Kill any kids or old ladies lately??
If you're bewildered at the title of this post, it was a comment I received on one of my previous posts, annonymously, of course.
First, I'd like to make perfectly clear, I've been in Iraq for 10 months and have never had to fire my weapon. That being said, I would have no problem protecting myself if I was in a situation where it was either me or that other person.
No one here goes out with the intention of seeing how many innocent women and children they can kill that day, and I'm not going to try to explain to someone who's probably not here what things can get like in a combat zone. I would, however, like to write a little about a conversation me and a friend had this morning at breakfast.
As most of you know, a Soldier is going to go to jail for three years for killing an injured Iraqi male who was suspected of making bombs. The Soldiers shot his car and it caught fire and the man was severely wounded. The Soldier who is going to jail shot the man in the head to put him out of his misery.
We were discussing this morning, different scenarios behind this situation. First, is it okay to kill someone who you think will die anyway? If the guy was so injured that he would not have made it, would it have been worse to kill him there, or leave him there suffering? Would it have made a difference if the car was on fire because he had tried to blow you up? And here's one for you mr. annonymous, what if the guy was innoncent in the first place?
Well, here, there are times you can't afford to take the chance when you feel threatened. There are innocent civilians killed every day here, but there are also innocent civilians that walk around at night after curfew, who run military checkpoints, who drive inbetween military convoys, who basically have no sense. When people are out at night and there's a law telling them they need to be at home, they are usually up to no good, setting up IEDs or preparing an attack. When people drive through a military checkpoint, they usually have a bomb or a running away from someone. When people drive inbetween vehicles in a convoy, they usually are trying to blow something up. You don't take chances like that.
Yesterday, when we did that search, most of the civilians got out of the street. They went inside their homes because they didn't want to get caught up in any of what would happen. When we went into people's homes, they cooperated, because they knew they were innocent and they didn't want to cause trouble. It's the non-cooperative ones, who generally are hiding something.
What I'm trying to say is that people who are not in a position to judge, should not. You can think whatever you want about whether we should be here or not, but if all you are looking at is the news, I don't want to here it. Because for every bad thing you see on the news back home, there are twenty good things happening here. For every bad Soldier you here about, there are 1,000 Soldiers who are here to do good things for the Iraqi people.
People expect perfection out of the military. But the military is made up of the same people you will find in the US. A mixture of races, creeds and backgrounds, most good, but a few bad apples. You don't think twice hearing about a criminal back in the states, but if there's a criminal in the military it's horrendous. The military recruits out of the same pool of people who live in our country, there's always going to be some who are bad.
26 Comments:
BB,
We're having the same discussions here too. I'm still upset that the LA Times article about the hearings made no mention of the IEDs and made these guys out to be part time workers. Nope, no way!
Hearing the extent of the wounds the Iraqi sustained, I truly believe I would have done the same thing and feel it was an act of compassion.
And absolutely dead-on about the makeup of the Army. We are a cross section of society. We have the good, bad, industrious, lazy, smart, stupid, and all shades inbetween.
Finally, every unit starts having personality issues after so many months. Being together for just a weekend drill is a far cry from 10 months. For a while I was volunteering for any mission just to get away from some people.
R
There just are way too many people who think they are the only person who matters. Also did the annonymous person happen to look at the people killed in their own town by drunk drivers and such. Maybe there, would be something they could better butt there mouth into.
Hang in there girl, there are far more of us who stand by you no matter what our opinions!
What a jerk! Yeah I've got comments like that too back in my archives and have usually responded to them, notice that they never leave their name? Maybe you should drop the anonymous comments?
Idiots come in all forms...sorry to hear one felt the need to infect your blog. I find the majority of people who hate, or will blurt out these types of comments are so sadly misinformed. I wish a few of these people would spend more time actually learning about the issues with an open mind, rather than just regurgitating hatred and nasty thoughts. Sadly, though, for some, it's just easier to stay in their smallminded world.
Jeeze... Yiddish doesn't have words enough to describe that jerk. Stay safe! We're pulling for you back home!
Cybrludite
How ironic. Those were pretty close to the exact words told to me when I returned home from Vietnam in 1968. The sweet young thing that said that to me then proceeded to spit in my face. I had been home exactly a week. I guess ignorance has no timeline.
Funny, nobody ever seems to ask "Kill anyone that was trying to kill you first lately?"
BB - Just found this blog, outstanding work, thank you for the perspective on what's happening. Rest assured, just as the media doesn't accurately reflect what's going on in Iraq, it also doesn't reflect what's going on back in the States. Remember, the "anti-war" candidate was supposed to win in November, and he did not.
You have far more support than the juveniles posting anonymously on your blog would indicate. Keep doing great things, and keep your head down.
Sgt. B. here, again:
Just because this is war, doesn't give the military the right to start blowing away innocent civilians...
Gues what, sports fans, that's a no-brainer, and GUESS WHAT??? the U.S. Forces over there KNOW it!
The only folks over there who actually go out to kill for the sake of killing are readily identified by their commands, and are treated like the criminals that they are. A vast majority (read "damn near everybody") of the war-fighters over there are very careful about who they engage. If an innocent is killed, it's either a tragic mistake, or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you can bet that the trooper who pulled the trigger regrets their deaths. Nobody hides behind the "this is war" clause. If they engaged someone, it's generally for what ,at the time, was a good reason.
Our forces have to consider that, on every mission outside of the wire, that they might face a situation similar to the ones that faced our forces in Viet Nam: A kid is wired with explosives and sent running towards an American position. Shoot or don't shoot?
Problem is, if the kid is shot (thus saving the lives of a group of Americans) the press is going to conveniantly ignore the fact that the kid was a walking bomb, and suddenly the shooter is crucified for shooting an "innocent child"...
THAT, my friends, is a tragedy...
Sgt. B.
Hello there,
Well my name is herhoneydew00 and all I can say is we send WOMEN and our CHILDREN to war everyday.. so lets sit back and really think about the questions we ask... How many of OUR innocent WOMEN and CHILDREN have been shoot and killed today!!!! that I am sorry is more like the question!! I am not saying I am for or against war I am for goverment.. All I want to say is to all the MEN,WOMEN and CHILDREN we have away from the loving arms of home I am so very proud to be an american BECAUSE of YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!!
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