Wonderful paper. My concerns are twofold: That we’ll never have enough SF, never could have enough SF, to do the job (and if we tried we’d see quality drop through the floor), and that there’s still a requirement for more or less heavily armed regulars to keep the Taliban from massing enough to upset the apple cart (a nice euphemism for massacre our teams and their supporters / tribes).

If you’re interested, send me a snail mail to nrvlaw at aol dot com, and I’ll send you a couple of books that might be useful or, who knows, at a minimum entertaining.

best,

Tom Kratman
LTC, AUS (Retired)

tomkratman.com

Joe Long

Yeah, I used to live this stuff when I was an infantry officer about 20 years ago. Now I am a lawyer in Baton Rouge. Are you still at Ft. Polk? Have you ever heard of the Chindits? The British took infantry soldiers and turned them into guerrilla fighters to attack the Japanese rear in WWII. You also have the Montagnard model where SF embedded with an indigenous tribe to interdict the Ho Chi Minh trail in the Central Highlands during the Vietnam War. Maybe I could buy you a beer some weekend and we can talk about this proposal? BR is about three hours from Ft. Polk.

Let me know,

Joe Long
Attorney at law
247 Florida Street
Baton Rouge, LA 70801
(225) 343-7288

I just realized you asked both questions…sorry! This is a very important question. Here is what I think…First, the reason we first went to Mangwel was because of a “problem”. that “problem” was a fued withing the same tribe. Now this is where things get “sticky”…We very rarely operate in the “black” or the “white”…it is usually in the “grey”. I would venture to say the great teams spend almost all of their time there…so, I decided with very little actual information to tell Malik Noorafzhal that we would support him in whatever he wanted to do. Risky? I don’t know – but it was a good decision. Now to your question: Obviousely TETs would not “face off” against one another…now, as it is with security and protection, it is the relationship you have with the tribal leader that will decide what happens. Now, everything you have done since day one to build a true relationship with the tribal leader and his advisors come into play. Do you have enough “influence without authority” to keep this from happening? Can you influence the underlying issue/problem? Does the other TET have more influence than you? Can you make him see why we can’t do this? Can you and the other TET work “together” to find a mutually beneficial solution? Do you understand the culture enough, to include Pashtunwali, to use it to your advantage? Can you also determine when, in the worst case scenario , you know you can no longer influence the situation and the other TET is in danger? What do you do now? Have you planned for it? Do you stay? Does just one TET exfil? Do you both?

So! As you can see – I do not have the answer. I believe that “being there” with the right people can keep situations like this to a minimum. In closing, one of the most important pieces of information that a TET would need would be as much information as possible on the “human terrain” in the entire area. I would want to know prior to “infil” if possible, if a situation like this existed.

But I can assure you this…I would want other great team members with me to help me deal with a situation like this.

Thanks again!

STRENGTH AND HONOR

Jim Gant

Thank you very much for reading the blog and posting. You obviousely have some experience with this type of situation…

First, to me the most important question you ask is “would the SF community embrace non SF soldiers…side by side?” I can answer that with a definite “yes”. You would have to ask Travis Weitzal, Clay Petty, Luke Murray, Brent Watson, and Dave Casson. Ask them how they were treated on ODA 316. Yes, we ran some attachments off, but we ran some other SF guys off as well. It was tough to get into our (ODA 316) “tribe” (no pun intended). We didn’t give a damn about the tab. Are you a warrior or not? That is all that mattered to any of us. The guys mentioned above wore our team patch; we slept, ate, trained and fought TOGETHER. If you notice they are all mentioned in the back of the paper. They were given great responsibility. They went through all of our individual skills training and then were incorporated into all of our collective immediate action drills (IADs). The could shoot all the weapons, were very competent in combat trauma, could use all the radios, call for CAS and CASEVAC, etc. We are all still in touch today. Luke Murray lost his leg in IED strike about 25 miles north of Mangwel. They weren’t a part of the team…they owned as much of it as I did. But as I said, you would have to ask them.

Second, I like the “split” team concept where we would just “flip-flop” and while one group was in the box the other was resting, training, going to school, and reading the daily SITREPs.

Two things…I think the number of people you are talking about is too high. Me and one of my buddies (who I would want to take) have talked extensively about the correct number of guys for the TET. Of course, that would be situationally dependant, however, I believe it is three on the low end and six on the high end. That is one of the main reasons I believe this concept is so attractive. I believe we could do so much more with so much less (resources, soldiers and money) however, the TETs would have to be given that “special trust and confidence” to do what was needed. Also, if SF was going to take the lead on this, the issues on page six of the paper would need to be addressed – in a big way. Our normal method of operating would have to change, just like it would if we were asked to conduct a true UW mission in a semi-permissive environment.

So, I will quit rambling…

Thanks again and keep writing…I am taking notes. Really.

STRENGTH AND HONOR

Jim Gant

In order for this embed program to work, you would have to augment an ODA with soldiers who have the right skill set to effectively interact with the tribes. In addition to the 12 man team, you augment with another 12 to 24 soldiers who are attached to the ODA. Your team would have to then split, with 1/2 of the unit training or doing predeployment ops CONUS while the other half is down range. This would be the only way logistically you could swing it. The unit downrange would do regular SITREPS to their CONUS half of the team to read them in on the ever changing situation. Probably have to do a phased rotation to keep institutional memory and continuity. Logistically, it could be done. But we would have to get over some issues, like the augmentees. They would not be SF qualified but they would be learning SF type skills from the ODA members. To be accepted by the tribes, they would still have to be warriors, so we are looking at combat arms guys. The SF community would have to accept that. There could not be a rift between the “tabbed” SF guys and the augmentees. The tribe would notice it immediately. The only way you would get enough volunteers to do this type of mission is to give them regular rotations home to avoid battle fatigue. That means you have to grow the ODA but current limitations mean non SF soldiers would have to fill in the holes. Would your community embrace non SF soldiers doing SF type missions side by side with the ODA?

Joe Long

What happens when two tribes with imbedded TETs have a beef that the imbedded TETs cannot mediate? Could we have U.S. army troops leading fights against one another? Or would there be a “We can’t fight our brothers” exception that must be understood?” I know that often, we point these tribes at the bad guys, but how often are the beefs between tribes not Al Qaeda or Taliban related?

Hope all is well. Sorry I did not get back to you sooner…been doing some Army training…

Thank you for your comments about the instruction out at Robin Sage. I put a lot of time and effort into being an instrcutor out there. I did what I did out there for guys like you.

Drop me a line at jim.gant@us.army.mil and we will exchange emails and I will answer any questions that I can.

Be proud of who you are and what you do. Your country owes you a debt of gratitude.

STRENGTH AND HONOR

Jim

I’m pretty sure your lecture on cross-cultural communication was the highlight of my school house experience. Having this paper published in serial is not only encouraging for those of us in the middle of the problem you speak of, but also for our families who are perpetually interested in the challenges we face as we attempt to bring a stable infrastructure to Afghanistan.

I have some questions pertaining to tribal relations in a more specific area, that I would love to have you field offline if you could just drop me a quick note with your e-mail.

I’m glad to hear you’re finally back in the fight.

Don’t Be Safe,
18C 20th Grp