Sanford R. Silverburg |
Review of Sean Michael Flynn, The Fighting
69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground
Zero to Baghdad. New York: Viking, 2007. Pp. xx, 300. ISBN
978-0-670-01843-7. |
This is a tale, popularly written, by a company
commander of a National Guard unit that has undergone a series of
organizational maturations, allowing it to restore some of its
former battle glory. The 69th Infantry Regiment is an element of the
New York Army National Guard. During the period under review here,
the unit reported to or was under the control of the 3rd Brigade of
the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York Army National Guard. When
deployed to active combat in Iraq, it was reorganized as Task Force
Wolfhound, seconded to the 256th Brigade Combat Team of the
Louisiana Army National Guard, which in turn reported to the 1st
Cavalry Division and later the 3rd Infantry Division. "The Fighting
69th's" actions as described here are a far cry from the
swashbuckling drama starring James Cagney in the classic 1940 war
thriller of the same name. The unit originated in 1851 when it was
raised from the Irish immigrant population in New York City; the
moniker was later given by Robert E. Lee, in admiration of an
adversary during the Civil War.
The author was involved with the 69th as a
company commanding officer during the entire period of his
reflection. His account of his unit's actions in Iraq is one of more
than twenty others. Neither a regular Army unit nor an Army Reserve
unit, the 69th is a morphed state militia organization that was
federalized for national service. By 2001, its glory was clearly in
the past, aside from a penchant for hard drinking and the love of the
fight. No longer a group of Irish lads rallying around the stars and
stripes, the unit became virtually inactive until the invasion of
Iraq. By then the men were Hispanic or African-American, essentially
a motley crew of street kids looking for a few extra bucks or a way
into the regular army. A total lack of discipline pervaded the
organization up through the lower echelon of the officer corps, which
was commensurate with both the quantity and quality of their arms
and related equipment. The National Guard as a military element,
from the perspective of the Pentagon, was an underfunded strategic
reserve. Then came the national tragedy of 9/11.
The collapse of the Twin Towers as a result of
fanatical Islamic terrorism ended the unit's inactivity, as a couple
of stalwart officers mobilized it to engage in a rescue support
operation, regardless of their superiors' concerns about posse
comitatus interference. Without specific authorization from on
high, a self-selected cadre of officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel
Geoffrey Slack, and a small group of men assumed the role the
National Guard had traditionally been tasked with and assisted local
relief bodies with a rescue and recovery mission at Ground Zero in
lower Manhattan.
Between September and October 2001, both
Reservists and National Guardsmen were called into national service
as the country girded itself for war against the "terrorists." While
war was ongoing in the Iraqi desert, the 69th was assigned to
provide security at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the
Hudson River valley. This relatively quiet and safe duty was
followed by a brief deployment in the desert wasteland of the Sinai
Peninsula as part of the Multilateral Force and Observers (MFO).
Next came an assignment to join Stabilization Force (SFOR) 16 in
Bosnia. Flynn flails the unit for the poor performance,
relinquishment of duty, and pervasive release and transfers which
prevented its deployment to an active combat zone. Finally in March
2004, the 69th received orders for Iraq, an in-and-out-in-a-year
mission. In preparation, the unit went to Fort Hood for training
and a brief stint at the National Training Center (NTC) in
California before returning to the Fort Hood staging area.
Additionally, this group of New Yorkers was placed under the command
of a Louisiana National Guard, a group of Cajuns--not a heavenly
match. Poor training was compounded by outdated equipment ill-suited
to their mission. To make matters worse, when new vehicles were
provisioned, the numbers were below the Table of Equipment (TOE)
normally authorized. Flynn characterizes the mood starkly:
When he first announced the deployment to Iraq, Slack had promised
his men that the Army would get the unit prepared for war.... But
after several days in Baghdad on a pre-deployment reconnaissance
with the 1st Cavalry Division, Slack was much less sanguine. What he
saw happening on the ground in the capital of Iraq was far different
from anything he had trained for his entire life (141-2).
What he saw was uninterrupted random acts of
irregular violence not described in any training manual.
The 69th was initially stationed at the Baghdad
International Airport, where it was expected to suppress the random
fire that insurgents (the term Flynn consistently employs rather than
"terrorists") were directing against U.S. forces in military bases
north of Baghdad. Insurgents had learned well the patterns of
maneuver of various units and adapted their schedule and operations
accordingly. The unit was next sent farther north to Taji, a
strategic position around the road junction to Fallujah. What the
69th found was inversely related to the training received on
operational codes and plans developed by U.S. and allied
intelligence for counterinsurgency operations. Flynn reveals the
reality of war when he records the first casualty resulting from an
improvised explosive device (IED) attack on a convoy of M1114
Humvees, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and armored personnel carriers (APCs); this was the first of the 69th's men to be killed in
action (KIA) since the battle for Okinawa in 1945. This group of
"weekend warriors," operating without proper leadership training or
support equipment, found themselves in an active combat zone with
obvious disadvantages. The 69th became a part of the overall
counterinsurgency strategy which was to clear, hold, and build. This
meant to reduce the level of violence inflicted on both the military
and civilian populations, maintain a presence in areas from which
insurgents had been effectively removed, and help in the recreation
of a national infrastructure and the establishment of a new
government. Indeed, when the Iraqi Provisional Government held
parliamentary elections in January 2004, the 69th was there to
protect polling stations and voters from the ever-present
sectarian violence. But the unit's most dangerous mission by far was
securing the thoroughfare that became known as Route Irish, the road
from the Baghdad International Airport to the center of the city and
then to the highly protected Green Zone, where American military
headquarters was housed. This undesirable duty was a great source of
casualties but also of accolades, since the effectiveness of
American forces, including the 69th, brought the level of violence
down significantly.
By June 2005, the unit was finally functioning
as well as any other mobilized operational body in the military,
only to be sent home in September. Its return to the States
coincided with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; the strong
attachment that the 69th had formed to the men of the Louisiana National Guard
led many of the New York guardsmen to join their brothers in arms in
Louisiana to provide whatever assistance they could. They gave up
precious free time that could have been devoted to their own
families from whom they had been separated for so long.
Some elements of the 69th spent three weeks in
early 2007 along the Southwest border, in a clearly political move,
providing additional support to the Border Patrol. And, largely
because of the improvement in their performance in Iraq, the 69th
was attached to the New York 27th Infantry Brigade and in January
2008 sent to Afghanistan to provide training to the Afghan army. All
in all, the 69th suffered 19 KIA and numerous wounded while
stationed in Iraq.
This story reinforces the criticism often made of
former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's philosophy of creating
a more "slim and trim" fighting force, relying on the
technologically-supported firepower that typified General Colin
Powell's "shock and awe" approach to war making. Under this regime,
given the necessary prioritization in the distribution of equipment,
mainline "real Army" units get most of the best equipment available,
while second-generation materiel goes to select Reserve units, and
whatever is left and not in the salvage yard goes to Guard units.
When Rumsfeld's assumptions went awry and a lengthy occupation and
insurgency followed the destruction of the regular Iraqi military
and required additional boots on the ground, it became necessary to
reach deeper into the manpower barrel. However, the mission remained
dangerous for the entire military: insurgents did not distinguish
among regular Army, Reserve, or National Guard. Hampered by lack of
cultural awareness, poor training, and inadequate equipment, the
unit in the main contributed only human intelligence (HUMINT) to the overall
mission.
The Fighting 69th is a micro-history, a retelling of the activities of a particular military unit within
the National Guard, one thread in the fabric of the story of the
battle for Iraq. Here is a tale that will satisfy military buffs interested in this individual unit or the National Guard overall, or
those eager to devour anything that contributes to a better general
understanding of the military effort in Iraq.
Catawba College
ssilver@catawba.edu |
