The commander of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Lieutenant Colonel Don Bolduc, in this interview, discusses two significant battles that elements of his unit were involved in while operating in southern Afghanistan in 2005: Siah Chow in July and Mari Ghar in August. By way of overview, he begins by defining his battalion's mission as one of conducting "selected unconventional warfare tasks in a counterinsurgency environment. During this rotation," Bolduc continued, "my responsibilities were all special operations forces in southern Afghanistan and under a specific strategy designed to search for the enemy, find, fix and finish him, and attack him both kinetically and non-kinetically through the use of direct and indirect approaches." In addition, he was charged with assisting "the local populace through the use of civil-military operations, psychological operations and information operations, and then training the Afghan National Army along a decentralized program of instruction." The ultimate goal, said Bolduc, was to "work ourselves out of a job." In both battles - small-unit clashes against well-armed and determined Taliban fighters waged in enemy sanctuary areas - his role was to "listen and anticipate," to have the systems in place to, as necessary, alert medical evacuation, activate the quick reaction force, push out liaison officers and make the case to the regional commander for additional assets such as close air support. "I called it piling on," he explained. "We develop the situation and add the requisite amount of combat power we need." Among other topics discussed are the "psychology of war," the integration of indigenous forces into US combat units, and his thoughts on waging a successful counterinsurgency. Bolduc closes by articulating what he feels is the importance of recording soldiers' oral histories. "This was a great opportunity for my battalion and I thank Lieutenant General David Petraeus [the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth commander] for having the wisdom to recognize the value in capturing these historical accounts at this point in time - of what both the conventional guys and the SOF guys are doing. Capturing these lessons learned for our future leaders, instead of just visiting them 20 years from now. Getting them now while they're still fresh in people's minds and talking to the commanders and soldiers who were involved: it's just a very worthwhile investment. I support it 100 percent and I have since I took command here."

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