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 of his military career began years earlier. Prior to joining the Army and qualifying as Special Forces soldier, he was a Marine, deploying twice to Iraq. In this first episode of a two-part series, Plumlee shares the story of his early career, including his first firefight and what he learned as a young noncommissioned officer. In the next episode, he’ll describe his decision to transition from the Marine Corps to the Army and the events that led to his actions in Ghazni in 2013.
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In 2007, Patrick Melton was a military police soldier on his first deployment in Baghdad, when his combat outpost was hit by a barrage...
Col. Bill Ostlund is the director of the Department of Military Instruction at West Point. In 1990, as a lieutenant, he arrived at his...