The following letter was sent in August 1996, by the Army War College Department of Urban Warfare Research to Army Colonel Dick F. Vaffenkopf the Pentagon's Chief of the Special Urban Task Force (S.U.T.F.). This memo was retrieved by a source who wishes to remain anonymous because it was classified "Eyes Only- Foxtrot Romeo" a top secret Pentagon Document label. By US law and the UCMJ distribution of classified documents to non cleared parties is considered perjury of the highest degree, and if proven guilty punishable by death. Dear Sir,
We here at the department are growing increasingly concerned about the lack of innovative policies being adopted by the S.U.T.F. Our duty, to study warfare in an urban landscape, and to develop policies that will maximize troop readiness in city frontiers, is growing in its importance due to current world trends in the conduct of war. The battlefield of the future is the cityscape. Therein lies the biggest threat to U.S. combat troops. Lets be clear: we are not discussing the vast members of U.S. forces who have the luxury of fighting battles from behind a desktop. Despite the tremendous capabilities of U.S. forces to conduct electronic warfare, there remains a serious demand for "hand-to-hand" trained soldiers. The urban trend must not be ignored. Sarajevo, Grozny, Kuwait City and the tragedy in Mogadishu all set off alarms within our department. Also to be noted are recent acts of terrorism on U.S. soil, Oklahoma City, the New York City World Trade Center bombing and the uprise in militia activities all threaten our cities & ultimately national security. With the "urban challenge" in mind, we request S.U.T.F. funding for the research and development of an Urban Cycle Deployed Unit. The concept was developed after a six month study of the Bicycle Patrol, a Portland, Oregon police program. The officers who participated in the study while adept at their duties pointed out to us that we should be focusing on the city's bicycle messenger population. We dispatched two officers to research the messenger industry and the conclusions are most interesting. Our most important finding is the tremendous knowledge the courier has of the cityscape. This knowledge is thorough and almost three dimensional. By this it is meant that messengers not only know the street layout but they are highly knowledgeable about the structures and building access points that extend both above and below ground as well. This point is critical. Any well trained soldier can read a map, however, blueprints of large buildings are not always readily available. The best couriers we interviewed could describe in detail accessibility options to almost every major building in the cities we conducted our research. Our most impressive finding were the messengers in Washington, D.C. who amazed us with interior details of the labyrinthine structures of the nation’s capital. The calculations messengers make in determining the quickest way between points are intuitive and would take extremely long for even our top soldiers to learn. This intuition is a key factor for this proposal. Instead of training our currently enlisted soldiers in an urban cycle training program, we are suggesting the recruitment of individuals who are cycle messengers. The program would be completely covert. Recruits would not be enlisted as soldiers. Our intention is to have a contingent of combat ready, "cycle deployed mercenaries", who would perform multiple tasks in an urban warfare environment. Following the selection of recruits, we intend a 3 month training program at S.U.T.F. headquarters. The training would consist of weapons handling, command & communications training, and a general review of military combat procedures. During the training we would also receive a reciprocal input from the recruits on matters of urban mobility, building accessibility, cycle communications, and cycle hardware technology. The FBI and Secret Service is opposed to this process. For years they have kept records on bicycle messengers in Washington, D.C. because of their high visibility, frequent visits to governments buildings (i.e. the Senate, House & Capitol), and regular reports of their generally antisocial behavior from local police and private security forces. We urge you to disregard these records and to look at the messenger population as a tremendous resource in aiding our goals. The fact is that there have only been several minor incidents on report that might have had an effect on the security of several high level government officials, and the District's diplomatic population. We attribute this purely to circumstance. Following your review of this report and some enclosed statistical data, I propose that we schedule a meeting to discuss the proposal, and if we reach a consensus in this issue, a budget, and recruitment plan be drawn up. Thank you for your time and I look forward to getting your input on this issue. |