The US Army Learns from its Mistakes in Iraq (training of our troops for future conflicts)

SPIEGEL ONLINE ^ | December 18, 2006 | Ullrich Fichtner

[bobsunshine]

Weapons alone aren't enough to win a war -- you also need to dig wells and build schools. Lessons from the war in Iraq have caused nothing short of a cultural revolution in the United States Army. In Fort Leavenworth, leading officers are training troops for the wars of the future.

Fort Leavenworth, where America's armies of the future are being shaped, is a perfect optical illusion. The camp looks like an idyllic, small American city, where walnut trees provide shade for the verandas of old houses, the Stars and Stripes flutter in the wind from every gable and the gray fast-moving waters of the Missouri River are visible from the hills to the north. Bulky American-made cars are parked along quiet streets in a community complete with its very own Burger King restaurant, health club, shopping mall, golf course, baseball field, movie theater and church. But the aura of serenity is deceptive. Everything in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas revolves around war. The headquarters of the US Army's officer training program was long seen as a last stop for deserving soldiers en route to retirement. In the 20th century, anyone who was transferred to Leavenworth was no longer considered part of an active-duty unit. "Nowadays," says Army spokesman Stephen Boylan, a colonel with a moustache who served for several years in Germany, "everyone knows that the road to Baghdad leads directly through Leavenworth." The best way to fully understand Boylan's comment is to take a grueling tour of the 16 schools, institutes and colleges at the fort where about 2,000 young officers enroll each year for special training.

[bobsunshine]

Article explains the revised training and instruction our troops are going through at Leavenworth KS. "Generals and colonels talk about civility and networking. They encourage open-minded thinkers, critical minds in uniform, and they describe the officer of the future as a multitalented individual, as someone who can be a killer and write poetry. They constantly talk about respect for other cultures and about "culture teams" that could support the armed forces in the future, and they dabble in psychology and sociology."

[Howard Jarvis Admirer]

In other words, a British District Officer circa 1890 Imperial period. I'm afraid the supply of Lord Byron and Lawrence of Arabia types no longer exist - destroyed by feminism and public schools.

[2banana]

The best way to fully understand Boylan's comment is to take a grueling tour of the 16 schools

Oh please...you want a "grueling tour" of army schools? Try Ranger School at Ft Benning or Special Forces School at Ft Bragg (really Camp McCall)...

[GSlob]

Well, if they dabble in Huntingtonian sociology, then not everything has been lost yet.

[jazusamo]

Ping

[dangus]

I always thought that "veterans" like Gore, Kerry and Murtha belonged in Leavenworth...

[RedRover]

Thanks for the ping, jaz.

[Steve0113]

...one is left with the conclusion that perhaps the US military is no longer interested in this Iraq war, at least not the kind of war it has been conducting and is now losing day after day.

It was well written up to this point.

[NicknamedBob]

"... the officer of the future as a multitalented individual, as someone who can be a killer and write poetry."

The main reason the U.S. Army was so formidable in World War Two was because the typical American infantryman was not just a mindless automaton.

When confronted with problems, they improvised solutions. And those improvisations spread because they were useful.

War today is not a matter of conquest, but of changing ways of thinking, both for us and for our enemies.