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.
For sixteen years, the US military has been at war in Afghanistan. The guests on this episode were there at the very beginning. Jason...
Col. Phil Ryan is the commander of the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. In 2003, in the first days of the invasion of...
This episode of The Spear features a conversation with Lt. Col. Coley Tyler. In late 2004, he was a captain serving as a battalion...