The armed forces are much alike in many respects, but the differences can be truly telling – even within the naval service. And although I’ve had the opportunity to serve and train with Marine infantry embarked aboard amphibious ships, I’ve never gotten ashore with them: My flight boots remain largely undusted. So I read Marine Lieutenant Thomas Daly‘s “Rage Company” with more than a passing interest.
As a young First Lieutenant, Daly was boots on deck in Ramadi, the capital of Sunni Anbar Province, Iraq at the very turning of the tide. He was an artillery officer assigned to Rage, a reinforced rifle company from 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. His Camp Pendleton based unit embarked aboard the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group in September 2006 for their third deployment to Iraq. Arriving in theater in November, they received two extensions, the second in February of 2007, to form a part of President Bush’s surge of forces to Iraq.
1LT Daly’s narrative begins in late November, with Rage Company assigned to the tactical control of an Army unit: 1st Battalion, 37th Armor. The arranged marriage between the soldiers and Marines begins inauspiciously: Within the first few pages of the book, a joint Army/Marine day patrol into the heart of Ramadi takes fire, a Marine lies grievously wounded and Daly – the senior remaining Marine officer aboard the Army Combat Outpost – is denied permission by the Army captain in command of the COP to take the remnants of the Marine platoon in support. Adding insult to injury, the Army captain declines to surge an armored QRF to the casualty collection point – the patrol is forced to man-carry the wounded Marine 500 meters to a casualty evacuation point. Under fire, in daylight, with a cunning adversary maneuvering to advantage.
1/37 wasn’t a visitor in Anbar however, and the Army officer’s hard won wisdom was made clear in the evening, as Daly prepared a night patrol to go in search of the insurgents that had fired on his Marines. After a confirmation brief in the COP, the Marine notices a red circle around an intersection. He asks the Army captain what it signified.
“That’s where the insurgents would have ambushed our casevac if I sent ‘em to pick up the casualty earlier,” the Army officer replied, adding, “The insurgent’s wet dream is to cause a casualty, because then you, the injured dog, become predictable. Wounded, you pick the quickest way out, and at that point where the casualty meets vehicle he is always waiting. He has already calculated where he wants to shoot you, so that you use his ambush point as the casevac. Lieutenant, never take the easy path.”
As a fighter guy who thinks that 10 nautical miles is too close to any enemy you haven’t already committed a missile on, the scale of ground combat never fails to amaze me. In an urban environment, the fight is rarely more than a few hundred meters broad or deep for platoon level operations. A company is assigned responsibility for a few dozen blocks. Young officers lead even younger Marines in this cramped, nightmare landscape, steadied – as ever – by the example of senior NCOs. Fear is an ever present companion, the only distinguishing feature for those under fire, or under its threat, being the skills used to cope. Raw language and toilet humor are common, but at an age where a naval aviator is still in flight training, fresh faced officers lead teenagers in a deadly fight against a mostly unseen enemy. Boredom turns rapidly to maelstrom, and lives depend upon instantly executing training under actual fire. It’s heady stuff to read about, and no doubt even headier to live through. Daly does an excellent job relating it to a generalist audience.
From November to January, Rage Company is shifted first TACON to another Marine battalion – 1/6 – and then back to the Army’s 1st Battalion, Ninth Infantry. They execute night patrols and raids, seeking to round up high value individuals and clear weapons caches. On a good night they capture a few HVIs, only to have them released in a counter-intelligence plot gone south. The terrified residents of Ramadi quail before the dangerous Marines in their full battle rattle searching their homes, and the greatly more dangerous insurgents who watch from a distance, always ready to torture and murder anyone believed, on whatever evidence, to have aided the coalition forces.
There is always friction between varying command elements, and a surprising degree of back talk on tactical comms, at least from an aviator’s perspective. Orders are issued and – remarkably – declined. Deference is always due to the on-scene commander whose forces have skin in the game. But deference is not always given, and the results are sometimes chaotic. Daly relates a fascinating anecdote to illustrate this point vividly: An Army helicopter takes RPG fire, and evades. His wingman spots a blue bongo truck rushing from the scene. A Marine platoon waits until the truck is in range with a clear lane of fire and disables it, killing two or three occupants, others escape. The truck rolls into an open field in broad daylight. Which is where it gets interesting.
The platoon leader is ordered by an out-of-sight company commander to do a sensitive sight exploration of the truck and its contents. With one glance at the surrounding villages that menace the open terrain, the lieutenant declines the order, recommending that a night action be taken instead: The Marines own the night. But the company CO reiterates the order, battalion ops is insistent. Against his better judgment, but splitting his platoon into mutually reinforcing fire teams, the platoon leader ventures out towards the truck. Which is where all hell breaks loose. (You’ll have to read the book to find out how it ends – I can’t give everything away.)
The Marines discover in time that al Qaeda has made a safe haven out of an entire neighborhood, Qatana. Ramadi residents live in fear of what goes in and out of that enclave. The coalition surrounds the neighborhood, locks it down and then clears it block by block, street by street, methodically. It is bloody, dirty work; firefights, snipers and improvised explosive devices are everywhere. But the tide starts to turn, and by Chapter 10 of Daly’s book a group of Saddam era soldiers – and quite probably, former insurgents – show up at the Marine’s combat outpost looking for work. These are the “scouts” of the Thawat al Anbar, the first foot soldiers of the Sunni “Awakening” movement. To drain the swamp of an insurgency, the counter-insurgent first of all needs intelligence – who are the murderers that swim in the sea of people? – Thawat al Anbar provides that intel and their force of arms as well. The rest is history, keeping in mind that the wheel of history never stops moving.
Rage Company is a gripping read from the on scene level. It was not, however, a wholly unalloyed pleasure. Daly has an almost Bidenesque preference of the word “literally,” an adjective for which literalists like your host prefer a narrower, more literal usage. And I have to remind myself at times that he was a very young man in a very difficult environment. He allows himself “amazement” at the Arabic script on the wall of a re-purposed house. In Iraq. There are sufficient small jealousies – he twice allowed himself to get exercised when an ANGLICO element was chosen to supplant him as fires coordinator – and waspish observations on the competency and behavior of his fellow junior officers that at times I almost wanted to kick him. Early in the book – a mere two weeks into his narrative – he declares on what seems to me insufficient evidence that “our ability to defeat al Qaeda was apparent.”
As Bing West notes in his foreword to Rage Company, 1LT Daly had a front row seat to great tidal forces in history: Bush’s surge and the Anbar Awakening happened more or less contemporaneously, people will always differ, I think, as to which was the chicken and which the egg. Those looking to resolve great questions of strategy will look in vain to find their answers in Rage Company, and the book – written as a war diary more than a strategic retrospect – ventures a little out of its depth when its author attempts to grapple with these weighty issues. But for those who want to know what it felt like to be in Indian Country at the platoon level when – for the first time – a whiff of victory blew over the bitter stench of grinding, mutual slaughter it’s a wonderful read.
Recommended.
My copy just arrived the other day fr. amazon — have now moved it to top of “to read” pile. Thx for the review.
I bought it for my Kindle last week and have already finished it. I recommend it highly, too.
Lex and Friends … The Wall Street Journal has a regular feature called The Five Best. Today’s Journal has a listing by Stephen Hunter of the ‘five best’ books which excel in describing war as soldiers know it. He mentions “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” by James D. Hornfischer, Bantam 2004, as a “splendid historical work that reads like a great novel That it is true–that the hugely outnumbered and outgunned Americans succeeded in fending off the Japanese–is simply unbelievable.” The encounter is what was called the Battle of Samar, in which a ragtag flotilla of destroyers, destroyer escorts and Jeep carriers faced off against a much superior Japanese task force led by the Goliath battleship Yamamoto.
And we won. Now there’s a real war movie that those Hollywood types who live in an alternate universe ought to make. For Americans who love their country, their warriors and are proud of them.
Marianne
JOHNSTON, HOEL, SAMUEL B ROBERTS: BRAVO ZULU! HUZZAH!
Well-put, Marianne. I second her recommendation. It’s an excellent book, well-researched and written. When the climactic action occured, I was on the edge of my seat.
Literally.
Read it when it came out. Excellent book. Every sailor, surface or not, should read this book.
Definitely! Had a very LONG commute before joining the Navy and got into books on tape, must of “read/heard” a couple dozen of them. The absolute best by FAR was Tin Can Sailors. Popped it in four or five times, and was blown away by it each time. The fact that my grandfather had served aboard DD-727 USS DeHaven II in WWII was a big motivator for me trying to learn more about the destroyer Navy in that great conflict, and that book was the best payoff.
Concur with Byron’s statement big time.
Marianne, agreed. If you can find a copy, Hanson Baldwin’s Battles Lost And Won includes what I consider the best chapter-length description of Leyte Gulf. His writing emphasizes the human & dramatic elements of history, in which he is not unlike Cornelius Ryan.
To pick a small nit, it was the Yamato, not the Yamamoto. Anime fans all over the world cringe before your error.
One of the better quotes from his work:
Interesting side points:
-The DDs and DEs were to a great degree spared since the Japanese were firing armor-piercing rounds, which tended to go straight through the less-armored (or un-armored CVE) ships.
-The attacks by the DDs and DEs helped to confuse the Japanese commander, especially considering his chart room had been destroyed.
-Navy aviators threw literally everything they had at the Japanese, including dummy practice bombs and dry-firing runs. I don’t recall the source, but the observation comes to mind that the Japanese were rather thrown for a loop by the manner in which every single plane available flew bald-headed right for them, without concern for personal safety. Since they couldn’t differentiate between armed & unarmed attackers, the Japanese ships had to execute evasive maneuvers for all of them, throwing their tactical coordination into chaos.
-This confusion and chaos caused severe Japanese mis-estimations of the then-current situation. For example, escort carriers were seen as fleet carriers. One CVE was cited as traveling at something like 30 knots, and after the war a fellow ship commander said to that skipper “I knew you were scared, but I didn’t know you were that scared!”
If The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors is anything like Baldin’s work, I don’t doubt it would make a magnificent motion picture. Just keep Bruckheimer/Bay, Affleck, and company away from it. {/snerk}
“…Tin Can Sailors” was by far one of the best WWII books I have ever read. Ever.
Five Frigates (founding of the U.S. Navy) and Sea of Thunder (Midway) were also very good. On the subject of books, a friend of mine recently recommended (in his words & I have not read them yet so take with a grain of salt):
1) Last Stand of Fox Company, USMC at Chosin Reservoir. The CO won the CMH as, when wounded, he made circuits of his outposts on a stretcher. (Me: Breakout, by Russ, is also very good on Korea.)
2) Agent Zig Zag, a tale of double agentry by the Brits against the Germans.
3) Shattered Sword, a look at the Battle of Midway from the Japanese side. Excellent and thoughtful and wow,were we lucky! After several hundred pages a reader begins to feel concern for the poor, exploited but loyal Japanese seamen.
4) Candy Bombers (Berlin airlift)
So many books, so little time….
I am currently rereading Shattered Sword.
Shattered Sword is also an excellent read…especially if you already “knew what really happened” at the battle of Midway…you’ll find out you really didn’t know after all.
Yes, read that one too. Definitely a great book. I loved how it told the story from the point of view of the Japanese, so that you knew what they knew as they knew it. Talk about the fog of war. Nagumo trying to steam forward to engage in a surface action with the American fleet after his four carriers were sunk beneath him, and the ordeal of the Japanese sailors onboard their burning ships made for literally awesome reading.
Mmmm. Sorry, Six Frigates, by Ian Toll. Age-fried synapses, I guess….
I cannot speak to the Marines, but I can say that it is funny how some units in the Army have a long standing reputation for competence and excellence.
My infantry platoon chopped to D Co., 1st Bn., 37th Armor for Desert Storm. They were hands down the best tank company in the Army at the time, and I’ve never served with a better bunch of tankers. And they treated us like kings, far better than our own parent infantry battalion.
Since the 37th was first led in combat by Creighton Abrams, they’ve enjoyed a reputation for greatness. And they’ve earned it time and again.
I did a 3 year stint in the Army before joining the Navy. My Basic Training Company at Ft. Hood in 1960 was Alpha Company, 1/37 Armor, 2nd AD. I went to Germany for 2 1/2 years and was required to re-enlist for my own billet, if I wanted to re-enlist at all. I chose to get on the home bound boat instead, USNS Geiger.
As the parent of SNO who begins his “Juniors” summer at Quantico this July, this goes into the mix. When he’s not knee deep in his sophomore year texts, he’s already gone through “Generation Kill” and Nate Fick’s “One Bullet Away,” (read throughout the house) and it looks like this one will be part of his June reading list prior to executing his orders. @Steve: How do any illustrations present on the Kindle? I have the smaller, non-Dx.
good review/good post. added to the nightstand list.
If you want a more strategy/operational overview of what happened in the surge, from the individual platoons all across Iraq to the green zone to the halls of Washington, Bing West’s “The Strongest Tribe” is the place to go. I truly believe it will be the watermark history of that event, and as such as many people as possible should read it.
Anything by Bing West is well worth the time. More of his are: The Village = COIN in Vietnam; The Pepperdogs = Bosnia; The March Up = taking Baghdad 2003; No True Glory = Fallujah. Both he and his son, Owen, write.
FYI: found this website while I was writing this.
http://www.westwrite.com/
To throw in for our brethren of the Silent Service, “Run Silent, Run Deep” and “Dust on the Sea” by E.L. Beach are two of my all time favorites; the second ranking just slightly ahead. Dick O’Kane’s “Wahoo” is another, and I’m looking for “The Bravest Man” by William Tuohy.
I also found John Toland’s “The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire” a powerful and informative read, gaining a perspective on the Japanese motives for the war not previously expressed. The book also left me with a feeling of contempt towards Cordell Hull and FDR for their treatment of the Japanese prior to the outbreak of war.
“Little Ship, Big War” by Edward Stafford. Oi! Talk about a brutal life in a brutal war…
Oh, man, Mongo, Cap’n Beach is one of my favorite writers, ever, and I heartily commend everything he ever wrote to the attention of everybody in the whole world, not just us here. I had no idea that Dick O’Kane had written a book. I must find that, and read it.
Another book by a dead person: I recommend “Enemy Coast Ahead” by Guy Gibson, the guy who led the Dambusters raid. We’re not allowed to mention the name of his dog these days, but we know what it was.
Rage Company is highly recommended, I finished it in 3 days, tough to put down.