“...the prerogative of the US government that US Marines not engage in certain conduct, no matter how honorable, that may result in damage to them as a combat asset...”
Yeah, I’d hate to think that our marines had to do dangerous things during their training. Someone might get hurt.
“And some types of interaction with US citizens is just such conduct. It may not only result in personal injury to US Marines or civilians,..”
Utter nonsense. War is serious business, and just happens to be the business of every living man, woman and child in this nation, not just the military.
Train them as best we can, any way we can accomodate them, and anywhere, for our own interests, as well as theirs.
As a navy veteran, my training was pretty hazardous, especially in firefighting. Should my C.O. have consulted JAG first?
Since you’re a Navy Veteran, you might have heard how often ship Captains have to call home because no matter where the US Navy goes around the world, some imbecile will take pot shots at it. It doesn’t matter how friendly or hostile the coastline nation is—some crackpot decides to conduct foreign policy on his own.
For example, “Sir, we are being fired at by some lunatic with a deer rifle in a tree line on the coast of Greece, what should we do?”
Usually the Captain will contact somebody, be it the US embassy in Greece, the Pentagon, and if it particularly interesting, the White House itself, to request permission to do whatever it is he wants to do, or at least notify them that he is about to delete a tree line in Greece.
That is one of a C.O.’s jobs, to act as liaison with a whole bunch of higher headquarters and other military and civilian organizations, if at all possible, which it usually is. Higher HQ always appreciates it when they are at least notified of intentions by subordinate C.O.s. It makes their coffee taste better.
Now this is overseas. Within the United States the vast majority of military units have to have Public Affairs Officers, because guaranteed, the *easiest* way to get in trouble is when military personnel and US civilians mix it up.
There is nothing quite like military-civilian interactions that end up on the C.O.’s desk to make their stomachs gurgle. Every damn thing you can imagine happens when those two groups mix it up.
Bounced checks, unwanted pregnancies, bar fights, local police problems, DUI, child and spouse abuse, etc., ad nauseum. And there are no civilians like US civilians for being pestiferous, litigious, annoying, troublesome, and whining.
I mean, hell, if Marines are maneuvering around Iraqi civilians, learning urban combat, the worst that can happen is that the Iraqis suddenly decide to try and kill them.
That is nothing compared to the utter chaos that US citizens can cause to a military unit, ending up with half a dozen courts martial, an irritated higher headquarters, agitated local civilian government demanding huge payments, and lawyers flocking like vultures. With the nastiest headlines imaginable picked up by the wire services, calling the USMC filthy names and lying like dogs.