I have a new hero... http://petaluma4change.blogspot.com/2009/03/watch-us-soldier-give-motivational-pep.html Wow. I'm glad he sugar-coated it for them. :lol: //Thanks Woody for the link! ETA: Updated link since YouTube pulled it.
I don't get Youtube at work. Just watched this. That is too funny. Well, maybe funny isn't the word, but that video was certainly very good. I hope the Iraqi's took it to heart.
Training the IA is definitely an uphill battle, both for cultural and other reasons. Probably the single biggets challenge my battalion faced was that at least 80% of their troops were 15-19 year old kids who before enlistment were probably dirt farmers and seemingly had no education. The Iraqi army came from the officer heavy British circa 1920's-30's and Soviet traditions, so they have no real history of or experience with an NCO corps. Unless an officer tells them to do something directly, it doesn't happen. A lot - if not most - of the officers received little training, were paid sporadically if at all and thus had tohold down a "day job" to feed their family, and had to pay many expenses for their unit out of their own pocket (example: an Iraqi BN maintenance maintenance officer - a lieutenant - had to pay for small repair parts since BDE would not release them to him; he also had to pay bribes at the depot in order to get maintenance packets accepted so they could turn in vehicles for major repairs like engine rebuilds). A lot of this comes from the culture of fear and corruption under the old regime, some is cultural, and some is just plain human stubbornness in not wanting to change the way "things have always been done". I was a logistics officer and we only did some training - my hat's off to the guys whose sole job is training the IA (and the Afghans, for whom most of the same challenges apply). Andy
