Whizzing on the wrong guys
Editor's note: This column contains content that might be objectionable to some readers.
The vigilantes at the national leadership level and the press are ready to punish four young Marines for urinating on enemy corpses. A failure to come to agreement on Afghanistan can now be blamed on these youngsters.
Afghanistan is a filthy hole peopled by tribes and clans that think 30 is old age. Rudyard Kipling wrote of the savagery of the Afghanistan tribes advising the British "Tommy" (soldier) to face his front, obey his officers and if capture was imminent to just shoot himself.
Fighting men after a battle have not the strength, time, or inclination to bother with enemy corpses. They are not about to expose themselves to possible enemy fire just to try to humiliate the enemy.
All military members are under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At the lowest level is Captain's Mast. After a hearing of the facts and after the accused present their side of the case they can then be found guilty or not guilty. Punishment can range from fines, extra duty, reduction in rank and time in the brig. The accused in certain circumstances can refuse non-judicial punishment and request a court-marital.
There are three court-martial levels. The first is essentially the same as non-judicial punishment and is usually a one officer court. Special and General Court-Martials can give prison time, dishonorable discharges and even death sentences. Where possible Captain's Mast is preferable. It is simpler, quicker for all concerned; punishment is limited and it does not become a federal criminal record
Combat changes men and they can become hard. Treatises on killing will argue that killing has to be taught and the quickest and most effective method to foster killing is to make the enemy into a non-human. These four men did nothing that rises to the level of a war crime. It rises to a lack of good judgment and is a minor disciplinary matter.
Marine Corps training films on knife and bayonet fighting, which I showed as a training officer on a warship, always ended with the Marine killing the enemy soldier and then kicking or bayoneting the dead body in the groin.
The Marines were pissing on the wrong people. It should have been all the talking heads sitting on their lard asses in the comfort of their plush offices getting a bath. They will take these young men and throw them to the wolves. We have no reason as a nation to get down and grovel.
These Marines committed no crime; they used bad judgment and their gunnery sergeant should have given them a quick attitude adjustment. Every career man I ever met was given an attitude adjustment at least once in their service.
In an infantry unit, "shitbirds," "malcontents," and "malingerers" can be assigned to be on point where they will be the first to trip a booby trap or ambush, or to a mine clearing detail. "Piss off" the Gunny and you can get more than your share of such dangerous duties. Attitudes can be adjusted quickly.
I have seen some members of the military pose with corpses in Vietnam, holding their shredded body parts up to the camera. In Danang, a man showed me a picture of himself after a battle holding something and I could not tell what it was, until he told me he was holding the bottom half of a man his guns had sliced in half.
Often after the initial headlines there turns out to be more to the story. What if the tracer and incendiary machine gun rounds had set the corpses on fire and these men were just trying to put out the blaze and in truth were doing a good deed?
What our fighting forces should be doing is practicing asymmetrical warfare. Attacking an American aircraft carrier with a bomb-laden motorboat is such an example. The enemy uses IEDs to restrict our motorized movement. A few dollars worth of explosives can destroy a vehicle worth much more. We should be exploiting the enemy weak points. We should have buried those corpses wrapped in pig skins.
It wouldn't be the first time. The city fathers of Vienna in about 1522 took Muslim Janissaries (shock troops) and hung their bodies from the city walls, wrapped in pig skins. It was the high water mark of the Muslim invasion of Europe.
If the Marines want to piss on an enemy corpse I don't care. I do care if these young men are given federal prison time and get criminal records.
Robert B. Hunt, QMC, USN. Ret., is a Post Falls resident.