Mac's Marauders hits the books

Interesting day. Today we learned about Counterinsurgency. I have had a lot of it before, but the instruction was actually pretty good. It was taught by an Iraqi guy and his insight was invaluable. There was a lot of discussion as to which phase of an insurgency we are in (there are three: Latent and incipient, or recruiting, guerilla tactics, and all out war). I think we have kind of bounced back and forthe between one and two, and it's different all over the country. They usually lose the third phase, as they did in Karbalah and Fallujah II (November 2006), but it is easy for them to revert to Phase I or II, so says Chairman Mao.

Too bad we didn't get this stuff back in 2004.

We talked a little bit about Information Operations (IO). IO is sort of like marketing-- the things you do to get your point across or to sell your product. We aren't very good at this, and the bad guys are really good at it. We are particularly bad at it with the Transition Team assignment: We say that "MTT" (acronym for Military Transition Team, or 'MITT') is supposed to be the priority for the Army, as it has been identified as the strategy to get us out of Iraq by "getting the Iraqis to develop Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems." But we still don't take it seriously or weight it with command emphasis. Fort Riley is a temporary location for the training: All of the buildings are temporary, and if you ask a Brigade Commander in theater in Iraq, he will tell you he is the priority, because he is the "battlespace owner" and everyone in his back yard is just freeloading in his zone. So since it's his land he's free to try to win the war by killing his way out of the insurgency. You would have thought that by now we would have figured out that's impossible. Some have figured it out, but others, well, not so much. MTT leaders don't get the same quality of evaluations that others who serve in the Brigade-- Brigade Commanders save their "top blocks" for their own internal officers serving as operations officers or executive officers cuz "that's the way it was when they grew up." MTT is the priority, but next year we are going to move it to the Armpit of the Army at Fort Polk in Louisiana-- who the hell is going to volunteer to go to Polk to either train or sign up to be an instructor? Sometimes it seems like one step up and two back. Not much I can do about it other than go to Iraq and be a MTT.

My apologies for being more skeptical than optimistic.

On a much more positive note, the longer you stay in the Army, the more folks you run into. Today it was First Sergeant (1SG) Scott Hess, one of my former HHT First Sergeants. It was good to see him.

Somebody asked me about the barracks.... I'll try to get a picture up later.

The fellas are doing well so far. The last guy is inprocessing this week. Then we'll be off and running.

Tomorrow: A little Crossfit, more counterinsurgency, and a meeting with some Iraqi guys. Good stuff.

Take care.
Ron