A Medal of Honor Recipient's Origin Story

The Spear

John Amble

Government, News

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In December 2021, at a White House ceremony, Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee received the Medal of Honor for his actions during a 2013 battle with insurgents in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. But the story of his military career began years earlier. Prior to joining the Army and qualifying as Special Forces soldier, he was a Marine, deploying twice to Iraq. In this first episode of a two-part series, Plumlee shares the story of his early career, including his first firefight and what he learned as a young noncommissioned officer. In the next episode, he’ll describe his decision to transition from the Marine Corps to the Army and the events that led to his actions in Ghazni in 2013.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to The Spear, a podcast about the combat experience from the Modern War Institute at West Point.
0:09.8	More than 100 meters outside the village, you were definitely getting in a fire.
0:14.2	My first patrol I took, we had a fire ambush.
0:18.9	And then it was just a huge explosion.
0:23.0	The primary threat was RKG3 grenades,
0:25.9	like machine guns and AK-47s, that kind of thing.
0:28.4	Small arms, fire, RPG fire.
0:31.2	Explosively formed penetrators.
0:32.9	Suicide bombs.
0:35.5	And then that's about the time that the third IED went off.
0:37.8	And that's when another grenade comes spinning over the side of the wall.
0:41.8	And it's at that point the IED chain detonates.
0:46.8	There was enemy in the wire.
0:48.0	There was all these Humvees on fire.
0:50.0	It was truly bullets flying from every angle that you could see.
0:54.5	I opened the door and look outside and all I see is muzzle flashes.
0:59.0	There's a guy on top with a 240.
1:02.0	In the rounds passed right past his head.
1:03.5	At that point, our instincts kicked in.
1:05.0	One pilot on the controls, the other pilot was using his M4 to engage single-man targets on the ground.
1:10.5	You're shooting at everything.
1:16.7	It was a fight.
	...

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