Iroquois Warriors in Iraq

The role of the Organized Reserves in the history of the US Army has
taken many twists and turns since the nation’s founding. The organization
and missions of the Army’s reserves, both the National Guard and the Army
Reserve, are once again undergoing fundamental change to meet the needs
of the 21st century. In Iroquois Warriors in Iraq, Mr. Steve Clay analyzes
the role played by the “Iroquois Warriors” of the US Army Reserve’s 98th
Division (Institutional Training). In an unprecedented move, the soldiers
of the 98th were called on in mid-2004 to deploy to Iraq and to fulfill a
critical role in the building, training, and advising of the new Iraqi Army.
Prior to 2004, a US Army Reserve institutional training division had
never deployed overseas to a theater of operations, nor were they designed
to function as unit trainers and combat advisors. The author highlights the
challenges faced by the 98th Division as it trained for and deployed to
Iraq for this unusual mission. Among those challenges were how to train
and prepare for the mission, who to send, how to integrate reservists into
the new Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I),
and whether to deploy the 98th as a unit or as a collection of individual
soldiers.
Throughout the turbulent period of 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, the soldiers
of the 98th Division added to the proud legacy of the US Army Reserve.
Iroquois Warriors in Iraq tells the story of the history of the 98th Division
(IT), it is a compelling narrative of the earliest phases of the Army’s efforts
to build the Iraqi armed forces, and it offers a number of key insights for
the Army as it conducts the Long War.