In a March, 2008 file photo, then-Col. H.R. McMaster, adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, Multi-National Forces - Iraq commander, talks to Lt. Col. John Kolasheski, commander of the 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, during a meeting at Combat Outpost Carver, Iraq.

PUEBLO, Colo. (Tribune News Service) — President Donald Trump’s choice for his national security adviser is a battle-tested Army general whose leadership in dealing with insurgents in Tal Afar, Iraq, in 2005 made him a leading U.S. strategist.

In March 2006, then-Col. H.R. McMaster had just brought the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment back to Fort Carson from a year of vicious street fighting in Tal Afar, which is near the Syrian border.

McMaster, with his trademark bald head, was conducting several days of after-action review with his commanders at Fort Carson but took time to talk to reporters about the combat in Tal Afar — which often meant insurgents murdering any Iraqis who cooperated with U.S. troops, frequently beheading them in gruesome warnings to others.

McMaster was already a decorated veteran of Operation Desert Storm and the invasion of Iraq and he made a point of bringing his young company and even platoon commanders forward to tell their war stories that day. He was happy to step into the background.

The military has an expression — “unit cohesion” — and it was clear the 3rd ACR had it in spades.

When the 5,200-soldier regiment got to Tal Afar, the schools and shops were closed, there was a handful of Iraqi police afraid of being killed and the insurgents were hiding among the population in the city of 250,000.

When firefights broke out, McMaster said, it was common for the insurgents to grab civilians as body armor.

“These were some of the most evil people on Earth,” he said. “They used mass murder to terrorize the city, to make anyone afraid to cooperate with us or their city government.”

The key to changing the atmosphere in Tal Afar was to kill the enemy, McMaster said, and the 3rd ACR did that in street fights and raids.

He estimated the regiment killed or captured 1,500 insurgents in that year of combat.

Not without losses, though. The 3rd ACR suffered 39 killed and 126 wounded in the fighting.

McMaster said when his troops first arrived, many insurgents were “foreign fighters” — Saudi Arabians, Libyans, Syrians and others who wanted to kill U.S. troops.

As the 3rd ACR established control, local Iraqis were more willing to point out the insurgents hiding among them.

“In Tal Afar, the people were deciding this wasn’t a legitimate insurgency anymore,” McMaster said, crediting his soldiers with accomplishing that mission.

His success in Tal Afar made McMaster the subject of newspaper and magazine profiles, as well as being featured on “60 Minutes” and other news programs.

In his later career, McMaster went on to be an Army planner and strategist, both in the U.S. and in Afghanistan. He eventually was promoted to lieutenant general in July 2014 and was deputy commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

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