So You Want to Be an Adviser

So You Want to Be an Adviser by Brigadier General Daniel Bolger, US Army. Military Review article, March - April 2006.

Quote:

---

BG Bolger, one of the Army’s top advisers in Iraq, offers a vivid description of what it is like to train Iraqi security forces. A combat adviser influences his ally by force of personal example. You coach, you teach, and you accompany in action. Liaison with friendly forces becomes a big role, and you ensure independent ground-truth reporting to both your counterpart and your own chain. Finally, an adviser provides the connection and expertise to bring to bear fires, service support, and other combat multipliers. accolades go to the leader you support. That, at least, is the idea. The people advising today’s Forces have learned to fight what T.R. Fehrenbach so rightly and ruefully called “this kind of war.” the opening rounds of this enduring, twilight struggle, our wily enemies wear civilian clothes and strike with bombs and gunfire without regard to innocents in the crossfire. The battles feature short, sharp exchanges of Kalashnikov slugs and M-4 carbine bullets, the fiery death blossom of a car bomb, the quick, muffled smack of a wooden door going down and a blindfolded figure stumbling out at gunpoint. Dirty little firefights spin up without warning and die out in minutes. But the campaign in will last years, and will not be cheap in money or blood. Since the present advisory effort began to accompany forces into action, we have lost 8 killed. In today’s major theaters, most of the fighting is done by Afghans and Iraqis. They have signed on, but they could use our help. So you want to be an adviser? If so, read on.

---