So You Want to Be an Advisor; Journal article

摘要

In this article, the author relates his experience as a military advisor in Iraq, working with the new Iraqi Armed Forces. The author contends that, to create an effective Iraqi military, you must accomplish three tasks. Task 1 is to train and equip to a uniform standard. Taught initially by Coalition leaders and later by their own newly certified instructors, Iraqi units have learned how to move, shoot, and communicate the right ways, and have received the gear necessary to make it all work under fire. The enemy has similar weapons, but no legitimate training and poor discipline. Task 2 is to partner each Iraqi organization with a similar Coalition formation, usually American, but in some areas Australian, British, Danish, El Salvadoran, Italian, Korean, or Polish. Day to day, this allows the Iraqi leadership to reach across culture and language barriers and act like their partner units, who work side- by-side with them on operations. Task 3 is to provide a small team of combat advisers to live, train, and fight day and night with their Iraqi brothers. Before 9/11, this task would have been turned over to highly select, rigorously trained Special Forces. We have only so many of these tremendous quiet professionals, and they are fully engaged in all theaters, including Iraq, so the rest of us conventional types had to step up. Schooled in many cases by Special Forces experts, we had to learn (or relearn) our weapons and tactics fundamentals, absorb some cultural awareness, and get out to Iraq and get cracking. Our exceptionally flexible U.S. Armed Forces and our allies have done this well. The Iraqis have responded by rising to meet the high marks set by our young NCOs and officers.