First brigade, back in Iraq, built template for future ops

By David VergunMay 26, 2015

First brigade, back in Iraq, built template for future ops
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First brigade, back in Iraq, built template for future ops
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Sgt. 1st Class Matt Miller, an armor trainer with C Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, explains through an interpreter the fundamentals of bore-sighting the main gun on an M1 tank to a... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 22, 2015) -- It is not supposed to be easy, said a brigade commander, who returned two months ago from Iraq. The "Army Operating Concept," or AOC, even says so in the latter part of its title: "Win in a Complex World."

Describing how it is done was 1st Infantry Division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, or 1st ABCT, commander, Col. John Reynolds III. He spoke during a media roundtable at the Pentagon, May 21.

His Fort Riley, Kansas-based brigade deployed to Kuwait and then Iraq, last summer, following Daesh's sweep across the western Iraqi desert, threatening a large swath of central and eastern Iraq, and even Baghdad itself.

Daesh is the name Reynolds, other Soldiers and Iraqis themselves use for their enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Reynolds described the complex mission from planning to execution.

PHASE 0

The planning phase started about a year before the Iraq deployment, Reynolds said. While the brigade was not specifically planning to go to Iraq, it was preparing for a range of operations that included that possibility, among many others.

First, the brigade conducted extensive home-station training on Fort Riley, practicing maneuver warfare with its Abrams tanks and Bradleys, as well as practicing stability operations.

This training led up to the brigade deploying to the Army's premier training location, the National Training Center on Fort Irwin, California. Here's where the Soldiers got to test all of their equipment against opposing forces in a wide and rugged area. They also interacted with villagers in realistic mock combat towns.

The training was invaluable for everyone, especially for young Soldiers who had never deployed, he said.

PHASE 1

After arriving in Kuwait in June 2014, the brigade got marching orders to proceed north to Baghdad to secure the international airport in Baghdad, along with the area around and including the U.S. embassy compound. The brigade was prepared to defend, and if necessary, evacuate the State Department personnel, Reynolds said.

The job was made easy, Reynolds said, because the State Department personnel were very professional and helpful. Also, the 15th and 16th Divisions of the Iraqi army had their network and communications gear in place, so the brigade could simply plug in its systems and establish a joint operations center almost immediately.

The network was in place and everything worked the way it did when he left Iraq in 2011, Reynolds said. Besides that, "they treated us very well. They were very friendly. They were absolutely excited to have us back."

Reynolds served multiple deployments to Iraq, beginning with the initial invasion of 2003, so he was able to reflect on changes over time and how many things remained constant.

After about two months, when the area around the U.S. embassy stabilized, 1st ABCT got new orders from U.S. Central Command.

PHASE 2

This next phase was known as advise and assist. Since the Iraqis were doing the fighting on the ground, it was up to Reynolds and other leaders to provide the Iraqis with operational intelligence and preparation planning, he said.

Since "in the past I worked with senior Iraqi leaders, there was instant credibility between us," he said. "We shared the same threats [on previous deployments] so now we were able to quickly integrate."

The integration took place at the headquarters level, where 1st ABCT fed the Iraqis intelligence and advised them on tactical and logistical solutions.

Reynolds was on the move a lot during that time, talking to the Iraqi ground forces commander one day and visiting brigade commanders the next at various Iraqi bases.

A few of the journalists asked Reynolds about media reports that circulated widely in the United States at the time about Iraqi forces breaking and running when confronted with Daesh.

Reynolds replied that he never saw that. "No one ran away that I know of. You could tell they were fighting hard. They were confident and battle-hardened."

"I was impressed with the Iraqi army leadership," he said.

That doesn't mean they were not apprehensive though. "You could see the worried looks in their faces," he said, since the threat was in their immediate area.

Another journalist asked about bands of Shia militia.

As far as differentiating Shia from Sunni, "we couldn't tell and we never asked. They all had fervor and energy and wanted to fight for their cause and kill Daesh," Reynolds said. "No one wants to fail. They wanted to survive."

Asked about any weaknesses, Reynolds replied that "they struggle with logistics."

The U.S. Army happens to excel at operational logistics, he said, so his logisticians were eager to advise on what equipment to take for particular mission sets and how to employ it.

They also advised on such things as how long it would take to get all the men and their equipment from point A to point B and which sections of rivers would be best for fording, stuff like that. He described the process of advising as "mentoring."

Reynolds pointed out that his advisors did not actually direct Iraqi forces to particular battle sites. How their forces were employed was strictly up to them.

PHASE 3

The third phase was building partner capacity - though the advise-assist phase did overlap to a great extent and never really ended. By and large, building partner capacity meant training the Iraqi forces, Reynolds said.

Since the veterans were already trained and experienced, this meant training the 18- to 19-year-old recruits, who for the most part had never put on a uniform or fired a weapon, he said.

Much of this mission occurred at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, where the recruits were provided six weeks of basic military training, including tactics and small-arms training.

The tactics training came first before the rifle range, he said, because for the first few weeks, the recruits did not have any weapons.

Eventually, though, the weapons arrived. They were not supplied by 1st ABCT, however. They were purchased by the Iraqis from other countries, including the United States, through foreign military sales, he said.

The weapons included M16s and AK47 rifles, so the recruits had a mix, Reynolds said.

Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Evans, who also spoke briefly during the media roundtable and was involved in heading that training, said a bevy of Iraqi translators made communications possible.

Evans said that the recruits progressed from first learning individual combat tasks, like equipment and live-fire, to doing collective training, such as squad tactics, much like U.S. recruits do in basic. The 1st ABCT also focused on a train-the-trainer mission so that the Iraqis could conduct their own training after the brigade departed.

Once the recruits' six weeks of training ended, the new soldiers were immediately employed under the leadership of the Iraqi ground commander, Reynolds said. "They left knowing how to fight. They left as soldiers."

PHASE 4

The last phase consisted of handing off the missions to the 82nd Airborne Division in March and returning to Fort Riley.

The 1st ABCT did not do all these missions alone, he said. The U.S. Marines, Special Operations and Air Force, along with eight other countries, participated in the training and partnering as well.

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STAND-TO!: The U.S. Army Operating Concept

STAND-TO!: 2015 Army Posture Statement

STAND-TO!: Force 2025 and Beyond

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