For his service with the Household Cavalry during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2013, British Army Major Al Pickthall was ultimately awarded the Military Cross, a decoration presented by the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries for acts of "exemplary gallantry” in combat. In this episode, Al recounts the details of that deployment and the actions for which he was awarded the Military Cross, as well as his education at Sandhurst and Yale University and his thoughts about topics such as leadership, military writing, and his recent visit to the United States Military Academy at West Point.
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...
On August 16, 2013, Capt. Brandon Thomas was a troop commander deployed to Kandahar province, Afghanistan. That day, during an unplanned halt on a...
In the previous episode of The Spear, Karl Blanke shared a story that featured the actions of one of his former Marines, Lance Corporal...