Back to Iraq: Wings of Iraq

BAGHDAD - The cadets stood at attention when Air Force Academy physics professor Capt. Paul Homan entered the classroom Tuesday to lecture on the basics of flight. But he couldn’t be farther from the marble halls of Fairchild Hall.

Homan and fellow academy professor Maj. Stuart Lloyd are working at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad’s core, to rebuild the Iraqi air force’s officer corps from scratch. They’re starting with the local version of doolies and a truncated course that puts them on the path to leadership in six months.

“These are young college graduates we are looking in the eye and telling them they will be the force of change in the Iraqi military,” Homan said as his cadets marched stiffly to lunch.

The student body is small — about 100 Iraqis enrolled even though it makes them and their families targets for insurgents. The curriculum is a compilation of American teaching lifted from the academy in Colorado Springs and other Air Force schools and redesigned to fit the needs of Iraq’s small flying force.

“This is a leadership challenge beyond anything you could imagine back home,” said Lloyd, who teaches behavioral science to cadets in the Springs and took over as chief of the Iraqi school last spring when officers had to shovel human waste out of classrooms to prepare for the first cadets.

Officers from the academy and other Air Force schools deployed to Iraq as part of the U.S. effort to rebuild its military. The growing ranks of the Iraqi army often are noted as a success story here. But the smaller air force, largely left in ruins after the 1991 Gulf War, has been slower to get off the ground because of the technical skills required.

Iraq’s air force, once the region’s largest, now consists of surplus Russian and American helicopters and a few transport and observation planes. Commanders see its role in the war growing quickly, though, because aerial reconnaissance is crucial to helping the Iraqi army fight insurgents.

Americans in Iraq are running the academy and other schools aimed at enlisted troops and officers to teach them everything from how to repair aircraft to how to fly them.

Homan and Lloyd are charged with building the new junior officers the growing force needs, but say getting the Iraqi academy’s students through the program has challenges they don’t see in Colorado Springs.

The first and most obvious problem is security. Things have been peaceful around Camp Taji in recent weeks, but just a few months ago, mortar attacks were common. Students and teachers remain wary of attack and are always ready to head for shelter.

The site and its cadets are prime targets of insurgents who frequently target Iraqis who cooperate with Americans.

The students aren’t allowed to wear uniforms downtown and military haircuts are out, too, because they might mark the cadets for death. Some cadets have had to leave school during class hours to help their families flee insurgent threats, the Americans said.

Lloyd said there’s an advantage to danger. He doesn’t need to simulate warfare for the cadets to give them an understanding of combat; he only has to send them home on leave.

Another issue is bending American training styles to fit Iraq, where students frequently are taught to help each other on tests and talking in class or showing up late to a lecture is considered normal.

The professors say they don’t compromise their tough standards, but understand that their cadets live by rules they find foreign.

“We have to teach them,” Lloyd said.

The school is backed by the Iraqi government, but some classrooms lack chairs and desks and student amenities are slim.

The classroom day runs six hours and is interspersed with hands-on military training and a large dose of physical fitness. The doolies here have their version of recognition with a blue beret filling in for the prop-and-wings pin given to American cadets as a rite of passage.

Outside the school, in a former Baath Party headquarters, students talked about their training over cigarettes.

“It’s very good,” said one who didn’t want his name used because of insurgent fears. “It will help me help my country.”

The students stayed attentive and join eagerly in class activities despite Lloyd’s and Homan’s lack of authority over the Iraqi cadets. That lies with Iraqi commanders who oversee the school and are empowered to dish out discipline to cadets, but do not teach there.

“You don’t have the legitimate authority you have at home so you have to find another way,” Lloyd said.

For Homan, a 2002 academy graduate, it’s the ability to inspire the Iraqis. He said his lectures on the wonders of flight have driven some of his students to seek a career in the cockpit, a desire that’s oddly uncommon here because many of the academy’s students seek jobs that keep them firmly on the ground.

“To have someone say they’re changing their life plans because of what you taught them is something,” he said.

Lloyd said the Americans hope to ease out of many roles at the academy and hand over to Iraqi air force officers soon. But he said he’s learned invaluable lessons at the Iraqi academy, which he calls the most rewarding job in the Air Force.

“I go home knowing myself better as a leader,” he said. “You get this kind of opportunity once.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: tom.roeder@gazette.com