In this November 2012 interview, MAJ Robert Mendez, US Army National Guard (ARNG), Logistics; discusses his deployment to Iraq as an assistant operations officer (AS3) for 67th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade (BfSB) in 2010 through 2011 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation New Dawn (OND). MAJ Mendez talks about why he volunteered to go on his deployment and describes how his family reacted to his decision to want to deploy. He discusses some of the Article 15-6 investigations he worked on and describes his living quarters and meals on Contingency Operating Base (COB) Adder. He talks about the transition from OIF to OND and shares the mentorship he received from Judge Advocate General (JAG) in country. MAJ Mendez talks about the positive reintegration process that he experienced and closes his interview by discussing ethics. He says, "As much as we dislike it at our level to go through the pain of having to sit through these ethics classes, hopefully, lessons learned from our deployments will prevent my generation from going through the embarrassment that the current senior leadership is going through."

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