A newly minted Special Forces officer in the spring of 1966, Mike Eiland landed in Vietnam and joined 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). A team leader, Mike and his team were tasked with reestablishing a Special Forces camp at Hiep Hoa, where a previous camp had been overrun in November 1963. On May 12, 1966, less than six weeks after Mike arrived in Vietnam, the camp was attacked. The ensuing fight was a close-run affair with Viet Cong soldiers breaching the Special Forces team's living quarters. Mike shares the story in this episode.
In 2003, Alex Perez-Cruz was a company executive officer during the invasion of Iraq. He returned as a company commander during the Surge. Now...
As a lieutenant, Maj. Jesse Lansford was deployed to Afghanistan. A Kiowa helicopter pilot assigned as an aviation platoon leader, he rarely found himself...
In this episode of The Spear, US Air Force Col. Kim Campbell joins to share a story from 2003. A career A-10 pilot, during...