Assigned as the tactical command post officer in charge for 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Major William Kinsey deployed to Kuwait in September 2002 for Exercise Intrinsic Action but stayed on to participate in the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom when that kicked off in March of the following year. In this interview, Kinsey begins by outlining his duties as TAC OIC and how the command post was organized for combat, and then moves into a discussion of how his brigade moved north and ultimately into Baghdad to seize the downtown palace district by means of the famous thunder runs. As Kinsey explains, "The idea is we're going to drive through to show the Iraqi people we're here and hopefully the international press corps locked up in the Palestine Hotel will see we're here too. The word will get out, everybody will rise up, overthrow the regime and be happy. After about the third day at Objective Saints, after driving around here and there, going to blow stuff up, we do the first thunder run - basically a big drive-by shooting." Reflecting on the nature of enemy opposition, Kinsey said that, "It would usually be guys in trucks, buses or on foot, one case on boats, physically charging American positions trying to overwhelm them. When we had units that were in danger of being overrun, in a couple of cases I know of, it was simply due to their inability to shoot fast enough. So it was organized in that respect, but not in the military sense of, 'This is a unit, this is our objective, we're going to attack here and there.' It was frontal assaults. The things I personally saw were all guys, mostly in civilian clothes or mismatched, very bravely and very futilely charging a tank platoon." Once major hostilities ceased, though, and Phase III transitioned to Phase IV, Kinsey said that "we didn't really know what to do" and his brigade had to scramble to get the looting under control as quickly as possible, in addition to performing the myriad other tasks associated with post-conflict stability operations. That said, Kinsey added, "We never really planned on staying long enough to do all that, just basically long enough to get a lid on things." He also discusses his unit's subsequent movement to Fallujah and mission to "get control of the former regime officials, the thugs, criminals and whoever else was causing problems." In closing, Kinsey shares some frank concerns about what he identified as "serious maintenance issues" and their potential implications for future wars. "Had it been a slightly better enemy who actually knew how to fight, had it been an enemy who were somewhat more organized," he said, "I think a lot of our stuff would have fallen apart."

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