Sergeant First Class Dennis Ewing, a reservist with the 98th Division (Institutional Training), served as an advisor support team member in Numaniyah, Iraq, in 2004-2005. In this interview, he states that the predeployment training they received at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, was inadequate, calling it "not even close to what we needed….We're a drill sergeant unit and they were spending a lot of time on common tasks that we do every year" whereas "we should have spent more time on mission essential items, such as crew-served weapons….We got into country and there were senior noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and officers who didn't know how to operate a radio. That's the wrong time to have to figure that out." Speaking of the training received in Kuwait, Ewing considered that "pretty good. We learned a lot there, and I'm sure it's evolving as stuff is happening in country. The training we received in Kuwait was time-efficient and well used." Initially deployed to Kirkush, Ewing's Iraqi battalion had only officers and NCOs but no privates, and so his first month in Iraq involved developing the NCOs into leaders. Upon moving to Numaniyah, they accepted 10,000 new recruits for their controlling brigade and ran them through eight weeks of basic training. "It was rough," says Ewing, describing the best part of the evolution as there not being any casualties, but adding that, "I think uniformly the standards were just not there. There was no desire to learn." He also notes that, over time, the unit improved, taking on minor missions like checkpoints and presence patrols and conducting their own training planning. One problem that could not be overcome, though, was that the commander was from the local area and, according to Ewing, "wasn't going to stomp on somebody in his own backyard. I think that hindered us from actually doing more missions in the cities surrounding us - missions I felt should have been conducted." He closes with advice for others in similar circumstances, including talking to those who have done it, training from after-action reviews, and trusting that past lessons learned were written by soldiers hoping others could avoid the problems they encountered.

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