Airborne (1997) (52 page)

Precisely at 1815 hours/6:15 PM, we heard the sound of C-141s in the distance, and then the transports were upon us. Eleven C-141Bs from the 437th at Charleston AFB, carrying almost 1250 troopers. The transports were lined up in formations of three (except for the last one), staggered to reduce the chances of a midair with a jumper. First out the door of the lead aircraft was General Crocker, followed by the Division Command Sergeant Major (CSM), Steve England. Right after them came Colonel Petraeus and his new CSM, David Henderson, who had replaced Vince Meyers after Royal Dragon. The air seemed full of parachutes and soldiers and the transport stream needed several runs to finish unloading the entire brigade. In the end, the jump went almost perfectly, with only a few minor back and leg injuries in the dimming twilight. In less than half an hour, the brigade was on the ground and moving out.

As soon as the first troopers hit the ground, LGOPs began to form and move off towards their objectives. Several groups of paratroops headed in our direction, beginning to engage the guerrillas that we had chatted with a few minutes earlier. Simulated firefights broke out (using blank ammunition and the laser-activated MILES gear). Things began to get exciting.

At the major’s suggestion, we left the area to those who needed the training and retired to our quarters back at Fort Polk. The next morning, though, we were out early to visit Devil-6 and his headquarters unit. Unfortunately, when we found them, it turned out that the Brigade Tactical Operations Center (TOC) had never been set up the previous night. The original site selected for the TOC had turned out to be full of guerrillas, and the headquarters would be sited in a new place later in the day. This meant that the first day’s fight would have to be directed out of the mobile TOC (loaded into Hummers), which was much less efficient. The brigade would pay for this failure to set up later, but for now, things seemed to be going well. C-130s were flying supplies into the small dirt airstrip, and the various units were already digging in with the assistance of the engineering company and their earth-moving equipment. Within twenty-four hours, the brigade command posts, artillery, and logistical sites would be dug in deep. They would need to be, because the guerrillas were getting nasty.

The airborne assault of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade onto the Simulated Joint Readiness Training Center Battlefield at Fort Polk, Louisiana. About 1250 1st Brigade “Devils” parachuted into the JRTC 97-1 Rotation Exercise during October of 1996.

By dawn of the D-Day+2 (Monday, the 14th of October), the units in the DZ were taking intermittent fire from a handful of pesky guerrilla mobile mortar teams. In addition, man-portable surface-to-air missile (SAM) teams were beginning to get shots at some of the Brigade’s helicopter force. Therefore, Colonel Petraeus ordered those teams hunted down and killed by the brigade’s force of OH-58D Kiowa Warriors and the howitzers firing in a counterbattery mode against mortar teams. By the fourth day of the operation, they had done a pretty good job, having killed something like two thirds of the enemy weapons teams. However, not all was well.

The simulated casualties had been heavy during the initial phases of the operation, and the brigade was late in getting the MEDEVAC/treatment /replacement cycle started. Part of the reason for this was the delay in setting up the TOC until D-Day+1. The result was the brigade’s strength was dropping, and would bottom out around D-Day+5 at about 70 percent of drop strength. From there, they would slowly build back up, this vital lesson learned the hard way. Other lessons would be learned as well.

Some of these were learned by folks like Major Rob Baker, the Brigade’s Operations Officer (S-3). Unusually a very sharp officer, he failed to follow the advice of CSM Henderson one day while visiting the various battalion TOCs, and very nearly became a casualty when he left his security detail behind. A sniper started popping off at him, and he wound up scampering off to safety, a vital lesson about balancing physical courage with his responsibilities to the Brigade fully impressed upon him.

Another young officer got a lesson in humility on the night of D-Day+2. That evening, John and I were with Major Beinkemper, sitting in on an evening briefing by the staff in the Brigade TOC. At the precise moment that the young intelligence officer (S-2) announced the apparent demise of most of the enemy mortar teams, several contractor support personnel on all-terrain vehicles pulled up and dumped nine fire markers (mortar-shell simulators) around the TOC. As everyone ran for the cover of the force protection trenches, and the brigade staff tried to get the section of 155mm guns to fire onto the apparent position of the mortar team, you could see Colonel Petraeus smiling at everyone in the TOC and shouting, “No pressure, people!” It was hard not to smirk at the discomfort of the young officer. But such is the way that young officers grow and learn.

Colonel David “Devil-6” Petraeus, Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade, makes a joke with his headquarters staff during a simulated opposing force (OPFOR) Mortar Attack. His comment during the scramble for slit trenches and information? “NO PRESSURE, PEOPLE!”

By D-Day+5, the brigade had achieved all of its planned objectives for the “low intensity” phase of the deployment. Over the past several days, the brigade had enlarged its airhead, gotten caught up on MEDEVAC and casualty replacement, and had finally opened up a secure road route to the west where the brigade aviation element was based, close to the main base at Fort Polk. This had been a bit sticky, because the single company assigned to protect the aircraft and their vulnerable Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) had nearly been destroyed by aggressive patrolling by the rebel forces. In addition, there had been several terrorist incidents, the worst of these being an attack by enemy sappers on the brigade maintenance center near the DZ. For the next few days, maintenance on vehicles and other equipment would be heavily restricted as the personnel went through the replacement system and the equipment was repaired.

Other attacks at JRTC can be damaging as well. They range from emplacing surprise minefields on roads, to the most wild of the civilian role-players, Grandma “Truck Bomb.” This is an elderly civilian contractor employee who plays the wife of the mayor in one of the civilian settlements around the DZ. What she does is make friends with troopers at a particular roadblock or other important security checkpoint, and bring them snacks and cookies for several days. Then, when she sees them getting complacent, she drives up in a truck, walks away, and remotely detonates a simulated truck bomb which will simulate killing everyone within a large area! While this may sound sick, remember some of the assassinations and bombings of the last fifteen years or so, and ask yourself if a granny truck bomber is possible or not.

A simulated terrorist truck bomb is detonated at the Joint Readiness Training Center during a unit rotation. Such “real world” events help make the JRTC the world’s finest infantry training center.

But now the time had come to transition to the “hot war” phase of the deployment, where the regular forces of a neighboring nation to the south and east were moving into the territory of the host nation for an invasion. The forces, built around a simulated Soviet-style motorized rifle regiment (much like the ones in use at the NTC), are supposed to smash into the lightly armed U.S. infantry units and try to push them off their objectives. Colonel Petreaus had other ideas, though. He is a big believer in winning the intelligence/counterintelligence battle before the big fight develops, and he was aggressively patrolling with his troopers to find the route of the enemy advance, due for the morning of D-Day+8 (October 19th).

That night, his patrols destroyed many of the enemy reconnaissance units, and had established the likely route of the enemy attack. He quickly put his two infantry battalions side by side along the route, laid a vicious string of mines and barricades, and chopped the enemy regiment to pieces with artillery and Hellfire missiles from the OH-58Ds, lending to a successful defense of their positions.

This was a stunning victory for 1st Brigade, and it set the OPFOR back on their heels a bit. They did ramp up the threat level a bit with more rebel activity, and even a chemical weapons attack on one of the forward infantry companies, but Devil-6 and his staff were getting stronger now, and their agility on the battlefield was starting to show.

With their victory in the defensive fight, it was time for the 1st Brigade to set up for their final big fight of the deployment: the force-on-force battle for the Shughart-Gordon MOUT facility. As any good infantry leader will tell you, there is no faster way to suffer heavy casualties than to get into a slow urban assault. Nevertheless, Shughart-Gordon was one of the primary objectives that the brigade had to take, so Colonel Petraeus decided to find an indirect route to the objective. Most JRTC participants move to Shughart-Gordon via the east-west Artillery Road that runs from the main base at Fort Polk out to the DZ/airfield in the east. To this end, “Devil-1” decided to grease the wheels of the Shughart-Gordon assault with an indirect approach. To do this, he sent a “pinning” force of M551 Sheridans (the division still had these in late 1996) and Hummers loaded with infantry along the Artillery Road in front of Shughart-Gordon, to draw the attention of the OPFOR blocking force in front of the MOUT site. Then, once he knew that the OPFOR troops were solidly involved with the diversionary force, he force-marched the majority of his force in a wide arc to the south, around the old artillery impact zone that lies in the middle of the range area. Most folks don’t use this area, but Petraeus had checked with the O/Cs and they had ruled the movement legal. So, on the night of the 19th (D-Day+9), the bulk of the brigade moved to a position behind Shughart-Gordon to the northwest of the MOUT site. Then, putting four infantry companies on line together, they just rolled forward over the small security force that the OPFOR had left in the complex. His men just walked in, taking over like a “Big Dog” with a minimum of casualties. Suddenly, the game was all but over. There would be several other terrorist bombings, including a truck bombing of the FARP after it was moved to the north end of the DZ. However, only a couple of UH-60L Blackhawks were lost, and the rest were able to hold the load.

A C-130 Hercules from the 314th Airlift Wing at Little Rock AFB, Arkansas, comes in to land on the dirt landing strip in the Fort Polk Training Range. During their Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) deployments, airborne units draw their supplies from airdrops and air deliveries like this one.