In 2010, Maj. Tyson Walsh was a platoon leader on his first deployment. Just ten days after arriving in Afghanistan, the platoon suffered its first casualties when an IED—an improvised explosive device—killed one soldier and wounded another. Eight days later, the battalion chaplain visited the platoon's combat outpost to perform a prayer service for the soldier they had lost. Afterward, when he left, his vehicle also struck an IED, killing him and four other soldiers. It was only the beginning of a very difficult deployment, and led to leadership challenges Walsh would have to overcome.
In 2007, Patrick Melton was a military police soldier on his first deployment in Baghdad, when his combat outpost was hit by a barrage...
In 2010 Kevin Mott's unit arrived in Afghanistan's Kunar province for a deployment that would see months of hard fighting. At one point, he...
Lt. Col. Brian Kitching joins this episode of The Spear to share a story from a 2012 deployment in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar Province. Two...