 After completion of Company Command, he served as the Task Force XXI Combat Systems Manager, 4th Infantry Division.From 1996 to 1999, Kirklin was assigned to Hohenfels, Germany, where he functioned as the Combat Service Support Observer/Controller on the Grizzlies and Timberwolves Maneuver Teams, and later as the Operations Group S4.From 1999 to 2000, he was a student at the Command and General Staff College, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.