Marine Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company

By SUE A. LACKEY, Associate Editor

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, a small, ill-equipped, yet elite unit of Marines fanned out across Iraq, attached to U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division, British Commandos and Marine Task Force Tarawa. The 46 men of 2nd ANGLICO, one of the Marine Corps’ Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Companies, were at the forefront of battle in every major battlespace of the war.

Unique to the Marine Corps, ANGLICO is the only unit qualified to plan, execute and control U.S. supporting arms fire for joint and combined forces worldwide. ANGLICO has a 50-year history within the Corps, but is virtually unknown to the public. Briefly deactivated in the 1990s, ANGLICO was reconstituted in 2003 and is in the process of re-inventing itself as an organization often associated with Special Operations, but with a mission and organizational structure unlike any other.

Since the start of the Iraq war, ANGLICO has grown to almost 500 men, with three active-duty companies and two reserves. The war’s original ANGLICO units were forced to borrow equipment from other services en route to Baghdad, but the Corps has invested greater resources in their training and support in advance of redeployment to Iraq next year.

Central to the company’s mission is specialized training that certifies Marines as Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTAC). JTACs have highly specialized knowledge of ordnance, and familiarity with aircraft, that enables them to call close air support and naval guns on target accurately, and under any conditions. JTAC training and certification expands the basic knowledge of a forward air controller to its highest technical and professional level, and is recognized by all joint and combined forces. ANGLICO commanders have battalion authority, and field three-man teams that are attached to U.S. and coalition units to provide the technical knowledge needed to coordinate fire support and deconflict fire.

ANGLICO teams also must have the basic knowledge to patrol, observe and locate a target. Because ANGLICO teams may be attached to any unit, they must train to the standards of the highest level they may be called upon to support.

“We have the ability from within our own company to support whoever needs us, at whatever level,” said 2nd ANGLICO’s Staff Sgt. Johnny Pyles. “We could get attached to Army Special Forces and be able to support them, or we could get called from a mechanized Army unit and be able to support them. We have that ability because we train to that level. Whoever needs us, we can go, conventional to Special Operations.

“That’s what sets us apart — the entire organization is at that level. We’re more battlefield shapers than observers. We go out, we find, we kill, we report and then we go.”

Team members carry packs, or “rucks,” that may contain 80 to 120 pounds of gear, and are trained for deep insertion behind enemy lines. Each man goes through an ANGLICO Basic Course, receiving training in communications, scouting and insertion techniques, as well as fire-support coordination. ANGLICO is expected to regain its previous status as a jump billet, which will revert it to a volunteer unit with parachute qualifications.

ANGLICO teams employ the small-unit tactics of Special Operations, but unlike units such as Force Reconnaissance, their job is not to engage the enemy. Regimental commanders typically request an ANGLICO team to operate independently, often deep within the battlespace, locating a target and calling in immediate fire support from forward positions.

“If you engage [exchange fire with the enemy], something went wrong, you got compromised,” said Gunnery Sgt. Mike Heller. “Our main weapon is that radio.”

But the inherent danger of a small team operating deep within the battlespace remains. Teams carry only small unit weapons, operate without the support of platoons or companies and would be unable to sustain themselves in a firefight. To offset that risk, ANGLICO personnel undergo enhanced marksmanship training, requiring rifle skills superior to that of an infantry Marine, as well as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training.

Its special mission means the ANGLICO companies may be dispersed at any given time into small teams widely scattered across the battlefield. The teams are exposed in forward positions, but may be unable to access corpsmen, or be attached to foreign forces that do not maintain U.S. medical standards. With 90 days until redeployment to Iraq, 2nd ANGLICO is putting as many men as possible through EMT training in order to give each team basic medical skills designed to increase survivability.

Training for that deployment, ANGLICO teams expect to be operating from urban terrain in the insurgent environment in Iraq. Given this compressed battlespace, with the additional complication of a resident civilian population, ANGLICO’s JTAC expertise is even more vital to U.S. and coalition forces. Their call sign, “Lightning,” assures pilots and gunners that the soldier calling in the fire is qualified, mitigating the chance of friendly fire.

“When you’re talking about a digital battlefield, the preponderance of our fire right now is being delivered by airplanes. Under the rules we’ve set up, you can’t deliver ordnance unless you’re a JTAC,” said Lt. Col. Scott Campbell, commanding officer of 2nd ANGLICO, based at Camp LeJeune, N.C. “A rifle company likely has no ability to deliver air. That company commander and those lieutenants know how to do it, but if an F-16 — an Air Force airplane — shows up, the pilot will not drop the ordnance unless it’s in extremis, and then he’s going to ask for your initials and he’s going to try and protect himself because of what’s happened with fratricide.”

Campbell, a Force Reconnaissance veteran, is acutely aware of the intense training his Marines will have to undergo in advance of the challenge of urban warfare, where JTACs may have to talk pilots onto structural targets in crowded cities. Laser target indicators are not visible in the glaring sunlight of Iraq, and obscure targets may be not be visible to pilots coming in at 10,000 feet.

“These young ANGLICO Marines are dropping 500-pound bombs within 300 meters of friendlies in Iraq,” he said. “We bring the capability that, day or night, we’re going to get a bomb onto the target, and we’re going to do it safely.

“The pilot needs to know where you’re at, they need to know where the enemy is at, they need to know what direction to come in on. It’s not an exact science, and the JTAC has to have the experience to make damn sure that pilot’s nose is pointed in the right direction, or he won’t let him drop that ordnance. At night, when the planes don’t have their lights on and you’re using a set of [night vision goggles] and trying to talk the guy onto a target with an infrared pointer, we’re counting on that JTAC’s ability to look into the sky at an airplane moving pretty fast, in the dark, and ascertain the geometry of the battlefield.

“It’s our job to paint that pilot a picture,” Campbell added, “to give him a feel for how intense the combat is, how close the enemy is in relation to the friendlies; make that pilot comfortable with the decision. When a pilot hears the call sign Lightning, he should smile, and say, ‘OK, this guy knows what he’s doing; this guy’s a pro.’”

Much of the small unit tactics and JTAC qualifications are in line with the Marine Corps’ vision of Distributed Operations, and the concept of leveraged firepower. While the Corps plans to greatly increase the number of JTACs available within conventional battalions, ANGLICO’s intensive training and specific mission will remain. Campbell sees the organization inevitably pushed toward the Special Operations arena in support of current tactics in Iraq, but wants to guard against diluting the mission.

“We need to be able to shoot as well or better than the grunts, and we need to be good at patrolling,” Campbell said. “But you have to be careful how much you put on these guys so you don’t marginalize your skill levels. As a base, I want us great at fire-support coordination and terminal control of fire — let’s have a jump capability to get to work, let’s be in phenomenal shape and know how to swim so we can go in on a rubber boat. Then we can train to special mission sets if we know they’re coming.”

The company now is spending one to two hours every night going over technical details, ordnance specifications and targeting tactics. The goal is to have every detail committed to memory for instant recall by JTACs on the battlefield.

“How does that differ from what a Force Recon JTAC is going to do?” Campbell said. “They don’t have the luxury of spending that kind of time and energy and resources getting to that level of proficiency. When we sit around and have a beer at night, we talk about fire-support coordination, we talk about dropping bombs. We want to be able to move these guys to the sound of the guns.

“If 8th Marines needs six of these guys, by God, the 8th Marines commanding officer is going to get six of these guys. We’re going to go find where they’re at, and move our teams to the sound of the guns so they can kill people. That’s exactly what we’re going to do, and we’re going to do it well.”