Special Web-Only: Interview with Lt. Josh Arthur, CC ‘04
A detailed Q&A with the alumnus who will be checking in with The Eye regularly
Our reporter Matt Mireles sent Lt. Josh Arthur, CC ‘04, a few questions by e-mail. Here’s his unedited response from Jan. 15, 2007:
Matt,
I’ll try to answer you questions as best I can in limited time. We happen to be particularly busy now, not on any account of grand planning from higher levels, just because sometimes things work out that way. As far as phone, I do have Skype here, but the connection is pretty unreliable and, for the foreseeable future, I honestly can’t predict when I’ll even be around to answer a potential call. I’ll let you know when things free up. Here goes:
How did you get this crazy idea in your head to join the Army? What did your parents say when you floated the idea? Your Columbia peers?
In the fall of my sophomore year, I started to really think about what I wanted to do after college. Until then, I’d sort of been leaning toward hoping to get into constitutional law, believe it or not. I still find it interesting, although I’m horribly undereducated on the subject (President Bollinger’s First Amendment class notwithstanding, of course). But the some interesting things happened. I realize, for one, that I wanted to study international relations, and I realized I wanted to do something pertaining to the field. I watched the movie Spy Game and thought, “Hey, you know, that CIA - that wouldn’t be a bad route.” I began to look into the sort of qualifications an applicant to the CIA might need, etc. etc. As I thought more about it, the notion came to me that maybe I could get into military intelligence somehow and perhaps use that as a stepping-stone to get into the CIA after a few years in the Army. But then I looked at things a little more honestly, and I realized as I started to think about joining the military that what I really wanted to do, no matter what occupation I held, was do something that would make me proud. Not just proud, but more proud than anything else I could do. And it dawned on me that, in fact, being an Army officer itself was the one thing I could think of that would make me more proud than anything else I could do. I wrote a ROTC recruiter with a very curious mind, and the more I was exposed to the program (at St. John’s University), the more I came to understand that this was really what I wanted to do. And then the more I thought about actually being an Army officer, the more I came to accept that I didn’t really want to be in military intelligence. The “purpose” of an Army officer, insofar as I could ascribe one to the whole profession, was to lead soldiers in combat. I knew that if I were going to join the Army, it would have to be in that role. It just seemed foreign to me to be “in the Army” and not be part of the warfighting group. So to hell with military intelligence, I thought; for me it had to be Infantry or Armor.
When I initially brought it up to my parents, they were initially shocked. My dad, mind you, is a 29-year veteran of the Army who retired as a Colonel with two tours in Vietnam and mulitple awards for valor (Silver Star, Bronze Star with “V” device, Soldier’s Medal, etc.). He served as a company commander in Vietnam and as an adviser to a Vietnamese Ranger battalion, among other assignments. He knew, in short, a thing or two about the Army. And he was frankly shocked that I’d brought up the idea of joining ROTC. Neither he nor my mom were opposed to it; they just thought it was odd that it came (more or less) out of the blue. I don’t know if they knew what I’d wanted to do with my life, exactly, but the idea of joining the military had never crossed my mind before that fall. Ever. If I would have known I wanted to join the Army when I was in high school, I would have been at another institution of higher learning a little further up the Hudson instead of Columbia for those four years. As I became confident this was what I wanted to do, though, and as they saw that, they supported it wholeheartedly.
My friends at Columbia were equally supportive. I have little doubt that some of the people I knew were probably generally “anti-military,” if I can use that term, but everyone I remember talking to about joining ROTC that fall on the top two floors of Furnald we called home was extremely supportive of it and remarkably interested in it. (One of those friends has since received his commission as an Infantry officer and is in Ranger School as I write this, believe it or not. It’s a small world). If there was skepticism, I never saw it, and if there was ever any hostility toward the idea from anyone I knew, they kept it extremely well veiled from me. I was thankful to have such a supportive, interested group of friends and floormates there to encourage me during that somewhat experimental progression.
SF seems a popular destination for thinker types. Why do you wanna go down that route?
When applying for Special Forces, they ask you the same question, believe it or not. The essence of the answer I gave to them is the same as the one I’ll give now: because they’re the best. When I joined the Army, I did it because it made me proud, because I felt honored to be able to do what I was going to do. I still believe it’s perhaps the most noble profession we have; if that makes me a bit selfish to say I did it to be proud, so be it, but I would hope everyone would want to be proud of what he does. But now that I’m in the Army, nothing would make me more proud, still, than to work for and earn that green beret. And it’s not for the sexiness of the job: I couldn’t care less about the high-tech gadgetry, the weaponry, the bragging rights, any of that stuff. It’s because they’re the best, and that’s enough - the pride they feel at knowing they’re the best at what they do. And on top of that, they’re doing the things that make a difference in this war we’re fighting against extremism, they more than any other military group. I realize this is saying a lot for someone who has yet to even begin the path to earn that Special Forces tab, which is a long and arduous one to be sure. I may not even be selected to qualify for Special Forces, and if I’m not what they’re looking for, again, so be it. But I’d like to, and I would think that many in the SF community would give similar reasons for joining in the first place: to be the best, to work among the best day in and day out, and to make a real difference with what they do.
What’s your precise rank, unit, and function? And, in terms that normal people can understand, where does that put you in the big picture of US Iraq strategy?
I’m a first lieutenant, the platoon leader of a heavy mortar platoon in a combined arms battalion. I’m in the 1st battalion of the 5th cavalry, or 1-5 CAV, which is part of the 1st Cavalry Division. Though a mortar platoon leader on paper, my platoon is essentially just another motorized infantry platoon, and we’re attached to an infantry company. I was a mechanized infantry platoon leader before this assignment as the mortar platoon leader, although by trade I’m actually an Armor officer, meaning my initial officer training prepared me to lead a platoon of four tanks. I haven’t been on tanks since. As a motorized infantry platoon, we’re the guys who go out nearly every day and conduct patrols in our area of operations. When you read about people finding dead bodies or getting hit by or finding IEDs, finding weapons caches, shooting at insurgents or being attacked by them - that’s what we do. I’m not saying that happens every day; most patrols, of course, are pretty mundane and mostly unventful in terms of violent or aggressive acts. In the two months we’ve been patrolling, we’ve fired weapons on just one occasion. But when folks back home think of guys out there every day driving and walking around, that’s us. In the big picture, we play a strange role in the strategy of things. I can’t speak to what that strategy is, of course - feel free to talk to General Casey or General Abizaid on that one - but we are, ultimately, where that gets put into practice, even though strategy isn’t exactly developed at the platoon level. All of this troop surge and clearing stuff they’re mentioning on the news, for example - that’s a strategic plan, but the tactics of it is going to take patrols of soldiers out there day in and day out with our Iraqi counterparts conducting operations, and it will be platoons like mine who will be out there actually doing the work.
Describe your typical day. Walk me through it.
Typical? No such thing. Haha. Generally, though, let’s say I have a patrol at some point during the day. If I have time, I’ll wake up, eat whatever meal I can, and begin to prepare for the patrol that day. If it’s late in the day, I might try to go to the gym beforehand; if it’s early, I might try to go afterward. But I’d wake up, eat, and then the soldiers would go to our vehicles and prepare them for the mission. We’d mount our crew-served weapons, make radio checks, that sort of thing. I’d finalize some administrative details pertaining to the trip, receive the latest intelligence update concerning recent events in our area or other pertinent knowledge from around Baghdad, if applicable. Once I did that, I’d brief the soldiers on our mission, rehearse certain contingencies, ensure they understood, and we’d conduct our patrol. Chances are we’d be working with a particular unit of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), as my company is partnered with a particular Iraqi battalion and we routinely conduct combined patrols. This helps build the competency of the ISF, helps build their legitimacy in the area, and forces my own soldiers to maintain technical and tactical proficiency in order to coach and mentor the Iraqis. (That sounds contrived, but it’s not). After the patrol we return to base, talk about what we did well and what we can do better next time, and we look ahead to the next patrol. Some days we don’t have patrols; some day we have two or three. Some patrols are short; some are long. Some are during the day; some are in the middle of the night. Some have very specific focuses geographically or temporally; others are less specific and restrictive. We’ve never gone on the same patrol twice, that’s for sure.
To surge or not to surge, that is the question. What you think? Good idea? Bad idea?
Unfortunately I have to play the good subordinate card and answer this question by saying, unfortunately, that it’s not my place to comment on national strategy. I would speak to its effects on my platoon if I knew what they were, but as of yet we’re not entirely sure what changes we’re going to see as a result of this new policy, if any. I’d love to speculate about what I think could and might happen, what I think we should do with new troops, and how best to use our Iraqi counterparts in our area - but I’m a platoon leader in charge of a few dozen men, and Columbia education or no, I unfortunately have little justification to talk about any of it. Haha. Believe me, I’d love to, but I simply can’t. Ask me in a few months when we’ve seen how it’s affected our area and our daily operations and I’ll be happy to add what I can.
Favorite thing about the military? About the army, your unit, iraq?
About the military: the pride of serving. Does it sounds corny? I guess so. But it really is the truth. This is why I wanted to serve, and I’m proud I do.
About the Army: I think the Army is just a special institution. People will talk about the esprit de corps of the Marine Corps, of the strategic importance of the Navy, of the overwhelming air superiority of the Air Force. All the services are important and vital, and I’m not even going to begin to draw myself into the “the Army is better” argument. It’s not. But there’s a certain charm in the stolidness of the service, I guess. Maybe we’re not as crazy as the Marines on the whole; no, we don’t get to fly fighter jets or project power with a carrier group. But look at the history of American wars; that’s the history of the Army. It’s been there always. To be a part of the Army really is to be a part of a special lineage. I can’t think of any better example to somehow encapsulate what I mean than to MacArthur’s speech to the class of 1962 at West Point, when he speaks about his vision of the American fighting man. That man is an Army soldier, and it his humbling to consider yourself part of that history.
About my unit: the favorite thing about any unit, I think, has to be the people you meet and the shared experiences you have with them that no one else will have or could have. As long as I can remember them, I’ll laugh just thinking about some of the stories told by an NCO in my first platoon. I’ll remember sleeping in the back of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle with my gunner during field problems. I’ll remember my first commander laughing as I finished a foot march in a prescribed amount of time, practically to the second. I’ll remember the first time I sat in a HMMWV as I told my gunner to shoot at another person. I’ll remember the horror of seeing a soldier from our battalion brought to our location for aeromedical evacuation and seeing a body I knew could not possibly survive. Memories good and bad, people good and bad - those are the special things about this unit and any unit.
About Iraq: the wonder I sense every day I go out at recognizing that I’m here, walking around in a foreign country, while Iraqis go about their daily life. It’s fascinating to be here and think - sometimes ruefully, given the situation - that you’re here, in the middle of all of this, that it’s not happening on a television screen. It’s you. That’s you talking to the soldiers who served in the Iraqi Army and fought against your country sixteen years ago who are now working with you to rebuild their country. It’s an absolutely fascinating experience every day.
Worst thing about the military, the army, your unit, iraq?
I’ll answer one, about Iraq: Without a doubt, the worst thing about being here is being exposed to the senseless violence that colors everything that happens. I’ll never forget one vehicle we saw with several passengers walking away from it after a considerable amount of gunfire had just ceased. We drove closer, were able to see inside, and saw that the man who had been driving, probably not one minute prior, was slumped to the passenger side, bent at the waist, skin hanging off his scalp like a halloween latex mask. His face had been reduce to a bright red pulp by a machine gun fired by insurgents from across the road - and for what? A man driving what was almost certainly his family - to where? from where? - was at the wrong place in the wrong time, and as insurgents started firing at a convoy of passing trucks, a round went through his windshield and removed his face. Whoever was in the passenger seat - his wife? son? daughter? - undoubtedly had a moment of shock at the sound and shattered glass that filled the car, then a moment of utter horror as - her husband? his father? her father? - slumped over his lap and bled a horrible mess onto his or her lap. The violence here is horrible, without a doubt.
Do you feel that your ROTC training actually prepped you to lead men into combat?
Hmm. I would tentatively say No, but conditionally: that I don’t think it’s ROTC’s job to train me to lead men into combat. Not all officers will do that, after all. ROTC prepared be to be prepared to lead men into combat, I would say that. It set the foundation for assuming a position of leadership in general. Had I gone directly to my unit without going to my Officer Basic Course and to Ranger School, it would have been challenging. But you learn more about leading soldiers, about the actual practice of it, in one week in your unit than you could in a lifetime of schoolhouse training. You gain very valuable tools in ROTC - you hopefully come away from the program with some sense of what it means to lead, period. You don’t have to know how to execute a textbook blocking position or a complex ambush or anything like that. But hopefully you’ve learned some important things about interacting with people - with your peers, who are far, far more difficult to lead than your legal subordinates, of course. You have the knowledge to do well, the aptitude to learn as you enter your unit, and hopefully a bit of humility to realize that your academic training is only part of the equation that your non-commissioned officers help to complete with their experience. So, No, ROTC probably didn’t prepare me to “lead men into combat,” but I think it did do its job, which was to prepare me to lead generally, and to prepare me to learn how to lead men into combat. ROTC builds a foundation of leadership and instills a code of ethics; your officer basic course then gives you the tactical tools you need to be able to apply those general skills of leadership appropriately.
Do you feel yourself changing––mentally, emotionally, physically––since arriving in Iraq and being exposed to combat? Since graduating from Columbia?
I feel like people would probably think I’ve changed more than I have. I could only imagine that if I were the one who stayed home while my friend went off to another country and did what I was doing, I couldn’t help but look at him a little differently when he came back. I don’t feel like I’m a different person, though, from the person I was in school. Columbia was an unusual place for me. You read testimony, here and there, about how Columbia has helped students discover themselves, etc. Columbia didn’t do that to me, exactly, although perhaps in a way it did: by exposing me to so many different people from so many different backgrounds, Columbia perhaps ironically convinced me that I was proud of who I was already, that I was glad I had the values I did, the upbringing I did, the world view that I did. I’m still thankful to have met so many very interesting people there, understand. But I arrived, and it seemed to me as I looked around that I saw so many people to whom this part of their life was somehow expected, like it was part of a somewhat charted course to wherever. So many people seemed simply to expect that they would go to Columbia, just as afterward they expected to get their MBA or MD or PhD or whatever it was they wanted to do. I’m not saying everyone did - I have friends that did those very things, although I don’t think what I’m saying applies to them.
But I looked around, I saw all of these people, and so many of them, it seemed to me, were simply ungrateful for what they had. I found it supremely ironic that me, son of an upper-middle-class WASP family whose parents had worked hard to be able to send me to a place like Columbia, that I was the one who looked back and reflected that I was so thankful for all I’d had growing up! I was probably surrounded by plenty of classmates with chalets here and there, exotic cars, life experiences I couldn’t imagine - and I was somehow glad that I didn’t have that. I was proud to say my father had served in the Army, had served in Vietnam. I was awfully grateful to have succeeded and to have somehow found a way into a school - a place - like Columbia. And I thought it strange that I, when surrounded by so many people who probably had much more to be grateful for than I did - that I should feel compelled to somehow give back, to serve. But I did. I don’t think I’ve changed much since that sort of crystallization throughout my time there, but that was an important time, and ROTC and joining the Army had a lot to do with reaffirming the things I held dear, the values like loyalty, duty, honor, and patriotism.
What’s the hardest thing for peeps here in NYC and in the Columbia bubble to comprehend about the war as you see it?
The media have done an incredible job of bringing the war to the general public. There still isn’t any comparison, though, to actually being here, and I think that’s what’s so difficult to comprehend - that we are here. That I might be killed tonight when an otherwise routine patrol is rudely interrupted by an explosion from an artillery round that a 15-year-old kid dug into the dirt at the threat of his kidnapped brother being killed. This is happening. I read an interesting article by a Columbia professor (Andrew Delbanco) in the New Republic, I believe (not sure) about how disconnected academia was from this war in particular. I think that’s probably true. I think New York has plenty of personal ties to service members serving, but unless you have one of those ties, this war is not for you. It does not affect you. Its outcome may affect you, certainly, but that’s distant, it’s not connected, and perhaps you don’t really believe that anyway; you think this war on terror is hype from the neocons in power. So be it. But whatever the rationale, whatever the right or the wrong, this war is happening. It’s difficult to find resonance with that when your sole experience with it is seeing soldiers in green and tan in 30-second video montages with dialogue overdubbed on the nightly news. Even the video that gained some notoriety a few months prior, one that showcased different videos of snipers shooting American soldiers in and around Baghdad - those videos were curiously detached images of violence that would certainly churn your stomach . . . if only you had any connection to the soldier who was shot. But you didn’t. You saw a soldier slump or collapse. You didn’t have to see his pale, waxy face as he bled out. You weren’t in the vehicle with him as you drove frantically to a place that was too far away to try to save him when you knew it would be hopeless, disbelieving as his bleeding just wouldn’t stop and his breathing became coughing, choking, gurgling gasps. You probably weren’t the one who was woken up early in the morning - they’re actually encouraged to come early - by the officer or non-commissioned officer in his Green uniform, chaplain at his side, struggling to look into your face and keep some sense of composure as he tried to recite to you the expression of sorrow that your loved one was gone. Dead. And the last time you saw him was seven months ago, but you’ll never see him again. The next time you’ll see him will be with an American flag over his casket, the flag you’ll get to keep when the funeral detail folds it with precision, the leader again trying to maintain his bearing as he hands you the flag and again struggles to remember just the right words expressing condolences and the sympathy of a grateful nation.
My point is, the war still exacts a very real toll. It’s tough even for us over here sometimes to remember it, but it does. If you haven’t been part of that somehow, you just can’t comprehend the reality of it. The pictures of faces and the names seem real enough, but that’s still all they are to you. I’ve lost three friends to this war and I still find it hard sometimes to believe they’re actually gone, that they won’t be coming back. It’s sad, but it’s still real, and that’s what I’m sure most people there just can’t comprehend.
Whew. Well, not so short after all. But I really do need some sleep now. Take care, and stay in touch.
-Josh