In this interview, MAJ Nick Simontis, US Army, Field Artillery (FA); discusses his deployment to Iraq as the brigade operations officer (S3) in 2007 through 2008 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). MAJ Simontis discusses a typical day and describes the relationship he established with the Iraqi military transition team (MiTT). Simontis also talks about some difficult challenges he faced with the classification levels in communicating with the Iraqis. MAJ Simontis recalls a specific memory of a raid he participated in and closes his interview by stating, "The lesson learned for me, in particular with the MiTT assignment was that I wish I had paid more attention to the cultural training and wished I had applied myself a lot more to the language training."

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