THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CAN-DO AND CAN DO.

I think most folks who have never worn the uniform may not understand certain aspects of why this mission might be one of extreme danger.

Previously we have discussed here the fact that a peacekeeping mission robs the US Army of two great advantages...its speed (and therefore its ability to seize and maintain the initiative.), and its lethality.

But there is more to it than that...a simpler concept we should all understand.

The US Army is not trained for peacekeeping.

Well, let me rephrase that.

The US Army is not trained for peacekeeping at any levels that even remotely approach how well trained they are for warfighting.

Let's examine this a bit.

In 1778, General George Washington, recognizing the shortcomings of the nation's young army, requested assistance from Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian officer to establish excellence in the ranks.

Through diligence, hard work and "yankee ingenuity" ultimately our Army defeated the British, a major world military power.

And though there have been lapses in training and readiness, generally speaking the US Army has done a good job in what Sun Tsu, in the oldest military treatise in the world, calls the "Art of War".

Consider the outcomes of two world wars once the Yanks entered.

Although many began counting the "savings" to be yielded by the "Peace Dividend" at the end of the cold war, in reality the US Army has been called on to do more, in more places than ever before.

When you are the only effective cop on the beat, well, the shifts get long.

As demonstrated by Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Military continues to break new ground - to develop new tactics, and to integrate services into a joint fight unparalleled in history.

Indeed, our senior leaders take a year from their careers to attend the Army War College. They study war.

At Fort Leavenworth there exists a school of the brightest minds in the US Army, the School of Advanced Military Studies, referred to only half jokingly as the Jedi Knights.

Every Army division based in the USA trains every year at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. And when they train, they train at war.

Here in Germany each brigade gets a rotation at the Combat Maneuver Training Center every year. Note that: combat.

The fact is that our Army has not been seriously challenged in recent history. But one can make a good argument that the US Army is currently without peer. At least in combat.

There is an old truism in the Army: Train as you fight. That is, no shortcuts in training, because there can be no shortcuts in war.

The American people understand how good our Army is. But I'm not sure they understand what it takes to make it that good.

It takes training. Serious training. And it takes a professional army, comprised of patriotic men and women who answer the nation's (and increasingly the world's) call and school themselves to learn and understand the Art of War as fully as a physician understands the art of healing.

Because war today isn't a pick-up game. The amazing ground and air weapons systems, information systems and logistics systems are precise and complex. War today can't be won by teaching Johnny to shoot his M1 Carbine, then sending him "over there".

And so we train. To fight.

Now there is an amazing ethos alive in the Army today. It is one that fills Americans with pride when they encounter it.

Nowhere in the entire US Army will one ever hear one utter the phrase "it can't be done".

In fact, as if to prove the point, the motto of the V Corps, currently in Iraq, is "It will be done."

It is an interesting result of the Army culture, and Army training, that soldiers believe in themselves and their mates to the extent that they simply assume they can do anything.

All around the Army you will hear it in common phrases and mottos. Can-do. Whatever it Takes. No Mission Too Tough. All the Way.

We saw it recently in the story about the 16th Engineer Brigade in Baghdad...when guys trained in bulldozing to create large flat spaces, or berms of earth, (called horizontal construction in Army speak) built and raised a radio tower in the midst of Baghdad.

They weren't trained for that. But the mission called for it. "Can-do, Sir."

In fact when you hear a soldier exclaim that he wasn't trained for a given job, usually it is a statement of pride. "...but I'm doing it anyway, and succeeding" is implied.

And for years it was said that it was precisely this flexibility - this Yankee Ingenuity - of our forces that stymied the leadership of the army of the Soviet Union. "We study US warfighting doctrine", one Soviet General was quoted as saying, "but the Americans never follow it."

So our forces have this marvelous Can-Do attitude. A professional soldier needs nothing more than to know that there is a mission to be done. And that soldier will pack up, leave home and family, and go do it.

Even if he's not trained for it.

Peacekeeping isn't war. We are good at war...but peacekeeping isn't war.

And we are not trained. Not like we are for war.

We don't have 228 years of experience in peacekeeping.

Sun Tzu never wrote The Art of Peacekeeping.

Jomini never wrote On Peacekeeping.

We don't have a Peacekeeping Maneuver Training Center.

We don't have the Army Peacekeeping College, nor the School for Advanced Peacekeeping Studies.

America expects much of its Army. And America's Army delivers to the best of its training, and beyond...thanks to the Can-Do ethos indegenous to the force.

But in the end there are things that Can-Do can't do.

And that is why this is potentially a very dangerous thing.