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11/17/2004: "Rules of Engagement"

This week’s Abu Gharib-like media fest is the NBC footage from Fallujah of a Marine that shot and killed a wounded terrorist. The Monday morning quarterbacks are quick to condemn this Marine, outrageously likening his behavior to that of the enemy. Like most hardworking Americans, I have zero qualifications to make any judgment of this young man. His actions will be judged by his peers, of which neither the media pundits nor most of us are, but I do think this young Marine has earned the right to everyone giving him the benefit of the doubt.

As I sit on my cushy couch in my warm and comfortable den, watching my big screen TV and sipping a glass of wine, I can’t even begin to imagine what these soldiers have been through in the last week. Had I walked in their shoes and seen the situation through their eyes, I would probably wonder how any behavior could be deemed inappropriate when fighting for your life.

Rules of engagement seem strange to me as someone who has never been on a battlefield. It is perfectly permissible for me to kill you under the rules of engagement, in fact that’s the goal. I can do this by pumping a couple of hundred rounds of bullets into you, blow you to bits, burn you alive and this is all well and good if I succeed in killing you. But if by some perverted stroke of bad luck, I only wound you, I am then obligated to haul your carcass over for medical treatment, wait for them to piece you back together and try to kill you again tomorrow when you are feeling up to it. All the while knowing that if I make any mistake and give you the chance to kill me while I am being such a good humanitarian, you will kill me. Huh?

War is hell. War is the epitome of mans inhumanity to man. War brings out both the best and the worst in us. War is a necessary evil. Somehow defining rules of engagement in this setting makes it more like a game or sport. Kind of like the asinine lining up in columns and marching head on into the enemy to show whose cojones are bigger and die a dignified death. What were they thinking?

Rules of engagement sanitize the sheer gut wrenching horror of war making it more civilized and less barbaric. It is uncivilized and it is barbaric but sadly sometimes it’s the last resort when you are dealing with people who do not value life, yours or theirs and I thank God daily for the men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives so mine is better.

This enemy has broken all the rules of engagement set up by the civilized world. Fight fire with fire. If their wish is to die, grant them it. Be merciful with a bullet in the head. Instead of this, “In the south of Fallujah yesterday, US Marines found the armless, legless body of a blonde woman, her throat slashed and her entrails cut out. Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the US Navy Corps, said that she had been dead for a while, but at that location for only a day or two. The woman was wearing a blue dress; her face had been disfigured,” from the Times on Line. Read it, weep, and pray her death was quick and that our troops are strong and safe tonight. God bless you all.