As they train for war, civilians experience two cultures: Afghanistan and U.S. military.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: SOFT POWER

NORTH VERNON, Ind. -- A group of civilians preparing to deploy to Afghanistan to carry out President Obama's vision to involve the entire federal government in the war gathered in a circle for an after action review at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center.

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Only minutes earlier, they had been walking down a street in a mock marketplace taking a tour with the provincial governor, when an improvised explosive device was set off near an Indiana National Guard humvee. The soldiers escorting the civilians quickly loaded them into their vehicles and sped off as they exchanged fire with "insurgents" shooting from balconies.

Now the role player portraying the governor wants to know why he was left behind. No one protected him. What are the implications for their mission if the governor is killed in such an attack? he asked through an interpreter.

The dozen civilians spending a week on the grounds of this former mental institution--now converted into a training facility--didn't have any ready answers.

In July 2009, the State Department in partnership with the Indiana National Guard began offering a one-week immersive training course designed to shorten the learning curve for civilians who will be thrown into two very different cultures: that of the Afghanistan and that of the U.S. military.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a 2007 speech set off a debate on whether the entire federal government was truly doing its fair share to fight the current wars.

Why were Army sergeants during the early years in Iraq running water treatment plants? Why were lieutenants asked to instill the principles of good governance in municipal leaders?

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Along with President Obama's Afghan surge announcement last year came the so-called "whole-of-government" approach. Personnel from various civilian agencies with skills to offer could volunteer for one-year assignments and take some of the burden off the military.

Training for such missions was lacking, though. Civilians had to quickly learn the military way of doing things as well as the complexities of Afghanistan. The result was this immersive one-week course where civilians live, eat and interact with the military, sleep at a mock forward operating base, and negotiate with Afghan role players by day.

"The military is the major footprint on the ground and the major logistical piece, so the civilians have to live as part of that system," said Army Brig. Gen. Clif Tooley, commanding general of the Muscatatuck Center for Complex Operations.

Some recruits are retired military, but others are employees of federal agencies, or civilians hired for...