Preparing an Area Study

[SRT31B]

I am beginning the process of preparing an area study for my platoon (and probably the whole company) on Iraq for the next time we rotate to green cycle. I want to do a better job than the orientation we got for our last deployment which consisted of, "we're going to Bagram..."

Not having ever done this before I am unsure what the important items to include are. I had thought about a general overview of the history of the region (for the past hundred years or so, cause you'd be surprised how many people don't know), the different cultural regions within the country and differences in languages spoken. In addition, if I can find it, trying to develop an understanding for everyone as to why there is such a conflict between the different cultural groups.

I thought that TASC might be a good place to start for some training aides, but there things are usually very vague and more for the "check the block" approach. I want to do a good job on this, but as I said it's not something I have ever had to do and would appreciate any suggestions from those individuals that have been around for a while and do this sort of thing regularly. There is the possibility that we will end up working with the IPs in SPTTs so I am trying to circulate the OP19 paper to give people a better understanding about being an advisor as well.

We don't have a DEPORD or anything yet, thats still a ways out. I'm just trying to do something useful with our trianing time and trying to do a better job of preparing my team than what I got my first trip over.

Thanks in advance,

SRT