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.
This episode of The Spear features a conversation with Josh Webster. A US Army officer, he previously served as a US Air Force pararescueman—a...
Few books have had the impact on generations of young soldiers as Jim McDonough’s Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat. First published...
In the previous episode, we heard Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee describe his early military career, which took him from the Oklahoma National Guard to...