The Wikileaks collection

[Steve the Planner]

Entropy:

In March 2008, I went on a drive from Tikrit down to Baghdad, in part, to look at VBED damage to bridges. Round holes, square holes, big holes, small holes. Easy to tell what did the damage---the vehicle carcass (or what was left of it) was usually close by. There was nothing that was not used.

Crossing so many AO's on that trip, the threat briefing alone took an hour---what vehicles/weapons/threats had been reported in each of some 20 locations. Nothing so serious/chilling as the 101st Chaplain giving the war prayer at the end of a meaty threat briefing. Damned scary stuff.

The problem, as many have pointed out, is the context, and not just of the event. Not that if a crime was committed, prosecution isn't warranted)

On a movement in an MRAP, sometimes the crew would be well-rested, happy, and joking all the way. Other times, the crew had been out on patrol all night, sometimes having been hit (or someone in their unit), and those were the folks popping caps at every intersection, buffaloing down the wrong side of the road (like that Tale of Two Convoys).

I have a button that says "Will Fight For Peace." Whether fighting for war, stability or peace, the stuff is dangerous, necessary (we hope) and, sometimes, just awful.

Pity the person who thinks they can say: Give us a clean war, make us proud.

War is brutal, scary, and violent. And bad stuff can happen.

[Entropy]

Steve,

All well said and I don't think I can put it any better than Dayuan:

From the perspective of a civilian who's been around a little bit of it: anyone who thinks you can send young men into combat and get politically correct dialogue, accurate and dispassionate interpretation of observed circumstances, and calm, rational, effective decision making all the time is living in the land of fantasy. War is hell; that hasn't changed and I don't expect that it will. We may feel it necessary to punish those who remind us that war is hell and who fail to conform to the illusion of a precise, clean, surgical war in which every action can stand up to hindsight... but there's probably just a bit of hypocrisy in that need.

And just to be clear my "combat" experience, or lack thereof, consists of getting mortared on a fob, deploying to many "combat" zones without incident and riding on a helo that took a few (missed) potshots. In other words, my experience ain't much, but I've been around enough to know that second-guessing decisions made in combat usually isn't a good idea unless one has incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing.

[Steve the Planner]

Entropy:

Last month, I was at a local school board meeting in Maryland. Afterwards, one of the former board members was chatting about the fun he has going out on a track to race his Audi. Turned out it was the same track I took "Crash and Bang" (anti-terrorist driving), which he had heard about.

He asked me about the most exciting driving I every did. I told him it was just as a passenger in a Blackhawk at night over Sadr City with the flares (countermeasures) popping. Hard to convey that kind of experience, but it stays in my mind with that video.

I would recommend that anyone who doesn't understand that video should watch Blackhawk Down, then try to put themselves in the pilot's headspace.