From April 2004 through April 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Major Cathy Wilkinson commanded the 28th Public Affairs Detachment (PAD). In this interview, she begins by explaining how she took command only about 45 days before her PAD deployed to Iraq and had no time for any personalized training with her soldiers. Specializing in both print and broadcast journalism, the 28th PAD was sent to LSA Anaconda with the mission of augmenting the 13th Corps Support Command (COSCOM), which had arrived in theater three months earlier but not with the doctrinal public affairs support it needed. Wilkinson talks about her PAD's movement into theater, the equipment they took with them and the eventual linkup and integration with the 13th COSCOM. Among their first and most significant projects was to put out a full weekly newspaper version of the Anaconda Times, a publication that served and informed not only the COSCOM but all 23,000 personnel on LSA Anaconda as well, to include US Air Force units and contractors. Other projects included a variety of media analysis to increase commanders' situational awareness, and also putting together 15-minute informational newsreels that would be shown in the movie theater prior to the movies themselves. In addition, Wilkinson discusses what living and working conditions were like on LSA Anaconda and how her small, seven-person PAD, tasked with such a "huge mission," managed to turn out what they considered "very good products." She further talks about her PAD's involvement in what became a big media story - i.e., the refusal of one of the COSCOM's subordinate units to go out on a convoy - as well as working with combat camera crews. Wilkinson closes her interview by recounting the relief in place/transfer of authority processes, first between the 13th and the 1st COSCOMs, and then her own with the 27th PAD.

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