In January 2005, Major Paul Reese deployed to Iraq as the executive officer of 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment - part of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade - and roughly halfway through his yearlong tour he became the operations officer for the brigade whose area of responsibility encompassed "almost everything on the east side of Baghdad," including Sadr City. While XO of 3-7 CAV, one of Reese's additional duties was the military training team chief for an Iraqi Army battalion, whose training and equipping he discusses in detail. He also talks at length about the decisive combat operations conducted against the former terrorist stronghold of Salman Pak. "They had no capability to stand toe to toe with us," Reese said. "In fact, it got to a point where if they found themselves backed up against the wall facing the Americans, they would just surrender. They would just sit there because they knew, being Americans, we wouldn't just shoot them if they surrendered." In addition, Reese shares his assessment of Iraqi elections, offers insights into counterinsurgency operations and points to a great success being the fact that, when his brigade redeployed, “half of our battlespace was not controlled by Americans anymore; it was controlled by the Iraqi security forces.” Discussing as well the many leadership lessons he himself learned, Reese observes that “even in this age of technology, where it’s very easy to sit back and watch all your systems, leading from the front and being on the ground is still the way to help develop and train soldiers. They need to know,” he added, “that their leaders are taking the same risks they’re facing every day; if not, the leaders lose credibility.”

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