First let me say this is my opinion based on this side of the story, the author's perspective.

All the things that stand out in my mind come down to two things training and discipline or if you want to call it what it is "leadership". The first red flag in mind is the driver apologizing ahead of time for having never driven the vehicle before. There is absolutely no reason he should not have drive the vehicle before and the first time he does is in a combat situation, way to go leadership. Another red flag is soldiers standig in the head light beams. Absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing white lights but you'd never catch me standing in the head lights. Hey bad guys here I am, look at me. Absolutely many soldiers and units are horrendous when it comes to fire control and fire discipline. This goes back to many of my rants in other posts in how we do not train this enough. POSH training, safety training, and mandatory screenings take priority in todays Army, even during a time of war. I won't touch the NVD issue because too many uknowns and who knows if they weren't using them or if they didn't have them, or if some used them and some didn't.

Just a few things that stuck out to me.

Just somethings that struck me