Chabo's Journal: Custer, Sgt. Barry, and the worthlessness of 2nd lieutenants

Note: This is a continuation of a series of stories written by a central Texas police officer named "Darth Tang", which are being archived by Chabo, with no editing. Read more about this project.

This story was originally posted on November 19, 2005.

As a child, for reasons unknown, I have always been interested in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. By the time I was nine, I understood that nearly every movie about it was wildly inaccurate, as were nearly all illustrations. By the time I was twelve, I had visited the battlefield twice.

Legends aside, Lieutenant Colonel Custer made nearly every mistake possible during the operation. He turned down extra forces. He pushed his men and horses far too hard in hot weather, arriving at the battlefield ahead of the rest of the units he was supposed to be co-ordinating with.

He knew that surprise was lost, his men were exhausted, and the terrain was unfavorable for mounted attack and coordinated operations. He disregarded this and lunged ahead.

He knew from his scouts that there were 'many, many' Indians ahead; he had 24,000 rounds of .45-70 ammunition in cases on the mule train, but he did not bother to issue extra ammunition to his men .

He split his forces into three uneven groups; Captain Benteen with three troops & the mule train was to be the reserve, while Major Reno was to mount a flank attack with four troops. His orders to Benteen and Reno were vague, and made without a clear picture of the terrain ahead or the disposition & size of enemy forces.

Major Reno, a decorated veteran of twenty-six battles in the Civil War, had very limited experience fighting Indians. His orders were simple: attack into the flank of the Indian camp strung out along the river bed. Custer's last statement to Reno (witnessed by third parties): 'Attack, and I'll support you.'

By the time Reno was approaching the river bed, crossing open ground, he was coming under increasingly heavy Indian attacks across his front (because Custer was wrong: Reno was not hitting the camps in the flank, but rather much closer to the center), and Custer was nowhere in sight. He ordered his men to dismount and form a skirmish line, which broke with his orders, but put his men at an advantage in terms of accuracy and cover. It was at this time that Reno's chief scout (a Crow) was shot in the head and had his brains blown across the Major's shirt-front and face.

Indian pressure built; after taking serious losses trying to rush the dismounted cavalry (hidden in tall grass), the Indians began to work their way around the flanks, both on foot and mounted.

It was at this time that the famous 'Reno hesitation' occurred. His West Point training called for Reno to execute his orders and press forward as Custer expected; however, he was hard-pressed to hold his current position, and he was unsettled by the way Indians kept appearing and vanishing in front of his command near the river bank (later, it would be determined that there was a ditch-like depression following the river bank at that point which would have shattered a cavalry charge).

His wartime experience urged him to withdraw, as he was in danger of being enveloped and over-run; however, doing so meant leaving Custer without the support he was counting on (in reality, there were plenty of Indians to go around).

So he hesitated, torn, training warring with experience and badly unsettled (as was every leader) by the staggering disparity in the numbers they were told to expect, and the numbers they were fighting. The fact that he was physically exhausted certainly did not help matters.

The decision was made for him: the heavy fire was depleting his men's ammunition. Reno ordered a withdrawal to the bluffs, and not a moment too soon; in fact, they were forced to abandon their dead. As it was, the command had to fight its way back to high ground. About 10% of Reno's force was killed or badly wounded at this point.

Benteen, having heard the heavy firing, arrived with his troops and the mule train; the seven troops dug in and broke open the reserve ammunition. On good ground, they beat back the Indians' efforts to dislodge them (although they suffered badly from lack of water and heavy sniping). Except for one abortive attempt to reach Custer with two troops, they remained on the bluffs until help arrived.

A note about the jamming problem attributed to the issue Springfield carbines: Reno noted that of the seven troops (60% of the 7th) of cavalry on the bluffs, nine weapons were found to have extraction problems, caused by poor metal in the cases getting soft in breeches heated by heavy firing. (The Army changed the alloy mixture in future casings, and the problem ended.)

Custer, with 40% (about 220-250 men) of the 7th, ran into the main body of the Indians, and was wiped out in a running fight. From the rough count of the casings at the two 'final stands', the Indians were only able to over-run the troopers after they had run out of carbine ammunition.

In El Salvador, I was part of a Military Police company (made up of Airborne MPs) assigned to escort convoys of trucks loaded with CONEX container from delivery point to their destination, and usually (but not always) escort the trucks back. We were told the containers were filled with humanitarian aid. They were locked and sealed, and I never saw one open.

The local insurgents, the FLGN (IIRC) attacked the convoys on occasion with such exemplary lack of skill that they didn't even deserve the term 'ambushes'. Each MP platoon had three squads of twelve men, mounted in four Jeeps. Each squad had four M-60 machineguns, four M-203 grenade launchers, and eight M-16A1 assault rifles (plus a .45 per man). Additionally, the platoon command section had two M-60s and a half-dozen men. 14 M-60s and a dozen M-203s plus Jeep mobility meant that we could concentrate massive fire if attacked; if they managed (usually by accident) to try us in terrain where mobility was denied us, we bailed out into cover and slugged it out. We were Regular Army paratroopers, the newest man with six months garrison duty on top of twenty week's training plus Jungle Warfare School; NCOs, such as myself, had the same plus 3-5 years of service.

The duty was simple: pick up the convoy, escort it to the target area, then escort the trucks back, or just deploy back ourselves. Every 88 days we locked up our Jeeps and were air-lifted into Honduras for ten days, as Congress had put a cap on the number of troops allowed in ES; this cap only applied to permanent assignment, when meant troops in-country 90 or more days. Since we never crossed the 90 day mark, our company never countered against the total.

The mission statement & rules of engagement were clear: defend the trucks, cargoes, and ourselves; get the cargos through, or destroy them if loss appeared to be imminent. Take what actions were needful to accomplish the same. Collateral damage was simply to be radioed in, and never a cause to compromise the mobility of the convoy. In other words, keep moving. It was simple. In thirteen months we never lost a single container, although some trucks had to be towed in.

Our platoon leader was 2nd LT H, an OCS grad of dubious proficiency and notorious for lusting after decorations. Our platoon sergeant was SFC V, a veteran of the 173rd Abn Bde in Vietnam, and a highly competent soldier.

One convoy, after getting to our destination, our platoon was instructed to head back with a few HHD strap-hangers, while the rest of the company followed later with the empty trucks. SFC V had left for a one-week re-up leave, so SSgt R, a dipshit of the highest order, was acting platoon sergeant.

This did not bode well. I had always made it a fetish to stockpile ammo, ever since we hit country. We scrounged, swapped, and stole ammo and magazines (and this in an environment of plentiful issuance). I hastily gathered up more for my squad from the other two platoons before we headed back.

It could have been an easy drive back, but midway we passed through one of the tin-siding and lath armpits they called a village, and somebody popped a couple rounds at us. Normally, we would have burned off some rounds in reply as we kept rolling, neither speeding up (and so getting spooking into the real ambush, not that they ever were that clever), nor dallying in the target zone.

But H saw movement, and summarized that we had had an encounter with dozen or so insurgents shaking down the locals for food, booze, money, and/or girls. He saw Glory and Recognition, and nothing would do but to dismount and engage. Despite the fact that the platoon was returning from an six-hour escort, our sixth in seven days. Despite the fact that the RoE didn't really apply, as we could have evaded the indigs extremely easily, not having a convoy to protect. Nope, we're off to war.

So we whip off the two-lane joke of a highway; the strap-hangers guard our Jeeps; Sgt Barry and Third Squad advance into the ville to establish and maintain a base of fire. Second Squad under Sgt. Darth flanks to the west (left), while H, R, and First Squad (plus our only medic) encircle to the east (right) to take up a blocking position beyond the ville. Done properly, it would fix, flank, and finish the enemy.

I saw a train wreck coming at us from a very long ways away: since we were set up for convoy security, our radios were vehicle mounts, one to each Jeep; the instant we deployed on foot, zero commo. This was usually no problem, because in a convoy attack, we were very close to the Jeeps.

I ordered my guys to dump their canteens and put extra mags in the carriers, plus more inside shirt fronts & pockets (I had scrounged two hundred+ 20-rounders from the Air Force in Panama for just this purpose), and put grenades where they could. Every rifleman carried a hundred-round belt for the M-60s. Riflemen had about 800 rounds apiece, with about 600-700 rounds for each MG.

Our flanking maneuver was to cross a field of tall grass; I took point, with my ASL at the rear in case I got hit. Halfway across, three things were painfully apparent: first, the tall grass was only on the side of the field that we had entered; the further we went, the shorter it got; secondly the field was far from flat: it quickly became pitted with scores of bathtub-sized depressions; and thirdly, the treeline we were approaching was full of indigs. This was made easy to observe because they wore civilian clothes, often brightly colored, and rarely got down, instead moving around and trying to hide standing up behind trees.

I ordered the squad down and on line, prompting the indigs to open up on us; we returned fire, and blasted the crap out of the treeline. At first, we were doing OK, because the depressions were good cover, but the indigs began flanking us to our left, and I realized that A) I had no communication with my men, because each depression was only big enough for one man, and there was too much firing to make myself heard; and B) once they got fully on our flank, we were sitting ducks. If they got behind us, we were toast. Normally, when we bailed out into cover when a convoy was stuck, the A-gunners dragged tripods along; they had been left behind on H's orders as too heavy, and our M-60s were thus less effective than we were used to.

I truly understood how Reno must have felt that day. Nothing was going to plan, I had no idea where my commander whom I was supposed to be supporting was, and we were on the verge of getting our asses kicked, and where the hell had so many indigs come from?

I crawled from hole to hole and got things organized; we pitched out a couple smoke grenades to our rear (just to confuse the indigs as to what we were doing); and then heaved a volley of frags towards the treeline and the left flank. When they went off, we pulled back in pairs to the east, one guy firing, the other running a couple seconds, then taking cover and firing to cover his buddy running past him, leap-frogging away from the enemy.

We were almost to the end of the field when I realized that an M-60 was still firing from our original positions (the indigs didn't have belt-fed weapons). I had to run back to find Frank, a M-60 gunner who was charitably described as dumb as a box of hammers still in place blazing away; he had misunderstood the 'grenades go off, we fire & maneuver back to the east' plan. I got his worthless butt (less his helmet, which I kicked off his head a good dozen yards), back with the rest of the squad, who were now off the field and firing cover for us.

At the edge of the field we sorted out ammo (diminished but OK), bandaged up a couple guys (nothing serious), and moved by overwatch in two fire teams into the ville, where we saw Third Squad in good positions laying down a base of fire as ordered, every position interlocked, and Sgt. Barry cooly moving from position to position. I recall thinking that there was one damn fine sergeant.

We tied my squad into Third's positions; I sent Frank & a couple guys back to the Jeeps, Frank to augment the security firepower, the other guys to grab more ammo and a water can, as it was damned hot. I took my two best guys and tried to circle around to see if I could find H and First Squad, but we ran into more indigs and pulled back. It was rapidly becoming obvious that instead of a dozen or so, we had run into a whole lot more indigs. Barry and I discussed the matter, and we decided to pull back to the Jeeps, which were in a good defensive position. There we radioed in our situation, and the company CO promptly sent another platoon in our direction.

Not long before they arrived, H and First Squad wandered back, having gotten lost (not that he admitted it, but the guys in First Squad disgustedly confirmed it) and wandered around until they stumbled upon the highway and found their way back.

The other platoon showed up, and without ado we got moving again. Later, we were told that the next day a unit of the ES army swept the area and found lots of shell casings and blood trails; they guessed that there were about eighty indigs in the bunch we tangled with. We had a few guys chewed up, but nothing bad enough for anything but some light duty.

Lt H was immediately re-assigned to battalion S-4, back in Fort Hood, and SSgt R got sent back to The World as well, with an evaluation that pushed the possibility of E-7 before retirement into the 'damned unlikely' category. For the rest of it, it was FIDO*.

Barry stayed in, a SFC during Desert Shield/Storm, and retires as a Sergeant Major this December; we met in a nearby burg a few weeks ago. He was just back from a tour in Iraq, having done two in Afghan as well. We talked about our near-Little Big Horn a bit, which was why I decided to write it up. As long as the Army continues to produce NCOs like him, things won't go too badly.

* = F@@k it, Drive On.