Interview with COL Steven Bullimore

The commander of 1st Battalion, 6th Field Artillery in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004-2005, Colonel Steven Bullimore, in this interview, begins by explaining how he went about re-training his artillery soldiers to be infantrymen and converting artillery batteries into infantry companies, in preparation for his unit's deployment to the Ba'qubah area of operations. Bullimore says that cultural awareness, however, was just as important as mastering traditional tactical skills. Also, that problems will arise "not with one bad sign or one bad attitude or putting your foot up. It's how you will conduct your business. They'll sense whether or not you respect them as human beings. You can generate just as many enemies by ignoring them" said Bullimore, "as by shooting somebody." He also observed that the training they did in the US regarding improvised explosive devices (IEDs) "wasn't even close" compared to what they actually encountered in theater. About that, Bullimore discusses the small town of Buritz, also in his battalion AO, that was "a pain in my neck the entire time and where I did all the fighting" as well as how he task organized to meet the various threats throughout. He praises the efforts of his Iraqi interpreters, describes how in some cases he essentially provoked the Iraqi civilians into helping them combat the insurgency, and stresses how the one thing a commander cannot pass on to his replacement is rapport with the local populace. Asked about his most significant challenge, Bullimore said it was that "the one thing I always had to offer was bullets. It's all negative. It's positive in terms of security when, no kidding, you can get at the bad guy. But if he doesn't present himself as a target, you can't. Every bad guy you kill" he continued, "you're killing somebody's son, uncle or father. So it's just a self-generating thing. Kill one, another one pops up. Eventually you achieve nothing. Economic is what I'm really getting at as being my biggest challenge." In this vein, Bullimore talks about how he never had enough money and that commanders like him can only do so much "without those other tools in the kit bag." In addition, he explains why he considers the "validation of leadership" to be a major lesson learned and why he was so intent on doing complete Article 15-6 investigations whenever they were warranted. Bullimore closes by saying that the Army should always resist its "natural temptation to centralize."