In an episode of The Spear released in June 2021, Karl Blanke shared a story that featured the actions of one of his former Marines, Lance Corporal Jackson (a pseudonym). “Jackson” was a machine gunner in the 1st Marine Division and took part in the march to Baghdad in 2003, where he was wounded in a firefight and awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat Distinguishing Device for his actions. In this episode, we hear the story from Jackson's perspective.
In 2004, Tim Strabbing was a lieutenant and platoon commander in the Marine Corps, deployed to an area just outside Fallujah in Iraq's restive...
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...
In the second of a two-part conversation with Ryan Hendrickson, our guest shares a story from 2016. Six years and a couple deployments after...