In 2012, Mike Kelvington was a company commander in 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, deployed in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province. He joins The Spear to share a story of a two-day operations during which his company confronted a number of challenges. Some members of the Afghan National Army unit they were partnered with essentially quit during the mission. They took casualties from improvised explosive devices. And perhaps most challenging, the enemy was inflicting damage while avoiding an open fight. It was, in many ways, like chasing ghosts.
In 2014, Master Sgt. Raymond Collazo was a platoon sergeant deployed to eastern Afghanistan. Just weeks into his unit's deployment, the platoon was on...
While serving as an infantry officer in the 75th Ranger Regiment, First Lieutenant Scott Filbert was deployed to Afghanistan to serve as the J1,...
Col. Bill Ostlund retired from the Army in 2019. In 1990, as a lieutenant, he arrived at his first unit as an officer and...