During his February 2004 to February 2005 deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Major Chris Budihas spent the first four months as commander of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment out of the 25th Infantry Division; and then for the remainder of his tour, he served as the assistant operations officer for 2nd Brigade, 25th ID. While in company command, his area of operations in the vicinity of Daquq, Iraq, was roughly the size of Connecticut and his responsibilities were certainly full spectrum in nature: everything from "teaching Political Science 101" to conducting raids, doing civil-military and stabilization operations, and conducting combat operations in Kirkuk Province, to include five company air assaults to capture and/or kill high-value targets. In this wide-ranging interview, Budihas discusses working with (and leveraging) local sheiks and other Iraqi nationals, dealing with an ethnically diverse AO scarred by Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" policies, and his experiences fighting in Najaf, Mosul and Tall Afar during insurgent uprisings in those cities. Upon becoming the AS3, Budihas was responsible for the coordination, planning and resourcing of provincial Iraqi security elements, to include the Iraqi National Guard as well as police and border patrol forces. He also served as the brigade's oil security coordinator. Reflecting on the manifold lessons learned, Budihas recalls some advice his Iraqi interpreter gave him at their first meeting: "He said, 'Never trust anybody. Don't even trust me.' I thought that was interesting and at first I wasn't sure what he meant, but it goes back to trust is something you don't give somebody; it's something you build with them." Budihas added: "He said that based on the history and what was going on, I needed to be smart. People will attempt to play you so don't trust anybody. Over in Iraq I learned I was the referee and if you ever side with one side over another side, that perception can be used not only against the other Iraqi side, but also against the coalition."

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