iCloud Contacts Will Not Sync

I haven't seen or found an answer to this yet today in searching the existing discussion so wanted to post my own topic on it. I have an iPhone 3GS and an iPad2 Wi-Fi only. Both have been updated to iOS5 without issue. However, iCloud does not want to import all of my contacts so that I can use iMessaging across the devices.

I researched a bit and it seems that both devices believe a bulk of my entered contacts exist on my work Exchange server and not previously locally on my iPhone, or in iCloud now. Since they are not on the devices, iCloud doesn't want to recognize them. I'm not sure how to fix this. I changed and reviewed all the iCloud and iMessaging settings on both devices, and even added my work email address to my Apple ID account, but no dice.

So, question is, how can I get iCloud to understand my Exchange contacts? I have not installed the Windows PC iCloud control panel as I wasn't planning on syncing iCloud to my PC. Is this needed to sync the other way, from my work PC with Exchange on it to iCloud?