In command of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry - part of 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division - and then, mid-tour, becoming a brigade civil affairs officer, Major Scott Carpenter supported Operation Iraqi Freedom from January through November 2004. In this interview, he discusses his battalion falling under 1st Infantry Division in theater; his company's responsibility for the city of Hawijah, Iraq; his work conducting all the civil affairs projects within the city as well as training the police and security forces; and also many of the challenges faced revolving around the issue of trust. "We came to find out," Carpenter said, "that a lot of them were insurgents by night and police officers or Iraqi National Guard by day. Halfway through our rotation," he added, "we had to arrest the full-bird colonel from the ING because we had picked up his communications in which he was talking to the insurgents from his office." In addition, Carpenter talks about his dealings with the local government and the city council, the difficulties encountered in terms of getting the Iraqis to "see past their own personal needs to see the greater need of their city," as well as the problems created by American higher authorities ordering them to suspend their plans for holding local elections, so as not to get ahead of other localities nationwide. "What that did," said Carpenter, "was put a halt to all forward progress we could make." He also talks about the difficulties associated with getting a Corps of Engineers representative down at his level, the fact that no one seemed to have "a grasp of what we were undertaking with rebuilding a country," his expanded visibility over such issues upon moving up to brigade, and the importance of powering down to one's subordinates and giving them the tools necessary to complete their mission. In closing, Carpenter - formerly a commander in the Ranger Training Brigade - discusses how Ranger training has evolved and, in his estimation, improved markedly over the years.

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