Friday, February 16th, 1996, Naval Station Rota, Spain
By 1000 on Friday morning, Captains Duffy and Buchanan were knocking at my stateroom door. If I wasn't on the dock soon, they told me, I would be riding home the long way! Grabbing my bags, I headed down to the vehicle deck and the brow. Captain Buchanan was not kidding either: At 1200 sharp, all three ships of the ARG weighed anchor, pulled up lines, and promptly headed past the breakwater and out to sea. In less than a two weeks, the MEU and the ARG would have their home-comings at Camp Lejeune, New River, Little Creek, and Norfolk. Once home, they would start the ritual of preparing for their next cruise, planned to start in November of 1996. Colonel Battaglini would give up command of the 26th in the spring of 1996 to become an aide to the Secretary of the Navy, John Dalton. John Allen was headed up to the Commandant's Office at the Pentagon as the Commandant's aide. And after several years, Dennis Arinello was leaving the 26th for a shore assignment.
As for the ships of the ARG, Wasp headed into dry dock for her first major overhaul since being commissioned. For the 1996/97 cruise of the 26th MEU (SOC), PHIBRON 8, comprising the USS Nassau (LHA-4), USS Ponce (LPD-15), and USS Pensacola (LSD-36), would handle the job of transportation. Captain Buchanan planned to retire in 1997, Captain Duffy went to Washington to chair a promotion board and attend the National Defense University, and Stan Greenawalt relieved Ray Duffy as CO of Wasp in April of 1996.
In May 1996, it all began again.
The MEU (SOC) in the Real World
In earlier chapters, I have shown you what a Marine Expeditionary Unit — Special Operations Capable, a MEU (SOC), can do in combination with its Amphibious Ready Group (ARG). Now we'll sketch out a couple of alternative futures to examine how a MEU (SOC)/ARG team might operate in the early part of the 21st century. The MEU (SOC)s will tackle two "major regional contingencies." Follow along as we explore some near-term possibilities.
Operation Chilly Dog: Iran, 2006
Back in the 1960s, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, knew that someday the oil would run out. (He was wiser than most rulers in the region.) "Petroleum," he once said, "is a noble material, too valuable to burn." So he envisioned a national electrical grid powered by a series of clean, modern nuclear plants. The French were doing the same thing, and he admired everything French. He also knew that possession of nuclear technology brought prestige that would enhance Iran's position as a regional power. It had worked for Israel. He also admired the Israelis. The sleepy Persian Gulf port of Bushehr made an ideal site for the first plant. The Bushehr peninsula was a solid, isolated block of rock, standing out along the generally flat, barren, central Persian Gulf coast. Nature had intended it to be an island, but ages ago silt had filled in the narrow channel, and a road built on an elevated embankment led to the town. Power lines from the nuclear plant would run alongside the road and up through the mountains, supplying the great inland city of Shiraz with cheap, abundant electricity.
In 1979 the Islamic Revolution came; the Ayatollahs threw the Shah out of the country, and the foreign engineers and construction crews departed soon afterward. The Ayatollahs may have been fanatical, but they weren't crazy. They remembered what had happened to Saddam's ambitious Osirak nuclear power plant, smashed into rubble by a few Israeli bombs. The Shah's nuclear dreams were abandoned, and intelligence officers in the West nicknamed the site "Dead Dog." With the passing years, war came and went. And oil continued to flow. But the Shah was right; it would not flow forever. A new generation of Iranian technocrats rose into positions of power, and they rediscovered the Shah's vision. Russia offered nuclear reactors on advantageous barter-trade terms. Nuclear technology brought prestige, enhancing Iran's position as a regional power. It had worked for Israel.
Iranian Army Officer Training School, March 1991
The young officers in the cadet program were a privileged elite; they were permitted to watch the Gulf War and its aftermath on CNN. Those who understood a little English translated for the rest who spoke Farsi, but the images spoke for themselves. It was a gut-wrenching experience to watch the destruction in four days of the hated Iraqi army which had defied the mobilized might of the Islamic Republic for eight grinding, bloody years of attrition warfare. Every young man in the room had lost friends or relatives in battle against Saddam's Revolutionary Guards' armored divisions…and now Saddam's armor evaporated like snowflakes in the hot desert sun.
It was a bitter joy they found in the humiliation of their enemy. For the victory which should have been their victory was being won by an even more hated enemy, the Great Satan, America. The junior officers were the best and the brightest of their generation. But it didn't take much to see the writing on the wall. If the Americans can do this to Saddam, what could they do to us? They listened attentively to lectures by officials from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance. The Great Satan's victory, it was said, had been bought with the oil revenues of the corrupt Gulf sheikdoms. The godless Russians had given the Americans the secrets of Saddam's defenses. Iraq had only collapsed because the martyrdom of a million faithful Iranians had fatally weakened his regime. After evening prayers, the junior officers gathered in the dorm, arguing late into the night. The mandatory time for lights out came and went, but no one could sleep. They resolved that whatever it took, they would understand the causes of Iraq's defeat, and they would ensure that their nation never suffered the same fate.
Sub-Lieutenant Gholam Hassanzadeh did not have to wait long. Before the Islamic Revolution, he had studied physics at Teheran University for a year. He spoke good English and fluent Arabic. His first assignment was debriefing a plane-load of Iraqi nuclear technicians who had escaped to Iran after their prototype isotope-separation plant was reduced to rubble by U.S. BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles. They would be working for the Islamic Republic of Iran now. The technicians, all educated men and good Muslims, had little love for Saddam. They had escaped only minutes ahead of the Mukhabarat secret police that Saddam had dispatched to execute them, to keep them from telling the Americans what they knew.
Gholam took an instant liking to these men, uprooted from homes and families by the winds of war. Their accommodations were harsh, little better than prison barracks, but Gholam had grown up in a culture where hospitality toward the stranger was not only a religious obligation, but a fine art. He did what little he could to make their exile more comfortable. They reciprocated with a torrent of information. His reports were read with growing interest by top Government officials. One caught their special interest. In it he outlined a plan for an Iranian nuclear deterrent force. Gholam swiftly made captain, and then major. In a few years, he was given the leadership of the team that managed secret nuclear labs that were building a true Islamic bomb.