House of Eratosthenes

Parents of future warriors, be you conservative, liberal or somewhere in between: Would you not agree with me that, perhaps, this is taking things just a bit too far?

A proposal to grant medals for “courageous restraint” to troops in Afghanistan who avoid deadly force at a risk to themselves has generated concern among U.S. soldiers and experts who worry it could embolden enemy fighters and confuse friendly forces.

Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis, a spokesman for Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan, said that no final decision has been made on the award, which is the brainchild of British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter.

“The idea is being reviewed at Headquarters ISAF,” Sholtis said. “The idea is consistent with our approach. Our young men and women display remarkable courage every day, including situations where they refrain from using lethal force, even at risk to themselves, in order to prevent possible harm to civilians…That restraint is an act of discipline and courage not much different than those seen in combat actions.”

Oh, but it is different.

I understand what you’re trying to do here Col. Sholtis, and I have no doubt that your movement is recruiting many who display far better judgment when they make other decisions. And I’ll readily agree that when our troops do have this courage and it makes a difference in the outcome, that yes that’s a more preferable outcome at least in the short term.

But honoring it with a medal, specifically to encourage our side to reach that outcome more often? That fails to take into account the situations in which they’ve been placed; what their five senses tell them about it. Also, there are some enemies involved in this little skirmish and the message this sends to them is not helpful. Doesn’t a two-star think of such things? I would’ve hoped that someone would bring it up.

Screw you guys. If my lad is headed into your little theater in the years ahead, I’m raising him to take care o’ business; that if he’s ever in a situation where it’s him or the other guy, then sorry but it’s gonna be the other guy. I’m a capital-D Dad, and I figure that’s my job.

But I thank you for helping to decide what we’ll be doing this weekend. We can do some target shooting, get some fresh air, have a man-to-man talk about things, and when it’s time to head in we’ve got the entire collection of Rambo sitting on our DVD shelf, right next to Patton.

Like Grandma Freeberg used to say: “My boys aren’t cannon fodder.”

Hat tip to FrankJ.

I saw this elsewhere earlier today. The concept takes “medal creep”… one of my pet peeves… to an entirely other-worldly level. I’m glad the asinine concept originated with the Brits, but that still doesn’t relieve OUR senior-level asshats from the shame of taking the idea seriously. The appropriate reaction would have been “What? You CAN’T be serious!” (a la McEnroe), followed by vicious, prolonged, and merciless mocking of the clue-free Brit who proposed this.
- bpenni | 05/12/2010 @ 13:29
The mere fact that such an idea has even been proposed, tells us a lot about the modern age of warfare – and more specifically, the governing philosophies behind it.

Senior NATO/coalition commanders now are so concerned with avoiding civilian casualties, that now managing to do so is considered “medal-worthy.” Avoiding civilian deaths in a war zone has always been a priority for American (and for much of their history, British) combat forces. Unlike, say, the Soviets, the western allies have never intentionally killed civilians, or indiscriminately done so, or permitted that kind of behavior among the lower ranking troops. That’s honorable and good.

The problem I’m seeing now, however, is two-fold:

1.) First and most obviously, this essentially is a “you DIDN’T screw up” award. This is like giving a three-year-old a prize for NOT crapping his pants. Exercising restraint in combat, “checking your targets” and not shooting at unarmed bystanders is the least we expect our troops to do. It ranks alongside of “don’t bad-mouth the commander-in-chief” and “leave no man behind.” It’s a “well….DUH” kind of rule..

If anything, this seems to me like a dumbing-down of the standards to which we hold our military personnel. It almost reminds me of the way schools expect less and less of their charges, and indeed, there are a lot of troops who are pretty much fresh-out of high school.

2.) More alarmingly, however, is the senior commanders’ obsessive concern with avoiding civilian casualties. I suppose in a war where our troops only real way of telling civilian from enemy is whether he’s armed, where intelligence provided by villagers is critical, where it’s important to win hearts and minds…OK, I get it. On the other hand, the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq need to understand that their countries are WAR zones. War. You know, bombs, bullets, and all that? People die in wars. That’s how it is.

Columnist Ben Shapiro once asserted his opinion: that one American soldier is worth 25 Afghan civilians. Yeah, it sounds cruel or unfair or whatever, but you know what? I agree with him. And I don’t want our troops taking such extreme risks to their own lives (to shield civilians) that some military commander thinks his resulting actions are gallant enough to warrant a medal. It’s one thing to hand out a Bronze Star or something for dragging one of your wounded comrades back to the Humvee while under fire. It’s quite another to hand one out to some GI who could have shot dead an RPG-wielding Taliban terrorist, but chose not to because there was some chance a villager would get killed. That terrorist, if allowed to escape, might go on to take out an entire platoon of American GI’s in the next moment.
- cylarz | 05/12/2010 @ 23:26
It is one thing to award a medal for not killing your enemy when he has taken the trouble to surround himself with loving family, but after all the times we have witnessed the liberal showing courageous restraint in the face of danger, I see the need for a civilian medal back home.
- jamzw | 05/13/2010 @ 09:36

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“Courageous Restraint”Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

“Courageous Restraint”
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010