind of trouble shooting that really builds confidence.

At that point we should have called it a night. It was 2100 already and our next point was another klick and a half through the woods. But it was still light out and we were feeling confident after our success with the last point. I also think neither one of us wanted to come in with just two out of seven points. So we quickly developed a plan to track down our next point by cutting due West through the woods to the western limit of the course, Jamestown Road. From there we would head North until we would reach an intersection between Jamestown Road and an unimproved road; the intersection is only a couple hundred meters from our point. From there we would shoot a quick azimuth and track it down.

We got off to a quick start, heading due West, down little draws and up hills, thick with vines and felled trees and weeds growing every which way. It took us a little longer than we had hoped, but we eventually came out of the thick onto Jamestown Road. We picked up a quick pace and by 2130 we were at our intersection, but it was getting pretty dark by this time. We shot our azimuth and started off for our point. When we got to 300 meters, our estimated count, we couldn’t see our point. It was too dark to track it down and we were running out of time. Suddenly we saw some red lights up ahead of us, about 150 meters out. We couldn’t tell what they were, but as we got closer we realized they were the lights on a pick up. As we got within 10 meters of the truck, I knew it was Captain Sunshine and SSG Runswaytoofast. Oh boy, here we go, I thought.

We walked right up to the window. Sunshine sort of chuckled and asked what were doing so far out from the camp this late. OC Redemption explained that we were trying to get one last point before we headed in and that we simply couldn’t find it out here in the dark. “Well yeah you guys are right on top of it actually, I mean if it was light out I could point to it from here, so good job on that” he said with a surprising degree of gaiety in his voice. “The trouble is you guys are about three kilometers out from the camp site and you have 10 minutes to get back before time is up” he said smiling big and broad. He looked back at SSG Runswaytoofast, who was smiling too and then he sort of motioned back to the bed of his truck, which had a cover on it. “As you can see I don’t have any room for you, so you guys are going to have to do some double time to get back”. With that he let out a loud laugh and, SSG Runswaytoofast, laughing as well, added, “Yeah you guys are going to have to get some PT time in on your way back”. OC Redemption and I just smiled and laughed and turned around and headed off on our way South along the unimproved road we thought traveled parallel to Jamestown Road.

About five minutes down the road, we realized we should have just back-tracked to Jamestown Road from where we had been, because we had gotten all turned around on this stupid dirt road. So there we were, it was totally dark out and we were lost in the woods roughly three kilometers from where we needed to be, if not more. We shot an azimuth due south and just started trudging through the thickest vegetation we had thus far encountered. It was comical. We were in the thick of it and while we were in good spirits, just below the surface we both knew that we needed to get out of the woods. If we ran up on a wild boar in the dark, thick vegetation like that we would have been in deep doodoo. Neither of us mentioned that, or any of the other dangers, but we both knew it. So we kept pushing through the vegetation and giant, prehistoric spider webs of Yankee North, fighting our way South through the dark, warm Georgia night.

Eventually we got to a dirt road we recognized and we followed that down to Yankee Road, where a cadre member who did have room for us in his Pathfinder gave us a ride back to camp. The ride back was quiet. It had been a partial success, I reasoned, because we had found that one point which we had been unable to find at first and we had successfully gotten ourselves to within eyesight of another difficult point (if only we had had light enough to see it). Nonetheless we were a “no-go” when we handed in our answer key back at camp, because we had come in almost an hour late. “No-go”, the words sunk into your mind bit by bit. LandNav is the single event, aside from the history test, which causes the most recycles at OCS. I didn’t want to get recycled. I didn’t think I would, but still those words “no-go”, rang through some distant, yet present room of my mind. So as I unfurled my sleeping mat and took off my ACU blouse I was, in spite of my efforts to remain upbeat, somewhat nervous for what the morning would bring and my first solo run on Yankee South.

Pressure Cooking and the Latrine Nazi

            The week before last the Cadre started to turn up the heat on Bravo company. One could have guessed it was coming; things had been running a little too smoothly. And the equation was already perfect, waiting for just a little pressure to send the whole company into a tailspin. Branch allocations had been released and everyone was watching the OML and jealously counting their neighbors points and trying to gauge if they would be able to get their first pick come branch day. On top of that our schedule was chalk -full with both classes and physical events, with three tests in total coming up in the week counting towards our ranking on the OML.

            When we came back from our afternoon classes on Tuesday, 3^rd platoon’s trainers had that look in their eye, like they were fixing to bring the hammer down on us. 3^rd platoon’s Officer trainer, who I will call Captain Sunshine, is probably the harshest cadre member in Bravo company. It is not that he is a terrible person or sadistic really, he just seems sort of bitter about his position here. He has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about something, I guess. He is in every way, I should make clear, a professional with great integrity. He is simply not as forgiving as most of the other Cadre members and certainly not as upbeat as Captain Mac. Captain Sunshine is always eager to point out and “correct” whatever deficiencies he can find in us.

            Sunshine went straight for the jugular, calling out more than half the members of his platoon off a list he had pulled from his pocket. Immediately you could tell, as you heard the names go out, that the rubber was about to meet the road and we were all going to get burnt up. SSG Runswaytoofast, the senior NCO trainer for 3^rd platoon was lecturing 1^st platoon on the deficiencies he had “highlighted” in their room displays upstairs. Then he stepped quickly over to our platoon. “Ah 2^nd platoon, my favorite platoon because your trainers like to claim you’re squared away, but then I go to check and you are far from it” he started, not in an angry or mean way, but rather just a direct, no sugar sort of fashion that all combat Officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned seem to speak. “I went through your rooms today and highlighted the deficiencies that I found. I didn’t give out any spot reports because that’s not my place, but there were a lot of issues with your room displays. There was one security violation, someone left their compass out”. I quickly ran back in my mind to the memory of locking up my compass in the lower right hand drawer of my wall locker. It wasn’t me, I was fairly certain. Phew! A Class II violation like that this far into the cycle means you would spend the rest of your weekends waxing floors and cleaning toilets.

            I had already received a minus 5 spot report the week before, on Friday, and it had cost me six places on the OML. A spot report is not as severe as a violation like a Class II or I; it doesn’t come with any administrative punishment. Rather it is a “on the spot” report a cadre member can give a candidate for doing something worthy of either reward or punishment. The spot report I had received the previous Friday had been because my desk display was disorganized. It was a marginal call, but I did not dispute it because I simply figured they were going to start reviewing everything a lot more closely. So I had taken the time that weekend to square away my room display because I didn’t want to lose anymore points in the OML.

            To my delight when we got upstairs I was happy to find that my care and attention over the weekend had paid off. While most of the platoon had their clothes strewn on the floor, or their beds pulled apart, my display had gone untouched. There was a fair amount of luck in that, no doubt, like anything else in the Army school environment, but nonetheless I was happy I had taken the time to get my display straightened out that weekend. Needless to say everyone else was not as pleased as I. There was trash thrown in the hallway from the female latrine, which I guess had also been jacked up. While SSG Runswaytoofast had not given any of us spot reports, Captain Sunshine must have, because a half a dozen people had to report downstairs to SFC Skinny to sign their negative 5 point spot reports. The general spirit was one of dejection and anxiousness. Some people had been gigged up for things that they thought they had done right. An element of insecurity and ambiguity had been injected into the environment. That, coupled with most people’s desire to perform as high as possible for the OML in order to secure their first pick for branch selection led to a frustration and mild panic.

The cadre continued to apply pressure as the week went on, gigging up four more Officer Candidates from my platoon by seizing their camelbacks as we were upstairs showering after breakfast chow, the next day, and claiming that they had been left unsecured. There was nothing wrong in their assertion, except that we had never left guards for our camelbacks before and we had never been briefed to do so by any of the cadre at any point. The arbitrary nature of this move confused and frustrated those OCs immensely, and it again lent to the general panic within the company as everyone now began to stand even a little higher on their toes as they walked through the events of the week.

The cadre’s attempt to unease us all was quite effective. People began to falter from their super ego displays left and right, becoming shorter with each other, trading in their previous smiles and laughs in for grimaces and harsh words.  It is at a moment like this when old “Harry” Calhoun would have taken the bait and jumped into the fray, engaging in the destructive exchange of insults and frustrations and accusations that so many succumb to far too easily under stress. But I remembered my previous experiences and collected myself to guard my better spirits against the waves of pernicious energy that were running rampant through the platoon and the company. I tried to remind myself that whatever stress I was experiencing here, would be nothing compared to what I will one day soon enough face in combat, where I will be depended upon as an Officer to maintain the standard of equanimity. I reflected on how, in fact, all of this was really a wonderful opportunity for me to practice maintaining my composure.

Others responded to the stimulus of stress in a variety ways. Perhaps the funniest reaction was that of our beloved OC Latrine Nazi. Latrine Nazi is not in my platoon, but is in 1^st platoon, that shares the second floor of the barracks with us. All of the males from our two platoons also share one latrine together for personal hygiene in the mornings.  It is a crowded yet unavoidable situation. There are 4 student latrines in the whole barracks, 3 for males and 1 for the females. The 1 latrine for the females happens to be on the second floor, so therefore 1^st and 2^nd platoon males are all forced to cram into one latrine with 5 dry sinks, 2 wet sinks, 3 urinals, 4 toilets, and 4 shower stalls. It is not really that bad, but it is certainly harder for all of us to get in and out of there in the mornings than it is for the 3^rd and 4^th platoon males, who have the same space for half the number of OCs.

The real trouble with the latrines being set up this way, is that we have to rotate the cleaning schedule between our 2 platoons. Let me retract that: there is no trouble with the rotation of the cleaning duties between the two platoons, but rather this became the friction point for OC Latrine Nazi. Undoubtedly trying to get 50 to 60 males all in and out of the shower in 45 minutes in the morning and then clean up after them can seem overwhelming, but there is really not all that much to cleaning the latrines. You get a mop, soak up excess water on the floors, you squeegee the shower doors and sink tops and you make sure any debris is picked up. It takes about 4 minutes and 3 people. I guess you also have to check and make sure all of the toilets and urinals have been flushed. Oh yes, and I forgot, you have to take out the trash. Oh my!

The week before last was 1^st platoon’s duty week in the latrine and I guess Latrine Nazi’s squad must have been assigned to it, because he was on the detail all week. And about halfway through the week, just as the walls were collapsing and everyone was looking for a self-affirming battle to win, a way of gaining the illusion of righteousness, the Latrine Nazi’s lesser self focused on the latrine as his negative release point. Specifically he created a myth in his mind of how it was 2^nd platoon who was walking all over his hard work and trashing the bathroom at every opportunity either for lack of consideration or perhaps just out of spite.

OC Latrine Nazi began standing post at the latrine door in the mornings after they had cleaned and at night(when 2^nd platoon is technically supposed to be using the first floor Cadre latrine) refusing members of 2^nd platoon entry to use the facilities. One day after breakfast I went to use the urinal and when I was done I went to wash my hands in the wet sink. Latrine Nazi was there and he flipped out, gasping and interrogating me as to what I was doing. “I’m washing my hands” I replied, almost unsure as to where I was, I was so caught off guard by his assault. “Well thanks a lot, really, why don’t you just use the hand sanitizer” he exclaimed emotionally. I looked down to his right and there was, indeed, a giant bottle of hand sanitizer. But personally I find it more sanitary to wash one’s hands when one can. I started to drop my jaw to respond, but was lost for words. “I’m just washing my hands man”. I tried to impart upon him the harmlessness of my actions without going into a long explanation. “Yeah well we have to keep the sinks dry, so you are just making more work for me after I’ve already cleaned that sink”.

Ok, if I had been splashing water all over the place perhaps I would have understood his complaint. But I was simply washing my hands, in the wet sink.  “You don’t have to keep these two dry, they are wet sinks we can use throughout the day” I explained to him, trying to mask my growing irritation with his idiotic behavior. “C’mon man” he shrugged his shoulders have if he were trying really hard to show me the logic behind his complaint, “I don’t want to get a negative spot report”. I snapped a bit: “You’re not going to”. “It’s not your neck on the line,” he muttered as he turned his head. I lost it for a second and sharply questioned whether he had gotten a spot report for the wet sink being wet. He just put his head down. I finished washing my hands and left the latrine just as he was getting into it with another OC who was walking up to the other wet sink to wash his hands. I just shook my head.

It is those kinds of petty disputes that will tear a group apart under stress. That and cliques. And Latrine had created both in one instance, by accusing all of 2^nd platoon of violating “latrine etiquette”. It is a common way of dealing with stress and aggravation: create a moral enemy, someone to make you feel important and justified. It releases your energies by giving you an outlet. The Latrine Nazi could let off some steam by fighting with us. The trouble is that the people you focus on are usually on your side, not to mention the friction created by such outbursts usually causes the individual more stress in the long run.  

To 2^nd platoon’s credit no one took his bait. No one went ape shit on him, even though the Latrine Nazi was way out of line and even outright disrespectful of others in week 5 of OCS. I wonder what kind of a 2^nd Lieutenant he is going to make when he gets to his unit. It is very telling to watch how people cope with stress; those who can still laugh and smile through it all are the ones I tend to think will make good platoon leaders.