During that attack, we saw a lot of dismounted activity, a lot of RPGs.

We saw some suicide bombs.

We engaged quite a bit that night. A lot of dismounted infantry all over the place.

That was about a five to six days straight mission where we held the line.

During that time, we also had counter-ffire, counter-artillery fire.

So I can say that was the first time I saw 1-55 artillery land on my position.

And when I say on my position, I mean, I actually saw the rounds impact like 10 meters from me

splashing up. I think their fuse was set wrong because they could have killed us, but instead it landed

and the ground came up at us.

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.

In this episode, MWI's major Jake Moraldi speaks to Lieutenant Colonel Alex Perez Cruz.

In 2003, he was the executive officer in a tank company, one of the very

first across the berm from Kuwait and into Iraq. He later returned to Iraq as a company

commander. In this conversation, he shares stories from each of those deployments and compares

the two experiences, the first, at least initially, a fight against another military force with

maneuver elements

and equipped with tanks, artillery, and other standard military weaponry.

And the second, a fight against the non-state Iraqi insurgency.

He also reflects on some of the leadership lessons he learned from these combat experiences.

Before we get to the conversation, just a couple quick notes.

First, if you're not

...