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. Michael Murphy was a copilot on that aircraft in Afghanistan, and he joins this episode to share the story.
This episode of The Spear features a conversation with Josh Webster. A US Army officer, he previously served as a US Air Force pararescueman—a...
In 2003, Dave Rittgers was in command of a Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan. Partway through its tour, the team moved to a...
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...