Combat Surgery in Afghanistan

The Spear

John Amble

News, Government

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fred Lough began his Army career as an engineer officer before deciding to leave military service to attend medical school and become a surgeon. After rejoining the Army to support the Global War on Terror, Fred later served two combat tours in Afghanistan, where he was part of a mobile forward surgical team. In this episode of The Spear, Fred speaks with MWI's Charlie Faint about his experiences in Afghanistan at FOB Shank and Herat, as well as his thoughts about Ranger School, the Haqqani Network, and damage-control combat medicine.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

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 firepower.
0:14.1	My first patrol I took, we had a fire ambush.
0:18.9	And then it was just a huge explosion.
0:22.9	The primary threat was RKG3 grenades, 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.
0:35.1	And then that's about the time that the third IED went off.
0:38.0	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.
0:48.3	There was all these Humvees on fire.
0:50.0	It was truly bullets flying from every angle that you could see.
0:54.4	I opened the door and look outside, and all I see is muzzle flashes.
0:59.7	There's a guy on top with a 240.
1:01.9	In the rounds, passed right past his head.
1:03.4	At that point, our instincts kicked in.
1:05.1	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. Welcome back to another episode of the Spear. Today I'm here with Fred Lough. Fred, welcome to the show.
1:23.0	Thank you very much. Fred, really pleased to have you here today. You graduated from West Point in 1970 and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Amble, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Amble and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.