Training for transition
Teams work closely with upstart Iraqi security forces
By Trista Talton - ttalton@militarytimes.com
Posted : June 11, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — They’re considered to be among the Corps’ best and brightest, but you won’t find them kicking in doors and clearing houses in Ramadi.

However, they are your ticket out of Iraq.

The Corps’ transition teams, made up of small groups of Marines who turn Iraqis into police officers, soldiers and border cops, are hand-picked by their commands to help create the security forces that could lead to a self-sustaining Iraq.

But creating these teams comes at a price to the commands that give up some of their best troops, primarily the West Coast-based I Marine Expeditionary Force and II MEF on the East Coast, which are left with empty slots to fill.

Since February 2006, II MEF has provided about 600 Marines and sailors to transition teams, II MEF spokesman Lt. Col. Curtis Hill said.

“We are able to fill the slots vacated by some Marines assigned to the TTs,” he wrote in an e-mail responding to questions about the teams. “However, we can’t fill all of them. This is to be expected considering the strategic necessity to provide over 1,400 advisers to the Iraqi 1st and 7th Infantry Divisions and police units.

“In the short term, for those units that provide a transition team, the impact is less than 2 percent of its personnel. In the long run, the Marine Corps will gain tremendous expertise by providing Marines and Navy Corpsmen to serve as advisers to these Iraqi military and police units.”

He added that units within II MEF were experiencing personnel gaps long before the requirement to fill transition teams.

Master Sgt. Daniel Schaller was working intelligence for 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., when the division got word it needed to man up a couple of dozen or so teams. At a meeting he attended about finding Marines to fill the teams, he was the only master sergeant in his military occupational specialty. He was right in the cross hairs for the job.

“We raped the division of people and really pulled a lot of the senior-ranking guys for that,” Schaller said in a telephone interview from Iraq in late March.

Filling the teams is a constant process, said Col. Pat Roberts, Marine Corps Forces Central Command transition teams operations officer and component manager for adviser teams in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“They’re bearing the burden of not just the teams, but the units,” he said. “I will say that all of our teams have been very successful.”

In February, Commandant Gen. James Conway told reporters that he may stand up a headquarters that would oversee the three types of teams. It would benefit from the Bush administration’s proposal to add 5,000 Marines to the Corps’ end strength every year through 2011.

The unit “would source our training teams, and that would be their purpose in existence, that would be their training, that would be their equipage,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re doing it yet or not, but we’re taking a look at it to see if that’s a good investment.”

Conway said the “parent unit” would have to be staffed gradually because doing it all at once would mean taking Marines out of the fight, which shortens the dwell time between deployments for everyone else.

“We’re trying to change the brakes on a car that’s moving,” he said.
The teams

The first all-Marine transition team deployed to Iraq in 2004. Before then, groups of fewer than 100 Marines were doled out to other organizations’ teams.

Today, about 60 Marine Corps transition teams are deployed worldwide, Roberts said. A majority of the teams are in Iraq. Fewer than a dozen are in Afghanistan.

There are three types of teams: military, border and police. The number of Marines in each team varies from 11 to 20. Some teams deploy for seven months; others a year.

“We get requirements for teams passed down to us,” Roberts said. “The Marine Corps takes that and, based on the criteria, we go out to the force providers and, basically, they each get a share of the pie.”

The criteria are based on rank and military occupational specialty, such as a captain who’s in combat arms or a gunnery sergeant with a law enforcement background. Marines picked for these teams aren’t fresh from a deployment, but almost all of them have prior combat tours.

The teams must be self-sufficient, made of Marines who are jacks-of-all-trades.

Some volunteer for the job. Others are volun-told.

During training, those who aren’t suitable for the job are returned to their unit. “But that very rarely happens,” Roberts said.

Training for the teams has evolved since the first one was deployed three years ago. Marines in the teams are dedicated to three months of training in language and cultural skills and firing foreign weapons at Pendleton and Camp Lejeune, N.C. They take classes on working with interpreters, training management, communication skills and structure.

“We are beginning to assign Marines who’ve done this back into the adviser training,” Roberts said.
Patience and dedication

Schaller was one of the Marines selected to be part of a border transition team at the brigade level sent for a yearlong deployment that wrapped up a few weeks ago.

“Right off the bat, we knew we were in for something we were not quite prepared for initially,” he said, since Marines don’t normally train for border patrol.

During training, his team contacted U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego, where they participated in four training sessions that included how to identify impostors, screen vehicles and use dogs.

That training, which is now integrated into the Corps’ transition team training, he said, paid off immensely in Iraq, where he worked along Iraq’s western border with Jordan.

“In our area, we’ve seen a lot of strides,” Schaller said. “Once again, you’re still battling the human nature of trying to teach these guys ethics. Tactically, they’re good to go. They know how to handle weapons. They know how to patrol. The problem is, will they do it? We do provide a lot of oversight in that way. In the back of our minds is, when we’re not here, are they going to regress?”

Many have reported that the Marines’ get-it-done mentality isn’t quite in sync with the slower work pace of Iraqis.

But Schaller said the transition teams’ mission is the steppingstone to getting U.S. troops out of Iraq.

“It really gives you a sense in what the heck you’re over here for.”

Capt. Joel Cedeno, a logistics officer, was part of a border team that was unique in that it embedded with the Iraqi border police.

“We’ve been living with them out there,” he said in a telephone interview from Iraq days before wrapping up a yearlong deployment.

The Marine team lived in tents hoisted over powdery sand in an area that lacked a good water supply.

“I’m glad I chose to come out here,” Cedeno said. “From the time that we’ve been here until now, they’ve made improvements, and they’ve grasped a lot of concepts. They take care of us. Anything we need, they provide for us.”

Staff Sgt. Cris Cabingas was working communications with 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, at Lejeune when he volunteered to be part of a military transition team.

“I was ready to rock ’n roll and do stuff with the Iraqi army,” he said in a telephone interview from Iraq. “It’s probably one of the most challenging jobs in my life. There are different challenges everyday. If you can coach a 4-year-old T-ball team, this is where it’s at. It’s almost like being a drill instructor. The Iraqis are like sponges; they soak up a lot of it.”

MiTTs work with Iraqi military on everything from combat logistics and weapons handling to using communications equipment.

“They’ve all got their own perception of coalition forces,” Cabingas said. “We’re here to help. We’re your brothers. You guys can stand on your own two feet.”

Maj. Frank Simmons is one of three majors on a team that deployed to Iraq in November.

“I think, particularly as a major, there are much worse places to be,” he said. “I think it’s actually a great place for a major to be. While a year is a very long time to do this, it beats being on a staff or something like that. You have a lot of autonomy.”

The artillery officer was with the Camp Lejeune-based 5th Battalion, 10th Marines, which left its howitzers behind earlier this year to work civil affairs in Iraq.

“I enjoy this much more than I think I would civil affairs,” Simmons said.

As the operations adviser for the team, he works with Iraqi brigade officers and staff noncommissioned officers, teaching them how to coordinate and plan operations.

“I think a lot of people run into issues in that, being Marines and U.S. forces in general, we have much more of a get-it-done mentality,” Simmons said. “The concept of time is very different for the Iraqis. You have to be very patient in working with the staff. To try to teach them our mentality is often frustrating at times. But their 80 percent solution is better than our 100 percent solution because it’s theirs.”

Ellie