The East African Community’s (EAC) first and only military intervention, the EAC Regional Force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, prematurely came to an end in December 2023. The conflict in the eastern Congolese borderlands it deployed to diffuse continues. Delays, lack of external funding, and differing expectations of the mission’s purpose culminated in the EACRF’s expulsion from the country sixteen months after its initial deployment. While nominally directed by the EAC headquarters in Arusha, the priorities of each of these individual TCCs dominated the mission. As such, the EACRF must be understood through the individual national politics of its troop contributors. A regional retrospective reflects on the East African Community Regional Force from the perspective of each of its troop contributing countries (TCCs) – Kenya, South Sudan, Burundi and Uganda – as well as the DR Congo and Tanzania.