Major Deverick "Dev" Jenkins served as an information operations (IO) officer for 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division - the Stryker Brigade Combat Team - from October 2003 through October 2004 operating mainly in the Iraqi city of Mosul. As he relates in his interview, though, based upon initial guidance his SBCT received about where they'd be located, "all of our area study and intel was focused on Kirkuk. When we got to Kuwait," he said, "they changed our location." Originally based at FOB Pacesetter, Jenkins reflects on hearing the welcome news relatively early in his SBCT's tour of the capture of Saddam Hussein. He then moves into a discussion of his unit's first firefight and also its first casualties. Explaining his duties as an IO, he says that, "IO is a coordinating element and has no assets of its own. It coordinates the efforts of psychological operations, civil affairs and public affairs as well as doing some targeting for non-lethal effects. The actual name of our cell was the non-lethal effects cell," he added. "Most of the stuff we did was to keep the locals from interfering with military operations. The other thing we did was provide command information and act as the liaison with the population." Around December, the SBCT received a change of mission and was sent to Mosul to replace the 101st Airborne Division (part of an effort to reduce coalition presence in the area) and he provides a number of insights into how the 101st ran this area prior to his Stryker brigade officially taking over. "When we came in," Jenkins said, "they told me I was going to be the ministry of media. One of the lieutenants from the surgeon's shop was going to be the ministry of water. There were all these weird titles and duties that we never had to deal with before." He further explains that, "As the ministry of media I had to deal with all of the television stations, radio stations and officially the newspapers but the PAO took that aspect over. It's funny because the PSYOP guy and I were pretty good friends and we were working on something for one of the television stations. He got frustrated and kept saying how he wasn't trained to do anything like this. I was like, 'I'm a tanker. I'm not trained for this either!'" Jenkins closes his interview by describing how he went about his job, how their messages played with various target audiences, and shares his thoughts on the Iraqi people themselves. "The big thing I thought was important was knowing that most of the Iraqis - while they didn't necessarily want us there - understood our need to be there. They wanted what we were offering," he said, which was, "Their freedom and a chance to build a better society. I know it sounds cliché but it's what I saw for the most part."

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