Quote Originally Posted by Schmedlap View Post
There is a dual dynamic. Some units do not care to pass along lessons. Some do not care to learn. It sucks when both occur simultaneously. I have never seen in instance where the incoming unit is ready to learn and the outgoing unit is ready to teach.

On my 2nd tour to Iraq, my counterpart in the outgoing unit seemed more interested in getting the hell out of Iraq than on passing anything along. His commander required him to create a continuity book, but it was lacking and he did not have many answers about those areas where it lacked. On my 3rd tour, it was even worse. My counterpart acted as though I was an inconvenience and a distraction whenever I asked him about something. Had I not hunted him down everyday, I doubt that we even would have spoken. As it turned out, he did not do all that much, so maybe he simply had no lessons to pass along.

After each occasion, having dealt with the BS of not having a good handoff, I decided that my replacement would not have a similarly crappy experience. Unfortunately, in both occasions, I had about 24 hours to do the handoff (so much for the one- to two-week RIP/TOA timeline). The guy at the trail end of my 2nd tour seemed pretty uninterested. The guy at the trail end of my 3rd tour had lots of questions and was geniunely interested, but he got there so late - I caught the last bird out with my battalion commander, so that I could do somewhat of a handoff, and it was clearly not enough. We had to email back and forth for another two weeks after I got back home (and throw in a week-long delay between leaving there and getting here).
The idea that a unit or its leaders could pass all the knowledge they've acquired in the last 12-15 months during a two-week RIP is a flawed concept from the get-go. I've been a part of two of them during my time in Iraq. The first in 2004 was an absolute debacle; the second in 2006 did allow much more time, but still not enough to relay all of the information I needed too, nor foster the relationships with the indigenous we should have. There are many ways to mitigate this, but as Schmedlap stated, getting everyone to participate whole-heartedly maybe critical. Here are a few ideas:
1. Big Army needs to identify what BCTs and BNs are going where in IZ MONTHS in advance, as much as possible, anyway. I understand the battlefield changes.
2. The incoming unit needs to send at least one ops staff (asst. S-3) guy and one LOG dude to IZ at least three months early. This will allow them to see what the current unit is doing and maintain some sort of continuity for the incoming unit (or change it). These guys can keep SIPR contact with their units back home to deliver briefs and share INTEL. They can also meet and greet local players that the BNs and BDEs are involved with on a daily basis. The incoming commander has the option of sending these guys home early from the tour, because their primary function will be to capture historical data from the outgoing unit.
3. Try to keep units habitually assigned to the same AO. We are not good at this. My old BCT has gone to three different AOs during their rotations. Why not at least try and keep some continuity, if possible? In general the Iraqi players don't change and they get to see a familiar face...as opposed to "divorcing" from Americans every year.
4. PDSS is a good program, but should probably happen a few times, not once. I realize this can be detrimental to the unit losing leaders for two weeks a time back home, but the payoff is worth it. It doesn't have to be the battalion commander or XO.

Just some ideas. RIP/TOA will never be a perfect system. It can't.