Few books have had the impact on generations of young soldiers as Jim McDonough’s Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat. First published in the mid-1980s, Platoon Leader remains on military reading lists worldwide and is still included in curriculum for junior officers and NCOs across the joint and combined force. Detailing the events that shaped Jim’s life as a young lieutenant in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam, Platoon Leader is a tale of leadership, followership, and the burdens of infantry combat on the young men and women in line companies. In this episode, Jim joins host Tim Heck to reflect on the formative experiences he had as a young leader in combat, the moral weight of his responsibility, and how he chose to interact with a population and ally in a way that preserved the humanity required to lead in combat.
In this episode of The Spear, MWI's John Amble is joined by Maj. Jacob Absalon. He shares a story from his first deployment, as...
As a lieutenant on his first deployment, Capt. Steve Beckman was in charge of a platoon equipped with a unique vehicle—a Stryker variant called...
In this episode, we talk to retired US Army Apache pilot Dan McClinton. He tells two stories from a 2007 deployment to Iraq. Together,...