"You would be smart to remember your training on the Law of War. Your actions in this manner could cause some of your buddies, if captured, to be tortured and executed."
My buddies, when captured, WERE tortured and executed. We were ambushed and fired at by people who then dropped their weapons and blended in with the civilian population. Regardless, I fought fairly and atrocity-free and followed the Laws of War. In middle age, I look back and wish that I had not done so...I wish that I had taken it to them instead.
The scum we are fighting today also routinely torture and execute their captives. They have never even heard of the Laws of War; heck, the scum blew up a Red Cross unit with a bomb placed in an ambulance the other day.
IMO we should throw the Laws of War in the trash bin and hurt them as badly as we can. Otherwise we end up in the realm of
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_belmontclub_archive.html#106401071003484059And had you "taken it to them" what would you have accomplished. If you are speaking of experience in Viet Nam, no action soldiers took there could change the outcome, that war was a political failure.
I imagine what you wish is merely an emotional response. It completely overlooks the implications those actions could have to generations of soldiers following you. Atrocities steel the resolve of our enemies, give them an excuse to lay before the world stage for their atrocities, and make it nearly impossible for us to prosecute war criminals if we advocate their tactics (which is what LTC West used).