In 2003, just months after graduating from West Point, Misty Cantwell was a military police platoon leader waiting to cross the border into Iraq. Arriving after the main invasion, Cantwell’s platoon was assigned to Sadr City, a restive neighborhood in Baghdad. Initially arriving in Iraq in soft-skinned vehicles without modern body armor, Cantwell was soon immersed in the rising anti-coalition violence that summer. In this episode, she shares the story of her role in the response to an attack that killed US soldiers, reflecting on the change that happened to her that night, what she would tell her younger self, and how the effects of combat linger.
In this episode, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joe Roland joins to share a story from 2004. A UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, his aircraft and...
In the spring of 2003, Lt. Col. Dave Rittgers commanded a Special Forces team deploying to Afghanistan. As soon as the team arrived in...
Before legendary entertainer Mel Brooks was known as Mel Brooks, he was Corporal Melvin Kaminsky, a combat engineer fighting in Europe during World War...