I watched American Sniper for the first time a couple of days ago. The thing that struck me was how the Marines were portrayed in Iraq.
I’m hoping there are a few Marine’s on here who can answer this question.
Were the Marine’s as poorly prepared to clear rooms as was portrayed in the movie? The random stuff shown in the movie, make them look like they’re just kicking in doors and running into structures randomly. Or, is this simply a case of Hollywood depicting Kyle as the only person in the village who knew how to properly clear a room?
If the answer is yes, they were that poorly trained on room clearing, has their training improved in the years since?
The long answer would correct some bullshit about Marines being portrayed as undisciplined and acting like a bunch of unorganized idiots, but not that the average infantry Marine back in '04 spent a total of about 6 hours doing MOUT training before a deployment.
Not a Marine but was Army infantry back during that timeframe. Prior to the invasion we spent 90 percent of our training time doing general infantry tactics and about 10 percent MOUT.
While I never got to work with the Marines much we did cross paths a few times and unorganized idiots was definitely not the impression they gave me.
After the invasion MOUT became our life in my unit.
If you ever get to read the book, it makes a lot more sense- per Euro and C-Grunt’s posts.
(no, I’m not a marine- just pointing out that the book was quite a bit different than the movie portrayed it as…)
Hmm, well it seems you can’t make a movie about SEALs without making Marines look like shit.
I was in Fallujah in Nov 04’ and became an instructor after so I can probably offer some insight. Were we as bad as the movie portrayed? Sometimes.
We did do quite a bit of additional training at Camp Fallujah prior to entering the city. It was mostly stuff like tank/armor integration as most of us had minimal experience on that end of things. My unit had been in country for months so we were used to C&K/door popping/village sweeps–but nowhere on that scale (who had?)
After literally your 35th structure that day? Minimal or no sleep prior? For extended periods of time? Shit gets ****ed up. That’s a no-shitter. I thankfully mostly stopped getting adrenaline dumps earlier in the war but the highs and lows were brutal for most. The first few days were the worst.
We also came across problems we hadn’t had before in regards to available personnel and equipment. We also found that some old TTPs didn’t work out at all (I dubbed this ‘90’s theory based bullshit’). This resulted in some experimentation. Like all experiments, some stuff worked and other stuff didn’t (FYI, a SMAW doesn’t breach a wall very well, but a tank works awesome).
So sometimes we were rockstars and other times we relied on VOA, improvised methods, and numbers. But no, the SEALs weren’t the only ones that knew what they were doing.
Training got much much better starting in about 2005 for several reasons: We got firsthand results of what worked and what didn’t and Marines with experience gained rank, and with it the ability to change some aspects of training.
Would we do it the same way now? Of course not, we have the benefit of more than a decade of further experience. The results would be the same though.
I was a USMC grunt and did a tour in Iraq in 2004 just prior to getting out. As others have stated MOUT was not the main focus of all of our training activities. Even if the command had wanted it to be the training resources just weren’t there pre-9/11 to train for it as much as we would have liked. Post 9/11 it got a bit better, and we saw more after the invasions but still not the only focus. MOUT training facilities were always in demand, and units had to cycle through pretty quick. We did do a solid week of training just prior to deployment at March Air Force base in an old housing area that was going to be torn down, that was actually pretty useful since we could do whatever we wanted with those structures. Of course that kind of training freedom was a rarity for any average fleet Marine, or probably for most Army grunts in regular units.
By the time I deployed I was in the reserves, and we had quite a few SNCO’s that were cops in the real world and most of them were on their department’s SWAT teams. Frankly they taught us a lot more than the MOUT instructors did, but they had access to us all the time once we were all put back on active duty, and some of them probably had more experience at that point in clearing structures of no shit bad guys than the MOUT instructors.
I was a Marine grunt in Vietnam in 1967-1968, only received a modicum of “jungle” training before going in country, then it all became OJT! I was very impressed by the the professionalism and training displayed by the Marines in Gulf 1 and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were better prepared and trained then we were in Vietnam. The Army was also markedly better prepared for the Gulf wars than they were in Vietnam. I thank them all for their dedicated service to their country. Semper Fi to all Grunts!!!
It wasn’t a matter of not wanting to do the training, it was a matter of getting alloted the time. Particularly on the reserve side. Then of course you have commands that suck, and my last one was epically bad at company and battalion level. The battalion comander was relieved of duty in Iraq, and his replacement immediately fired our company comander. Maybe the single best day of my OIF2 experience other than flying out of TQ to get out of shit ass Iraq.
I almost feel like reading the book should be a self-required prerequisite to seeing the movie. That or the movie should have un-Hollywoodized itself but have taken 3+ hours to watch. Lone Survivor was the same way.
Not to derail this but as far as the book vs movie thing goes, this isn’t the first. “We Were Soldiers Once” (the movie) completely left out the second, more costly part of the Nov. 1965 Ia Drang Valley battle…the march to LZ Albany and the ensuing fiasco tooth-and-nail battle. Sure, it would’ve made for a 4-hour movie, but still.
While still in high school during 2004, I know OJT was the name of the game for a lot of Marines, while I came into the fleet in 08, I know a good amount of units that were thrown together in order to augment battle plans, while I was an Airwinger, I knew a good amount of Aviation Supply Marines who were order to grab rifles and packs and became attached to units in Helmand province, an became over night grunts with only a brief stint at MCT to go off of. But professionals non the less, a buddy of mine from Texas became the only guy in his supply unit to have a combat action ribbon.
I also agree that liberties were definitely taken with the movie to portray all the roles that Chris Kyle did in his tours of Iraq
Our leadership was clearly failing us. To the point General Mattis relived our battalion comander of his duties and his sidearm.
We trained at the small unit level while in theater, but only because our good SNCO’s made it happen. At battalion and company level our command was clueless. This was 2004 so you still had a lot of peace time mindset officers that frankly just didn’t get it.
I would imagine a SEAL had a lot more training in CQB than the average soldier or Marine. Kyle seemed like the type to help anyone at the drop of the hat and that’s what the movie tried to portray throughout.
Hate to say it but that is a general trend in the SMCR, the I&Is often refer to them as Lts with oakleaves and many battalion COs were relieve, never activated or were replaced with I&I counterparts
I would have to look on my work computer, but if I remember right the PTP for deployment for OIF 2 had MOUT type training starting in block 1 with the EMP course of shooting, block 2 in team entry and room clearing, block 3 with squad, platoon and companies in urban environments and block IV with battalion in urban environments.
This lowly squid has no idea what you just said, but it certainly sounds all official and stuff.
Too bad our men were deployed without at least room clearing training and communicating. Great feedback that is much appreciated guys.
SEAL CQB is not complicated and doesn’t take a long time to learn the basics of clearing and communicating. I certainly would have saved some of our guys lives.
The SEAL’s keep it very simple, repeatable and practice it until it is able to be done without thinking. Shoot - Move - Communicate.
CQB isn’t some black art that only SOF guys know how to do. Any infantry Marine who has been through an SOTG course such as the Raid Leaders Course will be able to execute any type breaching and room clearing.
