STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The war in Iraq is forcing changes in the US military. It's compelling American troops to overcome rivalries between the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, a kind of tribalism that's been criticized for decades. NPR's Vicky O'Hara reports on what's happened to those rivalries on the battlefield.
VICKY O'HARA reporting:
In March of 2003, the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines all went to war against Iraq. But after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, the Army stayed in Iraq and the other services began pulling out on the assumption that their job was finished. General John Keane, now retired, was Army vice chief of staff at the time. He says that by the summer of 2003, US forces realized they faced an insurgency. Keane says the Army asked for help.
General JOHN KEANE (Retired, Army Vice Chief of Staff): It was driven by the fact that the Army knew that we were going to be there for a number of years and we'd be rotating people out over the course of those years. And what the Army was trying to do was maintain a base from which to do that.
O'HARA: The Marines initially were reluctant to return in force. Bing West, a former Marine and former assistant secretary of defense, says the Marines viewed the mission in Iraq as one of occupation and peacekeeping, traditionally the Army's job. But that attitude, he says, changed as the insurgency intensified.
Mr. BING WEST (Former Assistant Secretary of Defense): Counterinsurgency has been one of the hallmarks of the Marine missions for the last 230 years. They basically see counterinsurgency as being a core mission.
O'HARA: The Marines returned in force and replaced the 82nd Airborne in Iraq's dangerous Anbar province. With the Marines came Navy corpsmen who traditionally provide medical aid to the Marines. The Air Force was still in Iraq providing air support to the ground forces, but Air Force personnel also returned in other support roles, such as driving trucks. Retired Marine Colonel Bob Work is a senior defense analyst at the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessment.
Colonel BOB WORK (Retired, Senior Defense Analyst, Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessment): The people who would normally be transporting Air Force bombs from base to base are now transporting ordnance and other things, equipment, across Iraq.
O'HARA: The Pentagon has been trying for years to accomplish what it calls jointness, the full integration of the different services under one command. It's taken the war in Iraq to make the concept work on the ground. Again, Bob Work.
Col. WORK: I wold imagine that the sailors and the airmen didn't really expect they would do this when they signed up, but overall, because this is a unified armed force, it's helping the commander handle shortfalls.
O'HARA: Not all of the Navy and Air Force personnel assigned to unaccustomed duty in Iraq are pleased. Many of them had little prior training in ground combat, something the military has been trying to remedy in the past year. There also have been complaints about inadequate equipment for Navy, Air Force and Marine personnel.
Technical Sergeant Michael Keehan is with the active duty Air Force. He's assigned to provide air support to the 4th Army Battalion in Baghdad. The 37-year-old Keehan, who's originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, says he has excellent gear now, but that wasn't always the case.
Technical Sergeant MICHAEL KEEHAN (US Air Force): You go back 10 years, it's--we had--the equipment wasn't as good. I've been doing it for a long time and we've been forced to be joint, going through some growing pains in the past of, you know, equipment issues and stuff like that.
O'HARA: As recently as June, the Marine Corps' inspector general reported to Congress that the Marines serving in Iraq don't have appropriate weapons, communications gear or vehicles. Bob Work explains that the Marines generally are equipped for land-sea combat.
Col. WORK: When you get into a war like Iraq where the primary threat is not coming across the beach or not being delivered from the sea, and it's these IEDs, then everything has to be modified. So what the Marines started to do was to modify their equipment based on what they found. I wouldn't say that the Marines were ill-equipped. I would say that they might have had the equipment that wasn't exactly right for this job, but they're doing everything they can to modify them.
O'HARA: Bing West made seven tours of Iraq as he researched his forthcoming book, "No True Glory," about the battle for Fallujah. He notes that in previous wars there was serious friction between the Army and Marines. West says that Iraq is different.
Mr. WEST: The individual units were working side by side and they got to know one another and got to know one another's strengths and weaknesses and put it together for best use. That genuinely was different than had happened in prior wars.
O'HARA: West says the concept of jointness has been demonstrated most dramatically in the use of air power to support the ground forces.
Mr. WEST: Now when you have a Marine forward air controller with a company, when he gets on the radio and he's calling in air it's as likely to be Air Force F-15's coming in as it is F-18's from the Navy.
O'HARA: That doesn't mean the old rivalries have been eliminated. Air National Guardsman Jarvis Brown(ph) is attached to the 4th Army Battalion in Baghdad. He says he and his Air Force colleagues make a point of taking the Army physical fitness test.
Mr. JARVIS BROWN (Air National Guard): It's nothing that we have to do. It's just the pride in trying to out hoo-hah the Army.
O'HARA: The 49-year-old Brown, from Wilmington, North Carolina, is on his second tour of Iraq. He volunteered for Iraq duty.
Vicky O'Hara, NPR News, Washington.
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