Day 2: Training turns into ‘hurry up and wait’

‘The long, slow burn’
The first few weeks at Fort Bragg were packed with training: a civil affairs qualification course, followed by five days of field exercises to confirm that the officers knew how to execute civil affairs missions.

For those bound for Iraq, that would mean traveling dangerous streets and trying to help local Iraqi officials get utilities and other basic infrastructure up and running again. It would be a tall order for people with little or no experience with Arab culture or city planning. They wanted to do a good job, though, and they tackled the civil affairs course with diligence.

Rather than live in Fort Bragg’s barracks for five months, Deierlein and another officer rented a small apartment near the Army post. He relished the 10-day break he was given over Christmas and New Year’s. He traveled to Atlanta to see his wife, Hiwot, who had recently landed a job there as a pilot intern.

After Christmas break, the pace slowed dramatically for the officers. For weeks on end, they said, they were essentially left on their own, with no training scheduled.

“For probably four months of that six months of training we just sat on our thumbs,” Billeter recalled. “Some thought maybe they made a mistake and called us up too early. My wife called it ‘the long, slow burn’ — just sitting around waiting to go to Iraq.  …

“I don’t want to sound too bitter, but it really seemed like they didn’t have a plan for us, like we were a pretty low priority. Once I got over there (to Iraq), I had a million things to learn. It took me months to learn what I needed to know to be effective. Those months at Bragg could have been spent learning a lot of that.”

‘We trained ourselves’
Capt. Drew Corbin, 32, a firefighter from Austin, Texas, said the officers would talk among themselves and try to think up exercises that might prove useful in Iraq.

“We trained ourselves,” Corbin said. “We had to develop classes ourselves. We went down to the motor pool and we all signed up to get our Humvee licenses. Then we started to do some basic weapons skills that we had to do ourselves. … We all became medically qualified as combat lifesavers. It was all planned and coordinated by ourselves.”

Tina Beller, a spokeswoman for the Army’s Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, said the soldiers couldn’t have pursued such instruction in an individualized way.

“The tasks they said they had to go find on their own and do on their own — that’s impossible,” Beller said. “Those tasks are mandatory. The Army has to provide that instruction to you, with an instructor. …

“Why would we not want to give them that training? That saves their lives.”

The soldiers in Deierlein’s class agreed that instructors helped them complete many of their qualifications. But they said they had to do plenty of networking to find that instruction.

“Yes, we did have instructors, but that’s because we begged, borrowed and stole to get ‘em,” Corbin recalled. “We’d go to an infantry unit and say, ‘We’re stuck. We’re kind of rusty. Can we borrow your weapons for a day? Can you please help us out?’ And then we’d get the training that way.”

Billeter said he was grateful that other Army units came through for them when they asked for help. “The Civil Affairs Command can’t take any credit for the training we found,” he said. “From my perspective, they just flat failed us.”

Learning about roadside bombs
For most of the soldiers, it was a struggle to make the time go by quickly enough. Some read books about Iraq. Others played paintball.

Courtesy of Tom Deierlein Tom Deierlein had this photo taken when he applied for a promotion from captain to major.

Deierlein filled his time by working out at the gym for an hour and a half each day, practicing his shooting, studying Arabic using Rosetta Stone CDs and racking up as many qualifications as he could. He also applied for a promotion from captain to major — a time-consuming process that required him to cram to meet educational requirements in areas such as “military operations other than war,” “leadership,” “tactical doctrine” and “introduction to the law of war.”

He and the other officers also soaked up as much information as possible about roadside bombs, suicide bombers, sniper attacks and other realities of urban warfare.

“I try not to worry about those things,” Deierlein wrote in an e-mail message home. “Mainly I try to get excited about what will definitely be an exciting, challenging and personally rewarding experience. …

“The reality is this is a very dangerous job since we go out each and every day and work with the locals in fairly small teams. Of the 50 of us, about five will get injured and, according to the colonel, one or two will not make it home.”

MORE FROM CHARITY BEGINS AT WAR

Charity Begins at War Section Front

Part 1: From executive suite to Baghdad Journal: Called back to active duty — ‘No joke’ Day 2: Minimal training for a huge task Journal: Readying for ‘very dangerous job’ Part 3: Venturing ‘outside the wire’ Journal: ‘ThunderCat6’ arrives in Baghdad Part 4: It all comes back to garbage Journal: Goodbye Baghdad; hello bed rest Part 5: Charitable spirit survives Journal: A new foundation Charity Begins at War Section Front   Add Charity Begins at War headlines to your news reader: