Quote:
Originally Posted by Brush Okie
The problem is not all soldiers are suited to this type of interaction. While it looks good on paper in reality it does not work. They have known this since WWII and that is why the created the OSS and later SF and other types of SOF forces. The standard military is very black and white mentality and many very good soldiers have a hard time with grey areas. SOF soldiers excel in working in the gray areas where the average infantry officer may or may not get it.
|
Shack.
From the perspective of a minimally trained Air Advisor to the IqAF, we would have made better progress if more of the team had an SF mindset. As it was, the size of the mission greatly exceeded AFSOC's personnel numbers so it was handed to the conventional side; half of our team were non-vols, and of the half that volunteered maybe a quarter "got it." This made functioning in the gray zone very difficult and slow.
Please note this isn't an indictment against anyone serving as an Air Advisor on a MiTT or the CAFTT as training consisted of a couple months a Camp Bullis, far short of anything resembling an SF pipeline, and was inadequate to give any semblance of language proficiency. Nearly everyone gave it their best shot, but those best efforts were based on the experiences and training each person brought with them and varied widely.