War is complicated. In spite of improved technology and training, combat has a way of spiraling out of control, leading to lost convoys, falling behind schedule, friendly-fire incidents, and other unexpected events. Combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq amply illustrate the convoluted environment in which military commanders make tactical decisions, and war correspondents try to make sense of it all.

Military strategists and students of war have long referred to the two fundamentals of battlefield chaos as Fog and Friction. What do these words mean in the context of battle and how should we look at war in our time given these ever-present principles?

Benson: (Sync) War remains a human endeavor the ultimate kind of argument, we will always have fog, we will always have friction.

Soldier 1: (Sync) I might just stand out here and get a showerSoldier 2: I was thinking about itSoldier 1: Okay maybe notinaudible speaking


It has been said that all actions in war take place in an atmosphere of uncertainty, or the “fog of war.” While militaries try to reduce the unknowns by gathering information, it is generally recognized that the “fog” can never be totally eliminated.

Schifferle: (VO) The biggest single component of fog is...Uncertainty— (SYNC) because you can never quite be sure of anything—whether the effect of terrain, how many of your tanks will actually start this morning.

Gudmens: (Sync) A soldier that can do something nowadays that has strategic results. And that’s adding to the fog of war (VO) if the Marine lance corporal that was in charge of the squad that had to secure the pumping stations and oil fields, if he got lost, if he didn’t have the ability (SYNC) to land navigate to that location, that’s gonna have strategic results.

Infantry units of the Seventh Marine Regiment await the order to advance into Iraq from their staging areas near the Kuwait-Iraq border. The regiment is accompanied by tanks from the 1st Tank Battalion to lead them into battle.

Kelly: (SYNC) The border posts apparently now they have Iraqi soldiers, there are no longer border patrol guards. Safwan there especially is a platoon reinforcement south of the customs on both sides of the road, digging in, (VO) or they’ve dug in.

Haskamp: (VO) The Kuwaiti border guards basically left, and abandoned it, so it was time to push somebody to have that buffer between now the American, the coalition forces in Kuwait, and Iraq, because there was nobody manning the border.

Kelly: (SYNC) Make sure your weapons are good to go—we’re not going to have a test fire gents.

(VO) We gotta roll outta here? Hey, we’re rollin’ outta here gents. So, uh, best of luck to ya, pull in your guys, and, uh (SYNC) remember we’re going condition one when we roll out to the attack position—okay?Let’s get this thing going, alright?
Kelly: (VO) “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Col. Benson: (VO)“The decision was taken to cross the line of departure early…The morning of the 20th—(SYNC) prior to all the heavy air strikes.”

Soldier 1: (SYNC) At 15.40 Safwan was taken over by recon, at 18.00 the prep fire with artillery then we are going in. two minutes.

Soldier 2: (SYNC) 18.40?

Soldier 1: (SYNC) 18.00

SOLDIER 1: (VO) Find the hose?

SOLDIER 2: (VO) Better?

SOLDIER 1: (VO) Yeah, thanks

Benson: (VO) Marines were going to move out (SYNC) and seize the oilfields and the port of Um Qasr. We expected a fight.
Seeking to gain a tactical advantage over the enemy, Seventh Regiment began its push into Iraq under the cover of darkness. However, moments into their advance they would experience their own uncertainty that would permanently alter the attack plan.

(SYNC) SOLDIER: One tank with Alpha Company is a combat loss. However this is all unconfirmed. We’ll pass down the info when things sort themselves out. Black One, out.

(VO) SOLDIER: One M1 Abrahms. Friendly fire. Alpha six says that’s their commanders. No casualties assessed. Alpha six is getting another tank…hey nobody died nobody got hurt. Unit commander just went to another track. Or, another tank, alright? It was hit by a hellfire. Yeah, so nobody’s dead, alright? (SYNC) Tanks are going to hold their position. (VO) No casualties assessed. Waiting for another assessment. Alpha six is hopping tanks.

With Alpha tank commander operational, the seventh regiment again began their movement towards the border.

Benson: (VO) As we built up to the fight, before (SYNC) we crossed the line of departure a report came in that there were in excess of 100 tanks (VO) —there was one report that said 180, one said more than a hundred—that came up from the Marines that (SYNC) gave everyone pause.”

Kelly: (SYNC) What is apparently,-- during that sandstorm/ that we saw- that was to the north of us. Approximately a hundred T-72 moved in onto the highway.

Soldier 1: (VO) 180.

Kelly: (SYNC) 108, I’m sorry, 180?

Soldier 1: (VO) 180 T-72’s.

Kelly: (SYNC) 180 of them.

Benson: (SYNC) We at the higher headquarters at the land component 3rd U.S. Army, go back to check intel. Is this possible, could it happen, where could they have come from? Could they have snuck this many tanks in and (VO) is this going to be a spoiling attack against us? Because we’ve been massed for a long time below the border. Is there artillery supporting that. What do we know? (SYNC) What do we know for certain? What we knew was the Marines were reporting it up. There were reports from aerial platforms saying that there were moving target indicators.

Haskamp: (VO) We didn’t think the battle was going to be right there, we thought it was going to be closer to Baghdad. And everybody took a deep breath and said (SYNC) okay this is real, we are going into the fight and we are going into it now.

Kelly: (SYNC) This changes things a little bit gents.

Kelly: (SYNC) There’s gonna be some changes to our scheme and maneuver. These changes include retask organizing; Alpha company is leaving us and going to tanks.

Haskamp: (SYNC) So, they took all the tanks away from the infantry battalions. They pushed them up so they could take on this tank enemy that we thought was out there.

Benson: (SYNC)…We were digging back into files—how many tanks does the 51st Mech have—did a brigade from the 10th Armored somehow move down—did we loose a brigade of tanks somewhere? And then it was, “wait a second--the most in a brigade is 91 tanks—this is two brigades…

Soldier 1: (VO) Are these tanks even near our objective?

Kelly: (SYNC)They’re between us and our objectives.

SOLDIER 1: (VO) Oh.

KELLY (SYNC): You see how it changes things a little bit? Alright?

SOLDIER 1: (VO) Yep

KELLY (SYNC): Hey Capital, you getting all this?

Benson: (SYNC) There’s no way that there could be that many tanks. You’re gonna have to make contact and find out. And 1st Marine Expeditionary Force it’s in your zone—(VO) fight the battle. If you need more firepower let us know at the third army land component command and we’ll redirect airpower. That’s all we had to influence the battle.

Haskamp: (SYNC)“We waited until the tanks could go and assess the situation and find out what is going on with the enemy.”

Benson: (SYNC) Everyone was keyed up, you’re scared, every noise you hear is magnified, every report from four or five observers, unless you’re disciplined enough to cross check this report came from here looking at this point—hey, that’s 12 guys looking at the same point—(VO) Instead of 12 separate reports…JSTAR reports there’s at least 100 moving target indicators (SYNC) in the clutter a moving target indicator can be a car, a bus, a tank, a camel—if it’s moving fast enough. (VO) And so someone is just counting those...That is a prime example of fog, (SYNC) it really is—until a lieutenant, or a sergeant, or a corporal puts himself in a position of danger, puts his binoculars up and goes I only see six.

Shifferle: (SYNC) technology provides more information. Technology does not necessarily provide the right information. But technology gives you the idea that somewhere out there is the nugget of knowledge, that precise thing that you absolutely have to know to be able to do something and that’s probably incorrect.


Schnieder: (SYNC) Technology can be a two-edged sword and it can provide you with that overall awareness and help you deal with the pattern recognition, but at the same time, it can intrude itself, and become an impediment at the same time.

Haskamp: (VO) There were a few T55 tanks, very smaller older tanks,(SYNC) but there was definitely not as many as there was reported. And they weren’t the new improved T-72 or T-80 tanks that intel said it was.

Col. Benson: (SYNC) It’s very funny now in retrospect, but at that moment in time in the war room it wasn’t funny at all. It was a matter of great urgency.

Schifferle: (SYNC) We do have a tendency in the military today, especially those who are responsible for the future development of the army, to think that there is a magic solution out there somewhere. (VO) That we might be able to get to the point where we have enough unmanned aerial vehicles, and we have enough video surveillance, (SYNC) and we have enough satellites to be able to provide a hundred percent information…

Schneider: (SYNC) The problem with the “fog of war” is pattern recognition. (VO) It boils down to the commander’s ability to recognize the pattern, which is really the state of the battle at any particular time.

Benson: (SYNC) 180 tanks became 5 or 6 that had been reported numerous times. Classic example. Someone had to go see physically and then report back. That was the fog of battle.
The combat loss of Alpha Six’s tank and the misreported Iraqi offensive permanently altered seventh regiment’s attack plan. They did not cross the border for another twelve hours.


While war fighting is the responsibility of the world’s armed forces, the world relies on war journalists to explain conflict. Although technology makes war correspondence easier, fog and friction cloud the journalists’ perception of what happens in battle.
Alex : (VO) The Uzbeks have a closed border with Afghanistan, so (SYNC) there were a whole bunch of correspondents who wanted to get into northern Afghanistan,(VO) who arrived in Uzbekistan in the hope that the Uzbeks would open the border. They didn’t for about 7 weeks or so.
Dodge: (VO) We tried talking to smugglers, (SYNC) who smuggled opium across the border. We tried look at the idea of going to Turkmenistan and dropping back down, but that is was a very closed country. So for seven weeks we kind of languished as the war went on.
Alex: (SYNC) Essentially that meant that we had to try and report all the action in this war, which was happening around Mazar-e-Sharif, and Shebarghan, by remote.
Dodge: (SYNC) So what they did was they found telephone numbers of (VO) some of the warlords operating in the Mazar-e-Sharif area, there were a lot of Dostum’s guys in Tashkent, because he was an Uzbek. They were able to get one number and it led to other numbers.
Alex: (SYNC) So I spent essentially a month sitting in a corridor in a guest house in Tashkent, interviewing people by phone, (VO) on a totally sort of random basis. It wasn’t a particularly satisfying way of reporting the war. (SYNC) Obviously we had to just totally rely on what they told us, and there was no way to verify it, (VO) but at least we got some sense of what was going on.
Dodge: (SYNC) So effectively, the first six or seven weeks the northern front, the Mazar-e-Sharif front was being reported (VO) from abroad. There was really no media with NA forces in the Mazar-e-Sharif area.
Dodge: (VO) Alex had gotten in a week earlier because he was supposed to go on a humanitarian barge and come right around and come back (SYNC) and when he got to the Afghan side he just jumped off the barge and jumped in a cab and went right to Mazar.
Alex: (SYNC) The understanding was that we were to get on this barge and record this moment of fantastic generosity by Uzbekistan to the Afghan people, and strictly to come back to Uzbekistan, but of course, I mean, we got to the other side and I just got a cab.
Dodge: (VO) Eventually the Mazar-e-Sharif front, it fell. General Dostum and a Tajik warlord named Osted Atta, (SYNC) their forces were able to push the Taliban out of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Alex: (SYNC) Qala Jangi blew up on the Sunday, (VO) the day before a whole bunch of Taliban had surrendered from Kunduz. That was essentially the fall of the north of Afghanistan. They’d taken 400 sort of foreign fighters and people that the CIA might be interested in, and sort of corralled them in this old fort, hadn’t searched them, hadn’t disarmed them, but sort of shoved them in the dungeons. I left Mazar in a cab. Cab broke down, just on the outskirts of town. (SYNC) Got out for a cigarette and I could just hear pop pop pop in the distance. (VO) Jumped back in the cab, went out there and this just sort of middle-level Northern Alliance commander comes out to meet me and goes oh, there’s nothing going on here, it’s all quiet, whatever, blah blah blah—(SYNC) and this RPG goes between us. So I’m like, I think I’ll stick around. (chuckles) (VO) I was told by the most senior Northern Alliance commander I could find that a white journalist (SYNC) had been interviewing prisoners in the fort and he’d been disrespectful or something, and had got into a fight and been killed. (VO) The real story was that the CIA had been interviewing people—two of them—and had got into a fight, and one of them had been killed. I arrived there maybe an hour after it had started—(SYNC) before the Special Forces, American Special Forces and British. (VO) They turned up about 2 hours later, and they came up to me to ask me what was going on. Although they heard that they had a man down. (SYNC) So nobody really knew, I mean the alliance were also very confused. All they knew was that they were getting shot at by somebody from apparently within their own compound.
Dodge: (VO) The Uzbek government decided (SYNC) they would let the eighty or hundred journalists that were hanging out in Uzbekistan still after seven weeks, (VO) cross this river on a barge, go downstream, and get off in Afghanistan.
Dodge:(VO) When we got to the hotel Alex said hey there is something going on at the fortress, we’ll come and pick you up first thing in the morning (SYNC) at six, six-thirty in the morning Alex came by (VO) we jumped in a cap and we just said take us to the fortress, take us to the battle.
Alex: (SYNC) We stopped the cab on the road, sort of maybe 500 yards from the fort, (VO) and walked in. RPG round goes over our head. We can hear zip-zip-zip. We actually think we’re under fire, and we’re sort of (SYNC) lined up behind this tree, in the hope that that’s going to protect us.

Dodge: (VO) We had to move or we were going to be pinned to this tree and it seemed like the rounds, (SYNC) besides the rocket, there were some rounds zipping over our head and when they get really close they don’t hum they snap and you know that they are a little too close.
Alex: (SYNC) And Dodge just sort of started walking towards the fort and the bullets (VO) and I thought well, he must know what he’s doing, so we sort of followed him.
Dodge: (VO) We didn’t have to run far, maybe a hundred yards (SYNC) but we kind of hoofed it as fast as we could (VO) followed some Northern Alliance guys up to the fortress, following their lead.
Alex: (VO) We just walked in, walked up the side of the walls—different place, different area to where I’d been before—found the local commander, and much as the day before, (SYNC) just sort of sat down, chatted, and yeah, and sort of observed for about two hours. (VO) Then my translator who was the only one we had got scared.
Dodge: (SYNC) He asked the Northern Alliance commander to kick us out because he wanted to go out.
Alex: (SYNC) So the commander suddenly orders us out of this post where for two hours he’s been very friendly and happy to have us around. He suddenly orders us to leave and we put up a fight, but anyway we go.
Dodge: (SYNC) So we ended up back on the road and ran into this Special Forces group with 10th Mountain troops (VO) and we are getting ready to witness a bombing strike.
Alex: (VO) And 20 minutes later this bomb strike hits, and they all blow themselves up.
Dodge: (VO) The JDAM was supposed to hit this pink house in the middle of the courtyard. Underneath the pink house is where the dungeons were, where all the Taliban were supposed to be held so they figures I guess that if they dropped a 2000 lb JDAM on that house it would be a significant enough blast that it would collapse the house, (SYNC) go into the earth, maybe destroy the dungeon and wipe out the remaining Taliban or stronghold of prisoners. But it didn’t happen that way.
Translator: (VO) That was absolutely wrong!NA Official: (VO) Please cut it this one!
Alex: (VO) The pilot apparently mixed up the coordinates—(SYNC) if you are a spotting team you give your coordinates, and you give the coordinates of the strike. The pilot apparently mixed them up, and scored a direct hit on the spotting team, where we’d been sitting 20 minutes before actually.
Dodge: (SYNC) I think the US admitted five wounded in action on that strike.
Alex: (VO) It flipped this tank onto its back. I mean it was an enormous explosion. And then we, I automatically assumed that that would have killed people. // All the Brits, (SYNC) all the Americans, plus a good 20 Northern Alliance people were sitting on this one area.
Dodge: (SYNC) I know that Alex feels that at least two Americans were killed, that it was days later they drug two bodies out.
Alex: (VO) I went back in February, so this was like three months later, to try and get to the bottom of this. And I found a local commander—(SYNC) my translator played a sort of fantastic trick on him and sort of said “I’m with this guy and”—you know—“he keeps insisting that two senior American commanders were killed here.” And the Northern Alliance guy replies “two senior guys? No that was just a couple of junior guys.” Boom, confirmation.
Dodge: (SYNC) Whether there was two Americans killed I am not sure, two US special forces I am not sure, (VO) But it didn’t seem like it. We had talked to the guys from the 5th Special Forces Group who were there, they didn’t indicate anything to us, not that they should or would have, maybe, (SYNC) I don’t know what the reason for a cover up would have been.
Dodge: (VO) Even if you are armed with a camera it gives you one perspective and one perspective only. I was fortunate enough to get the bomb strike on film. It was obvious that it hit in the wrong place. It wasn’t supposed to hit the wall. But it is hard to tell, without the camera there for that moment we wouldn’t, there was so much dust, (SYNC) I mean geez we were 400 yards away, 300 yards away and we were completely enveloped in a cloud of dust.
Dodge: (VO) Trying to sort out what is going on in a war zone is difficult, and in the heat of a battle is even more difficult, it’s just impossible.
Alex: (VO) The pressure to get the story right—(SYNC) I mean that’s what we do. That’s our job.
Dodge: (SYNC) I mean the idea that you can go down the sidelines and cover both sides of a battle is complete, it just doesn’t make any sense, it not really possible at all. The battle is loud, its dusty, you drop a couple of bombs or some mortar rounds hit and there is dust everywhere, and (VO) // so you have this literal fog, just of dust and debris.
Alex: (VO) Plus you have a whole set of logistical problems of how to get around, there’s going to be certain areas you can’t go into because it’s too dangerous, or you know (SYNC) // you can’t make appointments with people. So getting the story right is, in that sort of situation is almost impossible.
Dodge: (SYNC) It is such a visceral experience, and so you can be in one (VO) spot and a guy twenty yards from you might have a completely different view of the war. // Up on the wall // I was probably twenty meters away of an Afghan, a Northern Alliance, that was shot through the eye and (SYNC) rolled down the hill. (VO) His experience was completely different from mine obviously and we are only twenty meters apart.
Alex: (VO) Of course, the other thing is people are lying to you all the time. (SYNC) Now in war, obviously, there’s different sides. You tend to trust your western sources, but they often turn out to be the ones who’re lying the most. Qala Jangi, (VO) I had an exclusive on this CIA paramilitary guy, Mike Spann, was killed on a Sunday, I mean he was in Afghanistan. I was there. I was sitting with these Special Forces troops (SYNC) and they told me about it. The pentagon denied this was true for 4 days, and every single other news outlet (VO) was running a story saying the pentagon today denied a story by Time Magazine, blah blah blah blah blah, you know? (SYNC) And eventually they rescinded that denial.
Dodge: (VO) it was after the fact when we were sort of sorting through our stories, or how we perceived things, and even talking later to other, fellow journalists who were there, or other people who were there, realizing that, that’s how you saw it? Or, that’s how you perceived it? (SYNC) I don’t think it happened that way, you know.
Benson: (VO) it doesn’t bother me when there’s just snap shots, but I am old enough now to realize (SYNC) that the camera lens is a soda straw and it only sees what it sees at that moment in time and body languages and nuances may allow someone sitting in Peoria to get a different picture entirely. That’s okay because there’s another story will come out.
ACT III

Schifferle: (SYNC) “Friction is a more interesting concept, I think, because friction discusses how difficult it is to do even the simplest things.”

In the Marine Corps Warfighting manual it is written; “The conduct of war becomes extremely difficult because of the countless factors that impinge on it. These factors collectively have been called friction.” Nowhere is the friction of war more intensified than in combat.

Schifferle: (VO) “It is as if you were driving down a street on a nice sunny day…(SYNC) and suddenly you’re in an area where there are trees on both sides of the road and the street, which was dry, is now covered in black ice. You’re going 50mph and you’re car suddenly turns left about 45 degrees and heads across into oncoming traffic. That’s what combat is like.”

Capt. Grosz: (SYNC) Again, we’ve got this military facility, once we cross the bridge that we’ll be attacking to clear the southern portions of that facility... “So as we punch up, (VO) we hold the bridge first tank battalion can use their attack to clear en route and (SYNC) once that’s clear we’ll punch up to the northern bridge, we’ll hold that bridge. “First and tanks, you’re gonna push through here, (VO) then uh, again to attack from north to south almost…and then third, you’ll push up.”(SYNC) …If there’s a heavy preponderance of enemy in there, then uh, I would assume they’re gonna bring in a death and destruction, (VO) via air and artillery in there. If they do not, once they’re clear of this facility, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do. If it moves, it gets destroyed. (SYNC) / I don’t care about collateral damage at this point, this is enemy territory so if we gotta rubble every building, (VO) that’s what we’ll do...

Col. Benson: (VO) Friction it’s a human interaction. (SYNC) Humans get tired. Humans make mistakes. That’s why it’s a truism that no plan can look with certainty beyond initial contact with the enemy main body.

Schneider: (VO) If you look at again the atmosphere of war. Dangers, exertion, chance uncertainty (SYNC) The enemy creates the resistance that creates the friction. Now when you’ve got a grossly inept enemy that changes the whole nature of your problem There’s less friction to deal with So the danger is reduced, the exertion is reduced the chance is reduced, the uncertainty is reduced. So he is the fundamental variable in the calculus of this fog of war and friction in general.

Capt. Grosz: (SYNC) Again. It’s a judgment call when you get up there. Everybody’s got that sixth sense. Alright. You can sense danger. You know when something doesn’t feel right and then you gotta take quick action. That’s what we get paid to do is take decisive action and you gotta take it like that. If a marine feels threatened, he shoots.
Shifferle: (SYNC) But in a complex terrain, it could be mountainous, it could be jungle, it could be urban terrain, (VO) you have to engage in less than optimum ranges and your ability to overmatch the enemy decreases because he can close with you before you can engage him. (SYNC) But that’s nothing compare to issues involved with people. (VO)The truly difficult thing is when you have civilians on the battlefield. We just happened to always fight where people live. (SYNC) And again, imagine the soldier walking down with a patrol in the streets of Baghdad. (VO) He does not know which of the people are friendly, which of the people are enemies. So if you took all of the people away from Baghdad, then it would look like a training site and it would be relatively easy. But you put 5 million people in Baghdad and you put the U.S. army in there, and you say, “Ok. Find the bad guys.” Now you’re talking complicated.

Expecting a heated battle, the Marines seized the al Rashid military complex during the night without a fight, only to wake up to sporadic small arms and rocket fire from across the street.

Lambright: (SYNC) Our company as well as a couple other elements of the battalion were set up on a uh, kind of a perimeter, (VO) lined up on a freeway overpass. And if you looked a couple hundred meters over the freeway overpass, you’d see that there was pretty much the main, there was Baghdad proper over on the other side.

SOLDIER 1: (VO) …And a bunch of bandoliers… Hey, get that SAW up hereThey are all going to be coming from the left… right down this alley…There they go, go, go.

Lambright: (VO) We were just there to stage for our eventual move into the city. (SYNC) And we were looking over, uh, across the overpass. There was pretty much enemy moving back and forth all morning. A lot of looters stealing out of military trucks, carrying ammo back and forth. Every once in a while you’d see a couple guys run across, some black pajamas on, a few AK’s, RPG’s here or there

Benson: (SYNC) The battle in a city I think is the most complex fight because of the variations in terrain. (VO) There are systems within systems in a modern city or even in a not so modern city. The fact there might be some kind of a transportation system. There’s subterranean, there’s ground level and then in other, somewhat modern cities with buildings over one story high it’s a true three-dimensional fight.

Lambright: (VO) And I think everybody in the company, probably in the battalion, was really concentrated forward on what was going across the street. There was a lot of activity, it was the most activity (SYNC) we had seen, you know, the whole time up until then. So everybody was kind of excited, like oh, you know, it’s gonna go down now, we don’t know what’s gonna happen next and, you know, we’re just waiting to get the word to go basically across the street and take care of business.

Previous intelligence reports indicated that vehicles were being used as suicide bombs meaning that every truck and car was suspect. Standing orders were not to allow any vehicle to approach.

Lambright: (VO) We heard a large explosion, there was people yelling, gunshots, automatic weapon fire going off left and right and that’s when we turned around, and everybody kind of took cover real quick to assess the situation. (SYNC) A bus of some enemy personnel, I think it was 3 guys, drove into the rear of our perimeter kind of, not necessarily snuck up on anybody, but I think they didn’t intend to drive into our rear, but they kind of ended up there.

Lambright: (SYNC) “We immediately starting calling in medivacs, a couple guys from heavy guns, and a couple elements (VO) from our machine gun attachment, and some guys from our platoon ran out there and started carrying those guys out into the street.”

(VO) Unidentified Soldier: Corpsman up! Corpsman up!
Humarang: (VO) I heard corpsman up. (SYNC) That’s when me and the rest of the corpsmen started racing and running towards the scene.

Lambright: (VO) I think I actually, initially probably thought it was a car bomb or something, cause I mean, nobody (SYNC) unless they were suicidal would’ve rolled up on our rear like that or rolled up on our position. I mean, we had everyone in the battalion there, plus attachments, plus tanks (VO) I think that was what was scary about them pulling up. I don’t think anybody really expected it because we had pretty much, we had pretty much moved through that entire area the night before and we hadn’t seen anybody.
Humurang: (SYNC) One person had a gunshot wound in his right leg, a couple frags in his back, probably just an explosion of the bus, (VO) and the other person had a graze wound in his right arm, right forearm, and I heard that one ended up dying.

Schifferle: (VO) “The friction is as pervasive as fog and it’s probably the more difficult to cope with of the two types of things. Sooner or later you understand that you never really are sure of anything. (SYNC) And once you understand that, you can cope with it. But the idea that you can never really do exactly what you wanna do is perhaps more pernicious and more difficult to cope with as a human being.”
ACT IV The Embed

Savusa:…know you guys are ready to go and take it out. Make sure. Make sure that each and every one of you, understands the plan. Make sure each and everyone of you look left, and look right, right now…

Benson: (VO) We volunteer to wear U.S Army, Marine, Navy, and Air force over our hearts. So the general U.S. population doesn’t have to serve in the military. (SYNC) In a republic I think that that’s a good thing. But now we must communicate the complexity of it.

In preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Defense Department decided they would embed media—officially, to tell the Coalition side of the story.Critics attacked the plan as a way for the Bush administration to report its side of the war with journalists dependent on the military units themselves for their access and physical well being.It has been argued that the narrow view from the back of a US military vehicle, besides providing intimate detail, actually contributed to the fog of reporting the war as thousands of videos and written snapshots obscured the big picture and failed to give a sense of the war as a whole.Still, over 600 individuals representing hundreds of media outlets willingly embedded for the march to Baghdad.

Dodge: (SYNC) You were assigned or put with your unit, (VO) and that’s who you were going to be with until the end of combat operations or until you decided your story was done and you wanted to get yourself out.

Alex: (VO) You’ve got so much access you don’t know what to do with it. But you’ve got no freedom to go look for a story. You stick with the unit and you do what they do, and if they do nothing, (SYNC) that’s just bad luck. Which is what happened to me.

Dodge: (SYNC) For most people it was probably ok, but I think (VO) a lot of the journalists that were on these forward tips of the spear, they wanted to see combat. They wanted action. They wanted another Qala Jangi.

Alex: (VO) My unit essentially did nothing. Armed parking, really. (SYNC) It was supposed to be tip of the spear, and blah blah blah. And they didn’t do anything. They didn’t ever fire a shot in anger, all the way to Baghdad.

Dodge: (VO) I knew what India Company 3/7 did. (SYNC) I couldn’t even really speak for the enemy because the engagements were so light, and I couldn’t speak for the other sister units in the 1st Marine Division, because I never saw them.

Alex: (VO) I could see battles on the horizon. I could hear them. But I couldn’t go to them. Eventually I broke away from my embed. I mean I had two weeks of it, so when I saw another unit that I knew was getting a lot more action—(SYNC) because I could hear on the radios—lying in the desert five miles away, I just picked up my stuff and walked across the desert and hooked up with them.

Alex: (SYNC) Getting stuff right in a war zone—which is basically essentially chaos, not even controlled chaos—and nobody has a full picture of what going on.

Dodge: (VO) So all you do is you offer a slice of that battle.(SYNC) Even on our side. It wasn’t that I was giving the US side. I was giving only my platoon’s side. The other platoons in the company sometimes—especially when we split up to attack a position (VO)—I had to hear the day after what third platoon did or the other. I don’t know what they did. Sometimes you could see them, sometimes you couldn’t. So you only get, again, your slice.

Alex: (SYNC) If you got a good embed, then with the access it was phenomenal. And there was (VO) no restrictions on the ground as to what you could or couldn’t report. Any of the restrictions actually were back in the news rooms, when people took their editorial lines.

Dodge: (SYNC) It’s really left up to the editors back at the bureaus to determine what stories they run with, because they could take my slice of the war, put it against 20 other slices of the war, and maybe they get a good big picture. Maybe there’s no continuity between the different reports at all. They have to decide which story to run with.
Alex: (VO) I mean I realize how important that freedom to move is, even with the minute access that I got in Afghanistan—essentially, one day of sitting with the Special Forces, another two or three days and the odd chat here and there with the Americans, but not much—(SYNC) but I had a much better picture of what was going on in Afghanistan than I did sitting with my little unit.

There was concern that the stories coming out of the war zone from embedded reporters were compromised by their close relationship with their units, possibly skewing the facts in favor of the US-led Coalition.

Dodge: (SYNC) also, being on one of the tips of the spear and… (VO) you have a vested interest in all your guys coming out alive, or at least your unit succeeding, because if you jump out of that armored personnel carrier with them, and they all get gunned down and killed, then you’ve gotten yourself gunned down and killed. So there’s a self-preservation issue.

Dodge: (SYNC) Did it make the media sort of become friendly with their units? It absolutely did. (VO) There was a tendency for media to say we—to refer to the units (SYNC) and themselves as we rather than “this unit went here.” Because yeah, you’re living with your unit in the desert for weeks at a time, (VO) and you do become very close, very attached.
The embed will likely remain the subject of controversy due to the perception that the close quarters shared between the correspondent and the soldier, and the frustratingly narrow view offered, contributed to the fog of reporting the war.

Dodge: (SYNC) Everybody thought they’d see action. But a lot of units saw very little action because the Iraqis chose not to engage. So it was very frustrating for a lot of the embedded media, who felt like they were on just a road trip to Baghdad—an uncomfortable road trip to Baghdad.

(VO) SOLDIER 1: Bang, bang, bang, bang.(VO)

SOLDIER 2: No bang…Go back outside and try it again

To enable armies to fight through the friction of combat soldiers are trained for the specifics of their art and educated to handle the uncertainty. Each according to his station. While the private, the lowest ranking soldier, is taught to march and shoot, the higher ranking soldier receives additional training and is educated to understand conflict in broader terms.

(SYNC) “Good job, go back outside…”

Col Benson: (VO) We train for the certainty we know that we are going to have to fire weapons, so we train on weapons and how to adjust fire and shift fire. We educate to deal with the uncertainty (SYNC) Education and training. That’s the best we can do.

In spite of all planning, events in war have a tendency to spiral out of control. This problem is overcome by training soldiers to expect this, and to continue fighting in the chaos of battle.

Schnieder: (VO) The problem of training and education is really about (SYNC) // self-understanding. Understanding himself within that new context that he has been totally unfamiliar with probably to that point, and recognize that the training process gives him the confidence, the self-confidence, to deal with virtually any situation, at the same time, having confidence in his leaders.

Schifferle: (SYNC) We try not to tell people that they’re going to be in complete control of the environment because if you educate and train your soldiers (VO) to have them expect control, the instant they lose control, the instant they hit that black ice, they have lost all of their confidence, they have lost all of their ability to respond, and they will be in a state of shock and not be able to respond. But if you tell them that there are patches of ice out there, and if you hit the ice, steer into the skid, (SYNC) then they know how to cope and they know how to begin to survive on the battlefield and accomplish the mission.

Gudmans: (VO) Every one of these exercises, and especially with the training centers that you talked about, that is designed and put in there on purpose. When I was assigned to JRTC, (SYNC) everything we did we tried to get it in there because it’s teaching these guys to think. Because the way to beat that, (VO) whatever problem comes up, the way to beat it is by being able to out think it. (VO) It’s just one problem after another. And they’re all hard. (SYNC) And it’s designed that way on purpose. That it’s hard in training to make you think, to make you solve a problem.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the battle for the rugged Shah I Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan in the spring of 2002.

Known as Operation Anaconda, nearly a thousand U.S. soldiers, in conjunction with Special Forces, assaulted into the valley to attack Taliban and al Qaeda positions.
Five Apache attack helicopters provided security for the larger slower troop transport helicopters delivering the infantry to their landing zones.

Wiercinski: (VO) As soon as we hit the ground, though, (SYNC) once that initial piece of surprise was over, uh, the enemy started to respond very quickly and very heavily.
While three Apaches struggled to support the infantry in the southern blocking positions, a two-ship team answered a call for help from Special Forces under attack to the west.

Chenault: (VO) Once we identified our guys who were on the ground … we made one pass to identify the mortar position came back outbound, turned back in … a second time and that's when we actually engaged it.

Hurley: (VO) I rolled back in and came in hot, lots of 30 mike-mike, and fired up what I had left of my rockets, and it looked like we took out the five individuals running right to left (SYNC) As we finished our second run and were getting ready to break right (VO) we took an impact from an RPG from the left, as that rocked and the aircraft was settling down, (SYNC) another round came through the cockpit. I got a bucs fail light, and because of the bucs fail light and the rocking of the aircraft (VO) I figured I had some damage.

Hurley: (VO) As I was moving down towards the south side of the whale to try to (SYNC) get out of the hot zone or the combat zone, I couldn’t make contact with my lead guy because he had jumped to the other side of the ridge, so line of sight was lost.

Chenault: (SYNC) It was a little bit of panic, to be perfectly honest with you, at that point because I had no idea where my wingman was and I know that he had been shot.

Herman: (SYNC) Radios were pretty hectic, we were talking, our team talking to two different elements on the ground (VO) as well as the team of three in the south talking to elements in the south. The terrain blocked some of the radio transmissions because of the high terrain, but sometimes there was bleed over so you were (SYNC) hearing both ends of the battle going on at once.

Chenault: (SYNC) It took us a couple of minutes to sort that out exactly where they were. Obviously we were trying to get his location so we could help him in case he ended up, the airframe ended up going down, which it did not.

Damaged by enemy fire and low on fuel, the Apaches made their way back to the refueling and rearming point to assess the situation, determine their next course of action and pick up an additional helicopter.

Carr: (VO) It was supposed to be a flight of six, and my helicopter broke (SYNC) So we’re sitting there waiting all of a sudden we started hearing all the radio traffic of the five airplanes coming back. Of course all five were all shot up. (VO) There was only one capable at that point to go back into action.

Chenault: (VO) We got refueled, re-loaded with (SYNC) ammunition and we linked up with that other airplane. (VO) And now we became a team and we went back into the fight again.

Carr: (VO) So on the way there I am talking on the radio with Mr. Chenault…(SYNC) I wanted to know what the deal was. Come back with five shot up airplanes, I’m thinking this is going to be interesting. We’re going back with two more. He basically said, hey, all the stuff you’ve been taught as far as hovering and firing is not going to work there. If you hover you are going to die, so you need to move and shoot.

Carr: (VO) All of our training in the Apaches is based on being(SYNC) able to hover. We didn’t have the hover capability so that means our fires and stuff was going to have to be running fire. I never trained on running fire.

Hurley: (SYNC) The battle was so fast, so close, and so intense that front seaters predominantly were giving target handovers to the back seaters, keeping their head in the game so they could direct us on where to go and where to shoot.

Carr: (SYNC) I had never shot what they call an IHEADS rocket from the back seat (VO) I figured on the way there I better practice this I mean I’ve never done it before so…I said, “hey let me just pull the trigger and see what happens,” well when I shot the rocket (SYNC) it went fairly low, because I wasn’t smart enough at that point to look down (VO) and see if my rockets were pointed down. The rocket hit low, the body (SYNC) of the rocket flew up over the top of the helicopter, so I almost shot myself down en route.
Carr and Chenault led two more Apache sorties into the Shah I Kot Valley that day, both sustaining additional damage from heavy enemy fire.

Hurley: (SYNC) It was a challenge because we saw some things we hadn’t seen in training (VO) // obviously running fire was a little new to us, but we did it, we adapted well enough—(SYNC) we lost nobody, and I attribute that to the training we’d had up to that point (VO) I also attribute that to the flexibility and improvisational skills of the pilots in the airframe.

Schifferle: (VO) It’s the well-trained paramedics who respond to the car crash. They’ve seen it before. They’ve experienced it in exercises, they’ve been trained how to deal with the situation…(SYNC) it’s a combination of procedures and training and confidence in their own selves, and in their fellows—all of which is helped by repetitive training, repetitive experiences together as an organization and as a unit.

Schneider: (VO) And that’s more than just simply the reflexive nature of training. You’re talking about the reflective nature of education. And especially in a time of peace, that’s when we should put our investment and invest heavily in education (SYNC) because that’s when people can learn, have the leisure to learn and do all these things that become crucial in fighting the next war.

Conclusion
Fog and Friction are two realities of war. They will never go away. How militaries educate and train their soldiers to deal with these constants can often determine victory or defeat.

Col. Benson: (SYNC) War remains a human endeavor, the ultimate kind of argument, we will always have fog, we will always have friction.

Schifferle: (SYNC) We sometimes think of war as a game of chess. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a game of chess you have 32 pieces. (VO) You have 64 squares. But in reality, in combat, you (SYNC) have an infinite variety of outcomes, and you have an infinite variety of human motivations. So, it’s the combination of Fog and Friction that make it impossible to control, but possible to understand.