Called up in May 2005 and given a June report date for predeployment training at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, Maryland-based US Army reservist Captain Christopher Isgrig became cross-leveled into the 80th Division (Institutional Training) and joined their military transition team (MiTT) mission to Iraq. Due in part to what he considers inadequate training that not only didn't prepare them to be advisors, but was also lacking just in terms of imparting and/or honing basic soldier skills, Isgrig quipped that their resulting tour was akin to a "yearlong blind date." Metaphorically referring to the Iraqis, he explained: "We were trying to keep our dates from finding out we were poor, but they already knew we were poor." Again referencing the predeployment training from the perspective of his fellow reservists, Isgrig said: "It got to the point where, even at the end of the mobilization, people were still reverting to this almost Orwellian hate and would just start ranting about all this stuff. Here these guys had grand Capra-esque visions when they were mobilized but instead they're now living through Kafka." That said, Isgrig does criticize what he thought of as excessive and at times unwarranted griping. "For me, it's like wherever you go, there you are, and if I'm going into country it would seem that, as a responsible individual, I would take the time to train myself and train my people and not just sit there and complain about the unit that was supposed to train us. I think the regulation says you're supposed to train yourself," he noted. "It all became rather silly." Isgrig also discusses at length the importance of building and maintaining personal relationships when working with indigenous forces, especially the Iraqis, and candidly covers the full range of his advisory experiences, reflecting on the positive as well as the negative aspects. He further talks about operations he went on with his Iraqi battalions - 5/2/2 in Muqdadiyah and 5/3/1 in Wasit and Udaim, all in Diyala Province - but is reluctant to say that his MiTT was able to "provide that much service" to them. "In the final analysis," Isgrig said, "the only thing we could really do was sit there and make sure the Iraqi units didn't put villagers in a ditch and shoot them or commit some other type of war atrocity…. A lot of the accomplishments made during the time we were there were done by the Iraqis themselves. They had experienced officers and experienced NCOs and they just took things upon themselves and did it for themselves where they could, which is an interesting point."

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