Training and Advising Articles

I'm currently working up with a Military Transition Team and since the training is completely focused on the survivability of the team I need to infuse a little "advisor mindset" into our training. I'm putting together a group of articles that I can put into a book that the Marines can read during their downtime during our 29 Palms trip in October, does anyone have suggestions on good articles applicable to the advisory mission? I've already got the big ones: T. E. Lawrence and LTC Kilcullen and the like, but I've been so busy the last few months I may have missed some good stuff. The MCCLL website has been no help, their advisory section is focused on improving the training for teams before deployment, rather than increasing their effectiveness in country. Thanks for any suggestions.

I'd strongly recommend anything written by John Bagot Glubb. Unfortunately, he doesn't really have any articles but he's written about twenty books on the Middle East, tribes, war-fighting, etc. He served in Iraq and Jordan from 1920 to 1956 and finished his career as the Commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion. The best books for your mission are probably "The Story of the Arab Legion", "A Soldier With the Arabs", "War in the Desert: An R.A.F. Frontier Campaign," and "Arabian Adventures: Ten Years of Joyful Service." He literally took nomadic Bedouin tribes and trained them into the most effective military force in the Middle East. The books are somewhat difficult to find but any used book website will have probably have them.

Tom Odom posted a series of articles on this a while back. You could run a search or send him a PM.

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Originally Posted by Xenophon

I'm currently working up with a Military Transition Team and since the training is completely focused on the survivability of the team I need to infuse a little "advisor mindset" into our training. I'm putting together a group of articles that I can put into a book that the Marines can read during their downtime during our 29 Palms trip in October, does anyone have suggestions on good articles applicable to the advisory mission? I've already got the big ones: T. E. Lawrence and LTC Kilcullen and the like, but I've been so busy the last few months I may have missed some good stuff. The MCCLL website has been no help, their advisory section is focused on improving the training for teams before deployment, rather than increasing their effectiveness in country. Thanks for any suggestions.

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Go to CALL and download this newsletter--guys on here helped write it. In fact, everyone in it has advised foreign forces in one fashion or another, including your truly. Send me an email and I will tag it to the response along with a recommended bibliography.

Best

Tom

Xenophon,
I'll be moving to the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance before long - I'm one of the folks Tom mentioned - if there is something I can help you with before, during or after - contact me. You are about to take on what is both a challenging and rewarding assignment - allot of it depends on what you make of it. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to write some and add to the knowledge base - if possible keep Tom & me in mind we want to make sure information gets back into the system.

Best Regards, Rob

Unfortunately, Xeno has hit on a huge problem in the preparation and employment of MTTs. We spend so much time on force protection that there's precious little time to figure out how to do the real mission. This is not to demean the importance of force protection, but to call for expanded training on the advisory piece itself.

I'll offer two things:

First, don't expect much downtime at the Stumps where teammates will have a desire to read just because you say the articles are good. That's a human nature dynamic...If they really wanted to learn their trade, they'd already have volumes of this stuff.

Second, dig through back issues of Armor and Infantry magazines. Those will round out the stuff that Tom Odom offers. Even if some of those articles are at first blush team operations-centric, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Wrestling with what should be simple issues of running the team, will almost certainly make it less efficient in other areas, especially its primary mission.

Your query brings me to one inb turn Xenophon. Are you receiving any training at all in the business of advising? How about interaction with teams that have gone before you? Any discussion of training methodologies, or is the hierarchy giving you the impression that they still think, "Hell, they're Marines, so they can naturally do everything."

Ok, I just got back from the stumps, thanks again to all who offered advice.

I definitely discovered that dynamic: I spent $40 getting everything printed out so it could sit in a binder and gather sand for three weeks. Oh well.

We definitely got a lot more adviser training at 29 Palms, but a lot more than zero is... not enough. The adviser training group is trying, but they're not being given the resources in personnel and training areas that they need to make it really good. We got two classes from a former PTT member on how to advise and a 20 minute explanation of what COIN is. That's pretty much it. We did, however, have an assigned interpreter for the three weeks we were there, and interaction with him was invaluable. I got better training hanging out and BSing with the Iraqi role players during the field ops than anything proscribed by the period of instruction.

There was an opportunity to have a talk with the team leader, S-2, and S-4 of a team that has done the job before. That was a good chance to get some insight into the day to day workings of a team, and finally answered the question of what the hell the Fires and Effects Trainer does (Answer: Nothing with Fires or Effects, I'm basically going to be an extra officer for the Team Leader to do with what he will)

There was zero discussion of training methodologies, zero discussion of American advisers in Vietnam or other places, and the only discussion of the development of an Iraqi NCO corps was internal to the team. All in all, the Team leader got a lot of great training since he was matched up with an Iraqi battalion commander role player during all field ops and there was much discussion of how to meet and interact with IA battalion commanders. The rest of the team was pretty much pulling security for him

Worst of all, and pretty much a slap in the face, ATG held a "hot wash" to discuss ways to improve the adviser training system on the last day. The four team leaders were given a chance to talk, (two pretty much said nothing very well, one was restrained but negative, and the other flat out used his time to kiss the ass of the General and Colonels present) but no one else.

I don't want to sound negative, I've gotten some of the best training of my career on this team, and I have a lot of faith in our team's ability to operate as a rifle squad reinforced. I just think we've ignored the primary mission assigned to the team.

Xenophon,

What you just wrote tells me that we continue to border on negligence in this realm...criminal in fact.

There's a great article out there called "MiTT Happens" that is a great read. FYI, LTC John Nagl is spearheading an effort to get a TT handbook written by former MiTT's now in CGSC out before year's end .....

I'd heard something to that effect. I'd really like to do this full time or as a B billet, but the only way to do that is to go MARSOC and I don't have the knees to pass the PT test for that. You know, because my worth as an officer is completely determined by my PT scores.

Xenophon--

A note of caution: In El Salvador our advisors (trainers) in multiple iterations of the mission always wanted to create a Salvadoran NCO corps. they always failed because the problem was not the one they had diagnosed. They saw it as a lack of an NCO corps when it really was a lack of first line supervision. We, the US, solve that problem with NCOs. The Salvadorans, for cultural reasons, were not about to do so. the one non NCO solution we tried (John Waghelstein in the first bid MILGP) came up with it of an OCS program to create 2 LTs for the first line supervision job, was only partially successful - also for cultural reasons.

I don't know if Iraqis would buy into an NCO corps or not, but if the problem is first line supervision, I'd recommend looking for innovative solutions within the host cullture. Of course, that may not be the problem at all.:wry:

Best of luck

JohnT

Here's the article I mentioned. "Mitt Happens" by Major David Voorhies.

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I would later discover, that I, in fact, possessed all the necessary knowledge to perform my duties. What I lacked in knowledge of the Arabic language, I made up for by being a quick study of the Iraqi people. I found that I gained as much insight into the Iraqi/Arab culture by watching the movie, “The Godfather,” as I did reading The 27 Articles, by T.E. Lawrence. My impression of working with my Iraqi Battalion Commander, LTC Sabah Gati Kadim Al-Fadily, was somewhat akin to being in a militarized version of the TV drama, “The Sopranos.” The tribal loyalties; religious alliances; and the aspects of prestige, influence, power, money, and revenge played heavily on the motives of those I advised. The aspect of corruption was never so much a notion of “if,” but rather, “to what degree.” I also discovered my natural lack of patience only became exacerbated by this environment. However, I found that my sense of humor, my ability to joke about myself and joke with my Iraqis, enabled me to get my points across to the Iraqi leadership with an emphasis of “pressured humor.” I used levity to get their attention and make them laugh, but I always had an underlying principle and motive for making the joke. The weird Iraqi ability to be deceitful while communicating ideas and stories enabled them to “get the point” rather quickly when I used this technique.

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Xenophon,
Sorry i did not answer this earlier, been on the road for a couple of weeks. If you send me a mailing address to - brian.wepking@us.army.mil - I will send you the current JCISFA CD, with all of our references and readings material

Nice avatar, retiredbuckeye! 8th Cav, if memory serves.

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A note of caution: In El Salvador our advisors (trainers) in multiple iterations of the mission always wanted to create a Salvadoran NCO corps. they always failed because the problem was not the one they had diagnosed. They saw it as a lack of an NCO corps when it really was a lack of first line supervision. We, the US, solve that problem with NCOs. The Salvadorans, for cultural reasons, were not about to do so. the one non NCO solution we tried (John Waghelstein in the first bid MILGP) came up with it of an OCS program to create 2 LTs for the first line supervision job, was only partially successful - also for cultural reasons.

I don't know if Iraqis would buy into an NCO corps or not, but if the problem is first line supervision, I'd recommend looking for innovative solutions within the host cullture. Of course, that may not be the problem at all.

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I'll have to see when I get over there, it was pure speculation on our part that the NCO corps would be weak. I'll definitely keep this in mind, thanks.

Nice avatar, retiredbuckeye! 8th Cav, if memory serves.

Steve, your correct, specifically 1-8 Cav. I was the XO during SFOR 4.

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Originally Posted by retiredbuckeye

Nice avatar, retiredbuckeye! 8th Cav, if memory serves.

Steve, your correct, specifically 1-8 Cav. I was the XO during SFOR 4.

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The 8th Cav during the Frontier period is one of my historical "pets," so I'd know that crest anywhere. Very interesting regiment, and one that has been steadily ignored by historians (the fate, I guess, of coming between the 7th and the 9th and 10th).