by Derek Farwell
Columnist

One of the things I’ve mentioned before is that being in the military is not very difficult. There is always someone around who will tell you what to do should you find yourself with nothing to do. There is always something to do, whether it be an essential function or some pointless activity that doesn’t really accomplish anything other than making yourself appear busy. Life in garrison can be tedious, and not much of what you do is left up to the individual, but life during a deployment, more specifically during combat operations is a different beast. During combat operations, all soldiers regardless of rank are given the responsibility of deciding who and when to engage a target and whether or not to use lethal force against another human being. So when is it appropriate or necessary to shoot to kill, and when is it appropriate to use your weapon or other means as stern warning?

I know there is an actual Army Regulation covering the rules of engagement, and I know I’ve read it over and over, but the rules of engagement can change depending on your situation and where you are. And since reciting Army Regulations is boring, I will describe them in my own words. I will focus on the rules of engagement for the period of time that I spent in Baqubah, Iraq, which was a bit more liberal because of the level of violence we faced and the sheer number of enemy combatants that were in the area. Typically what people think is that you shoot when you are shot at, but there is a bit more to it than that. In that case the obvious response is to shoot back, but that isn’t always how it goes.

There was a set of unwritten rules that were understood by the citizens of Iraq. The most important of which was that you do not approach us unless you are instructed to do so. And because of the devastating effects of car bombs, you most certainly do not drive your vehicle towards us. It still of course happened because like people in every other city in the world, they’re in a hurry. So when someone would get too close, the rules of engagement are set in motion. The first and most harmless step is to try to get the attention of the person or people by using hand signals, yelling, throwing something or whatever else you could do to get their attention and let them know that it would be wise to stop whatever they’re doing that got attention in the first place. If this fails to get the desired results then you move on to the next step. If they continue to move towards you or appear to be up to no good then I would get their attention and point my machine gun at them and take aim to let them know that my patience is running out and they are entering some pretty dangerous grounds. If they still didn’t change their actions then it was time to move on to the next step which is a warning shot. This actually happened a lot more than I would have thought since having a machine gun pointed at me would probably be pretty effective at making me go away. If it was a vehicle, I would usually fire a round into the engine of the car or fire a few rounds over the top of it if there was nothing else around that could be hit by a stray bullet. If this still didn’t work then it was to be assumed that they were intentionally moving towards you and that they had devious intentions, a threat, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Often, there wasn’t enough time to go through all of these steps with time to think during the whole process. Split second decisions with deadly consequences often had to be made and you relied on experience and intuition to do the right thing. Humans are imperfect and hindsight is always 20/20, but real-time decisions are not. I know that I can’t realistically say that all of my bullets ended up in bad guys, but I do know that I always abided by our rules of engagement and never escalated any situation to the point of engaging a person unless I was justified in doing so and could defend my actions after the incident.

It’s a hell of a thing to be responsible for, deciding whether or not killing another person is necessary, and all you can really do is rely on your training, experience, and instincts and react in a way that gave my buddies and I the best chances to come home alive.

drfarwell@hotmail.com