In this October 2014 interview, MAJ Orlando Craig, US Army, Engineers, discusses his deployments during his time at US Army Pacific (USARPAC), Deputy Chief of Staff of Engineering Cell, in support of Phase 0 shaping operations throughout the Pacific area of responsibility (AOR) between 2006 and 2007, MAJ Craig talks about his missions consisting of construction civic action details including initial planning conferences, initial site surveys, final planning conferences, final site surveys, and finally execution of the projects. He describes how he traveled to a variety of locations, including Mongolia, Palau, Thailand and the Philippines and talks about some of the different projects he worked on. He discusses some difficult challenges he faced and shares how the constant travel schedule was hard on his Soldiers and their families. He shares a specific memory of a bridge he was able to build in order for kids to get to school without wading through a stream. MAJ Craig closes his interview by stating, "So, you, as the commander, you can kind of take all those things in and weave it all together to get that cohesion, that cohesiveness, of everybody going to achieve this objective. You can't negate people. I've always had the philosophy of, "If you take care of the people, the rest of it will take care of itself." Yes, there's a place and a time where sometimes you have to be like, "This is what we have to do. Go do it." But, you got to try to -- no matter what the situation, no matter how grim or bad it is -- you've got to try to take care of the people. If you do that, the rest of it will work itself out."

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited