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Old 12-07-2008, 10:29 AM
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War set on a Louisiana stage
At Fort Polk, Iraqi refugees join the U.S. military to teach troops about the culture and chaos they're likely to encounter overseas
By LINDSAY WISE
Dec. 6, 2008, 11:13PM


Fort Polk's Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana hosts all military branches and has the capacity to train more than 7,000 soldiers during multi-week rotations.

Fort Polk first started using Bosnian and Kosovar "cultural role players" in 1998. Today, the fort buses in either Iraqi or Afghan "role players," depending on where the troops in training will deploy.

Not all the people who portray Iraqis at Fort Polk are really Iraqis. Hundreds of Americans from Louisiana play "extras" in the villages. Insurgents are played by other soldiers.

The job of "cultural role player" pays $4,000 for a 3-week training rotation, including transportation by bus and room and board.

FORT POLK, LA. — If the armored combat vehicles rolling by are the first clue that there's something unusual about this pine forest in rural Louisiana, the street signs in Arabic are the second.

On 200,000 acres about four hours from Houston, the Army has replicated 22 Iraqi villages — complete with markets, mosques and even goats — to train soldiers how to cope with everything from a suicide bombing to tea with a local sheik.

As the military strategy in Iraq has shifted from open warfare to counter-insurgency, American soldiers increasingly are trying to build relationships with Iraqis to help reduce violence. Their lives and the lives of the civilians they encounter could depend on their ability to communicate across cultural and language barriers.

So, to prepare soldiers for Iraq, the Army needs Iraqis. More than 300 of them — including about 50 from the Houston area — travel to Fort Polk's Joint Readiness Training Center every few months to populate the fake villages. They don traditional robes, speak only Arabic and wear elaborate makeup to simulate bloody wounds.

The job is popular with recently arrived refugees, many of whom left Iraq because their collaboration with Americans made them targets for terrorists. Adel Naji, 41, worked as a driver at the U.S. Agency for International Development in Baghdad before death threats forced him to flee. He applied for refugee status and moved into a southwest Houston apartment with his wife and two daughters in April.

Sometimes the simulated explosions and gunfire at Fort Polk make Naji feel like he is still in Iraq. But he's proud of what he does, especially efforts to teach American soldiers cultural sensitivity through role-playing.

''I work against the terrorists," he said. ''I work to serve the U.S., and I work to help Iraq, too."

Over the past few months, Naji has played a bombing victim, an Army translator and a Sunni cleric, a role which tested his acting skills. "Actually, I'm Shia," he said with a laugh.

Other roles cut against Naji's natural instincts by calling for the Iraqi to act frustrated or even hostile in order to test how soldiers will react in a worst-case scenario.

"Sometimes I think they make Iraqis look like savage people," he said. "Not all Iraqis are bad like that."

Naji understands the Army's reasoning, however, and believes it's better for soldiers to muddle through made-up challenges in Louisiana than learn by trial and error in Iraq.

'It enhances the realism'
Naji's employer is a Virginia-based contractor that hires the fort's "cultural role players" from six cities with substantial Iraqi populations: Detroit, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., Dallas and Houston, said Bruce Schomaker, director of operations for SMI Global Mission Support.

At first the company had to advertise to find qualified applicants, but these days positions tend to fill by word of mouth.

Schomaker said he considers recent experience in Iraq a plus, and previous work for a nongovernmental organization or military unit overseas "an added bonus."

"It enhances the realism," he said.

The commitment to authenticity extends to combat situations, which force soldiers to deal with mass casualties and hysterical civilians.

A chaotic scene
On a cold morning in late November, a cloud of gray smoke rose over the longleaf pine trees that line the main road to Mosalah, one of the largest Iraqi villages in Fort Polk.

A military convoy had come under attack by rocket-propelled grenades and a car bomb. Next to a disabled Humvee lay a soldier who held a card reading "KIA," for killed in action. Two other soldiers carried a wounded colleague away in a stretcher as screaming Iraqis tugged at their uniforms with bloody hands. Everyone hit the ground when the pop-pop-pop of gunshots split the air.

In the chaos, Laith Al Qaisi tried to draw the soldiers' attention to a fellow Iraqi who knelt in a daze on the ground, cradling a bloody arm stump.

"Help him, he'll die!" Al Qaisi shouted. "Where's the ambulance?"

The longer it took for the soldiers to secure the area for a Red Crescent ambulance, the angrier the Iraqis got. Al Qaisi and others whipped up an impromptu protest.

"Get out, get out, Americans!" they chanted in Arabic.

"Get back!" the Americans shouted.

By the end of the exercise, U.S. troops had suffered 10 casualties and barely managed to tow their vehicles away before the villagers started a riot.

"Ouch," an officer said, shaking his head.

"Better here than somewhere else," another said.

Al Qaisi rubbed at a bloodstain on his robe and watched the armored vehicles roll away. The 46-year-old from Baghdad had served in the Iraqi army until he received two anonymous letters threatening his life. He moved his wife and children to a relative's home and applied for refugee status, arriving in Houston in July of last year.

Al Qaisi never expected to make a living in America by re-enacting the violence he left behind in Iraq, but the irony doesn't bother him.

"It's different," he said. "In Iraq, it's real."

Seven miles away in the village of Al Dukar, Sgt. Benjamin Vorpahl sat down across from three Iraqis at a table in a cafe. Two other soldiers watched the door while a third took notes. The translator took a seat.

"Salam Alaykum," the cafe owner said. He introduced himself as Salman Basry.

"How are you?" Basry asked Vorpahl in Arabic.

"Not too bad, not too bad," the 29-year-old National Guardsman from Pennsylvania replied. Basry introduced his brother, Jasim, and cousin, Nabil. Then he asked about Vorpahl's family in America.

"Not too bad," Vorpahl repeated.

"God willing you will go back to them safe," Basry said.

"Thank you," Vorpahl said. There was an awkward pause. Vorpahl decided to cut to the chase. "What do you have for me?" he asked.

Fifteen minutes later, Vorpahl stood to leave. His team had learned insurgents were stockpiling weapons in a nearby house, and the Iraqis had won assurances the soldiers would protect them from retaliation.

Maj. Tim Sawyer, a training mentor, asked Vorpahl how he thought the conversation had gone.

Pretty good, the soldier said.

Sawyer turned to the Iraqis and asked what they thought.

As it turned out, Vorpahl had committed several faux pas in the first few minutes. He hadn't introduced his team when the cafe owner introduced his family, the Iraqis said. Then he had jumped right into business, resisting the Iraqi's attempt at small talk. His team had still gotten the intel, but in their rush they'd failed to exchange contact information or pick up on the fact that the cafe owner's cousin was in the Iraqi army, a potentially useful contact.
"Dealing with the people and building rapport is one of the most important things you're going to do over there," Sawyer said.

For Vorpahl, the staged meeting in the cafe was a new experience. The last time he deployed to Iraq several years ago, his cultural awareness training had been limited to a lecture and PowerPoint presentation.

"Last time I was there it was more kicking down doors and stuff, so this is different," Vorpahl said. "It seems like they want us to interact more with the population now. If it's working, great, go for it."

His teammate, Spc. Kevin Arnold, said he appreciated Iraqis' advice about "the little things," like taking gloves off before shaking hands as a sign of respect.

"The purpose behind this training is building relationships," said Jasim Moustafa, a 35-year-old Iraqi from Tennessee who played the cafe owner's brother. "It will save lives."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6151455.html

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