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U.S. forces upgrade Iraqi training
Ten days has been added to Iraqi basic training at the hands of U.S. instructors. The 14-day program has been expanded to 24 days, and a second group of Iraqi soldiers has begun the new 24-day cycle."It started off as a two-week program," said Staff Sgt. Michael J. Munoz of the 80th Division, who serves as the operation's noncommissioned officer at the academy. During the 24 days of training, Munoz said the recruits now learn drill and ceremony, weapons marksmanship, squad-level movement techniques, room-clearing procedures and how to operate traffic-control points. Instructors are able to go into greater detail when teaching the individual skills because they have more time with the new soldiers than they did during the 14-day cycles, Munoz told the Army News Service. At the academy, recruits are taught hand-and-arm signals. All the instruction is in Arabic. Iraqi noncommissioned officers teach the course, ANS reported Tuesday. "We're at a phase now where we mainly just advise the Iraqi instructors," said Sgt. 1st Class Naymon Mack. "Two years ago, we started off with Americans giving all the training. American drill instructors did all the training through interpreters." This means several things. First, that the intense pressure to build their army quickly has lessened after achieving 2/3rds authorized levels. Second, that there is much less "field training" available against real enemies, so it has to be taught in a rear area environment. Third, is that they are now specializing recruits earlier, based on predicted requirements. Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-16 |
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