The bonds of brotherhood unbroken for 90 days
Published: December 13, 2011
WASHINGTON _ When the Commandant visited the Marine unit in Afghanistan that had suffered the most casualties of the 10-year-old war, the battalion commander told him his Marines wouldn't need any hand holding when they got back to Camp Pendleton.
They were just fine, thank you.
But the Corps would break out the largest and most involved reintegration effort for 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, which lost 25 men and had close to 200 wounded, fighting in Sangin, one of the nastiest areas of Helmand province.
It included a mandate that no one in the unit could leave for other assignments - no exceptions - for at least 90 days after the deployment , in an effort to maintain unit cohesion.
Lt. Col. Justin Morris, 3/5's commander at the time, said when he first heard about the effort, he wasn’t “thrilled we were being singled out for special treatment.”
Much of what they received upon getting home in April, including stepped-up mental health monitoring, was a unique effort designed for them after their intense deployment. But the 90-day mandate is sticking around.
Having deemed it a success with 3/5, it's now a service-wide policy that will greet the thousands of Marines who will be returning from Afghanistan next year, as the mission in the southern part of the country scales back to advisory and training. About 23,000 American troops are expected to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2012, many of whom will be Marines.
Maj. Gen. Michael Regner, who used to lead the 1st Marine Division and is now commander of the Marines in Korea, said the unit cohesion policy helps ensure that Marines get help if they need it, especially on the squad level.
“You’re not going to be closer to anyone on earth after living through that together,” Col. Willard Buhl, former 5th Marine Regiment commander, said.
In a recent report on military suicide, the Center for a New American Security praised the unit-cohesion policy. A lack of unit stability after a deployment “has unfortunate implications for individuals struggling with reintegration. Leaders most familiar with the troops and most likely to recognize atypical or risk-taking behavior are gone,” authors wrote in “Losing the Battle: The challenge of military suicide.”
Morris, who was initially concerned that people would feel sorry for his Marines or convince them they had a mental health problem, praised the cohesion policy and said that his men didn’t exhibit any more symptoms of PTSD or other emotional issues than the average unit returning from war.
Whether that’s because of the 90-day unit cohesion policy or the intense mental health screening is hard to say.
“We had a fantastic deployment,” Morris said. “Despite the loses, which were painful, we kicked the Taliban out of district we were in.”
The Marines saw the success and positive effect of what they did, expanding control of a district where insurgents had previously dominated with free reign. “They really believed in what they were doing,” Morris said. “And that made the losses and casualties at least make sense in terms of, ‘We accomplished something.”
Seeing success is a “big part of how a unit mentally perseveres through the violence and the casualties," Morris said. “They were very proud of what they had done and wanted to take care of each other.”
