The guard, the AUP, brings the arm down, and as he brings the arm down with his left hand,

he brings his AK down with his right hand, and from left to right, he shoots.

He shoots at the formation.

Okay. left to right he shoots he shoots at the formation. Hi and welcome to The Spear, a podcast by the Modern War Institute at West Point.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI.

This podcast is a platform for us to explore the combat experience.

To do that, each episode includes a single one-on-one interview with a guest who walks us through a particular event and their role in it.

A battle, a firefight, a mission. It's a first-person account of combat.

We chose the Spears the name of the podcast to capture two ideas.

First, that combat is that unique experience that takes place at the tip of the spear.

And second, that in our modern wars, it isn't just combat forces that can find themselves fighting.

Any part of our military, any part of the spear, combat, or support can be forced

by circumstances to become that sharp fighting end. For this episode, I talked to Master

Sergeant Raymond Colazo. In 2014, he was a platoon sergeant deployed to Afghanistan based

at Fobb lightning in the eastern portion of the country. Just weeks after they arrived in country during a mission in which his platoon visited an Afghan police compound,

they were the target of an insider attack, a threat that had risen steadily since 2007.

Master Sergeant Kowazzo talks us through the mission, how his unit had incorporated the insider attack threat into regular

mission planning, and what happened when an Afghan police officer opened fire that day.

A couple notes before we get into the conversation.

First, the spear is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcast apps, so be sure to

find it and subscribe.

In upcoming episodes, we talk to guests about

...