Training the Trainer: Paratroopers prep for combat advisor mission with cultural training

Photo By Sgt. Stephen Decatur | Sgt. 1st Class Roy Frazier of 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, left, and 1st Lt. Timothy Dill of 1st Battalion, 508th PIR, 4th BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. review Pashto words written in the naskh writing system, June 10, Fort Bragg, N.C. The brigade sent paratroopers to a two-week Pashto course to make them more effective at working with their Afghan counterparts when they deploy as combat advisors later this summer.  

FORT BRAGG, NC, UNITED STATES

06.19.2009

Story by Sgt. Stephen Decatur 

4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — When 1st Lt. Timothy Dill deploys to Afghanistan as a platoon leader with Company A, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, his mission will be made easier by a basic understanding of the local language and customs, he said.

When the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, deploys later this summer, it will become the Army's first active duty brigade combat team to fully partner with the Afghan national army as combat advisors to Afghan soldiers.

"Every Soldier will have the chance to interact with his Afghan counterparts," Dill said. "We just won't have the capacity to provide and an interpreter to every Soldier."

A special mission requires special training, and because working successfully with people from another culture means respect and understanding, the brigade has brought unique trainers from as far as Afghanistan to prepare the paratroopers for their unique mission.

Some of the instruction geared toward the combat advisor role included a two-week Pashto language course with members of every battalion, a counterinsurgency class with leaders ranging from corporals to majors, and a conference with senior leaders on reconstruction, government and culture called Leadership Development and Education for Sustained Peace.

LDESP was started in 2001 to help leaders comprehend their operating environment by arming them with an understanding of the local residents in their area, said Bob Tomasovic, a retired Army colonel and program director for LDESP.

The most important lesson that leaders can take away from the course is that people from a different culture will often interpret circumstances differently from them, Tomasovic said.

"Trying to develop relationships with my local counterpart, it's important to open our eyes to the fact that he's going to react differently to a situation than I react." said Bob Tomasovic. "We all react differently based on personal experience and observation."

While senior leaders learned to integrate culture and history into their strategic thought process, the troopers on the line tackled grammar in Pashto.

Before Sgt. Michael Hargis, a cannon crew member with Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 321st Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, joined the Army he never took so much as a Spanish class, he said. But during his last deployment to Afghanistan, he tried learning a little of the local languages, Dari and Pashto. Hargis' platoon was often co-located with an Afghan artillery unit, but most interaction was done either through an interpreter or an Afghan soldier who happened to know some English.

The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and Pashto is one of the most widely spoken languages. Paratroopers learned to read and write in the naskh writing system for both Pashto and Dari, learned pronunciations of sounds that don't exist in English, useful phrases both for everyday interaction and training soldiers, as well as customs and culture in Afghanistan.

"I was skeptical initially about a two-week course," Hargis said "I feel pretty confident now."

Hargis said that he felt speaking the local language would leave a positive impression about Americans in Afghanistan.

"Their culture is based on respect," Hargis said. "If we're there we should make some attempt to speak the local language."

Those paratroopers who didn't get to go to the whole two-week class were issued learning materials such as DVDs to get them started as amateur linguists.

Dill, a University of Central Florida graduate who was hoping to put his studies of the Arabic language to use in Iraq, will instead pass on his new familiarity of basic Pashto to the paratroopers in his platoon.

"If we're partnered with the Afghans, it will be essential," he said.

• Date Taken: 06.19.2009
• Date Posted: 06.19.2009 11:53
• Story ID: 35347
• Location: FORT BRAGG, NC, US