March 22, 2006:
The infantry, long respected, but less listened to, and last to get any attention in the budget, are seeing their fortunes turn around. This is changing how wars are planned, and fought. And it's all because of the Taliban and embedded reporters.
Taking the lead in all this are the U.S. Army Special Forces, the elite of the infantry, and the multi-service organization they belong to, SOCOM (Special Operations Command). Also in on the revolution is CENTCOM (Central Command), which is in charge of all the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This new respectability got started in late 2001, when a few hundred Special Forces operators brought down the Taliban in less than two months. Thereafter, it was made known that SOCOM was taking the lead in fighting the war on terror. But then came the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Embedded reporters made it clear that, despite all the armored vehicles and smart bombs, it was the well trained, equipped and led infantry that were making things happen. Decades of rising standards had transformed the infantry from "the men no one else wanted" to a bunch of guys who were obviously smarter, in better shape, and far more deadly than their civilian peers. Suddenly, it was hip to be a grunt.
At the moment, there are more combat aircraft in the U.S. military, than infantry squads (of ten troops). Does that seem right to you? It doesn't seem right to the grunts, but doing something about it requires a "concentration of force" (military term for "piling on."). To assist in this, SOCOM wants to move it's headquarters from Tampa to the Washington DC area. At the moment, Tampa is referred to as "Tampastan" because CENTCOM is also headquartered there. Those two commands are doing most of the work in the war in terror, and a lot of the action is in "the Stans" (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, with Afghanistan and Pakistan thrown in for good measure). But to make the most of all the attention the infantry is getting, it's better to be closer to where the money, and brass, are. SOCOM's largest component is the Special Forces, and that is part of the army. The army senior generals are in the Pentagon, as are everyone else's. Those are the people SOCOM wants to spent more time with, for their SEALs belong to the navy, and many of the high-tech SOCOM aircraft belong to the air force (the helicopters belong to the army.)
SOCOM wants to better coordinate things, and use all their newfound clout. This is the first time, ever, that the infantry has been moved to the head of the money queue. SOCOM is also awash in cash, and wants to coordinate their shopping and buying with the army infantry. While SOCOM has long bought special equipment for their elite infantry, in the last few years, it's become obvious that, whatever the SOCOM grunts can make good use of, so can the regular infantry in the ten army and two marine divisions.
It's long been said that the infantry are the most critical combat arm, and that everyone else just supports them. But that attitude had become more of a platitude than a reality in the last century. In the last few decades, better training, equipment and tactics have changed all that. More than at any time in the last century or so, infantry rules.
