In 1998, retired US Air Force Colonel Mike "Starbaby" Pietrucha was an electronic warfare officer flying in an F-15E Strike Eagle, enforcing the northern no-fly zone over Iraq in the 1990s. In this episode, he brings listeners into the cockpit as he describes one particular mission during that deployment, when his aircraft was targeted by a radar guidance system for an SA-3 antiair missile. Not long after, the Iraqi surface-to-air missile was headed his way. After some rather hasty maneuvering, the F-15E crews in the air developed a plan with other coalition aircraft to strike back.
In this episode, we talk to retired US Army Apache pilot Dan McClinton. He tells two stories from a 2007 deployment to Iraq. Together,...
In the late summer of 2021, after years of service to his country—including four years at the United States Military Academy—Major Naqib Mirzada, an...
In 2003, Karl Blanke was a weapons platoon commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Crossing the line of departure in the first wave, Blanke’s Marines...