As I've noted in the past, we are now responsible for two Iraqi Army battalions: the one we were originally sent here to train, and a second battalion whose MiTT is currently in away helping with units elsewhere. The U.S. unit we work with is more concerned with the second battalion, because they work with them regularly, so they want us to spend more time trying to fix their problems. While that's understandable, we want to spend time with the battalion we're officially assigned to precisely because they are out on their own and have little other Coalition support. So we have to walk a thin line to help both units in order to keep everyone happy.

So Sunday morning we rolled to a nearby town where, we were told, the second battalion maintains its TAC, or forward headquarters. Upon arriving, we found a small garrison and not a single officer. We spoke with the senior NCO on the scene and he gave us a tour of the TAC, such as it was. That was useful, but without the unit's officers there wasn't much for us to work with, so we headed to the nearest company base to see if we could find anyone there.

We had more luck there, finding the company commander, so I chatted with him while my NCOIC spoke with the company first sergeant. As with all such discussions, we were both treated to a litany of problems they wanted fixed, all of which we duly noted before moving on to some of the issues we wanted them to address. I don't expect we made too big an impression with them immediately, but when we roll out there next week, we'll see if they at least made a few changes based on what we talked about.

When we returned to our FOB I headed down to the battalion HQ to see if anyone was there. It turned out the battalion XO was there, but he was sleeping. Iraqis nap in the afternoon, an understandable pastime given the intense heat of Iraq, but frustrating to us Americans who are used to working during the day. (Iraqis work much later into the evening than we do, which leads to really messed up sleep schedules for us US guys.) So we came back after he was done napping. He impressed me at once by noting that he had observed some of the same problems I had seen. We agree to set up a meeting with his commanders later that week to talk about those issues.

The next day we were on the road to another city, this one the home of one company of our battalion. We want to convince them to work with the ODA (Special Forces team) that lives at our FOB, so we spent several hours chatting about that, as well as (of course) the problems his company has and the help they'd like. Still, they also talked about wanting to take the offensive against the AIF in their AO, which is more than I've heard from any other Iraqi unit, so that was refreshing.

Tuesday morning I spent three hours with our other battalion talking with the XO and his commanders about what they need from us and what issues they are having. Most of the issues are well above their ability to fix, so I tried to keep their focus on the problems they can solve, like standards for their soldiers. It is rare for us to see an Iraqi soldier actually wearing both his body armor and his Kevlar helmet, for example, and that's the kind of thing good leaders can solve if they work at it. The open question, of course, is whether or not we can convince the Iraqis of this.

I'll discuss our longer trip in my next entry, as I have another task I need to perform at the moment.

READER COMMENTS

Major,
Thanks very much for the update. Your time spent writing the blog is appreciated. The Rocky does mention your blog in the newspaper but they kind of hide it on their web page. It took awhile for me to find it after the Rocky stopped featureing the blog on their home page.

I like reading your blogs, Major Andy. Very interesting reading. I am passing the site along to your cousins. Stay safe.

I'm interested in reading your blog. But please don't expect me to remember from one FOB or XO to the next. I'd appreciate it if you would use the words in each case. Thanks.