Military

ON TASK FORCE HAWK

Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to testify on behalf of America's Army, and specifically the superb soldiers who served as part of Task Force Hawk in Albania supporting NATO as part of Joint Task Force Noble Anvil.

Three days ago I departed from my assignment as the Assistant Division Commander for 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, for duty here in the Pentagon. Prior to that, I spent the past 3 months deployed to Albania as the Deputy Commander of Task Force Hawk.

I have been associated with Army Aviation for the past 27 years, and have witnessed first hand the evolution of rotary wing aviation warfare and the merging of tactics, technology, and pilot training and proficiency into the combined arms fight. This most recent experience in Albania with the deployment of Task Force Hawk provided me valuable insight to the capabilities of our Army aviation assets, and most importantly, how we can improve on an already awesome and lethal capability to our nation's military arsenal. It was in this spirit that I captured lessons learned from my personal observations from the Task Force Hawk experience and forwarded them via memorandum to the Chief of Staff of the Army. This memorandum, dated 9 June 1999, is the catalyst for my appearance before you today.

First, let me say Task Force Hawk accomplished all of its assigned missions, the soldiers participating in this operation performed magnificently, and had the Task Force been given the go ahead to conduct strikes against the Serb forces, I believe they would have been extremely lethal and effective. The second point I'd like to make, and I want to be clear about this, is that we are not broken. In fact Task Force Hawk performed superbly in some of the toughest conditions I've seen in 27 years. The intent of my memorandum, and the cornerstone of my service to the Army, is to make a great Army even better. In that vein, there are areas we which we should consider improving, training and manning systems we need to incorporate and review, and evaluate specialized equipment that can better serve and protect our soldiers.

The soldiers of Task Force Hawk made it happen in spite of several obstacles. I continue to read news reports stating that the Task Force was not ready--this was simply not the case. Additionally, these are very disheartening comments for the soldiers that participated in the deployment to have to read, and more importantly, have the American public believe they could not have performed their mission. In fact, the Task Force completed a very logistically challenging and operationally sensitive deployment into a very austere environment--one that required exceptional skills and hard work to accomplish--and stood ready to be employed in combat in support of the national military strategy.

We should remember that employing this type of Task Force, specially tailored for this type of mission from various organizations, also required some exceptional efforts. That said, the soldiers of this Task Force rose to the challenge, as have generations of soldiers before them, and succeeded in demonstrating the nation’s resolve and national will to accomplish the tasks assigned. Ours is an inherently dangerous, but essential profession, and success often has a price; we should not forget the ultimate price paid by two of our aviators CW3 Dave Gibbs and CW2 Kevin Reichert…both great Americans, great patriots and pilots, who with the other 5,000+ soldiers of Task Force Hawk dedicated themselves to accomplish the Task Force’s objectives and bring a resolution to the crisis in Kosovo. Each and every American should be proud of the achievements and sacrifices made by all members of the Task Force. In short, we are ready and capable of accomplishing the missions assigned to us.

But that doesn’t mean it was perfect--no military operation ever is. One of the qualities that we as a values-based and capabilities-based Army cherish is the ability to engage in frank, candid, and professional assessments of our own abilities and levels of preparedness. With this quality comes the responsibility to provide not only an honest assessment of strengths and weaknesses, but also a recommendation for remedying those areas that we believe need improvements. In particular, we do these at the end of every operation--both in training and combat--that is how we improve. We must constantly evaluate and assess ourselves to ensure that no American soldier ever goes into harm’s way or combat under-trained and under-resourced. As Army leaders, we must be self-critical if we are to improve ourselves in an ever-changing and most dangerous world. The memorandum I wrote to the Chief of Staff was done so in that vein--it was and is my personal assessment and I stand by the points and recommendations I raised. These lessons learned were broad based and gleaned from soldiers of all ranks whose only motive was to continue to improve their unit’s effectiveness. It is my duty to provide such an assessment. This assessment was a data point, at a given point in time, of our immediate strengths and weaknesses, and my recommendations for improving our weaknesses. The issues I brought up were done with the hope that they would generate some professional discussion and a comprehensive review of where we are in Army Aviation and where we need to go as we transition into the 21st century. This said, I would reiterate that we remain the best-trained, best-equipped and certainly the best-manned Army in the world.

It is important to remember in this high-tech era that certain timeless principles still govern the course of conflicts. The first among them is that war will be ultimately a test of will. History repeatedly reminds us that a military that can only attack by fire--either direct or indirect--is a force capable of achieving only fleeting advantage. A balanced force, on the other hand, capable of paralyzing the enemy by fire and gaining and holding the ground by maneuver can translate temporary advantages into lasting advantages by collapsing the enemy’s will and ability to fight. This is the purpose and relevance of our Army--to fight and win the nation’s wars. We have a great Army, our soldiers are the best they can be with the equipment and resources provided to them. However, today across the Army, we are seeing the results of many years of declining resources and resource constraints, in terms of funding for training and equipment. The recommendations in my memorandum to the Chief of Staff reflect that reality--it focuses on those areas where we need to continue to improve to maintain our overmatch capabilities--some of these areas are related to both near-term and future readiness. Continued funding is critical to ensure our current and future capabilities to prosecute our national military strategy; Shape, Prepare, and Respond in support of our national security objectives.

The reality is that not all Army units are trained and resourced to respond at a moment’s notice. The majority of the organizations that are trained and resourced for immediate employment from a standing start are our special operations units. Task Force Hawk’s deployment priority called for a period of training before being fully mission capable--this is what we expected. I would use the analogy of a football team--could they play a game on any given day? The answer is yes; but, if given a few extra days of practice, would they play better—absolutely. In fact, the pilots and the unit could perform their mission, but that additional time was required to reach full mission proficiency for operations across the full spectrum of conflict. This became especially apparent given the fact that the original base of operations was supposed to be Skopje, Macedonia, which, at the last minute, was changed to Tirane, Albania. This decision resulted in some operational challenges, as Tirane is a much less capable airfield and was already overcrowded with helicopter and fixed-wing cargo operations in support of Kosovar humanitarian operations. Additionally, basing the Task Force out of Albania, with its narrow, mountainous border with Kosovo, dictated that Task Force Hawk relook its combat employment techniques.

Once in Albania, we continued to take every opportunity to continue our training and improve our tactical skills through carefully planned and executed in-theater mission training. These in-theater area orientations, called Mission Rehearsal Exercises were critical to improving the pilots’ knowledge of the terrain, evaluating potential threats unique to the area of operations, assessing the Serb’s ability to react to TF Hawk’s operations and enhancing current levels of readiness across the force, not only in Aviation, but in Artillery, Intelligence, Command and Control and most importantly Force Protection. All of these activities were focused on reducing levels of risk associated with mission success. Once the additional training was conducted, the aviator’s, their commander’s, and the units’ levels of proficiency for our specified mission profiles, were comparable to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment--a unit I once commanded and used as a yard-stick of aviation excellence.

In closing, I would like to thank each of you again for the opportunity to speak before you today. My experience with Task Force Hawk afforded me the opportunity to assess the state of Army aviation in light of an ongoing contingency operation. I was expected to provide a candid assessment--to "call it as I saw it"--in an effort to improve the Army’s readiness, today and tomorrow--this I believe I did. Therefore, my appearance before this committee is encouraging to me--the Army faces many challenges while continuing to be strategically responsive to the needs of the nation--your help is critical to the Army’s preparedness.

We, as a country, have much to be proud of in our Army today. With your continued support and interest in our overall readiness--today and tomorrow--we can only get better and maintain the qualitative, overmatch capability that is both respected and feared by potential opponents.

I look forward to answering your questions.