In this second of two interviews, Major Steven Fandrich discusses being an Active Component/Reserve Component unit trainer for the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Athens, Tennessee, from July 2004 through July 2006, assisting Reserve and National Guard units preparing for active service overseas. Much of his time was actually spent at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, assisting and mentoring the units preparing to deploy. A major accomplishment was constructing a forward operating base at Camp Shelby wherein the platoons of training companies would rotate through operations as the quick reaction force, manning the entry control point, or providing security for the FOB. The units would be exposed to different scenarios with live ammunition and various target arrays and be forced to identify potential threats and respond to them appropriately. The training emphasized leadership and decision-making under stress, and the scenarios would assess heavy casualties for poor choices. A similarly constructed convoy live fire exercise was also conducted for the units at Camp Shelby. Fandrich also assisted with training at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, but unlike the units which went through Camp Shelby, many of the units at Fort McCoy had been recently put together from parts of many disparate units and the cohesion was thus lacking. He notes that the individual soldiers were eager for the challenging training and goes on to talk about a unit from the Air Force Reserve which, "We thought we were going to have a hard time with but they did a great job. It was probably one of our better units because they were so eager to learn and they didn't know what wrong looked like." Fandrich closes by comparing the training he had as a National Guardsman during Operation Desert Strom with the training he was assisting with at Camp Shelby and Fort McCoy.

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