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.
On July 13, 2008, around two hundred Taliban fighters ambushed American and Afghan soldiers in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan. The ensuing fight...
In 2007, United States Marine Captain Kyleanne Hunter was flying escort missions above Marines operating in western Iraq. When the Marines on the ground...
In 2005, Jeff Marshburn was a reconnaissance platoon leader in the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, in Mosul, Iraq. While leading his platoon during...