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The Spear

Saving the Interpreter

The Spear

John Amble

Government, News

4.8642 Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2006, Jeremy Fox was a platoon leader deployed in Iraq, his platoon tasked for part of that deployment with providing security for an oil pipeline and associated infrastructure. Integrated with Iraqi Army soldiers, he spent many of his nights checking the lines and the security positions at his isolated position. During one such night, accompanied by his interpreter, a sudden incident forced him into quick action to save the interpreter. Fox joins this episode of The Spear to share the story.

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 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.

0:37.9

And that's when another grenade comes spinning over the side of the wall.

0:41.7

And it's at that point the IED chain detonates.

0:46.4

There was enemy in the wire.

0:48.3

There was all these Humvees on fire.

0:49.9

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

1:11.4

everything. It was a fight. Welcome to the Spear, the podcast about the combat experience,

...

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