Disaster
Building trust and overcoming the tyranny of distance
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Minute Hour Men
On my 3rd deployment to Afghanistan, the battalion in which I was a company commander was designated the Theater Reaction Force (TRF). The TRF was a big deal. We could be called to any part of the country at any time. My company always had one platoon on standby that had to be at the airfield ready to liftoff in a helicopter in under an hour. And the rest of the company had to be ready to go in under 3 hours.
Most of the TRF was located at Bagram Airfield (BAF), but my company was located at Kandahar Airfield (KAF), over 300 miles away.
I knew that distance would be my biggest enemy as I tried to maintain a good relationship with the battalion headquarters. I had learned all about the tyranny of distance when I served as a staff liaison on my second deployment to Afghanistan, which you can read about here:
Distance causes mistrust to grow. It’s hard for two units to have empathy with for each other when they are, in some cases, hundreds of miles apart and facing very different enemy situations. The same is true of headquarters at different echelons.
Most people have been in the position of saying, “What the hell are those idiots at headquarters thinking!” Or they’ve been at headquarters thinking about the lower echelon unit, “Those idiots don’t know what they hell they are doing! This mentality can be extremely destructive to the overall mission, and building trust between units is absolutely crucial.
I knew that I had to simultaneously fight my company’s urge to blame all of our problems on “those idiots on the battalion staff,” while simultaneously trying to convince the battalion staff that I knew what I was doing and that they could trust me.
I knew what I had to do, I just needed the right opportunity.
Tsunami
When we first arrived in country, we learned all that we could from the out-going unit. Unfortunately, the handover process wasn’t as long as any of us would have liked, and we weren’t ready for the rigors of being a TRF unit. We were struggling with a whole bunch of logistical issues related to vehicles, specialized equipment, ammunition, MREs (field rations) etc. This was also the first deployment for the vast majority of Soldiers in the company, and they didn’t realize that at any moment they might be called upon to, you know, fight.
I knew that the battalion was going to run us through a drill to ensure that our designated platoon would be ready to go conduct a mission within 1-hour of notification, but I didn’t expect it to come as quickly as it did. Within 18 hours of taking over the 1-hour ready platoon job, the battalion notified us of the drill. These were known as “Tsunami Drills” because Tsunami was the codeword for the activation of the TRF.
But, remember, the battalion HQ was over 300 miles away. This was all done virtually over secure video chat, text chat, and phone calls.
When we heard “TSUNAMI” called over the base loudspeakers, the platoon sprang into action and headed to the airfield while the platoon leader went to the briefing room to receive the mission from the battalion staff.
The platoon leader took detailed notes, quickly made a plan, and gave a back-brief to the battalion commander about how his platoon was going to execute the mission.
Then my executive officer (XO), the platoon leader, and I jumped into a pickup truck and sped to the airfield. What I saw when I arrived stunned me.
Huh?
I got out of the truck and told the platoon leader that he had 15 minutes left before the time expired. He gathered his platoon sergeant and squad leaders to brief them on the plan. I took this time to walk around and inspect the soldiers.
They had no water.
Their machine guns had no ammunition.
They had only two mortar rounds.
They had no maps.
Half of them didn’t have batteries for their night vision.
The radios were not configured correctly.
These guys weren’t ready for a camping trip, let alone a complex combat situation of unknown duration in extremely austere conditions.
I knew that no helicopters were coming as part of the drill, and that we were done as soon as we got to the airfield. I alerted the battalion headquarters that the platoon had met the time standard and that the drill was complete. The soldiers moved back to the ready room while I had a not-so-pleasant conversation with the XO and the platoon’s leadership. I rattled off the list of deficiencies and said, “gentlemen, you have four hours to fix these deficiencies and then we are running this drill again.”
As far as the battalion headquarters knew everything had gone great. The platoon leader gave an excellent brief and the platoon had met the time standard. They had no idea that if the mission had been real, the platoon would have been, essentially, combat ineffective upon arriving on the field of battle. I knew that I could fix all the problems, run the drill myself and keep running it until the platoon was ready, and the battalion staff would be none the wiser. But this was an opportunity that was too good to pass up.
I went back to my office and started typing the email I knew I’d have to send.
Unmitigated
I sat down at my computer and started typing:
Sir,
Today’s Tsunami Drill was an unmitigated disaster and I take full and personal responsibility.
I then went on to list in excruciating detail every single thing that we had done wrong as a company, and exactly how I had failed as a commander. I also wrote exactly what we were doing to fix it and how I was going to ensure that it was fixed. I said that I would send hourly reports until every single deficiency was corrected.
I CC’d the entire battalion staff and the other company commanders and hit Send.
I was nervous, but I did what I had to be done.
On a practical level, the battalion needed to know how unready we were if a real mission did come up. If it was a toss up between sending a platoon from BAF and sending one of my platoon’s from KAF, they needed to know to send the one from BAF, at least until I got my unit unscrewed. It was important to let them know, but that wasn’t the reason I sent the email.
The real reason was that I was sending a message to the entire organization: I will tell the truth, no matter how bad it makes me look.
If I could anchor that message in everyone’s minds at the very beginning of the deployment, I knew it would make my life significantly easier in the coming months. I didn’t want my headquarters to ever doubt if I was telling them the truth. If I said that I needed something from them to be successful, I needed them to believe me. If I said that my unit could handle something that my headquarters didn’t think I could handle, I needed them to believe me. If I said that a mission needed to be aborted or re-thought before execution, I really needed them to believe me.
A few minutes after I hit send on that email, my phone rang. I looked and the phone said “Lethal 6” —my battalion commander was calling me.
Fired
I cleared my throat, preparing my deepest telephone voice to try to sound calm and confident. I said my mantra a few times in my head: Full responsibility, no excuses. Full responsibility, no excuses. I told myself that getting fired as a commander and working on the battalion staff for the rest of the deployment wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I’d have more time to go to the gym, I might get to read a few books, I wouldn’t have to stress about getting people killed…it could be great!
“Baker Company, Captain Caroe”
“Baker 6, it’s Lethal 6. I just read your email.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You guys need to get your act together down there.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got every single officer and NCO working on this and we are surging to get it done.”
“This is not good, Captain Caroe. We could get called out at any time, you all should have been ready before assuming this mission.”
“I take full responsibility, sir. I failed to…”
“I know, I know. Get things back on track fast. I need to know as soon as you all are ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look, I really appreciate your honesty. No matter how bad things get, I need you to continue to be honest with me. Most officers in your position wouldn’t have fessed up and that kind of things can have dire consequences.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know I can trust you to operate on your own, that’s why I sent you down there. Keep sending reports and we’ll talk tomorrow. Oh, and expect another drill within 48 hours. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I hung up the phone relieved. My tactic had worked, and I would remain in command of Baker Company.
ChatGPT Summary:
This story recounts a company commander's third deployment to Afghanistan, where his unit was designated as the Theater Reaction Force (TRF). Despite being stationed 300 miles from battalion headquarters and facing numerous logistical challenges, the company had to be ready to deploy within an hour. A surprise drill revealed significant deficiencies in their readiness. Instead of concealing the problems, the commander sent a candid report to the battalion staff, detailing the issues and corrective measures. His honesty earned the battalion commander's trust and reinforced the importance of transparency and accountability in ensuring mission readiness.
That chatgpt is wild