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 Afghanistan as the Ranger Company Commander for the 1st Ranger Battalion 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 War on Terror (GWOT) deployment when I was with the 82nd. I deployed 16 months and from there I went to the 1st Ranger Battalion in Savannah, Georgia. I spent four years there; I was a personnel officer (S1) over five deployments three of which were two Iraq 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. Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 3 UNCLASSIFIED 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 82nd Airborne Division. 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, 75th Ranger Regiment. 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.