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.
As a young platoon leader in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, John Faunce experienced the chaos of combat, including shifting missions, limited intelligence, and...
On September 11, 2001, Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen was a colonel assigned to the Pentagon. Today he's the superintendent of the US Military Academy,...
In this episode of The Spear, MWI's John Amble is joined by Maj. Jacob Absalon. He shares a story from his first deployment, as...