In 2003, Karl Blanke was a weapons platoon commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Crossing the line of departure in the first wave, Blanke’s Marines spent three weeks fighting their way north to Baghdad. Upon arrival, his company was immediately tasked with searching for high-value targets in a nearby neighborhood. The fight for the neighborhood saw several Marines wounded. This is the story of that fight and one of those Marines.
In the fall of 2006, Rory McGovern was a company fire support officer assigned to a combined arms team operating in the area around...
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...
Sergeant Major Chuck Ritter overcame a series of bad decisions in his youth—as well as a rough start to his Army career—to become a...