The Spear

In 2002, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division deployed to Kuwait from its home at Fort Stewart, Georgia ahead of the invasion of Iraq. When that invasion began, the unit would gain honors and fame for its rapid thrust toward Baghdad—what became known as the Thunder Run. The brigade's accomplishments were reported on widely, with observers around the world able to follow the unit's progress nearly in...

In 2014, when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Father Andriy Zelinskyy , a Jesuit priest, was the first military chaplain to authorized to enter the warzone. Father Zelinskyy quickly found his place at the front providing pastoral care. Since then, he has spent almost three years in frontline trenches and positions, including combat in the Donbas and near Debaltseve, ministering to soldi...

In 2019, Master Sgt. Zach Rosser was a platoon sergeant in a Patriot missile battery. His unit was preparing for a deployment—the soldiers expected to be going to Bahrain. But in December, a rocket attack targeting a base in Kirkuk, Iraq that housed US personnel changed where the unit would deploy. Instead of Bahrain, Rosser and his soldiers found themselves heading to Iraq—the first time a Patrio...

In the previous episode, we heard Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee describe his early military career, which took him from the Oklahoma National Guard to the Marine Corps’s force reconnaissance community. This episode picks up his story, as he recounts how he came to join the Army and his selection as a Special Forces soldier. He goes on to describe a 2013 deployment to Afghanistan. During that deployment...

In December 2021, at a White House ceremony, Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee received the Medal of Honor for his actions during a 2013 battle with insurgents in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. But the story of his military career began years earlier. Prior to joining the Army and qualifying as Special Forces soldier, he was a Marine, deploying twice to Iraq. In this first episode of a two-part series, Plu...

Many episodes of The Spear have featured stories of action at the tactical level. This episode departs from that pattern, as Capt. Pete Mitchell  joins host Tim Heck for a converation that reframes the role of the lieutenant. An air defense artillery officer, Mitchell was deployed to Guam in 2013 with the first operational Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) unit in the Army. The deploymen...

This episode of  The Spear features a conversation with Josh Webster. A US Army officer, he previously served as a US Air Force pararescueman—a member of an elite part of the Air Force whose mission includes rescuing and providing medical treatment to wounded military personnel. He shares a story from 2010, when his team was called on to evacuate casualties thirteen times during a day of intense f...

In July 2021, Colonel Matt Hardman deployed on short notice to support 10th Mountain Division operations in Afghanistan. As the country started to fall to Taliban forces, he served as chief of staff at United States Forces–Afghanistan while also commanding elements of his brigade. Having taken command during COVID-19 and shortly thereafter enduring two hurricanes, Hardman and his soldiers were no...

In 2004, Matt Hardman was an infantry company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division. Just returned from Afghanistan, his paratroopers were deployed to Iraq’s Babil province on just a month’s notice. The situation in Babil was uncertain, with limited intelligence on enemy cells, tactics, or objectives. Hardman’s battalion had almost eight hundred square kilometers to patrol and scant resources wi...

In 2006, Jeremy Fox was a platoon leader deployed in Iraq, his platoon tasked for part of that deployment with providing security for an oil pipeline and associated infrastructure. Integrated with Iraqi Army soldiers, he spent many of his nights checking the lines and the security positions at his isolated position. During one such night, accompanied by his interpreter, a sudden incident forced hi...

In the early 1990s, Greg Banner was sent to El Salvador to assist ongoing counterinsurgency training and operations. As a Special Forces officer, Greg had previous experience in Latin America and with advising missions but had not previously deployed to an active war zone. Supporting US Military Group El Salvador, he, along with a non-commissioned officer, advised an experienced Salvadoran army un...

In 2010, Scott Haran was a company commander in Afghanistan. His company was responsible for establishing police checkpoints in and around the city of Kandahar. Partnered with the Afghan National Civil Order Police, Scott and his soldiers accompanied the Afghans on daily patrols to disrupt Taliban activity. One day, he traveled with a small team of his soldiers to the battalion headquarters. While...

In 1962, while on a year-long break from college, Barry Broman was first shot at in South Vietnam while working as a photographer for the Associated Press. Seven years later, he arrived in I Corps, the northernmost part of South Vietnam, as a Marine infantry officer in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (H/2/5), which was operating in an area known as the Arizona Territory. Not far from...

In this episode Maj. John A. Meyer shares a story from his first deployment, in 2007, to Afghanistan. On July 27, his platoon and a group of Afghan National Army soldiers were moving along the road next to the Kunar River during a squadron mission to secure the valley. The Afghan soldiers began to cross a bridge when they looked down and saw a group of enemy fighters. The massive fight that ensued...

In the second episode in a two-part series , Misty Cantwell recounts the ongoing combat operations she conducted in Sadr City, Iraq, in 2003. A military police platoon leader, her sense of the political fragility of the nation was brought home after two bombings targeting the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations assistance mission occurred. Cantwell reflects on the vagueness of American coun...

In this episode, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joe Roland joins to share a story from 2004. A UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, his aircraft and another were supporting an Army Special Forces team in search of a group of enemy combatants in Afghanistan's northern Kandahar province. As soon as his helicopter landed to drop off a US soldier and two Afghans to take up an overwatch position, they saw enemy fighters a...

In 2003, just months after graduating from West Point, Misty Cantwell was a military police platoon leader waiting to cross the border into Iraq. Arriving after the main invasion, Cantwell’s platoon was assigned to Sadr City, a restive neighborhood in Baghdad. Initially arriving in Iraq in soft-skinned vehicles without modern body armor, Cantwell was soon immersed in the rising anti-coalition viol...

We are now twenty-one years past the events of 9/11. America's war in Afghanistan has come to an end yet the repercussions of that day and that war continue to impact foreign policy, strategic positioning, and the lives of those who were there. That makes now an important time to reflect on our Afghanistan experience. Retired Special Forces soldier Scott Neil was one of the first Americans into Af...

In 2012, Sean Marquis was an infantry platoon leader—deployed to Dehqobad, Afghanistan—with a Stryker brigade. The boundary between the platoon's area of responsibility and that of an adjacent unit was a suspected transit route due—US force in the area called it the seam. As villages along the Arghandab River became increasingly restive, Sean set out to find a Taliban recoilless rifle known to be...

In the summer of 1993, Greg Banner was a newly appointed company commander in 10th Special Forces Group. Halfway around the world, ethnic tensions were flaring in the former Yugoslavia. The Cold War had ended but the need for special operations forces in Europe was made apparent as the nation disintegrated into warring states. With only a few weeks’ notice, Banner and his company deployed. Once on...

In the previous  episode  of The Spear , Karl Blanke shared a story that featured the actions of one of his former Marines, Lance Corporal Jackson (a pseudonym). “Jackson” was a machine gunner in the 1st Marine Division and took part in the march to Baghdad in 2003, where he was wounded in a firefight and awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat Distinguishing Device for his...

In 2003, after completing the march up to Baghdad in dramatic fashion, and after an all-night gunfight to seize one of Saddam’s palaces, the Marines of Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were immediately sent to capture Baath officials suspected to be in a neighborhood nearby. A platoon commanded by Karl Blanke established a cordon and began searching house by house for their targets wi...

Few books have had the impact on generations of young soldiers as Jim McDonough’s Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat . First published in the mid-1980s, Platoon Leader remains on military reading lists worldwide and is still included in curriculum for junior officers and NCOs across the joint and combined force. Detailing the events that shaped Jim’s life as a young lieutenant in the 17...

In August 2007, a US Army Special Forces team came under fire while passing through a valley in Afghanistan. The call for support went to a nearby base, where an AC-130H Spectre gunship crew was standing by. The crew quickly launched, and shortly later, the aircraft was overhead. This is the type of job the AC-130H was designed for. In the hours that followed, they engaged enemy targets a number o...

A newly minted Special Forces officer in the spring of 1966, Mike Eiland landed in Vietnam and joined 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). A team leader, Mike and his team were tasked with reestablishing a Special Forces camp at Hiep Hoa, where a previous camp had been overrun in November 1963. On May 12, 1966, less than six weeks after Mike arrived in Vietnam, the camp was attacked. The ensuing f...