OIF III: Never Forget
Abstract
Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, the unit that I was assigned to on 4 January, 2004. I was the First Sergeant (Hardrock 7) of the best company in 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The unit was redeploying back from the National Training Center where there rotation was very successful. My vision of what this company needed in order to prepare for deployment to OIF III was just that, a vision. I couldnt have picked a better group of men to deploy to Iraq with. The unit lost one Soldier, (SSG Hemingway) during OIF I and the thought that went through my head was that how many men are we going to lose during this rotation. This very thought was the driving force that the commander and I used to motivate Soldiers. It also helped develop a training plan that we thought we needed for a successful mission in Iraq. However, no matter how much training you execute, the real test will not hit home until we are in country and we experience the real threat in the new Iraq. The price we paid as a company will always linger in my mind on whether we did everything that we could to prepare the Soldiers for combat. Did we train as hard as we could have? Did we prepare the Soldiers physically and mentally? Did we help prepare their families to deal with different situations while their Soldiers were deployed? Did we make sure that all their finances we taken care of prior to deployment? Did we set-up the Family Readiness Group to help support the families while we were deployed? These are all the questions that were going through my mind as we prepared the Hardrock company for the year long deployment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 13, 2006
- Accession Number
- AD1121004
Entities
People
- Christopher Mackenzie
Organizations
- United States Army Sergeants Major Academy