Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
Cavguy, I didn't say that to be mean. But if he could literally see himself it might increase his awareness of how he is coming across to people. That is why his Platoon leader or Platoon Sgt. should do it with him as training not as a punishment and then let him go fix it.
Slap,

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. My bad. I simply was cautioning that it's a lot easier for me to critique from here in Leavenworth than it is to execute on the ground - I guess because at times I acted similarly to the population when frustrated and exhausted. I'm not proud of it, and looking back I realize my mistake in acting that way. I also know I was exhausted, frustrated, and upset at the casualties I was taking trying to protect a population that didn't seem to want to protect my guys.

It wasn't until later I fully realized that until I could protect them fully and in the long term, they wouldn't help. They were more afraid of the insurgents than of me, because they couldn't trust me to stay. Once I solved that, the problem improved.