To be an effective leader one must review military history and study lessons learned. In doing so a leader can learn and apply lessons to current situations that will save soldiers lives, resources and time. As leaders we face the same challenges as previous leaders throughout history. Applying lessons learned to training is a must to be successful on today's modern battlefield. History is a tool that the military uses to develop doctrine for training and all phases of operations. This paper will review military history and how our military has used lessons learned to develop training and how it has been applied to our most current conflicts. The militaries main focus on winning the war on terrorism is sustainment operations. The main focus of this paper will be counter insurgency (COIN) operations.

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