Eyewitness to War

Eyewitness to War Oral History Series: US Army Advisors in Afghanistan is the third publication by the Combat Studies Institute that makes exclusive use of oral history. This volume is a product of interviews obtained by the CSI Operational Leadership Experience (OLE) project and our Contemporary Operations Study Team (COST) The interviews used in this volume range from a senior officer who conceptualized the idea for Task Force Phoenix, the Coalition Joint Task Force that execute a broad-based training, mentoring, and assistance program aimed at improving the Afghan National Army's (ANA) ability to field mission-ready operational commands, to embedded transition team members assigned to coach, teach and mentor their ANA counterparts. The interviews are in their own words; they provide frank commentary to a range of topics including pre-deployment training, logistics support, poppy eradication (and some of the corruption they encountered associated with that task) and integration of Special Forces with conventional infantry on operations. As the US Army continues its advisory mission in Afghanistan and in other countries around the globe, the relevancy of US Army Advisors in Afghanistan grows and should be on the reading list for Soldiers tasked with this mission.