MAJ Matthew Adamczyk served as company commander with 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment in various location in Iraq during 2003 and with 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) in Tal Afar, Iraq during 2005, both in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In this January 2012 interview, MAJ Adamczyk discusses the initial controlled chaos of the invasion of Iraq, how the job of the leader really comes in when things aren't going according to plan, and his unit's concentration on counterinsurgency (COIN) and stability operations even before Field Manual (FM) 3-24 was published. MAJ Adamczyk concludes his interview with the observation, "I think the Army is doing a lot of things right. The COIN Center, capturing lessons learned, these sorts of things. I think that we need to find a way to invest a little more in our junior and mid-level non-commissioned officers (NCOs). It is frightening to me -- well, frightening isn't the right word -- concerning, that we're going to lose a lot. We run our NCOs really, really hard, and a break for an E6 or E7 is two years at drill sergeant school where they're working six or seven days a week. Matt Adamczyk finished company command, taught for a year at the Captains' Career Course, and then his break was two years getting a master's degree. We're expecting so much out of these young guys, E6s and E7s, we need to find ways to reward them, and I don't know exactly what that is. Is it a master's degree, is it an associate's degree, is it two years to work towards their bachelor's degree, but something that helps expand their horizons in terms of their ability to process things. They're doing the same thing that we are."

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