In 2003, Dave Rittgers was in command of a Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan. Partway through its tour, the team moved to a firebase in Orgun-E to undertake a new mission: helping to mitigate the threat of Taliban ambushes in an area where they were so frequent it earned the nickname "ambush alley." Lt. Col. Rittgers joins this episode to share the story of one of those ambushes.
In 2007, Col. Marc Hoffmeister was a major on a Military Transition Team advising Iraqi Security Forces when an explosively formed penetrator, a specific...
In August 2007, a US Army Special Forces team came under fire while passing through a valley in Afghanistan. The call for support went...
This episode of The Spear features our first ever conversation with a US Army medic. On Oct. 3, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating was attacked...