In this episode, host Tim Heck is joined by Lt. Col. Blake Schwartz. In 2009, Schwartz was a Special Forces team leader deployed in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan. Enemy fighters in the Langar valley, a restive area astride a vital road network, were a particular target for Schwartz’s soldiers. Schwartz attempted three times to enter the valley with his forces. On his final attempt, while countering a Taliban ambush, he authorized the firing of a Hellfire missile from an orbiting MQ-1 Predator. The impact had unintended consequences for the mission and for Schwartz.
In this episode of The Spear, retired Marine officer David Berke joins to share a story from 2006, when he was a forward air...
In the late summer of 2021, after years of service to his country—including four years at the United States Military Academy—Major Naqib Mirzada, an...
In 2010 Kevin Mott's unit arrived in Afghanistan's Kunar province for a deployment that would see months of hard fighting. At one point, he...