Major Stuart Farris deployed to Afghanistan for the third time in June 2005 as the assistant S3 and plans officer for 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group. His unit was involved in ensuring the successful parliamentary election in 2005 as well as the demobilization of the Afghan Security Forces. He also had several meetings with high-level Pakistani military officers to discuss military cooperation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Although frustrating at the time, in retrospect, significant progress was made. On this rotation, he got to see first hand the politics of war. He also saw the SF teams hindered by better communication and technology. Some of the initiative the SF teams were given before was taken back due to the ease of communicating with them. If he could change one thing about the Army, it would be to streamline that process. Staffs are too large and sometimes get in the way of the commanders on the ground. The Army leadership, Farris said, needs to do a better job of giving commanders their intent and left and right limits, and then letting them execute. This is the third of three interviews with Farris regarding his three separate deployments to Afghanistan from 2003 through 2005.

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