In command of Charlie Company, 4th Engineer Battalion - part of 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division - in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom through July 2003, Major James Schreiner and his unit entered Iraq six days after the onset of the ground war. In this first of a two-part interview reference his Global War on Terrorism deployments, Schreiner begins by discussing the march north to Baghdad and then being based in the city of Samarra, which, as he described, was akin at the time to the Old West. "There was no order, no police force, and there seemed to be a power vacuum at the city level," he said. As such, his company was tasked with being "the town mayor, police chief and overall enforcer of the town law and order from the end of April until mid-May 2003. My battalion commander was essentially the liaison to the mayor," Schreiner explained, "and I was the liaison to the police chief." He talks about efforts to stand up Iraqi police forces, ensure security and combat anti-coalition elements. Later in his tour, Schreiner's company was moved to the city of Tuz and then to Kirkuk, missions he also discusses in detail. He points to the integration of civil-military operations as the most difficult part of his OIF service, speaks to the importance of interpreters, and also reveals a number of glaring misconceptions that the ill-informed Iraqi populace had of the US and the GWOT, and particularly how that impacted the overall mission. "Their common belief," he said, "was that when the Twin Towers went down, the 3,000 people who were killed were all Jewish. That was their common belief, and that was why they thought the US was fighting the Global War on Terrorism. They had no idea that the innocent folks who were killed that day were from all walks of life." Schreiner additionally talks about the unit challenges associated with limited communications with family and friends; the, in his opinion, wrongheaded decision not to allow martial law to be declared; the need for far more civil affairs and other nation-building assets in any future similar operation; and the ultimately wasted time spent on focusing so heavily on the so-called "Turkey option" of entering Iraq from the north. As Schreiner put it, "I just think, in general, if some day I'm fortunate enough to be a battalion commander, I will focus my battalion on a more generic basis towards situational awareness of the theater versus tied to a plan. It was frustrating. When the Turkish option went out the window, three weeks of nonstop planning were gone with it."

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited