Low morale hits Guard unit deploying for Iraq

A member of the South Carolina National Guard. Units deploying to Iraq have been plagued by problems

Lockdown rankles unit bound for Iraq

Discipline problems, low morale plague 178th

By THOMAS E. RICKS

The Washington Post

FORT DIX, N.J. — The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart today for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the last two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion’s Alpha and Charlie batteries — the term artillery units use instead of “companies” — that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene.

That prompted a barracks inspection that uncovered alcohol, resulting in the lockdown that kept soldiers in their rooms except for drills, barred even from stepping outside for a smoke, a restriction that continued with some exceptions until today’s scheduled deployment.

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Preparation has been especially intense because the Army is short-handed on military police units, so these artillerymen are being quickly re-trained to provide desperately needed security for convoys. And in order to fully man the unit, scores of soldiers were pulled in from different Guard outfits, some voluntarily, some on orders.

As members of the unit — drawn mainly from South Carolina’s coastal Lowcountry — looked toward their tour, some said they were angry, or reluctant to go, or both. Many more are bone-tired. Overall, some of them fear, the unit lacks strong cohesion — the glue that holds units together in combat.

“Our morale isn’t high enough for us to be away for 18 months,” said Pfc. Joshua Garman, 20, who, in civilian life, works in a National Guard recruiting office. “I think a lot of guys will break down in Iraq.”

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Pfc. Kevin Archbald, 20, a construction worker from Fort Mill, S.C., who was transferred from another South Carolina Guard unit, also worries about his cobbled-together outfit’s cohesion.

“My last unit, we had a lot of people who knew each other. We were pretty close.” He said he does not feel that in the 178th. Here, he said, “I think there’s just a lot of frustration.”

Cohesion is the fancy term for a unit's ability to function as a team. The fact that they're cobbling together a Guard unit shows how desperate they are for men in the field. Even worse, they're taking artillerymen, giving them a crash infantry course and hoping for the best. This does not bode well for the unit.

An Air Force unit used as convoy security had one of it's members commit suicide within 24 hours of his return home. This could be the consequence of using the hastily trained in combat.

posted by Steve @ 1:45:00 AM