Battle Ready

charge of the security mission at the naval bases, I scheduled a C-130 to take me and additional security personnel to reinforce our platoon down to the dirt strip near the village. From there, we’d move on to the village by helo. We were to leave the following morning.

That night I was awakened by an urgent report from the platoon commander at the village. The NPA had killed a villager and left his body near our positions; an attached note threatened our troops. I immediately ordered more troops added to the security force on the C-130.

Before we landed the C-130 at the dirt strip, I had the pilot fly over the village so I could get a sense of the area.

The downed helo was an incredible sight. “Minor damage? No big deal?” Forget about it. It was stuck in the mire of a coastal tidal stream; its blades snapped off. This was no minor, easily repaired problem.

After flying into the village via chopper, I made a quick inspection of our position with my battalion commander, then turned the security situation over to him and turned my attention to the helo. I came down on the squadron like a ton of bricks. This, I learned, was how the crash came about:

The lieutenant flying the CH-53 had overloaded it with heavy sacks of food. As he was coming into the tiny landing zone in the center of the village, it hit him at the last moment that the zone was too small for his big bird. He pulled up sharply, but the weight onboard did not let him get the lift he needed, and he settled into the nearby tidal stream, just missing the straw huts crowded between the LZ and the water.

Time then became a critical factor. The tide was coming in within a few hours. When the helo could not be repaired as quickly as everyone had hoped, the rising saltwater tide set it drifting into the trees bordering the stream, which further damaged the bird, making it impossible to get it out on its own power. It was now stuck in the mud.

I was furious. I understood the squadron’s focus on repairing the helo and appreciated their round-the-clock efforts to work on the bird under difficult conditions, but the squadron’s failure to accurately report the status of the helo was inexcusable. Their failure had caused me to put them in a very dangerous situation for more than a day.

That wasn’t the only source of my fury. Those who had tasked us with this mission had failed to properly analyze the intelligence and security situation, and I expressed my feelings to those up the chain of command who needed to pay more attention to what was going on. Fortunately, we had Philippine Marines in the area to help.

We eventually arranged for a powerful CH-53E to pull the helo out of the muck. From there it was to take the damaged helo to a recovery tug offshore. The operation started out all right. The CH-53E successfully raised the busted bird; but on the way to the tug, the CH-53E dropped it into the Philippine Sea.

The tug skipper said, “Not to worry. I can easily recover it from the seafloor.”

He actually made good on his promise, and the tug recovered the helo, then brought it to the naval base and dumped it on the shore near our own base camp… now a total write-off.

The story does not end there.

On a later deployment, we were ordered to clean up the helo and put it aboard a ship bound for Okinawa. Since it had been sitting on the edge of the jungle for almost a year, the cleanup was a tough job. In the helicopter’s current condition, the Navy was not eager to have it aboard their ship, and this caused heated discussions.

The helo was again making my life miserable.

When we got the helo back to Okinawa, it was placed at Camp Hansen, for use in training on helicopter embark and debark drills (old helo hulks are often used for this purpose). And there it sat, in clear view, every day for the remainder of my tour, as a reminder of all the griefs it had dragged me through.

During my tour of duty with the Striking Ninth, General Gray called me back to Washington several times to participate in studies aimed at tackling the many problems arising from the inevitable shrinking of the military. He wanted the Corps to be able to reduce personnel and forces with minimal disruption and without losing capabilities. These were hard efforts to sell. Though the commandant’s study group had a highly select membership from all over the Marine Corps, several commanders fought our recommendations. Nobody wanted to give up anything. Nobody wanted to face the reality of impending reductions and change.

Meanwhile, it became increasingly difficult for me to handle these time-consuming studies while running my other duties on Okinawa — a conflict that General Gray did not fail to notice. “I doubt that you’ll finish a regular three-year tour of duty on Okinawa,” he told me.

He was right. After two years and a couple months, I received orders back to Quantico, where I was to become the chief of staff of the Training and Education Center, an organization recently established by General Gray to implement the changes he had directed. My experience in this area made it inevitable that I’d be returned early to help.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER

Quantico’s Training And Education Center was a General Al Gray innovation — part of his overall effort to revitalize the Marine Corps’ education system. The aim of the center was to improve Marine training by providing realistic and demanding standards (which would define a Marine, the duties of his occupational specialty, the responsibilities of his grade — i.e., rank — and the duties of his billet — e.g., squad leader); and by providing methods for testing and evaluating whether these aims were being achieved in individuals and units.

These innovations were significant and far-reaching; and given the realities of a change-resistant military culture, their implementation was not a sure thing. Gray wanted a ramrod who shared his vision and had the credibility and capability to make it all happen. Zinni got the call to be chief of staff at the center.

Just before Christmas 1989, less than six months after arriving at the center, Zinni received a congratulatory phone call from Gray; he had been selected to the grade of brigadier general.[33]

The Marine Corps is a very lean organization… the opposite of top-heavy. Meaning, there are very few generals, and selection for the promotion is a true honor. Every year, perhaps one in ten Marine colonels make the leap to general officer. Of these only three or four come from the ranks of infantry colonels, such as Zinni.

Though Gray wanted Zinni to be assigned within the Marine Corps after the promotion, Zinni’s friend Jack Sheehan had other ideas. Sheehan, now a major general (he would later go on to be the commander in chief of the Atlantic Command), headed the personnel assignment division at Corps headquarters. If Zinni was going to have a shot at rising higher, Sheehan knew he would need what is called “a joint tour”—a position at a command staff manned by all the services.[34] Sheehan had just the place for him — a onetime near backwater that the fall of the Soviet Empire was just about to make one of the busiest spots on the planet.

After the holidays, Sheehan informed Zinni that the following summer he would become the deputy director of Operations at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart, Germany.

“This is the very best joint tour we have,” Sheehan told him. “It’s hands down the best billet for Marine Corps brigadiers.”

“Sure, sure,” Zinni was thinking. “But, Jeez, what I’d really like is to be an assistant division commander or something like that in the Marine Corps, and forget the joint crap. What I’m getting is maybe okay for a staff job, but it’s still a staff job and goddamned painful.”

On the other hand, Zinni was excited about being a general. “So you’ve just gotta go over there two years