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 2004, Dan Gade’s armor company took over a sector of Ramadi, Iraq, then the heart of the Sunni insurgency. Within days, his unit...
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...
Sergeant Major Chuck Ritter overcame a series of bad decisions in his youth—as well as a rough start to his Army career—to become a...