My first patrol I took on my left seat, right seat, with the battalion that was there before,

we had a far ambush as I was getting oriented to the area of operation from basically the city edge of Fallujah.

And it sort of set the tone for the entire deployment.

And simultaneously, I start doing my sweeps, and it just happened.

One of my Lance Corporals right right next to me and he's like

sir look at this and it's halfway buried candy cane striped wire that we're

standing right on top I'm like get away now right you know because I were

basically standing we know we're standing on an IED.

Hey, welcome back to The Spear, a podcast by the Modern War Institute at West Point.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and The Spear is our platform to explore the combat experience.

This episode is another first for the spear, our first marine guest.

Tim Straving is a former Marine Corps infantry officer and joined me recently to share a story

from his 2004 deployment to Anbar province in western Iraq.

He deployed to Iraq just two months after taking over his platoon and found himself in a particularly restive area of what was at the time a notoriously restive province with a ton of insurgent activity.

As a platoon commander, he regularly planned and led 48-hour patrols.

Many of those patrols were busy, but one in particular stands out and you're about to hear him tell the story.

Before that, though, just a couple quick notes.

First, thanks for listening to The Spear.

The response we've received since we launched it has been absolutely incredible.

We want to continue to reach even more new listeners and you can help.

If you're enjoying the podcast, we would love it if you could take just a few seconds

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