The unexpectedly large response to ‘It’s not about saving Pvt Ryan’ (National Interest, IE, March 29) is generally evenly divided. The article struck a positive chord with most Indian readers, and many of those who wrote back in agreement were actually Indian soldiers, active or retired.
But disagreement was equally passionate and came from so many American readers who read it off the Net. Those in agreement said the Americans are so scared of losing lives as to be incapable of fighting a real war. Others said Indians could afford to talk like this because life comes cheap in these parts and millions are queueing up to join their army simply because there are no other jobs available.
The truth, as in most such cases, lies somewhere between these two extreme arguments. One thing we have to concede is that the western armies, no matter what their advantage in terms of resources and technology, take the efficiency, comfort and safety of their men much more seriously than we do. This despite the fact that our armies are almost constantly involved in some sort of combat.
While it is good that we are less hesitant about taking casualties, our rough-and-ready attitude is callous and uncaring towards the men who charge at the machine-gun nests rather than wait inside their main battle tank and call up a helicopter strike.
That difference is underlined strikingly by a story in The Wall Street Journal about a certain Master Sergeant Rudy Romero. While operating in the Afghan mountains with the 101st Airborne, he wrote a long e-mail — in capital letters — to one of his former commandants, explaining his experiences in real combat.
How the shoes that worked in Iraqi deserts in 1991 now fell apart in rocky Afghanistan, how the rucksacks were too heavy, how the MREs (meals ready to eat) were too cumbersome, how the gloves were warm but you couldn’t pull the trigger wearing those, and so on.
Also read: The winner as underdog
Many in our colonially hierarchy-bound armed forces would be outraged at the very idea of a mere master sergeant writing directly, and so informally, to his commandant like this. Particularly as the e-mail began, rather jauntily, with, ‘‘How’s everything going, sir? Let’s get together for lunch. I know a pretty good place if you like Mexican.’’
But what’s more important is what happened after his e-mail landed with his old boss, Major Frank Sturek (who is probably putting some of that wisdom to good use with his unit around Najaf now). He forwarded it to the two people he thought should be reading it: Army Sgt Major Jack Tilley and Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki who, The Wall Street Journal said, found it fascinating.
A month later Tilley called Romero and summoned him to the US Soldier Systems Centre in Massachusetts. Romero and two others who operated with him in Afghanistan spoke to a theatre full of army engineers working on the soldier’s personal equipment and clothing.
The result: Already, the boots are changing, so is the mix of rations, the fit of gloves. Engineers are also addressing other issues that might sound elementary but complicate the soldier’s life a great deal in battle.
For example, the problem with different kinds of equipment using different kinds of batteries adding to weight as well as eating into operational time. Romero and his colleagues then spoke about other more functional issues, like what kind of grenades were found best at clearing caves and work on those is going on.
The Romero e-mail is now posted on several US army websites and in Internet chat rooms (http://windsofchange.net/archives/ 003064.html). The 1,500-word e-mail is studded with what marketing men would call genuine user statements. Romero describes how with the flak jacket, equipment and weapons they were already carrying 80 pounds each.
‘‘So throw on the ruck (the rucksack or backpack) and you are sucking,’’ he wrote. He describes how his mates found a lot of the equipment issued by the army so impractical they learnt to procure it from commercial chains. These include gloves, socks, garters, even ammunition sacks all bought from mountaineering and hunting stores back in the US.
Also read: Kargil: What kind of a democracy are we that we are shy of facing the truth about our wars?
Now, cut to Kargil and recall some of the media coverage of that bloody, little war. What feedback did our reporters bring you from our own anonymous men, the unknown soldier, and let’s call him Havildar Shinde for convenience. That his shoes broke in a couple of days on those craggy rocks. That his clothing was not warm enough at night and too hot when the sun was out.
That he was short of night goggles and the ones he had were inadequate. That his patrols and assault sections, the very cutting edge of mountain warfare, were low on automatics and could do with a greater volume as well as range of fire power. That his close air support was erratic and ineffectual even if the pilots were brave and forever willing, and so on.
It is unlikely, given our social and temperamental differences, that some Havildar Shinde would have dared to send an e-mail or write a letter like this to his commandant. But did anyone higher up bother about these feedbacks that were coming through the media?
Kargil, mind you, was a war that was fought and won in the backdrop of the then army chief making a public statement like, ‘‘We will fight with whatever we have got.’’ We wouldn’t know if he sent an e-mail like this to his bosses. Even if he did, we well know how seriously it would be taken given the fact that the ministry of defence returned unspent nearly Rs 9,000 crore in the last financial year.
And this when our army was lined up on the border through most of the year and supposedly preparing for full-fledged war any moment.
Also read: Kebabs and Kargil
You want to see how this works in real life, apply a test I had suggested in a National Interest column (‘Our underdog of war’, IE, May 6, 2000). Take at random a still photograph of the 1965 war, or even one from the Republic Day parade of 1966, and compare it with a picture of an Indian soldier in Kashmir or at the same parade now.
If they do look so remarkably similar, you know what we’re talking about. The army has been engaged in the most vicious, low-intensity conflict in Kashmir in 50 years losing on an average 300-400 men per year. This is three to four times more than the US army has lost conquering Iraq.
And yet they were fighting with the rifle that you saw them carrying in 1965 until, in many of the units, these were replaced with even older AK-47s — but at least these are lighter and have a better rate of fire.
It is not that there have been no changes but it’s difficult to say if the user, the poor Havildar Shinde, has been consulted. Many units in Kashmir now have flak jackets. But these are cumbersome and heavy. The half measure mindset reflects in the new bullet-proof helmet that merely goes around the forehead and the lower head, leaving the top merely under a patka.
If George Fernandes went to Kashmir one of these days and, instead of the mere ritual of sharing a chana-shakarpara meal with the jawans, actually took one aside he may discover some truth. Most jawans discard both their jackets and the helmets when combat actually begins. The jacket is too heavy when you are in pursuit of the terrorist, the helmet is too inadequate when you are crouching under enemy fire.
The other fact he will discover is how often his jawans, and even officers, are inclined to use flak jackets and even rucksacks retrieved from terrorists they have killed because these are of better quality. Their personal weapons are exactly the same as those of the terrorists, there are very few night vision devices or other electronics that is part of the edge any regular army would deserve to have against hit-and-run terrorists.
Sergeant Romero’s e-mail should be essential reading for both the brass that spends half its time playing golf and the other half bitching about the bureaucracy, as also for the civilian leadership which is so thrilled to return the equivalent of $2 billion unspent from the defence allocation to balance the nation’s budget.
India’s fight against terrorism is now a two-decade-old war of attrition. It is likely it will go on in the same way for many more years. If we were as sensitive to the needs of our Havildar Shinde as the Pentagon was to Sergeant Romero, we will save hundreds of lives of our own in this campaign. You can in any case leave it to your jawans to win it for you.