Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force

Fort Bragg, Wednesday, November 27th, 1996

There was one other important event in the eighteen-week cycle of the division, and a happy one at that. Shortly after we had seen General Crocker on the ramp at Charleston AFB, the word came down that he was about to be promoted to lieutenant general, and moved up to the command of a corps. Thus it came to be that the day before Thanksgiving, the newly frocked General Crocker and his replacement, Major General Joseph K. Kellogg, Jr., stood together in the time-honored way as the baton of responsibility for America’s only airborne division was handed on to a new leader. For George Crocker, this day meant a third star and command of the U.S. I Corps out at Fort Lewis, Washington. However, it was hard to imagine that tough man who embodies everything that makes the airborne community great could hand his command over without a twinge of emotion. But he was giving the job to another skilled paratrooper. In fact, to look at General Kellogg’s biography is to see the standard path for 82nd Airborne Division commanders. He is the latest in a long line of All-American commanders who have commanded America’s best-known combat unit. On the walls of his headquarters are names like Ridgway, Gavin, Stiner, and now George Crocker. Each of these men left their own mark on the 82nd, and it remains to be seen what his will be. Whatever he does accomplish in the next two years of his tour, you can bet that he too will keep up the tradition of America’s Honor Guard.

The 82nd Airborne in the Real World

Once again, I’m going to spin a couple of short yarns about just how units like the 82nd Airborne might ply their deadly trade in the real world of the future. To this end, we’re going to look a decade or so into the early years of the 21st century (yes, it really is that close!) at what kinds of things the paratroops from Fort Bragg might be asked to do. Interestingly, and unlike the other kinds of units that we have explored in other books in this series, the 82nd will probably keep doing the same jobs they have always done: peacekeeping, pre-invasion assaults, airfield raids. More difficult and involved jobs, and probably in new places around the globe, but still the same kinds of kick-in-the-door and bust-heads jobs that have been their specialty for over a half century. So read on, and see where and what the All-Americans of the 82nd Airborne may be up to in ten years or so.

Operation Fort Apache: Sudan, 2007

Hamed an-Niel Mosque, Omdurman, Sudan, February 5th, 2007

In the dusty courtyard outside the mosque, Hassan al-Mahdi stood flanked by members of his personal guard, watching men whirl to the beating of hand drums, their arms flung out for balance, their eyes closed, expressions of rapture on their faces as they sought oneness with Allah in the frenzied rhythms of the dhikr. Swirling loosely around their thin, ascetic bodies, the robes were blurs of color under a sky stained red with sunset, a deep bloodred that made al-Mahdi think of those whose path to God had demanded far more than spiritual exercises — those who had suffered the pain of martyrdom so that the Sudanese people might find their destiny. Earlier that day, a decision made by al-Mahdi in Khartoum had thrust them further toward that destiny than anyone outside his ruling council could have imagined.

His brown, almost black eyes narrowed in the fading light, al-Mahdi rubbed his fingers over his ritually scarred cheeks and reflected on the pivotal meeting that had taken place in the nation’s capital across the confluence of the Blue and White Niles. He was aware of his persuasive leadership abilities, and knew that without his will, his vision, the Islamic Leadership Council (ILC) would never have embarked upon the course they had chosen, never have called for a campaign of open hostilities against the West. However, he was not too proud to acknowledge that every great harvest originated with the planting of small seeds. His success today owed much to the efforts of his predecessors.

^{A map of the Airborne Action in Khartoum, Sudan.}

^{JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD., BY LAURA ALPHER}

For years the Sudan had been quietly increasing its power and standing within the Middle East and Persian Gulf regions. Its rise had begun with the institution of Muslim shari’a law two decades before, and continued throughout the 1990s with radical economic reforms and the cleansing of non-Muslims in the rebellious south.

Also during that period, the Sudanese rulers had strengthened their ties with other Sufist regimes, sponsoring anti-Egyptian guerrillas in the northern border territories, smuggling foodstuffs and other supplies to Iraq during the interminable period of United Nations sanctions, firmly aligning themselves with Yemen and Iran in their campaign to excise the cancerous influence of the West from Arab politics and society.

At the same time, the Sudan had lured private European and Canadian financiers into investing in the development of its petroleum fields like a cobra doing a subtle dance to confound and draw its prey. Now that Western money, technology, engineers, and laborers had given the Sudanese people the means to extract and process the oil — enough oil to satisfy their needs for at least another decade — the infidels finally could be sent packing.

Hassan al-Mahdi had waited long for this day. A distant descendant of Mohammed Ahmad — the great Sudanese warrior who in the 19th century led a holy war against European colonialists, laid siege to Khartoum, and displayed its British governor’s head on a pole for all his troops to see — al-Mahdi had since childhood been filled with a sense of exalted and inexorable mission. While still shy of his thirtieth birthday, al-Mahdi had united his country’s two most powerful religious movements, the Ansar and the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, under his sole authority, and convinced the tribal chieftains to proclaim him as their Mahdi, or messenger of God. Three years ago, he had wrested control of the military government in a swift and bloody coup, selected sympathetic generals from the former regime to command his army, launched a vigorous effort to improve his country’s economic infrastructure, and used the tax profits to increase his backing of anti-Western militias.

Now the culmination of al-Mahdi’s plans was at hand. At the council gathering that had ended not an hour ago, he had won approval for a positive campaign of harassment of Western — and especially American — nationals in Khartoum.

For the present, it was essential that these incidents appeared to be random outbursts of mob violence rather than orchestrated assaults. This would not only give the Sudanese government deniability, but allow it to express righteous outrage at the charges America was bound to raise in the United Nations. As long as the godless mongrels were unable to bolster their claims with definitive proof, any retaliatory steps they took could be labeled as acts of aggression. How would it appear to the international community if they sent military planes and warships against the will of righteous street fighters? Surely then, whatever response the Sudan initiated in its defense might be considered justifiable.

No matter how events unfolded, America and its allies would find themselves in an untenable position. At the very least, their citizens would have to flee the Sudan with their tails between their legs and their flags stuffed in their pockets. And if they were goaded into open hostilities, flare-ups of anti-Western violence would spread throughout the region like chain lightning, prompting further diplomatic and civilian withdrawals. Eventually the hordes of foreigners would return to their own lands, and the balance of power in the Arab domains would shift to those who remained faithful to the word of Allah.

Now al-Mahdi nodded to his guards, signaling he was ready to depart. Dusk had settled over the field and the circle of dust-blown men had nearly lost its cohesion, dissolving like a group of celestial objects that had been