Many episodes of The Spear have featured stories of action at the tactical level. This episode departs from that pattern, as Capt. Pete Mitchell joins host Tim Heck for a converation that reframes the role of the lieutenant. An air defense artillery officer, Mitchell was deployed to Guam in 2013 with the first operational Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) unit in the Army. The deployment came against the backdrop of an increasingly bellicose North Korea, but was also part of a broader US military shift toward the Indo-Pacific region. The scope of a lieutenant's focus is often limited—geographically and otherwise. But the decisions a junior officer makes can, in circumstances like those surrounding Mitchell's deployment, have implications that reverberate much more widely, even to the strategic level. Listen as he shares the story of that deployment.
In 2004, Matt Hardman was an infantry company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division. Just returned from Afghanistan, his paratroopers were deployed to Iraq’s...
As a lieutenant, Maj. Jesse Lansford was deployed to Afghanistan. A Kiowa helicopter pilot assigned as an aviation platoon leader, he rarely found himself...
The battle to wrest control of the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS involved some of the fiercest urban combat since World War II....