Our friend Mike at Cop the Truth is the most faithful follower of losses of airborne troopers of any person on the Internet.  The Captain’s Journal has tried to be the same for Marines.  Not openly, mind you, but silently and discretely.  Beginning in 2005 and going through the present, whenever a Marine was killed in the Anbar Province in Iraq (and now beginning in Afghanistan), I have tried to make it a point to read the account, his family’s reaction, and the official press release – and then pray for his family.

The years in Anbar were very hard, and with fully one quarter of the more than 4000 deaths coming from Marine fatalities in the Anbar Province alone (for losses of more than 1000 Marines due to combat action), the last several years have been hard.  The year 2006 and the followup year of 2007 (when my son was deployed) were especially dark.

One commendable thing about posting to blogs and opinion sites is that while I attempt to keep the writing tilted towards good analysis and commentary (even if containing advocacy), occasionally I give myself the freedom to engage in dissemination of deeply personal views.  And it’s okay to do that.

If you are one of those sad souls who believes that when a person dies his body cools to ambient temperature and then that’s the end, then I don’t have much for you.  You may take Memorial Day and ponder the sacrifice of those who died too young for this great nation of ours.  This all seems rather empty to me.  But if you are like me, a believer in orthodox Christianity, I encourage you to say a prayer of thanks to God for our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who keep us safe, past, present and future.  Another way of saying it is that while those warriors have bravely died on the field of battle, they aren’t now dead.

Those who have gone before us are in God’s hands.  While certainly unorthodox, I recommend that the focus of your prayers and giving this Memorial Day be the families of American warriors who have given their all, along with those warriors who have disabilities from their combat.  Pray that the Lord would assuage the pain of their losses, whether limbs lost, brain function lost, or sons or daughters lost on the field of battle.  I am not suggesting that you convert this Memorial Day into Veteran’s Day.  I am suggesting that you remember those who still suffer on behalf of our deceased warriors.  Our deceased warriors no longer suffer.

This Memorial Day, do more than ponder silently, which is therapeutic for no one except you.  Intercede on behalf of grieving families for God to bless them today and throughout the year.  Have a great Memorial Day 2009.

From Stars and Stripes:

The Army’s policy of testing body armor at its own laboratory instead of private facilities is causing delays in approval and is raising costs for manufacturers, The New York Times reported.

Army officials told the paper on Tuesday the decision to test armor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland was made as part of an effort to upgrade safety standards. However, they said they might still hand some of the work back to private labs if delays became common.

According to the Times, manufacturers said the cost of the tests has in some cases tripled, and results that might be returned within 24 hours from a private lab are taking as long as a week to be returned from the Army lab.

Asia Fernandez, who owns Armacel Armor in Camarillo, Calif., told the Times that the Army charged more than $50,000 to perform safety tests on a new product. Testing at a private lab, she said, would have cost less than $15,000.

“It’s a little rocky right now,” said David P. Reed, the president for North American operations at Ceradyne, the Army’s largest body-armor contractor. The Army lab, at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, “is not really as responsive as we’d like to see,” he told the paper. Reed added that so far the delays have not hurt troops because the Army had been stockpiling armor.

However, congressional aides told the paper they were looking into the accusations to ensure that there are no delays in getting critical gear to servicemembers in the field.

It is, after all, the Army.  To expect that the Army would keep people in their employ who were technical experts in all areas of application is unreasonable.  Also, this report doesn’t say that the Army did not perform adequate testing.  But the efficiency with which it is done calls into question the propriety of having this function done in-house.  The Captain’s Journal has addressed this before.

Given the lack of confidence inspired by the federal government, independent consultative support is necessary to restore the public confidence in the system.  Support, that is, who doesn’t stand gain from whatever conclusions that are reached.  This is necessary for not only proof of principle for future body armor designs, but for currently deployed armor we well.

While not exactly addressing the same issue, we have recommended independent consultative support for body armor technology.  This wouldn’t preclude corporate-based testing by the manufacturer, but it would necessitate an independent assessment and some kind of oversight; not oversight that the Army could deliver alone, but as assisted by engineers and technical experts.

In further news, proposed legislation may force the issue.

Representative Niki Tsongas has introduced legislation that would require the Pentagon to develop lighter body armor for soldiers in an effort to reduce the thousands of orthopedic injuries reported each year as a result of lugging heavy gear.

The Lowell Democrat, a member of the Armed Services Committee, introduced the bill Tuesday and has enlisted the support of other key lawmakers, including Representative Neil Abercrombie, the Hawaii Democrat who chairs the panel’s Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, her office said today.

The legislation would set up a special task force to evaluate various personal protection technologies that could provide the same level of defense as current body armor, but with reduced weight, according to the bill.

Tsongas told the Globe that in the course of her investigation of the issue, including in committee hearings and discussions with an Army captain who serves on her staff, she found that the amount of gear that troops must carry is sometimes too much to bear.

“There is a tendency to take it off,” she said in a brief phone interview.

And many soldiers exhibit lasting health effects from wearing their personal gear for long periods of time.

In 2007, the Army reported 257,000 injuries attributed to the stress of bearing heavy loads during repeated deployments. The service’s vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, estimates that such injuries are currently sidelining 20,000 soldiers.

“With the increased emphasis on Afghanistan in the coming years the load that soldiers must carry will no doubt become more of an issue,” said John Noble, a spokesman for the two-term congresswoman.

Tsongas’ bill would also establish a separate program in each branch of the military dedicated to the research and procurement of body armor. Such efforts are now included in multi-billion dollar research accounts that cover all types of military equipment.

By establishing a stand-alone funding stream Tsongas believes Congress will be able to monitor how much money is being spent on body armor and better identify shortcomings.

“This is so we know exactly what is there and that it is being spent appropriately,” she said.

This also follows closely with our previous recommendations to lighten the load that Soldiers and Marines carry.  Our first target has been the weight of the SAPI plates (Side Arms Protective Inserts), the heavy ceramic plates help by the carrier in the front, back and sides.  The soft ballistic panels carried throughout the carrier is not a significant actor in the overall system weight.

The Army also happens to be testing lighter armor at the present.

FORT BELVOIR, Va. — The Army will test lighter body armor next week with plans to field up to 100,000 sets beginning in August, said Lt. Col. Robert W. Myles Jr. of Program Executive Office Soldier.

The tests will take place May 11-22 in Yuma, Ariz., and will involve 10 Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and 25 Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division, Myles said Wednesday.

Soldiers can carry a load of about 100 pounds of gear, body armor and ammunition. The Improved Outer Tactical Vests that Soldiers currently wear weighs about 31 pounds with all four ballistic plates, Myles said.

The Army will evaluate four new types of body armor, each weighing about 24 pounds, as well as body armor already worn by Soldiers, Marines and Special Operations Forces, he said.

The body armor will be evaluated based on ballistic tests, form, wear and comfort, and cost, Myles said.

As a stop-gap measure, the Army will soon issue a battalion of Soldiers with the 4th Infantry Division the lightweight body armor that Special Operations Forces wear, he said.

“We want to lighten the load as quick as possible; that’s our No. 1 goal,” Myles said.

In January, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, told reporters that an increasing number of Soldiers were becoming nondeployable in part due to musculoskeletal injuries from the heavy loads they carry.

“You can’t hump a rucksack at 8,000-11,000 feet for 15 months, even at a young age, and not have that have an impact on your body,” Chiarelli said during a roundtable with reporters.

Exactly right.  And lighter armor should have been issued much earlier, including the same type worn by SOF if that is lighter than the IBA and MTV (the IBA with panels and SAPIs is about 31 pounds, the MTV with panels and SAPIs is about 32 pounds with groin and neck protectors).

The article doesn’t make clear what the weight modifications involve, and the recommendations we have made include the same level of ballistic protection with less weight.  It’s all a matter of funding and research.  The health and maneuverability of our warriors is of paramount importance to any campaign, even more so than non-infantry related gear and equipment.  The functionality of infantry gear and equipment may redound not only to the success of the campaign and deployability of the troops, but to their very lives.  This makes it worth the investment, whatever that cost is.

Prior:

More on Battle Space Weight

University of Virginia Student Designs New Body Armor

DoD Testing Requirements for Body Armor and Army Recall

Changes in Body Armor for Marines

Body Armor Wars in the Marine Corps

Body Armor Goes Political

Body Armor Wars: The Way Forward

From Government Executive:

The Marine Corps is pursuing a number of initiatives to give its units more fire support and more mobility to meet operational demands, with one near-term project being a less-sophisticated version of the Air Force’s powerful AC-130 gunship, Gen. James Conway said on Friday.

The Marine Corps commandant said the service is working on a longer-term proposal to use the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships to provide high-volume fire support for Marine forces ashore. In addition, Marines are looking to modify their Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicles to enable them to operate in Afghanistan’s rugged terrain, Conway told a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum.

Conway said the Marines “have lusted for years” over the AC-130′s capability but could not afford the sophisticated Air Force gunships. Instead, they are taking advantage of their KC-130J transport-tankers in a program called “Harvest Hawk,” he said. It consists of a “roll-on, roll-off package” that can be installed in hours and gives the KC-130s the ability to fire a 30mm rapid-fire gun and Hellfire missiles in support of ground forces, Conway said. “I think you’re going to see one in [Afghanistan] before the end of the calendar year.”

A Marine spokesman said later that “this is not intended to be a gunship” but a response to an urgent need of Marines in Afghanistan who want persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. “The ISR is the priority, but we also want the capability to use some weapons against targets we can see,” the spokesman said.

The commandant said he has an agreement with Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, to examine use of a “box of rockets” that could be installed on an LCS to provide fire support for Marines ashore. It could replace the capabilities the Marines expected from the Advanced Gun System developed for the DDG-1000 destroyer, whose production is being stopped at three ships.

LCS is designed to accept a variety of “mission packages,” which include weapons, sensors, controls and operators that enable a ship to perform a variety of combat assignments. A Marine fire-support package was not one of the three original missions developed for LCS but has been discussed recently.

One proposal has been to use the non-line-of-sight launch system being developed as part of the Army’s Future Combat Systems. But that system does not have the range the Marines would need, Conway said. Systems that would have the range could not provide the volume of fire needed, he added. He did not provide any indication of when a satisfactory system could be available.

Commentary & Analysis

The Commandant has been in a fight with the Navy for a while now over the issue of its refusal to go closer to shore than 25 miles – the horizon – and thus his call for support of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.  In order to do forcible entry, Marines need to project firepower on shore, and this vehicle must be able to function on both the land and sea.

But The Captain’s Journal has opposed the EFV for reasons going beyond its design and maintenance problems and cost overruns.  Basically, this vehicle will never be used as a staple of land operations.  Its primary use will be from sea to shore and then slightly beyond.

The Littoral Combat Ship is anything but a combat ship.  It has a small crew and essentially no forward force projection capability.  It is a horrible platform for support of the Marines or a Marine Expeditionary Unit, and backfitting it with a “box of rockets” will likely prove to be problematic and not what the Marines were after.

Let’s assume that as a policy position we need forcible entry from the sea.  Delivery of Marines without heavy firepower is probably not a good idea, and we have recommended a delay in the retirement of the CH-46 (from which Marines can fastrope) and investment in a new generation of Marine attack helicopters.  The Navy must be pressed to be more involved in the delivery of heavy equipment (such as MRAPs, tanks, armored personnel carriers, etc.) after the Marines have accomplished forcible entry and if the strategy involves a protracted engagement.

We have also recommended a new generation of Marine vehicles similar to the Army Stryker.  Heavy investment in a generation of vehicles, fighting or otherwise, that has as its sole use operation in littoral waters is probably not a wise investment of limited resources.  No one intends for protracted land use of the EFV, and that itself is a telling observation.  It is basically a useless platform without the necessity for forcible entry or the threat of it.

As for the air transport turned gunship, the Marine spokesman’s words are confusing and probably unnecessary.  A gunship is exactly what is desired and needed.  This kind of adaptive innovation is to be commended, and the Marines in Afghanistan will benefit from this improvisation.

Concluding, TCJ doubts that the LCS can successfully deliver high volume fire in support of Marines on shore, doubts the necessity for a fighting vehicle that has as its sole use operation in littoral waters, and has recommended other means of forward force projection (such as use of the F-35 off the deck of the Amphibious Assault Docks, additional Navy involvement to land heavier vehicles, and a new generation of Marine attack helicopters).  All of the above would seem to be a better use of limited monies that either the EFV or the modified LCS.

As for the necessity for forcible entry from the sea, it was Colin Powell who observed that:

Lying offshore, ready to act, the presence of ships and Marines sometimes means much more than just having air power or ship’s fire, when it comes to deterring a crisis. And the ships and Marines may not have to do anything but lie offshore. It is hard to lie offshore with a C-141 or C-130 full of airborne troops.

Nice words, but a very expensive way to level threats at other nations.  A Battalion of Marine infantry sitting on board an Amphibious Assault Dock for seven to nine months doing nothing is an awful waste of resources (and also a sitting duck for land-based surface to surface missiles).  The expeditionary concept should be applied sparingly and with frugality.  The capabilities of the Marines are needed across the globe in real time active and ongoing operations, not “could be,” “would be,” “maybe” and “we want it not to be” operations.

Prior:

Arguments Over the EFV and V-22

Navy and Marines to Part Ways Over Expeditionary Strike Groups?

Kill the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff criticizes air strikes:

The United States cannot succeed in Afghanistan if the American military keeps killing Afghan civilians, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday.

In remarks to scholars, national security experts and the media at the Brookings Institution, Admiral Mullen said that the American air strikes that killed an undetermined number of civilians in Afghanistan’s Farah Province two weeks ago had put the U.S. strategy in the country in jeopardy.

“We cannot succeed in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but let’s talk specifically about Afghanistan, by killing Afghan civilians,” Admiral Mullen said, adding that “we can’t keep going through incidents like this and expect the strategy to work.”

At the same time, Admiral Mullen said, “we can’t tie our troops’ hands behind their backs.”

Admiral Mullen’s comments on the civilian casualties from the Farah air strikes, which have caused an uproar in Afghanistan, reflect deep concern within the Pentagon about the intensifying criticism from Kabul against the American military. Admiral Mullen, who noted that commanders in the region had in recent months imposed more restrictive rules on air strikes to avoid civilian casualties, offered no new solutions in his remarks. He only said that “we’ve got to be very, very focused on making sure that we proceed deliberately, that we know who the enemy is.”

By midafternoon on May 4, after a battle between Afghan police and army forces and Taliban fighters had raged for hours, Marines Special Operations forces called in air strikes.

Three F-18 fighter-bombers, flying in succession over several hours, dropped a total of five laser-guided and satellite guided bombs against Taliban fighters who were firing at the American and Afghan forces, said the official, Col. Gregory Julian, in an email message late Sunday.

Villagers, however, have reported that an even heavier bombardment came after 8 p.m. when they said the fighting appeared to be over and the Taliban had left the village.

The military has disputed this version of events, saying the Taliban fighters continued to fire at American and Afghan troops, requiring additional air strikes. These came from a B-1 bomber, which dropped three 500-pound satellite-guided bombs on a tree grove, four 500-pound and 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs on one building, and one 2,000-pound satellite-guided bomb on a second building, Colonel Julian said. Villagers have said they sought safety from the initial air strikes in a compound of buildings, but it was not clear whether these were the same buildings the American aircraft later bombed. Villagers said the bombings were so powerful that people were ripped to shreds. Survivors said they collected only pieces of bodies.

In all, Colonel Julian said, eight targets were attacked over a seven-hour period, but he denied reports from villagers that a mosque had been damaged in the strikes. Colonel Julian and other American military officials have said that the Taliban deliberately fired at American and Afghan forces from the rooftops of buildings where civilians, including women and children, had sought shelter, to provoke a heavy American military response.

Colonel Julian said at the peak of the fighting that day, some 150 Afghan soldiers and 60 Afghan police, along with their 30 American trainers, as well as two Marine Special Operations teams that made up a quick-reaction force, were battling about 300 militants, including a large number of foreign fighters.

Afghan government officials have accepted handwritten lists compiled by the villagers of 147 dead civilians. An independent Afghan human rights group said it had accounts from interviews of 117 dead. American officials say that even 100 is an exaggeration but have yet to issue their own count.

Analysis & Commentary

There remains an uproar over this incident because of noncombatant casualties, and some of it even over military analysis web sites.  The focus of much of the discussion is on how counterinsurgency cannot succeed with noncombatant casualties, and that successful counterinsurgency must be population centric.  True enough within context, this point misses the mark by a wide margin and succeeds only in parroting doctrinal talking points without a true understanding of what this incident can tell us about the campaign.

Regular readers of The Captain’s Journal can do better.  Be circumspect, smart and deliberate, and consider the question of what we might learn from this incident?  Considering the recent few months of the campaign, what information may we cobble together to place this incident within its proper context?  How can we avoid the traps into which most apparatchiks fall, of advocating either bombing them into submission or implementing procedures to avoid noncombatant casualties altogether because it isn’t “population centric?”

First of all, there is no doubt that fathers and mothers of children who have perished, or children of fathers or mothers or siblings who have perished at the hands of U.S. military action, intentional or not, will forever be our enemies.  It is understandable, and would be the same with most readers.  Noncombatant casualties makes enemies.

Of course, many things make enemies, including promises to stop the Taliban and failing to meet those promises.  But in this case there is something deeper going on, something that requires a bit of thought and trending.

In the Battle of Wanat where nine U.S. Soldiers perished and twenty seven were wounded, the Taliban massed some 300 or more fighters at one time in the area.  Were it not for Close Combat Aviation (CCA) and Close Air Support (CAS), the casualty rate would have been even higher.  Vehicle Patrol Base Wanat and Observation Post Top Side were what one might consider “far flung.”  It was an area of operation that had heretofore not seen U.S. troops, but in which the Taliban were numerous and Taliban control unquestioned.

When the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit was deployed to the Garmser region of the Helmand Province in 2008, they killed approximately 400 Taliban who had massed in Garmser, at times calling their fire fights “full bore reloading.”

In Marines, Taliban and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures, we covered the exploits of one Force Recon platoon who documented the fact that in their engagements with the Taliban the enemy fighters swelled to over 400 during ambushes and even during Taliban attacks on Forward Operating Bases.  This is remarkable.  This is basically half a Battalion of Taliban forces conducting what Force Recon called very good infantry tactics, including enfilade and interlocking fires, combined arms, and all of the other infantry tactics on which most good infantry is trained.

Finally, in Trouble in the Afghan Army: The Battle of Bari Alai we discussed the probable treachery of the Afghan Army during a Taliban attack on Observation Post Bari Alai in which three U.S. Soldiers perished along with two Latvian Soldiers.  More than 100 Taliban fighters massed for the attack on the Observation Post.

Now go back and study the report above that has Admiral Mullen so concerned.  The Taliban massed approximately 300 fighters for the fire fight with what turns out to be a fairly small U.S. force.  They had Afghan troops alongside, but as we learned at Wanat, no Afghan troops perished that fateful night.  The Afghan Army is shot through with drug abuse, and during the fight for Observation Post Bari Ala, it is believed that the Afghan troops laid down their weapons in a pre-arranged agreement with the Taliban.

Actually, a bit of study yields the conclusion that the Taliban have always wanted to mass troops (2005 report):

As the Taliban start shooting, O’Neal’s platoon scurries for cover. But there’s no panic. “They think, without a doubt, they have us outnumbered,” recalls O’Neal, a native of Jeannette, Pa., and leader of 2nd Platoon, Chosen Company. “We’ve got only 23 people on the ground, and I would say the Taliban had over 150 before the day was over” …

Taliban fighters, meanwhile, appear to gain courage from numbers, the ability to swarm a smaller enemy unit. A sense of safety in numbers, however, is often the Taliban’s undoing if a US platoon can fix an enemy’s position long enough for aircraft or other infantry units to arrive. This is the backbone of US military strategy in Zabul, and one reason why the Taliban have lost so many fighters this year.

It is fairly well known now that the additional troops deployed to Afghanistan are going to the population centers around Kabul and Kandahar – of course, in a tip of the hat to population centric counterinsurgency doctrine.  So the balance of Afghanistan is left to the Taliban to raise revenue, recruit fighters, train, interdict our logistics lines, implement their governance and basically control as they see fit.

Then, since the U.S. is massing troops in and around the population centers, far fewer are left for the rural terrain.  The most that can usually be accomplished is squad, platoon and company-sized engagements, or even smaller units to embed with the Afghan forces.  This is very close to what is considered distributed operations.  Few patrols in Taliban-controlled areas, no ensuring that the Taliban feel the strong presence of forces, just bare minimum to “train” the Afghan forces.

Yet when the Taliban are able to mass forces of as much as half a Battalion, the expectation is that much smaller units of U.S. forces will engage them without causing noncombatant casualties, while at the same time, the Taliban are clearly using human shields.

Clearly, we are asking the impossible of U.S. troops.  The Obama administration doesn’t want to deploy more than about 68,000 U.S. troops to the theater, and as long as this small footprint obtains, heavy use of air power will be necessary to keep smaller units from being completely overrun when the Taliban mass troops.

There is a solution to this dilemma, but it requires more troops to disengage the Taliban from the population.  The number of troops we have at the moment is not enough to do this mission.  Hence, while noncombatant casualties are a sad thing and certainly counterproductive, the answer is not to inform the smaller units of U.S. forces that they cannot use air support.  As much as The Captain’s Journal hates to see noncombatant casualties, more Marines and Soldiers in coffins would be much worse.

The Strategy Page gives us an account of an ambush by Taliban on a U.S. convoy in which both U.S. SOF and elements of the Afghan Army fought back.  Concluding the account:

The quick reaction force called for air support, but the warplanes scanned the area with their targeting pods and reported that the Taliban had collected most of the local civilians and were holding them at gunpoint, as human shields.

The Afghan commandos of the quick reaction force then crossed the river and forced the Taliban out of the village, and away from their human shields. The villagers, once free of their captors, told the Afghan troops where the Taliban had set up more fighting positions, and the Afghan soldiers soon chased the Taliban away. Meanwhile, other Afghan and U.S. troops of the Quick Reaction force went ahead to where the supply convoy was still pinned down. The Afghans, and a team of U.S. Special Forces troops, outmaneuvered the ambush force, killed five of the Taliban, and captured six of those they had wounded. Several other Taliban got away.

As the supply went on, they hit two roadside bombs. One vehicle was destroyed, But no one was hurt. Throughout the entire action, no troops (American or Afghan) or civilians were killed. It was the training and leadership of the Afghan troops, and the use of air power (for reconnaissance, not smart bombs) that played a major role in the success of the operation.

Afghan “commandos.”  This report makes it sound as if these troopers can fastrope, perform room clearing operations with stacks, do squad rushes, perform fire and maneuver warfare, lay down enfilade or interlocking fires, and hump a pack and body armor 30 – 40 kilometers.  Maybe they can even do HALO jumps.  “Commandos.”

As is sometimes the case with the Strategy Page, this report also sounds as if it could be an ISAF or U.S. press release by Public Affairs Officers.  Whether this report is exaggerated, there is another side to the Afghan Army.  We have discussed the drug abuse and addiction in the Afghan Army, and also linked very informative but depressing video of attempts to train the Afghan Army.  There is an even more recent report of treachery within the Afghan Army, costing the lives of three American warriors.

A pre-dawn attack by the Taliban that killed three American soldiers and six other coalition troops earlier this month is raising new questions about many of the Afghan soldiers who were supposed to be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

Officials are investigating whether the Afghan troops may have colluded with the Taliban in the brazen assault on the remote coalition outpost along the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Their findings could complicate further the already difficult challenges U.S. trainers are having with the Afghan Army.

American officials have questioned 11 Afghan Army soldiers and one Afghan interpreter who were taken prisoner after the battle and later released. Many U.S. troops in the area suspect that the Afghan POWs may have passively helped their Taliban attackers by laying down their arms, or even actively colluded with the enemy in the attack.

Details of the battle have been sketchy, since all three Americans at Observation Post Bari Alai were killed in the fight. Of the four Latvian NATO soldiers who were also defending the post, two were killed and a third was badly wounded and evacuated to Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany. According to a U.S. official, the remaining Latvian soldier was “shellshocked” by the attack and has been flown back to Latvia for treatment.  Three Afghan National Army troops also were killed.

U.S. officials are declining to comment on specifics until their investigation is complete. But conversations with American troops familiar with the situation reveal that in the early morning hours of May 1, more than 100 Taliban fighters launched a coordinated uphill attack on Bari Alai, a tactically critical, fortified mountaintop outpost that overlooks the convergence of the Hel Gal, Durin, Marin, and Kunar River Valleys, as well as a bridge that spans the Kunar River.

While Taliban fighters pinned down coalition troops with machine gun fire, their comrades scaled the mountainsides and advanced on the post. Coalition troops killed 19 Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. William D. Vile, 27, who was wounded, continued to return fire as he called on his radio for reinforcements and artillery support. He was killed by an explosion and has been posthumously recommended for the Silver Star Medal, the Army’s third highest decoration for battlefield valor.

The blast breached the perimeter of the post, and the Taliban poured inside. Sgt. James D. Pirtle, 21, and Specialist Ryan C. King, 22, were killed defending the base and were both posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

After overrunning the post, the Taliban fighters captured 11 Afghan soldiers and one Afghan interpreter and transported them into the Hel Gal Valley, where they were held captive.

In the days following, U.S., Afghan, and Latvian forces embarked on joint operations to recover the dozen POWs. On May 6, approximately 400 coalition troops made a forceful push toward the Hel Gal Valley, where the POWs were believed to be held. But the mission was halted two hours after it began when the Taliban freed all 12 POWs after coalition forces broadcast radio messages demanding their return.

When asked what kind of condition the freed Afghan troops were in, Marine Lt. Col. Ted Adams replied, “Good condition. Too good, actually,” — a sentiment echoed by other officers, which has led many to suspect that the POWs were complicit in the enemy attack.

This battle is moderately less costly than the Battle of Wanat (in which nine U.S. soldiers perished and fifteen were wounded), but similar in that it shows both the massing of large numbers of Taliban fighters, and the lack of effectiveness of the Afghan Army.  In this battle only three Afghan soldiers perished, and at Wanat, none did.

The going forward strategy in Afghanistan seems to be similar to the Iraq strategy in 2004 and 2005 – train the indigenous forces.  It didn’t work in Iraq, and Iraq has a much stronger governmental institutional skeleton than does Afghanistan.  The U.S. administration is loath to increase troop strength beyond 68,000, but standing up the Afghan Army is bound to be a problematic and troublesome affair.  They are not only shot through with corruption and drug abuse, they are apparently guilty of treachery as well.  Finally, based on the casualties we have seen at both Wanat and Bari Alai, they simply can’t be trusted in battle.

Prior:

Analysis of the Battle of Wanat

On the Front Lines in Afghanistan