I was there when investigation was launched after a Marine engaged an enemy combatant believed to be playing possum, and said “He’s dead now.” Several Marines had been killed the day before from that same tactic. The discussion of the Marines prior to engagement was edited out by NBC and played to look like murder. I was there when word spread that Marine was recalled from the front during the second largest MOUT in USMC history and investigated for ROE violations/murder. I saw first hand in my own unit what that did to morale (we found out during a res and refit).
I was there when we were taking BOLO pictures of terrorists, whom killed Marines, off the wall and handed them ID cards.
So yes - we did fight for tv and we did have garbage ROEs. Sorry if that conflicts with what they told at Command & Staff or TBS.
On the other hand, I think you have made some flawed assumptions about who I am.
1. I was enlisted for four years, almost 2 of those years were served in combat in Vietnam as an artilleryman and then as a Scout Observer with the grunts.
2. I was hit too and spent 7 months in several hospitals - and then one year more wearing a full-length steel brace.
3. We had restrictive ROE too, but we managed to work around it get the job done. Won't say more than that.
4. I went on to be commissioned and eventually commanded an artillery battalion for 18 months.
Iraq was a shithole and the Marines who fought in al Anbar and elsewhere (and Afghanistan) are the best of the best. I got to meet a lot of you when I visited Walter Reed and Betheseda while I worked as a retired Marine, designing new technologies for use in combat over in Iraq. Every one I met were Marines we could all be proud of and their stories and their suffering resonated with me and the other more senior Marines who served in the same war I did.
The senior Marines we have now are different - some very different - from leaders we have had in the past. They do not understand combat as what it is - organized murder - and live in some other world where we take all the risks and responsibilities and yet we have to perform our missions withing their unrealistic ROEs. They do not trust the individual Marines to do their jobs and that "they know better".
The incident which best illustrates this new gulf is when Gen Amos, our beloved airwing CMC, went ballistic over those four Marine snipers who pissed on the dead Taliban. He wanted them all court-martialed and destroyed, and when he didn't get the results he wanted, relieved the LtGen investigating and replaced him. What better illustrates this disconnect? Instead of just chewing those Marines out for the public and putting all four on mess duty for a month, he tries to send his own Marines to prison for something that likely happens four times a day in battle?
Our "leaders" do not understand what Marines are supposed to be - just how to keep their records fault-free for the big money jobs after they get out.