Terrorist Trail: Backtracking the Foreign Fighter

Through an inverted military career, H. John Poole has discovered a few things that more promotable people miss. After spending his first two years as a combat commander, he did his last seven as an enlisted tactics instructor. That allowed him to see why American troops have so much trouble quelling insurgency. The techniques in their small-unit tactics manuals are quite simply outmoded. Those techniques are so unlikely to surprise anyone as to be "premachinegun" in format. This oversight on the part of their commanders and how it can be corrected forms much of the framework of Poole's work. Since retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1993, he has has traveled extensively in the Communist and Islamist worlds and written many other tactics and intel. manual supplements. He has also conducted multiday training sessions for 41 U.S. battalions, 9 schools, and 7 special-operations units from all four service branches. As most U.S. intelligence personnel know too little about the Eastern thought process and evolution of squad tactics, these supplements also provide currently deployed GIs with a rare glimpse into their opponent's intentions. While on active duty, John Poole was stationed four times in Asia. Since retirement, he has visited Mainland China (twice), Tibet, North Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India (five times), Pakistan (twice), Russia, Dubai, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Israel (to include the West Bank), Egypt, Tanzania, Sudan, and Morocco. Between early tours in the Marine Corps, he worked for two years in Chicago as a criminal investigator for the Illinois Bureau of Investigation.