WP: Soldiers Record Lessons From Iraq

[huckleberry]

Unvarnished Tales Serve as Warning
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 8, 2004; Page A01

... As one of the biggest troop rotations in U.S. history gets underway in Iraq, with almost 250,000 soldiers coming or going, the seasoned units that are leaving are doing their best to pass on such hard-won knowledge to their successors, in e-mails, in essays, in PowerPoint presentations and rambling memoirs posted on Web sites or sent to rear detachments.

snip

That no-nonsense conveyance of small but crucial details permeates the commentaries, in which today's Army talks to itself in blunt, sometimes ugly language. There also is a life-and-death urgency to many of the commentaries. "There was too much crap I saw over there that guys just don't understand, and it meant soldiers' lives," Capt. John Wrann, a 4th Infantry Division engineer, writes in an essay that was posted on www.companycommand.com, which began as a private Web site by and for junior Army officers but is now sponsored by the Army and has semi-official status.

Although some of the commentaries argue that progress is being made, as a whole they tend to paint a harsher picture than the public statements of senior officials. In his advice to incoming troops, Capt. Ken Braeger, a company commander in the 4th Division, which is headquartered in Tikrit, in the middle of the Sunni Triangle, states that "what they have to understand is that most of the people here want us dead, they hate us and everything we stand for, and will take any opportunity to cause us harm."

In part because of unvarnished comments such as that, the documents are provoking controversy within the military. Some senior officers at the Pentagon argue that by bypassing the chain of command, the authors may violate security procedures and could tip off the insurgents in Iraq.

more at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22307-2004Feb7.html

[bluestateguy]

1. The next rotation could be draftees

Next time around they will have to draft men to keep this occupation going.