Company Command in Babil

January 18, 2023 00:33:36
Company Command in Babil
The Spear
Company Command in Babil

Jan 18 2023 | 00:33:36

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Show Notes

In 2004, Matt Hardman was an infantry company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division. Just returned from Afghanistan, his paratroopers were deployed to Iraq’s Babil province on just a month’s notice. The situation in Babil was uncertain, with limited intelligence on enemy cells, tactics, or objectives. Hardman’s battalion had almost eight hundred square kilometers to patrol and scant resources with which to do it. Within their first week, the company began losing soldiers. He joins this episode to reflect on that challenging deployment, describing the foundations for his paratroopers' success and what he learned about the fundamentals of leadership.

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