A Chaplain in Ukraine's Trenches
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 hi...
26 Apr 202344min
Bringing the Patriot to Iraq
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 at...
12 Apr 202345min
Die Going Forward
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. Thi...
29 Mars 202347min
A Medal of Honor Recipient's Origin Story
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 o...
15 Mars 202332min
The Strategic Lieutenant
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...
1 Mars 202340min
That Others May Live
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 in...
15 Feb 202353min
The End of the War
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 a...
1 Feb 202329min
Company Command in Babil
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....
18 Jan 202333min
