Third Battalion, Second Marines is in the headlines, and not in a good way:
The U.S. Marine Corps is investigating a video that surfaced online today in which several Marines appear to urinate on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters.
The video, which is less than a minute long, appears to show four men in uniform looking around before urinating on three dead bodies, at least one of the men chuckles as they do so.
“Have a great day, buddy,” one of the men is heard saying, apparently to a dead body.
The Marine Corps responded quickly after reports of the video surfaced, calling for a full investigation.
Horrible, etc. Desecration, and that. Heads should probably roll.
Which, on a possibly related note, your host is currently reading “With the Old Breed“, by E.B. Sledge. “Sledgehammer” was a young Marine first blooded on Peleliu, and I am just now catching up with his observations at Okinawa – two of the bloodiest battles fought by the Old Corps during the Pacific War.
He writes movingly and eloquently on the horrors of war, and how men – good men- can descend into a kind of inhumanity when faced with a truly hated, fanatical foe. Fallen Japanese soldiers were frequently field stripped for souvenirs, gold teeth were excised. It probably didn’t help that fallen Marines were often found tortured, their bodies viciously and almost pathologically mutilated. Their war lasted about three and a half years, give or take.
The Taliban, with their indiscriminate murders and their cowardly tactics, have probably earned a very great deal of enmity from those who have been grappling with them for going on eleven years now. The danger when good men confront evil is that, over time, they may become what they beheld.
None of the foregoing is meant to excuse.
But it may help to explain.
This is bad? Who knew? For years I’ve wanted to take a trip to visit the resting place of LBJ to water him, the SOB. Still and all, the story hasn’t changed my mind about that trip because he deserves it. There won’t be “film at 11″ or at any other time on my excursion.
Be sure to eat lots of asparagus before you visit.
+1
my retirement plan, now that i cashed in my 4.01K to help keep the house, is to open up a hot dog cart outside what ever cemetery gets the carcass of Jane Fonda after the devil gets her soul.
i plan on selling freshly steamed asparagus and mountain spring water, with a discount for Viet Nam era vets.
+100
And how is this a bad thing?
Must be a slow news day.
“How men – good men- can descend into a kind of inhumanity” is addressed well by Karl Merlantes in his book “What It Is Like to Go to War”. Merlantes was a platoon leader in Vietnam.
The charge should be “Gross Stupidity and Ignorance.” What IDIOT would film something like that? And then have the lack of brains to post it somewhere?
Even if it was a farce and no corpses were urinated on, it would be a really stupid thing to do.
will be worse than Abu gharib damn , in my estimation, especially when we point out that the women and children murderers outraged press release has been noted….as a factor.
Wait. The Taliban put out a press release on this, but weren’t really upset. Karzai put out a press release, oh, this is so bad, but we’ll negotiate anyway.
No, the only ones who will have their panties in a twist about this are us.
Zane…get it right…its “knickers all in a twist”…
…and are knickers are all in a twist…because some of us believe that we are a better country with an infinitely better military than that. Best
No, I think “panties” is appropriate in this case.
Some of us Zane, only some of us..
…and which one might you decide to be…oh shameless pandering Pecker-Wood. Best
Prezactly. And we will flog ourselves until our enemies laugh themselves silly….
I will not presume to judge here…just one question…
…what were the flippen company NCOs and officers doing while this Goat Fu*k was occuring ? Best
Snake:
If it really happened, they were elsewhere for 90 seconds,or hell, make it 720 seconds. I trust you aren’t lobbying for keeping enlisted personnel under constant scrutiny (officer eyes on). There isn’t enough gold in Fort Knox to plate the bars of the 2nd Lt’s required.
I recommend psychological counseling since they are clearly suffering from PTSD. Punishment inappropriate due to the effects of their wounds.
I thought the first shirt collected and held personal electronics before going into the field? Might be a good idea to enforce no i-whatevahs when on duty. Whiskey in the canteen, OK. Video Recorders in the pocket…no way. Unmilitary. They’re here to kill the enemy, not take home movies.
GB, To clarify…I’m talking the Marine equivalent of Platoon Sgts…squad leaders…fire team leaders… not the officers directly. Best
Interesting question. Perhaps as with law officers they were just minutes away when seconds counted.
You ever work with Marines? The average age of any given Marine rifle battalion is 18.5 which includes the warts on the sergeant major and the officers. It used to be a very very young force.
I just don’t understand how presumably smart Marines can be so dumb to do ANYthing in front of a camera they wouldn’t want their Mothers, their Generals and the public to see. As lots of previous examples in all walks of life have shown, there’s no such thing as a “private” video anymore.
That, too.
“presumably smart Marines”
There’s your problem, right there… an oxymoron if ever there was one.
(posted in the finest traditions of inter-service jest)
I just watched the news video of our SecState expressing her outrage and pleading her case that anyone who participated or knew about this incident would be held accountable.
I wish Lex hadn’t posted. We’ll miss him while we’re incarcerated for being made aware of this incident.
Kicking feet while sitting on the stool in the corner, wearing the cone shaped hat marked in moderation…..
I will not type “h&<<" in a comment (x 10 to the 2nd power)- written on blackboard – …
Favorite scene from a favorite movie, Breaker Morant, is when the defense counsel refers to “normal men in abnormal circumstances.” It applies here.
Even better was the Taliban spokesman who described the act as “barbaric.” Bizarro world.
“the Old Corps during the Pacific War”. Interesting to compare how the use of “The Old Corps” has shifted.
My father served in the Marines in the Pacific at the very end of WWII,where he was deployed to survey an island while cleaning out the remnants of the Imperial Japanese Army forces. Cave duty, they called it, and not for the guano to be found therein. And back he went,for Korea.
He has always used “The Old Corps” to mean the Marines who had been in the small rough and tumble service of the 20s and 30s. Marines who had served in China, the Philippines, or Nicaragua or Paraguay in the small wars of Central America. And then got to “eddycate” (or not, as may be) the hordes of new youngsters through the island hopping campaigns. He retells tales of that Old Corps to this day – at least those he can share.
I guess what is new to each generation becomes old to the next or the ones beyond.
And in this generation the standards have changed, for the supposed better. Or not.
For a similarly shifting view of “The Old Army,” read Mac Coffman’s book by that title. Coffman contends that “the old Army” was the Army as it was before the last major war–thus, during the late 19thC, the “old Army” was the pre-Civil War version. In 1910, it was the Army of the Indian Wars. In the 1920s, it was the Army before WWI, and so on.
You mention the small wars. FYI, Max Boot has an excellent book titled The Savage Wars of Peace in which he examines undeclared conflicts from the Barbary Wars to the present, including the Boxer Rebellion, Haiti, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and more (would you believe Russia in 1918-1920?), and their importance in America’s international affairs. He reviews the lessons learned…, and unlearned. 5 stars.
As I recall we did not sweep the great North Sea mine barrage until late in 1919 and did not end the blockade against Germany until roughly 1919. Lord, we gave a whole generation reason to hate us to death and they did. Fortunately, born there along with my older sister my grammie came to Nurnberg in 1961 and she hated them right back twice as hard.
Why oh why does any troop take pictures of anything but them in front of the USO reading a book? I had 13 sailors assigned to me for extra duty because they filmed their beach party. Mooning each other, evidently was a sexual harassment act. Grab a$$ ensued, but it was between friends, all being stupid, but it was on film so it became a flag directed sexual harassment/assault admin sep extravaganza. All the officers standing the boards were pissed they had to take time out of their day for this mess. It was lucky for me because I never would have gotten those tugboats ready to be strafed, bombed and sunken w/o their help. Their extra duty was going at 4 old tugs w/ hammers and wrenches to help me get them EPA certified to go see Davey Jones.
These Marines should not have done that, and will get punished publicly and severely for this. They won’t, but hopefully other troops will learn from this and avoid this sort of stupidity. I am going to go read my book at the USO now.
LT B, I would respectfully suggest that you have underlined the root of the issue, as Churchill used to say.
Damn good book! Just finished it last month and can’t recommend it highly enough. ’tis a shame we learned so many lessons in different campaigns only to have to relearn them decades later or worse, refuse to relearn them. Hell, the Marines even wrote a field manual on counterinsurgency long before anyone even thought about “COIN”. Doesn’t do much good if no one reads it though.
“It is well that war is so terrible – we should grow too fond of it.”
– R.E. Lee
War isn’t meant to be pretty or civil. Our warriors are taught to break things, shoot at people and make things go boom, yet their hands are tied under the current ROE. They are told to make nice with the Taliban; the same people who shoot at them, disrespect them in death and vow to murder every soldier they see.
Perhaps our warriors should be better than this latest incident; certainly you have to ask why they would film it and then let that file out of their control.
Stil…a part of me says that the Taliban are lucky that’s the only thing our warriors did to them.
That’s the OTHER drawback of counterintersurgency. It tends to breed atrocity and counter-atrocity. Always.
One might think that but I disagree. This is the wrong venue to explain but we might as well. The ground forces may well get caught up in explanations about peed on bodies of terrorists and whatnot but the modern real killers, they drop by in an F-18 and level a home and kill more innocents than even then we could shake a stick at but we never read about that, there are never any charges, it’s all laid out to collateral damages and snake bites and poisonous frogs and stuff like that. Sending a stuttering jet over neighborhoods rather than putting it down before it kills the innocent.
I know, I go back to it but we killed an 18 year old intern girl who was working one night at the TV transmitter in Yugoslavia on one of our no fear raids.
I don’t think we should do that sort of thing anymore.
I’ve had some time to think about this and I’m unanimous in my decision.
I wonder again. How did they any of them ever sleep again? All the guys that created fire storms and did the whole Nagasaki and Hiroshima thing.
these are the things we don’t talk about just as we don’t talk about the deliberate long after the Great War starvation of the German people. nope.
Curtis, I know a guy who was part of the Hiroshima mission. He sleeps quite well. I for one am glad those 2 bombs were dropped. A good read for everyone would be the recently declassified invasion plans for the home islands. For instance the Japanese had over 12 thousand planes in reserve for suicide missions. Personally, I have never been in combat. I don’t know if I would piss on myself or somebody else. I would hope it would be neither but who knows?
Oh no sir/maam, please don’t mistake me on that subject. Those bombs needed to be dropped. Full support. Undying thanks for them.
I have sleepless nights from TLAM strikes I was a part of. Ramping it up an far vaster scales…I don’t know about the rest but I’ve any number of sleepless nights over the years.
I deleted the next 8 paragraphs. Nobody needs to read theology 101 this early in the morning.
Half of me says anyone who serves in combat defending us from these animals is entitled to urinate on the bodies of our enemies. Half of me says that we as a nation are better than that. Average the two, slap them on the wrist and send them out to kill more bad guys knowing they dodged a human sacrifice to the PC gods.
Looks to me like some guys just volunteered for latrine duty for the rest of the tour.
I enjoy your blog immensely, Lex, and I’m glad you’re finally catching up with Eugene Sledge. If I had my way that book would be required reading for all high school students. I’d highly recommend his sequel “China Marine”, which details his service after the war while he earned enough discharge points. (His passage in that book recalling his body’s visceral involuntary reaction to hearing Chinese Nationalist artillery shells pass overhead is unforgettable.)
Another valuable auxiliary benefit from reading “With the Old Breed” is that it provides what I think is necessary background knowledge for any discussion on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fight to subdue Japan would have been Okinawa times a thousand.
Btw, I just finished Hugh Ambrose’s companion book to the “The Pacific” TV miniseries (which I did not see). Sledge is one of four men whose war service Ambrose chronicled, and he drew some nice contrasts between Sledge’s views (on particular officers, for example) and those of his buddies.
Read Sledge from a reco someone here made. Excellent reads.
Agree with Minga, “Meh, Whats the big deal?” -exept that it became public and therefore the dink pols got involved.
Meh, Whats the big deal? they shot them, they got the right to piss on them. Hell of a lot less dangerous than the remorseless metal flying around prior to this pee party.
Its the real politik of soldiers and lets face it – its always been done this sort of ritualistic vistory behaviour thing – and always will be. Officers can’t be everywhere all the time, soldiers are society, society is everything from good to bad. Whats silly is that this should not have gone beyond Battalion Discipline. The CO should have kicked them in the arse and then let it be.
Mountain out of a molehill. Could have been handled at platoon level. Instead we get Panetta wringing his hands. It’s a war not an afternoon tea, Leon.
P.S. Sledge’s book was one of the autobiographical sources which formed the basis for the recently released “The Pacific” mini-series. Highly recommended on video if you didn’t catch it otherwise.
Can’t handle it at platoon or battalion level when it is posted on freaking YouTube and the pols see it. Especially when the pols are not all that loving of the military guys to begin with…
EXACTLY, MikeM. The late dean of military sociologists Charles Moskos of Northwestern U. often made that point, i.e., one is asking 18 & 19 yrs olds to make the sort of nuanced, mature decisions that experienced local police & detectives are usually called upon to make when dealing with a known civilian population interwoven w. bad actors. And when “gunplay” is involved the blood heats up as the adrenal glands pump. The really amazing part is that things like this don’t happen more often…which certainly speaks to the overall professionalism of the force..
I think you all missed the real offense.
Those Marines weren’t peeing towards Mecca.
All that training gone to Hell.
Excuses, however thoughtful and/or well intentioned,do nothing towards explaining away this inexplicable…not in the heat of battle…grab-assed stunt. Best
Snake my friend, this wasn’t the heat of battle. Which is all the less reason to forget all those cultural sensitivity training lessons the USMC has been subjected to. I think you missed my snarky point this time, not like you.
Blame it on the new DADT policy, they’re all covering their butts
I forgive them. And I’ll buy their beer and point them in the same direction again. I’m tired of the faux outrage of our elected officials when it comes to the behavior of My Marines, and the excuses for their spending and lying on behalf of getting re elected. Let’s see…..
P*ssing on the Taliban, or posturing that little Sally and her lazy mother will starve unless given more and more of my money for no benefit or relief for the next 30 years?
…. I say buy the beer in kegs and point My Marines towards Afghanistan and Pakistan…..
Subsunk
Subsunk, I’m confident that your Marines will wet their pants in gratitude after you forgive them…who wouldn’t?…
…and while your at it, please remind the dear dumb-assed ones, preferably after they had a few , that if they run amok and take it upon themselves to do it again…
…to NOT…I repeat NOT… record the event for posterity. Best
…to NOT…I repeat NOT… record the event for posterity.
BINGO!!!
I’m fair certain sure that this is not the first time in any war that members of the US armed services have done something like this. BUT, in days gone by, there wasn’t the almost universal ability to record it for posterity and then broadcast it world wide.
These idjits just handed the Taliban a spit-pot full of propaganda. And lots of recruits.
DING! DING! DING! DING!
About the act itself, I am not upset. About the optics, very much so.
This was a completely bone-headed thing to record. Which part of “the internet is forever” do those jug-heads not understand!? Christ on a crutch, these goobers were flipping weaned on the web, and they’re still too dumb to realize that this sort of crap always leaks out?
Stupid, stupid, stupid… Feh.
Going back to “With the Old Breed,” IIRC Sledge mentioned (with disapproval) a new officer who performed a similar act on an enemy corpse.
He did -as well as saying how close he was to pulling out gold teeth from enemy dead, and has been ever thankful that he was dissuaded from doing so.
Lord but you know, you know there will always be the one frikin idiot. There always is.
I think that if you need enough of Sledge and his contemporaries in the Pacific, you’l see stories of urinatng in the mouth of a dead Japanese–also stories of Japanese cutting off the genitals of dead Marines and stuffing them in the dead man’s mouth.
It’s a nasty business. And there are darn few saints on either side of any armed conflict.
Yep…and think of how those stories of mutilations like that inflamed and enraged us. You don’t hand the enemy anything that can be used against you.
My grandfather was on Peleliu. He didn’t want to talk about and my father, out of respect, didn’t ask. My grandfather is gone now and there are so many questions. I’ve tried to look up his old buddies, from a book he had with their names, but they’re all gone. He was a Seabee, so… he was one of the old men… at… 28? Still, there were pictures of dead Japanese soldiers and urinating on a corpse is really child’s play compared to what we found. In war, the enemy can grow into something inhuman in the mind… add to that what was being found, as you stated, with our own men being mutilated and desecrated, I wasn’t there, I don’t judge.
My Dad was also in Peleliu and Okinawa in the same campaigns descibed in “With the Old Breed”, serving with the First Marines. At 18 he went through the worst experiences of his life. Yet, he was one of the kindest men I’ve ever known, a great husband and father. Still, the nightmares continued until they buried him with full military honors a few years ago. The book allowed me to understand some the things he never wanted to talk about.
My grandaddy… was not a easy man to live with, from what I understand. When he died, we all toasted him and my grandmother’s toast to him was along the lines of hoping he wasn’t shoveling coal. I didn’t know that man. I knew my grandfather, who wrote me letters telling me how much he loved me. He was not a good husband, probably a worse father, but a wonderful grandfather… his mulligan in life. I should read the book to perhaps understand a bit better the man who came back from the War. I hear it is not the same man who entered it.
Bou, the book is an exceptionally well documented read. You will find it hard to put down and it will make you gasp. I salute your Granddaddy’s memory, all the more vigourosly for having read Eugene Sledge’s diaries.
Well…we usually don’t leave our dead behind to be violated. Those that have usually have. If the Taliban knew, for a fact, what would happen to their bodies were they killed in battle, they might be a little more hesitant to engage us. Just sayin’ they might consider it a wee bit.
Sledge’s reference to “the Old Breed” does indeed refer to the pre-war Marines (like John Basilone) who showed the way to the myriad new Marines created after Pearl Harbor.
What these lads have to realize is that we are now in the age of the strategic corporal. Responsibility and accountability for actions should be getting pushed lower and with far greater media insight and social media spreading that the actions of small numbers of lower ranked men can have a strategic effect…
This incident is plain Dumb no matter how you cut it… Tie this in with America taking the moral high ground and now you have a shit hits the fan moment..
Does it pass the 60 minutes test (i.e. how would this look on 60 minutes). If its going to look bad then don’t do it. No matter what don’t be so stupid as to film it!!!
+1
Steve made much the same point as I did in my reply to MikeM (of the UAVS) above, only in a more erudite way. Someone whose name I don’t now recall made the point years ago (waay before cell-phone cameras & Youtube/internet)that the advent of live satellite TV feeds, etc., has made it impossible ever again to successfully suppress an insurgent/terrorist uprising or win a counter-insurgency war..
(I should also amend my comments to Mike M, above, to include the fact Moskos pointed out that it is hugely unfair to put lower enlisted ranks into such pressure-cooker situations laden/dripping with political overtones and expect them to exercise the levels of judgement usually/formerly expected only of Officers in terms of larger political/strategic and/or PR considerations.)
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson072507.html
A wonderful, in-depth review of “With the Old Breed” by the indispensibile VDH.
Thanks for that link.
Oh, and not for nuttin, was there not, at the beginning of the war, a widely circulated picture of a Marine pissing on a picture of Saddam?
Was the urinating and defecating on police cars, trash cans, and common public areas by OWS people covered by the media?
…not the equilivent circumstances and you know it. Best
why not? the Occutards hate America as much, if not more than, the Taliban…
let anyone who is pi55ed off about this incident do a one for one replacement exchange with those Marines before they open their pie holes in judgment.
“…not the equilivent circumstances and you know it.”
You are exactly right. The police and the US government haven’t spent the last 10 years doing their level best to kill the Occu’tards.
When the OWS crowd starts pissing or crapping on corpses, let me know. Otherwise this is is a sterile & non-relevant comparison.
In 1943 President Roosevelt was given a lovely desk set, ink well, pen rest, the whole shebang, by some members of the USMC.
A lovely desk set carved entirely from the bones of Japanese soldiers.
It was quietly returned to Japan for burial after the war.
I have seen a photo, taken, I believe, on Saipan, of a USMC flamethrower tank, that had the head of a Japanese soldier as a “hood ornament”, on the headlight guard.
[...] USMC reports: Not good - [...]
Just finished reading that book Lex – (With the Old Breed). All I can add to your thoughts are that I remember well an occasion where a man I’d arrested went berserk and tried to kill me. In my defence I had clearly gone too far and suddenly felt as if my limbs had seized up. In fact it was my colleagues who had arrived to help and were actually restraining me. Big shock to my system that red mist, that I could go onto `full auto` with no control, but I was young and inexperienced and hadn’t mastered the art of controlled aggression or, as I preferred to call it as an older, wiser instructor, `benevolent domination`. I support your closing comments, but the younger, less experienced and less humane me is whispering in my ear from its dim and distant, `waste of good pee`, even though I know how enraged I’d be if they were the remains of my comrades. Understanding and abhorrance in the same breath. (I am now thinking of those images from another hot place, of Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart and their post mortem moments).
Honestly, why such a fuss? The US military is the most morally upright force ever fielded in human history. Consider that in medieval times entire cities would be besieged to starve the inhabitants until they surrendered.
During the crusades civilians would swallow jewels just before the surrender of a city to hide their wealth from the conquering armies. The soldiers would simply kill and eviscerate them to get to the jewels. This atrocity was perpetrated by both Christians and Muslims. The Japanese rape of Nanking and the Soviet depravity when Berlin fell are more modern examples of atrocities against civilians. The taliban are hardly innocent civilians caught in a war they didn’t want.
This is a petty, isolated incident. The lame stream media is blowing it out of proportion as it enforces their anti-military bias.
As John Wayne said of Watergate, “Damn panty raid”
Somehow I missed the moral outrage over the Aghan soldier who was in uniform this week when he opened fire on U.S. troops playing volley ball. I also missed a hundred other times when the Taliban sent in a suicide bomber and killed and maimed non-combtants including children.
What they did is wrong, but it needs to be put in perspective.
Late to the party, but bingo…where was the outrage re: that? No Clinton, no State, no Panetta, but last I heard one dead and three injured. Where is the damned perspective?
Look, the stupid shall be punished (and stupid this was), but please oh please, spare me the hyperventilated outrage…
Al-Jazeera was the only news service providing context and perspective yesterday. Mention of Fallujah contractor hanging from bridge, drug thru streets, etc.
Which is a frightening fact.
As I mentioned previously, insurgency and counterinsurgency breeds atrocity and counter-atrocity. Have a look at what went on during Napoleon’s campaigns in Spain.
The Laws of War were developed to try to dampen the worst of it. But they demand participation by all sides – including noncombatants.
It was stupid to allow it to be filmed; it was foolish to indulge in it, as well, but foolishness does not equate to “atrocity” just because some NATO pantywaist gets all atwitter about seeing someone do for free what he pays a Brooklyn madam a c-note to have done to him.
Frankly, I’m hopeful that the Marines’ lunch had been pulled pork sammaches & Budweiser.
Based on local custom, I guess it would have been preferable to Karzai if they had instead sodomized the corpses before burning them, dragging them through the streets, and mutilating them.
Mess with the best, get P’d on like the rest(?)
Back in the day that would ha’ been an Olangapo liberty t-shirt for certain.
My problem with this is an ineradicable memory of films of the bodies of captured American soldiers being dragged through the streets of some Iraqi town, and then mutilated and strung from bridges to rot. Yes, “tu quoque” is a weak argument. I don’t think we should ever imitate this, although IIRC “Black Jack” Pershing promised some captured Muslims that he would smear them with pork fat and bury them wrapped in pigskin. T. E. Lawrence mentions in Seven Pillars of Wisdom that the Arabs had a common custom of killing and mutilating strangers who wandered by. Of course, the ROE observed by Western military was rather more relaxed in those days. And I know that one does not make progress in humanizing the human race by descending to the level of its worst behaviors. However, if my son had been captured, killed and dragged through the streets before being suspended from some badly built bridge or other, I would never be able to forgive, or forget. Not in me.
Besides, I learned long ago that folks have to humanize themselves as they age, and learn. Or not.
Marianne
There much to be said about the deterrent power of announcing you’ll begin playing by ‘local rules’… as Lex’s sidebar-cited Napier quote regarding the Suttee should remind us all.
This “outrage” is nothing more than an attempt to “piss” on the USMC and by extention the U.S. Military as a whole.
U.S. Marines kill Taliban members – good Marines doing their job.
U.S. Marines piss on dead Taliban members – Who freaking cares?
If this upsets the arab “street” then the arab “street” was looking for an excuse to begin with.
The Marines should have used pig urine.
In response to those who have expressed an interest in visiting the grave of Lyndon B. Johnson, I’m afraid that I shall not be joining you. I promised myself when I left the service that I would never again stand in endless lines.
I am far less bothered by the actions of the Marines who urinated on the bodies of those who only minutes before were attempting to kill them than I am in the idiocy of the Marine (or Corpsman) who was stupid enough to post the footage online.
Does no one in the mainstream media, or high office in this administration, remember the name of Daniel Pearle? Do they not recall Fallujah or the American bodies desecrated in Somalia?
It’s not as if the Afghans have this great reputation for treating their enemies with honor. Perhaps they might read Kipling:
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Ah, Lex, you have me in moderation again. And I was trying to be very moderate. Was it because I warned you about Marine Hornet stings? Or are you a secret AV-8 admirer (Did I mention that we can hover)?
Sometimes it takes a moment…
I for one refuse to judge the actions of warriors, defending my freedom in the field of battle who may, at times, deviate from the customs and standards of peaceful people in the comfort of their homes and the self-righteous frames of mind that attend those circumstances. What they do to or with the bodies of the enemy are of no concern to me. My enemies do not deserve the consideration, no more than my defending warriors deserve distant, detached criticism from non-warriors. Marines, you have my support, period. May God protect you from the critics.
If you had been steadily killing my best friends for the last year of my tour I assure you I’d pee on your corpse too. BUT NOT UNTIL i OPENED YOUR MOUTH FIRST
Troops have been doing this forever – the difference is the photos used to end up in some dusty scrapbook, along with a belt buckle, and maybe a bone or two, not posted on the web for the world to see.
Most Marines will say this should not happen in my Marine Corps, and those stupid enough to video and post will receive appropriate punishment. Beyond that, forgotten by the next news cycle.
Yeah, it pales in comparison to the things that Afghanis do to the bodies of those they kill, but we’re supposed to be better than them, right?
Curiously, I just finished reading a book about the Makin Island raid. One of Carlson’s orders was that there would be none of that kind of thing, no desecration or mutilation of bodies, just kill ‘em all and leave. That’s pretty much what they did. When the Nips sank Prince of Wales and Repulse, some of the torpedo-bomber pilots wept to see what they had done, and there was no interference with the rescue operations.
After things have gone on for a while, though, well, that seems to bring out the mean grumpiness in a guy. I mean, after 1914 there was not another Christmas truce.
JTG, between the bataan death march, and the Goettge Patrol, the pattern for the pacific war was set between the US and Japan. Kill ‘em all. Take only prisoners for intelligence purposes. There were a few exceptions.
From another blog discussing this action, wish I had said it;
“I agree, this is completely unacceptable.
Every grunt knows that when you’re finished using a latrine you cover it with dirt. The fact that these guys did not is outrageous.
What the hell do they teach in boot camp these days?”
Just repeating this observation in its proper context (somehow previously ended up in wrong posting section):
“I hereby raise an ice cold stein of beer and a loud “Oorah!” to Scout Sniper Team 4 of the 3/2.
And to quote one of my favorite patriots, Lt. Col. Allen West, “….As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”