UNCLASSIFIED

A project of the Combat Studies Institute, the Operational Leadership Experiences interview collection archives firsthand, multi-service accounts from military personnel who planned, participated in and supported operations in the Global War on Terrorism.

Interview with MAJ Matthew Albertus

Combat Studies Institute Fort Leavenworth, Kansas UNCLASSIFIED

Abstract

In this interview, MAJ Matthew Albertus, US Army, Infantry; discusses his deployment to as the Ranger Company Commander for the 1st Ranger in 2009 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). MAJ Albertus discusses his special operations mission at FOB Salerno. MAJ Albertus discusses some difficult challenges he faced as a leader and closes his interview by stating, “Keep guys on their toes in efforts to avoid complacency.” UNCLASSIFIED

Interview with MAJ Matthew Albertus 07 April 2011

AS: My name is Angie Slattery (AS) and I'm with the Operational Leadership Experiences Project at the Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I'm interviewing MAJ Matthew Albertus (MA) on his experiences during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Today's date is 7 April 2011 and this is an unclassified interview. Before we begin, if you feel at any time that we're entering classified territory, please couch your response in terms that avoid revealing any classified information, and if classification requirements prevent you from responding, simply say that you're not able to answer. Before we talk about your deployment experience I'd like to capture a little bit of your background in the Army so if you could expand on that for me please.

MA: I got commissioned out of the University of Alabama in 1999. I joined as an Infantry officer and went to the Officer Basic Course and then to 3-504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Do you want me to go to into my positions?

AS: Sure, go ahead.

MA: My positions there included rifle platoon leader, executive officer (XO) for a rifle company, mortar platoon leader, as well as operations air officer (S3 Air) for my battalion. I also conducted about a three or four month deployment to Kosovo. From there I went to the Officer Advanced Course for Infantry captains at Fort Benning, Georgia. That was a permanent change of station (PCS) move and from there I went to Fort Richardson, Alaska. I spent three years there and held positions as an assistant S3 and company commander in a Stryker brigade. We kind of stood up the Stryker battalion there and then we deployed for 16 months to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). I failed to mention that I deployed for eight months on my first Global (GWOT) deployment when I was with the 82nd. I deployed 16 months and from there I went to the in Savannah, Georgia. I spent four years there; I was a personnel officer (S1) over five deployments three of which were two and two to Afghanistan. I culminated as a company commander there and now I'm in Intermediate Level Education (ILE).

AS: What inspired you to join the Army?

MA: I think patriotism and that kind of thing were instilled in me at a young age. My father was in and my brother joined. MY brother is by far my mentor and a guy I look up to. He joined and it was something I wanted to do. Everything I did I did in his footsteps so I did the same thing here and I went the Infantry route because it really fits my personality and the things I do. The challenge of it really intrigues me.

AS: What branches were your family members?

MA: My dad was actually Medical Service Corps (MSC) and my brother was an Armor officer.

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AS: With all the many branches within the Army, what made you decide to specialize in Infantry? Were the other branches appealing to you at all?

MA: I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't mind flying but from day one I wanted to be a Ranger company commander. That's all I wanted to do. Honestly, I wasn't as concerned about being a Ranger platoon leader as I was being a Range company commander. Those were kind of my milestones and now that I've accomplished that I'm trying to figure out what I want to do next. Even from ROTC on day one that's what I wanted to do. I kind of had that in my mind and I went after that.

AS: What made you think you wanted to be a Ranger company commander?

MA: I loved the mission. I loved the thought of jumping into a combat situation with a company of Rangers and holding an airfield or securing some sort of package, retrieving it, and coming back. Not everyone can do it and it appeals to me a lot that there's a lot of responsibility in that unit. You're working with some of the finest NCOs and Soldiers and you can't beat it. It kind of runs itself; you just try and hold on. That's what really appealed to me -- their professionalism and their mission set. I really liked their mission set.

AS: How many total deployments in support of GWOT have you had?

MA: Seven.

AS: How many total deployments have you been on?

MA: Eight.

AS: In capturing your deployment history could you go through and discuss the year you deployed, your duty position, and a brief overview of your mission for each deployment?

MA: For GWOT or all of them?

AS: For GWOT please.

MA: The first one was in Afghanistan in 2003 and I was a rifle company XO for a unit out of the . I had two main jobs there; one was as second in command of a rifle company on several company level operations. I was also a small task force combat team commander at an outpost off by myself with about 80 personnel securing a compound in an area. That was an interesting experience for me as a young officer. My next one was to Iraq from August 2005 to December 2006; that was a 16 month-er. I was an assistant S3 for about four of those months and for 12 months I was a company commander. I took command in combat and took it through the combat. At that point I had three consecutive trips to Iraq in March of 2007, January of 2008, and November of 2008 which went into 2009. Those positions I had as a S3 in one of the four-month stints. In the second one I did a joint S3 role of a joint S3 cell. The third one I was a fusion cell director in Tikrit in northern Iraq and I had a mish-mosh of interagency personnel that worked for me on the intelligence side of the house so that was a little different experience for me. My final deployments with the Ranger Regiment were in August of 2009 and in June of 2010 and those were both as a Ranger company commander in Afghanistan.

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 4 UNCLASSIFIED

AS: With this most recent deployment you went to Afghanistan, correct?

MA: Yes.

AS: For the remainder of this interview we're going to focus primarily on your most recent deployment to Afghanistan. With that said when did you first find out that you would be deploying again?

MA: The Ranger Regiment is on a very strict schedule so we kind of have it mapped out for us. I knew I was going to get a second deployment rotation in command -- I came out of one deployment and immediately knew I had a seven-month path to get my guys ready to go back. We can kind of look out there and see a rotation whereas some of the other units are unable to do that. I knew ahead of time that I would have seven months to get my guys ready.

AS: What unit were you assigned to for this last deployment?

MA: Alpha Company, 1st Ranger Battalion, .

AS: What was your family's reaction to your deployment? Were they kind of used to the cycles of a Ranger?

MA: They were. They were very used to it. Mom's still a trooper. She sends me a letter every week. There's a point where it's almost old hat. I was almost gone more than I was home. If you looked at it over a long time period so it wasn't anything big. I'm not married so there's very little other than a dog that needs to be taken care of. It's kind of easy for me. It's kind of like a battle drill.

AS: You're attending Intermediate Level Education (ILE) until December and since you know about deployments a couple of years out do you already have missions you're working on for next year?

MA: It depends if I go back to the Ranger Regiment. That's a selection process I haven't been selected for yet. I have to try out for that process in order to go back. If I go to the bigger Army as a whole I won't know exactly when my unit's deployment until I figure that out. I'm in a phase right now where I don't know where I'm going next.

AS: When you deploy for Ranger missions how long are you accepted into that mission?

MA: It's a type of assignment where you go for three maybe four years -- I was lucky to get four solid years in a Ranger battalion. It's normally anywhere from two to three years that an officer is hired and normally they've already had to have conducted a successful job prior to it. For instance, a platoon leader can't come there unless he's successful as a big Army platoon leader. As a company commander I had to do my big Army time and show that I could be somewhat successful and then I could try out for the Ranger Regiment. For this next one the next phase is just a try out because you've already had experience in the Ranger Regiment and they already know what you're about. They make their assessment based on what they want on the field grade level.

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AS: Can you max out at four years to where you have to go do something else?

MA: The officer timeline as a whole just makes you move on. You can extend it or contract it based on your career time line but you have to move on to certain gates like ILE so there's no getting around it. You have to have a break in service one way or another.

AS: Do you remember your first Ranger assignment? You've gone on more than one Ranger specific assignment, correct?

MA: That was my only four-year time in the Ranger Regiment -- those last four years. I did not do platoon leader time in Ranger Regiment; I did that in the 82nd. My commander had a certain philosophy about not sending guys to the Ranger Regiment but to be honest it worked out well for me. I was fortunate to get the job I did.

AS: How is pre-deployment training for a Ranger mission?

MA: Very focused and very time constrained and I know a lot of units would say that nowadays. The types of missions we conduct -- in some ways it's easier than the big Army. We know we're going to do direct action missions to kill or capture someone and bring them back, hopefully. From that perspective it's a very acute amount of tasks that we have to figure out, do, and be good at but we have to be the best at it. There are a lot of advantages. We have a large budget. Normally our training time is kind of left alone; we don't have other tasks to do. Having said that, there are a lot of things we put on the plate. There isn't a lot of white space on the calendar and the guys work very hard during the training cycle. Some guys consider the deployment more of a downtime period than the train-up sometimes. Its very task saturated but the guys do a good job.

AS: How big is a Ranger battalion?

MA: I’d rather not comment.

AS: Where did you serve on your last deployment to Afghanistan?

MA: On the eastern border of Afghanistan on the Pakistan border.

AS: Once you arrived in country, what were your major responsibilities?

MA: First is the relief in place (RIP) with the last unit and then its setting the conditions as the advance element. I went ahead with a couple of key players -- my fire support officer (FSO) and my platoon leaders -- to set conditions to receive the main body. One thing about the Ranger Regiment is that we fly in directly to where we're going. It's a very streamlined process. For the most part, since we know where we're going we're able to look out, see the mission sets they're doing, and analyze the enemy that's in the area already. We get there and we already have an idea of what's going on. The outgoing guys bring us up to speed and we hit the ground running.

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AS: When you receive notification to deploy do you know it's going to be a four-month deployment or are they often longer durations?

MA: We know there is a certain to-the-day time line but we also know that at any given time we could be extended or brought in early, which has happened to me a few times. There's nothing ever guaranteed but we know there is a set period the wives can expect.

AS: Describe a typical day while you were in Afghanistan?

MA: We were working on the Zulu timeframe and it's a little off cycle for the big Army unit we have to coordinate with. Wherever we are we're operating through the big Army unit that owns that battle space so sometimes coordination can be interesting. A lot of times when we're sleeping we're in a reverse cycle so they're awake and doing their thing. Most of our operations, obviously, happen during times of limited visibility. We'll wake up and come in and get your things situated. There's some sort of battle update brief (BUB) whether it's to the commander or the staff or any of the maneuver elements on the FOB. There's always an update brief of what's been happening while you've been sleeping and what the effects were of the missions you did the night before. That kind of lets us know, "This is what you did. These are the effects it had. This is the direction we're looking at going based on the information we received." That sets the tone to come back in and about that time the leadership of my strike forces would be assembled. I'd basically regurgitate and disseminate the information from that, and we'd start our targeting cycle. We can be off chasing some guy at an inconvenient time but that's kind of the battle rhythm. In there somewhere the guys are able to work out, get a lot of chow -- which they do -- and that was a unique dynamic from a battle rhythm perspective. Rangers get in a lot better shape overseas. Big Army units normally don't because it's such a long deployment. Over there Rangers see it as a time to work out, get bad guys, and eat some good food so they tend to get in really good shape over there. The day winds down as light starts coming up and that's normally a good time to do physical fitness. That's when the physical training (PT) time is -- at the end of our duty day and the beginning of big Army's. As the sun comes up things start dwindling down for us. We have a four to five-hour sleep window and then you do it all again,

AS: Can you be a little more specific about some of the operations or missions you were involved in?

MA: I can say they were to kill or capture high value targets (HVTs). Normally we try to apply pressure on the entire enemy network. Again, it's a very focused mission set we have where we don't have to worry about a lot of the big governances and building of infrastructure. We're focused on going after one individual, two individuals, or three to capture him, get the information, and continue that cycle and it feeds on itself. It is exactly what the Ranger Regiment was made to do: direct action raids with a planned withdrawal. That's what Afghanistan has turned into for us and it's really our bread and butter.

AS: Can you describe your living quarters and the meals you had?

MA: Actually, they were very good. I had a hardened structure to live in; it wasn't a tent which was nice. I had air conditioning. I lived three per a nice sized room so there were no issues there. Our dining facility (DFAC) was very good. It was contractor run, obviously. Because we

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 7 UNCLASSIFIED are off cycle its difficult sometimes to get a middle meal; a midnight chow which would be our lunch. They put it out and addressed that so normally the breakfast and dinner chow was very good. The mid-cycle chow, just because it was midnight, was a little less to pick from but I certainly can't complain. I've had much worse. It was good.

AS: Was there ever a point when you were concerned for your safety?

MA: On the FOB?

AS: As you were going in to do your missions or any time throughout your recent deployment.

MA: Yeah, I would say on a nightly mission there is an opportunity for -- especially with the types of individuals we're going after -- there is a high probability for a fire fight of some sort or an engagement, kinetic-type. There's definitely an anticipation of that but surrounded by Rangers who know what they're doing you feel pretty confident that you're going to win any engagement.

AS: What were the most difficult challenges you had to overcome?

MA: Loss of personnel due to accidental circumstances. That's a hard thing to deal with. It's one thing to be engaged by the enemy and go down fighting, it's another thing to have an accidental situation where a something happens to a guy on the FOB and he gets wounded or killed. We dealt with that situation. There's always friction between the assault force and the staff that's providing the information to go out on the objectives. For the most part it was a very good deployment. We had a pretty good effect on the battle space so I wouldn't say there were too many frustrations really.

AS: In discussing injuries and Purple Hearts received in your unit, do you know how many were received?

MA: Over this last deployment -- I hate to misquote it -- if I were to guess how many Purple Hearts on this last one from my company was probably 15 or 20 Purple Hearts of varying degrees. That may be high. I'd say closer to 15 if I were to guess. I'm sorry; I just don't remember.

AS: That's okay. Do you feel that your previous deployments really helped you prepare for this particular deployment?

MA: Absolutely, especially with the type of targeting we conduct. It's very different as a lethal targeting mechanism. It's different from my experiences in the big Army but having four deployments prior to this last one in the Ranger Regiment, I felt pretty good about understanding the capabilities and limitations of not only my strike force but the staff and assets that support us. Just having that experience behind me makes it so much easier than when you come in saying, "What is all this stuff?" I had that experience too on my first deployment. By the fifth one I was a lot more comfortable.

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AS: As a leader how were you able to keep up your Soldiers' morale?

MA: Those guys do a pretty good job. One thing they don't like is to be lied to or cherry coated. If we don't have that much fidelity on a target, just be honest with them. "Hey, bottom line guys. We're going up to this target and we don't have a lot of fidelity. We got to execute." As long as they feel like you're being honest with them and you've got the right motives there isn't going to be an issue. Even when there are casualties and morale dips a little bit we do a very good job of having a ceremony, letting the guys have their grievance period, and then moving on. I think that's the key thing. The guys want to make sure you have the right intentions and that you're not misleading them. Be up front and don't cherry coat it.

AS: What were some of the most difficult challenges you faced as a leader?

MA: Challenges with your superior officers -- either differences of opinion on how to target or things in the rear or which missions to go on. Leadership challenges are not only focused down but they can also be focused up in dealing with the leadership you're receiving orders from. Another challenge would have to be the family readiness group (FRG). Being a single cat I don't have the wife to kind of run that. I had two great ladies in Erica Davis and Sydney Floyd who were both just incredible. One was an enlisted squad leader's wife and one was my XO's wife so I had a unique dynamic there. I could contact either one of them and they'd always be willing to help. They were dealing with so much stuff in the rear, whether its drama that's self-induced or drama that the unit induced. I had to maintain an open line of communication with them. They could vent to me and I could vent to them but that is definitely a friction point and a frustration -- handling the families in the rear. Ultimately, if the wife and family are not happy the Ranger is not going to be happy. It's going to be a huge friction point and the last thin4g you want is him thinking about back home when he's on the objective. Those are some areas that cause some friction or could have, I guess.

AS: Did you have any media contact while you were there?

MA: Very little. In the Special Ops community outside media -- I will tell you we had Combat Camera crew on every mission so from that perspective we had a camera rolling on every mission; we had pictures being taken on every mission by our Combat Camera crew but from outside media, very little interaction just because of the type of missions we did. Those Combat Camera crews are brought up to speed on our -- they get the different security caveats and they get read in on certain programs so they can go out on missions with us.

AS: Is there a specific memory that stands out from your deployment experience?

MA: I don't know a specific one. We did a 54-hour mission in the mountains of Afghanistan and you learn a lot about your unit and yourself when you do that. Over the last two deployments my unit had done several of those missions and they're very difficult and very trying but they're tailored made for a Ranger unit. When you're doing a company movement to contact and you can't see the other two platoons and you're moving with one, it's just a great challenge. It's kind of the culminating point for a company commander in my opinion when you're controlling your company in combat in the mountainous region of Afghanistan. It doesn't

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 9 UNCLASSIFIED get more difficult and it doesn't get any better in my opinion. It was a great experience being able to share that with the guys. It was awesome for me.

AS: How was the handoff to your replacements, assuming you had replacements?

MA: We did. We always try and improve. There always seems to be some friction there between the leaving not wanting to let go and the guys coming in chomping at the bit. You have to find a dynamic there that works. We tried to do some of the -- some of that transition took place via video teleconferencing (VTC) that's pretty readily available to us so we were able to bring them up to speed and answer questions. A lot of those questions have to be answered early so they can pack appropriately for the area they're coming to. Anybody can read a PowerPoint slide but a lot of the leaders had specific questions, "Do I need to have my guys pack this or this?" The VTC worked very well and having them come in and being prepared to receive them and hand products off is a very big part of that relief in place (RIP) process.

AS: What successes did you take away from your deployment experience to Afghanistan?

MA: There are all kinds of stats we can throw at it. We had a very high OPTEMPO meaning we went on a lot of missions. Just because you went on a lot it's not necessarily a quality rather than quantity but it shows that the guys were aggressive and got after it and we took a lot of bad guys off the battlefield. The other accomplishment I can say is that there seems to be a negative connotation sometimes with the Special Operations community and being kind of Laissez Faire about who they got after and shoot and blow up things and collateral damage. That's one thing I can say our unit has really improved on and specifically this last time we had no major information operations (IO) mishaps where we killed the wrong person and it created a stir or a shutdown of operations. That was due in large part to the great intelligence work and some of the targeting efforts. We were fortunate in that where we went and the guys we got and destroyed were the right people. I think that's a huge takeaway -- not creating any mass IO catastrophe.

AS: How was reintegration post deployment?

MA: Reintegration is always something that you kind of grind your teeth on because you don't know how your guys are going to respond. I think identifying the friction points early -- and I mean during deployment when you see guys who are having trouble at home. If you know someone just broke up with his girlfriend. There are definitely individuals who are a little bit higher -- that you have to kind of watch so to speak. You need to identify those critical individuals and it's really about leadership involvement. If you're not involved as a leader, if you don't know what your guys are doing, you can't help steer them clear of some of those problems they'll have when they get home. Normally our uptick isn't the two-week block leave period because it's all hunky dory. It's about a month or two into the training cycle when we really start to see issues develop, not necessarily when we get home. That's just an observation.

AS: Based on this deployment, if you could make one recommendation to the Army about how to make future deployments more successful what would you personally recommend?

MA: That's tough. I'm not sure. I know it's kind of cliché to say that our OPTEMPO in the Army is high but I think it is. I think lessening the length of the deployments would help. If you

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 10 UNCLASSIFIED went to a nine-month cycle as opposed to 12 months -- actually we ratcheted down from 15 and now we're at 12. If we came down a little bit more I think that might help. There are several people who have theories that, "Hey, that would actually hurt some of the continuity and relationship building that happens over a 12-month period," but I would disagree. I think you can accomplish what you need to in nine months and have an effect on the battle space. Six months I think is a little too short; that's what I settled on nine. Honestly, the Army is going to work itself out. With Iraqi shutting itself down that OPTEMPO and the dwell time is going to expand. I think some of those -- at least I would hope -- that the main stressors of the two wars now winding down -- I think the stressors are going to go away.

AS: In closing is there any particular observation or lesson learned you want to highlight or capture that we have not addressed?

MA: I wish I could drop some huge gold nugget of knowledge on you. I'm trying to think -- I personally think that complacency sets in at every level. It doesn't matter if it's a four-month, six-month, or a 12-month [deployment]. Personally I believe a lesson learned is keeping guys on their toes both mentally and physically and not allowing the complacency to set it. It's another cliché that many leaders throw out there but don't always do. I'm a huge fan of shifting forces around the country at a certain point in the deployment to give them a different look so they don't get into the mindset of -- once you start to get comfortable that's when complacency sets in. If you always have a new environment you keep a little bit sharper in my opinion. That's a big lesson learned for me that I will take for all future deployments. I'll try and keep my guys -- I'm not trying to keep them unstable or guessing but moving troops around is a huge benefit. I saw that both in big Army and the Ranger Regiment.

AS: I'd like to thank you MAJ Albertus for coming in today and sharing your deployment experience and also for your service.

MA: Thank you ma'am.

END OF INTERVIEW

Transcribed by Jennifer Vedder

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