The Sole Survivor

[Culpeper]

Jeff your comment could be interpreted as you're advocating shooting unarmed civilians. I haven't seen the AAR on this incident and have no inside knowledge, but in general we can run missions pretty much when we want (weather dependent obviously) to nab or a kill a bad guy, which means you generally have the option of aborting the mission if you have been comprised, because you can come back another day. The article stated that these men thought they may have been compromised, yet they agreed to accept the risk and drive on with the mission anyway. I don't think shooting unharmed civilians was an option to begin with, and either did they. They had two options apparently, one was to drive on with the mission, and the other was to abort. As they suspected in (according to the article), the civilians they released reported their location to the Taliban, thus the ensuing fire fight. I don't question their judgment for a minute (I would if they shot unharmed civilians for a target of moderate importance), unfortunately the situation took a turn for the worst, and we lost several brave men that day.

Even if they aborted, as suggested, they still would have had a mean fight on their hands. What's done is done. They morally did the right thing. Luttrell's vote was the deciding vote. They dealt with the rest like professionals. In a similar situation I wouldn't care if a SEAL team discussed this mission in determining what to do next. In fact, we would never hear about it. In fact, had they killed the natives we probably wouldn't be hearing about this mission as well. I don't recall in the book any talk about shooting the locals. It was going to be more personal. They were just up the mountain from the target. It has never been determined if the locals warned anyone of the SEALs. If they did then they were not innocent civilians. BTW, we bombed the crap out of France before D-Day killing thousands of innocent French civilians along with numerous French collaborators. What's the diff? Micro Macro. The SEAL team knew enough about the danger to discuss it and take to a vote. In hindsight, I don't understand that at all. Since when have SEALs not discussed the possibility of running into locals that may compromise their position and what are the options as a part of SEAL doctrine? With that in mind, it should never have been a matter of a democratic vote. Nevertheless, after that they did everything they could to survive according to the rules of engagement.