Col. Phil Ryan is an Army aviator who has spent much of his career in the Army's most elite, special operations aviation units. In 2003, in the first days of the invasion of Iraq, he was a pilot in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, part of a fourteen-helicopter mission deeper into the country than any coalition forces had yet made it. When enemy forces on the objective engaged the helicopters, an intense fight broke out. Listen to Col. Ryan tell the story of that mission.
This episode features a story from Maj. Joe Ritter, an MQ-9 pilot—the first remotely piloted aircraft story featured on The Spear. The MQ-9 has...
In the second episode in a two-part series, Dan Gade joins The Spear to tell the story of his 2004 deployment to Ramadi, Iraq....
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...