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, rocket-assisted munitions. He was sitting inside a vehicle as he and others in his unit prepared for a mission when the vehicle suffered a direct hit. Listen to him tell the story of how they reacted when the attack destroyed everything around them. (This episode was originally released in 2018.)
In 2003, Karl Blanke was a weapons platoon commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Crossing the line of departure in the first wave, Blanke’s Marines...
In 2010, Maj. Tyson Walsh was a platoon leader on his first deployment. Just ten days after arriving in Afghanistan, the platoon suffered its...
In the previous episode, we heard Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee describe his early military career, which took him from the Oklahoma National Guard to...