MAJ Charles Ford served as the assistant operations officer (S3) in plans, as battle captain and at the battalion level in Mosul, Iraq during 2004 and 2005, and as commander of Alpha Company, 1-24 Infantry in Baghdad, Iraq during 2006 and 2007 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In this January 2010 interview, MAJ Ford discusses the challenges of changing duties during his first deployment, the advantages of a training rotation through the Counterinsurgency (COIN) Academy, and the high level of violence at the beginning of his second deployment that resulted in the deaths of three soldiers in 17 days. MAJ Ford shares one of his biggest lessons learned during these two difficult and eventful deployments: "I had to explain to guys that they were going to come across decomposing bodies or people who were shot, women and children, and just mentally prepare them for those things as well as what it's like to take a life. I've shot at people before and I called for fire but on this particular deployment I killed somebody, you know? I got into a fight with somebody and I shot him and I killed him. I had to reconcile what it's like conceptually to kill an enemy versus the reality of knowing you took somebody's life. I understand there is a certain amount of pride in doing what you're supposed to do, but there is also a certain amount of regret in the sense that that was a human being. One of the things I learned was that you have to mentally prepare soldiers to handle that because if you don't, I don't think there is a solution on how to deal with that in theater."

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