While serving as a company executive officer with the 1st Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment in 2016, Ryan Crayne and his company were training at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center when they received emergency overseas deployment orders. Just days later, and after a herculean logistical effort, Ryan and his fellow Rangers were in Afghanistan and engaged in a major clearing operation against ISIS. He joins this episode to share the story of that operation, explaining how high-performing units leverage leadership principles such as mutual trust, disciplined initiative, and prudent risk to enable extraordinary accomplishments in training and on the battlefield.
On August 16, 2013, Capt. Brandon Thomas was a troop commander deployed to Kandahar province, Afghanistan. That day, during an unplanned halt on a...
This episode of The Spear features a story from US Air Force Major Joe Ritter. An RPA pilot, his story takes place both at...
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...