Originally Posted by
Creon01
I've been waiting for such a publication for some time.
When I deployed to Iraq in 2004 as a CA Team Leader we had little relevant training that would have helped us do our work. Being a Bosnia vet helped a lot but CAPOC could have done more than PT us into the ground every day.
Earlier this year I was again in Iraq this time with USAID and made it a point to ask my former brothers in arms about their pre-deployment training. They did a jump at Bragg and all that goes with preparing for a safe jump. No CERP training, little cultural training, no COIN awareness but a lot of PT and range time. Most of their work in country was taken up with conducting local assessments with little understanding of the significance of that crucial mission. How do we know what the people of Iraq really think?
My first look at the cover makes me wonder if the army should talk to someone in the publishing industry before it creates a cover for such an important book. I hope you can't tell this book by its cover as it seems to reinforce the common misperception that you can win over an insurgent controlled population simply by giving out soccer balls or getting a small child to laugh. Looking at the cover might cause a hard-bitten third tour grunt to dismiss the valuable lesson that I hope are inside.
Instead of the touchy-feely pics on the current cover I'd have pics of a team sitting down with a local community leader asking relevant questions, conducting over-sight of the drilling of a CERP funded water well and most critically training their Iraqi counter-parts in military civic-action TTPs.
Back in Iraq next month.
Creon01
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