And we'd been through that intersection lots, you know, dozens and dozens of times.

Mostly without incident, we had run checkpoints there.

We knew that intersection, like, the back of our hand and went through and I heard

this sort of whoosh boom and then started to get the automatic weapons fire from you know

most I think like machine guns and AK-47s, that kind of thing.

And that's when it kind of, like, done us.

Oh, they're, like, they're seriously, like, trying to kill 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 talks to Brian Humphreys.

Brian is a former Marine Corps officer.

This is actually our second episode in a row featuring a Marine guest.

And if you miss the last one, please do go and check it out.

But in this episode, you'll hear stories from two deployments, one to Iraq and one to Afghanistan.

Brian's first deployment to Iraq's Anbar province came during a turbulent time in the country.

And the story he shares of being ambushed by insurgents is pretty indicative of the tough deployments the Marine Corps was facing around 2004 and 2005. In his second deployment,

this time to Afghanistan, Brian and his Marines were tasked with training their Afghan counterparts.

His experience is something many veterans of our post-9-11 wars can relate to.

Long periods of, well, pretty tedious work, punctuated by intense, violent, and sometimes chaotic combat.

Before we hear Brian's stories, just a couple quick notes.

First, thank you for listening to The Spear.

The response we received since we launched it has really been incredible.

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