I'll just add to General Howard's explanation.
In the field, these soldiers are brave to the point of being foolhardy. You can have a guy from our operational mentoring and liaison team, an officer or an NCO, sitting here and he'll tell you that they need to tell Afghan soldiers to take cover, because it's not a manly thing to take cover. They're committed to their country. I don't think I have ever heard of an act of cowardice. If anything, you've got to rein them in.
It's an impressive army but it's very difficult when people are illiterate. We managed to accomplish something as simple as firing an indirect-fire missile from an artillery piece, which is quite an involved operation, near the end of December when this brigade headquarters got its CM1 qualification after a long period of mentorship. We just started with basic math and worked our way up through the basic principles of artillery theory.
The will is there and the attitude is right.