If this report has any bottom to it, then quite clearly a serious transgression took place following the ambush. These were American marines and if we are to trained to react swiftly to enemy actions. Here, even giving them as much leeway as one can, they seem to have mixed innocent civilians in with terrorists, The subsequent removal of the group from active operations seems to support the contention that they did wrong.
We here in Britain have seen the same sort of thing from our troops so it ill behoves us to tut tut at what seems to have happened here. What does occur to me is that there has to be something missing from the training modules which examines frustration. lessening of support for the war and the soldiers' feelings that the general public is unappreciative of their sacrifices. Eve of battle speeches on discipline are easily made. They sound impressive but do not deal with the boredom of routine patrols once the adrenaline has worn off.
That is where the real challenge of soldiering comes to play.
No comments:
Post a Comment