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 late 2001, Scott Neil was a US Army Special Forces soldier whose team was among the first US forces in Afghanistan—the legendary Horse...
This episode features a conversation with Captain Lindsay Heisler. An aviation officer and Apache pilot, in December 2015 she was part of a mission...
On August 11, 2004, Staff Sgt. John Borman’s platoon ventured out on what was supposed to be a short counter-mortar observation mission. Except that...