Det One - Force Recon Association

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36 DET ONE GySgt John A. Dailey’s and SSgt Jack A. Kelly’s teams during the Capstone Exercise. These Marines, task-organized for reconnaissance and surveillance with the addition of radio recon and fires Marines, bore the brunt of the cold weather in the high desert of Nevada. that guided them to safe territory. 22 Executing this surprise event meant “another 8- or 10-hour movement across some horrendous terrain,” according to Major Dolan, who recalled that by that time, there were “not a lot of happy campers left.” But the evasion exercise taught the Det One Marines lessons about seeing the operation through to the very end. 23 It also validated the critical requirement for detailed planning to cover contingencies, and it exercised a significant capability of the counterintelligence section, again demonstrating how the detachment could use what other special operations units might call the “non-operators” as integral parts of the whole plan. The experience at Bridgeport had the intended effect: it raised the stress level and gave the commanding officer an opportunity to examine every man under extreme pressure. The crucible of the “Man-Ex” also brought out some unarticulated personality conflicts. At the reconnaissance platoon debrief, a gathering of some “unhappy campers” after the surprise evasion exercise, Master Sergeant Padilla spoke up to provide some constructive criticism for the platoon commander. The ensuing acerbic exchange, recounted with humor some 18 months later by participants and witnesses alike, cleared the air and cemented the personal and professional understandings between the reconnaissance element leadership. Close Quarters Battle Training A major qualitative leap in the reconnaissance element’s tactical capabilities came in October 2003 on the heels of the Bridgeport exercise. Returning to Camp Pendleton’s Range 130, the reconnaissance Marines immersed themselves in a groundbreaking close-quarters battle package unlike anything they had ever experienced. The reconnaissance element This photo shows both the protective clothing, procured for them by Jon Laplume at Soldier Systems Command, as well the Full Spectrum Battle Equipment, which could be tailored to each Marine’s duties and personal preference. Photo courtesy of Patrick J. Rogers
Training 37 Photo courtesy of Patrick J. Rogers Det One’s armorer, GySgt Mark S. Kitashima, conducts instruction on the M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun during the Capstone Exercise, at Mercury, Nevada, in December 2004. knew its business individually and collectively from several years of deployments. It was also a platoon loaded with close-quarters battle instructors: Master Sergeant Oakes and Gunnery Sergeant Morrison, to name only two, had spent time as special operations training group shooting instructors. All were experienced marksmen and tacticians, giving them the right foundation to rapidly achieve a higher level of proficiency. But they were about to be challenged to begin thinking critically about how they needed to conduct their operations. In order to break away from the Marine Corps close quarters combat model, the detachment contracted directly for the services of a retired U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, a veteran of a tier-one Special Operations Command unit. He first observed them as they breached and cleared a structure. He did not like what he saw and told the Marines that what they were doing was not going to cut it against the opponents they would be facing. The new set of tactics and techniques he taught them was “vastly different from what we did, as Marines, up to this point,” said Captain Thompson. He called the experience “very enlightening.” 24 No substantial change is easy, and not all of the Marines immediately embraced the new methods. Staff Sergeant Alex N. Conrad, one of the reconnaissance scouts, described the difficult but constructive change. The instructor “taught us what we needed to do,” but then “we went into the house [the specially constructed building for live-fire close quarters battle training], and we reverted back to our old tactics.” Conrad remembered that the retired Special Forces soldier yelled “‘stop, stop. Stop right there.’ He just told us, ‘this is not going to work. Here’s what we’re going to do, and this is how we’re going to do it. Get back out of the house and re-do this, one thing at a time.’” He told them bluntly that their old tactics were going to get them killed. When he demonstrated how their methods were slower and less effective than his—by having some Marines watch from a gallery in the house while the others went through the problem using both ways—he got his point across. 25 Conrad credits him with engineering a complete reversal in the reconnaissance element’s tactical mindset. “He changed our way of thinking. I think that was the turning point.” 26 The main issue the experience highlighted, and the one that cut to the essence of the larger USMC/SOCom relationship, was the divergence of Marine Corps close quarter battle tactics with those used by the upper-tier SOCom units. “Basically,” said Master Sergeant Padilla, “we were using dinosaur tactics.” 27 The big switch was a change from their familiar “initiative-based tactics” to the more fluid and dynamic “team-based tactics.” Initiative-based tactics relied on a single point of entry into a target house. Team-based tactics, on the other hand, enabled the Marines to simultaneously hit that target from more angles, then flow rapidly from room to room, maintaining the speed, shock, and violence of action they needed to gain the upper hand and prevail. The new tactics prompted a structural change in the detachment. The reconnaissance platoon reorganized from four teams of seven Marines each to six teams of four or five Marines each. Staff Sergeant Jack A. Kelly, assistant team leader in Master Sergeant Terry M.Wyrick’s Team 1, and Gunnery Sergeant Sidney J. Voss from Gunnery Sergeant Dailey’s Team 4 became the leaders of Teams 5 and 6. (Although the detachment received no new corpsmen to fill out the new structure, the platoon had enough certified emergency medical technicians—Staff Sergeant Kelly being one of them—to cover the basic requirements.) The introduction of team-based tactics to Det One’s reconnaissance element was more of a significant single addition to its toolbox than a wholesale replacement. Some of the younger Marines in the platoon took to team-based tactics more readily than the older ones and saw it as a day-and-night change, but the more wily and seasoned among them adopted a comprehensive view. Master Sergeant Wyrick pointed out later that most of the detachment’s direct action missions in Iraq were conducted using individual-
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Det One - Force Recon Association

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