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.
Col. Bill Ostlund is the director of the Department of Military Instruction at West Point. In 1990, as a lieutenant, he arrived at his...
In 2012, Sean Marquis was an infantry platoon leader—deployed to Dehqobad, Afghanistan—with a Stryker brigade. The boundary between the platoon's area of responsibility and...
This episode of The Spear features a story from US Air Force Major Joe Ritter. An RPA pilot, his story takes place both at...