Lessons Observed vs Lessons Learned: How We Fail to Properly Train Advisers

Jason Fritz, a senior editor at War on the Rocks blog has published online an article about the difference between "lessons observed" and "lessons learned". The writer served as an adviser in Iraq a few years back and compares his preparation and training with those advisers from the Vietnam era. No lessons learned there; although there was plenty of lessons observed. Of course this adviser selection and training problem exists even today with the selection for the SFAATs for the Security Force Assistance mission in Afghanistan. Read more in "Lessons Observed on Lessons Observed: IEDs, Advising, and Armor", War on the Rocks, February 3, 2014.