Anatomy of an Ambush

Phil Carter has a stellar and sobering explanation of how the American POWs were captured and what it reveals about our weaknesses:

Frankly, most logistics units have very poor training when it comes to basic soldiering skills and force-protection skills. My platoon tried and tried to train logistics units on the fundamentals of convoy defense, base defense, route reconnaissance, etc. For every soldier we trained, there were three more who didn not attend the training because they were busy doing "real world" maintenance. Bottom line: combat training gets neglected in support units because they're too busy turning wrenches to practice fieldcraft. That may have cost these soldiers their lives.

Agreed. We need to learn this lesson, and fast.