Preparing for War in A Chevy Pickup
In the late 1980s, some U.S. Army linguists prepared to fight a war in Chevrolet pickup trucks. Both those Chevies and the linguists inside them would fail in a war. And when the Gulf War began in 1991, that is exactly what happened. But it didn't have to be this way.
The problem began when the Army restructured its organic intelligence assets in the late 1970s. As part of this effort the Army gave its divisions their own military intelligence battalion (MI BN.) The MI BN provided each division commander with a variety of intelligence assets of his own. A Collection and Jamming (C&J) company was part of the battalion.
The C&J company had a few missions. They were to intercept 'enemy' radio transmissions and report back on what they heard. At times, they were to jam 'enemy' transmissions by using their equipment to transmit on the same frequency. Lastly, they were to use their equipment to pinpoint the location of 'enemy' radio transmissions. That was the theory. The reality was that the C&J company could not do any of this due to gross deficiencies in equipment and personnel. Most of the company's obsolete equipment was on Chevy pick-ups and Blazers. (1)
The Chevies carried the company's three radio intercept trucks (2) and three radio intercept/jammer trucks. (3) The radio intercept equipment was in an unarmored shelter in the back of the aforementioned Chevy pickup.
The three radio intercept trucks could be electronically linked together to locate the approximate position of 'enemy' transmitters, but not with enough accuracy to direct artillery fire.
The radio intercept/jammer equipment was simply bolted in the bed of a Chevy pickup in some units, but may have been in unarmored shelter at others. (4) An additional loud gasoline generator was needed to power the jammer. This was mounted on a trailer that was towed by a Chevy Blazer.
TACJAM was the name of the company's three heavy jammers. Ideally it could jam up to three frequencies at one time. But the jammer's software was poor. And while it was carried on a tracked vehicle, it was under-powered. TACJAM was very difficult to maintain and keep running. (5)
Each of these assets had many problems. All of them were old and unreliable. None of them could operate while moving, instead they had to stop and then took about 15 to 30 minutes to set up. Their range was limited so they had to operate within a few miles of the front line, a real vulnerability for unarmored vehicles with limited maneuverability.
None of them could keep up with the Army's M1 Abrams tanks or M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. Their 4-5 person crews, armed with only their personal weapons and one M-60 machine gun, were responsible for their own security in addition to their C&J mission. And although it was not their fault, the C&J company linguists were as deficient in their skills as the equipment was obsolete.
The linguists operating the equipment were formally known as “voice intercept operators.” A few received formal training on the equipment at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, but most learned on the job. Training in the field was mostly simply operating the equipment rather than achieving any real skill with it. The Army didn't have much in the way of jamming doctrine. Passing along radio intercepts was rudimentary. Intercepts were written down by hand and passed along to another team member to be radioed back for analysis. For security reasons, training was against English-language traffic only. Their language skills were the greatest challenge the linguists faced.
A typical linguist was an enlisted soldier on their first four-year enlistment. For an Arabic linguist, basic training and language learning consumed half of that enlistment. The day they arrived at their MI BN was usually the peak of their language skills. They deteriorated because the soldiers' language training was not the highest priority in their units. This is not to say that either the soldiers or their commanders wanted their skills to deteriorate. Far from it. For instance, the 124th MI BN (6) had a classroom with an Arabic instructor for unclassified language training. There was also a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) for classified language training.
But spending much time in the former was difficult, spending any time in the latter was virtually impossible. Linguists in either were invariably called away to the unit's motor pool. The readiness of the vehicles was the highest priority. How many vehicles were ready to go to war could easily be measured and judged.
By the time a linguist was at the end of their first enlistment, much of their language had been forgotten. This occurred because there was no priority to keep it up, nor was anyone testing them. This allowed a large delusion to form. The linguists ability to operate the equipment in exercises against an English-speaking opponent was equated with operating in a war against a foreign-language one. The Army soon found out what would happen if they paired unprepared linguists with obsolete equipment.
The Gulf War of 1991, also known as Operation Desert Storm, was an overwhelming victory for a coalition of countries over Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It was proceeded by Operation Desert Shield in which many C&J linguists deployed to Saudi Arabia.
The C&J companies didn't do any radio interception during Desert Shield. Their limited range equipment was unable to intercept anything. It is reported that linguists from the VII Corps drilled on improving their equipment set up times and did so. One soldier from the 124th wrote that they only did basic training with the equipment as their officers were afraid it might break and not be repairable. He added that his peace-time training had not been realistic. The obsolete equipment situation did not improve during Desert Shield.
As for the linguists, their skills deteriorated even further during Desert Shield. They were out of intercept range, so they could not operate against Iraqi radio traffic. Confined to remote camps for as long as six months, there were no classrooms or SCIFs in which they could maintain their Arabic. Faced with a known problem years in the making, the Army implemented a hasty fix.
Less than a month before Desert Storm started, the Army started training about 300 Kuwaiti volunteers who were university students in the United States. The students got some basic and technical intelligence training. (7) They served throughout the Army, including in the C&J companies, as assistant voice intercept operators. In essence, the Kuwaitis were to serve as the linguists while the Army linguists operated the equipment. It was all for nothing.
Once Desert Storm started, the C&J Companies simply tried to keep up with the M1s and M2s. This was difficult as the Los Angeles Times described the Chevy trucks as having “virtually no utility in the desert except on paved roads or hard-packed sand.” The 124th drove for 72 hours straight, it didn't conduct any missions. The 533d's company didn't hear any Iraqi communications during brief stops, probably because they were too far away. Even using Kuwaitis as linguists could not overcome obsolete equipment. The Chevy C&J companies provided virtually no intelligence during Desert Storm. It proved to be their “death knell,” and they ceased to exist within a few years.
It should not have taken a war for the Army to admit that both its linguists and their equipment would fail in a war. Everyone knew the equipment was obsolete. That the linguists were not adequate should not have surprised anyone. Yes, for the Army to admit failure in peacetime would have been hard. Failure in war is worse. The Army and those C&J linguists were lucky that it wasn't a lot worse.
(1) The U.S. Army official designation for the Chevrolet pickup and Blazer was the Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle.
(2) The AN/TRQ-32.
(3) The AN/TLQ-17A.
(4) In the former, light discipline was impossible with such a set-up. The author's solution was to tape his poncho liner to the top of the equipment and operate underneath it.
(5) There was a joke in the author's C&J company. Since the TACJAMs almost always broke down when trying to go to the field, they should simply remain in the unit's motor pool and jam from there.
(6) Part of the 24th Infantry Division, Mechanized, Ft. Stewart, Georgia.
(7) The irony is that Army linguists had to undergo and pass a lengthy and thorough FBI background check in order to get the Top Secret clearance that they needed to become a voice intercept operator. This did not apply to the Kuwaitis apparently.
