Cutting short a one-year tour in Iraq to attend the US Army's Command and General Staff College, US Marine Corps Major John Finch - from January through May 2005 - served in the 2nd Marine Division's G4 logistics shop as the materiel readiness officer. At the beginning of his deployment, he was part of the relief in place between the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions at Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi, which he discusses in detail. Once the 2nd MARDIV was firmly in control of the battlespace, Finch began concerning himself with such things as reorganizing readiness reporting and maintenance management policies; contracting for logistics support; setting up logistical readiness assist visits to subordinate units in the various forward operating bases; and also scaling down tables of equipment for ground combat elements for this phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Above all, as he noted, he and his higher headquarters were careful to do all they could to support (and in no way burden) the warfighter. Finch talks in detail about life at Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi, observing that it was "surreal in that death was at your doorstep, definitely." He dealt with all classes of supply and discusses those as well. Some equipment, says Finch, such as the SLADICE counter-IED jamming technology, gave him some serious heartburn, but only because some units didn't know how to use it and so, instead, it sat unused in a warehouse until a training course could be put on. He touches on the performance of Kellogg, Brown and Root contractors, his experiences working in a joint environment, the importance of doing good predeployment site surveys and building depth in your shop, and his thoughts on what was accomplished by Operation Phantom Fury (Al Fajr) in Fallujah. Looking back, Finch concluded that, "The process itself of deploying to Iraq only reassured me that what the Marine Corps taught me paid off. The investments they made in sending me to the schools were worth it. That's one of the things I like about our organization - be it the Army or the Marine Corps - the investment they put into their Marines and soldiers pays off. It all kind of came together."

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