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 1968, after one season as a professional football player, Rocky Bleier was drafted by the Army and sent to Vietnam. During a firefight,...
Col. Phil Ryan is an Army aviator who has spent much of his career in the Army's most elite, special operations aviation units. In...
This episode of The Spear features a conversation with Lt. Col. Coley Tyler. In late 2004, he was a captain serving as a battalion...