General Discussion

He appears to be less hypocritical though I'm not sure how much post-Iraq was a lie. I agree because I have seen the darkest corners of human existence, he doesn't qualify as my worst.

I really can't comment on the Marines experience as I have little to no knowledge of what it is like with the exception they have the best overall uniforms, ran an extra half mile & also do pull-ups as part of their PT test(based on rumors). I do know they won't take a GED, high school diploma only but generally the Department of the Navy has the toughest standards. If you're chaptered out of the Navy you can still join the Army but out of the Army, you're out.

My experience was in the transportation corps and we were deployed to the same base as CENTCOM, now unwritten ROE is another story. Directly, it was show, shout (the show and the shout switched places about the winter of 06-07), shove, shoot. You shout your orders to halt, to go away. You "show" your weapon for the implied consequences of failure to obey. "If you can shove you can shoot" was always the introduction if whoever didn't follow.

Wikileaks actually hit it dead on bullseye

Two months later, US troops gunned down a group of bus passengers even more peremptorily, as the logs record.

Patrolling on foot, a Kentucky-based squad from 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, known as "Red Currahee", decided to flag down the approaching bus, so their patrol could cross the road. Before sunrise, a soldier stepped out on to Afghanistan's main highway and raised both hands in the air.

When the bus failed to slow – travelers are often wary of being flagged down in Afghanistan's bandit lands – a trooper raked it with machine-gun fire. They killed four passengers and wounded 11 others.

The bus likely kept rolling towards after the show & the shout

<snip>
The bulk of the "blue-white" file consists of a relentless catalogue of civilian shootings on nearly 100 occasions by jumpy troops at checkpoints, near bases or on convoys. Unco-operative drivers and motorcyclists are frequent targets.

Each incident almost without exception is described as a meticulous "escalation of force" conducted strictly by the book, against a threatening vehicle.

US and UK rules require shouts, waves, flares, warning shots and shots into the engine block, before using lethal force. Each time it is claimed that this procedure is followed. Yet "warning shots" often seem to cause death or injury, generally ascribed to ricochets.

Sometimes, it seems as though civilian drivers merely failed to get off the road fast enough. On 9 July 2006 mechanic Mohamad Baluch was test-driving a car in Ghazni, when the Americans rolled into town on an anti-IED "route clearance patrol".

The log records: "LN [local national] vehicle did not yield to US convoy … Gunner on lead truck shot into the vehicle and convoy kept going out of the area." The townspeople threw rocks at the eight departing armoured Humvees. Baluch ended up in hospital with machine-gun bullets in his shoulder.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-civilian-deaths-rules-engagement

This revelation didn't surprise me none. Every convoy mission brief, though this applied to the gun trucks, shoot (if you can shove you can shoot) anyone who fails to yield to orders, usually arabic words for stop or halt. After that, it was told fair game so you'd expect many incidents just like Wikileaks revealed. Either The Guardian got the facts wrong or the DoD was misleading but we were taught warning shots were bad ideas based on logic like the bullet has to go somewhere and it would qualify as "shove" so if you can fire warning shot, you can fire a kill shot. Shots into the engine block? That was never taught though I noticed a bit of an editorial slant even though it wasn't necessary. The troubling thing is were they given the wrong facts or choose to misrepresent the actual facts relayed to them?

As far as Fallujah, I never driven through the city or Ramadi but the road going to TQ was named "Long Island" and it was by far the worst road in Iraq. We were trained to swerve around potholes, trash, debree, anything but Long Island had "man holes" the whole way there. Also the area was infamous for "Daisy-chain IEDs" (think of roadside bomb lit up like Christmas tree lights) that area was bad. Though, I wouldn't justify road crimes unless a supervisor gave the order but it was made very clear, many times, we are allowed to disobey unlawful orders.