The Value of Real-World Experience

Novermber 25, 2004


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by Tom Marzullo
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The media case currently in point is the Marine who shot that wounded terrorist, rather than going to tenderly minister to the injuries that the terrorist had just gained in an attempt to kill or maim these same Marines.

Since that journalist who took the footage of the event is assumed to be the omnipotent awareness of all things around him, there has been virtually no mention or consideration of what he could not have seen from his vantage point. For instance, did the terrorist move his hand and were there any weapons nearby? Any defense lawyer with even a lukewarm intelligence would think to ask that… but not the circling media sharks that consider this ‘their’ trial and routinely eschew such niceties.

The high level of media concern over the now quite dead (AKA ‘Good’) terrorist stands in stark contrast with the level of outcry over the two murdered and butchered western women… or for that matter, that NOW is conspicuously silent on this situation, not crying for salvaging the plethora of DNA from rape kits administered to their corpses for later prosecutions. Nope, it is simply too much to ask that the New York Times and their fellow travelers refrain from supporting those ‘plucky, tenacious insurgents’ so we’ll concentrate on what can be done on a more practical basis.

At issue is how our military deals with situations like these.

Like any organization, its past is prologue… during the eight years of the Clinton administration there was pervasive risk avoidance enforced throughout the services as they sought to do more with less until General Bill Shelton timidly agreed that the services were penniless and unable to continue. Any warrior types that stuck their heads up got them handed to them and were forced out. Many of those who remained were and remain risk adverse because to produce effective combat leadership it is necessary to push the performance envelope. Pushing that envelope as a development tool in peacetime meant failing and then learning from that failure, but in the shrinking Clinton military that meant a less than stellar fitness report and being left behind or shown the door. As the normal career progression marches along, those platoon leaders and company commanders are now Majors and Colonels who are not accustomed to boldness and innovation.

This same issue occurred in the military legal profession as well, since any deviation from what was then the party line was to be punished and those who got the most scalps were rewarded and these are senior as well.

When we add these two professional development issues together what we get is a dysfunctional synergy. Leaders who are habituated to letting ‘the system’ deal with their trooper’s acts and a system ingrained with making sure there is zero deviation from policy.

The only problem is… it’s not peacetime anymore.

Let me give you a few examples of this ‘shoot-first’ situation to illuminate this current issue for you, including one from my own past. It in some minor respects reflects the past actions of the Democratic Presidential nominee who recently flaunted, rather than flung, the resulting decoration he put himself in for.

On a patrol with a platoon of the mainly Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group near the Cambodian border in early 1970 we ran into a similarly sized group of more heavily armed North Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnamese strikers froze and shortly ran like hell without firing a shot, leaving six Cambodian strikers and two young American SF to deal with forty plus enemy by ourselves. To deal with it, we attacked… killing a half dozen and wounding still more that got away. As I passed by each downed NVA, I put a couple rounds through each one as I assumed any playing possum were not going to get a chance to shoot me from behind… as I wanted to live.

In Kerry’s case, he chased down a lone, wounded and unarmed VC (that had already shot his one rocket) and killed him or at least claimed to. What a hero…

Neither of us was charged with any violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Turning to more recent events, we might consider the case of a 14 year-old Canadian who was with the Taliban when we went in to throw them out. Young Omar al-Khadr played possum in exactly the way that young Marine feared and as a consequence managed to kill one American soldier and wound another that were running it by the approved rule book. As a result little Omar was only wounded, then properly cared for under policy and eventually transported to Guantanamo where he acted out by flinging his feces at the guards there. Omar was eventually released to return to Toronto and his loving family, who happen to be the most prominent Jihadi family in Canada, where he now has big-time bragging rights on the block as a recruiter for the Islamists and a darling of the press.

One thing that capital punishment administered in combat indisputably has to recommend it is that the offender has no more chance to re-offend, thereby saving lives (on our side) as well as incarceration and associated costs.

But after all is said and done, a little common sense might go far here… and while Shakespeare sagely advised us to first kill all the lawyers, I personally think that many of them can be educated and salvaged.

Since the military lawyers have the responsibility of adjudicating such cases before them it behooves us to provide some practical experience to them in order that they may gain a basis of understanding that their peacetime military and civilian practice did not. A thirty day stint in any combat infantry unit would do experiential wonders… not safe-in-a-bunker time mind you, but kicking in doors and clearing buildings full of pop-up, shoot-back targets or patrolling the routes thick with IEDs and snipers. Though we might lose a few, the resulting paperwork reduction would likely compensate and if not… well, law schools continue to crank out far more graduates than the legal system has room for anyway and more grunts would possibly come out alive on the other end… a win-win.

As I used to remind my students, “Where you think you are depends an awful lot on where you’ve been.”

Tom Marzullo

Tom Marzullo is a columnist/physicist/educator who is a former US Army Special Forces combat soldier and US Navy Submariner with special operations experience in both services. He was the leader of the Internet-based effort by Special Forces veterans that debunked the false CNN/TIME magazine nerve gas story, 'Tailwind' and has provided testimony before the US Senate on military and intelligence matters. He resides in Colorado.

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Ellie