TOC Operations: The nasty underbelly of the Infantry

When in doubt, call higher.

The TOC is higher. TOC stands for Tactical Operations Center. It is the higher headquarters. Its mission is to act as a hub for information, track the fight on the battlefield, and support the troops in the field. The TOC in an Infantry unit is staffed with permanent party infantry guys as well as dudes inbetween line assignments (for whatever reason).

As a young enlisted infantryman, the TOC was a place I never wanted to be. If I was tasked to go to the TOC for something, I always felt terribly uncomfortable and unwelcome. I’d duck my head under the canvas net to see Captains stacked upon Captains, sucking down coffee and eyeing me with disdain. This was there space, and they didn’t really want to be there, but it was their space dammit! Sometimes I might linger at the TOC because we always thought that was where information originated (it doesn’t) or sometimes they had air conditioning (they did).

Now, as a new junior officer waiting on a platoon, I’m assigned to an S3 shop, meaning TOC life is my new norm. As such, I’ve been learning more about how it works and what it does. Incidentally, I also saw this post on Best Defense last week, which I’m copying here for anyone that’s interested in this, with my comments in red.

One of the lessons I’ve learned about TOC Operations is that every single person in the TOC thinks they have the most important job. It takes a lot of discipline to admit to yourself that your piece of the pie is small, and the best thing for you to do is keep quiet.

Charlie Sherpa’s 26 Rules of TOC Operations

1. Continually ask: “Who else needs to know what I know?” (and do I need to tell them RIGHT NOW?)

2. Continually ask: “Who else knows what I need to know?”

3. Never speak with complete authority regarding that which you lack direct knowledge, observation, and/or suppressive fires.

4. Never pull rank over a radio net. (the equivalent of getting arrested and saying “Don’t you know who I am? It’s just embarressing)

5. Let the boss decide how he/she wants to learn.

6. Let the boss decide how he/she wants to communicate.

7. “I am responsible for everything my commander’s organization knows and fails to know, learns and fails to learn.”

8. Know when to wake up the Old Man. Also, know how to wake him up without getting punched, shot, or fired. (if you’re on at night, make sure you know all the criteria – don’t get caught asking each other if you should wake him/her up)

9. The three most important things in the TOC are: Track the battle. Track the battle. Track the battle.

10. Digital trumps analog, until you run out of batteries. (and don’t use it if you don’t use it in real war)

11. Always have ready at least two methods of communication to any point or person on the map.

12. Rank has its privileges. It also has its limitations.

13. Let Joe surprise you. (they see things you aren’t seeing)

14. Don’t let Joe surprise you. (they don’t see the things you see)

15. The first report is always wrong. Except when it isn’t.

16. The problem is always at the distant end. Except when it isn’t.

17. Exercise digital/tactical patience. Communications works at the speed of light. People do not. (clicking more won’t make it happen faster)

18. Your trigger finger is your safety. Keep it away from the CAPS LOCK, reply-all, and flash-override buttons.

19. The warfighter is your customer, and the customer is always right.

20. Bullets don’t kill people. Logistics kills people.

21. Knowing how it works is more powerful than knowing how it’s supposed to work. (use the lulls to get a 5 minute class on how it works)

22. Cite sources on demand. State opinions when asked.

23. Work by, with, and through others. It’s all about empowerment.

24. Do not seek the spotlight, Ranger. Let the spotlight find you. Then, make sure to share it with others.

25. Both the Bible and The Art of War make this point: It’s never a mistake to put oneself in someone else’s boots.

26. Humor is a combat multiplier. Except when it isn’t.

Celebrating Ashura and Easter in Karbala (April 20, 2003)

A paratrooper watching a procession of pilgrims during Ashura. (Karbala, ~20 April, 2003)
Photo from ‘The Rhino’, a fellow paratrooper also blogging about his experience in Iraq ten years ago.

From a letter to my girlfriend, April 20, 2003 (Easter Sunday):

The 19th thru the 21st of April are important days for muslims apparently. The people all over Iraq make a pilgrimage to Karbala to pray and mourn the death of a guy named Hussein. Not Saddam Hussein. The streets here are full of poeple, most with flags and banners. They seem to be really enjoying themselves too. Apprently they haven’t been able to do this for a very long time because of ex-president Saddam Hussein.

While lounging away at a grainery in Karbala, dodging dysentery, I happened to be sitting at an important spot in history. For the first time in decades, Shia from across Iraq were making their pilgrimage to Karbala, site of the the battle between Husayn and his supporters versus the forces of Yazid I, the Umayad caliph. While the truth is much more complicated, the battle of Karbala has been identified as the definitive event that would lead to the Shia/Sunni schism, if there were such a clear event that would so mark it.

At the time, it was nothing more than an interesting event happening outside the wire that barely registered to me or most of my peers. It was part of a general brief, a daily update: “The Iraqis are celebrating a holiday that they haven’t been able to celebrate for decades because of Saddam Hussein. So, good job. No one leaves the compound.” We were more or less quarantined to our compound while the pilgrimage took place.

I volunteered to ride with our Operations NCO one night during Ashura to pull security during a resupply mission. I wanted to see what was going on and I was getting bored laying on a concrete floor, reading books. The streets were filled with people walking, pushing carts, selling food, and overall looking happy. It reminded me of the way parking lots look at night at big theme parks. That time where the park is closing and everyone is leaving, happy, full of junk food. Concrete that goes on forever, white headlights and people intermittently strolling along. Cars pulling out and going home.

Still, I completely missed the relevance of the event. I wouldn’t get it until years later, when in college I started to really dig into Islam as a course of study. For a few days in April 2003, I was at the center of the world and didn’t even know it.

Reading the naivete of my letter home makes me shudder. That is the essence of this whole thing though. It’s all terribly embarressing.

Shooting Iraq: The Iraq War 10 Years Later

My squad leader taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. Baghdad, Late 2003.

When we got our deployment orders for ‘southwest Asia’ in early 2003, our packing list restricted us to our rucksack, assault pack, and two duffel bags (A and B). The prescribed packing list filled everything up with little space left for extras. We all ran out to the local tactical stores to buy last minute gear that we thought we might need for what we thought would be a quick and violent international raid.

I remember going into old soldier forums online and seeking out tips from Gulf War vets (lots said to bring nasal spray – completely useless). My very wise PSG advised us to pack a roll of nice toilet paper in each of our bags.

For me, the absolute must have item was a camera. I stuffed each of my duffel bags with two disposable cameras and I brought an Olympus digital camera. I wanted to make sure that I got pictures of this thing, whatever it was.

The digital camera was damaged at Udairi Range in Kuwait before the war even started. Sand got into the lens housing and I wasn’t able to repair it. In my attempt to dislodge the sand, I kept getting more and more violent with the camera, eventually just breaking it so that at least I knew I could definitely no longer use it.

That left me with the four disposable cameras for the war. While in Kuwait, I took one from the bags and kept it in my cargo pocket. The others I would pull out as needed.

It’s hard taking pictures in war. Especially in a shooting war. When is it appropriate to take action shots? The answer is never. If you’re snapping a photo, you’re not pulling security or doing something you’re supposed to be doing. At the same time, everyone acknowledged that being a warrior-tourist was a natural thing and having a camera and taking pictures was not discouraged, so long as you still did your job.

This led to some anxiety filled moments, where something awesome was taking place and an urge would arise to take a picture, but there might have been a question as to whether it was appropriate or not.

2nd Platoon, A. Co. 3/325 AIR pulls security along a road while Kiowa gunships attack an enemy ambush location. ~March 29, 2003. As Samawah, Iraq.

That was the case with the picture above. This was taken in late March near As Samawah. Our platoon was ambushed on the road, and after pulling back into some low ground, we called in Kiowa’s on the enemy. As the Kiowa’s did their gun runs, I thought it would make for an amazing picture. Our team was pulling rear security. I quickly pulled out the disposable camera and took a couple of pictures before turning back to work. You can see the paratroopers huddled together in the center of the photograph.

Anyway, since it’s the ten year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, I thought I would start a series on that. It’ll be mostly pictures that I took. But I might also put letters home or reflections of events up here. I’ll also try to post things that were exactly-ish ten years ago. No promises.

I always imagined that when I came home from war I would sit down at the kitchen table with my parents and lay out all of the pictures I took, and explain to them how the whole experience went down. From start to finish. A long night drinking beers and laying it all out, once and for all. It never happened. In the ten years since then, I’ve learned a lot about what ‘coming home’ and ‘transitioning’ means, and how important ‘serious talk‘ is to the entire process.

So, I know there will be value in this for me, and I hope others find value in it, or at least find it interesting.