From April 2002 through August 2003, Major Darryl Rupp served as the division artillery (DIVARTY) intelligence officer for 3rd Infantry Division and, in this capacity, was involved in the DIVARTY-specific planning, at both home station and in Kuwait, for what became Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Once major combat operations kicked off, the DIVARTY acted as a "counterfire headquarters" and Rupp's duties were to predict where enemy artillery forces were going to be on the battlefield "so if they did fire, we'd be able to pick it up and fire back as quickly as possible." As it turned out, throughout the ground campaign, Iraqi forces "didn't seem to live up to the expectation I had of their artillery proficiency." After the fall of Baghdad, DIVARTY took over responsibility for the security of Baghdad International Airport as the mission transitioned into stability and support, a phase Rupp discusses in some depth. "What didn't happen at first, and what needed to happen," he said, "was the communication of letting the Iraqis know what we were doing and why. If we could do that, then when the oil pumping station gets blown up, they can see that it’s an insurgent doing it and not us – because the insurgents are blaming us: ‘Look, they can’t do anything right.’ So we were doing a lot of projects, but we weren’t doing a lot communicating.” Rupp also talks about the “incredible experience” of being a military intelligence officer and, in combat, being involved with “national level targeting” and with forming “a division plan.”

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