Back on track...No one died et al....
Word....It is what it is....
Initially, I questioned posting this thread in the wake of an ongoing investigation, but since command allowed free access to reporters, I garnered this story was up for free debate....
FSO states:
In spite of articles professing junior officers to be exceptional leaders, all of us in actual contact have fought through similar predicaments as Roger Hill...I'd like to sit here and tell you that I would have done the right thing; but I won't. I didn't walk in these fellas' shoes. They did what they thought they had to. No one died or was hurt. There have been far more egregious offenses in these wars that have gone unpunished.
Hopefully, decision makers above the 03 and O4 level are monitoring our thoughts to resolve how to keep their company commanders and first sergeants out of this dilemma.
In my own words as I try to explain and unravel the thoughts in my head...
The Arab world is a wonderful, mystical land of multiple paradoxes competing and contrasting directly with traditional western rational thought, norms, and values. This land that provided the world with Hammurabi’s law, algebra, and three religions coexists in the same land that introduced honor killings, suicide bombers, and assassins. This cradle of civilization ebbs and flows in persistent conflict with modernity while defying western utopian dreams of perpetual peace. This land contradicts and conforms in a beauty unresolved leaving most unfamiliar unnerved striving to determine some rhyme and reason to it all.
This land is in competing thought with the ethical black and white values of West Point....
I'd ask that you'd give it some thought with Arab notions of balanced opposition prior to passing judgement.
As I reread, I'm still considering....
As I reconsider, I'd recommend any board must represent the minimum of valor...In Hill's case, I'd recommend everyone on his jury have a minimum of Bronze Star w/ valor...
I'd consider that due process...
v/r
mike
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