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The Battle for Hunger Hill
by Dr. Simon NgArticle Type: Book Review
Article Date: April 05, 2001
A Vietnam Of Their Own
Vietnam: a hell-hole that, in Dan Bolger’s own words, is “an American soldier’s worst nightmare”. It is a war that conjures two juxtaposed sets of images. Like a swooping eagle, the American military might looms first and foremost in the mind’s eye. But somewhere in the darkness lurks the more prosaic image of a single man garbed in peasant cloth, holding an AK47: a shadowy VietCong, ghost in the night. Dan Bolger makes it clear: although “[we] killed the Viets by the gross, with shot, shell and napalm . . . somehow all these ‘victories’ added up to a debacle”. This “debacle” drove the United States Army to establish a Vietnam of their own, a training ground where Americans could learn to defeat an enemy that didn’t play by the rules: Fort Polk, Louisiana; the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC).
Joint Readiness Training Center
In October of 1994, as part of the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, LTC Bolger led 1st Battalion of the 327th Infantry Regiment to the JRTC. There, he and his men were to fight the JRTC’s equivalent of the VietCong, the wily Cortinian Liberation Force (CLF), and the CLF’s allies, the People’s Republican Army of Atlantica (PRA). This book is LTC Bolger’s story of that fateful visit, and the sweeping changes it brought about.
The result of LTC Bolger’s first rotation was, in his own words, “ok, maybe a hairline above average”. In terms of sheer body count, the numbers are sobering: 909 dead from the 1-327 for 238 of the enemy. A ratio of 3.8:1. But the men who fill the role of the CLF and the PRA are trained to humiliate visitors. A kill ratio better than 3:1 is considered very impressive, indeed, and so the results of rotation 94-10 are not as bad as they might seem. And yet, in reading Dan Bolger’s account, one cannot but admit that the 1-327, while doing a number of things right, did so many more wrong.
A Perfect Example Of Deception
The first half of the book—titled “Learning” is jam-packed with mistakes and misjudgments. Without fail, the 1st of the 327th showed plenty of fighting spirit, but their execution was found wanting. The CLF, on the other hand, knew exactly how to make the Bulldogs’ lives miserable. There are many instances in the first half of The Battle for Hunger Hill where the CLF do exactly that, but perhaps the most telling incident is the one that lends the book its title. On coming to JRTC 94-10, Bolger examined the results of past rotations made by other Brigades, looking for a common element that led them to success. As a result, LTC Bolger and his staff decided to make finding the CLF’s Battalion Supply Point (BSP) their priority target. Logically, capturing the CLF’s BSP really functioned as a way to draw in the CLF, to control the development of the fight. But, for some reason, this was lost on the 1st of the 327th: “Bolger’s Bulldogs acted as if simply finding the holy grail of the BSP equaled final triumph in itself”. And so, when Company B came across the CLF’s BSP on the 16th of October, and fought off rather weak CLF resistance, LTC Bolger and his Battalion were euphoric. What followed was a perfect example of deception.
As LTC Bolger was to learn, the CLF BSP he and his men has been so ecstatic at locating and occupying was a fake. Bolger and his immediate superior, Colonel Donald, “wanted to find a BSP...so the bad guys gave him one”. Only one man from Company B escaped the trap. His words captured the devastation perfectly: “We lost it all, man. Over eighty dead and wounded...we’ll never get them out”. This was to prove profoundly true. On a JRTC exercise, casualties of the visiting Brigade are only replaced if the simulated dead and wounded are successfully evacuated to the rear area—medivac. This is an essential part of winning; no American soldiers could be left unrecovered if Bolger’s Battalion (or indeed, the visiting Brigade he was a part of) was to remain at full strength. LTC Bolger knew this, but his expectation that the Brigade’s aviation assets would do the job was misguided. At the fake BSP, the only access was (as already stated) by foot. Clearly, the CLF had intended it that way. Medivac would have to be done by men carrying other men. Bolger’s valiant attempt to reach Company B was undone by the dense Fort Polk jungle, carefully positioned CLF mines and booby-trapped roads, and the vagaries of war. For those men of Company B, rescue would come after four long days in the Louisiana heat, subsisting on a single rationed meal a day. They named the place Hunger Hill---testament to their empty stomachs, and the folly of ambition unchecked.
Lessons Learned
To LTC Bolger’s credit, the disappointment of rotation 94-10 wasn’t mulled over and then shoved aside. “Many battalions and battalion commanders learn a great deal at JRTC, but not very many do anything about it . . . Not so the Bulldogs [1st of the 327th]—Dan Bolger would not have it”. In the words of the observer/controllers at Fort Polk, ‘learning is winning’. To many of those who fought the CLF, ‘losing is learning’. Dan Bolger would make sure of the learning part, at least, if he ever got another crack at JRTC, he’d make certain that winning came first. Remarkably, Dan Bolger got his second chance. The 1st of the 327th were sent back to JRTC in July of 1995 for a rematch: it was the battle for Hunger Hill all over again. The title of the second part of Bolger’s tome, “Winning”, heralds the outcome.
“Winning” illustrates perfectly why Dan Bolger represents the right kind of leadership for the American army. After rotation 94-10, he wasn’t simply content to make superficial changes to practice within his Battalion. Working from the lessons learned on his fateful first visit, LTC Bolger dramatically altered the way his Battalion thought and executed, despite many of these ‘unconventional’ changes raising a few eyebrows. For LTC Bolger, doctrine was only a starting point, “the safe answer meant doing the same stuff better, but that promised only an incremental improvement. The smart answer required Bolger and company to do things differently”.
Lean and Mean
Along with his Commanding Sergeant, Major Mark Ripka, LTC Bolger overhauled the leadership structure within his Battalion, replacing ineffective personnel with those who could “get the job done”. The Battalion staff also developed a new set of tactics designed to effectively combat the CLF. Even more bravely, Bolger departed from the doctrinal idea of a Tactical Operations Centre---the large, unwieldy collection of tents and trucks that had functioned so poorly during rotation 94-10---and replaced it with a leaner and more dynamic command and control structure centred on two small Tactical Command Post (Tac) teams that used a lean decision making method (instead of the doctrinally correct, but cumbersome and ineffective Directed Decision Making Process). These Tac teams worked in shifts, ensuring that one team could be planning while the other controlled current operations. Their small size also freed-up valuable command staff for another important role: White Teams, one for each Company-sized element of the Battalion.
These White Teams, consisting of a pair of men, were equipped with communications equipment, and tasked with shadowing the given Company’s command post, keeping tabs on what the Company was doing and planning, and reporting this information back to the Tac in charge of current operations. In effect, Bolger created a ‘directed telescope’, calling upon the proven technique of Bonaparte and his Corps of Guides and Field-Marshall Montgomery and his Phantom Service to ensure that command, control and communications were always functioning. Finally, LTC Bolger and his staff developed the “Ten Commandments for JRTC”. His soldiers “read it, learned it, and lived it”. Whenever the chaos of war took things away from the pre-planned paths, the Ten Commandments (carried dutifully by each man on a small card) provided guidance. Even if nothing else of value came from The Battle for Hunger Hill, these Ten Commandments prove the value of lucid and honest analysis and action. All these changes added up to a shift in the operational culture of the Bulldogs. Second time ‘round, the benefits were immediately obvious.
It is impossible to follow all the vicissitudes that defined LTC Bolger’s second rotation to the JRTC, and so I won’t even try. But the outcome can be summed up succinctly: on rotation 94-10, the ratio of US to OPFOR kills was 3.8:1; on the 95-07 rotation, following the dramatic changes made within Bolger’s Battalion, the ratio was 2.5:1. But, more significantly, Bolger and his men learnt from their first try, and won on their second. Though he never tries to sell himself up, in the second half of the book Bolger’s astuteness and bravery shine through. He is admirable not so much because he won, but because he had the courage to make the changes that would ensure that he won.
Yeah, but . . .
Yes, there is the nagging feeling that Bolger had already seen the CLF’s play-book. As one delves into the second half of The Battle for Hunger Hill, it is impossible to dismiss the suspicion that Bolger is doing so well simply because he’s got insider knowledge. But by the end of “Winning”, it becomes apparent that the CLF and their conventional counterparts, the PRA, weren’t playing by even their uniquely usual rules. Maybe Bolger had peeked into their play-books, but he’d also comprehensively shown that he and his battalion had adapted in a truly meaningful way, and weren’t just relying on previously gathered knowledge of how the enemy operated.
Entertains and Educates
The Battle for Hunger Hill could have been a dry tome replete with lectures on doctrine, tactics or prescriptive education. It might have glossed over the bad, and focussed on the good. It might even have made excuses and found scapegoats. But it does none of these things. Instead, it presents an honest and engaging personal appraisal of where and why Bolger failed, and what he changed so that he wouldn’t fail again. Of course, it is a military text, a document that aims to restructure a formal military “lessons learned” review into a book that the layman can read and digest. But Bolger manages to bring life to the subject of military thinking. He obviously has a flair for narrative---the book opens with an exciting account of rotation 94-10’s initial air assault, written like the opening brace to an action novel---but he also entertains with his presentation of facts and his unassuming perspicacity. Never does the reader feel that The Battle for Hunger Hill is only meant for consumption by military theoreticians; its honest approach to self-criticism and self-improvement holds relevance for almost everyone. It simultaneously entertains and educates—no mean feat. And it makes me want more.
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