FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 11, 2006
SR# 091106-144
by Pfc. Paul J. Harris
3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office
MUQDADIYA, Iraq (September 11, 2006) -- Noncommissioned officers furiously take notes on their booklets as these 3rd Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Iraqi Division Soldiers received a lesson from coalition forces on how to be better.
In dealing with the Iraqi Army on a consistent basis, Command Sgt. Major David List, command sergeant major, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, noticed the Iraqi NCOs were more of a go-between the officers and junior enlisted, instead of demonstrating a proactive authoritative position of their own.
As a result, List sat down with Col. Brian Jones’, commander, 3rd HBCT, interpreter over the course of two weeks and developed a nine-page manual in Arabic for Iraqi NCOs to reference during their training at the NCO Academy at Forward Operating Base Normandy.
“We did not want to make it a carbon copy of the American Army,” List said. “What I want to push forward to them is that they need to show that their officers can trust them with responsibility and leadership instead of taking charge of everything and going right around them.”
In his brief, List decided to hit upon three core fundamentals of NCO leadership.
“Duties, responsibilities and authority are three things a noncommissioned officer needs to know. Most of which was taking out of the NCO guide (Army Field Manual 22-7.7).”
At first the senior Iraqi NCOs were a bit resistant to the ideas List was suggesting. He said they would reply with the argument of, “We can’t do that because our weapons are not as good, we can’t do that because we have no medical supplies, we cannot do that because we cannot even wash our clothes.”
Coalition forces have been a supply link to the Iraqi Army while the centralized government was being established. Now that a government is in place the hard process of weaning the Iraqis off coalition support is starting to take place.
“One of the big issues with the Iraqi Army is that they have no confidence in their AK rifle,” List said. “They think the M-16 or the M-4 is the catch all to every single battle and that is not true. A guy trained well with an AK-47 can be as well trained with a guy with an M-4. They do not see that through leadership they see that through mechanics.”
Though the Iraqi Army has had its share of challenges, improvement has been seen since the Iron Brigade returned to Iraq in winter 2005. In the beginning the Iraqi Soldiers would wait to see what the coalition forces would do first before reacting, commented Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Montano, personal security detachment platoon sergeant and brigade master gunner, 3rd HBCT, 4th ID, who attended List’s brief.
He noticed just last week the NCOs are starting to maneuver and organize their Soldiers on their own. They had come into contact with a roadside bomb and the Iraqi Army spotted suspected insurgents fleeing from the site. Montano said they quickly organized themselves to enter the elephant grass to capture the insurgents with proper coverage of their gun truck and were able to assault the objective without coalition forces telling them to do so.
At the end of List’s briefing some of the Iraqi NCO’s approached him to say thank you. “We will do our very best to instill this into our Soldiers but if we cannot take care of our Soldiers then we cannot accomplish any mission,” an Iraqi Soldier said to List.
“For me, that was ‘they got it,’ they understand if the Soldier cannot take a shower when he comes off patrol, if he cannot clean his weapon, if cannot wash his clothes then they are not truly taking care of their Soldiers and that is the whole thing,” List said. “I am not trying to get them to sing Kumbayah but stick together.”
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