During the July 2005 battle of Siah Chow - an intense, daylong, small-unit fight waged by elements of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group against Taliban forces in Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province - Major Chris Hensley served as the Bravo Company commander. In this interview, he talks about the "operational-level planning implications" and, in addition, provides "a brief tactical overview of what occurred, some of the lessons learned from that and the decision points that were made on the ground." What began as a combat reconnaissance patrol into a suspected Taliban sanctuary area ended up being a successful execution of the battalion commander's strategy of constantly pressuring, pursuing and punishing the enemy in southern Afghanistan, an outcome made all the more possible by the integration of various Afghan security forces and coalition close air support. Explaining his role as one of synchronization, advice giving and resource facilitation, Hensley stresses the "paramount importance" of the individual operational detachment alpha commander's ability to "combine kinetic and non-kinetic effects in his area of operations. Being able to analyze various sources - from open sources, from shura meetings, from conversations with locals - to the special operations we conduct, to signals intelligence and imagery analysis - all that is best served at the detachment level," he insists, "allowing the detachment commander the freedom to plan and conduct his own operations." Hensley sees Siah Chow as a vindication of such a decentralized approach. "We lose sight of the fact," he said, "that these detachment commanders are extremely competent and are able to do the complex analysis to set up these operations and run them; and in my mind, we should also allow them from a developmental perspective to continue to run those things on the ground." One of those detachment commanders, in fact - Major Chris Wells, formerly in charge of ODA 324 - was a key figure in the battle of Siah Chow and actually joins Hensley in this interview, sharing his perspectives, insights and experiences as well.

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