First, thank you for all your comments. It has given me some new insight and things to think about. I now see I have started off wrong from the beginning. My idea of Nation Building in retrospect is actually State Building by definition. Let me address some of the questions that have been raised.

I understand that we currently rely on contractors to do most of what I propose the army start doing. Working with these contractors overseas I have found that the majority of them are in it for the money and don’t like to answer to people. My idea is having units of civilians with critical skills that want to serve our country. They would not be subjected to basic training or advanced training like regular military members. They can practice as teams and be inserted together into towns and cities immediately once the city is secured by combat troops. You could have a units that specialize in electrical, sanitation, education, legal and police. When they come in to set up the basics they can be paired with a shadow from the population to teach and foster goodwill immediately.

The reason I come up with the idea was talking with guard members currently serving. I spoke with several members that are members of an artillery unit. Three of them were line men for the local power company. All three didn’t particularly care to be in artillery they just wanted to serve. Two of the three said they would jump at the chance to be in a unit that dealt with their electrical skills and be able to serve. The third said he would have to see how it worked. He also told me that he thought he was going to be an engineer and use his skills but found out they rarely do anything outside of blowing up obstacles. So he joined the local artillery unit with his friends.

I became more interested in this subject and visited members of the local Military Police guard unit. I was told that 12 people of this unit were actual law enforcement officers. I spoke with two of them and they both were interested in my idea especially if the pay was higher and they got to exclusively work their law enforcement skills. These examples got me thinking how many other people are in the guard with skills needed for state building that are in units with friends or doing something just to serve. If these people could be harnessed into units I think we could be ahead with local populations. When my unit went into Iraq the people were happy for the most part and only wanted our help. Unfortunately, we had no experts to rely on. One of the lieutenants was put in charge of the getting locals together for sanitation jobs. Needless to say he tried hard but going from Infantry to sanitation was a challenge. If we could have called in a unit with those skills right away from Kuwait I think Iraq would be a different place today. An alternate purpose for the units could be to go into cities like New Orleans or Greensburg and do the same type of work immediately.

I know there are short comings to this idea. I think these units would have to be guard units at first. Pay scale would have to be dealt with. I don’t think basic and advanced training is a problem because I have seen guard units today with members that attended that training 15 plus years ago and couldn’t tell you anything but their graduation dates. A possible answer for that would be some type of army indoctrination and cross cultural programs. I know that you could contract out this work but as it was pointed out that system is flawed. Maybe you could contract out after the units moved in and the contractors would be subjected to the unit’s supervision.

That is my line of thought at this point. I appreciate your comments and look forward to any ideas as well. Thank you.