Currently the deputy chief of staff, G6, of the 98th Division (Institutional Training), Colonel Edward Castle was involved as a project officer in the training and advisory effort in Iraq in 2004-2005. Alerted that their Reserve unit would be mobilized to help train the new Iraqi Army, Castle frequently makes the point that they were initially unsure of what exactly they would be doing and describes the predeployment training they received at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, as "mixed." Under the impression that he and the rest of his unit would be military occupational specialty instructors, they spent much of their preparation for mobilization gathering field manuals, training manuals and programs of instruction. Upon arriving in Iraq, though, Castle's unit was continually stripped away, tasked to provide soldiers for advisor support teams and various staffs. After one month, Castle was assigned to develop the Iraqi Army engineer force and found himself spending most of his time with the senior Iraqi engineer officer at the Ministry of Defense, Brigadier General Marza. He helped formulate the structure of the first Iraqi engineer regiment, sized to provide a company to each of the infantry divisions. Since the Iraqis did not have an ordnance corps, their engineers did bomb disposal, and Castle had to restructure the regiment to provide one company of engineers and one explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) company to each division. Castle states that this was a very deliberate decision by the Iraqi leadership, saying of General Marza, "He wanted to get his soldiers out there protecting his people and be able to call Iraqis to come out and take care of improvised explosive devices. In his mind, he actually saw that as more important than the engineers." He says that the emphasis was such that his replacement as the engineer officer was actually an EOD officer. He describes one personnel problem which arose where the initial engineer companies formed were largely manned by former Iraqi Army engineers, but the EOD companies contained mostly infantry who had been re-designated but untrained. Talking of the progress in training the new Iraqi Army, Castle said, "I was pretty satisfied with it and excited about it…. For planning and implementing it on the run, I thought it went very well." He closes by stating that the US Army should plan, organize and train so that it can easily accomplish the same mission done by him and his unit.

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