Hi and welcome to a special edition of the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Amble, and today's episode is actually sort of a sneak preview of a new podcast

we're launching at MWI called The Spear.

Our idea with this podcast is to provide a platform to explore the combat experience.

To do that, each episode is going to include a single one-on-one interview with a guest who will walk 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 spear as the name for 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 who can find themselves fighting.

Any part of the spear, combat or support, can be forced by circumstances to become that sharp fighting end.

For this first episode, my guest is our own Captain Jake Morali. In 2009, he was a platoon leader in eastern Afghanistan.

He's going to walk us through the Battle of Barge-Mittal.

In July of that year, he was part of a small U.S.-led force

sent to retake that village after it had been taken over by the Taliban.

The mission was expected to take 96 hours.

His battalion would end up fighting there for two months.

Before we get into the episode, a couple notes.

First, you'll soon be able to subscribe to the Spear on iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

The feed will go live in the next few weeks, so follow MWI on Twitter at War Institute and check out our page on Facebook for updates.

And as always, our disclaimer, the views you hear are those of the participants and don't

necessarily reflect the position of any agency of the U.S. government.

All right, hope you like the new show. Over the next couple days, you know, my platoon was in contact, you know, on and off throughout the day all day.

For the next four or five days you know fire fights ranging from

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