Col. Bill Ostlund is the director of the Department of Military Instruction at West Point. In 1990, as a lieutenant, he arrived at his first unit as an officer and almost immediately got the order to deploy to Saudi Arabia. Shortly after, he and his battalion air assaulted into Iraq as part of Operation Desert Storm. Listen to him recall his experiences and the lessons he learned from them.
In 2012, Capt. Nick Dockery was a platoon leader in Afghanistan. When his platoon was attacked during a mission, an intense fight ensued. Capt....
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 2005, Jeff Marshburn was a reconnaissance platoon leader in the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, in Mosul, Iraq. While leading his platoon during...