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Program in Diyala Trains Iraqi Mechanics |
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Tuesday, 17 February 2009 |
By Pfc. Alisha Nye
14th Public Affairs Detachment
 An Iraqi Soldier conducts maintenance on a vehicle after attending a two week training course at Forward Operating Base Warhorse, located in the Diyala province of Iraq. The maintenance on the vehicle acts as a final assignment for the course. Photo by Pfc. Alisha Nye.
“We first started training ... close to the end of the year, 2008,” said staff Sgt. Ramiro Carrasco, an automotive mechanic currently overseeing the training of the Iraqi Soldiers. “We have them, roughly, for about two weeks at a time.”
The training was started as part of a partnership program between the U.S. and Iraqi Soldiers in the area, said Carrasco.
He also explained that the program is designed around the knowledge base of the individuals going through it at the time.
“We do a knowledge assessment of what it is that they know and we actually base our curriculum [on] how much they know,” he said. “We’ve actually gotten some that are pretty proficient in different areas. The last crew - we had two of them who were electricians. When we got to the electrical portion of the training it became relatively easy just for the simple fact that they had some knowledge base.”
Training these individuals serves a strong purpose, said Carrasco.
“They’re going to have a lot of the same equipment that we currently have or that we’ve given them already,” he said. “So it’s best that we teach them how to use it and how to troubleshoot the problems.”
So far, Carrasco said, that has been the chief element in training the Iraqi Army Soldiers on vehicle mechanics.
“A lot of it has to do with just troubleshooting; just finding the right answers to the problem,” he said. “Once we’ve gotten past that, then we just show them how maintain the equipment.
“At the end of every day, they do a check on learning and it’s not just something they’re going through the motions with,” Carrasco said. “We’re trying to teach them something more advanced they can take back to their units with them.” |
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