Interview with Maj Anthony McQueen (Paperback)

Assigned to the HHC, 62nd Medical Brigade, as chief of current operations in the S3 shop, Major Anthony McQueen served in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM with a fully mobile unit for five months beginning in March 2003. Tasked with getting the Tactical Operations Center set up and running the battle captains, McQueen was stationed at FOB Diamondback, located on an airfield in Mosul that was owned by the 101st Airborne Division. While in the Mosul area, McQueen spent a good deal of time coordinating with the brigade's 13 subordinate units, doing assessments of local hospitals and arranging medical care for coalition soldiers and members of the local populace - victims mainly of gunshot wounds and of exploded ordnance. Believing that soldiers aren't truly prepared for missions until they experience something first hand, McQueen nonetheless found training centers invaluable, particularly the National Training Center, Combat Training Center, and Group Replacement and Training Center. As he said, though, "Whereas you might do a quick fix of making it through the training piece of it, here in Iraq] you were continually looking to make things better. Try to improve upon things. Even in the daily reports and the battle update briefs that you were preparing, you had to get in that mindset: How can we make this better?"