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.