Spectre in the Sky
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 stand...
11 Apr 20241h 4min
Ambush in Uruzgan
In this episode, host Tim Heck is joined by Lt. Col. Blake Schwartz. In 2009, Schwartz was a Special Forces team leader deployed in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. Enemy fighters in the Langar valley,...
27 Mar 202459min
A Lieutenant's Dilemma in Kosovo
When Chris L’Heureux joined the Army in 1999, it was before the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that would define a generation of US Army service. Like many others across the Army, h...
13 Mar 202447min
The Bridge on the Saddam Canal
In early 2003, Karl Blanke was a Marine platoon commander during the early stages of the US-led invasion of Iraq, when his battalion was given an objective: secure a bridge over what was known as the ...
28 Feb 202440min
Three Missions in Panjwai District
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 months later. He shares the stories of three m...
14 Feb 202449min
A Lieutenant's Dilemma
Before his NFL career, Alejandro Villanueva was a rifle platoon leader in the 10th Mountain Division. During a deployment to an especially restive sector near Kandahar, Afghanistan, his unit faced hei...
31 Jan 202435min
Moral Courage
Rick Jackson enlisted in the Marine Corps in the 1980s, later attending Officer Candidates School and commissioning as an infantry officer. He joins this episode to reflect on a career that spanned ne...
17 Jan 202450min
Surprise Ambush in Nuristan
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 activity and the company at the COP found itself fr...
3 Jan 202436min
