THE WIT AND WISDOM OF THE PENTAGON probably would not take up much space on the shelves of your local library. But the military may just have a sense of humor. Some recent examples have come our way, ranging from the whimsical to the racist. First, the Caribbean. Our July/August Report on the Americas briefly mentioned the latest in an apparently endless series of military maneuvers conducted by the Pentagon during the Reagan years. This time, the war games took place on the tiny Eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia (pop. 119,000). Caribbean troops combed the island for a col- umn of 25-30 “communist insurgents.” The “friendly forces” were members of the newly trained Special Ser- vice Units (SSUs), created in the English-speaking islands in the aftermath of the October 1983 Grenada invasion. Warships of the United States and Britain-the old and new regional powers-stood offshore. The Pentagon planners who designed the exercise gave free rein to their imagination. The war games themselves were called “Exotic Palm.” The pro-U.S. forces of the besieged democratic government were divided into com- panies called “Whisky,” “Scotch” and “Gin.” The heavily wooded area of St. Lucia where the search for the communists took place was called “Rubber Stamp,” and St. Lucia itself was known as “Linus.” (Security blanket, get it?) T HE PENTAGON’S CREATIVE IMAGI- nation has also been busily engaged of late in an even stranger exercise. In March 1985, a news brief from the Associated Press reported that a small group of Army staff officers had been discussing the possibility of pressing mules into military service again, for the first time since the trusty pack animals last did patriotic service three dec- ades ago. The idea may be less whimsical than it sounds. It may make sound counterinsurgency sense, and we are grateful to reader David C. Brooks for directing our research into some of the more obscure corners of military bibliog- raphy. The great success of the mule, it seems, was dur- ing the Marine campaigns against Sandino in Nicaragua from 1927-1933. “Mules have been found most suitable of any animal obtainable in Nicaragua,” reported the Marine Corps Gazette of December 1929. “This is especially true in dry season when corn and forage of any kind is scarce. ‘ Another article in the Gazette, this time dated November 1936, described how mules were used in Nicaragua. “One full squad” of Marines, it noted, “was permanently assigned with the pack train as muleros. Each man had three or four mules under his supervision.” A certain Sgt. MacGregor of Western Texas was given spe- cial plaudits for “the way he made muleros out of Marines, some of whom had never before learned which NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1985 was the business end of a mule.” While these early authors dwelled on the humble mule’s stamina and cargo-carrying abilities, later military think- ing took the beasts more seriously. Former Marine Gen. V.E. Megee, who saw action in Nicaragua in the early 1930s, wrote a long piece in the Marine Corps Gazette of June 1965, arguing that the lessons of guerrilla warfare in Nicaragua could usefully be employed in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. Gen. Megee felt that the two main failures of the war against Sandino were inadequate intel- ligence and poor preparation for the “rigors of tropical campaigning.” The latter might be overcome with mules. “Another innovation of note,” reported Megee, “was the increased use of mounted patrols, utilizing native ani- mals which could live off the country, and conserving the energy of the trail-weary Marines for the more important business of fighting. There are still remote mountain and jungle trails where jeeps and other mechanical transport may not travel. Perhaps equitation and pack techniques may again find a place in our training schedules.” Megee’s fond wish may be granted, perhaps in the sec- ond Nicaragua campaign that Washington lies awake at night scheming. Army Chief of Staff Gen. John A. Wick- ham Jr. has now directed that the 10th Mountain Light In- fantry Division should be given training in mule handling. Our biggest concern is for the casualties, since any guer- rillas that the 10th encounters may well have trouble dis- tinguishing between the business end of the mule and the Pentagon official in charge of it. W E WERE ALSO PLEASED TO SEE recently that our old friend Rickey Singh, the Guayanese journalist whose Barbados work permit was revoked because of his criticism of the Grenada invasion, is still alive and kicking. We appreciated a story that Singh filed in September for the Caribbean News Agency (CANA), summarizing our July/August Report on U.S. Security Policy in the English-speaking Caribbean. Once it had passed through the hands of the region’s copy-editors and typesetters, however, the story became even more interesting. The Barbados Nation, one of the region’s largest newspapers, opened its account with a banner headline: “Report on the Americas Gives Alarm- ing News.” Not to be outdone, the smaller Barbados Ad- vocate told its readers that “NACLA, a non-profit organi- zation focusing on the political economy of the Americas … has been disturbing its bi-monthly publication for some 18 years.” Well, we try. Singh also pointed out a detail in the Exotic Palm story ihat had eluded us. In the plethora of Pentagon code- names, the surest giveaway of their mentality tends to be the name assigned to the “communist aggressors.” In this case, Cuba went by the name of “Carumba.” And Nicaragua? Well, the wits at the Pentagon really took into account the sensibilities of their hosts on St. Lucia, a black Caribbean island. They called Nicaragua “Nig- garo.” We only wish we could report that this, too, was a misprint.
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