Command Sergeant Major Alex Kupratty enlisted in the Army after a year at the Virginia Military Institute and was immediately assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, where he spent most of the next twenty years of his military career, culminating in the position of command sergeant major of the Second Ranger Battalion. He is now the command sergeant major of the Fourth Infantry Division, and he joined the podcast on the eve of the recent Army–Air Force Football game. In this episode, Command Sergeant Major Kupratty discusses the value of interoperability, partnerships, innovation, and the officer-NCO relationship to the modern combat experience.

For his service with the Household Cavalry during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2013, British Army Major Al Pickthall was ultimately awarded the Military Cross, a decoration presented by the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries for acts of "exemplary gallantry” in combat. In this episode, Al recounts the details of that deployment and the actions for which he was awarded the Military Cross, as well as his education at Sandhurst and Yale University and his thoughts about topics such as leadership, military writing, and his recent visit to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

While serving as a company executive officer with the 1st Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment in 2016, Ryan Crayne and his company were training at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center when they received emergency overseas deployment orders. Just days later, and after a herculean logistical effort, Ryan and his fellow Rangers were in Afghanistan and engaged in a major clearing operation against ISIS. He joins this episode to share the story of that operation, explaining how high-performing units leverage leadership principles such as mutual trust, disciplined initiative, and prudent risk to enable extraordinary accomplishments in training and on the battlefield.