Lieutenant Colonel Michael Slusher, a Kansas National Guard soldier, served on an embedded training team (ETT) in various places throughout Afghanistan in 2006 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Slusher begins his interview by discussing the treatment of other states' guardsmen in the Wisconsin National Guard's mission, the generic nature of predeployment training, and his willingness to take the most difficult assignments. He explains his role in Operation River Dance, why he viewed it as a failure, and the importance of opium to everything in Afghanistan. Slusher closes the interview by stating that he approaches other cultures with humility and humor, that many of the problems in Afghanistan have to be worked out by the Afghans, and that successes in Afghanistan might not be ready solutions for Iraq.

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