An Iowa National Guardsman, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Visser was mobilized in March 2004 and soon after deployed to Afghanistan in command of Task Force 168, a 750-soldier battalion comprised principally of his own 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry Regiment, and tasked with the force protection mission for the country's provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), which "were spread 800 miles apart from one end of Afghanistan to the other." In this interview, Visser - the owner of a printing business in civilian life - begins by describing the "cookie-cutter training regime" his unit underwent at Fort Hood, Texas, and then details the inherent challenges in mobilizing, deploying and commanding the single largest Iowa Guard unit to be sent overseas since World War II. Based primarily in Bagram, Visser nonetheless traveled during the majority of the task force's deployment, visiting and overseeing operations at what were eventually - by the time they left theater in May 2005 - more than a dozen PRT compounds. As he explained his soldiers' PRT support mission, "We were there to provide the security. We manned the towers and the gates. When they went out to do their job out in the countryside and visit with whomever and plan the projects they were doing, we provided the convoy security for that too." Continuing, Visser said, "We ran a tactical operations center at every one of them, provided a platoon leader who led the platoon-sized security element, … the force protection officer in charge, and usually an executive officer as well, who ran the TOC. We ran all the communications stuff. We also handled all the supplies." Simply put, Visser said, "My guidance to our soldiers was that they were to do everything so that civil affairs could do their [reconstruction and humanitarian assistance] mission." In addition, he discusses the overall security situation in depth, relating particularly a number of instances wherein his own soldiers came under attack and how they responded. He also talks about the unique skills his Iowa Guardsman brought to the mission, among them agricultural expertise, and about recurrent problems sorting out often indistinct chains of command. "It was a great deployment, an honor to serve, and we were really able to affect the Afghanistan and the OEF mission," Visser said in summation. "We did a lot to build up the National Guard. In fact, a 25th Infantry Division commander told me, after watching us work, that his whole opinion of the National Guard had changed. He said, 'I'd take your soldiers with me anytime, anywhere.' It made me feel good that we were able to change some opinions. It was a good deployment, a long deployment, and I'm very proud of all these soldiers and what they did."

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