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 this episode, Col. Bill Ostlund tells the story of what he calls the most honorable mission he took part in over more than...
In 2008, Major Corey Faison was a scout platoon leader at Combat Outpost Lowell in Afghanistan's Nuristan province. The area was a hotbed of...
In 2010 Kevin Mott's unit arrived in Afghanistan's Kunar province for a deployment that would see months of hard fighting. At one point, he...