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Role Playing Helps Troops Prepare For Iraqi Civilians

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By JOHN MILBURN, The Associated Press

Published: October 19, 2007

FORT RILEY, Kan. - Many of the actors in this traveling troupe don't need a script to learn their roles.

They're playing their countrymen back in Iraq or Afghanistan in an elaborate simulation designed to teach American soldiers how to deal with a sometimes-hostile civilian population.

In one of the training sessions, a group of actors including many Afghan and Iraqi immigrants crowds around a dozen soldiers in a mock village.

'Leave us alone,' they shout in Dari, an Afghan dialect. 'We're not the enemy.'

The U.S. troops being jostled are training to be advisers who will help teach Iraqi and Afghan forces to be independent. The military thinks reproducing the culture - and emotions - advisers will face is essential.

The mock meetings require a handful of native speakers to play mayors or village leaders who will speak through a translator.

'You're not talking about someone walking in off the street,' said Otto Nadal, who supervises the native-speaking actors for defense conglomerate L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. in Virginia.

'These are people who are already steeped in the culture. These are great Americans coming out to help get our soldiers prepared.'

Up to 85 role players gather six days a week at Fort Riley. Some hope the job leads to a position in diplomacy or military support services. Others say they are working to prevent misunderstandings and violence between troops and their Iraqi and Afghan countrymen.

The Afghan and Iraqi immigrants travel around the country conducting training sessions. But the actors also include local residents, among them former soldiers such as Lee Anderson, who left the Army in 2000 and now rents and moves mobile homes.

For $17 an hour, he portrays a resident of an Afghan neighborhood where the troops are supposed to be looking for a suspected Taliban fighter. During the performances, he wears a traditional white Arabic smock over his blue jeans, T-shirt and work boots.

'It's pretty fun,' he said. 'You get to mess with soldiers. And it's pretty good pay.'

The exercises are held in makeshift villages constructed on the rolling Kansas prairie. Large shipping containers have been modified to resemble homes, shops and even a mosque.

Inside, the actors have couches, chairs and tables.

Military trainers give the soldiers specific tasks, such as controlling crowds, searching buildings, securing the perimeter or arresting terrorists. Role players are told what the soldiers are doing and how they should react.

Cultural awareness is the goal of each phase.

For example, advisers learn that chewing tobacco or placing their hat on the ground are disrespectful acts that can spoil an otherwise promising meeting.

'If we see that they are messing up, I will start picking on them to make them work harder,' Anderson said.

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