Frederica Freyberg:
Over the course of the last year, we checked in on the 32nd several times. Just a few weeks ago, Art talked with Lt. Col. Tim Donovan in Baghdad. Here’s Col. Donovan talking about how soldiers’ needs vary in the international zone as their time there grows short.

Tim Donovan:
I suppose mental health needs vary from soldier to soldier based on the situation, the soldier's mission, the things the soldier has been exposed to. This is a stressful environment. It's a combat zone. We live and work under constant threat of hostile action, it doesn't happen very often, but it does happen occasionally. Our soldiers are serving far from home, far from, away from their families, their friends, their loved ones, all of their support structures, so we become a family over here and do the best we can. But it's a stressful, difficult life, and some people handle that better than others, and then, of course, there are soldiers who experience the real horrors of military action. Fortunately we have not experienced those here ourselves, although in Baghdad we are certainly aware of some despicable acts that have been directed against innocent civilians that have not affected us directly, but it's life in a combat zone.

Art Hackett:
The 32nd left for Iraq in February and March. You've, you're past the halfway point of your deployment. What are some of the more significant changes that you've observed during the time you've been in theater?

Tim Donovan:
Since we got here in may, there have been a number of changes. Let me just run through a couple of them. They are all changes that represent progress. A year ago the largest detention facility on the planet was in southern Iraq, guarded by Wisconsin National Guard soldiers, the camp is now gone, closed. What was once the largest detention facility on earth is now closed and closed by Wisconsin National Guard services. They moved from Camp Buca to other detention facilities, but trained Iraqi correctional officers and inspected to verify the international standards for detention facilities, met by the places where these detainees would go. It's all work done by Wisconsin guardsmen and it represents great progress. Here in the international zone we have turned over many formerly U.S.-controlled properties back to the government of Iraq, one of our missions, the 32nd Brigade headquarters mission here in Baghdad. The largest hospital in the international zone operated for six plus years by U.S. military forces, we turned over to the government of Iraq Oct. 1. All the little steps are significant pieces of progress. And that's what's going to be required to make Iraq successful, and we have been witness to all of that, we are right at the center of many of these things.

Art Hackett:
Those are missions you have completed. What are some upcoming missions the troops will be involved in?

Tim Donovan:
Well, a lot of these missions will just continue until we hand over our mission to the people who are going to come in in a couple of months to relieve us. So many missions will continue. Here in the international zone, we'll continue turning over more properties. We have several more significant properties to turn over to the government of Iraq in the coming eight weeks before we are ready to leave here and turn this mission over. But again, we are continuing, ongoing missions or continuing to successfully complete the little parts and pieces that make up successful missions. And that will be our focus for the rest of our time here.

Art Hackett:
You have sort of answered this question already, but when you left there was some talk that members of the 32nd might be, to some degree, turning out the lights on some things. Do you get the feeling that's actually going to be happening?

Tim Donovan:
Well, we turned out the lights of the theater internment facility in Camp Buca. It's now being disassembled by the Wisconsin National Guard members. We turned out the lights there. There is still work to be done after the 32nd Brigade leaves. Every unit that comes in accomplishes its piece of the mission and hands over to the group to replace it a little less work because the work that we have already accomplished has been completed. So, when we turn over the mission here in the international zone in a month or so to the Texas National Guard troops who will replace us, we are turning over slightly smaller mission because we will have accomplished so much of it. They'll turn it over to whoever relieves them as an even smaller mission yet. So that's how progress is made, incrementally and kind of a deliberate, but steady process that restores Iraq to the control of the government of Iraq and requires less direct U.S. involvement.

Frederica Freyberg:
Lt. Col. Tim Donovan speaking from Baghdad at the end of November.