When my infantry battalion got orders for Iraq in the summer of 2006. Our unit went through pre-deployment training and deployed in November. The one thing I really paid attention to during pre-deployment training was the culture and language phase in training and had some evolutions to incorporate the culture awareness and language with role players who were of Arabic or actual Iraqis from Iraq. As an E-6 Staff Sergeant at that time. I would be with the Iraqi population with my infantry squad and platoon in the middle of it. My first experience in combat being around a hostile population was Panama in 1989-90. At that time I was just a Team Leader in an Airborne Battalion stationed in Panama before the invasion. The difference was the culture. At least I knew and got know how Panamanian culture was before combat. Central America had numerous civil wars and military coups. The US Military was lucky because we have a huge Hispanic segment that speak the Spanish language and know the culture. Iraq we went in blind. None of us have experienced Middle Eastern culture. None of us spoke Arabic other than phrase books. When my unit finally got on the ground and operating in Iraq doing patrols, convoy escorts, and combat operations. Our platoons had Iraqi interpreters to help us with the language barrier. I saw a potential problem with Iraqi interpreters because all of them would wear masks and scarves with sunglasses to protect their identities and have code names. Majority of them has had families and relatives killed by either of Saddam,s security apparatus or other elements like Al Queada, Taqfiri, and other Iraqi religious factions. I had a feeling that they came to be employed by the US Forces to use us to exact revenge upon their own enemies with their own hidden agendas. American troops in Vietnam had interpreters also. We had to protect these guys at all costs in combat because they were our only asset as far as the language barrier with the Iraqi population at hand. I have found the human side with the Iraqis also. I had to ingrain these observations to my soldiers who are very young who were puzzled about the environment they are in. And to my Platoon Leader with no combat experience and Platoon Sergeant who served in Desert Storm with limited combat experience. Arabs in Iraq are very different from Arabs in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world. Their accents and dialects are also different to include culture. Islam is their common religion but that is also different with different sects. The human side I found was trying to find a bond with the people and their children. First interaction has to be with showing friendliness to the children. I would hand out sweets from care packages and toys to include soccer balls. The kids really love you for soccer balls. The kids were always a good indication of problems. Never speak to the women directly. Have their husbands or relatives with them in your presence. Talk to the males first then you can question the female with your interpreters. Never use hand gestures like pointing your finger, use a "knife hand" with all fingers extended. Pointing is disrespectful. Being disrespectful and heavy handed can start combat. Being firm and to the point is respected by the Iraqis. Never start combat when on a presence patrol. Being kind to a village or town and gain your trust goes a long way than to have any of your guys go out in body bags or wounded. That includes myself. Many instances where the kids will warn us of IEDs either as a ploy or just genuine goodness out of their hearts. We will never know. A good day in Iraq is none of your guys are dead. That includes combat when it does happen. Even in combat when you help the people caught in the cross fire and also treating their wounded. That village or town will never forget if you help them and protect them. Hopefully they will turn on the people oppressing them and help us instead. Good will does help with other human beings. Yes there were bad American units too who are aggressive and heavy handed. They paid for it with unnecessary combat and IED attacks.
Amos A. Fries was the head of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War I. He had a pathological hatred of flamethrowers, to the extent that he fabricated a demented history of them in his book Chemical Warfare (1921). Because of Fries, the US military had no effective flamethrowers when World War II started. It took years to develop the successful M2 portable, but we had no instructors. The middle-aged civilian technicians and salesmen had to go to the Pacific as instructors, and some actually engaged in combat missions. Rigidity of thought has plagued our armed forces forever.
Fascinating. So this ISIL world we are dealing with is a failure of cultural geographical understanding of the people and excluding the Ba'ath party? And our inability to seal the deal and focus on the Al-qaeda enemy and Saudi funded efforts due to support of occupation? Did we just want to keep the area destabilized or was this just a fuck up? Did colonialism just set up this situation up hundreds of years ago? Was this just all for natural resource control? Why do we hate nationalism so much? I don't quite understand enough of this enough but listening to higher military officers discuss these topics is helping me understand a lot. I understand how nationalism can be so bad for minority groups in and around areas of nationalistic control, same with our anti communist war efforts in retrospect on the gulag archipelago... I just wish we had a better plan for the aftermath or competing without military intervention. I just hope our future military infrastructure will be open to innovation without a almost dictatorial upper level top down driven strategy. I understand how hard that can be with how our military is structured, so I guess teaching open mindedness and not punishing for open discussion in future operations? This is so far outside my understanding. Is a completely shia or sunni dominant country more open to democracy if we redraw borders?
In 1967 I was a new Combat Marine on Hill 10 South Quang Nam Province. An Army helicopter landed. The pilot was lost looking for an Army base. Inside the copter platform was a big box covered with clear plastic. Inside was a huge birthday cake for Captain Robb from President Johnson to his son in law. This was very pathetic. Later I learned that even the Army top command was over the top Marine command. So that is why we lost the war. Had the Marine Corps been independent we would have won the war by 1970.
If there's anything that study should have revealed is that you should never debase yourself to that kind of primitive level of fighting. Use your superiority, throw humanity out the window, carpet bomb the bastards until there's nothing but sand and ash. Deal a blow so hard they won't get up from it, not bleed yourself dry via a thousand injuries.
![เป็นไปได้ไหม - WanMai [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_6lZ6b3_7Vo/mqdefault.jpg)
When my infantry battalion got orders for Iraq in the summer of 2006. Our unit went through pre-deployment training and deployed in November. The one thing I really paid attention to during pre-deployment training was the culture and language phase in training and had some evolutions to incorporate the culture awareness and language with role players who were of Arabic or actual Iraqis from Iraq. As an E-6 Staff Sergeant at that time. I would be with the Iraqi population with my infantry squad and platoon in the middle of it. My first experience in combat being around a hostile population was Panama in 1989-90. At that time I was just a Team Leader in an Airborne Battalion stationed in Panama before the invasion. The difference was the culture. At least I knew and got know how Panamanian culture was before combat. Central America had numerous civil wars and military coups. The US Military was lucky because we have a huge Hispanic segment that speak the Spanish language and know the culture. Iraq we went in blind. None of us have experienced Middle Eastern culture. None of us spoke Arabic other than phrase books. When my unit finally got on the ground and operating in Iraq doing patrols, convoy escorts, and combat operations. Our platoons had Iraqi interpreters to help us with the language barrier. I saw a potential problem with Iraqi interpreters because all of them would wear masks and scarves with sunglasses to protect their identities and have code names. Majority of them has had families and relatives killed by either of Saddam,s security apparatus or other elements like Al Queada, Taqfiri, and other Iraqi religious factions. I had a feeling that they came to be employed by the US Forces to use us to exact revenge upon their own enemies with their own hidden agendas. American troops in Vietnam had interpreters also. We had to protect these guys at all costs in combat because they were our only asset as far as the language barrier with the Iraqi population at hand. I have found the human side with the Iraqis also. I had to ingrain these observations to my soldiers who are very young who were puzzled about the environment they are in. And to my Platoon Leader with no combat experience and Platoon Sergeant who served in Desert Storm with limited combat experience. Arabs in Iraq are very different from Arabs in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world. Their accents and dialects are also different to include culture. Islam is their common religion but that is also different with different sects. The human side I found was trying to find a bond with the people and their children. First interaction has to be with showing friendliness to the children. I would hand out sweets from care packages and toys to include soccer balls. The kids really love you for soccer balls. The kids were always a good indication of problems. Never speak to the women directly. Have their husbands or relatives with them in your presence. Talk to the males first then you can question the female with your interpreters. Never use hand gestures like pointing your finger, use a "knife hand" with all fingers extended. Pointing is disrespectful. Being disrespectful and heavy handed can start combat. Being firm and to the point is respected by the Iraqis. Never start combat when on a presence patrol. Being kind to a village or town and gain your trust goes a long way than to have any of your guys go out in body bags or wounded. That includes myself. Many instances where the kids will warn us of IEDs either as a ploy or just genuine goodness out of their hearts. We will never know. A good day in Iraq is none of your guys are dead. That includes combat when it does happen. Even in combat when you help the people caught in the cross fire and also treating their wounded. That village or town will never forget if you help them and protect them. Hopefully they will turn on the people oppressing them and help us instead. Good will does help with other human beings. Yes there were bad American units too who are aggressive and heavy handed. They paid for it with unnecessary combat and IED attacks.
reddevilparatrooper 2006 was the worst time to be in Iraq...IEDs against civilians almost every day..a very bloody time to be there.
Thanks for this channel and making these lectures public. Extremely fascinating.
Amos A. Fries was the head of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War I. He had a pathological hatred of flamethrowers, to the extent that he fabricated a demented history of them in his book Chemical Warfare (1921). Because of Fries, the US military had no effective flamethrowers when World War II started. It took years to develop the successful M2 portable, but we had no instructors. The middle-aged civilian technicians and salesmen had to go to the Pacific as instructors, and some actually engaged in combat missions. Rigidity of thought has plagued our armed forces forever.
Rigidity of though and trust of specialists.
The volume is very low and muffled.
Politicians decide wars and there could be no performance improvement by soldiers without Politicians involvement.
Fascinating. So this ISIL world we are dealing with is a failure of cultural geographical understanding of the people and excluding the Ba'ath party? And our inability to seal the deal and focus on the Al-qaeda enemy and Saudi funded efforts due to support of occupation? Did we just want to keep the area destabilized or was this just a fuck up? Did colonialism just set up this situation up hundreds of years ago? Was this just all for natural resource control?
Why do we hate nationalism so much? I don't quite understand enough of this enough but listening to higher military officers discuss these topics is helping me understand a lot. I understand how nationalism can be so bad for minority groups in and around areas of nationalistic control, same with our anti communist war efforts in retrospect on the gulag archipelago... I just wish we had a better plan for the aftermath or competing without military intervention.
I just hope our future military infrastructure will be open to innovation without a almost dictatorial upper level top down driven strategy. I understand how hard that can be with how our military is structured, so I guess teaching open mindedness and not punishing for open discussion in future operations? This is so far outside my understanding.
Is a completely shia or sunni dominant country more open to democracy if we redraw borders?
Good questions
In 1967 I was a new Combat Marine on Hill 10 South Quang Nam Province. An Army helicopter landed. The pilot was lost looking for an Army base. Inside the copter platform was a big box covered with clear plastic. Inside was a huge birthday cake for Captain Robb from President Johnson to his son in law. This was very pathetic. Later I learned that even the Army top command was over the top Marine command. So that is why we lost the war. Had the Marine Corps been independent we would have won the war by 1970.
You weren't ment to win the war. You never were, it was a funding scheme.
Iraqi special operation forces are the best ....
I thought the lesson learned from Iraq war should be NOT TO INVADE A COUNTRY BECAUSE OF IT'S OIL RESERVES...
If there's anything that study should have revealed is that you should never debase yourself to that kind of primitive level of fighting. Use your superiority, throw humanity out the window, carpet bomb the bastards until there's nothing but sand and ash. Deal a blow so hard they won't get up from it, not bleed yourself dry via a thousand injuries.
Cuz this strategy really did help u a lot to win the war in Vietnam & Afghanistan…!!