In August 2007, a US Army Special Forces team came under fire while passing through a valley in Afghanistan. The call for support went to a nearby base, where an AC-130H Spectre gunship crew was standing by. The crew quickly launched, and shortly later, the aircraft was overhead. This is the type of job the AC-130H was designed for. In the hours that followed, they engaged enemy targets a number of times with both a 40-millimeter cannon and a 105-millimeter howitzer. Lt. Col. Michael Murphy is the commander of the US Air Force's 16th Special Operations Squadron. In 2007, he was a copilot on that aircraft in Afghanistan, and he joins this episode to share the story.
On August 16, 2013, Capt. Brandon Thomas was a troop commander deployed to Kandahar province, Afghanistan. That day, during an unplanned halt on a...
When Chris L’Heureux joined the Army in 1999, it was before the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that would define...
This episode of The Spear features a story from US Air Force Major Joe Ritter. An RPA pilot, his story takes place both at...