In this second of two interviews reference his Global War on Terrorism deployments, Major Ciro Stefano talks about his tour in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as initially the 82nd Aviation Brigade logistics officer (S4) immediately prior to and during the unit's move to Kuwait, and then his service as the support battalion executive officer (XO). Once in country and based at Al Taqaddum, though, Stefano says that, unfortunately, due to certain serious issues with the battalion commander, he, the sergeant major and the aviation maintenance commander essentially ran the battalion and, as such, he himself was not able to fly at all during his nine-month deployment - a far cry from his heavy flying responsibilities in Afghanistan the year before. Stefano discusses a wide range of logistics and maintenance topics, details the numerous efforts he made in the realm of life support and morale, welfare and recreation, and explains how his brief stint as the brigade S4 - a "baptism by fire," as he termed it - helped him out tremendously when he became the battalion XO. Returning to a theme he touched on in his previous interview concerning his Afghanistan deployment, Stefano again stresses the need to go to shorter deployments and offers some personal insights into how he thinks continuing with the status quo will do great harm to retention rates in the Army. "Your single folks can't wait to deploy because they want to stay," he said. "But really, the only reason they go is because of the money. A lot of folks are still patriotic, but the overarching thing is, 'Hey, I'm going to get a lot of money out of this deal.' It's not so much self-preservation," Stefano insists. "Folks think you're scared to go to combat because you think you're going to die. No, people are just tired of being away from the people they love. If we can fix that, then the Army won't be broke. Because the thing is, down the road, the way we're going now is the equipment is going to be broke and the people are going to be broke emotionally, morally, and then where is that going to leave our Army? If we look five years down the road, we're not going to be in a very good state, I would say." In closing, Stefano talks about the institutional differences he observed in the handover between his unit and a Marine Corps unit, as well as some problems that arose that he attributes to many of them being reservists.

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