This episode of The Spear features our first ever conversation with a US Army medic. On Oct. 3, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating was attacked by three hundred enemy fighters. Half of the fifty-seven US soldiers there would be wounded by the time the fighting ended. Master Sgt. Shane Courville was a medic at the COP, and he describes what it's like to be a combat medic in the middle of one of the most intense battles of the war in Afghanistan.
In 2014 and 2015, the US Army sent soldiers to help respond to an outbreak of Ebola in Liberia. Capt. Jerod Brammer led one...
"Trust your NCOs" is common advice given to every new lieutenant. This adage, the overwhelming majority of the time, is valid. But when it’s...
In 2005, Jeff Marshburn was a reconnaissance platoon leader in the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, in Mosul, Iraq. While leading his platoon during...