http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1159244,00.html'Bullet magnets' prepare for Iraqi frontline
The largest troop rotation in US history starts this month - but the reservists have little training or appetite for battle
Suzanne Goldenberg in Fort Bliss, Texas
Monday March 1, 2004
The Guardian
The lead vehicle in the convoy has disappeared over the hill. The road ahead is flanked by two suspicious-looking car wrecks. In the back of the pick-up truck, the troops are getting twitchy.
All six soldiers jump out of the truck and sprawl in the dirt, triggers at the ready. Minutes later, they clamber back in. Nobody thinks to look behind until a smoke grenade explodes three yards away. The buzzer sounds. "A grenade. We're dead, dude," says Private Tyler Franzen. They were wiped out within the first five minutes of their drill on convoy movement, and the implications register quickly. Days from now, Pte Franzen and the 319th Signals Battallion could be in Iraq. "This makes me more scared," he says. "I am preparing for the worst." Their trainer calls troops like these "bullet magnets" - army reservists or National Guard soldiers, weekend warriors with minimal combat training pressed into service.
Tens of thousands are on the move now as the Pentagon carries out the largest rotation of forces in its history, relieving battle-weary soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait with fresh forces. By late March, 130,000 troops will be leaving Iraq and 105,000, including some of the 319th, will arrive. As many as 50% of these will be reservists or National Guard. Some units, like the 319th, will be raised virtually from scratch. The signals battalion, based in Sacramento, California, was barely at half-strength when it was mobilised, and reservists have been drafted in from as far away as Puerto Rico, Delaware, and Georgia to be sent off to what the troops call the "sandbox". They are joining a different war from the one fought by the invading force that set off last year to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Today, the mission is far less clear, and more dangerous. The original rationale for the invasion - weapons of mass destruction - has been discredited, and so has the notion of a swift military victory. The toll for US forces in Iraq is approaching 550 dead.
...snip....
What he does not need to say is that the death toll in Iraq has been especially high for reservists, National Guard members and support units. There is no frontline in Iraq, and no zone of safety for non-combat forces. Most reservists and support units have not been trained for a guerrilla war - with lethal consequences. They simply do not know how to fight. Some freeze in training exercises. At the firing range, they blast away, and the targets still stand. They were trained in technical skills, not combat capabilities. "These people are what I call bullet magnets," says Colonel Rick Phillips, who is in charge of training. "What they find over there is that these kids aren't pulling the trigger. They are waiting to engage."
...snip...
Those blunders led the Pentagon to institute basic battleground drills for all forces departing for Iraq. Col Phillips has four days to drill survival instincts into his people. He knows he can not make warriors out of them."I just want to give them enough to help them to come home."
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