Posted on 03/02/2005 5:02:43 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Ramin Ahmed is a 21-year-old Afghan-American who sells mortgages in California.
But for the past six days he has played the part of a warlord as he helps prepare 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers for a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.
More than 3,000 paratroopers from the 82nd's 1st Brigade Combat Team will deploy to Afghanistan in the spring. The soldiers are in the midst of a nine-day exercise that is the largest and most intense training held on post since Sept. 11, 2001.
Soldiers have converted Fort Bragg's training areas into a simulation of Afghanistan called ''Braggistan." More than 100 role-players such as Ahmed have been hired to play everything from farmers to village elders.
In the script, Ahmed is the local warlord in the village of Daybad. He took up arms and helped overthrow the Taliban after they killed his family.
Except for his youthful appearance, Ahmed looks the part of a warlord.
He has dark whiskers and a goatee that covers his chin. He wears green camouflage pants and a woolen pakool hat made famous by the Mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. A dark green scarf that his father bought in Afghanistan hangs around his neck.
Ahmed's family is from Herat, a city in western Afghanistan. They left in the 1980s when the Russians invaded. His parents spoke Farsi and Dari to him as a child. He now speaks both languages, plus English, fluently.
He likes playing a warlord, and the soldiers say he is not doing a bad job, especially since he has never been to Afghanistan.
''It's just walking around and looking mean," said Ahmed, who was born in California.
Team Goldbelt Eagle and Bionetics trains the role-players. The companies have provided Afghans and Iraqis for exercises all over the country. The role-players are paid more than $20 an hour.
Many are veterans of several exercises. The role-players are recruited by word of mouth. Ahmed's father took part in an exercise last year but could not come to Fort Bragg because of health problems. Ahmed stepped in for him.
''You can break 100 (role- players) into 12 groups who are related to each other or are good friends," said John Ban, the Bionetics director of operations.
Some speak perfect English, while others can barely speak a word. Abdul Rahaman Fakirzada speaks broken English and relies on an interpreter to communicate with the soldiers.
Fakirzada, a skinny Afghan with a thin mustache, is playing Daybad's police chief. He was a government official in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over. When not participating in training events, he works in an auto body shop in Atlanta. He is 39.
When the Taliban rose to power, Fakirzada and his family fled to Pakistan. He has three children. His 17-year-old daughter is still in Afghanistan. A U.N. agency helped him get U.S. visas, and Fakirzada arrived in the United States in September 2002.
Fakirzada feels bad about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and wants to give back to his adopted country, he said through an interpreter. ''American soldiers are trying to help Afghans and make peace," he said.
Iraqi role-player
Not all of the role-players are from Afghanistan. Harrth Sulaiman is from Basra, Iraq. He is playing a farmer while at Braggistan.
Sulaiman was in the Iraqi army for six years and fought with the Republican Guard during the Gulf War. He moved to the United States five years ago. He wanted to join the military before the invasion of Iraq, but he was over the age limit, he said. Sulaiman is 36.
He found the role-playing job on the Internet soon after the invasion and was hired.
Paratroopers from Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment spent Monday and Tuesday in Daybad. The village was made out of tan shipping containers stacked and cut to look like an Afghan village. Dogs roamed freely, and a pen with three goats and a few chickens sat in one corner of the village to add realism. Trash blew across the center of town or was ground into the mud.
The exercise has been rough on the paratroopers.
Daybad villagers threw mock rocks at the soldiers Monday after the paratroopers made several cultural errors, such as making the town elder and mullah, the town's religious leader, walk to the Army camp - a sign of disrespect. They also failed to protect an informant who told the soldiers about an arms cache.
The villagers, made up of role-players and soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 504th, taped balls of paper and duct tape to look like rocks. The rocks surprised the paratroopers at first, but they eventually regained control.
Trash talk
On Tuesday, the paratroopers had a meeting scheduled with the village's mayor. They hoped to get the villagers to pick up trash around their houses. Ahmed translated for the soldiers as they negotiated with Fakirzada. The mayor was not in the village at the time.
After more than a half hour of talks, Fakirzada told the soldiers that they would have to wait for the mayor. The soldiers seemed dejected, but Lt. Col. Robert Broussard said the situation was realistic. The role-players are an essential part of teaching the paratroopers the do's and don'ts in Afghanistan.
''It's critical because we try and make this as real as possible," Broussard said. He is grading the Civil Affairs soldiers. Broussard is assigned to the 321st Civil Affairs Brigade based in San Antonio.
Although the training has been frustrating at times, it has been valuable.
''It adds a lot of realism. It replicates the complications of speaking to them," said 1st Sgt. Wayne Phillips.
All of the paratroopers agree that it is better to make mistakes during practice. Phillips said the soldiers have to get used to everything from the language to the culture. During downtime between missions, the paratroopers pump the role-players for helpful phrases and cultural taboos.
The role-players are happy to help. Sulaiman said that if a soldier picks up just a little of the culture or a few words of Arabic or Pashto, then he is a success.
Staff writer Kevin Maurer can be reached at maurerk@fayettevillenc.com or 486-3587.
CN 18F you can explain Robin Sage better than I can. :-)
I hope they are ramping up to provide Iranians and Syrians next.
Iran could collapse into civil war at any time, and if Assad is pushed out of The Lebanon it will be seen as weakness and there is bound to be a coup. Both countries will need to be 'stabilized'.
SO9
Clever. That's why we're winning, because we take the time to find out the best way to accomplish a goal.
This isn't Robin Sage, though it is somewhat similar.
The one is to test training, the other is a training vehicle to prepare the troops for what they'll incounter in country. The actual event is the test for the latter. Cav does essentially the same thing at Ft Hood.(Old and worn snake eater).
I was sorta hoping Martin Sheen, Tim Robbins, Alec Baldwin, etc. were playing targets in a combined live fire exercise.
After a few years you'll develop a sense of irony too. :-)
Archangelsk, spasibo za ping.
Snake -- where are you at in your journey, young man? I haven't been keeping track of ya. Hope all is OK.
There are other companies doing this kind of stuff too. I did some work for one that was doing bilateral negotiations training for key leaders, and I would give them (1) the cultural stuff the natives miss, (2) a spin up on who the players are now, and (3) how the whole US effort is structured, and where their unit would fit.
I structured my presentation on, "the stuff I wish I had known that instead surprized the living Jesus out of me."
Funny thing with Robin Sage, it has never been done (AFAIK) with foreign role players as the Gs. Usually they get a grizzled old crippled SF guy to be the G chief, and his troops are half-trained support troopies. (Now that the Army is giving support troopies some real combat training, I dunno where they are going to get the "green" guerillas).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Training Services
Bionetics offers our clients a full range of cost-effective instructional materials and training services. Our team of instructional designers has years of experience integrating Instructional System Design (ISD) methodologies with emerging presentation and training techniques.
One example of how Bionetics used these capabilities to support training requirements was a program with the United States Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC) in support of the Egyptian Army. Bionetics developed a Computer-Assisted Instructional (CAI) package to supplement the instructor-led training. The instructors implemented this CAI package at different stages of their instruction to reinforce the classroom training and provide remedial training when required. Each of the trainees received the set of CAI modules to take back to Egypt with them to serve as reference aids.
Recently, Bionetics began providing role-players in support of US Army National Guard pre-deployment training for engaging civilians on the battlefield. These services require Bionetics to maintain a pool of people who are fluent in the language of the country to which the Guard is being deployed. Bionetics provides the role-players, develops scenarios to meet a wide range of training objectives, coordinates all technical, schedule and logistics information, and helps the Guard ensure that their troops are as prepared as possible for their deployment.
All is great. Monday I take over my platoon!
Usually they get a grizzled old crippled SF guy to be the G chief, and his troops are half-trained support troopies.
Hey, hey, I was at least 75% trained! :-)
But those transpo and signal people...wow, I shudder to think what would happen to them in a real life-or-death situation...
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