Actual ground combat, according to those who have experienced it, is almost unbelievably shocking. A fighting force can train for months on end, but until the bullets start to fly both ways, the noise, confusion and fear that every man experiences his first time on the firing line cannot be replicated. And until that force has withstood the fire, and realized that the man on his left or right has stood there with him, until he has served on a line that refused to break, that force will never truly be dependable or effective.
In World War II the process of exposing the force to fire and its consequences was called “blooding the troops”:
“War is many things, but to those who fight it is above all a learning experience. Professional soldiers cannot practice their trade in peacetime and war games are at best a poor substitute for active combat. Many solders feel that they can learn or teach more in one week of combat than in months of training. The process was called “blooding” the troops. It sounded harsh, but the officers who used the phrase realized that until their men had been blooded they could not fight the Wehrmacht on equal terms.”
– Stephen Ambrose, “The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower”
The great mass of US and coalition troops will leave Iraq eventually. What fills the space they leave behind – a functioning, more or less secure and stable democratic country, a whirling maelstrom of violence or something in between – will depend greatly on the professionalism and competence of the Iraqi Army.
A force, it appears, that is now being blooded in Sadr City:
The Iraqi soldiers pushed their way up a main thoroughfare in Sadr City over the past week, but the militias that still prowl the Shiite enclave were sniping at them from the alleyways.
So a platoon of American troops drove up a bomb-cratered road in their Stryker vehicles on Thursday to give the Iraqis some pointers on how to hold the line.
After the ramps of the Strykers were lowered, Second Lt. Adam Bowen sought out his Iraqi counterpart at the battered storefront in the Thawra district that served as an Iraqi strongpoint.
And their AF is participating too! That portends well:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080410/NATION/191998786/1002/NATION
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Meanwhile, we will have a military that has more experience in desert and urban and anti-insurgent fighting (including non-combat strategies) than any other in the world.
Like the Chief used to say, “A little OJT never hurt anyone.”.
The bad news is that our military, especially the ground troops, are being stressed by combat ops. The good news, is that the US military is THE most experienced, most professional, and most importantly, the most deadly on the face of the earth.
And the real question mark in all this is that westerners just are different – we have hundreds of years of being molded into particular ways of thinking about the individuals relationship to the group, a sense of self and self-discipline, etc. that is very different from the cultures of the Middle East – and our military reflects our cultural assumptions and experiences. The test is going to see how much of a westernized culture the Iraqis have or have developed, especially in the crucible of insurgency and how that meshes with the western style military we are trying to mold among them.