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 2003, Dave Rittgers was in command of a Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan. Partway through its tour, the team moved to a...
In 2003, Alex Perez-Cruz was a company executive officer during the invasion of Iraq. He returned as a company commander during the Surge. Now...
In 2010, Col. Jonathan Neumann commanded 1/17 Infantry Battalion, deployed in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Near the end of the deployment, the battalion received intelligence...