The Spear

In 2007, Patrick Melton was a military police soldier on his first deployment in Baghdad when his combat outpost was hit by a barrage of improvised, rocket-assisted munitions. He was sitting inside a vehicle as he and others in his unit prepared for a mission when the vehicle suffered a direct hit. Listen to him tell the story of how they reacted when the attack destroyed everything around them. (This episode was originally released in 2018.)

In this episode of The Spear, MWI Deputy Director Maj. Noel Sioson is joined by retired Master Sgt. Cedric King. In 2012 in Afghanistan, on "a day just like any other day," as he describes it, his platoon got into a firefight during a patrol. When it ended and the unit continued its movement, he stepped on an IED. The blast cost him both of his legs. The most remarkable part of his story is his recovery and the resilience he exhibits.

Col. Bill Ostlund retired from the Army in 2019. In 1990, as a lieutenant, he arrived at his first unit as an officer and almost immediately got the order to deploy to Saudi Arabia. Shortly after, he and his battalion air assaulted into Iraq as part of Operation Desert Storm. Listen as he recalls his experiences and the lessons he learned from them.

Maj. John Spencer, a former platoon leader in Iraq, shares gripping tales from his 2003 deployment. He recounts the tension of setting a nighttime ambush to thwart arms theft, navigating intense gunfire, and leading his platoon through tactical maneuvers. John describes the evolving threat of IEDs and the stark realities of civilian casualties during engagements. His honest reflections on relationships with local police and lessons learned from action reviews offer deep insights into military operations and the human side of conflict.

As a lieutenant on his first deployment, Capt. Steve Beckman was in charge of a platoon equipped with a unique vehicle—a Stryker variant called a Mobile Gun System. But when the 105mm main weapon stopped functioning during an engagement with Taliban forces, he had to come up with a different way to fight the vehicle to protect US forces under fire.

As a lieutenant, Maj. Jesse Lansford was deployed to Afghanistan. A Kiowa helicopter pilot assigned as an aviation platoon leader, he rarely found himself on foot outside the wire. But on one day his helicopter had to land. He spent a brief time on the ground, but it was enough for him to encounter an IED. He joins this episode of The Spear to tell the story.

In this episode of The Spear, MWI's Maj. Jake Miraldi speaks to Capt. Jason Pomeroy. In 2011, he was a platoon leader in Kunar province, Afghanistan, and he joins the podcast to tell the story of Operation Strong Eagle III, a mission during to expel enemy fighters from a rugged valley that quickly turned into a grueling fight.

In this episode of The Spear, MWI's John Amble is joined by Maj. Tyson Walsh. In 2013, during a deployment in Afghanistan, he found himself fighting hand to hand against an enemy combatant in an unexpected place: inside the heavily secured Bagram Airfield, the largest US and coalition base in the country. Listen as he tells one of he most intense stories we have featured.

This episode of The Spear features a conversation with Capt. Lindsay Heisler. An aviation officer and Apache pilot, in December 2015 she was part of a mission in Afghanistan supporting a ground force. Just as Chinook helicopters arrived to pick up that force, they came under fire from 360 degrees around them. The two Apaches overhead, including Capt. Heisler's, immediately took action to protect the ground force, and she tells the story in this episode.

This episode of The Spear features our first ever conversation with a US Army medic. On Oct. 3, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating was attacked by three hundred enemy fighters. Half of the fifty-seven US soldiers there would be wounded by the time the fighting ended. Master Sgt. Shane Courville was a medic at the COP, and he describes what it's like to be a combat medic in the middle of one of the most intense battles of the war in Afghanistan.