In 2016, Brennan Deveraux was deployed to a small base in Baghdad called Union III. An artillery officer, Brennan worked in a small group known as a strike cell, where he was the theater-level rocket artillery liaison for Operation Inherent Resolve. Over the course of the deployment, he fired more than five hundred HIMARS rockets in support of Iraqi security forces as they fought to wrest back control of vast swathes of territory seized by ISIS two years earlier. In this episode, he shares the story of one of those rockets.

Brennan has also written about this story and others in a forthcoming book. The book is one example of the type of professional military writing that is undergoing a rejuvenation with the backing of the Harding Project, an initiative that was launched one year ago this week. For listeners who would like to contribute to the Army’s professional military discourse, a special edition of Military Review has just been published, dedicated to the Harding Project’s work, detailing the importance of professional writing, and offering encouragement and guidance on how to get started.

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 the fall of 2006, Rory McGovern was a company fire support officer assigned to a combined arms team operating in the area around Abu Ghraib, Iraq. The day after Christmas, he was on a security patrol in support of a local sheikh’s Hajj send-off party when a shot rang out. McGovern had been hit. He shares the story of that encounter with the sniper and subsequent recovery in this episode.