In this April 2013 interview, MAJ Reynaldo Rivera, US Army, Engineer, discusses his deployment to Iraq as a company commander for 25th Infantry Division, 3d Brigade Special Troops Battalion in 2008 through 2009 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). MAJ Rivera starts his interview by discussing his first two deployments and explains why his second deployment to Iraq was his favorite deployment. He details a typical day and talks about his route clearance mission and supporting the local police station. He describes the interaction with the local police and shares a difficult challenge he had to overcome when he was forced to take the local police on all missions. He talks about changing out of command and transitioning into his new role in Brazil. MAJ Rivera closes his interview by stating a lesson learned, " You can always think of little things that we could improve on. I think the best thing is just being open and knowing overall that the US Army doesn't know everything. You just keep an open mind no matter what environment we go into. We don't know it all. We need to go in and learn as much as we can about, you know, the biggest factor, the biggest domain, which is the human domain and learn as much as we can about the population."

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