{"id":53175,"date":"2019-07-15T19:08:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T19:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smg.go-vip.net\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/07\/15\/how-our-recent-medal-of-honor-shows-a-weakness-in-military-power\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:13:31","slug":"how-our-recent-medal-of-honor-shows-a-weakness-in-military-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/opinion\/commentary\/2019\/07\/15\/how-our-recent-medal-of-honor-shows-a-weakness-in-military-power\/","title":{"rendered":"How our recent Medal of Honor shows a weakness in military power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last month former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2019\/06\/07\/this-soldier-is-about-to-be-the-iraq-wars-first-living-medal-of-honor-recipient\/\" target=\"_blank\">Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia<\/a> became the Iraq War\u2019s first living Medal of Honor recipient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The details of the extraordinarily brave event read like every soldier\u2019s nightmare. A \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2019\/06\/24\/inside-the-nightmare-of-a-house-that-created-the-iraq-wars-first-living-medal-of-honor\/\" target=\"_blank\">house of hell<\/a>\u201d filled with enemy insurgents prepared to die in almost every room. Sergeant Bellavia and his fellow soldiers were outgunned, overmatched \u2014 disadvantaged in every respect. That was the sad state of American military capabilities in 2004. But the reality is that if today\u2019s military was placed in a similar battle, little would be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2019\/06\/25\/president-donald-trump-bestows-medal-of-honor-on-david-bellavia-the-first-living-iraq-war-recipient\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Bellavia.jpg_7fb3fd.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">President Donald Trump bestows Medal of Honor on David Bellavia, the first living Iraq War recipient<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Staff Sgt. David Bellavia is the first living Iraq War veteran to receive the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bellavia\u2019s \u201chouse of hell\u201d was just one of the hundreds of similar houses that soldiers and Marines faced during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2018\/05\/21\/sgt-maj-bradley-kasal-navy-cross-recipient-and-marine-behind-iconic-fallujah-photo-retires\/\" target=_blank>the Second Battle of Fallujah<\/a> in November of 2004. They actually cleared over 30,000 houses in that city. Each time they were unaware if they were entering a death trap or an empty structure. Enemy forces had cheap but more powerful rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. They had fortified bunkers in concrete houses that most American weapons could not penetrate and the enemy knew it would take suicidal room-clearing assaults and ultimately the destruction of the city to eject them.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-smg-jwplayer-video\"><atype-video-jwplayer nostick=\"true\" playlisturl=\"https:\/\/cdn.jwplayer.com\/v2\/playlists\/fCzRqMW8?tags=99a473d4-7711-413b-acdb-370cdad60b41\" poster=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/video-poster-99a473d4-7711-413b-acdb-370cdad60b41.jpg\" aspectratio=\"16 \/ 9\" mute autostart=\"false\"><\/atype-video-jwplayer><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">President Trump presents the Medal of Honor to Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia June 25 for actions Bellavia took in Fallujah, Iraq during Operation Phantom Fury.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cities give anyone with minimal weapons and determined fighters the ability to contest and, in many cases, tactically defeat a more powerful force. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2018\/03\/06\/using-lessons-learned-soldiers-and-marines-are-training-for-urban-combat\/\" target=\"_blank\">Urban terrain<\/a> gives the defender the advantage of turning every building into either a sniper attack position, ambush site, or death trap. It allows them to hide both within the concrete jungle and the civilian population. The terrain breaks up an attacking force, minimizing their ability to use advanced technologies, or even basic fire and maneuver tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2018\/03\/06\/the-future-battlefield-army-marines-prepare-for-massive-fight-in-megacities\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ARM-urban-combat-cover-1-web.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">The future battlefield: Army, Marines prepare for \u2018massive\u2019 fight in megacities<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">For a long time, both the Marines and Army failed to do anything substantial to prepare for large-scale urban combat \u2014 other than to avoid it whenever possible.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The United States can see, track and drop a precision-guided bomb on just about anyone or anything in the world. But it is these capabilities that has driven enemy forces around the world into densely populated urban areas. Recently, the Islamic State group captured and infested large cities in Iraq like cancers that had to be cut out. To do so, the Iraqi military (trained and equipped by the United States for over a decade) destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses through intense house-to-house combat worse than Fallujah in 2004. Every bad guy in the world watched and learned \u2014 if you want to fight a military, even the U.S. military, get into the cities and make them pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the objectives of U.S. military power is to be so strong, so capable, so lethal, that they strike fear in opposing forces. This deterrent effect works from the nation state level down to the individual bad guy. We want the world to fear the U.S. military at every level. From our nuclear arsenal to our individual soldiers. We want would-be enemies to fear the involvement of the American forces in any decision they might make. It is the backbone of the international order for American military forces to carry the biggest stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The annual Department of Defense budget is over $700 billion. We will spend $90 million per plan for new F-35 fighters, $10.2 billion for three new submarines, and may spend up to $2 billion to create a new organization to fight in space, but there are no major marked resources for urban combat. Even if there\u2019s concern, there\u2019s no denying we already dominate in air, sea and space. But inside a building and in a city, we don\u2019t dominate, and the grisly proof is available in Bellavia\u2019s Medal of Honor citation. There are no Manhattan Projects to change the one spot where the U.S. military does not dominate. Actually, there isn\u2019t a single office in the military dedicated solely to urban combat. No major urban combat schools. There are really only two urban combat training sites in the country that can hold more than a hundred soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lack of investments and efforts to equip U.S. forces for urban combat are why Sergeant Bellavia couldn\u2019t see inside the building he attacked. Why he couldn\u2019t distinguish from enemy and civilian personnel inside the building? Even if he could have seen inside the building, he did not have a weapon that could penetrate the concrete walls protecting the enemy. When he did request a tank-like vehicle engage the house with a large machine gun, the enemy inside remained mostly untouched. He didn\u2019t have tear gas to clear the building because the United States signed a treaty to no longer use this nonlethal tool. His only remaining choice, and that of a soldier today, was to run inside the house and fight each enemy individual at close range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Without investment and new ways of thinking, our soldiers will neither dominate nor be feared in urban combat. At today\u2019s pace, the age of \u201cIron Man\u201d Tony Starks busting through walls, impervious to enemy bullets, capable of seeing and engaging bad guys in any dark space they may be hiding isn\u2019t coming anytime soon. The U.S. military may be the world\u2019s greatest force in air, sea and space. But where the nation\u2019s hardest fighting really takes place \u2014 urban combat \u2014 that\u2019s not the case. Consequently, Sergeant Bellavia\u2019s experience in the \u201chouse of hell\u201d is bound to happen again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>John Spencer is a former infantryman and officer that spent over 25 years in the Army, including two combat deployments to Iraq.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Without investment and new ways of thinking, our soldiers will neither dominate nor be feared in urban combat, the author of this commentary says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":88149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":78,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[78,100,23,93,25,14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3968],"class_list":["post-53175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-middle-column","category-newsletters","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UGAFVRVTLNFPXKW5TNMM6Z6IBI","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/commentary\/2019\/07\/15\/how-our-recent-medal-of-honor-shows-a-weakness-in-military-power\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How our recent Medal of Honor shows a weakness in military power - Army Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Without investment and new ways of thinking, our soldiers will neither dominate nor be feared in urban combat, the author of this commentary says.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How our recent Medal of Honor shows a weakness in military power\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Without investment and new ways of thinking, our soldiers will neither dominate nor be feared in urban combat, the author of this commentary says.\" \/>\n<meta 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