Posted on 05/31/2005 8:32:08 AM PDT by Rakkasan1
Cpl. John Wilson looked out for his fellow Marines. But the Marines didn't look out for Wilson.
I first met Wilson a year ago as he was about to return to the Marine Corps. Wilson, a 1997 graduate of Wayzata High, had completed his four-year hitch in the Corps, but he had decided to reenlist out of a sense of obligation to his fellow Marines.
"I see Marines dying, and I don't want to be sitting here just watching," Wilson, 27, said then.
He's back home now, much to the relief of his family members, who didn't want him to reenlist. Wilson survived an eight-month tour of duty in Iraq. He appears to be no worse for wear, other than the scar from a bullet that struck him in the right leg when his outfit was ambushed by insurgents. He wears a rifle bullet like the one that struck him around his neck as a reminder of close calls and the fragility of life.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
The biggest absurdity.....generally, the people that are most responsible, don't do the fighting.
you got that right. I can empathize with this guy.
It shouldn't count against him because he already has an "honorable discharge." That being said, his military experience with nonsense decision makers will help him because he will encounter idiotic dumbass law enforcement supervisors too.
Anyway, I wonder why it is necessary for anyone to be ordered to "disassemble" any explosive device in situations where it would be safer to simply blow it up.
Sorry - Not enough info to know. If the sergeant was countermanding an established SOP, the sergeant should have been busted. If the corporal was evading a normal responsibility - for which he had at least minimal training - then the corporal was wrong.
You can't pick and choose the orders you wish to follow!
Actually, you are legally obliged to refuse to follow illegal orders.
If he walked up to it once and it hadn't been detonated, there wasn't anyone in the area to detonate it. He would have been dead the first time.
Walking up to it a second time to 'have a look' after it had been shot up was certainly no more dangerous and probably less so since they had probably damaged the ignition device. I wouldn't touch it or anything connected to it, though. Artillery rounds are pretty stable....
This is your thing, Squantos, what do you think?
He'd already recon'd it as taught, ID'd it as a IED as taught , saw enough to know it wasn't UXO as fallen as taught but placed there for the specific purpose of booby traping the road, So WTF more did his dumbassed Staff Sgt need to call in an EOD team.........he'll beat the charge if any and the way I read this he's already got a Honorable Discharge so I really don't see the point here ........it's done ...past ...isn't it ?
But he wasn't asked to do that, the was asked to go look at it to see if it had already been disabled. Blowing it up is not without risk either. He only needed to go close enough to see it well *with a scope or binoculars*. That's what his sergeant did.
The sergeant wasn't telling Wilson to do anything he, the sergeant wasn't willing to do himself.
Very true, but this wasn't an illegal order, although it's possible that it went against SOP, but the sergeant, as the senior man present, has to make the decision on when SOP applies, and when it doesn't.
They're trying to make him go back and disassemble the IED.
Let's dissect this:
A. The Sergeant gave an order to a subordinate.
B. The subordinate refused the order.
C. The Sergeant DID what the subordinate refused to do.
D. The Marine Corps believes in the Sergeant enough to bring charges against the subordinate. That is good enough for me.
The Corps COULD have crticized the Sergeant if he was in error.
The Subordinate COULD have accused the Sergeant of some major crime, a La Pantano.
he was intervied today on local radio. SOP now there is to secure area and call EOD.
If a mission allows for time for a device to be dealt with without risking the life of a servicemember, then by all means, take the time. Let our guys have a chance to finish their tours without being injured or killed because someone was impatient.
My only point was that the information presented in the thread was insufficient. I spent enough time in the military to know that they sometimes make bad decisions on who was right and who was wrong.
All I'm saying is I do not know enough about the situation to objectively make up my own mind, without relying on what someone else decided as the primary evidence (such as who the Corps decided to charge).
"If he walked up to it once and it hadn't been detonated, there wasn't anyone in the area to detonate it. He would have been dead the first time."
Or the Jihadi was waiting until more gathered around...or maybe he was hoping to bag an EOD team.
ID, call for EOD, or blow in place.
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