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thedrifter
02-17-03, 01:12 PM
By Mark Oliva, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, February 17, 2003


MANAMA, Bahrain — A small office on the corner of a baseball field-turned-command-post is home to the Marines’ senior leader in the Middle East.

It’s nondescript by military brass standards: a humble dwelling for the man with three stars on the collar of his desert camouflage uniform. But the office serves its purpose for Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston.

There’s a war on the horizon and Hailston needs to be sure his men — the 60,000 Marines stretched from the Horn of Africa to Afghanistan — are ready.

Hailston, head of the Marine Forces Central Command, says they already are.

“The desert is home to us,” he said. “We have thousands of Marines who live in the desert. We know how to work there. We’re ready to face any enemy. I don’t care where he is in the world because of the great equipment we have. It’s new. It’s modern. The paint is fresh. My forces are ready because they’re the best trained and equipped.”

Hailston, who began his career as a private in 1967, weighed in last week on how warfare has changed for Marines in the 21st century, what it takes to lead Marines into battle and why leathernecks are the force-of-choice for a possible war against Iraq.

“In earlier wars we’ve gone on, even through the Gulf War, we were concentrating force-on-force,” Hailston said. “It was army-on-army, platoon-on-platoon, company-on-company.

“Today, that is completely different. They can come at you from any direction, and that’s what is so hard to prepare for.”

In addition to their grit and determination, the Marines, along with the rest of military, also can draw upon a slew of new weapons.

“We fight wars now with computers,” Hailston said. “Technology has gone into our weapons systems. … We are much more lethal.”

More lethal and more organized.

Inter-service as well as international cooperation has created a much stronger force, Hailston said. For example, British Royal Marines are working within Hailston’s staff, integrated into mission planning. U.S. sailors run Marine telephone systems and guard the base perimeter. All of those pieces are necessary to run a smooth operation.

Hailston, who also serves as the Marine Forces Pacific commander, moved his headquarters to Bahrain shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since then, he’s been directing Marines in Operation Enduring Freedom and now overseeing Marine forces gathering in the Kuwaiti deserts.

But no matter how smoothly any operation runs, a pending war still raises some concerns, he said.

“First time I did this I was a private,” he said. “I worried about Earl Hailston. … I was just trying to survive for myself, get my gear together, be up there, be a good Marine.”

But then Hailston entered the officers’ ranks and saw his responsibility grow exponentially, first as a platoon leader in Vietnam.

“You just turn around and have 40 or 200 Marines looking at you, and whether you’re leading a platoon or a company, they’re looking to you for guidance. And I worried about that, and I worried about my performance. I wanted to perform to their expectations.”

Now, he’s worrying over 60,000 Marines in the Middle East and an additional 100,000 serving in the Pacific region. Today, he’s part of global video teleconferences, talking with the Corps’ senior leaders.

“At one time, I worried about whether I was hot or cold or wet in my foxhole,” he said. “Every single morning now, I worry about a snowstorm on the East Coast, rains and winds and heavy seas in three different oceans, and I worry about how ships’ engines are working because I have to look at this on a global aspect. What happens in different parts of the world affects how I get our forces ready.”

But one thing Hailston said he won’t worry about is the resourcefulness of the men and women under him.

“It’s the aggressiveness that Marines bring,” Hailston said. “The biggest part of that is finding a way to get it done. You don’t find excuses. That is kind of a Marine Corps tradition and ethos. Don’t give me an excuse. Give me results. That has stayed the same. Finding a way to get it done.”

And when they do find a way to get it done, Hailston hopes some things will change — or at least return life to a safer time.

“We are the freest, [most] fun-loving nation in the world,” Hailston said. “We are accustomed to enjoying life, working very hard, but being free to move and never being scared. Something happened on 9-11 that tried to change that.

“By golly, my mission in life is to change it back, and I couldn’t be in a better place.

“This is my life. I know two things. I spent the formative years of my life milking cows. I still know how to milk cows. My family, they’re still farmers, every one of them.

“And I know how to be a Marine and I like the latter better.”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=13142


Sempers,

Roger