Arriving in Vietnam in April 1968, John “Tilt” Meyer volunteered for a highly classified unit without knowing so much as its name. Tilt, it turned out, was volunteering to join Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), which ran highly classified special operations missions deep into North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. On one of Tilt’s first missions, an area reconnaissance of an important North Vietnamese Army site in Laos, his small team was quickly discovered. A harrowing firefight followed. Later, with only a few months' experience, he became the team leader, taking the responsibility on his shoulders for the decisions made in the jungle.
In 2009, Lieutenant Mike Karlson deployed to Afghanistan, new to both his unit and to his job as executive office of its maintenance troop....
This episode doesn't feature a combat story. But the conversation with FDNY's Chief Joseph Pfeifer is strikingly similar to the story we've heard in...
In 2012, Sean Marquis was an infantry platoon leader—deployed to Dehqobad, Afghanistan—with a Stryker brigade. The boundary between the platoon's area of responsibility and...