Lieutenant Colonel John Kolasheski served as the deputy G3 for the 1st Infantry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) I and, in this capacity, deployed as part of Army Forces Turkey (ARFOR-T) in preparation for what was believed to be the 4th Infantry Division's eventual passage through that country in accordance with an invasion of Iraq from the north. "We had a feasible, acceptable course of action that definitely could have had an impact on the war," he said, "and we could have sustained that. Definitely." Then, for OIF II, Kolasheski deployed in February 2004 as the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division's S3. Beyond discussing the range of his duties and the challenges he faced in carrying them out, he covers in detail the conduct of Operation Baton Rouge, the October 2004 combined assault to retake the city of Samarra from insurgent control. There were several different cities about which they said, 'We need to root out insurgents, destroy them and beat them, and no longer have these cities perceived as insurgent strongholds,'" Kolasheski said. "Samarra was one of them."

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