LCDR Matthew McDermott served as operations officer with the 2515th Team Naval Air Ambulance Detachment in Kuwait during 2006 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and as the strategic communications planner attached to Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) in Djibouti during 2011. In this May 2012 interview, LCDR McDermott discusses the challenges of working with the US Army as a Navy officer, the operations of an air ambulance detachment, and his unique mission in Africa. LCDR McDermott concludes his interview with the observation, "People matter. Our business is one where relationships are important. On my first one, the relationships I built weren't involved so much with the outside public but with the people I interfaced with. So, the Tallil guys or up in Basra, the Brits, who wound up leaving halfway through, but at any rate, it was making relationships function. In Djibouti, just by the nature of what we were doing there, it mattered a lot more.

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