This episode of The Spear features a conversation with Lt. Col. Coley Tyler. In late 2004, he was a captain serving as a battalion fire support officer in Iraq. That meant that when the Marines asked for his battalion to take part in the Second Battle of Fallujah, he had an important role to play. He coordinated artillery, mortars, and fire from supporting aircraft to do something, in the Army, we call shaping the battlefield. As he describes, in Fallujah, that meant destruction.
In February 2012, Capt. Jannelle Allong-Diakabana was a military police platoon leader deployed in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. One day, as she and her platoon...
Col. Bill Ostlund retired from the Army in 2019. In 1990, as a lieutenant, he arrived at his first unit as an officer and...
In the fall of 2006, Rory McGovern was a company fire support officer assigned to a combined arms team operating in the area around...