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Iraqi Army graduates 'master trainers'

By Spc. Michael Pfaff
January 19, 2006

KIRKUK, Iraq (Army News Service, Jan. 19, 2006) – Iraqi Army soldiers graduating from a “Master Trainer” program participated in a ceremony Jan. 16 to acknowledge their newly acquired skills at the K1 Iraqi Army base.

The training program lasted two weeks and involved coalition Soldiers training the enlisted leadership of the Iraqi Army how to better teach their own enlisted troops basic skills.

“The training for the last two weeks has been a train-the-trainer program,” said Maj. Christopher J. Kidd, a member of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division team training the Iraqi Army and native of Fort Campbell, Ky. “We’re trying to provide the Iraqi battalions with actual [non-commissioned officer] trainers so they don’t have to rely on coalition forces to train them on basic skills.”

2 NCOs from each unit trained

Over the course of two weeks, coalition trainers taught two Iraqi non-commissioned officers from each company a variety of skills, including medical training, moving under contact, reacting to sniper, communications, convoy operations, operation security, detainee handling, and many other basic battle techniques.

Coalition forces not only trained the Iraqi soldiers to be proficient in these tasks, but the main goal was to teach them how to teach other Iraqi soldiers how to be proficient as well.

“All of these soldiers were already corporals or sergeants,” Kidd said. “The idea was not to provide them with the skills, but to provide them with techniques to pass those skills onto younger soldiers.”

Forty-three Iraqi soldiers entered the program designed to teach them how to teach; Thirty-five graduated. Other than the few who did not complete the course, coalition instructors said that the Iraqi soldiers were receptive to the training.

“At first they were a bit skittish about the training,” said Sgt. James E. Davis, an instructor during the communications class and a native of Jacksonville, Fla. “But once we got outside doing the practical exercises they were seeing what we were talking about and putting it together. From then on, it was full speed ahead.”

Graduates will train other Soldiers

The real impact the “Master Trainer” program will show in the long run when the graduates get back to their units and begin training fellow Iraqi troops, Davis said. But, he added that he is confident they will succeed.

“I do believe they’ll be very successful,” Davis said. “We had the sergeant major come out and show them further leadership traits and after that, we couldn’t hold them back. Once they picked it up, it was like a duck hitting water.”

Kidd said he is comfortable that the Iraqi graduates will go on to give lower enlisted soldiers in the Iraqi Army the skills they need to take over more battle space from coalition forces.

“As we phase out, they phase in,” Kidd said. “And, the only way to do that is if they have the skills necessary in order to train their own soldiers. They’re doing better and better every day.”

(Editor’s note: Spc. Michael Pfaff serves with the 133rd MPAD in Iraq.)