In the military one never knows how long it will be before the nation issues the call to battle. The period of rebirth that occurred from the 1970s lasted almost twenty years. The period following Desert Storm, from 1991 to 2001, was shorter and involved combat in Somalia in 1993. This post-Desert Storm era has been a continuum of operations requiring the Army to transform itself even while performing a wide variety of missions worldwide. For the U.S. Army or the U.S. military, there is no such thing as a timeout or 'strategic pause.' Those ten years were full of radically different challenges than those faced from 1973 to 1991, yet the Army met and continues to meet them. As successive Army Chiefs including current Chief General Pete Schoomaker have said, there is only one acceptable standard for America's Army, to win the nation's land wars as part of the joint team. All the talk about transformation, budget processes, size of the Army, and arguments over weapons programs, is only relevant if you win.
Moving into the future, as Professor Bob Quinn says in his book,
What has happened represents an extension of the study in command and rebirth of the U.S. Army we told earlier. I want to draw attention to the inspiring performance of duty of soldiers and leaders in tough battlefield conditions. They have shown our enemies that America once more has both the will and the military capable of going anywhere to seek them out and capture, kill, or bring them to justice. It is also possible to reflect on the splendid efforts of our Army in Afghanistan and Iraq to show how the U.S. Army has evolved into the magnificent Army it is today over the years since the first publication of
The U.S. Army has gone 'into the storm' once more, or from Shakespeare's
NO NOTICE START OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
On 7 October 2001, in response to orders from Commander-in-Chief President George W. Bush, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) launched a campaign in Afghanistan to destroy Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, to free that country, and to deny it to Al Qaeda as a training sanctuary. It was a campaign begun with no notice. It would be a campaign like no other in American military history, testament to the military's rapid transformation since 1991 and its ability to adapt rapidly and win.
When the extremists' intentions became clear on 11 September, the U.S. military was ready and immediately went into action at home and overseas, opening a campaign in Afghanistan right into the heart of the enemy. President George W. Bush said on 7 October 2001, announcing that operation:
'To all the men and women in our military, every sailor, every soldier, every airman, every Coast Guardsman, every Marine, I say this: Your mission is defined. The objectives are clear. Your goal is just. You have my full confidence, and you will have every tool you need to carry out your duty… '
Afghanistan is a land-locked country far from ports and the U.S.A., making it a difficult theater of operations for U.S. and allied forces to operate in. Almost immediately in opening this theater, U.S. and allied forces were able to use a staging base in Uzbekistan, the fruits of a mid-1990s initiative to develop new strategic relationships.
Given a wide range of options made possible by the versatility of continually transforming U.S. military forces, CENTCOM was able to project power from the sea at great distances. They also used land-based air power at some distance from Afghanistan, operated long and sometimes fragile supply lines, and set up a rapid medical evacuation system that got wounded soldiers to treatment facilities more rapidly and in better condition than was done in any of our previous campaigns. All of that work was done by a U.S. military with a capability to adapt and to tailor a force rapidly to meet mission conditions.
The campaign devised by CENTCOM commanded by General Tommy R. Franks fit the situation and enemy, and was as imaginative as it was effective in routing the Taliban and Al Qaeda, in denying Al Qaeda a sanctuary to train, and in setting the conditions for a new Afghanistan.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES
Special Operating Forces (SOF) teamed with Afghan Northern Alliance forces defeated the Taliban and drove them from power. They achieved their objectives because of their skill and courage and because they were networked with external support for intelligence, logistics, medical, and fire support, which included devastatingly effective precision munitions from the coalition air forces in a series of brilliantly executed operations. These operations effectively liberated six provinces of Afghanistan. They did all that in about a month, adapting to severe terrain and weather conditions, enemy actions, and using all modes of transportation including horseback riding. They completed the destruction of the Taliban and liberated Kabul (Stewart, Dr. Richard, 'Army Center of Military History (CMH) initial summary of the Afghanistan War,' final draft, 2003, Washington, D.C., pp 6–7, 15).
EARLY RAID
I had the opportunity to visit with Captain Shawn Daniel, Commander of Company C, 3d Battalion, 75th Rangers, who led his Ranger Company in an early airborne raid near Kandahar 19–20 October 2001. He told me of the extraordinary skill and courage of his Rangers during the night assault. Once on the ground he thought he had only a few injuries from the jump, only to learn after the operation that the injury rate was double what was reported because soldiers continued on their mission, sometimes with broken ankles. It was an early indicator to me that in this war, soldiers had a fierce commitment to the mission because this one was for us, for our freedoms, because the United States of America had been directly attacked. They felt it early in the war in 2001 and still feel it today.
FIGHT OUTNUMBERED AND WIN
Other battles demonstrated that U.S. and allied forces could, with imaginative combinations, fight outnumbered and win. In late November at the Quali Jangi fortress prison, small numbers of SOF along with soldiers
