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.
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,...
Many episodes of The Spear have featured stories of action at the tactical level. This episode departs from that pattern, as Capt. Pete Mitchell ...