The night before the general is scheduled to visit Sgt. Arroyos platoon for the memorial, I arrive at Combat Outpost JFM to speak with the soldiers he had gone on patrol with. JFM is a small encampment, ringed by high blast walls and guard towers. Almost all of the soldiers here have been on repeated combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have seen some of the worst fighting of both wars. But they are especially angered by Ingrams death. His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where Ingram was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystals new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied. These were abandoned houses, fumes Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks. Nobody was coming back to live in them.
One soldier shows me the list of new regulations the platoon was given. Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force, the laminated card reads. For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, thats like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he wont have to make arrests. Does that make any fking sense? Pfc. Jared Pautsch. We should just drop a fking bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/mcchrystals-real-offense-96873364.html#ixzz0rpXAhumH
Who wrote the ROE?