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.
Before his NFL career, Alejandro Villanueva was a rifle platoon leader in the 10th Mountain Division. During a deployment to an especially restive sector...
Many episodes of The Spear have featured stories of action at the tactical level. This episode departs from that pattern, as Capt. Pete Mitchell ...
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...