Rules of Engagement for Conscience and Sense

[120mm]

120mm, I have to ask what will probably a painful question. These ROE changes, did they occur in Iraq? On the Marine side of things, the ROE never changed, although there were "clarifications" that arose during Fallujah v.2.0. In fact, I think that besides a shift in verbage that there were no forces declared hostile (e.g. military or paramilitary), I remember the ROE to be the same in 2004 as what we used to cross the border in 2003.

Your absolutely right, that's total nonsense to let guidance that should be as clearly cut as possible, degrade to set of something at the level of confusing special orders.

The E-5 in question was a COSCOM soldier attached to V Corps Rear Headquarters. The ROE changed daily for us, mostly little changes, which I am sure never percolated down "to the troops" due to incessant and finicky nature of the changes.

Both of those incidents happened in the space of a week, and were partially the result of a well-publicized video of some "farmers" fired up by some 4ID Apaches, as well as complaints by the local sheik that we were killing too many farmers, who happened to be working at night.

A significant number of those farmers were carrying AKs and RPGs, as well as mortar rounds, verified by BDA photos, but for some reason we couldn't engage anyone from the towers anymore, without direct permission from the Corps Rear TOC.

The net result was tower soldiers not reporting engagements, several of which were actually against unarmed farmers. Training and trusting soldiers to execute the ROE is also an issue, here.