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How could Marines have limited civilian casualties when cars refused to stop at check points?
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Posts:
22
Registered:
7/30/08
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(55 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 10:43 PM
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jclayton04 thanks. pretty interesting lol
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Yoo-hoo
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Posts:
24
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7/30/08
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(54 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 11:15 AM
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"As far as friendly fire and officers? It makes for a lively topic. And I know over time it has happpened. But US troops and especially Marines do not shoot their Officers. Even bad ones."
BTDT is right on, as usual. According to a source I read, in VN there were 27 (or less) incidents of fragging in the MC during the entire duration of the war. Some of these were accidents (like a grenade coming off a web belt), some of them were racial in motivation, and some were the product of intoxication. Other incidents did not involve a superior NCO or officer from the same unit as the perps so cannot technically be classified as fragging.
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Posts:
3
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8/5/08
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(53 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 10:40 AM
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Well that is why we have the UCMJ Uniform Code of Military Justice as a Former US Marine Infantrymen NON POG and P.O.G is an Accornym which Means Person other then Grunt which is also an accornym for Ground Replacement Usally Not Trained.
To be honest with you I have served with officers that I would not follow out of a wet paper bag, and I have been given orders which made no sense at the time I have yet to see the Show but Have read and lived the book.
As for the Chaplins yes as an enlisted talking with the Chaplin is a little more relaxed as to talking with on of my Own officers but the military respect is still there we do call him sir as he is an officer in the military service. The book I liked I am waiting to catch the movie.
SEMPER FI
CPL GOOD
1/8 A CO
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Posts:
24
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7/21/08
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(52 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 9:03 AM
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It has been my pleasure to discuss the possibility with my A gunner on more than one occasion
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Posts:
109
Registered:
7/12/08
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(51 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 8:56 AM
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"According to the book the chaplain was in the Navy Reserves"
All good answers from what I can tell about this Officer and his relationship with the men. But there is something else.
While an Officer this guy and the BN Doctor M.D. (as opposed to the Corpsman-Docs) are non-combatants Navy Officers. Not Marines.
I think in general the relationship between these two types of Officers and the Marines is more relaxed. A bit more informal.
As far as the scene though. It should put to rest the "no athiests in a foxhole bs"
As far as friendly fire and officers? It makes for a lively topic. And I know over time it has happpened. But US troops and especially Marines do not shoot their Officers. Even bad ones.
The kind of yacking you see the Marines doing in GK is a lot different than their actions. They might grumble about doing it. But they are not going to do it.
In VN I think this stuff was more an Army thing anyway when it did happen. And I really doubt it happened much even then with a really unpopular war, lots of incompetent officers, many KIA's, and draftees in the mix.
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Edited by BTDTGuy at 08/05/2008 5:57 AM PDT
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Posts:
14
Registered:
7/29/08
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(50 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 6:18 AM
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Mike...
"Should dangerous, incompetent officers ever have to worry about being taken out by "friendly fire"? "
YES they should.
As sad as it is, some soldiers feel it is do or die. Have an officer trying to kill you by imoral orders or kill him to stop it? Well...I personally have never experience this...although, I have heard the chatter.
Currently Iraq is being ran by my former Division Commander GEN Petreaus. Let's put it this way... he was horrible for the 101st...and we didn't approve of his decisions...not much we could do about it...but there were rumors that when he was a Lt Colonol someone did try to kill him on a range....is it true? I dunno, but it made sense to us under his command. During OEF 2003 - before declaired OIF 2003 we did not have orders to move North...he told us to move that way anyhow....
He went from 2 stars to 4 stars in 3 years....that only happens when you pull crap like that. But hey, this show explains all the medal hunting, rank seeking action just as it was....
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Posts:
14
Registered:
7/29/08
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(49 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 6:09 AM
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wasupi335...
YES....Geraldo was kicked out of Iraq. I do not know the "official story" but I did recieve a 1st hand version of this account...it is in my blog.....
www.myspace.com/hickdawg4 - ch 22 "The REAL reason Geraldo Rivera was kicked out of Baghdad"
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Posts:
14
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7/29/08
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(48 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 5:58 AM
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Chaplin Questioners....
Although the chaplin is a military officer, their duty is simply that of religious measures. Sure, the chaplin could have pushed the issue...but they are more of a moral support...they are unarmed and often have more pull than anyone else in a BN (Battalion).
We refered to ours as the "cult leader". Our constant disrespect as non-practicing christians drove him out of our unit. He was a jerk...not that all are...but my BN had a crummy one....
They pushed religion on you, even when you'd rather pray in private. They pulled all our resources and took away from the mission. For the very few die-hard church go-ers...I'm glad they had sactuary...but in the end, the chaplin role is not as in high demand as it once was....ask yourself, how many people do you know that go to church regularly....
There were a few good ones that looked at their job in the right perspective to preserve morale....but many were just officers that had no better purpose than these Captain Americas wandering around being useless.
Ours was kind enough to comindere our propane and projector to have a private bbq and movie for his bible study group when 100 soldiers were watching a movie in my tent w/ the projector....he had 12 people in his bible study...u do the math...where does morale lie then???
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Posts:
14
Registered:
7/29/08
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(47 of 70)
Aug 5, 2008 5:24 AM
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mmp190,
Yeah, the logically thought about the warning shots, but let's put it like this...
You're out numbered 1,000 to 1 and you fire warning shots, they don't respond....what do you do?
In my position (as a team leader right behind these guys as a pouge Army soldier) I shoot now, save my own ass and ask questions later. Sure, we do regret our mistakes...something I appriciate this series showing...but it was a fight for survival from both sides. As military members (and a Former MP myself) I had to do what I thought was best to keep my soldiers from harm.
There was little to no understanding between us and them at the invasion...at one point, we even had Iraqis telling us they would shoot at any helicopters because they were educated that only Saddam had helicopters...so we were hit by friendlies! It's a tough price to pay, but in war...you do what you can and sort it all out when time allows for it....I feel it was justified, as should be...war is an "us vs. them" world.
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Posts:
21
Registered:
8/4/08
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(46 of 70)
Aug 4, 2008 10:04 PM
Rate this post:
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> More stupid civilian questions....
> 2. Any ideas of what Meesh meant by "Arabs don't
> grieve the same way you do"? At first I thought this
> was just another example of Meesh telling the marines
> what he believed they wanted to hear, but it seemed
> like the writers had deeper motives for inserting
> this line.
He merely meant that the death rituals and customs practiced by Muslims are far different than the two big western faiths, Judaism and Christianity. You have the time limit, the proper cleansing of the body, the burial of the body with the head facing the direction of Mecca, most importantly however is that immediately after the burial has finished that judgement begins on that person. By leaving his daughter behind, he would have ensured that she suffer until what most Christians refer to as Armageddon/rapture. Since death is a transitional phase for muslims, the time between physical death and rapture is a place of limbo, if the buried person passes the first part of judgement he/she will see heaven, and that time in limbo isn't painful.
But not being buried prevents the first phase of judgement, and therefore somewhat damns the soul.
His concern has nothing to do with the material world, he wants to make sure that his daughter won't suffer in the afterlife. It's actually a poignant moment because it shows ignorance in muslim faith, not just in troops but also in the audience watching this series. People are more accustomed to the scenes of women wailing, etc. which is part of the ritual in some countries, but burial is a necessity.
Think about all the concern that guy had, his person, perhaps his son, was bleeding he himself might have been injured, his country is in a state of war, no one knows whats happening politically. But faith trumps all of that. It's saying something about those Iraqi civilians and their priorities in life.
Many of the troops deal with the morality of killing children when they are faced with their corpses, but no consideration is given to what happens to them after life is over. For those who are religious its a concept that is understood, but in modern society we don't necessarily put as much stock in the ritual aspect because of the difference in faiths. America's judeo-christian roots are flexible and few follow them to the letter. But in Muslim societies its very different. In both liberal and conservative muslim societies.
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Edited by kptiff at 08/04/2008 7:14 PM PDT
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Posts:
8
Registered:
7/28/08
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(45 of 70)
Aug 4, 2008 9:15 PM
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According to the book the chaplain was in the Navy Reserves, then called up to service and attached to First Recon before the war. Apparently in the book he's tried to perform his chaplaincy services but is disheartened by their attitude.
So I guess the conversation was yet another in a long line of exchanges between the chaplain and the men going back at least several months.
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Posts:
14
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3/26/07
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(44 of 70)
Aug 4, 2008 6:44 PM
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Another thing I found curious was the exchange between Person and the chaplain. Without getting into any moral or religious aspects, isn't the chaplain an officer, and wasn't Person's behavior blatantly disrespectful? Could he have been disciplined for this? What I found curious was that both Person and the chaplain appeared to act as though this sort of behavior was fairly common between a chaplain and enlisted men. Is that so?
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Posts:
109
Registered:
7/12/08
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(43 of 70)
Aug 4, 2008 4:21 PM
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A short war story from back in the day? Its an important lesson I think.
Toward the end of my tour with Recon in VN we got a brand new SOI grad on our Teams. Toward the end of his tour he is now one of the experienced old hands in the BN.
With a few days to go before he rotated home he vol's to take his last Team out as the guy in charge or TL he is now a Cpl. He could have stayed behind and packed. They assign a brand new in country Lt with no mission experience to go along to get his feet wet.
The first or 2nd day they find a large catch area where a NVA company had been very recently.
The Cpl knows the drill. Get out of dodge. Even if they were coming back in the next day to take a look they wanted as far away as possible from that place when they sat in for the night.
It appears that the boot Lt saw it differently. An animated argument of sorts out of ear shot from the others takes place between the two.
The Cpl being a respectful type gives in to the Officer. The Team will spend the night where they are. The Cpl is in charge but greatly outranked by the Lt.
A few hours later the Lt is the first one hit and killed. The 100 or so NVA have returned. The Cpl next. But he will win a Navy Cross before they put him down for good.
Another Marine and the Team Doc get hit next and killed.
Only a night of massive artillary and some true heroes from the Wing got the 3 totally shot to shit survivors out.
Not exactly what we saw in GK last night but in a way close. Mistakes by Officers getting Marines killed for no good reason, incompetence, or inexperience. And the responsibility the experienced enlisted guys have to not let that happen.
I think if the Cpl had to do it all over again he would have been a lot less respectful.
I was not there. But I have read accounts and talked to people from the BN. I think this that I wrote is fairly accurate.
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Edited by BTDTGuy at 08/04/2008 1:27 PM PDT
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Edited by BTDTGuy at 08/04/2008 2:16 PM PDT
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Edited by BTDTGuy at 08/04/2008 2:18 PM PDT
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Edited by BTDTGuy at 08/04/2008 2:20 PM PDT
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Posts:
22
Registered:
7/30/08
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(42 of 70)
Aug 4, 2008 3:41 PM
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...Was Geraldo Rivera realy kicked out of Iraq?
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Yoo-hoo
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Posts:
13
Registered:
10/10/02
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(41 of 70)
Aug 4, 2008 3:37 PM
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Should dangerous, incompetent officers ever have to worry about being taken out by "friendly fire"?
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Edited by mikecox at 08/04/2008 12:54 PM PDT
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