The mentors of Camp Pendleton: In Iraq, they're training National Guardsmen to take over

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 2, 2005 11:11 PM PST ∞

KARBALA ---- Young Marines here this week have become mentors to National Guardsmen who are sometimes twice their age, passing on lessons the part-time soldiers say could save lives as they prepare to take over Najaf and Karbala provinces from the battle-proven Marines.

As the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment prepares to depart after nearly seven months in Iraq, the Marines are doing what the military refers to as "left-seat, right-seat" training ---- the passing of knowledge and experience from one unit to another. The training has become a ritual in Iraq as the war that was long-ago declared done now enters its third year-long rotation.

For the newly arrived soldiers, the learning curve is steep, and the stakes are high, says 45-year-old Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Robert King, a school bus mechanic from rural Goodman, Miss.

"We're learning a lot," King said, listening closely as Marines demonstrated using a tow bar to pull a disabled vehicle during a class Wednesday at Forward Operating Base Lima, located a few miles south of Karbala.

"We've got to," he said. "They leave and bam ---- now we're on our own."

Trading places

The process is the same whether Marines are replacing soldiers ---- as happened in Najaf and Al Anbar provinces last spring ---- or soldiers are replacing Marines, as the Mississippi National Guardsmen are in Najaf and Karbala this week.

The departing unit takes on the role of teacher from the driver's, or left seat, while the arriving unit observes and learns from the passenger's side, or right seat.

After a few days they trade sides; the arriving troops graduate to the driver's seat to take over responsibilities for a swath of Iraqi territory, a native population, and a mission that they will one day pass onto their own replacements.

"We're just teaching them what they need to know when they leave the FOB (forward operating base)," said Marine Sgt. Eric Bakus, the senior leader during a set of early morning classes Wednesday.

"There are a lot of things that come from personal experience that we learned the hard way out here," Bakus said.

In a gravel lot, 21-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Agron taught soldiers how to operate several types of machine guns that the Marines have found most handy atop their Humvees as they patrolled Karbala's streets.

Hard-edged youth

Agron's relative youth was disguised by the confidence he displayed and the combat stories he told while teaching his class. The soldiers, most of them about twice Agron's age, asked questions and treated their young instructor with the respect due a mentor.

All morning, young Marines took the soldiers through the paces, teaching them everything from how to control traffic from atop a Humvee to how to change a flat Humvee tire or tow a broken-down vehicle back to the base.

Army Platoon Sgt. Jerry Pate said the pointers were welcome because the Guardsmen, originally artillerymen who were retrained as infantry for a one-year tour of duty in Iraq, were a bit spoiled, used to having supporting units around to take care of contingencies.

The Marines warned them that duty in Iraq is a game of contingencies; staying alive takes thinking on your feet, improvising, and switching from being a fearless fighter to soft-hearted humanitarian and back in a heartbeat.

"We're trying to show them that all of this is important," said Bakus. "Everything you do out there is serious business. Every vehicle, every person, could be a potential threat."

Mississippi meets Mesopotamia

The Mississippi Guardsmen all seemed to take it quite seriously, most asking questions in easygoing, sing-song Southern drawl.

Cpl. William Parsons, 24, a surveyor from Booneville, Miss., said that what he learned from the Marines was the importance of maintaining the peace that has made Karbala and nearby Najaf examples of where the American mission seems to be working.

"Just keep good relations with the locals and don't do anything stupid," he said, summing up his battle plan.

After Wednesday's classes, Marines and soldiers mixed and matched vehicles and crews for joint patrols throughout the city and surrounding countryside.

The Marines' Combined Anti-Armor Team Bravo took the Mississippi Guardsmen's leaders on a tour of the city that showed the soldiers they should expect the unexpected.

At first, some of the soldiers were sure their civilian careers had prepared them for the streets of Iraq.

"It's just like my job," said Capt. David Rockett, a police investigator from Birmingham, Ala., as the patrol of Humvees started to roll out of the base. "Just thicker glass and bigger guns."

Working out knots

At the wheel of Rockett's heavily armored Humvee, 27-year-old cop Lt. Jody Criss headed out through Iraqi police barricades, burning some rubber when the patrol repeatedly stopped and started as it searched suspicious vehicles and questioned uncooperative drivers.

Up above, 25-year-old Spc. Travis Osbourne, a journeyman diesel mechanic back home, had some trouble muscling the heavy machine gun turret to cover the cars that came from all directions.

By the time they reached town, however, both had gotten the hang of the road: Osbourne swiveling more deftly as he forced Iraqi drivers to yield, and Criss keeping up with the daredevil Marine driver in front of him.

Seated in back, 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Justin shouted polite advice only when it was clear the soldiers were about to err, or when the on-the-job training got serious ---- as it did when Marines spotted artillery shells in a trash heap at the side of the road.

Stopping to secure the area, the newly arrived soldiers got a lesson in trying to control Iraqi traffic ---- a mix of jalopies, buses, donkey carts, wild dogs, herds of sheep, bicycles and barefoot children.

A long road ahead

After the shells were disposed of by an Iraqi police explosives team, the joint training patrol continued on.

The soldiers visited an oil pumping station that occasionally has to be shut down because of sabotaged lines; used what they learned in the morning classes to hook up a Humvee that quit midpatrol; and paid a short visit to Karbala's main hospital, where Marines and soldiers passed out coloring books and crayons in the children's ward.

When a car backfired nearby, many of the soldiers jerked or ducked.

''Backfire. Backfire," Marine Sgt. Bakus said calmly. "You're good. Nobody's dyin' today."

The soldiers stood up straight again, chuckling uneasily as they edged on into the ward.

It was an eventful day, and by the end the soldiers said they were that much closer to being ready to take the reins.

"Even just today, we got two artillery shells off the street," Capt. Rockett said at the hospital. "They could easily have blown up someone ---- a kid or something."

Fighting for the future

The soldiers' commander, 53-year-old former postal worker Col. Gary Huffman, said the key to the soldiers' success will lie in their relations with the locals.

Passing out a coloring book to an Iraqi mother and child, Huffman pulled out a photograph of his own 18-month-old granddaughter, Emma Kate, and handed it to the woman.

"This is my granddaughter, my baby," he said in a soft voice. She smiled and showed the small picture to another woman sitting nearby.

Outside the children's ward, Huffman said he was realistic about what he and his soldiers had to do in Karbala over the next year.

"It's not just about handing out coloring books." he said. "It's about getting out and getting to know the people.

"This generation of Iraq is the future of the country," he said. "There's probably not a lot we can do at this point about the 30- or 40-year-olds ---- even some of those in their 20s. But hopefully ---- if we do things right ---- hopefully years from now these kids, when they're grown up, will say, 'I remember when the Americans were here.' "

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at dmortenson@nctimes.com.

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