HOHENFELS, Germany - Four soldiers sit at a table in a one-room building with no electricity that's covered with symbols and art from a language and a culture they're trying to comprehend.

At the head of the table sits a man in civilian clothes, with a daunting, authoritative posture. He's talking in Arabic to a translator, who's explaining to the soldiers that a house they've occupied in the village belongs to the agitated women sitting at the end of the table and that now the Army must pay $10,000 or get out.

Capt. Mike Gunther listens with his head down, nodding, ear cocked toward his translator, trying to separate the sounds of English from the angry Arabic at the end of the table. He's done this before. He knows not to look at the women, to keep his eyes averted, to talk only to the man in the room even as the women's voices rise in obvious disgust at what he's proposing.

He tells the mayor he'll pay $10,000 for five months for the house, a two-room concrete structure with no running water; its electricity is powered by a generator they'd secured. They have to wait on a contract to make sure everything's legit, Gunther says, but the mayor and the women, they want and need the money now.

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The 172nd Infantry Brigade was on the last legs of a 17-day training mission at the Joint Multi-National Readiness Center in Hohenfels, where troops are trained before heading into Iraq, Kosovo or Afghanistan.

The nearly 40,000-acre facility is complete with several makeshift "Iraqi" towns, including Yethrib, each equipped with social and economic structures - however broken - and Iraqi speakers. Some towns have electricity; others, like Yethrib, run on only a few hours' worth a day and look to the soldiers for support.

"For every single deployment, we tailor that training to where that unit is going" and what their mission is, said Capt. Junel Jeffrey, the public administration officer of the base. "We can't train for today's issues with last year's tactics."

For this rotation, civilians are used on the battlefield, Iraqi speakers who help the soldiers adapt to the language. It's intended to show the soldiers what's going on in the field "right now," she said.

While training, the soldiers of the 172nd travel around a section of southern Germany in tanks, Bradleys, Humvees and helicopters; they work to become more efficient as a team, as a whole working unit, as leaders, communicators, technicians, field doctors, fighters and, ultimately - what most of them say, at least - as nation-builders.

"I would say the big fight right now is cultural training," says Gunther, sitting in the two-story building he's rented in Yethrib, which is technically on the southeast end of the training area, called "The Box," at JMRC. Outside, the air is moist but the ground is dry and dusty, the result of a process that has sucked the wetness out of the German soil to better replicate Iraq.

That's what this exercise was about: working together as a full unit while immersed in Middle Eastern culture.

In 2004, when Gunther was downrange (military slang for being in Iraq or Afghanistan) during Operation Iraqi Freedom 2, he said they were told not to hobnob with the townspeople, not to drink tea with the mayor or engage in conversations. It's a new doctrine now, he says, one that he believes will do some good.

The training is intense, a result of months of behind-the-scenes preparation, where writers and planners come together to create scenarios big and small, fueled by information gathered from the brigade commander Lt. Col. John Reynolds and members of the 1st Battalion 4th Infantry at Hohenfels, who are constantly on rotations to Iraq or Afghanistan. Information is also pumped in from contractors who try to keep up with the ever-changing fight. The last week the 172nd was in training, for example, insurgents in Afghanistan had begun employing women for suicide bombers.

"The operation changes every day,' Jeffrey said.

Training of the six-batallion, four-company 172nd Infantry involved nearly 6,000 people: Civilians, insurgents, role players, translators, background coordinators and the brigade itself - all inside The Box.

Outside of The Box are the planners, controllers and operators, recording as much detail as they can for feedback after the training is complete. Analysts are linked with each operator/controller, which are trainers in turn linked to each unit and area in The Box. There are 96 radios that record tactical communication and equipment that tracks every single vehicle, said Jeff Hodges, a JMRC deputy director.

The goal is to show the soldiers what they look and sound like in the field instead of simply telling them, he said.

The amount of information going in and out of The Box should be overwhelming, but it's well-managed. There are secure video cameras recording most operations; vehicles are equipped with tracking devices and at least 189 people wear tracking units. Every person wears MILES gear that replicates injury or death in the form of a series of straps equipped with laser sensitive alarms. If your alarm goes off, you're dead - you've been caught too close to an explosion, or were sniped, or were perhaps in a vehicle, also equipped with sensors, that turned over.

The explosions aren't just pretend, they're sharp, unnerving replications of a mortar going off or a rocket-propelled grenade being fired, complete with a whistle from its flight down and the fireball explosion it creates upon impact. Casualties are replicated. Medic units must make rapid decisions on the training field that have much more daunting consequences in battle.

In The Box, many of the 172nd's men have been in Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan. Part of the brigade served on one of the longest tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom and has been deployed more times than any other unit since Vietnam.

The feeling among the soldiers is that they know not to pretend to know what to expect.

"In Iraq, every city is different," said Cpl. Jonathan Anderson, as he crouched outside of the mayor's home in Yethrib. "Being here and interacting with the locals … that doesn't mean it'll be this way in Iraq."

Yethrib represents one of the better places in Iraq during the day, said Anderson, a 24-year-old from Arizona, on his second tour to Iraq, who eventually wants to learn to fly helicopters. And one of the worst places at night.

That's the goal, said 1st Lt. Steve Estes. He's dressed in loose black pants and a dark green linen shirt and has scruff growing all over his face. He's part of the 1-4 Infantry, referred to during training as the Op-For, short for Opposition Force.

In short, he's an insurgent.

"A lot of what we do is free play," he said. "We come up with our own missions. "

He shows the explosive devices, most disguised as phones or other innocuous electronic toys. He throws on a suicide vest, complete with a detonation stick, to illustrate the reality of training.

Having come from downrange, he said it's often easier to play the aggressor. During training, the Op-For definitely has the upper hand.

They go as far as to hand out money and food to townspeople in training, to undermine soldiers' support and trust. They execute informants and influence the population.

"That's terrorism," Estes said.

Back at Yethrib, nearly two hours after the conversation with the mayor began, everyone takes a tour of the small town, where the tiny population only has electricity for about eight hours a day, where the schoolhouse is either occupied by Iraqi insurgents or not occupied at all, where there are Sons of Iraq, Iraqi police, families, electricians and, yes, more insurgents. Insurgents ready to keep the soldiers moving and fighting or adrenaline pumping in the middle of the night as the unit's two-room makeshift headquarters takes mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire from an invisible enemy, in spite of the earlier, calmer hours talking and drinking tea with the mayor.

Gunther walks toward the town school, past a sign pointing toward Baghdad, with the mayor and an Iraqi policeman. They talk about what the school needs to become operational, what the town needs to get back on its feet.

The soldiers hesitate to offer complete salvation, encouraging the mayor to bring his own engineer or electrician to help with the generators and the recovery of the school. They need to work on their own, eventually, Gunther says.

Everyone is operating on less than eight hours of sleep over the last 48 to 72 hours. But they're still working, together, dealing with disgraced single girls, invisible insurgents, potentially corrupt mayors and the heat of the day.

"If you can deal with the situations here, and really deal with it, then when you get to Iraq, you can handle it," said 1st Sgt. Gary Ausbrook, heading a unit within the 172nd. He's seen a lot of combat and through his conversation, it's obvious he cares deeply for his soldiers.

"We instill confidence in those soldiers that they can go down, they can do the job and they can come back alive," he said. "The more you bleed in training, the less you bleed in combat."