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 2005, Jeff Marshburn was a reconnaissance platoon leader in the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, in Mosul, Iraq. While leading his platoon during...
In 2012, Capt. Nick Dockery was a platoon leader in Afghanistan. When his platoon was attacked during a mission, an intense fight ensued. Capt....
During his service as a combat rescue officer in the US Air Force, Captain Sal Sferrazza and his team of Air Force pararescue jumpers...