Herschel Smith continues to hammer away at rules of engagement that put our guys at risk. This time with feedback from a few NCOs:
So yes, from the grunts on the field perspective … the ROE is vague and limiting. And every time “violations” of the ROE came up it caused our soldiers and marines to question their actions and sometimes cause casualties. If you look up the case of the [unit redacted] Soldier from the [location redacted] region you will see an excellent example. The [unit redacted] Soldiers started pulling back after that, and even though he eventually had the charges dropped it caused problems throughout the entire Battalion.
Herschel’s son is a United States Marine so this issue hits pretty close to home.
As we visit in the homes of friends and family this Christmas season and partake of good food, good company, good drink and good cheer, the more thoughtful among us might discuss “just wars” and “good wars,” and doctrine, strategy and tactics. But as we do, remember to say a prayer for our troops. While we eat and drink and converse, a marine or soldier hurts. His feet hurt. His back hurts. His knees hurt. He is very cold … or very hot. He is lonely for home. He is exhausted and never gets enough sleep. And he is expected to apply counterinsurgency warfare in conditions where the nature of the battle has far outrun just war theory – where insurgents hide behind women and children – and turn our own ROE against us as a tactic of war.
You find similar feedback at Blackfive’s place.
2 Responses
Readers are solely responsible for the comments they post. Comments do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of Blogs of War or John Little.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
If only more Americans could/would read stuff like this. It’s in, thanks!
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
let your enemies shoot first
give them a chance to kill you
before blowing their brains out
.
January 21st, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I think polticians need to stay out of making decisions concerning war. How rediculous is it to think you can make a war nice. All that the rules of engagment does is put our troops in harms way.