In this October 2013 interview, MAJ Phillip Cain, US Army, Aviation, discusses his deployment to Iraq as a company commander for Bravo Company, 1-4 Aviation in 2008 through 2009 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). MAJ Cain talks about his mission of providing Aviation support to Multi-National Division-Central. He describes his pre-deployment challenges and talks about being short a platoon leader. He discusses some difficult challenges he faced initially at Taji and later at Tallil and shares how his responsibilities changes with the move to Tallil. He shares a specific memory of an incident on Christmas Eve and discusses the morale of his company. MAJ Cain closes his interview by stating, "We had to learn a good lesson there about our mission being a battalion mission, rather than a company mission. . . Trying to fight that to make sure that everybody understood that that wasn’t case, but also trying to find a way to support the battalion as best as possible with what they, in their experience, saw that needed to happen across the battalion. So, that was an important lesson for me as a person and as an officer, that I definately stayed with me."

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