From the time 9/11 hit until June 2004, when he left to join the 1st Cavalry Division already in Iraq, Major Lee Overby served with 3rd Brigade, 87th Division (Training Support) at Camp Shelby, Mississippi - specifically in the field artillery battalion - and was tasked with coaching, teaching and mentoring National Guard and Reserve soldiers supporting, initially, Operation Noble Eagle and then, eventually, Operations Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. In this interview, Overby discusses the full range of training his unit provided, from individual to collective, from homeland security-specific to theater-specific, and comments at length on Camp Shelby as a training installation as well as the challenges of receiving timely information about current threats overseas. "I think the system was struggling to catch up to what was actually happening on the ground," he said. "We did get some information, but a decent portion of it was just from our contacts, trying to get the real deal, because sometimes the flow of information between First Army through brigade and us was not as quick as it should have been, so we kind of ad hoc'd it in some cases." Overby also talks about the admittedly rudimentary cultural awareness training he helped provide in the earliest stages of the Global War on Terrorism - which somewhat comically consisted of "two soldiers of mine dressed up in bedsheets with a big tree limb laying across the road as a barricade" - and, in addition, the problems he encountered with the National Guard leadership's inadequate grasp of "training management" and too heavy focus on mere force retention. "A lot people today are saying that the GWOT and all these mobilizations are really hurting the Guard," Overby observes, "but I personally think it's a great thing for the Reserve Component side of the house because you're cleaning up a lot of trash that's been hiding out there for a long time. Guys who are dead weight, who aren't participating or contributing, these guys are forced to either get up, bring what they have and bring it every day, or pack it up and go home." Regarding his own eventual deployment to Iraq, Overby explains in detail his work in 1st CAV's effects coordination cell and his role as the line of operations chief for combat operations. He covers his running of the weekly targeting meeting, the huge importance that solid human intelligence had on division operations, as well as his interactions with a variety of other government agencies. Overby also outlines what he considered the three critical components of targeting in his Baghdad area of operations: utilization of all available external resources, ensuring your targeting is tightly focused, and also ensuring that it's effectively synchronized.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited