In 2003, after completing the march up to Baghdad in dramatic fashion, and after an all-night gunfight to seize one of Saddam’s palaces, the Marines of Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were immediately sent to capture Baath officials suspected to be in a neighborhood nearby. A platoon commanded by Karl Blanke established a cordon and began searching house by house for their targets with little to go on beyond a set of grid coordinates. As the search continued, the cordon came under increasingly intense and accurate fire. One of Blanke’s machine gunners, Lance Corporal Jackson (pseudonym), was among those on the cordon and was responsible for protecting both the Iraqi civilians inside and his fellow Marines. On that day in 2003, his actions left an indelible impression on his platoon commander and his fellow Marines.
Note: this episode originally aired in 2021.
In this episode of The Spear, retired Marine officer David Berke joins to share a story from 2006, when he was a forward air...
In 2007, Col. Marc Hoffmeister was a major on a Military Transition Team advising Iraqi Security Forces when an explosively formed penetrator, a specific...
In this episode of The Spear, US Air Force Col. Kim Campbell joins to share a story from 2003. A career A-10 pilot, during...