Well, maybe not so young, but it was a few years ago when we first met in 2005. Then Col. H.R. McMaster was with his command sergeant major when they boarded the Blackhawk with me and Iraqi Col. Thabid en route to the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad.

At least that's where I and Colonel Thabid, the G3 for Iraq's 3rd Infantry Division, were going. Col. Thabid had a meeting scheduled with the Commanding General of Iraq's army to discuss payroll and personnel issues. I was an advisor for an infantry company in his division, and was escorting him on the Blackhawk. We stopped for refueling where McMaster and his CSM boarded the chopper. I recognized McMaster and introduced myself and Col. Thabid.

Of course, the two colonels were delighted to meet since both had command responsibilities. Thabid had limited English vocabulary, so with the help of my pocket Arabic to English dictionary, he and McMaster had quite a conversation, limited as it was. Thabid's 3rd Division was at Al Kisik, and was in the same Northwest operational theater of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), so it was a timely meeting.

Then Col. Herbert Raymond McMaster was the commander of the 3rd ACR near the city of Tal Afar, a city of some 200,000, 38 miles east of the Iraqi-Syrian border. He assumed command in 2004, and in February, 2005, the regiment deployed from Fort Carson, Colo., to Iraq in support of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." In September that year, the regiment conducted "Operation Restore Rights" to defeat an insurgent stronghold in the city of Tal Afar. His mission in Iraq was securing the city of Tal Afar. To that end, he deployed troops on a permanent basis outside of their bases, since the patrols who returned each night to home base had little success in turning back the insurgency because the locals feared retaliation and would rarely assist U.S. forces. Having permanent outposts (called Combat Outposts or COP's) the citizens had confidence that the soldiers weren't going to withdraw nightly and began providing information on the insurgents. Local intel provided a basis for missions that would target specific areas and people, enabling McMaster's troops to defeat them. The Regiment lost 44 troopers during its deployment that ended in late February, 2006.

His combat experience includes when he served as a Captain of Eagle Troop, Second Squadron, Second Armored Cavalry Regiment in the Gulf war. A CNN article recounts the action and noted that the battle is often studied by young U.S. military officers as the exemplary case study of high intensity conventional combat:

"In the Gulf War then-Capt. McMaster led a U.S. tank troop on February 26, 1991. McMaster's armored forces, acting as scouts, suddenly encountered a large force of the Iraqi army. In a 2014 interview with National Geographic Television, McMaster recalled, "I can see the enemy with the naked eye. I mean, they're at very close range." In a battle that lasted only 23 minutes, McMaster's force destroyed an astonishing 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and more than 30 trucks."

Born in 1962, he graduated from Pennsylvania's Valley Forge Military Academy in 1980, and the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant at graduation, and continued his education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned a Master of Arts and PhD in American History. His 1997 book "Dereliction of Duty," detailed the American strategy of the Vietnam War, which was researched for his Ph.D thesis.

He was the second officer in the 1984 West Point class to be promoted to the general officer ranks, and in 2012 was nominated for the 2 star rank of Major General. In July, 2014, he was promoted to the 3 star rank of lieutenant general by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and began his duties as Deputy General of the Training and Doctrine Command. President Donald Trump appointed Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster his national security advisor in February this year.

A CNN news article reported that "McMaster, 54, is the smartest and most capable military officer of his generation, one who has not only led American victories on the battlefields of the 1991 Gulf War and of the Iraq War, but also holds a Ph.D. in history. McMaster is, in short, both an accomplished doer and a deep thinker, a combination that should serve him well in the complex job of national security adviser."

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Jack Evensizer is a resident of Dalton Gardens.