Major William Welch is an operational research and systems analysis (ORSA) officer assigned to the TRADOC Analysis Center (TRAC). He was detached from TRAC to augment Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Iraq starting in early 2006. In this interview, he talks about how his assignment history and professional military education prepared him for duties in theater. He relates his experiences at the CONUS Replacement Center to arrival in theater and eventual reception at the 101st Airborne Division special troops battalion and the division G5 (plans and analysis) section. His description of life in theater covers the utilization of planners in the division G5 section as well as the appropriateness of his skills for the duties assigned him in the section. Most notably, he did not serve solely in an analysis role but actually had planning responsibilities, running one of the division's operational planning teams during his tour. He discusses some of the gaps in professional military education and notes ways in which those gaps are being addressed, as well as the use of SPSS, a commercial off-the-shelf statistical package, in his job. Welch describes some potential places where ORSAs can use their unique education and skills at the divisional level, as well as processes such as the effects assessment process at division and corps. He covers the ongoing networking and professional development efforts with the ORSAs at Multinational Force-Iraq, Multinational Corps-Iraq, and the 4th Infantry Division during his tour. He describes the mechanics of his relief in place with another ORSA who was also individually sourced to fill the position for the next unit. Welch concludes his interview with some lessons learned from the OIF 05-07 deployment for other ORSA officers.

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