Story and photos by Ian Graham
Marine trainees at MOUT Training in Quantico, Va., search a vehicle for contraband. Click for full size.
“Excuse me Americans,” the man said, asking the Marines inspecting his truck to come near him. “… BOOM.”
Marines’ faces showed displeasure when they realized the driver of the vehicle they had just finished inspecting had been hiding a mortar round under his belt the entire time.
The driver, one of the instructors at The Basic School at Quantico, Va., had managed to get most of the inspecting Marines within a few feet with a beckoning gesture, a mistake the young lieutenants would hopefully never repeat. Although they knew they were in no real danger today, a few months from now that mortar round could have meant certain death and a trip back home no Marine wants to take.
The Marines were learning how to search people as well, and working with contracted Afghan and Pakistani nationals to learn how to effectively search without making a huge cultural faux pas. As one of the contractors noted, avoiding such offenses saves lives on both sides – locals don’t retaliate violently, which means Marines don’t have to do the same afterward.
A quick lesson on how to search a woman in a burka can mean the difference between a hostile and friendly village.
It wasn’t long before the platoon of Marines got to test their mettle, either. Not quite a mile down the road from the mock inspection station was a small village, populated by more Afghans and Pakistanis playing non-English-speaking locals, from everyday villagers and the local elders to police and insurgents on the run.
In this scenario, the Marines received intelligence that an insurgent was hiding away in a certain building within the village. Their job was to cordon the village with a convoy of Humvees and troop transport trucks, find the insurgent and do so without harming the villagers.
Marines had to deal with non-English-speaking villagers. Click for full size.
The trick is they were given bad intelligence – the sheik lives in that house, the insurgents were elsewhere in the village. The Marines would have to figure out a way to communicate with the villagers, none of whom speak English, to find out where their target was hiding.
Some of the Marines were clearly frustrated. Repeating “No, I don’t have any chocolate,” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” and trying to chat amiably with the villagers wore on them as the platoon leader worked with the local police officers, who spoke English, to get what evidence they could.
In the meantime, a small firefight broke out near one Humvee and an IED exploded in the field nearby.
The Marines found their target, as well as a small weapons cache stashed in a building on the edge of the village – a shouting match and eventually a forced entry and firefight led to an arrest, followed by the platoon leader’s continued pacification of the village sheik.
Marine Capt. Timothy Riemann, a MOUT primary instructor, said while the mission was a success, he would have liked to see clearer execution once the threat became obvious.
“If anything, these guys did too much to work with the locals,” Riemann said. “At some point, you have to put the mission first and do what you need to do. These guys took too long trying to talk with the sheik.”
In some cases, Riemann said, trainees will err on the other side, kicking in doors and acting aggressively towards villagers. That, is a more grievous mistake.
“In any counterinsurgency, you need to keep the people on your side,” he said. “The villagers are not the enemy, although the enemy may be living and hiding among them.”
After the mission was accomplished and the trainees delivered mock medical attention to their detainee, everyone was smiles and handshakes. The actors answered questions and explained some of the intricacies of their home countries’ cultures: how to treat someone’s home, whom to talk to upon entering a village and the weapon-culture in Afghanistan.
For example, wedding parties often involve large groups of guests firing celebratory shots into the air – aircraft flying by or troops on the ground nearby may misinterpret this behavior. That misinterpretation could turn into global scandal very quickly.
So the Marine officers learn now. Whether they’re going to ride a desk in Washington or ride a Humvee through the mountains in Helmand, they learn how to fight and operate in an urban environment, even if surrounded by innocents.
Any Marine anywhere could end up in a platoon downrange, and an insurgent with an RPG and an AK-47 doesn’t really care if he’s really a lawyer or administrator. To the enemy, he’s a target, and he owes it to his fellow troops to know how to handle himself.
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