Major Chad Quayle served as the deputy team chief and military transition team (MiTT) intelligence trainer for the 5th Battalion, 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from November 2006 until November 2007. In this interview, Quayle begins by discussing the predeployment training and additional training received after arriving in country. During his tour, Quayle was operating out of FOB Falcon in south Baghdad. He talks about his first meeting with the Iraqi Army, the challenges he faced during the course of this deployment, his great working relationship with the Iraqi 4th Brigade commander, the different US units his MiTT partnered with, how Iraqi and American units interacted and worked and fought together, as well as his training and mentoring responsibilities throughout. In addition, Quayle addresses the subject of the surge, which was occurring while he was there, and the impact he feels it had on the operational environment. Describing this advisory assignment as challenging and definitely unique, Quayle closes his interview by expressing skepticism for the future of a democratic Iraq. Speaking of the Iraqis he worked with, he said that "The one thing I always got consistent answers on, when you got to know them and they'd be honest with you, every single one of them thought that the whole notion of democracy and representative government in Iraq was absolutely ludicrous. 'You want us to be a democracy? Fine, we'll call it a democracy. Whatever.' But their heart was not in it," Quayle contended, "and that was kind of interesting. I would say to them, 'Well, 2005, everybody went and voted. It came with your sovereignty.' What they'd come back with was, 'Yes, but we were conquered. You came in, you conquered us, you told us you wanted us to go out and vote, so we went out and voted.' They couldn't have cared less one way or the other. When I look back on it 40 years from now," Quayle concluded, "that's probably the biggest thing I'll take out of it: that they just didn't buy into the democracy thing." He held out hope, though, that the youth of Iraq may help inaugurate a more democratic future for their country.

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