Never been a soldier. The shooting I have done has been from an antiseptic distance, comfortable – if not entirely safe – in the cockpit of a high speed, high altitude fighter. No noise really, that I wasn’t already used to. No dust certainly. No cracking rifles and chipping rocks spraying into my face at the sudden onset of an overwhelming ambush.
Never having ever experienced it, I still believe that it’s the kind of thing an ordinary human being would intuitively shrink from. The tendency to curl into a ball, and seek some kind of cover to hide behind must be almost irresistible.
Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller was clearly something more than merely ordinary:
Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, killed on January 25, 2008. will be the seventh service member to receive the Medal of Honor during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,
The Army said he fended off fire from Taliban insurgents to allow his team to fall back to a safe position. The battle took place in the village of Barikowt, near the Pakistani border.
“Miller deliberately moved forward making himself vulnerable as he engaged several enemy positions to provide suppressive fire, buying time for his teammates to take cover,” the Army’s website states.
“We were fish in a barrel,” said Sgt. James Odyga, Miller’s commander in Afghanistan. “Enemy on right, on the left. Robby immediately started firing.”
By “exposing his position repeatedly, he drew fire from more than 100 enemy fighters,” and saved the lives of his fellow Green Berets and 15 Afghan soldiers, the Army said.
Miller’s parents take consolation that their son gave his life so that others could live.
I believe that soldiers are trained to assault into an ambush. And yet, this kind of instant reaction is not something that is a product of training, I don’t think. It’s the result of a considered decision, made in a moment of solitude and earnestly committed to over and over again. It’s a decision that you’ll go down fighting. A decision that your own life is not more valuable than the lives of your team. You can live each day hoping that the prepared for moment never occurs. But when it does, you recognize it, remember what you promised, take stock of all you have and step into the breach, with the full knowledge of what it will cost you: Everything.
All this, at 24 years old.
Update: More here.
Update 2: Full description at Blackfive. Damned rough terrain, but no harder than this tough, but humble man.
Remind me again why we need the Ivies to give us soldiers?
There is a great picture of Staff Sgt. Miller at
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/10/05/a-true-hero-staff-sgt-robert-miller/
Because of the actions of those like him, we enjoy our freedoms.
And a fine write-up too at the link. Tears indeed. Automatically. And ANGER! Why the TWO YEAR delay? That fact alone tells me more than I want to know about today’s bureaucracy and the bureaucratic mind-set–let alone throw in any PC elements.
Virgil, two years for the nation’s highest military decoration is not unheard of, nor is it by far the longest delay for the MoH. These nominations go through multiple layers of review to ensure that all the facts presented in the nomination are accurate. It takes time to do that.
Look at it this way, this delay to make sure everything is as stated ensures that this award is never cheapened. I too would rather have them awarded more quickly, but it’s best that this remain a very select, and very deserving group. It is the review process that guarantees that.
Mr. Bannion:
If that is the case, how do you account for people such as MacArthur receiving the award? You really don’t need to reply, the answer is known to all.
Paul
Sean/Paul:
Leaving aside MacArthur, which was a special case to be sure, and allowing for the fact that initial cmbt rpts are not always accurate/complete (witness Colin Kelly “He sank a Battleship!” in WWII) but 2 yrs STILL seems inordinately long considering the number of direct witnesses.
18-24 months on the MoH, with 18 being the short course.
Mere words don’t do him justice.
Are we worthy of them?
Nailed me on the last line.
To know is to weep.
Deepest condolences to his family.
My admiration and respect for his fidelity, honor and courage. Dead at 24, doing a mighty deed in a far away land. Above and beyond. Hero and protector.
Safe in paradise, among his peers.
To know is to weep. Proudly.
When I was active with the Cave Research Foundation at Mammoth Cave back in the 70s, a close friend, who was a Park Ranger, told me a number of his experiences as a Green Beret in Vietnam. One of them was Ambush drill and its application.
When I asked about it he told me that the drill was done so much that when it happened in Indian Country you just did it without thought. Training can overcome intuitive sanity, and that’s why we did so much of what we did in training. The old saw about training the way you fight, so you can fight the way you train is axiomatic in my opinion.
Jerry Pournelle had an anthology series in the 80s and into the early 90s called “There Will Be War.” It consisted of a number of science Fiction stories with interspersed commentary by Pournelle. The commentary was illustrated by the stories that followed. He dealt with the nature of combat (he served in combat in Korea) and how it wasn’t the act of a sane man to bring it straight and level over Regensberg, and a number of other things that our troops have done repeatedly.
War has been referred to as insanity, and barely controlled chaos. Sane men look at what defines them as men, compares that to their duty as man, and goes out and does their duty.
A man is defined by how he carries out that duty. As Robert E. Lee sso aptly put it, “Duty is the most sublime word in the English Language.” He should know given the price he paid to do his. SSgt Miller knows too.
Lex, you sell yourself short. All of us were soldiers. We were all trained to do something that had to be done to be able to get that 19 year old with rifle onto that spot of ground that lets us win. Your duty was to rain steel and explosives on a target. The Pfc with the 82nd or Lance Cpl with the 3rd Marines do it with a rifle or radio. The discipline if different according to what your calling is, but the result comes togather, we hope, in victory. In that there is little difference. The sailor works to put a weapon platform where it needs to be.
I see your point. It’s much like the Army poster you posted a few months back on how it sucks (fill in the blank). You were “clean” when they put your Hornet to bed and went to teh ready room for some Coke and Jokes. But can you really tell me that there aren’t some of those same ghosts that haunted people, like Robert Mason of Chickenhawk fame, that have sought you out in the wee hours in your stateroom, or at home with your girl?
All soldiers have those things if they have experienced combat. It may be more “sanitary” in a cockpit, but it isn’t any cleaner.
That last paragraph is beautiful, Lex–perhaps one of the finest you’ve written on this site.
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
You don’t go into SF because you wake up one morning and you decide it would be fun. You don’t stay in SF because you like the hat. It takes 6 or more months of training (more for the medic), a grueling grind of physical and mental testing that continues the entire time. Once you get to a team, it picks up. Physical training is hard and constant plus now you start to learn the real knowledge that you need to work with your team and Group.
And, as previously mentioned, it’s what you’ve trained to do. When things heat up, time slows down and you do what you’ve rehearsed.
Teams are tight, it’s not unusual for my kids to call some of my former team mates “Uncle”. We are godparents to each others kids. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for each other. And some don’t make it. They die in realistic training, accidents or on operations. And we miss them and remember them.
All of which is a way of saying, you do it for each other. Without remorse or thought of doing anything else. You just can’t conceive of behaving any other way.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”
– George Smith Patton, Junior
Marcus Erroneous said: All of which is a way of saying, you do it for each other. Without remorse or thought of doing anything else. You just can’t conceive of behaving any other way.
ME – you say that as if it’s just like putting on your clothes or brushing your teeth.
To those of us who enjoy our freedoms from the safety and comfort of our homes – it is beyond anything that we can consider; that men and women really do think and act like this. Everyday.
QM is right, training can be a large part of it. e.g., part of the E & E literature/tng emphasizes that if one is down in enemy terr and during E&E manages to make it to the border area of a friendly country, always RUN, rather than walk across. Because walking so as not attract attention won’t work as you’re already not supposed to be there and the border guards know that, but–and here’s the key psychological part–when one is walking and someone yells “halt” the psychological tendency is to reflexively stop–but if already running, the psychic auto-response is to run FASTER.
Of course tng can often only take one so far–instinct doing the rest–but it helps.
Training is meant to build instinct. That’s why my friend could turn without thinking and turn the tables on the ambushers.
OTH, there are a few that training will not do a thing for. We have a use for those people too, but it’s not at the sharp end.
That last part was really beautiful Lex:
It’s the result of a considered decision, made in a moment of solitude and earnestly committed to over and over again. It’s a decision that you’ll go down fighting. A decision that your own life is not more valuable than the lives of your team. You can live each day hoping that the prepared for moment never occurs. But when it does, you recognize it, remember what you promised, take stock of all you have and step into the breach, with the full knowledge of what it will cost you: Everything.
I have a picture of my son, doing his solo flight in flight school. You see a fuselage, canopy and someone in a flight helmet, with visor and oxygen mask, all “Mavericky”. I cannot imagine what it must be like to hop in and zoom around the sky like a motorcycle that’s not road bound. I cut the umbilical cord for him when he was born, watched him learn to walk, do his junior and senior years of high school in one year to graduate early, go to the university, graduate and get commissioned. And yet, Lex and my son both regard it as “kick the tires and light the fires” and off they go (Warning: objects in example may be more complicated than they appear).
On a team, you work at a different level. You’ve the training, experience and the colleagues that enable you to do so. Step off a tailgate at 30,000 feet over a place you’ve never been to before? In the dark? To start a mission? Okay. Oh, you’re going to pay me to do this? Cool. So, yeah, it is kinda normal in that context.
What’s really cool is that the generations following mine are still producing people like this. I’m heartened for the future of the republic because of men like him. And the women as well who have shown that we still produce some of the finest soldiers and human beings available.
Heh, that was to Kris. Still a posting n00b.
He was no Rambo… nor did he ever aspire to be…he exemplifies what Army SF/Green Berets have come to style themselves…”The Quiet Professionals”….he was a quiet professional indeed… RIP… SSG Miller. Best
Stud.
Why? Its the Brotherhood. The Brothers-in-Arms thing. They become your family…….regardless of your branch of service, for a short time, they are your Family. You eat with them, you live with them, and yes, sadly sometimes you die with them, but you never want to let them down. You may be meek, you may be macho, but you never want to look into their eyes and see less than absolute trust……the total belief that if they get into trouble somehow, that you’ll be there watching their backs, laying it on the line for your Brother. It can make the most timorous among us the Hero. All for the love of our fellow warriors.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1lg9s_dire-straits-brothers-in-arms-origi_music
Lex — I don’t think the question is whether or not we need the Ivies to give us soldiers. Obviously, we don’t. The question is, why are the Ivies separating themselves from the military that protects us all? And does that bode well for our nation?
I would add another question Scott. Why do we give the Ivies any of our tax money since they don’t want to sully their brand with us Neanderthals?
They sure don’t deserve any.
I think of it differently. It isn’t the Army that needs the Ivies. It doesn’t. But it’s the nation that needs the Ivies to be fully a part of the nation, since they are the fast-track to government authority. And being part of the military and experiencing all it teaches you about good and evil and the limits of human wisdom and planning is experience that no MBA can ever provide.
Many more reasons to starve them of any tax derived funding. If they want to come in from the cold, then fine. Otherwise, just sit and their and stew.
Excellent post again Lex.
Great Battlescape vid.
Still think that we should have a B-52 or two on station 24×7 with a load of Rockeyes or other appropriate ordnance.
I do think it unconscionable that we do not have effective on-call arty or air support in every part of AF where we have troops.
One or two passes by an A-10 or F-15 is often not enough support. Thermobaric weapons anyone?, and frak the U.N. or U.S. MSM.
Though it is fine for BHO to waste Billions on his Socialist Agenda while our true “Best & Brightest” die in far away lands serving our country.
It’s a lead pipe cinch that our best and brightest are not at the Ivies.
+1 I read a comment that Glenn Reynolds posted on instapundit a day or so ago that perfectly summed it up for me. No, our best and brightest are not in the Ivy League. Ivy Leaguers have screwed up every thing they’ve touched over the last thirty years or so. They need us a helluva lot more than we need them. And oh, this young Green Beret is the sort of man I’ve always held in awe. RIP and God bless his family.
Nope, though the Ivies appear to be a breeding ground for Apparatchiks.
Where do we get such men?
My heart always goes out to the family, but then there are the friends. The kids he grew up with, now faced with the start reality of mortality. The one part of growing up that makes you want to be a little kid again.
Lex, you old coot. You made me cry. Your write up comes as close as any words ever can to capturing the essence of the sacrifice made when that “moment” you describe is suddenly confronted.
God bless Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, and God bless his family.
I waited to post, the Sgt’s actions and your write up struck too deep for me to want to post immediately.