The Strategic (Lance) Corporal

Last summer, during the protests in Iran, a woman was shot and killed by a member of the Basij--a militia force currently under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Someone standing nearby caught a video of the woman's death on a cell phone, and the video spread over the internet in a matter of hours. This morning I posed the question to my platoon: what if the protest had been in Iraq, or Afghanistan, and the shooter had been a US Marine?

Vietnam was the first war we fought in the television era, and the consequences of having that medium focused on the war were huge. The wars we're fighting now in Afghanistan and previously in Iraq are the first wars we've fought in the internet era, and the consequences of having that medium available to focus on the war have also been huge. We've gotten to the point now that the actions of anyone on the battlefield, no matter if they're the newest private or a high-ranking officer with years of experience, can be broadcast around the world in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

That's the idea behind the term "The Strategic (Lance) Corporal". Because there is the potential for everyone's actions to be broadcast around the world in a matter of seconds, it's extremely important that everyone, from the newest private to the high-ranking officers with years of experience, know and follow the Law of War and the Rules of Engagement. Our ability or failure to do so has the potential to affect national policy. Don't believe me? Think Abu Ghraib.

The Law of War, or Law of Armed Conflict, is a set of nine rules that determine how we interact with enemy forces and civilians, and is designed to minimize human suffering. Things like: Collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe. Destroy no more than the mission requires.

Our Rules of Engagement provide guidance on the use of force. It seems a little silly--we fight the enemy, right? Yes, but it's far from clear who you should fight when the enemy can hide their weapons at a moment's notice and blend into the crowd. So instead we use the guidelines of a hostile act or a hostile intent. A hostile act is pretty simple to identify--someone's actively doing something to try to harm you. Hostile intent requires more judgment. Is the fertilizer in the farmer's barn being used for his crops, or is it being used to make homemade explosives for roadside bombs? Is that guy with a cell phone phoning a friend, or is he using it to trigger a nearby IED (improvised explosive device)?

We train our Marines to make split-second decisions where their lives and the lives of their buddies hang in the balance. Are some of them going to make the wrong decision--shoot the guy who was calling his friend? Or the woman who they suspected might be reaching to trigger a suicide vest and was instead reaching for a white handkerchief? Unfortunately, yes. No matter what era or what we can accomplish with technology, war is characterized by imperfect information. So we give them the tools to make those decisions and realize that hindsight is 20/20.

A quick note to brag about my Marines. We ran a physical fitness test yesterday, and I had one Marine with a perfect score, and several Marines with scores high enough to receive a certificate of recognition. I can't say it enough: my Marines are awesome.

PU, DU, KU, and RHDDC

I've been sitting in a lot of classes recently, learning how to use several pieces of software. I'll probably use this week's software before I use any of the others, as this week we're learning how to use the Blue Force Tracker, or BFT.

The purpose of your BFT is to give everyone outside the wire an accurate picture of where the friendly and enemy units are located. It is mounted in your vehicles and updates regularly, tracking the movement of all the friendly units around you. Your screen displays a map with a bunch of blue circles on it, representing friendly units, and red triangles, representing enemy contact.

When you see a bump in a distant hill, you can check your BFT and see if there are any friendly units moving around on that hill. If not, you can be fairly certain it is a civilian or enemy unit. Of course, the enemy doesn't carry BFT with them; your BFT only displays enemy contact reported by friendly units.

It's got a text messaging feature, allowing you to talk to anyone else you can see. It also allows you to easily send reports back to the operations center instead of calling them in over the radio.

It's an incredibly useful piece of software, but unfortunately the class isn't all that thrilling. The acronyms above showed up on a powerpoint slide this morning, and at first I had no clue what they stood for. Eventually I found out. They are the hard drive, keyboard, processor, and screen. But can we call them the hard drive, keyboard, processor, and screen? Of course not! They are the Removable Hard Disk Drive Cartridge, Keyboard Unit, Processing Unit, and Display Unit. Just a short lesson in military acronyms. :-)

I am happy to report that the situation with my Marines and the adverse paperwork has been resolved. I've learned quite a few lessons for next time, although I have to admit I spend a certain amount of time each day wondering what kind of craziness is coming down the pipe next.

It's Not About You

When I was a candidate going through OCS, the staff there was fond of telling us that there was only one day in our Marines Corps career that was about us: our commissioning day. Every other day, whether as a candidate or as an officer, was about the enlisted Marines we would lead. Every other bit of screening (at OCS) or training (at OCS and beyond) we went through was to enable us to effectively lead them.

I failed my Marines today. I had to file paperwork for seven of my Marines stating that I could not recommend them for promotion because they did not have the required professional military education (PME) courses complete. Unfortunately, having this paperwork in their record books has the potential to negatively affect their careers later down the road. My Marines, understandably, were upset about this. Some of them had been told they had more time to complete the courses; some had the courses complete but have had difficulty getting a proctor for the test.

My platoon sergeant and I hope there's more action we can take to get some of this paperwork reversed, and will work on it tomorrow and in the coming days. Whatever happens, I have certainly learned my lesson.

This is part of the learning curve for new Lieutenants. They teach us plenty about tactics, about leadership traits and principles, about mine detectors and how to plan an obstacle breach. But they don't give us a list of administrative issues to track, or what common pitfalls to avoid, or tell us what's our job vs. our platoon
sergeant's job vs. the company staff's job. Rightfully, this is part of on-the-job training, and depends on your billet and unit. But it's pretty painful training, for me and the Marines.

I'll figure it out soon enough. I have "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU" underlined inside the front cover of my notebook to remind myself on these days--it's not about my abilities, or what my boss thinks of me, it's about my Marines and taking care of their needs. I failed them today, and inevitably I'll do it again over some other issue. But not this.

Hot off the Press

About three years ago, a friend suggested to me that I might enjoying participating in NaNoWriMo. What's that? I asked. Turns out it stands for National Novel Writing Month, whereby you attempt to write a 50k-word novel during the month of November. I was knee-deep in my first novel at the time, so I politely declined. Then I declined the next year, and the next year...and then last year, when several friends told me they were going to do it together, and would I like to join them...

I thought about it. Decided that Engineer School didn't seem to be too hard, and that I would probably have some free time in the month of November, and said, sure! I'll sign up to write an entire novel in the span of a month. Never mind that the first one took eight years to write. A month sounds like plenty of time!

The rules were that you were allowed to think about characters and outlines before November, so I eagerly started character developing and outlining. When November 1st hit, I starting writing as quickly as I could. Keep in mind that my normal form of writing basically involves staring at a blank screen for about 10 minutes, writing a sentence, staring at the sentence I wrote for another five. Getting a whole paragraph down, erasing half of it, goofing off on the internet for 15 minutes. Write another two sentences. Lather, rinse, repeat for about two hours, and call it a night.

Well, I managed to be a little more disciplined this time around, and hit the 50k word count on November 25th. It took another 11k words and 4 more days to finish the story line that I had laid out, but by the end of November I had a functioning novel.

I've spent all of about two hours editing said novel, based on comments I got from other people that did NaNoWriMo with me. I might do some more serious editing at some point--it could certainly use it--but I decided that I wanted to share this book in less time than it took me to produce the first one.

So tonight I'm happy to announce that both this most recent Novel, 20 Days' Leave, and my first novel, Not by Sight, are available for purchase via CreateSpace. You can order them here:
20 Days' Leave
Not by Sight

They're nothing fancy. The covers are fairly plain. Neither has had professional editing, although I spent a lot of time (and had a lot of help) editing, revising, and re-writing Not by Sight. But I want to make them available to the larger community, so either I can do that now, or I can let them languish in search of free time to work on them.

One last note: if you received a first-printing copy of Not by Sight, this is the same edition. I haven't changed a single thing about the book. The only difference is that the copy from CreateSpace will have a glossy cover and an ISBN on the back.

Enjoy!