Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [141]
Nine-one-two musters in the team room at 0700 following their return from the nation’s capital. “I know you guys didn’t get back until late last night,” Major Eric James tells his captains, “and you may find yourselves a little short on sack time from here on out. There’s a lot of ground to cover and not much time left. Now we begin unconventional warfare. The UW planning exercise will be intense and take you deeply into the Pineland order of battle and the Robin Sage exercise scenario that is a big part of Phase IV.
“You all saw the detail that goes into planning a mission to help an allied force defend itself against insurgents. Now we’re going to plan an insurgency. We are the ones who’re now going to help the insurgents to oust the government in power. Although we don’t call them insurgents anymore; they are now guerrillas or freedom fighters. Guys, let me tell you, this is hard stuff. Most of you have worked with battle staffs with a full complement of operational planners, logisticians, communications specialists, combat support elements—the whole enchilada. As a team leader taking an ODA into a UW environment, the whole thing falls to you. You are not planning a single mission; you are planning a whole campaign. You have the formatted MDMP to guide you, but it’s only a guide. You’ll have to ask a lot of questions and get very detailed in your planning. In a UW scenario, every move you make has to be gamed for its impact down the line—how it impacts your guerrilla force, how it affects the local population, and how it supports the commander’s intent and your mission.”
Major James passes out an exercise message that tasks student ODA 912 with preparing to enter the nation of Pineland ahead of conventional coalition forces. Their mission is to train and organize the irregular forces that now oppose the government of Pineland, and to conduct an unconventional-warfare campaign. They are also to provide intelligence and condition the battle space for an invasion by coalition forces. He gives them a few minutes to read the tasking.
“Your planning has to take into account the capability of the guerrilla force in place and the capability of the enemy. How can you target the enemy’s command-and-control infrastructure with your force? Think of the reaction of the enemy; what do you want to show on the battlefield—what’s your signature? You can think way out of the box; your only constraints are a reasonable measure of support and the moral and legal constraints that’re always part of what we do. I want to see some good thinking on how to get the job done with minimum risk to you and the local assets you have available to you. In the Robin Sage exercise, there will be both physical and exercise constraints that are artificial. In this planning exercise, you can turn yourself loose—be creative within reason. This is downrange important. You will do this for real.
“As you build your potential courses of action, keep in mind that you are preparing your sector for a follow-on conventional allied operation. What intelligence can you send back to help with that operation? What’s the suitability for the primary and secondary roads to support division-sized movement? How effective are the Pineland internal security forces? How do you identify spies among the guerrillas you are going to train and take into battle? What are the potential targets that you can begin to identify that will degrade or disrupt the enemy’s mobility? What are your plans for the demobilization of your guerrilla force after D-day? See what I’m getting at? You’ve a lot of planning to do and a lot of questions that need answers. And every move you make has to be thoroughly war-gamed. What does that decision mean now and how does that decision affect