In 2003, Dan Stuewe was a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division preparing to cross into Iraq. With only a few weeks with his platoon, Stuewe deployed forward, convinced he’d never see his new wife again. On the day the unit deployed, a soldier handed him some chewing tobacco and a valuable lesson: smiling changes everything. After air assault missions as the unit moved toward Baghdad, Stuewe's soldiers provided him the valuable reminder to smile when times got tough. Combat in Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad, and Mosul all proved the wisdom of smiling when it sucks.
In 2007, Tony Luberto was a maintenance platoon leader deployed in Baghdad. Early one morning, he awoke to the devastating sounds of a Katyusha...
In 2012, Sean Marquis was an infantry platoon leader—deployed to Dehqobad, Afghanistan—with a Stryker brigade. The boundary between the platoon's area of responsibility and...
During a deployment in Afghanistan, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Dylan Ferguson was flying an Apache, providing close air support to a special operations ground...