Day 64: A clash of civilizations

Today is Sunday and it's the half day out of the week that I take off, so I have a bit of time to share a little bit of a subject that I've been investigating for awhile now:  the cultural clash between civilians and the military.  This is nothing new.  Since ages past, soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors have used the word "civilian" in tones that are usually used to described snails and other things that crawl along on their own slime.  Similarly, ask most human resources professionals what they think of when they think about career military guys joining the civilian workforce and they'll usually use the words, "inflexible," "domineering," "no sense of humor," and "puckered tight."
 
Times have changed however.  First, the role of citizen-soldiers has increased since 2001 to a vital part of the war effort.  Used to be that the stereotype shown in the movie "Stripes" was pretty accurate.  Reservists were weekend warriors who were untrained, didn't look like soldiers, and didn't act like them.  You wouldn't send them into war and for a hard-charging active duty soldier, telling them that they would be sent to the reserves was like a death sentence.  I enlisted into the Army National Guard in '92 and remembered that during my first several drills at my unit, a lot of people didn't bother showing up and the admin NCO would call them and politely ask where they were and didn't they want to come in to drill this weekend?  No significant training -- just some PT, a lot of admin work, and then ceremonies and dinners.
 
Then 2001 came and suddenly we had 360,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Army, stretched near capacity, had to draw upon its reserve and national guard component.  Funny how knowing that you are going into combat makes you suddenly get your mindset turned around.  The first couple years I'm sure there was a lot of adjustment as well as the active duty vs. reserve attitudes.  By 2005, because of the way that different units were mix and matched and thrown together, you could not tell who was a reservist and who wasn't.  As much as 70% of the deployed forces left their civilian jobs to spend 12-18 months fighting a war.  I was no longer surprised that some of the most experienced and competent NCOs and officers were reservists or guardsmen.  You just cared that they did their jobs well, not whether they were active or reserve.  In fact, in the type of mission we're in now, where the emphasis is no longer on breaking and blowing stuff up, and we are focused on civil-capacity building and the training/advising of Iraqi security forces, reserve components bring their civilian experience to the fight.  Just imagine -- how can a 23 year old lieutenant mentor his Iraqi police chief counterpart?  On the other hand, a 32 year old Reserve lieutenant, who's been a state trooper for 9 years would bring a lot more experience to bear.
 
So, in addition to the reserves getting a lot better and integrating into the overall Army, the role of civilians has come to the forefront as well.  In most of Iraq, we know that the end is near -- we are no longer working towards a defined endstate objective where we will leave when security forces are trained, the rule of law has reached a certain level of adoption in the judicial system, and clean water, electricity, and sewage treatment is available to everyone.  Now, we are leaving at a certain time and we just need to do the best we can before we pull out. 
 
We as "green suiters" have to leave because we are a very visible reminder of conquering occupiers and that strikes a certain religious and social chord that has been played on by extremist and religious and political groups.  As an aside, if you read the newspapers and ask anyone publicly whether coalition forces should leave the cities by the end of this month per the Security Agreement, the universal response will be "yes".  However, one on one and privately, most local Iraqis do not want us to leave.  They know that when one of theirs is taken away by a coalition forces soldier, he may be charged, he may be locked up, but he will be seen again.  They are afraid of another sectarian civil war. 
 
However, civilians can continue working and overseeing reconstruction.  This happens through Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).  To borrow from my friend Wikipedia, a PRT includes a military component (Civil Affairs/Force Protection, etc.), civilian police advisors, and civilian representatives of US (or other national) government foreign affairs agencies. In a US-led PRT, this generally includes a representative from USAID, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Justice. They are assisted by public diplomacy and reporting staff.
 
An Afghan PRT is commanded by a military officer, generally of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is supported by a civil affairs team and platoon of National Guard soldiers for security. The staff generally numbers between sixty and one hundred persons. There is no lead agency or department; the US government civilians and the military commander form an executive committee of equals which develops a strategy for the PRT, drawing on the expertise of all contributing agencies. Activities in Afghanistan focus on extending the reach of the central government into the provinces.
 
In an Iraq PRT, the Team Leader is a civilian who reports to the US Department of State, and his deputy is generally a military officer. While civil affairs members are present on the team, there are more civilians than military personnel on the team. Functional areas include rule of law, reconstruction and development, agriculture, and governance. Some Iraq PRTs are embedded into the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) with which they are colocated (ePRT). The BCT retains responsibility for providing security for the civilian team members. In contrast to Afghanistan, Iraq PRTs focus on building the governance capacity at the local levels of government.
 
So, if you read a lot of the mission statements of units here now, the main efforts are keeping security, training the Iraqi Security Forces (Army, local police, national police, and border enforcement), and building civil-capacity.  The last line of effort is led by the PRT with the Army supporting.
 
This briefs well.  However, in practice, it's often ugly.  Imagine if you threw the schoolhouse tough with the Montessori kid and told them that they needed to play together.  What usually happens?  Either they resent each other, try to screw each other up, or in most cases, end up doing their own thing and ignoring the other as much as they can.  I saw that this seemed to be the case in one province, but also heard that in another province, the PRT team leader and the brigade commander were as tight as frat brothers and I really wanted to see why that was the case.  Plus, maybe I thought that my being a reservist would help me see both sides.  Oh, and I wanted to be able to say that getting a degree in social studies paid off somehow.
 
So, I spent time with both sides, and as you might have read, came back from spending nearly two weeks with a team that worked fairly well together.
 
In my next post, I'll share some of my preliminary findings (those that I can share).