A reservist with the 98th Division (Institutional Training), Colonel Doug Shipman was an advisor to two separate Iraqi divisions and to the Nineveh provincial police chief in 2004-2005. In this interview, he voices frustration at the information mobilizing reservists received from above, saying, "I don't think we really got much of any information from United States Army Reserve Command. While I wasn't involved in it directly, I understand there were a lot of politics involved and some at USARC really didn't want the 98th to go and fill this mission requirement." He also notes that, "a couple of weeks out from mobilization, we found a website about advisor support teams that someone had set up. One of our NCOs found it accidentally through a Google search and emailed it to us - and you know, there was more information on that website than we had received from anybody up to that point." He further commented that some soldiers within the 98th Division had difficulty mentally adjusting from being instructors in a secure environment to advisors in a combat theater. Shipman, talking about the predeployment training received at Camp Atterbury, observed that "some of it was useful and even the briefings for the most part were relevant. They just weren't always presented in the most helpful manner." Upon arrival at Al Kasik to advise the Iraqi 3rd Division, he describes the situation as 130 American advisors, some base support personnel, 8,000 Iraqis and a contracted base security force had a very cursory handoff. Upon assuming the mission, Shipman explains that the advisors faced a number of challenges, including a unit whose brigades were in very different states of manning and training; a very high attrition rate and divided loyalties among the Iraqi soldiers; an Iraqi division commander taking orders from an American colonel; and the leadership styles of Iraqi senior officers. Promoted to full colonel mid-tour, he was reassigned as senior advisor of the 2nd Division, where there were only six other advisors at the division level and none in the brigades. Describing this new unit's disposition, he says that, "Although the 2nd Division had been poorly organized, poorly equipped and poorly trained, they had been in contact with the insurgents much earlier in the ballgame." He faced further challenges dealing with independent battalions and with a division commander eventually relieved for allegedly stealing money. In closing, Shipman says that the 98th Division did well despite not being trained for the mission assigned. He also cautions those in future deployments because of his own's lack of resources.

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