Toilet Paper as a Weapon |
Spotting unexpected leverage points can give people a key edge, though it requires perspective-taking.
Drills can produce efficiency but also increase predictability.
Adaptability and improvisation can create a winning mindset.
With all of the sophisticated weapon systems in today’s military arsenal, we would not expect that toilet paper might be added to this list.
Yet, at least one time, it was.
This is a story I heard from Dave Hannaman, who worked at an Army human resources organization when I met with him many years ago. (Dave died in 2021.) Dave had been in the Army, including a stint as a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam. He was one of the brave soldiers who would go down into the tunnels the Viet Cong had constructed and booby-trapped. He was that kind of guy.
During a rotation back to the U.S., Hannaman was helping train a group of noncommissioned officers (NCOs). There were four squads, and Hannaman was put in charge of the dregs—the NCOs that nobody else wanted. The higher-ups had gotten tired of listening to Hannaman mouth off about the shortcomings of the conventional Army’s small unit leadership. “Let’s see how he does with these losers,” was the plan. They wanted to teach him a lesson.
In this case, the mission was simple. These dregs, call them Delta Squad, were to take the field and then get hunted down and destroyed by one of the other three squads—in this case, Alpha Squad, the cream of the platoon, and perhaps the best squad in the company. Hannaman’s Delta Squad would go out first and try to evade or defend against the attack by Alpha.
So off they trudged, knowing they stood little chance of success. Except for Hannaman.
After they had been marching for a while, they came over a hill, and Hannaman noticed a big pile of leaves. He instructed one of his fire teams to take cover and bury themselves in the leaves just over the crest of the hill. Then, when the Alpha Squad came charging along, Hannaman’s soldiers would let them all pass, stand up, and mow them down from behind.
It worked perfectly. Score one for team Hannaman. He explained to his men that the American soldiers never looked back, and that made them vulnerable.
As you can imagine, this result did not endear Hannaman to the company commander and his staff. It only made Hannaman more insufferable. So in the next training episode, they used the same scenario except this time Hannaman’s fire team wouldn’t have any rifles.
Off they went, feeling more dispirited than ever. Except for Hannaman.
As they marched along, they came to a hilltop that offered a magnificent view of the valley ahead. Hannaman looked it over, nodded to himself, and sent three of the soldiers to climb trees at that spot. He told them that once they got comfortable and hidden in the branches, they should just wait patiently. Alpha Squad was going to be charging along, and when they got to this spot, they would pause. The squad leaders, fire team leaders, and their instructors would scan the valley below. And that’s when Hannaman’s men would drop dummy hand grenades on all of them and wipe the leadership out again. And that’s exactly what happened.
Score another win for Hannaman.
Something had to be done to put Hanneman in his place. So in the next training session, exactly the same mission, the exercise directors took away all the rifles as well as the dummy hand grenades from Hannaman’s squad. Leaving them without any weapons at all.
How could they defend against Alpha Squad this time? They could send a radio call for an artillery strike, but what good was that against a pursuer on the move? By the time they called for the artillery, Alpha would have moved on.
Hannaman’s soldiers were more discouraged than ever. Hannaman was just amused.
They marched along, and they came to a rundown barbed wire fence. Hannaman liked what he saw. He asked his soldiers if any of them had a roll of toilet paper. One of them did. And Hannaman had a few soldiers take the toilet paper and weave it into the barbed wire to make a rough design.
Then Hannaman did some backward calculation. He knew that Alpha squad would be leaving the barracks around 6:30 that morning. Precision planning has benefits, but it also makes you predictable. It would take Alpha about an hour to reach this point at the barbed wire. That would be 7:30. The Recon team, upon seeing the toilet paper design, would be baffled. So they would stop. They would wait for the rest of the squad to catch up. The squad leaders would get there at about 7:40. They would confer about what this design meant. Give them five minutes for the conversation.
At around 6:45 am, Hannaman used the radio that his squad had to call in an artillery strike at that exact location at 7:45. You can guess the result. Alpha squad was once again destroyed. And Hannaman was given a different job on the post. The leadership couldn’t stand any more humiliation.
If you can use toilet paper as a weapon of war, there’s no stopping you. Combat at this level involves studying leverage points, and it also involves understanding your adversary, your adversary’s tendencies, and blind spots. Stories like this can serve as inspiration to overcome obstacles, even when they seem insurmountable. It also reveals the dangers of being predictable. Drills are valuable for gaining precision and efficiency, but they can foster predictability. In warfare, with so many new technologies in play, adaptability and improvisation, using unexpected leverage points, can give you a significant edge.