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.