Major Lee Williams volunteered to go to Iraq and reported into Fort Riley in June 2006. After two years as an intern to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then attending graduate school at Georgetown, he figured it would be good to get back to the operational Army. He was assigned to a brigade-level Iraqi national police training team (NPTT) and deployed in September of 2006 as the operations officer. They finally settled at Combat Outpost Callahan, approximately three kilometers from Sadr City. Shortly after arriving, they took their Iraqi unit to the police academy at An Numaniyah for 30 days. They taught the Iraqis how to conduct cordon and search missions, checkpoint operations and dismounted patrolling. The Iraqi unit was extremely corrupt and they constantly had to deal with the Jaish al-Mahdi influence. During the predeployment site survey with the incoming commander, their convoy was hit by an EFP as part of a complex attack. In the end, he felt they left the Iraqi unit in a much better position than when they arrived. While there, he saw the principles of counterinsurgency in operation and hopes that is what we are teaching lieutenants and captains at their career courses.

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