Prepping for Iraq. Just a little too late...

While fighting the Red Horde tooth and nail in the forests of Fort Benning, it is easy to forget the real fight happening just around the corner. Today was one of those days when it came home to roost, academically perhaps, but it was there nonetheless.

We started the day with a brisk 8-mile ruck march starting at 0400, although to be perfectly honest, even the rapid 15 minute mile pace seemed a breeze due to the weather. All of my previous rucking experiences have taken place in warmer weather. Much warmer weather. Late fall in Columbus, GA in the early morning hours does not qualify as warmer weather. Thus, I've discovered that my ideal rucking temperature is about 45 degrees F. It was certainly chilly starting out, but walking 15 minute miles is no stroll so you heat up nicely and by the end of eight miles everyone was steaming nicely (literally). That excellent start to the day was followed by a selection of three eclectic, yet apropos, classes.

The first class was about Afghanistan, its culture, and people. I've done some reading, historical and current, and read the news over the past years so I have a pretty solid grasp of the basics of the Afghan state. However, our instructor, a professor of cultural anthropology with years working in Afghanistan, painted a very detailed and very disturbing picture of the people and the fight in that far corner of the world. We received a general overview of the Afghan people, the various ethnic groups and conflicting regional loyalties, but we centered in on the Pushtu people in the region the American armed forces operate in. The almost frightening web of conflicting loyalties, blood feuds, infant mortality, and ignorance left many of the LTs with a feeling of foreboding that the instructor did little to dispel. Without getting any further into that, this class brought to the forefront an issue that many of us have noticed since the first week.

It all started with an innocent question during Week 1 of ABOLC when one of the 2LTs asked an NCO how a certain scenario he'd given from Iraq applied to the fighting in Afghanistan. The response was certainly surprising. He said, "Well, I don't know. I don't think any of the [roughly 30] NCOs or Officers in Hawk Troop have ever been to Afghanistan. I think SFC S------- over in Lightning Troop has been. I'll ask him." There it was. None of us are going to fight in Iraq. That fight is over for us. Those of us who are deploying are deploying to Afghanistan and that's all there is too it. But there's no one to tell us anything about it. I don't know how it happened and it certainly wasn't planned, but I had forgotten in the past months of Soviet mechanized formations and planning operations through Baghdad that none of that is likely to be of much help in a few months. Something to think about for all of us...

The last two classes were on convoy security operations, which is the lot that has fallen to many in the Armor community over the past years, and how to question locals and use interpreters. Both classes were intensely practical and correspondingly boring (I'm probably well on my way to seeing 10,000 PowerPoint slides during this course) but they reminded all of us of what our actual mission will be overseas despite the intensive classes and exercises in high intensity conflict that we've been immersed in these last three weeks. It's an uncertain world and an Army caught between two fights and two realities, and to be honest, it shows in our training. Time will tell if this is a bad thing or a good thing.