Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:45 | What would be the positive memories of his time in Afghanistan? For General David Barno, the best thing was seeing young officers blossom into senior leaders. He had a quiet, lone homecoming and then a radically different operating environment, the Pentagon.
Keywords : David Barno Afghanistan Johns Hopkins University Pentagon retired National Defense University
David Barno relished the challenge of rebuilding a broken Army in the years after Vietnam. He finished a four year run with the 25th Infantry Division as a company commander, and began to develop a respect for the new Ranger battalions. That's where he felt he should go next.
General David Barno formed a task force to train Iraqi exiles during the preparations for that conflict and he managed it so well that he got some attention up the chain. His next assignment was a big one, command of the combined forces in Afghanistan.
It was a tough job for the top commander in Afghanistan. General David Barno had to manage relations between President Karzai and the United Nations and the forces fighting the war. He soon determined that a fair and free election was the best way to thwart the efforts of the Taliban.
Following the tragic deaths of ten Afghan children, it fell on General David Barno to tell President Karzai about the incident. He describes the effect this had on the rules of engagement going forward and he discusses a document he drew up to give guidelines to the troops that would keep them in the good graces of their hosts.
General David Barno describes the evolution of the Joint Special Forces Command into the high tech force it is today. He also looks back on his command in Afghanistan and wonders, could he have done more to bring the conflict to a conclusion?
What's it like for a retired general to watch from the sidelines as wars continue? David Barno answers that and has a few observations about how his former command in Afghanistan is being managed.
He grew up in a house full of military memorabilia and in the eighth grade, David Barno decided that not only would he become an Army officer, he would go to West Point. He immediately began to execute a plan to make it happen.
Many of the instructors at West Point had served in Vietnam, recalls David Barno. The war was on the mind of every cadet and when Vietnam fell, they knew they would not be going there. This particular class would become known for the number of future generals it produced.
He heard of Grenada on a Friday and on Monday he was flying there. David Barno was a Ranger company commander who took part in the hastily put together operation. It was such a patchwork of units and plans that everything went wrong that could. It spurred congressional hearings that actually helped correct the situation.
It was assumed to be a one day operation, but it was on the the third day of action on the island of Grenada that David Barno faced his first combat. The Ranger company commander took away many important lessons from that chaotic operation.
After attending the US Army Command and General Staff College, David Barno went to the 2nd Ranger Battalion as the operations officer. Preparations were underway at the time for Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama.
It was freezing cold at Fort Benning, where David Barno boarded a C-130 with the 2nd Ranger Battalion to jump into tropical Panama. It was time to clean up a mess there and, unlike the chaotic Grenada operation, there was a rehearsal and a real plan.
The invasion of Kuwait was a heavily mechanized operation, so infantry commander David Barno watched that from afar. In the 90's, the Army was focused on various peacekeeping operations. Was that going to be their new focus? On September 11, 2001, it became clear what the new mission would be.
Every Army officer has had mentors and for David Barno, it was not only men he had served under but men who had served under him. Since his retirement, he has been busy writing and teaching and remembering how his military career was the dream of a lifetime.
