Advisor Brigades

[82redleg]

Does anyone know if current and former Riley trained MiTT and ETT advisors will recieve an ASI? Will they get priority assignment to the Advisor Brigades?

I thought there was one for Riley, and one for the Phoenix Academy at Taji- I'll have to do some research to find the MILPER message, though. I remember it came out around the same time as the KD credit, maybe between FEB and JUN of 08.

[82redleg]

MILPER Message 08-112 (NCOs) and 08-113 (officers) establishes the PDI of T1, with PDSI T1B for Riley training and T1C for Phoenix Academy at Taji.

[patmc]

Washington Post, "4,000 More US Troops to Be Sent to Afghanistan." by Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe. 26 MAR 09

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews


President Obama is pushing to send a brigade from the 82nd as an Advisor Brigade,

The extra 4,000 troops, expected to deploy in June, are to fill that gap. In a sign of the new importance the administration is placing on the mission, a brigade of the U.S. Army's vaunted 82nd Airborne Division is being broken up into 10 to 14 member advisory teams, the Pentagon official said. Until now, the military has relied heavily on inexperienced National Guardsmen to fill out the teams.

Does anyone know what the makeup of these 10-14 man teams will be? I'm guessing it will be more pairings at the company level, with a couple BN or BDE teams following the MiTT / ETT model, but that's just a guess.

The assignment also represents a major cultural shift for the service. Most rising Amy officers have gone out of their way to avoid advisory duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, preferring assignments with more traditional combat brigades and battalions. Advisory team jobs have been widely seen as career killers.

If an entire BDE is being tasked, I don't see everyone volunteering, and if officers, nco's, and Soldiers will be on these teams, so I don't see the relevance to just officers. I also knew senior NCO's that wanted nothing to do with MiTTs (and a few who were tasked, and are doing their duty honorably). If a company commander or 1SG lose their companies to advisor duty, I don't think they'll be relieved and excited, but I could be wrong.

I think putting people who know and work together is a better option than individual augmentees, but again, unless these teams have selection criteria, the wrong people could end up in the wrong places. Also, how many of the BDE will be advising, and how many will be in support on FOBs?

This is going to be the test run for the Iraq Advisor Brigades, but I hope they're not just throwing a BDE into this with little warning and train-up, which is basically the augmentee method.

Personal note: I "volunteered" for an Iraq Border Transition Team out of my CCC, expecting to leave late this year, but a medical issue has popped up that may pull me out of the fight for a while (or long while). Hoping it will clear up, but the doctor actually knows what he is talking about, whereas I just want to get out of TRADOC and back in the fight.

[ODB]

The company formerly known as Blackwater....

Overseas Contingency Operations formerly known as the GWOT....

Advisor Brigades formerly known as Brigade Combat Teams....

Man made disasters formerly known as acts of terrorism....

Anyone else see the pattern?

LINK

A spokesman for Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, Lt. Col. Patrick S. Ryder, told IPS Tuesday that "several advisory and assistance brigades" would be part of a U.S. command in Iraq that will be "re-designated" as a "transition force headquarters" after August 2010.

But the "advisory and assistance brigades" to remain in Iraq after that date will in fact be the same as BCTs, except for the addition of a few dozen officers who would carry out the advice and assistance missions, according to military officials involved in the planning process.

Gates has hinted that the withdrawal of combat brigades will be accomplished through an administrative sleight of hand rather than by actually withdrawing all the combat brigade teams. Appearing on Meet the Press Mar. 1, Gates said the "transition force" would have "a very different kind of mission", and that the units remaining in Iraq "will be characterised differently".

"They will be called advisory and assistance brigades," said Gates. "They won't be called combat brigades."

[Ken White]

I've heard that the Army's preference for the Advisory mission is to take a Bn or BCT, give it some added Specialists and a mission specific trainup and send it forth for a year to do great things. That, IMO, is a very good fix with both training (for the Bn/BCT and the assisted nation or force) and minimal disruption of the total force values. A key factor will be the quality of the trainup (and the first one is bound to be poor in comparison to later editions),

However, I've also heard the new crowd at DoD doesn't like that idea and is inclined to opt for dedicated Advisors. That's really dumb IMO. It will not be popular (which is machts nichts) and it will be disruptive and will result in persons not current going to train others -- so we'll probably do that...

So maybe this thread reports an effort to give it a try and see how well it works. On that basis, picking the 82d makes sense. ??? We'll see, I guess...

[Uboat509]

I was driving back to Carson from Bragg this morning and Gareth Porter was on the radio discussing this issue. The man is a hack who gives other hacks a bad name. He was on some "peace" show. I initially thought that I was listening to NPR but apparently it was a far left leaning station. He talked about how the the military was going rename some of the BCTs to Advisor BDEs and add a few dedicated advisers and then leave them in Iraq. He framed it conspiratorily as if the Obama administration was breaking it's pledge to have all combat troops out of Iraq in 18 months (the exact phrase he used was "political sleight of hand"). He then bemoaned the fact that no one else in the MSM had picked up on this. The host of the show then played a quote from the SECDEF where he announces this exact thing at a press conference. The SECDEF, of course, makes the point that the BDE will have a completely different mission, a fact lost on Porter. Porter tried cover by mumbling some nonsense about how the SECDEF was "giving a hint" to what was going to happen. I would have called it an explicit statement but Porter prefers hint, Tomato Tomahto I guess.

How does this guy have a press pass? As far as I can tell he is a tin foil hat and a copy of A Catcher in the Rye away from his own blog on the Daily Kos.

SFC W

[jkm_101_fso]

Just got orders to 1/1 ID at Riley; report in the fall. 1/1 apparently has been identified as an Advise and Assist Brigade after they hand off the TT mission to Polk on 1 SEP. A few questions for anyone that may know:

Is the MTOE different for an AAB? If so, how?

Will AABs be "dual mission", with the AAB portion as an "additional mission" or will the AAB mission be the primary (only) effort of the unit?

When an AAB deploys, would they take their equipment (Tanks, Brads, Paladins, etc)?

Not sure if anyone has heard, but any information would be appreciated.

-Jake