FORT HUACHUCA — Cultural astuteness is a critical tool for soldiers and will be even more so as the United States faces a number of challenges in the world, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said Tuesday.

The commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., said soldiers need a knowledge of cultures to be successful.

“We used to operate around the people. Now we operate among the people,” he told about 250 people attending a culture summit, where the three-star general was the lead-off speaker at the three-day event hosted by the Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca.

Americans generally do not understand other cultures, Caldwell said. That problem is sometimes even found within America’s armed forces, where each military service has a different take on their societies.

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The failure to understand someone’s culture in the world today can have devastating consequences, the general said.

Americans are impatient, wanting to come to a point immediately, find a solution and move on, Caldwell said.

Within other cultures, especially in the Middle East, there is the three-cups-of-tea view, where an Iraqi wants to have time to look an American over and cultivate a relationship, Caldwell said. The first cup of tea is to build a foundation, the second at a later meeting is seeing an American as a guest, and the third is served at an event where serious discussions can be held.

For Muslims, the phrase “inshallah,” or “God willing,” is a subtle way of expressing a need for patience. “Arabs come from a much more patient society than we,” Caldwell said.

To understand cultural nuances requires skills, knowledge and a combination of attitude and motivation, the general said. The skills include an understanding of another language, because what is said and how it is said is part of a person’s culture.

While fluency in a language by all soldiers is not required, the need for GIs to have a basic understanding of a language goes a long way in developing a relationship, Caldwell said. That is why some units are sending soldiers to language courses before deploying.

People appreciate any attempt by an American to speak some of their language, the general added.

“Language skills are a combat multiplier,” Caldwell said.

And officers and senior noncommissioned officers aren’t the only ones who have to be able to speak another language. The general said young soldiers out on patrol also are intelligence sensors.

“It’s no longer the strategic corporal, it’s the strategic private,” he said.

Language opens other knowledge avenues about how culture in a certain area has developed, Caldwell said.

Skills and knowledge allow Americans to have a better understanding of other people, including attitude and motivation, he added.

Culture is reaching out for all aspects of what makes a person work, why that person does certain things and how to reach out to an individual to accomplish a mission, Caldwell said.

The American military is tied to command and control, but there is another “C2” function that is equally important: collaborate and coordinate, he said.

“We develop leaders with combat skills,” Caldwell said, noting the American military is excellent in doing that.

The personal touch is needed when working with people who may or may not be friendly, Caldwell said.

A new program, called Human Terrain Teams, consists of seven to 12 civilians who deploy with a unit to provide additional cultural awareness that a commander may face.

Many team members are from academia and, in a sense, are cultural anthropologists, Caldwell sad.

Seven teams are now assigned to brigades either in Iraq or Afghanistan, or they are going to those areas, the general said.

The team members bring a diversity of disciplines. Caldwell said they can tell a commander which areas should not be entered, such as when soldiers are in hot pursuit. And the civilians are being enriched in their disciplines by working with the U.S. Army, he said.

Like soldiers who enjoy doing what they do, members of the Human Terrain Teams “love what they do,” the general said.

The program is one of the new projects to come out of the Army’s Combined Arms Center he commands.

But he is concerned about the lack of working ties between America’s armed forces and other federal government agencies.

Another program the Army may adopt is making officers area experts when they are commissioned. This means a young lieutenant may become an expert in South America and another in the Middle East. They will be challenged to broaden their horizons by obtaining more education in those areas culture and languages.

It doesn’t mean an officer will be pigeon-holed to one area, but it does mean the Army will have additional experts to draw from in case problems arise in other areas, the general said.

The U.S. military also must reach out to media outlets in different nations to explain what it is doing, Caldwell said.

He has done that, appearing on Arab TV outlets, such as al-Jazeera’s Arab and English language programs, as well as print media, something that was unusual in the past.

But, he said, the soldiers will be the cultural bridge, and that can be done at any level.

During his speech, Caldwell talked about Capt. Travis Patriquin, whose life was cut short by an improvised explosive device in December 2006.

Stationed in Anbar province, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, the captain approached a sheik, who was one of the top Sunni leaders in the area. Even though the sheik was an insurgent, Patriquin was able to convince him to turn from being anti-American to a supporter.

When the captain was killed, Sheik Sittar named a police station after Patriquin, the only known case of a building in an Iraqi community named after an American soldier.

The sheik, who led the area’s Awakening Council, a group that turned against al-Qaida, was killed six months ago. “The sheik and the captain reached a rapport with one another,” the general said.

That, he said, is the type of cultural understanding Americans must strive to gain.

Army Capt. Travis Patriquin

Army Capt. Travis Patriquin was a soldier who knew how to engage people in another culture. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

During his deployment in Iraq, the captain reached out to known enemies of the United States and used his love of other cultures to make changes.

He was noted for his briefings, but instead of the overwhelming PowerPoint presentations, he used stick figures to make his points and with almost “See Spot Run” verbiage on his slides. Patriquin was able to get his points across.

A linguist, the captain was fluent in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and two Central American dialects. He also drank large amounts of tea with Sheik Sittar and others in developing them to become supporters of America instead of fighting U.S. forces. In December 2006, nearly a year into his deployment, Patriquin was killed by an improvised explosive device in Ramadi. The 32-year-old officer, from Lockport, Ill., left a wife and three children.

Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.