New officers learn from men with fresh combat experience

By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer

Walking past the lieutenants as they practiced blocking punches and slowly rolling their opponents to the ground on a clear November day, Capt. Bobby Danzie shook his head, a scowl creeping over his wide, heavy face.

It was the lieutenants’ second month at The Basic School and Danzie, the commander of Fox Company’s second platoon, could already tell that these junior officers weren’t getting the point.

The school is meant to turn every officer, from lawyer to pilot to logistician, into a combat leader capable of taking Marines into infantry combat at a moment’s notice.

Danzie knows the training manuals inside and out, but he also knows war in a way that no book can teach. He has personal experience that these students, practicing martial-arts techniques on the grassy fields flanking O’Bannon Hall, can only imagine.

Unfortunately, to Danzie, they don’t even seem to be trying to imagine.

As the fresh lieutenants slow-punched and blocked, laughing at each other’s blunders and chatting about last night’s trip to Georgetown for beers, Danzie lamented their levity.

“There’s a war going on and I don’t think they’re grasping that yet,” Danzie said, shaking his head.

For perhaps the first time since Vietnam, newly commissioned officers at TBS are learning from men who have fresh combat experience.

Danzie, a 28-year-old graduate of the Naval Academy, gained his as a weapons platoon commander with 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. His unit was involved in seizing an airfield in southern Iraq in spring 2003, as well as stabilizing the Shiite town of Samawah after major combat operations had ended.

Though he did not lose any of his men in combat, Danzie knows that split-second, life and death decisions are part of combat operations. They teach this in the classroom and in the field at TBS, but to Danzie, it seems the new officers aren’t really taking advantage of the experience this combat-hardened staff can impart.

“I’d rather have a Marine who’s prepared to go into a fight mentally, than one that knows all the techniques and tunes out mentally,” he said.

TBS training reflects Iraq operations

On another cool morning at Range 5, as the lieutenants are gearing up for live-fire, open-field maneuvers with a squad of 12 fellow lieutenants, Capt. Conor Tracy looks on with less concern. He was witness to one of the fiercest — and most costly — battles of the war in Iraq. As an Amphibious Assault Vehicle platoon leader with Alpha Company, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion during the battle for Nasiriyah in March 2003, Tracy lost two men during the fighting.

His casualties were the result of a misdirected strike by Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets that killed a total of nine Marines; in all, 23 leathernecks were lost that day, the single bloodiest for the Corps in the march to Baghdad.

As the primary patrolling instructor at TBS, Tracy has less direct responsibility for the overall development of the lieutenants than Danzie and the other platoon commanders, which perhaps explains why he’s somewhat less critical of the students.

“They certainly understand the gravity of what they’re getting into,” Tracy said. “I can see why [Danzie] thinks they’re half-a--ed sometimes. He sees them every day. I only see them on big maneuvers and I can help refocus them.”

But the experience of these combat veterans has helped change the training at TBS to more closely resemble the kinds of operations the lieutenants are likely to see when they deploy to Iraq, Afghanistan or future fronts in the war on terrorism.

“Many of them are on a short rope for deployment,” Tracy said. “These guys don’t have two years to prepare anymore.”

Tracy, Danzie and their fellow combat veterans, however, don’t fit the image of the grizzled, husky-voiced, “been-there-done-that” instructor of the Vietnam era. They are young and full of humor. What’s more, they have a more positive attitude toward their mission, one that stems from the support of family, friends and their belief in the cause they fight for.

“This generation of officers is a heck of a lot smarter than before,” said TBS commander, Col. James Laster. “They seem to know what they want out of life. … They’re more focused on 9-11 and they know that soon they could be in harm’s way.”

Laster, and others who have influence over what officers learn, believe this crop of instructors is the richest pool of talent the Marine Corps has had in more than three decades and they know that whether the students here realize it or not, the lessons combat vets teach will save their lives and the lives of their men.

And whether instructors like Danzie believe it or not, their knowledge is sinking in.

“I think about it a lot,” said 2nd Lt. Dan Boyle during a short break on a squad patrolling exercise. “I’m trying to pay attention to everything I learn because I know I’m going to need it soon in Iraq or somewhere else.”