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Under Fire: Training the Iraqi Armed Forces

Apr-21-2004 » Filed Under: Iraq News

Although not specifically about the Stryker Brigade, the following article describes the training provided by soldiers from the 75th Division to the new Iraqi Armes Forces in Tall Afar.

[Link to Full Article]
By Maj. Wayne Marotto

TALLAFAR, Iraq (Army News Service, April 20, 2004) -- Amidst mortar attacks, fire fights at the front gate, drive-by shootings, and the ever-present danger of Improvised Explosive Devices, a team of the 75th Division (Training Support) is training hundreds of soldiers of the Iraqi Armed Forces.

It’s the first of four Advisory Support Teams from the 75th that will be part of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, or CMATT.

The objective is to advise, train, and organize the Iraqi Armed Forces as soon as possible so that Iraqis can defend their own country. This responsibility has been tasked to the 75th Division, an active and reserve-component training support division headquartered in Houston, Texas.

The 75th Division has been mobilized since January 2003 and its normal wartime mission is to be Observer Controllers to train and mobilize Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers in the United States. The Army has now tasked the division to deploy hundreds of its’ Soldiers as a unit into a combat theater to train foreign soldiers. The majority of the deployed Soldiers volunteered to go to Iraq.

The first team of Reserve Soldiers -- led by Maj. Robert Chandler, CMATT Battalion advisory support team chief, and Master Sgt. Richard Howard, noncommissioned officer in charge -- is in Tallafar, Iraq, doing a mission which would normally be done by Special Forces Soldiers. But because the Special Forces Soldiers are needed for other missions in Iraq and in Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden, the mission went to the Reserve training support divisions.


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