Major Alan C. Shaw, an Adjutant General Corps officer, deployed to Baghdad in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in May 2003 as the operations officer (S3) of the 55th Personnel Services Battalion (PSB). His battalion, part of the 1st Personnel Command (PERSCOM), directly supported the 1st Armored Division. In this interview, he recounts how the battalion's training suffered because it had to fulfill the conflicting training requirements of both PERSCOM and the 1st Armored Division. During the preparation to attack into Iraq, Shaw mentions that the 1st Armored Division commander did not understand what the PSB had to offer and often looked to his G1 to provide services that were actually the responsibility of the PSB. To correct this problem, the G1 and PSB commander had to work very closely together. Interestingly, the PSB reorganized itself to fit the Army's new transformation model as well, though on paper it still retained the old PSB organization. In Iraq, the battalion moved by ground from Kuwait to Baghdad during both its deployment and redeployment, but did not encounter any enemy activity during these convoys. Shaw observes that the training for these two convoys and other expected challenges did not match the nature of the actual events. Once the battalion got situated in Baghdad, it found itself providing support in the form of ID cards and dog tags to the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) with minimal equipment. The PSB eventually spent the most time on postal operations because the system had to be established from the ground up and there was a huge backlog. In closing, Shaw felt that the trend of outsourcing many AG jobs and the notion that the AG Corps could be "civilianized" is mistaken.

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