In late 2004, Mosul was becoming more and more unstable. Matt Sacra, a Stryker platoon leader, and his soldiers deployed there to help quell the growing insurgency. On November 10, the platoon was ambushed. The next day, it fought as part of a battalion-sized operation. The combat Matt and his soldiers saw over those two days was an experience that, as he describes, left an indelible mark on him as a soldier and deeply influenced his development as a leader. This is the first of a two-part interview with Matt.
This episode of The Spear features Brian Humphreys, a former US Marine Corps officer who shares stories from two deployments. In the first, to...
In 2004, Tim Strabbing was a lieutenant and platoon commander in the Marine Corps, deployed to an area just outside Fallujah in Iraq's restive...
In 2007, a destructive new weapon appeared on the battlefield in Iraq: the improvised, rocket-assisted munition. Also called a lob bomb because of the...