From time to time here at Warriors Inc. we get a little job that involves insights far beyond the scope of what we're hired to do as Military Advisors. Consider what happened recently when I called Warriors XO Lt. Mike Stokey into town to square away some models who would be wearing American military combat uniforms in a still photo-session designed to produce advertising images for a major wireless communications client. Mike simply had to insure the models wore their uniforms correctly and we've got a lot of personal and professional experience in that arena from our own service plus all the multi-service motion picture and TV projects we've been called on to monitor and mentor.
Department of Defense regulations are clear and direct regarding the use of official uniforms and insignia in commercial advertising. You can't do it because it would imply official endorsement of the product being advertised. So there were no official emblems, rank insignia or unit designations involved. It was just a bunch of models wearing sanitized, plain-vanilla versions of real military combat uniforms from each of the services. Even the embroidered stuff that couldn't be removed had to be photo-shopped out of the final product. There was some posture and pose advice given and heeded. Male haircuts and female hair-styles were checked for adherence to regulations. And there was a little time expended to insure berets didn't look like inverted pizza plates, trousers were properly bloused and boot laces hidden from view but it was a yawner for the most part.
Minus the distraction of patches, pins, bells and whistles, we got a good look at all of the current military working/combat uniforms and had what passes for an epiphany around here. Someone somewhere in the hierarchy that determines what our sailors and Air Force folks wear when they're not on parade or standing a dress uniform inspection needs to get back on their meds or put that crack pipe away for a while. What in the world - beyond a desire to look more like the boys up on the pointy-end of the bayonet - prompted the Navy and the Air Force to approve and issue the new Navy Working Uniform (NWU) and the Airman Battle Uniform (ABU)?
I get the drift with the ever image conscious Marine Corps that fields two versions of their digital camouflage combat uniform. There's the desert version now familiar in images from Iraq and Afghanistan and there's a green digital style that works passably for practically everywhere else Leathernecks might find themselves in the field. And with the exception of berets - one of the most impractical and difficult to wear hats ever foisted off on soldiers - the U.S. Army has done an admirable job with their relatively new Army Combat Uniform, especially in the design of accessible pockets and handy Velcro patches that keep Joes and Janes from having to constantly sew on new unit ID patches. And even the rainbow palette beret question has been dealt with by issuing a ranger-style hat for times when the beret is just dumb and a helmet isn't necessary.
From a practical standpoint - and that should be the main yardstick in judging the utility of a combat uniform - the Army and Marine Corps have for the most part answered the mail from the troops. I mean these guys are likely to need some sort of image or shape-disrupting camouflage in the field where they operate for the most part. So no problems beyond minor quibbles with the Army and Marine Corps combat dress. That said, a quick gander at the NWU and the ABU followed by a rational consideration of where these things might be worn by sailors and airmen makes me think the uniform boards of the Navy and Air Force have been infiltrated by raging fashionistas who have never seen a flight line much less been aboard a ship.
Maybe I could be coerced or persuaded to see some value in the Airman Battle Uniform given PJs and Combat Controllers who regularly spend time with Army units in the field. But that's a relatively small percentage of the force and it seems to me that if I was an operator on the ground conducting deep rescue missions or calling in air support for an Army unit, I'd want to look just like the soldiers I'm supporting rather than advertising myself as special or different thus becoming a prime sniper target. But that's just me reflecting on actual combat experience. Granted the ABU has a nice martial look featuring a version of the Vietnam-era tiger stripes in sort of greenish-grayish colors that give it an Air Force flair, but you're going to have to go some to convince me it's practical for hangars, flight lines, administrative offices or supply warehouses where the majority of airmen spend their time. And then you've got a specially designed working boot that doesn't have steel toes for guys working around machinery - and most people in the Air Force do some version of that - with a dye job to match the uniform. Why...when perfectly good and more practical boots are already in the Air Force inventory? Beats me.
What's really got me scratching my head and various other body parts is the new Navy Working Uniform. Apparently this gem is now rolling off exchange shelves in such a flurry of rabid consumerism that the manufacturers can't keep up with demand. Apparently the tried and true, eminently practical dungarees so familiar to generations of Americans didn't pass Navy muster and the equally practical if slightly less traditional working coveralls were deemed too much like something worn by garage mechanics. If that's the case, fair enough, and sailors should certainly have some input to what they wear to the work that consumes most of their waking hours in the Navy. But you're going to have to show me the sketches, letters and emails before I believe that the majority of our Navy men and women voted for the new camouflage uniform.
And I'm using the term camouflage advisedly here. Why a sailor serving aboard a ship of any sort or size - including submarines - would need a blue, black and white mottled uniform is beyond me. In fact, if I was ducking and weaving across a pitching deck under fire from another surface vessel, aircraft or pirate skiff, the last thing I'd want is a uniform that made me stick out like a dog-target against a haze-grey background. And don't give me the ground combat song and dance. You won't catch SEALs or Navy Spec War support folks wearing this eye-popper on clandestine operations. And Navy Corpsmen who go to the field in support of Marine combat units are smart enough to wear Marine uniforms so they blend in with the grunts.
So what's behind all this uniform flash and dash in the Navy and the Air Force? Only the aforementioned fashionistas know for sure but I believe I know enough about the military mind-set to hazard a guess. For nearly the past decade or so, public attention and the attendant glamour has gone to the soldiers and Marines taking the fight to a resolute enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sailors and airmen have been getting short-shrift and that's caused some understandable - but totally unfounded - resentment and concern in the Departments of the Navy and Air Force. Young men and women of military age and bent want in on the action for the most part and the action for the most part is in the Army or the Marine Corps so recruiting suffers. Add to that folks already in those two under-appreciated services who feel they aren't being recognized in the age of special operations oriented, high-speed, low-drag combat operations and you get a desire to somehow draw attention to yourself and by extension to your contributions to national defense.
You also get a mentality that says somehow changing uniforms to something that more closely resembles what ground combat warriors wear will do the trick. It won't but that's neither here nor there among the folks who are in the business of trying to meet recruiting goals and inject motivation into the ranks. Nice try but no cigar...and motivation doesn't come from uniforms no matter how slick or eye-catching they may be. Our sailors and airmen would do an outstanding job in pink skivvies if that's what it took to sail America's ships or keep her aircraft flying.
Motivation comes from good leadership and that includes a constant effort to remind our military people of their proud military heritage, to include the uniforms their predecessors wore so proudly. If it was up to me, I'd send the fashionistas to any good NCO Leadership School where they'd get a heavy dose of service history and tradition. Change is often related to progress and it's nothing to fear but change for superficial reasons is often counter-productive.
It's not about the trappings. It's about the heart that beats beneath those combat uniforms. That's called warrior spirit. You can't camouflage it nor should you try.

Given the frenetic pace of what passes for my life these days, I've been away from this forum for too long. It's not that steady work and other profitable distractions aren't good things. They are, but like all inveterate story-tellers I wake up some mornings convinced this earth will spin right off its 23-degree tilted axis if I don't pound out a few personal observations and launch them into the blogosphere. This is one of those mornings.
So, with the battery laid and the base piece locked onto an aiming stake, I will commence Harassing and Interdiction fire on a number of dispersed targets. Or, for those who can't grasp the simile, I'm about to hold forth with my opinions on some unrelated topics. Either way, stand by.
The first worldwide airing of HBO's miniseries "The Pacific" concluded on 23 May and the reaction we've been getting is nothing short of phenomenal. There's been a flood of congratulatory emails, letters, tweets, texts, faxes and phone calls over the past ten weeks and that's extremely gratifying. For those of us here at Warriors that worked on the series that kind of response is as good as an Oscar or a slew of Emmy's. It reassures us that we are accomplishing at least one facet of our avowed mission: Shining long-overdue light on the service and sacrifice of American military people throughout history.
Of course, there's also been the occasional whine or bitch - usually from Marines - about something in the series that didn't match personal experiences or pre-conceived notions. The critics range from people who believe World War II era Marines never got laid outside of wedlock (or if they did it shouldn't be included in a TV miniseries) to nit-pickers who insist despite photographic evidence to the contrary that all Marines have worn high-and-tight haircuts since 1775. None of those opinions hold water and we're not overly think-skinned about it especially when surviving veterans who were there, did get laid and wore their hair longer than regulation tell us we got it right.
Anyway, "The Pacific" will be available soon on DVD including all ten episodes and some really cool background video. I'm betting there will a bunch of those boxed sets under Christmas trees this year. As it was with "Band of Brothers" so it is with "The Pacific." We've created something that will live long, prosper and provide a perpetual salute to those humble World War II veterans that are falling out of our ranks at the rate of a thousand a day.
Shift fire onto the United States Army which recently announced it is eliminating bayonet drills from basic training. Apparently some progressive thinker in the Training and Doctrine Command decided all that scary, aggressive business where recruits bury a rifle-mounted blade into a dummy screaming "kill, kill, kill" at the top of their heaving lungs is misleading. And that nonsense where recruits square off with padded pugil-sticks substituting for blade and rifle butt is a waste of valuable training time. Well, excuse me for being an old moldy piece of dinosaur poop here, but I beg to differ.
Granted most issue bayonets get more use as tools than weapons on modern battlefields but there's a martial, aggressive spirit that comes with bayonet training that we can't afford to ignore. I know from personal experience that modern bayonets are mainly considered handy, strong and durable spare knives by the men and women who carry them attached to their combat gear. Bayonets are used for all sorts of chores on a battlefield but sticking them into an enemy usually isn't one of them.
On the other hand, my personal experience also tells me - and photographic evidence from more contemporary fights in places like Fallujah, Iraq reassures me - the bayonet has a very useful place as a weapon in close-quarters combat. And that's particularly true when grunts get into cities, towns and villages where bumping into a bad guy happens so quickly and so closely that neither opponent can fire effectively. It's at moments like those when the guy with a bayonet fixed and ready with the training and attitude to use it survives. The other guy, the one with no bayonet on his folding-stock AK, dies in place. I'll go with that outcome please, even if it does cost us a little training time out of eight weeks at Ft. Benning. Our Army needs to check with a few line-company infantry veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and re-think this one.
There's still a few shots left in the locker so let me expend all remaining on the pencil-neck spin-artists who wrote the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) for the Obama Administration. As an old soldier, I've got a dog in the national security hunt, so I actually took the time to read this over-blown, vague and verbose screed. If you're planning on doing likewise, be sure to have a dictionary and a plentiful supply of your favorite adult beverage close at hand. You'll need both.
For some reason that defies both the law of logic and the rule of plain speech in trying to communicate ideas, the Commander-in-Chief has decreed there's a direct connection between his domestic policies and our national defense. Apparently our military strength is important but it's also somehow related to such imperatives as "affordable health care" and "redeveloping our infrastructure." Beats me how that works, but we're told in the NSS that America needs "a broad conception of what constitutes our national security," and somehow that new definition will coincide with the administration's domestic social agenda. And here I was all along thinking that domestic problems and national defense were apples and oranges. Silly me.
And here's what silly me thinks about that after having read the nonsense in the NSS. Somebody somewhere in the administration ought to be ashamed of using a statement of our national security posture and plans in an attempt to elicit support for controversial domestic programs. Can anyone in Washington hear the clue-phone ringing? If we screw up national defense policy there won't be any social programs - good, bad or indifferent - because there won't be any society left in America. There are just too many enemies and anti-American elements out there for us to screw around mixing military matches with social dynamite.
Maybe it's just another example of politicians using our military establishment as lab-rats for social experiments - and Lord knows there's plenty of that going on right now - but enough is enough. We need to take a clear, lucid and un-muddled look at national defense. We owe it to the men and women in uniform who are charged with that responsibility and we owe it to the citizens they are sworn to defend and protect. Leave the political tub-thumping for later.
Rounds complete. End of mission.

We're a few months shy of Father's Day but I'm feeling particularly paternal right now so herewith some thoughts on raising other people's children. Mother Corps made me a father for the first time some forty years ago when I became a corporal and entered the ranks of noncommissioned officers. Likely believing that was too much way too soon, my Sergeant Major handed me an excerpt from an old Marine Corps Manual and ordered me to absorb it before I dared strut outside the barracks bearing my new chevrons.
Back in 1921, drawing on forty years of experience in war and peace, General John A. Lejeune, 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, said the connection between leaders and the people they lead "should partake of the nature of the relation between father and son." That got my context-free adolescent attention, so I read on to discover that General Lejeune thought good leaders had responsibilities far beyond simply issuing orders, taking objectives and winning wars. Military leaders influence people "in the formative period of their lives, and officers owe it to them, their parents, and to the nation, that when discharged from the services they should be far better men physically, mentally and morally than they were when they enlisted."
Those words changed my perspective and changed my life. With General Lejeune's thoughts in mind, I was able to conduct an insightful review of my personal trek from rebellious juvenile delinquent to Marine leader with special appreciation for a certain few relatives, teachers, coaches and counselors who understood their influence on a young life ran deep and might be pervasive. And it didn't take much effort to see the difference between solid officers and NCOs around me and self-centered ladder-climbers willing to reach the top on the bloody shoulders of their subordinates. I made a promise on that day when I officially assumed the mantle of leadership by Marine Corps decree to emulate the former and eschew the hell out of the latter.
What brings all this to mind before the time of year when we are supposed to think about such things is the steady influx of letters, phone calls, text messages and emails I get from people who served with me in one capacity or another during my days in uniform or fell under my influence in making military movies. It's truly rewarding when I hear from some aging man or woman who recalls in embarrassing detail how I influenced or motivated them in one command or another during our time together in uniform. It's a little puzzling but just as gratifying when I hear from young actors who claim their lives or perspectives have been changed forever by the training I put them through to portray military people on small or large screen. That's better than an Academy Award in my book. It proves that General Lejeune was right and - for a special period of time in the lives of some people - so was I.
There's a lot of verbiage blazing through the media just now as actors who portray World War II era Marines in our new HBO mini-series "The Pacific" reflect on the training and motivation that brought them through a year-long monumental project that looks to be as big or bigger than its ETO predecessor "Band of Brothers." Many of them credit me and my staff as having a big influence on both their performances and their lives in general. That's a gracious reflection on our leadership philosophy but no surprise. Like my old Sergeant Major years ago, I gave every one of our Warriors cadre the same excerpts from General Lejeune's treatise on leadership as a guide to how I wanted them to lead, teach and mentor throughout the production. The real lesson, of course, is that those we manage to influence for the better give us much more in return than we can ever give them in execution.
There's some painful irony in this when I look at my own children who got a lot less attention from their father than they deserved during formative years. Fortunately, none of them hold it against me -or at least they say they don't - but there's no escaping the fact that I was too often away fighting wars or chasing dreams when I should have been home helping them realize theirs. I don't feel as full of myself pondering that but the offspring have mainly prospered in spite of my failings. And maybe that's why I'm so concerned with leadership and why I put so much effort into mentoring my young charges in movie and TV projects. If so, I owe my kids a lot for lessons in tenacity, determination and independence. I didn't do much for them but they have certainly inspired me.
While I'm proud of all my kids, watching middle son Chris survive and thrive after a long, dirty struggle without his father's guiding light is particularly rewarding. As a talented and successful performer and composer in LA's tawdry rock music scene, Chris became intimately familiar with the euphoric highs and ugly lows of that brutal business. Fortunately, I was able to step back into his life during one of those low points and lend the hand that should have been there when he was growing up and I was chasing different demons in Vietnam. He's on an exciting path now, managing our ranchito in Texas, working when he wants to as an accomplished finish-carpenter and managing our new production entity, Dye Hard Productions, down in the Lone Star State. He's full of enthusiasm for life and living these days and that shows in the new music he's composed with a group of truly talented pals who call themselves - for reasons known only to rockers - Fire Violets.
My musical tastes run more toward Willie and Waylon with a special place in the middle ear reserved for Texas Troubadour Gary P. Nunn, but I've got to admit the tunes cranked out by Chris and his buddies make for really good listening to some seriously hard rocking. They've pressed a self-titled CD featuring a dozen original songs and it's available through the link on our Warriors, Inc. website (www.warriorsinc.com). I think you'll be amazed at how good this music is. I know you'll be amazed that one of Captain Dye's kids could produce it. Where he gets the talent, I'll never know but there it is. And I hope you'll give it a listen. The boy did it his way, and I'm more than a little proud to be his Dad.