As a new military police platoon leader, Robin Fontes unexpectedly found herself present at a turning point of strategic significance. Assigned to the Berlin Brigade, Fontes and her soldiers were part of the American effort to maintain an outpost in the German capital, keep tabs on the Soviets, and stay ready for the start of World War III—all while citizens across Eastern Europe were increasingly demanding additional freedoms and political representation from their communist governments. As tensions inside East Germany continued to rise, Fontes had a front-row view. When the Berlin Wall came down in October 1989, she found herself thrust into a delicate balancing act in the midst of geostrategic uncertainty in a profoundly historic moment.
In early 2019, Eric Kahle was a first sergeant assigned to an aviation maintenance company bound for Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dahlke in Afghanistan—also...
In the previous episode of The Spear, Karl Blanke shared a story that featured the actions of one of his former Marines, Lance Corporal...
This episode of The Spear features Brian Humphreys, a former US Marine Corps officer who shares stories from two deployments. In the first, to...