Forward observers in the U.S. military

• 1. Introduction

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  Forward observers in the U.S. military are among the most invisible figures on the battlefield. Their job is to call down fire from miles away onto targets they can see but others cannot. They are officially titled "joint fire support specialists" in the Army and "fire support marines" in the Marine Corps, but most who know them use a blunter nickname: FiSTers. That name comes from the fire support teams they operate within, though the label sticks even when the team structure does not apply.

  These are soldiers and marines who routinely work on or behind enemy lines, sometimes for days or weeks without meaningful backup. They carry a secret security clearance, because their awareness of friendly positions extends well beyond their own unit to allied forces operating nearby. Getting that picture wrong, even slightly, can redirect lethal force onto the wrong target. The weight of that responsibility has produced some of the most decorated individuals in American military history, including multiple Medal of Honor recipients. What it takes to earn that role, how the job is trained and organized, and how it has evolved across the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force is the story that follows.

• 2. Training and Qualification

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  Fort Sill, Oklahoma is where most American forward observers begin. Army enlisted soldiers who hold the 13F Military Occupational Specialty attend an eleven-week advanced individual training course there, covering the fundamentals of call-for-fire techniques alongside field craft and small unit tactics. Marine Corps observers follow nearly the same path, attending the same Fort Sill training under requirements that closely mirror their Army counterparts.

  After Fort Sill, some soldiers have additional hurdles. Those assigned to airborne units, including the 82nd Airborne Division, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and the 75th Ranger Regiment, must complete the United States Army Airborne School. Ranger School is also open to both enlisted forward observers and officers. These additional schools are not ceremonial; airborne-qualified observers were deployed to do real work, including a small number who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day to provide fire support for paratroopers during the landing.

  Both Army and Marine Corps observers can earn a further credential: certification as joint fires observers, or JFOs. The first JFO course was established at Nellis Air Force Base in 2004, then moved to Fort Sill in 2006. A second location was added at Einsiedlerhof, Germany, at the Warrior Preparation Center, and the Marines established their own JFO course at Quantico, Virginia. The two-week JFO course runs students through seven graded simulations covering mortar, artillery, naval, attack aviation, and special operations fire missions.

• 3. How Fire Is Called

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  Three distinct methods are taught in the U.S. Army for directing artillery fire, each suited to different situations on the ground. The most common is called a "grid mission," where the observer identifies the target using a standard map coordinate and passes that grid to the fire direction center. Second is "shift from known point," where the observer gives direction and distance from a fixed geographic or man-made reference that gunners already have plotted.

  The third method, called "polar," is the least used and for a specific reason: the observer states their own current grid location and then provides direction and distance to the target. The problem is that fire direction centers have been known to confuse the observer's position with the target itself, which creates an obvious and dangerous error. That risk has made polar calls rare in practice.

  Beyond these three core methods, a sub-specialization called combat observation lasing teams, or COLTs, handles longer-range fire. COLT teams are trained to direct GPS-guided munitions, including the 155 mm Excalibur series, as well as rocket-assisted artillery. They also carry a secondary spotting and reconnaissance capability and are trained to operate alongside sniper and scout teams for extended periods with minimal external support. Since 2003, the Army has supplemented human observation with the RQ-7B Shadow unmanned aircraft, flown by soldiers in the 15W MOS, for artillery correction, close air support, and reconnaissance in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 4. The Navy's Gunfire Problem

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  As early as 1921, the Marine Corps had identified naval gunfire as one of the six key elements for amphibious operations. But the guns aboard warships behaved in ways that confounded land-trained officers when they first encountered them.

  Naval artillery fired at high velocity with a flat trajectory. Infantry officers were surprised to find that those flat-trajectory guns could not hit targets sheltered behind even low hills. The spread of shells along the axis of fire could also endanger friendly troops positioned in front of or behind the intended target. Armor-piercing rounds designed to penetrate warships produced a disappointingly small damage radius against unfortified shore targets. Shipboard observation equipment built to spot shell splashes at sea was simply not designed to tell whether a round had struck an intended position on land.

  The response was institutional. A tentative manual produced in 1934 became Fleet Training Publication 167 in 1938. The Army then issued a field manual in 1941 with nearly identical text. Naval gunfire liaison officers, known as NGLOs, were developed to bridge the gap: naval officers already familiar with shipboard guns and communications who could translate what infantry officers saw on the ground into fire commands that shipboard personnel could execute. A five-week resident course for NGLOs is now taught in Coronado, California. In the modern force, NGLOs assigned to ANGLICO units may receive further training as joint terminal attack controllers.

• 5. Where Observers Sit in the Force

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  After completing training, Army forward observers are generally assigned to a forward observer platoon, which is typically part of a headquarters and headquarters company within a larger infantry, cavalry, armor, or artillery battalion. Officers in these roles are called fire support officers. The battalion-level element is called the fire support element. From brigade or regiment level upward through corps, the equivalent group is known as the "fires" section of the operations staff.

  Marine Corps observers are assigned similarly, often as specialist members of larger combat units or specialized organizations like Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company. When a Naval gunfire liaison officer deploys as part of a marine expeditionary unit, they are typically attached to the operations section of the ground combat element, known as the S-3, and are responsible for a shore fire control party made up of radio-telephone operators and forward observers.

  The Air Force does not run a formal forward observer program, but members of the special tactics community maintain a working familiarity with call-for-fire techniques as a secondary capability. The closest Air Force equivalent is the Joint Terminal Attack Controller, or JTAC, who specializes in calling in air support. Tactical Air Control Parties, known as TACPs, may or may not hold JTAC certification and typically embed with both conventional and special operations Army units.

  The older World War II Army position, coded 1189, laid out the conceptual foundation for much of this. That officer position was defined by duties that read almost identically to current job descriptions: directing fire from a forward position, observing and adjusting shell bursts, consulting commanders on target selection, organizing observation posts, and maintaining communications.

• 6. Notable Observers

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  The list of Medal of Honor recipients who served as forward observers is unusually long. George P. Hays, John R. Fox, Forrest E. Peden, James E. Robinson Jr., Ronald E. Rosser, Lee R. Hartell, Harold Bascom Durham Jr., Paul H. Foster, Brian Miles Thacker, Jared C. Monti, and Ryan M. Pitts all earned the nation's highest military decoration, many of them posthumously. John A. Chapman, an Air Force Combat Controller rather than a traditional forward observer, also received the Medal of Honor posthumously.

  The alumni list extends well beyond the military. Mel Brooks, the actor, comedian, composer, and filmmaker, served as a forward observer. Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of the rock band Tool, holds the same background. Country music singer Craig Morgan and film and television actor Lombardo Boyar both served in the role, as did MMA journalist Luke Thomas.