This episode features a story from Maj. Joe Ritter, an MQ-9 pilot—the first remotely piloted aircraft story featured on The Spear. The MQ-9 has a wide range of the capabilities—from providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to conducting battle damage assessments to helping a ground element direct their fires to striking enemy targets with air-to-ground Hellfire missiles. Ritter and his sensor operator brought all of these capabilities to the fight during a single mission in Afghanistan in October 2018.
In 2008, British Army officer Will Meddings was part of a team deployed in Helmand province, Afghanistan, tasked with partnering with, mentoring, and training...
Arriving in Vietnam in April 1968, John “Tilt” Meyer volunteered for a highly classified unit without knowing so much as its name. Tilt, it...
In 2007, Tony Luberto was a maintenance platoon leader deployed in Baghdad. Early one morning, he awoke to the devastating sounds of a Katyusha...