“These folks have the look, they speak the language and they know the mannerisms of Iraq’s people. You can instantly see the change in a Soldier’s face when there’s a real Iraqi standing in front of him yelling in Arabic,” said Joel Hokkanen of the Titan Corporation, which hires ethnic participants after performing extensive background checks on them.
By knowing and respecting the Iraqi culture, Soldiers can encourage townspeople to share information on insurgents’ activities, as well as the location of weapon caches.
“If they communicate with the locals — if they go into villages with water and medical aid — all of a sudden information starts to flow. But if a Soldier pulls into a town and says he’s not dealing with local officials and starts shoving people around, things will get bad real quick,” Cone said.
Born and raised in Iraq, “Sam” now portrays a town mayor in one of NTC’s “villages.” His memories of living under Saddam’s regime still fresh, Sam asked that his real name be withheld to protect the family he left behind when coming to America.
“I have to do something, because I don’t want Soldiers to sacrifice their lives in Iraq for nothing. The people there need our help,” he said.
When Soldiers undergo negotiations training, Sam urges them to provide tangible aid.
“When you enter a town and replace Soldiers who’ve been there before, don’t say, ‘We’re new here’ and start from the beginning. Ask what happened before you got there and then continue,” he tells Soldiers. “This is very important because the Iraqis need to see progress to believe you are helping them.”
Interpreters and instructors from the Defense Language Institute provide negotiations training to company-level commanders and above. But all Soldiers get a shot at negotiating with mayors, police chiefs and religious leaders during village patrols.
“The lowest-ranking Soldier may have to take charge,” said trainer SFC Bruce Barnes. “Everyone needs to know how to interface with the Iraqis without offending them.”
But trust, Soldiers discover, has limits.
“The Iraqis are really great people, but Soldiers still have to maintain their situational awareness at all times. Someone who looks and acts friendly may not be friendly at all,” said Hokkanen.
Training as a team fosters the trust Soldiers have in each other as they discover how their buddies react when bullets start to fly.
“We put 250 Iraqis and 600 role players out in the towns and let the Soldiers practice over and over again until their responses become second nature and they’re working well as a team,” said Bailey.
Change
Seeing NTC transform to resemble a regional portion of Iraq has hardened Hokkanen’s belief that the Army is doing right by the steps it takes to prepare Soldiers for war.
“This was the premier place to have tank battles back when I was a young troop. To return and see it’s still the premier place for training makes me feel a lot better about what we’re doing before sending these Soldiers over to Iraq,” he said.
Other than the boost in urban-operations training, the focus on cultural awareness may be NTC’s biggest change.
“The importance of culture has forever changed the face of training here,” said Cone. “Whoever our next enemy is, we need to have people from that cultural background here in sufficient numbers. You can teach cultural classes until you’re blue in the face, but the kind of interaction Soldiers get here with Iraqis makes their transition into country so much easier.”
Joint Readiness Training Center
Fort Polk, LA
With the sound of gunfire and explosions in the distance mingling with the call to prayer from a nearby “mosque,” the sight of people in gallabiyahs and burkahs mingling with Soldiers in full battle rattle, and the smell of goat meat being grilled on a spit mingling with the smell of cordite and dust, you could be forgiven for thinking that you are in a village in Iraq.
But this is not Iraq, this is not even a foreign country. This is the daily scene in the backwoods of the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.
“Here at JRTC attention to detail has always been the cornerstone of training,” said CSM Thomas R. Woodhams of JRTC’s operations group. He said that even before the global war on terrorism started, when the emphasis was more on conventional warfare than on safety and security operations, the scenarios were always carefully created. The villages and towns have always had the feel of the countries American forces were fighting in.
