Posted on 11/17/2004 4:12:20 AM PST by Odd John
Rules of engagement
Dramatic news footage from Falluja which appears to show an American marine shooting a prone Iraqi has caused outrage here and in the US. But Falklands veteran Quintin Wright says that this is just what soldiers are trained to do
Quintin Wright
The Guardian Wednesday November 17, 2004
Hearing about a US marine apparently shooting a wounded Iraqi insurgent in Falluja, I felt a familiar disillusion settle on me that events were going to unfold in one particular way. Here, the two poles of the civilian world and the military divide. You have one group whose job is to fight and the other who are always spectators - all the more so, now, because of the speed and immediacy of modern war reporting. It is likely that the non-military public will immediately label this incident a "war crime", but these shocking images, however real, are only one element of the story.
A soldier sees things in very black-and-white, clear-cut terms. If his orders are to clear an area, he has to use his initiative, but he is also trained in certain drills which help do the job quickly and without loss to friendly forces. According to reports, the marines in Falluja had been told that an area including a mosque they had previously fought through, with a number of insurgents killed, may have been reoccupied. In my experience as a soldier, if you were tasked to go back and check that area, which was still subject to hostilities, you would approach it in a purely pragmatic, soldier-like way. There is a standard operating procedure for doing that, as there is for everything else in the army.
I joined the Parachute Regiment because I had got the idea that they were the creme de la creme of the British army. In most respects, it is a simple infantry regiment - with the difference that we usually arrive by air. The Paras had the reputation for being very professional, and I was more interested in doing real soldiering rather than guard duty. There are people who join up to be a guard, for the nice uniform and all that - and that's fine, but I wanted to belong to a regiment that was more likely to see combat duty.
I joined as a recruit in 1980, when I was 20 years old. After six months of training, we passed out of depot [the training base] and were posted to one of the Parachute Regiment battalions. In late 1981 it looked as if we were going to Northern Ireland, so we started training specifically for that type of action. There, the job was really done by the junior ranks, and we learned to deal with stress - there was not much gunfire, but you lived under the constant threat. The British army has become very good at operations to control urban areas - policing, really - and Northern Ireland could be seen as on-the-job training for that.
As it turned out, shortly before we were to be sent to Northern Ireland, the Falklands war broke out. We didn't even know where the Falkland Islands were - I remember trying to find them on a map of Scotland. We were shipped out on the six-week voyage to the south Atlantic. All the way down, we maintained our training. The point of training is to drill you to do the small things, the simple things, so that when it gets difficult, you can still function.
In all that time of training, no one ever sat me down and read me the Geneva convention. I may have been given a copy, but I don't recall. Of course, for Northern Ireland, we were given complex rules of engagement - we had the yellow card, according to which you had to stop and shout a warning - even after you'd been fired upon - before returning fire. And, of course, we had our standard operating procedures (Sops).
There is a drill, for instance, for "clearing ground". This is a combat tactic, now used by every army in the world, for securing an area that has just been captured. The context is this: there's just been a battle; there will be bodies and weapons lying around. Your unit will go past the area that was the target (it might be just a courtyard or a building). Once everyone and everything has been checked - which takes a matter of seconds, two minutes at most - the section commander will order a couple of soldiers, working as a pair, to go back and "clear the ground".
The main purpose is to gather intelligence - paperwork, maps, radios. When you know that there have very recently been people in that area trying to kill you, do you go up to a body and start to rummage through pockets without knowing for sure that the guy isn't actually still alive and about to stick a 10-inch knife in you? So where there are bodies, you don't go near them. Not until you have put two bullets into each, fired usually from a range of several yards. Then one soldier holds back to provide cover while the other runs up, and first lies on top of the body to immobilise it and make it difficult for the enemy to use a firearm if he's lying doggo. Next the soldier rolls the body over towards his partner so that the covering man can check for any sign of a booby-trap. The idea of this is that, if there is an explosive device, the body itself will afford the first soldier some protection, while the other soldier will be out of range.
This is one of hundreds of Sops used by troops. It'll be in any army field manual. It's absolutely standard practice for securing captured ground - learned through bitter experience of losing men through having enemy combatants get up and run away or start shooting at you again.
At the time of the Falklands, I was a 22-year-old private - and I was old. Most were 18 or 19. We "tabbed" - marched - across the Falklands, sometimes going for 36 hours in the cold and wet, without a pause. At one point I had the ludicrous job of having to carry two large jerry cans filled with drinking water, along with all my other equipment.
I was posted to a heavy machine-gun "fire team" that took part in the assault on Argentinian positions on Mount Longdon, behind Port Stanley, on June 11-14. After the first attack was repulsed, leaving less than 20 standing out of a company of 80 Paras, my unit raced up the back of the hill and took a position where we could fire down on the Argentinians. At one point, they started firing back at us with a 100mm anti-tank gun. I felt a shell come past my ear. It hit one of our guns behind me, killing two guys I knew. They were blown to pieces.
There were bodies all over the place, theirs and ours. I saw a medic put five ampoules of morphine into a guy who had lost both legs, really to kill him mercifully. It didn't work. It was a very frightening place to be.
We were being shot at all the time by a panic-stricken and unpredictable enemy. At one point, the Argentinians were shelling our position for two and a half hours. The next day, my mate was blown up and killed. I didn't know about it at the time, and I merged into another unit.
Small pockets of Argentinians were still wandering around all over the place after the main attack. There was no question as to what to do if you saw an Argentinian with a weapon: you shot him. There had been no surrender - hostilities were not over. I know there were allegations that Paras shot surrendering Argentinian prisoners, but I never saw or heard of anything of that nature. During my service, I never saw a soldier "lose it".
I really don't believe anyone is ever prepared for the reality of warfare, but all your training is about breaking down soldiering into little pieces, the drills that you do again and again. Then those elements are put back together to build you into an effective soldier. You learn a skill like stripping a rifle, putting on a field dressing, or "clearing ground", so that you can still do it under fire. You learn to concentrate on the little things so that you don't think about what might happen if you get shot. You learn just to do your job without worrying about the big stuff.
You are fighting for your mates. It's not a question of Queen and country at that moment; it's about the bloke next to you. Almost all the soldiers I ever knew were highly professional and very well trained. You train and train. You don't sleep. You get cold. You get exhausted. You have other guys firing live rounds at you. That's stress - but at the end of an exercise like that, it doesn't make you want to murder someone. The US marines in Falluja will also have trained in those environments - and for the environment they are in right now.
Every nation brings its own character to the task of fighting wars. My training in the Paras instilled in me the need to use aggression coldly, without the need for anger. The kind of group revving-up that can often be observed in the US military always has the potential to allow anger to cause collateral damage.
I believe that, essentially, what you get in the army is the same variety of people, and qualities in people, that you get in any walk of life. In that respect, an army is purely representative of the society from which it draws its personnel; in fact, if anything, an army perhaps is better than its society because the training will weed out almost all abject weirdos.
You don't have to know much about the history of warfare to know that bad things happen. In every war, discipline can break down. At the most basic level, people turn round and run away. There will always be events where something snaps in someone. If you get soldiers who will run away or just try to dig a hole and hide, then you will also get soldiers who shoot prisoners.
Urban warfare is particularly gritty. I mentioned "clearing ground" but house clearing, which is what these marines are doing in Falluja, is really nasty. You have to realise that this is a fighting technique, evolved through painful experience and designed to reduce your own casualties.
War is a cold-blooded business, and I think people need to wrap their heads around that concept. If you are there, you simply have to grasp the nettle and do an effective job. You have to deal with the situation, and then get out. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
The GUARDIAN?
Yes its caused outrage here. Outrage that this Marine should be made to defend hoimself for doing his job.
His job is to kill the enemy he did it. This enemy wont be picked up ,cleaned up, fed ,Doctors wont care for him, we wont try him , HE WONT BE BACK TO KILL ANY MORE AMERICANS.
Dead islamic slimeballs don't shoot back...good job, shoot him again imo.
Suprised that radical leftist rag printed it...new managers?...LOL
yep -i read everything.
I am just surprised they printed it!
WOW, my sentiments exactly. The Guardian? Maybe there is hope, even if this is only one article in thousands, but it was published. Maybe its tial balloon to illicit thousands of angry leftist ranting replies. time will tell. Meanwhile, this is the first i have read that details the method of "clearing ground"
"Not until you have put two bullets into each, fired usually from a range of several yards. Then one soldier holds back to provide cover while the other runs up, and first lies on top of the body to immobilise it and make it difficult for the enemy to use a firearm if he's lying doggo. Next the soldier rolls the body over towards his partner so that the covering man can check for any sign of a booby-trap. The idea of this is that, if there is an explosive device, the body itself will afford the first soldier some protection, while the other soldier will be out of range."
so even after you fire two more bullets into each, you still cannot be sure that they are dead. the US military needs to leak this information out to the public somehow. to do it directly now would be an affirmation to the Leftists that any military action is inhumane...but that's what war is, even if we don't want to know.
Please do not change the origanal title of the article.
Quintin Wright never served in the SAS...He served in the 3rd Parachute Regt.
It's kinda like faking being a SEAL.
I did not post it or title it.
As long as the Marine just gets a light reprimand I think good shall come of this in that the Arab street can no longer claim atrocities by soldiers on the good folks of Fallujah ( which is why the Army has imbeds) as it is clear to all the world we disipline our own and need no prompting from 'Human Rights" orgs etc.
A lot of civilians found murdered by the insurgent and dumped on the streets during the cleanup in Fallujah would ave been blaimed on Marines had they not had reporters covering the battle.
The alternative story would have read:
Reuters AP
"..and in other news another Marine was killed in one of the Fallujian Mosques after an IED , apparently hidden on a wounded insurgent, exploded killing him and wounding 3 other Marines. An imbed reporter Mr Sikes was also killed."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004531757,00.html
SAS ace defends trooper
Here's the real thing
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004531757,00.html
SAS ace defends trooper
Here's the real thing
Where is the link?
YES! my mistake! i had just read the Andy McNab article posted and SAS stuck in my head. The article I posted is written by a para not a SAS bloke.
hope this works -I'm a little new to the net.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1352831,00.html
This appears to be a case for the newly discovered malady P.E.S.T.(Post Election Selection Trauma) This Marine could say he voted for Kerry, and combined with his facial wound from the previous day, was so dejected that all he could think about was saving his comrades.
He will immediately be awarded the Silver Star, with a "V" for valor to be added later.
This would be the same medal that the well-known "war hero", John F.Kerry received for shooting a wounded Vietnamese teenager in the back.
He may have joined the SAS from the Parachute regiment. The SAS does not recruit directly but from other branches of the armed forces. Here he was describing his combat, while still in the Paras, during the Falkland war.
Opps... looks like the title had been changed. I assumed he joined the SAS at a later unmentioned date.
I agree with
"HE WONT BE BACK TO KILL ANY MORE AMERICANS."
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