The Spear

In 2007, United States Marine Captain Kyleanne Hunter was flying an escort mission above Marines operating in western Iraq. When the Marines on the ground ...

On August 30, 2021, General Chris Donahue stepped onto the ramp of the last American C-17 in Afghanistan and into the pages of history. At the time, he was...

Long before his selection as the fifteenth sergeant major of the Army, Dan Dailey served multiple combat deployments in Iraq, first during Operation Desert...

This episode features a conversation with Ryan Hendrickson. After almost losing his leg in an IED blast in 2010, he was back in Afghanistan just eighteen m...

In 2008, Major Corey Faison was a scout platoon leader at Combat Outpost Lowell in Afghanistan's Nuristan province. The area was a hotbed of Taliban activi...

In 2007, United States Marine Captain Kyleanne Hunter was flying escort missions above Marines operating in western Iraq. When the Marines on the ground di...

In 2003, Dan Stuewe was a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division preparing to cross into Iraq. With only a few weeks with his platoon, Stuewe deploy...

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 ...

In 2004, Dan Gade’s armor company took over a sector of Ramadi, Iraq, then the heart of the Sunni insurgency. Within days, his unit suffered its first fat...

In this episode, Maj. Jake Miraldi is joined by retired Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta. In 2010, he became the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor si...

In 2003, Dave Rittgers was in command of a Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan. Partway through its tour, the team moved to a firebase in Orgun-E t...

In 2006, Lt. Col. James Enos was a company commander deployed in Ramadi, Iraq. One day, his company's company's foot patrol turned quickly into a firefight...

In 2014 and 2015, the US Army sent soldiers to help respond to an outbreak of Ebola in Liberia. Capt. Jerod Brammer led one of the deployed teams. He was r...

In this episode of The Spear, we're joined by Capt. Lucas Gebhart. An aviation officer, he was deployed to Iraq during the Battle of Mosul. That battle inv...

The battle to wrest control of the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS involved some of the fiercest urban combat since World War II. Throughout the battle, US f...

In this episode, we talk to retired US Army Apache pilot Dan McClinton. He tells two stories from a 2007 deployment to Iraq. Together, the stories demonstr...

This episode of The Spear is the second in a two-part series featuring three guests who took part in the Battle of Mogadishu, made famous by the book Black...

In 2007, Patrick Melton was a military police soldier on his first deployment in Baghdad, when his combat outpost was hit by a barrage of improvised, rocke...

In 2003, Maj. (ret) John Spencer was a platoon leader in the 173rd Airborne. In this episode, he talks about the very first mission after his unit jumped i...

In 2003, Maj. John Spencer was a platoon leader in Iraq. One night, while waiting in an ambush position, he gave the order for his platoon to move to inter...

On August 16, 2013, Capt. Brandon Thomas was a troop commander deployed to Kandahar province, Afghanistan. That day, during an unplanned halt on a mission,...

In 2008, Maj. Emily Spencer was an EOD platoon leader in Iraq. In April, she and one of her teams accompanied a route clearance patrol that was planned to ...