Why our soldiers can't shoot back

I talked to my son about a week ago and he told me they were being fired at while on convoy, on a regular basis. I asked him if they shot back and he said "no". I asked why and he said all the ruckus about Americans supposedly committing atrocities and murders has caused military leadership to require all soldiers to write an exhaustive report on why they fired their weapons...before they could call it a day.

He said many times they would run for 10-12 hours in full battle gear, in the intense heat with bullets bouncing off their vehicles and everyone "just hunkers down" and sweats it out. When they finally get into a new US compound, they all just let down and no one wants to write reports. He said morale is very low because of this and everyone still wants to believe they are supported back in the States.

He was on convoy a couple of miles from where the soldiers were taken hostage (he wrote this morning) and they were directed by satellite to stop and do a search and recover/rescue, but upon calling back to battalion, they were directed to move out as soon as possible to keep from becoming a target and complete their mission.

As a Vietnam Veteran, the loss of every soldier/G.I. hurts my heart and puts a shadow over my day, but by god folks, we just can not as a country, pull the rug out from under our guys and gals in harms way and strap them with so many rules of engagement that they can’t even fight back. It really burns my hide and I don’t think the answer is to nuke the country or anything like that either. We have got to quit playing arm-chair quarterback on everything that happens. We have military officers for that and we need to let them do their job.

We as Americans have to keep it before us that we are at war and there will be collateral damage in the way of women, children and non-combatants. I told my son before he left on his third overseas tour (first enlistment and he’s 22 years old – class of 2002 RE Lee) to NOT allow himself to be captured knowing full well what I was saying. He’s an advanced martial artist and a real scrapper, but allowing these terrorists to capture you is only prolonging your very personal violent heinous death sentence. Might as well go down fighting and take as many as you can with you. This is not the streets of Houston and cops against American criminals with Constitutional rights; this is war where after you shoot your way into a room full of people trying to kill you, you shoot each one of them again to make sure they are dead.

Bert Marshall, Sgt. USAF
654 days SEA