Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1 Page 18

  Joint education was to be required of all officers; all service schools were now to have a joint war-fighting curriculum approved and accredited by the Joint Staff; prior to promotion to flag rank, officers were required to serve in joint assignments; and those who qualified as CINCs would have to serve in a joint assignment as a flag officer.

  Goldwater-Nichols was not an unqualified success. Though it gave the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman JCS, and the Joint Staff full authority to make the strategic analysis that would force decisions and trade-offs between service priorities, budget authority was left within service departments (so they could take care of their Title 10 responsibilities), and that invited bureaucratic maneuvering and interservice rivalry. Each service wanted to gain a larger share of the defense budget. That is still the case ten years and three JCS Chairmen later.

  Goldwater-Nichols was an enormous adjustment for each service department, including the Army. Fortunately, and to its lasting benefit, in the summer of 1987 the Army chose as its new chief an officer uniquely suited for this transitional period, General Carl E. Vuono.

  THE VUONO YEARS

  General Carl Vuono came to be Army Chief as a man long immersed in the Army renaissance. He had not only lived it, he had increasingly helped to form some of its most important policies. He continued to do both as Army Chief.

  In the late 1970s, Vuono had served General Starry as his chief for combat developments, and in that position, he had seen to it that the Army fielded the Big Five in a way that integrated training, organizational design, and equipment fielding so as to gain combat power in the shortest possible time. As commander of the 8th Infantry Division, he had stamped on that unit his own training beliefs and modernization plans, which would become a model for the rest of the Army. At Fort Leavenworth, from 1983 to 1985, as deputy TRADOC commander, he had completed the work on the new Army of excellence and had seen the establishment of SAMS and CAS3. From 1985 to 1986, as Army operations deputy for General Wickham, he had assisted General Bill Richardson in establishing the Joint Readiness Center at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and later at Fort Polk, Louisiana. As TRADOC commander, he had published the first senior leadership doctrine manuals and committed to the establishment of the BCTP for division and corps commanders. He was uniquely qualified to be Army Chief.

  Soon after he took over that position, Vuono laid out a vision for the Army. At its core is what he called a "trained and ready Army" (exactly what the Goldwater-Nichols Act envisioned the service departments should have). He charged the Army with keeping its eye on balancing investments and energies among six imperatives: training, force modernization, war-winning doctrine, quality soldiers, "leader development" (his term), and force structure — with the right mix of heavy, light, and special operating forces to fulfill missions of the CINCs.

  Each of these six imperatives was important, but it was in training and leader development that Vuono was to leave his greatest legacy.

  Vuono was long convinced that if leaders successfully grew other leaders, then that was their finest gift to succeeding Army generations — thus "leader development." Such development was a commander's responsibility, not a staff responsibility of the Department of the Army Chief for Personnel. It had to be related to the way the Army fought. Thus, he wanted leader development institutionalized at the Army's senior tactical war-fighting school at Fort Leavenworth. As we have already seen, that came to be embedded in a three-level approach: formal Army schooling, each level featuring standards that officers had to pass before they could move along to the next stage in their career; practical experience serving in units at various levels of responsibility, including the rigorous experiences of the NTC, JRTC, and BCTP; and self-development through private study, reading, and learning from others.

  Vuono's chief training focus was in a rigorous combat simulation system — hands-on performance-oriented training. Believing that all training short of war was simulation, he had the Army combine computer-assisted simulations and live field maneuvers to give leaders and combat staffs the rigors of simulated combat. For the first time in the Army's history, every commander — from the individual tank commander on his crew-qualification Table VIII to the corps commander on his BCTP WARFIGHTER exercise — had to undergo a rigorous and stressful combat exercise. Every exercise was externally evaluated and followed by a series of AARs. Everyone had to perform to standard.

  Vuono also had training practices codified into training doctrine. Long a believer that mission focus for wartime missions should drive training, he set out to write it into a manual, which was called FM 25-100.

  FM 25-100 coined the term Mission-Essential Task List (METL). METL is a simple concept. A commander examines the wartime mission the theater commander has assigned him and from it determines the tasks necessary for its execution. Thus: Mission-Essential Tasks. Then he has his unit train for these tasks, which are then broken down further by echelon of command, down to individual tasks for soldiers. When FM 25-100 was in preparation, Vuono conducted a series of senior leader training conferences throughout the Army, personally involving other commanders in the composition of the manual. When that one was finished, he set about to produce a second manual, called FM 25-101, which was to provide further details for lower tactical echelons. Together, these standardized the Army's approach to training in schools and on the field.

  As the end of the Cold War approached, Vuono set down three essential tasks for the Army during the transition years to a new strategic era:

  • To win the wars the Army was called on to fight;

  • To maintain readiness in the force not associated with those operations (remembering the deplorable state of readiness of our forces in Europe as they were systematically drawn down to fight in Vietnam);

  • And to remain balanced in the six imperatives as the Army reshaped itself from its Cold War strength of over 1 million active and Reserve component strength to new levels.

  GENERATIONS

  Continuity of focus has been indispensable to the Army's recovery from Vietnam — a focus on training and readiness and the warrior spirit, while maintaining the ability to adapt as the strategic environment and resource availability changed. Such continuity was the consequence of the experience of four generations of leaders, each generation passing the torch to the next.

  In the words of General Carl Vuono, the Army "cannot afford a generation that does not have that focus." Every Army generation must "bring along a cadre of people who feel as strongly" about mission focus and staying trained and ready. For Vuono and all the generations of Army leaders, there could be no compromise.

  The first generation was that of World War II combat leaders, with Korean War combat experience. These men were the commanders of divisions and higher echelons in Vietnam: Westmoreland, Abrams, Weyand, DePuy, Kerwin, Davison, Kroesen.

  The second generation's entire service was in the Cold War. They either had combat experience in Korea; or they'd commanded at battalion or brigade level in Vietnam; and they'd been brigade, division, or corps commanders in the 1970s: Rogers, Meyer, Wickham, Starry, Otis, Cavazos, Richardson, Brown, Keith, Shoemaker, Gorman.

  The third generation did command battalions in Vietnam, and had colonel-level command in the 1970s: Vuono, Thurman, Merritt, Lindsay, and Grange.

  The fourth generation had Vietnam combat experience at company-grade and junior-field-grade levels; and in the Army of the 1970s, they had battalion-level command, from which vantage point they could see firsthand the Army's low points. These men would witness the end of the Cold War, as well as the Army's successes in Just Cause and Desert Storm: Powell, Sullivan, Reimer, Saint, Stiner, RisCassi, Burba, Franks, Joulwan, Luck, Griffith, Peay, Tilelli.

  Continuity in focus and leadership from those who "grew up right" was vital to Army work from the early 1970s to Desert Storm. Neither the U.S. Army nor the nation could afford a "generation gap."

  These four generations of soldiers and civilians were motivated by a sen
se of duty and commitment to the nation. There were no quick fixes. Success was not assured. It was not the result of a single piece of legislation. There were ups and downs, successes and reversals, tensions and disagreements. Factions argued for their positions, and sometimes went too far in one direction, and the right solution had to be found through experimentation. Yet all these were only arguments over ways to reach the ends. The ends were always the same: a combat-ready Army ready to win the first battle of the next war.

  And in the end, it got done. That it did so was the result of quality people, vision, hard work, and perseverance in the face of resistance and obstacles — the very same characteristics that win on the battlefield. It was a successful partnership among the Congress, the Army, the Executive Branch, and the American people. It was a good-news story for America.

  FRED FRANKS—1972–1989

  As the Army was starting its road back, so was Fred Franks — from the depths of Valley Forge to the desert victory in southwest Asia. It took him to schools, to staff work, and to commands where he was given every opportunity to compete and to learn and grow. He was to take his place with his peers among the fourth generation, which had had the opportunity to "grow up right," though for Franks personally there would be an added challenge.

  — At the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, after he left Valley Forge in 1972, Franks learned joint warfare — the combining under one mission and focus of elements of more than one military service; for example, units from the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

  There he would also learn for the first time how readily he was accepted back into the family of the military. There was no mention of his amputee condition; instead he was accepted for what he could do. He coached a slow-pitch softball team and played himself, played volleyball as well, and threw himself into a rigorous regimen of physical conditioning, pushing himself to see if he could still compete. There he would also hear from his Navy and Air Force classmates of their Vietnam battles in the air over North Vietnam and the courage that took. It would heighten his own feelings for those who had served in Vietnam.

  — From the time he left the Armed Forces Staff College until June 1975, Franks was on the staff at the Department of the Army and then was military assistant to three Army undersecretaries. While he was on the Department of the Army staff, he worked again for General Donn Starry, and he met Colonel Dick Cavazos for the first time. Both assignments gave him a great appreciation for the enormous challenges involved in rebuilding the Army. From there came command of a cavalry squadron in the 3rd ACR in June 1975. That tour was the true turning point for Franks. That the U.S. Army would take the risk to allow him to command a cavalry squadron only heightened his commitment. When he left that post a year and a half later, he would say, "I felt whole again as a man and as a soldier. The soldiers and leaders on the field in front of me were responsible for that. We had been through a lot together and I had grown as a leader. I knew that with their help I had passed my own test as an armored cavalry commander. I would be forever grateful and would never forget our service together and that close cavalry brotherhood."

  Late in 1976, six months before he attended the National War College, Franks took part in what was called the Tank Force Management Group. The concept behind it was simple: though the numbers of the U.S. armor force are small, their contributions on the battlefield are huge. But at that time, the armor force needed a lot of work in order to realize that potential. The TFMG's mission was to focus its attention in an armor context on areas such as doctrine, training, material improvements, and soldier quality. In other words, the group was a microcosm for the work the entire Army was trying to do after the sharp lessons of the 1973 Mideast War.

  At the TFMG, Franks came to his first realization about how far the Army needed to go before it could actually fight and win on the kind of battlefield it had seen in the Mideast. If the armor — the Army's heaviest punch — needed the intensive effort he and the others were putting in at TFMG, what kind of shape was the rest of the Army in?

  Later, during the 1977-78 school year, he studied strategic and national security issues with students from the other services and from civilian agencies of the government at the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. That year included intense studies of the Middle East, such as a trip in which he personally saw the 1973 battlefields with both Israeli and Egyptian escorts.

  In the summer of 1978, Franks began his first stint at TRADOC, under General Starry and then under General Otis. He was there for over three years, working to develop his, and the Army's, ideas about current and future land warfare (with the emphasis on maneuver warfare). There was — additionally — a practical side: during his first eighteen months at TRADOC, he directed an office under Major General Carl Vuono that wrote requirements for future weapons systems, watched over systems already in development to make sure they got through all their decision gates on the way to procurement, and made sure the Army was able to rapidly assimilate these new and improved weapons systems in a way that increased combat power. Again, the mix of ideas and practice that so characterized his Army career. Here also was another splendid window for viewing the Army's rebirth.

  From the other side of the desk (from 1985 to 1987), now-Major General Franks was deputy commandant of the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth. As deputy commandant, Franks not only ran the college on a day-to-day basis but set long-term policy goals. It was like being chancellor and president all rolled into one.

  He was glad to be there, for it was both the intellectual center for tactical thought and a great crossroads of the Army. He liked to teach and to throw ideas around in discussions about the profession of arms: ideas about command, war fighting, maneuver, fighting deep, team building, soldiers… ideas that have appeared in many guises throughout this book.

  At West Point and afterward, he did the normal professional reading and liked to experiment with new ideas and innovations. He realized how much personal study and reading it took to be a serious, professional soldier, and was further inspired by the examples of soldiers such as Creighton Abrams, Bill DePuy, and Donn Starry. These men linked hard-nosed, professional soldiering with forward-looking ideas; and, so armed, they helped to begin to lead the Army back from Vietnam.

  Later, when Franks commanded the 11th ACR, General Bo Williams paid him a compliment that has stayed with him since: "You're a soldier with ideas," Williams told him, "but you're also a very practical soldier, who always figures out how to execute the ideas before you raise them."

  On Christmas Eve, 1986, while Franks was deputy commandant of CGSC, he learned that he was to be appointed the first J7 on the Joint Staff. The Goldwater-Nichols Act required generals to have joint-duty experience before they could become a CINC or serve as a general in a joint assignment. Since Franks was what was called a "joint-duty lacker," he needed such an assignment. He was not, however, thrilled to take this new job. Now at age fifty, he was, in fact, devastated to leave CGSC in the middle of the school year to be going to a staff assignment in the Pentagon.

  But of course he went, because that's what soldiers do.

  As J7, his official title was director of operational plans and interoperability. That meant that he and his new staff were responsible for the worldwide war plans of all the Unified Commands and for promoting improved interoperability among all the uniformed services. Or, more simply, his job was to make sure that in their joint missions, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines worked well together… Not easy. It was three months after enactment of Goldwater-Nichols, and the climate was hostile. The services did not like what was happening to their authority, and Franks was a junior major general on a three-star staff who was trying to start up a new agency.

  At that time, there was no joint doctrine, joint doctrine program, or joint requirements system. There also was no lessons-learned system — to learn from mistakes so that corrective action could be taken next time. There was a joint e
xercise program, but it had no basis in mission tasks. In other words, there was no system for analyzing worldwide missions, then determining joint tasks, and then setting up an exercise program to practice those tasks.

  In other words, his goal was to form a kind of joint equivalent of the Army's TRADOC.

  That didn't happen completely, but Franks and his staff did have some successes — coming up, for example, with a means to analyze joint Mission-Essential Tasks, which became the basis for the yearly joint exercise programs; beginning a joint doctrine program; and publishing the first joint doctrine. They also helped General Bob Herres establish the Joint Requirements Oversight Council to better define new systems requirements that fit more than one service.

  In the spring of 1988, General Vuono managed to get a waiver for Franks that asserted he was now "joint qualified" and so rescued Franks from what should have been a three-year tour of duty. Franks was now to assume command of the 1st Armored Division in the middle of July, and a year later he would become a lieutenant general commander of VII Corps. It was in that position that he would encounter the greatest challenge of his life.

  If we can begin to understand what he and the Army went through in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait from 24 to 28 February 1991, however, we will first have to understand one thing.