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Tom:
Right. CERP is for emergencies---I always think of it as the necessary emergency relief services we otherwise had no format for.
MBJ:
Most of it is grain of salt stuff. Somebody thought they were doing good, and wrote glowing reports afterwards---ask an Iraqi, and their views might have been very different, or, as custis's example---somebody's at a PRT's "big idea" for their weekly sitrep.
I was actually more intrigued by your reference to military going around africa, etc., doing non-military things. Bear in mind that our USACE does bridges, dams, hydropower, emergency relief.
A friend just "dodged a bullet" on a tumor, finally ruled non-malignant by the highest authority for cancer cells---Army Pathology Lab.
As a senior DoS advisor in N. Iraq, I came only with a DoS laptop---not a toughbook, no GIS, etc... just report-writing software.
The folks I worked with who were doing the heavy lifting were the mil folks with the D9 Earth Movers, mobility, and security. They made it happen, I advised.
Interestingly, when we were pushing the Mabe Johnson temporary bridges across the Tigris, the company's guy pointed out that Iraq, and arab counties in general were always his biggest customers---mostly through their military Corps of Engineers-equivalents.
Before 2003, Taji was the home of the Iraqi CoE, and they stockpiled all the bridges there. After a flood or an Iranian bombing, they could re-open a bridge in three days (or so I am told).
There is a lot that a military civil engineering, big project, and emergency relief-side almost universally does, and does well---all over the World.
But they are very different missions, approaches. My tank company always travelled with an M88 and mechanics. Their job was not the same as a tank crew's, but they were all interdependent. What's new?
Steve
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