Conducted at Fort Knox, Kentucky, reference their experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of 1st Armored Division, this group interview is with Staff Sergeant Ronald K. Banner, who was with 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry from April 2003 through July 2004; Specialist Jondelle Romero - with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-37 Armor in 1st Brigade from May 2003 through July 2004; Specialist Adrian Andrews - with the Scout Platoon, 1-6 Infantry in 2nd Brigade, also from May 2003 through July 2004; and finally Specialist Stephen Rockhold - also with 1-1 CAV from April 2003 through July 2004. Among the topics discussed in this interview include operations in Sadr City, Najaf and Yusufiyah; participation in a variety of reconstruction-related activities; training and taking Iraqi soldiers on missions; some key lessons learned regarding the payment of reward money and the need for more predeployment language and urban operations training; as well as a story related by Andrews about the destruction of one of his unit's up-armored trucks and the resulting casualties from an improvised explosive device. In addition, Rockhold talks in detail about one of his biggest surprises, "that these [Iraqi] kids had been taught one thing their whole life and that was that Americans were bad. I never realized that. When I first got deployed, I was 19 and I hadn't been out of high school for even a year yet. But you start maturing because you have to and then later on you try to get in the groove." As Banner put it, "After being deployed to a country like Iraq, if you go there and it doesn't change the way you look at people when you come back home, then something's wrong with you."

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