(Note: This transcript has been edited for readability.)

"They might not have thought about the problem in the way we had thought about it, and there were other ways in which we would not think about problems like they did. We had an infantry company attached to us, and so we were using them to try to infiltrate our screen line because we were doing security operations as cavalry troops. It was great. Our guys got stacked up on the road and wouldn't dismount, and so they were just—they figured it out. The platoon leader figured it out. And so he threw his guys up, and they got up on the high ground and started moving down the high ground, shooting down on our guys who were in—For me [touching chest], it was professionally embarrassing. Because we'd talked about this sort of thing, getting out and dismounting, but the experience of the war had taught our guys you stay under armor when you're in contact with small arms. But that wasn't going to work in this situation. Because they were going to have anti—they were going to have weapons that could destroy their armored vehicles. So yeah, it was really good.

"And then—But the best part was after that. We'd been using them to do that, and they said, 'Hey, we'd like to switch roles and have one of your guys defend while we attack them.' And they got—they got annihilated during their attack. So then they were embarrassed [laughing]. It was a great exercise. It was one of the best afternoons. When it was all over, two weeks, everyone's tired and dirty, but then one of the company commander[s] came up to me—I was shocked. He's like, 'I just want to thank you. This was the greatest experience I've had in the army.' So like, okay—because they don't, you know, it's related to the thing of you can't get embarrassed, right. So a lot of the training is canned so that you win at the end, right. And sometimes, when we were doing—sometimes he won. Sometimes he lost. He got to try things because his battalion commander wasn't there watching him the whole time. It was a really good exercise."