Lieutenant Colonel Wes Gillman was the commander of 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry, which is part of 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He deployed in January 2003 and redeployed in August 2003. Before deploying, issues that he thought might arise concerned repair parts, connections with the rear detachment and maintaining communications for command and control. He speaks of some of the lessons learned from Operation Desert Storm used to mitigate problems with repair parts. After the initial combat phase, his soldiers began some of the very first reconstruction projects to rebuild the infrastructure. They also found huge munitions caches which they cleared along with Iraqis whom they hired. They engaged the Iraqis in city planning and using their education and prior experience brainstormed their own local plans to undertake this project. Gillman was the mayor for his area. His soldiers were also involved in the search for weapons of mass destruction and took part in Objective Firebird. He had several contingents of embedded media with him and his soldiers were able to use their satellite phones to call home, which was a major perk. He relates his metrics for success. "Success was not getting anyone else killed or wounded. Success was smiling Iraqi children. Success was seeing life get better for them. Watching each one of those ammunition bunkers disappear. Watching our list of known locations of schools grow."

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