The Sole Survivor

[jcustis]

2. The fact that his lieutenant completely abdicates his leadership role and allows his subordinates to make such a momentous moral choice. It would have been fine, even wise, to ask their opinion, but to put it to a vote was wrong. It was a form of morale cowardice, and I do not say that lightly of a fallen soldier who displayed such formidable physical courage. He shifted a terrible moral burden from his own shoulders to those of his subordinates, a burden that still haunts Luttrell by his own admission.

There are others out there in the board/forum thread realm (whom I presume are the veteran SOF members they claim to be) who have damned Murphy for his actions, despite the resulting MoH citation. Bottom line, you aren't alone in this.

[Ken White]

.................

[Abu Buckwheat]

There are others out there in the board/forum thread realm (whom I presume are the veteran SOF members they claim to be) who have damned Murphy for his actions, despite the resulting MoH citation. Bottom line, you aren't alone in this.

I agree with Bill. We can't give any ground to anyone judging Lt. Murphy. The team guys have a different way about decision making it depending on the unit. I am not a team guy but I have trained ALLOT of them in prisoner handling and interrogation in the field. They have a weird "I'm-the-Surfer-in-charge-but-we-decide-this-together-based-on-all-of-our-experience" thing going on inside the platoons. If anything the Chief Petty Officers have equal authority but its their way of doing business and what makes them special. So Monday morning QB'ing Lt. Murphy or the platoon's discussion is not particularly fair. It has happened many times before and its going to happen again. God bless them all but its beside the point.

The discussion is about what guys are presuming they can do if they get compromised by civilians. The issue at hand is that the military needs to re-institutionalize honor and chivalry in arms. This "our enemy has no rules so we should have none" stuff is out of line and getting out of hand. The Army's seven core values (which all other services embody) seem to be modified for this fight so that that Honor and Integrity are not applicable in this "different" war.

The "Hard Deck" as we call it in the Navy is this: We NEVER intentionally kill civilians or captives. This is what Zip-ties are for and I don't believe for a minute no one in that section had 550 cord or zip ties or a dump pouch to use as a hood. That’s not SOP even for super light Alpine style LR Special Reconnaissance missions ... now there are many "unless’s" to be considered like shooting in Self Defense, planting munitions or anything that makes a Sheppard change from non-combatant to combatant ... and spies, recon et al are considered combatants but you had better have proof ... and lots of it. Saying a guy is a look out and shooting him means we will have lots of dead and a trail of hostility that will defeat the ultimate mission.

So as far as COIN goes this is right up there with AC-130s blasting 50-100 person weddings. We need to ensure that the ROE defaults to supporting the strategic objectives of the COIN mission. Failing that gets you Iraq-style atrocities. Look what Marine SOF did on thier first mission in J-Bad two years ago ... they got IED'd and shot every damn civilian for over a mile ... then then got kicked out of Afghanistan. The indiginous people are the mission. Remember it. Dig it. Right on.

We need to re-establish the hard moral deck here.

[Ken White]

...So as far as COIN goes this is right up there with AC-130s blasting 50-100 person weddings...

We need to re-establish the hard moral deck here.

Unfortunately, all war is not COIN. If I haven't learned anything else in the last 75 years, I've learned to avoid saying never...

[Abu Buckwheat]

Unfortunately, all war is not COIN. If I haven't learned anything else in the last 75 years, I've learned to avoid saying never...

By God Ken, even as I wrote it I thought "One should never say never ..." Good advice.

[Ken White]

"We are too zoon oldt und too late schmart." And I'm a living example of that...

I agree with you, got be careful on the judging -- but we have to train people to do the right thing to the maximum extent possible. Thankfully, we mostly do a good job of that. Hard deck is good, just gotta allow for the occasional and hopefully very rare hatch (being careful not to trip over the coaming...).