The Man on Point

The Man on Point

Keith Nightingale

In every conflict we have ever fought within any maneuver element, there has always been a person on the Point.  He is the first man in front.  He leads and all others follow.  He is the first to discover the enemy-or they him.  From the earliest frontiers of our founding to the dry, desiccated hills of Afghanistan to the streets of Falluja, every unit places a man on Point.  It is one of the most basic hard requirements of life on the leading edge. All others follow.

When the soldier began to move from the safety of his perimeter into the unknown ahead, he didn’t know that his genes were very important, but they were.  Many generations ago, and under the stress and experience of repetition, his lineage developed a peculiar capability to successfully walk Point.  He ever so slowly emerged down the dimly illuminated trail.  Though it was near noon, the sun could only penetrate in the most subtle manner.  Regardless, the foliage held in the heat and magnified the humidity as walls of an oven.  Very quickly, he was drenched in sweat-generated both by the environment as well as his state of mind.  He was the Point and he just naturally evolved absent forethought into the role.

He rarely walked upright but always somewhat stooped-then and now-as if he were mentally anticipating having to get one with the earth in a very hurried manner.  He held his weapon close to his body, the barrel just forward of his chest but leveled to a point at the end of effective view.  If there was an issue, that would  be the focus of his survival engagement.  His line had a history of this environment.

As a child, he had read the journals and letters of his Great Great Grandfather, a veteran of Longstreet’s Corps.  He wrote of his service in the North Carolina Blues, an aberrant organization within the Confederate Army that specialized in reconnaissance, scouting and independent operations.  The Blues were only once asked to perform as a cohesive unit and that was at the maelstrom of the Dunker Church on a very hot desperate afternoon astride Antietam Creek.  Great Great Grandfather clearly did not like that employment.  The Great Great Grandson enjoyed reading the descriptions and could mentally transport himself to those same like tasks.  He too had been a lonely child in a large family in very rural North Carolina.  His peculiar personality leaned him toward acts of isolation and independence that primarily manifested itself in single hunting forays and quiet solo walks in the high hills and low lying creek bottoms of his locality.  He grew to sense before he saw.  Anything he wanted to find, he did.  He was now in a deep jungle, far from his home but his instincts and personality favored the environment and he quietly enjoyed the isolation from his uniformed whole.

His eyes scanned nervously sweeping front and flanks in quick but precise focused views.  He mentally assessed each image-a leaf, a piece of turned earth, the lip of a log, flight of a bird, a ray of light as it touched the earth.  His auditory senses were complementarily assessing everything in range, straining to sense any untoward signal perhaps his ancestors had received.   His breath was shallow and contained.  To him, it sounded like a freight train but in truth was almost silent.  Processing all the input, his brain worked overtime seeking the slightest indication of dangers.  If asked, he could not describe what he did or how he did it.  He just did.  It was purely instinctual.

He was the Point because he had performed the task better than others.  He had an instinct for the job and liked the work which was why he was the Point. He had not sought the job, he just did what he was told to and the results followed.  He had a preternatural ability that was quickly demonstrable to his unit.  The genes had skipped a few generations but they were clearly extant.  In very short order, his unit depended upon him to keep them safe or at least give them a chance to preserve themselves, possibly at his expense.  It was a very short leap from the hardwoods forests of the South to the enshrouding jungles of Asia. And for his later bloodlines in the streets of Mogadishu, the eerie quiet dust blown streets of Falluja and the steep scree-covered slopes of the Afghan-Pakistan border.  Point is Point regardless of war or geography.

For this moment and this position, he was transformed into a primordial being-all the deep visceral instincts that brought his predecessors out of the Serengeti and the rural hills of the South to this point and place were activated to support his survival.  Despite the dozens of men to his immediate rear, he was utterly and completely alone in his personal shroud of being. He knew it and liked it which was why he was there.

To his immediate rear and ahead of the main body was his slack man.  He too walked with a very slow stooped gait but kept the Point as his primary focus.  He would provide immediate action cover if the Point was engaged but there was a man between him and the enemy-the Point.

The position of Point man has never been a formal part of any Infantry organization.  There is no extra pay, no rank, ribbon, reward or special consideration for the position.  But, it is, for periods of time, the most critical position in the unit.  It comes and goes with what the military schools call a Movement to Contact.  The very first person, exposed and alone, is the Point.  He, alone, is usually the first to find the enemy either by bad luck or good.  Or, if he is especially skilled, by a combination of genetics and instinct as self-developed design.  This is a treasured quality that any smart small unit tries to preserve through internal rotation and consideration, keeping him for the most potentially dangerous situations.

Qualification for the Point is simple-membership in an Infantry unit and at a rank below Squad Leader.  Further, to be in a unit that is leading the rest or the lead of one or more elements moving together.  It can be open terrain, in urban streets or close jungle but it is always the position of the first of the friendlies.  First to see, to sense or to be engaged.  It is not a partnered position.  There may be a man behind, but the Point is always alone. It is not a position to train for or test.  The test is experience and survival is the only necessary qualification.  Because of its uniqueness and necessary job qualifications-youth and availability, it is a position invariably filled by the most junior and technically unqualified  of soldiers.  This is a position where the residue of the past can markedly enhance the present and future.

Some are good, some are exceptional and some are dead.  Life at the cutting edge has a selection system.  Success requires two visceral, primordial qualities-heightened senses and intuitive instinct.  Neither can be trained.  They can only be observed and exercised.  The Squad Leader gestures and says-“You-Take the Point.  Move out.”  The test begins.  And the immediate fate of the larger element rests alone on this man.  He probably has less age, less rank and less experience than anyone to his rear. But for this brief period, he is vastly more important to the unit.   He and some of them may live or die on his personal skill set and the chance residue of his bloodline.

In close terrain, jungle or woods, vision is severely impaired.  The Point moves slowly, constantly scanning the short distance he can discern.  Disturbed dirt, overturned humus or oddly shaded colors provides clues as to preceding and possibly awaiting human activity.  The sun is much filtered and its exact location uncertain.  Light arrives from many angles and intensities, illuminating some parts and shading others.  It is very hard to discern an entire object.  It is left to the Point to quickly and instinctually sort out the images, sense a safe direction and to move slowly forward, bringing everyone else behind in his momentarily secured vortex. His task is like picking out a specific piece of clothing in a dark closet.  Part are visual cues,  part is experience and part is instinct.  The Point combines it all and hopes his visceral analysis is a success.  A Great Great Grandfather can be very helpful-unseen and unfelt but greatly influential residing within one of the small spaces of his DNA-unseen but all powerful.

A piece of material or chance impression of an object is a warning.  A deep natural instinct alerts the Great Great Grandson-Wait.  Stop.  Listen.  Look.  Feel.  He signals a halt and everyone to his rear hesitates, senses now primed from the torpor of mindless movement-a potentially lifesaving act.

Success at Point may be a timely halt and deployment, triggering an unintended engagement by the enemy or forcing his withdrawal.  Modified success may be the Point receiving the impact of the initial engagement but buying sufficient time to permit those behind to protect themselves and deploy.  His predecessor had done this many times-Antietam, Big Round Top, Wilderness, Cold Harbor and Five Oaks.  His antecedents had performed the same services in the Huertgen Forest, the approach to the Yalu River and the jungles of Vietnam. He could only be responsible for his job, not that of the larger unit.

Occasionally, there would be a replacement that didn’t work.  Failure is an engagement by the enemy’s time and choice.  On occasion, a Point achieves a neutral status when he is caught between the two opposing forces with no decisive outcome.  Here, he will sense and feel the full quality of arms of both sides hoping that both will spare him.  In truth and in his mind, the Point is a success when there is no engagement.  That is not always possible.  He is first.  He is the Point.  The past materially assists the present.

In urban terrain, the “modern” kinetic environment is radically different with the requirement for acuteness being even more pronounced. But the necessities remain unchanged.   Here, distances and the truths of geometry are much greater.  The requirement to scan both in width and depth more pronounced.  Every window, rooftop, door and street compounds the complex angles and options the soldiers face.  Unlike close terrain, the comfort of distant engagement is an enemy option.  The Point’s responsibilities are visibly strung out behind all within effective range of an enemy.  The Point must discern every corner, shadow, crevice and avenue to his front and side.  Engagements can be initiated at a greater distance or very close-depending on chance or design.  In either case, the Point will be the first to know.  Here, there is no comforting margin for error provided by the encroaching green.  Everyone is fully exposed.  Exposed to the quality of the Point.  This man with little rank but great heart and a deep reservoir of personal courage-most of which he does not realize.

Mountainous terrain provides perhaps the greatest challenge to the Point.  He has to constantly battle his body physics, the effect of climate and the changing environment-moments of great vistas and others of close terrain.  Close with rocks, ridges, runnels of past flows and the varying vegetation of the altitude-all providing the many options for cover and concealment to be employed by an intelligent foe.  The Grunts behind, depend upon the Point to overcome these issues they cannot and insure their security.

The designated Point shoulders his rucksack, his weapon and the remainder of his gear and moves slowly to the front on the designated route.  His helmet weighs on his head and slides with each step.  His boots pick a way through the exposed rocks and earth, moving his feet left and right as well as ahead.  Sweat or chill shroud his efforts.  His breath becomes quickly ragged-especially if he is at any altitude.  His gear slips and slides around him cutting into every bearing point.  Cracked lips ask for a quick wisp of moisture from his thickening tongue.  His body is quickly a mass of signals and senses distracting him from his responsibility.  His challenge is to succumb to normal human feelings or to subordinate them to his informal undocumented unrecognized responsibility. 

The Point must suppress his personal issues for the greater good.  He must retain his scouting skills where both near and far engagements are highly probable.  His breathing, his sliding on the gravel,  edged rocks cutting his boots and the constantly pressing weight of his kit cannot distract him from his task.  A piece of cloth, a momentary flash of light, an unnatural shape or perhaps a slightly discolored small sand trail alerts him.  The Point has to be the ultimate aware and self-sacrificing soldier.

There is one consistency for the Point that transcends all wars from Caesar to today and that is aloneness.   For the period of temporary service where a man acts as the Point, he is utterly alone.  He is the very front of many others.  He is the front.  No one friendly is ahead.  He and he alone will bear the reward or penalty of his abilities.  The Infantry has thousands of members, but for a brief moment, only the very few can be Point-and all behind depend on him to preserve them.   It is a responsibility recognized only by those immediately engaged.

There is no training school for the Point or a rigid selection system.  But units with experience usually use a very Darwinian and disciplined process.  A man is selected for Point.  His tour is either successful or not.  An experienced NCO will rotate the position fairly frequently, making personal mental notes.  In time, the soldiers gain a routine.  Each knows when it is his turn on Point and takes it.  With some, a comment may be necessary or a volunteer emerges.  Regardless, a rhythm of movement is established and the unit achieves a balance between individual responsibility and rest.  Rest from the ground truth of the moment.

It was a dirty, dusty town.  The overarching impact was that of dirt, pervasive and ubiquitous.  The Point moved out, seemingly alone in an avenue of breadth and width without another soul visible.  His Grandfather had done this same task but in a markedly different climate. The weather was extremely hot, more than 120 degrees without a hint of shade.  The ever-present low hanging dust obscured the sun into a hazy glowing ball but concentrated its effect.  The walls of the street were too small to block the effect of the sunlight and the intermittent vespers of wind only concentrated rather than dissipated the heat. This was the Infantry version of a convection oven.

The soldier on Point had remembered his Grandfather’s quiet talks.  They had a kinship that allowed them to be alone among a large group of people. The Grandson had grown up in the Dakota’s, a significant change from the rural South of his historic family.  From the time he was able to hunt, he had enjoyed being alone in the wide windswept broken ground of the northern prairie.  While others hunted pheasant in the open corn and wheat fields, he had always favored working the bottomland brush and tree-filled creek areas.  He deeply enjoyed the thrill of an hours stalk for a single bird in the close terrain.  A small miscue or a rasp against a dead bush would scatter the game and cost success.  Over time, he was almost universally successful-honing his past to assure his unknown future.  Then he joined the Infantry and brought one hundred and fifty years of genetic development to his unit.  As always, and as he liked, he was alone in this moment’s maze of geometric possibilities.  To his front, empty windows and closed doors betrayed no discernible human presence as he slowly advanced.  In an urban environment, there are an infinite series of engagement opportunities-at a greater distance or very close.  There is an initial comfort in the distant vistas compared to close terrain but then a realization that a bullet and its span of flight can be initiated beyond that which the Point’s senses work.  As always, he is alone in this geometric matrix.  Despite the distance of time, the survival skills in the Wilderness were acutely functioning in the streets of Falluja.

Behind him. His companions began to emerge, hesitant in step, exposing themselves in the street.  All the while focusing on his back and beyond him.  Knowing if there was to be an issue, he would be the first to know.  They depended upon him to absorb the initial impact of confrontation.

As he advanced slowly, in the familiar half stoop-more an emotional position than one required by the physical space-he noted the vista to his front.  It was unusually quiet, devoid of the normal human noises of a city street.  No cars.  No people. No dogs.  No echoing residue of television or music. The noises of urban existence were gone.  This signal put him on a sharp preternatural alert-the same signal his long ago relative had at Chickamauga.  He scanned each empty window and closed door as he slowly moved down the street for some sense of human life.  There was none-which in itself was a very bad sign.  Being right handed, he hugged the left wall to keep his rifle hand clear.  He didn’t overtly do this, it was just a subliminal natural act.

A zephyr of wind kicked up a small dust cloud which caught his eye.  His front sight, guided by a reactive instinct, focused on it with his eye-as parts of a machine in parallel act. Not now a pheasant, but not yet discernible.  Further beyond, almost out of vision, a dog ran across the street refocusing his short range vision as a deer might leaping a road well to the front.  A piece of tin roofing slapped down echoing through the street and alerting another finely honed sense.  A plastic bag erratically followed the dust, resting on the wall and sliding to the sidewalk.

His eyes scanned the roof tops-mostly exposed rebar jutting into the sky-a Middle Eastern custom to wish for a future expansion.  No human silhouette showed but he knew, somewhere, they were there.  He sensed it which was why he was the Point.  There was a clear genetic predisposition for this task. 

Behind him, his unit slowly followed in a loose column formation.  Each column clung close to the street walls like him.  Only to the farther rear, did the elements venture into the middle of the street.  Ease of movement trumped fear as distance enhanced security.

Much further ahead, the Point continued his slow, scanning movement.  Each empty window to his front was a potential position he had to clear to protect his people to his rear.  Each was in a deep shadow and indiscernible as to content.  Yet, he assessed the visual vacuum, made a judgment and moved to the next block’s vista.  If he made a mistake, everyone but him would know it.  He was the Point and the initial impact point if he made a mistake in judgment.  His value in this highly specialized role is both recognized and rewarded with repetition-a situation the Point may not view as an honor but fulfills his concerns and simple immutable loyalty for those behind.  His lineage seemed to always do this.  Not everyone has the same genetic residue.

In time, qualities or lack thereof of the Point emerge and the small unit leader makes adjustments for internal preservation.  It is unlikely that he either knows or appreciates the value of blood experience.  All he does know is that the most difficult situation requires the very best Point.  The leader consults his mental order of merit and selects a soldier.  The designated Point may take this either as an honor or as a burden but he invariably moves to the front and begins his work. He knows the preservation of his unit has become his responsibility.  He gets no benefits of pay or rank but he has the satisfaction of his peer’s respect which is not a small thing in his very small world.   It is unlikely that the position will be formally recognized, but it should be honored.   The soldiers who walk behind the Point do.