The Leader and the Damage Done
"Trust your NCOs" is common advice given to every new lieutenant. This adage, the overwhelming majority of the time, is valid. But when it’s not, it’s not. When Chris Liggett was a lieutenant, he depl...
30 Aug 202343min
Leading with Love
In 1995, Robert Craven was a teenage high school dropout with a baby on the way. Looking for options to improve his life, he turned to the Army and embraced its “be all you can be” motto as his own. Y...
16 Aug 202340min
History of the World War (Part II)
Before legendary entertainer Mel Brooks was known as Mel Brooks, he was Corporal Melvin Kaminsky, a combat engineer fighting in Europe during World War II. From facing air raids to artillery rounds bu...
2 Aug 202343min
Smiling When It Sucks
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 deployed forward, convinced he’d never see his new ...
19 Jul 202348min
Calling in Close Air Support
In this episode of The Spear, retired Marine officer David Berke joins to share a story from 2006, when he was a forward air controller attached to an Army unit in Ramadi, Iraq. During a movement-to-c...
6 Jul 202352min
When the Wall Fell
As a new military police platoon leader, Robin Fontes unexpectedly found herself present at a turning point of strategic significance. Assigned to the Berlin Brigade, Fontes and her soldiers were part...
21 Jun 202335min
Battle of Barawala Kalay Valley
In 2010 Kevin Mott's unit arrived in Afghanistan's Kunar province for a deployment that would see months of hard fighting. At one point, he was even wounded so badly—shot in the head, four fractured v...
7 Jun 202358min
Last Man Out
On August 30, 2021, Lieutenant 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 the commander of the 82nd Airborn...
24 Mai 202331min
