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The Spear

John Amble

Government, News

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In early 2019, Eric Kahle was a first sergeant assigned to an aviation maintenance company bound for Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dahlke in Afghanistan—also known as “Rocket City.” It was not long before rockets became a common occurrence for the soldiers of Delta Company and Kahle was mentally transported back to his first combat deployment in 2006 to Iraq. That deployment, which saw the loss of flight crews and friends, impacted how Kahle approached combat leadership and taking care of his soldiers. Faced with an ever-increasing threat from indirect fire, Kahle and his commander trained their soldiers how to react regardless of where they were on the FOB. On August 10, 2019, their training was tested when a rocket hit the soldiers’ housing area.

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 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,
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.
0:38.0	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. 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.
1:03.0	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.
1:10.0	You're shooting at everything.
1:16.7	It was a fight.
1:20.0	Welcome to the Spear, the podcast about the combat experience brought to you by the Modern
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