Camp Pendleton General Prepares for Afghanistan Command

Maj. Gen. Richard Mills will lead 19,000 leathernecks in fight against Taliban
By MARK WALKER

He has only been there once and that was for just a few days, but Camp Pendleton's Maj. Gen. Richard Mills says he's ready to lead 19,000 Marines in Afghanistan this year.

"My job is like being the orchestra director," the lanky, blue-eyed general said Wednesday during an interview with the North County Times. "The biggest challenge is to build on the momentum of success we have seen there in recent months."


Maj. Gen. Richard Mills discusses his new assignment, leading the Marines in Afghanistan. (Photo by John Koster - For the North County Times).

A New York native, the 59-year-old Mills was named last fall to head all Marine Corps forces in Afghanistan beginning in March.

That's when a large share of the additional 30,000 troops ordered to the south-central Asian nation by President Barack Obama are expected to arrive. Among those 30,000 will be about 9,000 more Marines, including some 4,500 from Camp Pendleton and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

During a discussion inside his dark-paneled, memento-filled office at the 1st Marine Division headquarters at Camp Pendleton, Mills said he expects this spring will see a transition in U.S. and NATO battlefield strategies and changes in the way the anti-government insurgency has been fighting the war, which is now in its ninth year.

"I think the Taliban will shift some of their tactics," Mills said, without getting into specifics. "They can't fight us unit to unit, and we'll work to influence their operations. Laying all the groundwork for that is the real challenge."

Among his preparations for the assignment, which he received just a few months after becoming a two-star general and head of the storied 1st Marine Division, he is studying the language, culture and customs of Afghanistan, a mountainous country of about 25 million people that is about the size of Texas.

Mills said he expects the spring and summer of 2010 to be "very kinetic," the military's terminology for troops engaged in combat.

In January, the 800-member headquarters group from Camp Pendleton that he leads will conduct a 20-day exercise to hone its readiness to oversee the Marine forces that will operate primarily in Helmand province.

The southern province is home to Camp Leatherneck, where Mills and his staff will live when they're not out seeing the troops, which he said he expects to do frequently.

Mills joined the Marine Corps 34 years ago after spending a couple of years in the construction industry. He graduated from Pennsylvania's Franklin & Marshall College with a degree in government studies.

Over the years, he has served as a platoon commander, a company executive officer, a regimental operations officer and head of a Marine expeditionary unit. He saw his first combat action during two tours of duty in Iraq under the command of Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who said Mills has a tremendous intellect.

"In an insurgency fight, you have to think your way out of it, and a guy like Rich Mills has the skills to do that," Kelly said in a telephone interview.

A zealous fan of the NFL's New York Giants with several replica helmets adorning his office, Mills said his leadership style is built around teamwork.

That self-assessment was ratified by Gen. James Mattis, former head of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force who now heads the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va.

"He's not one to draw attention to himself, preferring instead to concentrate on doing his job well by focusing on the mission at hand and on the readiness of his sailors and Marines and their families," Mattis said in an e-mail to the newspaper. "He's experienced and steady, and he does his homework. Plus, he commands the finest warfighting outfit in the world, the southern California-based 1st Marine Division (a unit I'm inordinately fond of), which speaks to his professional reputation in the Corps."

With his 6-foot, 4-inch frame settled in a soft leather chair, Mills said he has always considered himself an infantry officer and if he had his druthers, he'd rather be out with the troops than sitting at a command desk.

"I would trade what I'm doing with any lieutenant in the division to be able to be down in the trenches," he said. "The closer you are to junior Marines, the better."

Mills and his wife have six children, among them a son now serving in Afghanistan as a U.S. Army staff sergeant. Among his five daughters is a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander stationed in San Diego.

When Obama announced he was increasing the U.S. troop level to 100,000, he also said he believed he could order some of those forces to start withdrawing within 18 months.

Mills, the son of a World War II Navy officer, rejects the implication of a frequently heard phrase about Afghanistan that says U.S. and NATO troops have the watches but the Taliban has the time ---- meaning the enemy force can wait out the West and take over when foreign troops leave.

"I don't think they really do have the time," he said. "If you look at what the II Marine Expeditionary Brigade has been doing in securing the countryside, it shows we can be successful for the long term. We can win over the people."

The Marines he will command will conduct joint operations with Afghan National Army and security forces, and the troops will stay in the areas they are assigned and not live on fixed bases. That strategy is key in counter-insurgency operations, he said.

"You can't fight just from forward operating bases," he said.

The rules of engagement in Afghanistan are continuing to "mature," Mills said, stressing that avoiding civilian casualties and proving to the population that U.S. forces can chase away and keep the Taliban from reasserting themselves is central to the mission.

As his Blackberry buzzed with incoming e-mails every 30 seconds or so, Mills said he stays in shape by running and working out every couple of days.

He said one thing keeps him up some nights.

"What I worry about is that we are able to cover all our responsibilities and continue to find ways to cut off the insurgency," Mills said.