A strong believer in the Army's need for effectively employed augmentees, Major Darrell Bascom, an augmentee assigned to the 123rd Signal Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, said that "a unit's success in the field comes from how well they implement those augmentees into their system." Upon being deployed in March 2003 to serve three months as the battalion's assistant operations officer, Bascom was primarily responsible for managing and troubleshooting the current communications network as well as planning future network operations. His normal workday began at 0600 and lasted until midnight every day of the week because others depended on the communications he provided - and keeping them up and running during wartime and in inclement weather conditions was often exceedingly difficult. "The most significant thing I learned," Bascom said, "was the effects of stress and tempo over a longer period of time. During training exercises, you can mimic the amount of time you spend pushing people, but you can’t really capture the effects of the stress of combat operations. Over a long period of time, those can take a toll on both yourself and the people around you. You have to be able to unplug, so to speak, and give yourself a chance to recover, even though you understand that things are moving fast.”

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