Interview with Maj Michael Larkin

MAJ Michael Larkin served on the brigade staff and as the battalion operations officer (S3) with 4-25 Field Artillery in Wardak Province, Afghanistan during 2008 and 2009 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). In this November 2010 interview, MAJ Larkin discusses his pre-deployment training and how he was able to direct some of it, his change of duty position part-way through the deployment, and his experiences during the national election. MAJ Larkin concludes his interview with the observation, “ Everyone talks security, governance, development; Army guys, we know how to do security. We don’t know how to do governance and development. It’s not our fault, we’re not trained to do it. It’s not the Army’s fault. It’s just kind of a by-product of counterinsurgency.”