I was a part of one of the first classes of advisers trained by LTC Nagl's battalion. In addition, I took the $35,000 bonus to extend my committment to the Army. These distinctions make me uniquely suited to comment on the story.

LTC Nagl is a highly intelligent and motivated officer. Being in his vicinity was one of the few pleasures of being trained by his battalion. I can attest that the personnel assigned as trainers were not any more skilled at advising the Iraqi military then were the personnel they were training.

The Army has paid lip-service to the adviser mission, repeatedly calling it the "strategic focus" while, in actuality, emphasizing much more short-term goals. Who can be blamed? A battalion or squadron commander in Iraq will be there for just over a year; their effective time is even shorter. They set goals that can be accomplished during their time, and allocate resources to achieve those goals.

Advising the Iraqi Army, National Police, and Department of Border Enforcement does not quickly bear fruit. What fruit is borne does not have the appeal of more "kinetic" operations. But it is the route to success.

No "occupying" force has ever won a counter-insurgency fight. The population of the land must decide to no longer support the insurgency. The counter-insurgent force can only support that population; it is the only true route to success. While "sexy" kinetic missions are being carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan by commanders rooted in older doctrine, the true mission is being lost.

Which brings us to why the most gifted officers in the Army are exiting its ranks. Frustration. Not bitterness or anger, but simple frustration. Fighting the weight of a giant bureaucrcacy in an attempt to actually win the counter-insurgency battle. And seeing the majority of the Army distracted by the shiny, short-term goals that will more prettily dress up an evaluation, and a career.

This article speaks of the West Point class of 2001 as having the highest attrition rate in the last decade. That of 2002 was higher still. The Army is facing a fundamental problem, and fixing it will require a fundamental change. A cash bonus simply addresses the symptoms.

Excellent comment, and I would add that unless Army promotions have changed dramatically since the Vietnam era, and I suspect they haven't, assignment to a training battalion rather than a line battalion or Command and General Staff College was probably a notice that LTC Nagl's career is over. No over in the sense of we're kicking you out, but over in the sense of don't expect to be a General anytime soon and you you can resign now or wait to be passed over a couple of times. Too bad that the Army still can't stand non-conformity.

Step back. The Army is an institution and a bureaucracy. It fights for "its" slice of the huge defense department budget. There is no real money in training to fight insurgents. There is no real money in fighting insurgents. What works in fighting an insurgency is labor intensive, moving slowly, establishing trust and being patient. We can't just throw huge piles of money to get those results. The money that Congress is looking to spend is in weapon systems and platforms whose contracts can be farmed out to multiple districts. Trained, intelligent personnel do not equal jobs back in the district. F-22s, attack submarines and the latest technological gimmick do. Training individual soldiers to be proficient in an area that is not relevent to those platforms or systems is wasting time and effort from the Army's bureaucratic perspective. Promoting intelligent dissenters to this view is akin to cutting one's own throat. Additionally, from an institutional and societal perspective, there has always been a stigma attached to training as opposed to doing. Any aggressive and intelligent soldier who seeks out that job is cutting his own throat. The troops on the ground, the NCOs and the junior and mid level officers know what needs to happen for the United States to be successful in Iraq. Congress and the military industrial complex really could not care less about success or failure in Iraq. Until we force them to care less about contracts and more about accomplishing the mission in Iraq we will have frustrated, intelligent soldiers leaving the Army and a half-hearted effort in stabilizing a country we are responsible for breaking.

Both excellent postings.

But let us not overlook the fact that military personnel are for fighting, not for designing or implementing politcal/civilian-influencing strategies. The mix is bound to detract from the effectivness of one or the other thereof.

It must be awfully hard for miitary personnel to stradle those objectives, and maintain any sense of dedication.

God bless 'em.

I agree that there is a large amount of lip service being paid to the advisor. I completed the Captain’s Course recently and it broke down like this. Women did not go on advisor missions, which makes sense since most Iraqi Officers I met wouldn’t listen to them anyway. The gaurd and reserve guys would simply go back to their units. Then all the active duty guys had to fight over the plum assignments to Washington, Japan, etc. There were a handful of jobs in maneuver units, and then the bottom part of the class took the assignments to become advisers.

The bottom guys were, for the most part, are still bright and capable guys who will do fine, but the message was clear to me and others who were mercifully left out of that rat race. You can cut a deal for a future assignment by volunteering as an adviser or you can wait until you're told to be one.

I have a desk job now; I turned down the $35,000 because my life is worth more to me and my family. I am completing my service at eight years and I am starting my life over. I am proud of my service and the folks I served alongside, but fighting a morally ambiguous war for an ambivalent public is pointless to me.