An astute observation of Iraqi trainees - Military Books - Military Times

An astute observation of Iraqi trainees

Some day when we laugh at the war in Iraq, “In the Gray Area” can be the basis for a television situation comedy:

A lieutenant colonel who commanded a light-armored reconnaissance battalion on the march to Baghdad in 2003 returns to Iraq in 2008 to lead Marines embedded with an Iraq army infantry battalion, which bumbles its way along and baffles its American advisers.

A TV series about irascible Iraqis and affable Americans is presumably not in development. Meanwhile, the reality of the situation between Military Transition Team 0733 and the Iraqi 3rd Battalion, 28th Brigade, is anything but funny to the Marines. In fact, it’s infuriating.

“When it came to operating with Iraqis, we would never be able to count on having enough information to make an educated decision,” Lt. Col. Seth W.B. Folsom writes. “In many cases we would simply have to wing it.”

Even after the Marines learn to hide their personal and military frustrations and “their distaste for many of the Iraqis’ cultural idiosyncrasies,” their efforts to advise and train are met with “stubbornness and a sense of entitlement” by Iraqi soldiers.

After being duped by an Iraqi lieutenant colonel who was “hip deep in a theft ring” a year earlier, Folsom is furious — with himself — and realizes that he might never figure out his counterparts if he continues “to eat their bulls--- with no questions asked.”

He begins to follow his father’s advice: Trust, but verify.

Folsom, the author of “The Highway War,” which won a Military Writer’s Society of America award, is a fine writer, and his memoirs of mentoring compare favorably with Wesley Gray’s “Embedded,” about a Marine lieutenant on a similar mission in 2006.

Folsom observes astutely and makes his cases conscientiously. A mentor’s role might necessarily be gray, but Folsom’s managerial acumen is clearly black and white — and makes worthwhile reading for anyone with hands-on abilities in a hands-off role.

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J. Ford Huffman is a Military Times book reviewer.