[varon]

Pressed on the decision by the marines not to intervene in Wednesday's mayhem, Colonel Michael Walker, a civil affairs commander for the marines, said: "Should we have sent in a tank so we could have gotten, with all due respect, four dead bodies back?
With all due respect Colonel, damn right you should have gotten the bodies back. Since when has our military stopped looking out after the dead and wounded?

"What good would that have done? A mob is a mob. We would have just provoked them. The smart play was to let this thing fade out."
What's the matter Colonel, afraid the mob would scratch your tank? If one tank was not enough then send in as many as needed and use the firepower, Colonel. The war is not over and your enemy does not wear a uniform.

[Travis McGee]

#46: How discouraging. I would have expected the USMC to fight like wildcats to get those bodies back asap. That really bums me out. I expected much more of the Marines. I hope a local commander made this terrible decision to let the mob rip their burnt broken bodies to shreds on world television. I hope this didn't come from the Whitehouse. I'm not and never would be, but if I was a Colonel or even a tank platoon commander, I would have gone straight in, and fired the place up to recover their bodies. If I was not reinforced, well, screw it all. I'd use every shell and bullet anyway.

Just damn.

[VMI70]

re: Colonel Michael Walker, a civil affairs commander...

Right you are.

My first assignment in Viet Nam was to the 2nd Civil Affairs Company. It did not take me very long to put in a request for transfer, because I quickly came to realize that military civil affairs organizations are full of people with Col. Walker's attitude.

When the battalion commander asked why I wanted to transfer, I simply told him that I could have joined the Peace Corps to do what I was doing. I thought it was a pretty nervy reponse from a 2nd lieutenant.

Anyway, I got my transfer to a real army unit.

[JimSEA]

"What good would that have done? A mob is a mob. We would have just provoked them. The smart play was to let this thing fade out."

If your dog craps on the kitchen floor, what do you do? Perhaps you wait two or three days and then kick it. If so, you have taught the dog it should bite you as soon as it sees you. The time to reason with the mob was when it was dragging the bodies through the streets. As many of the mob participants, regardless of age, should have been killed as is possible. Then learning would have taken place. Yes, the "civilized" world would have pissed and moaned but the folks in this town could have told you exactly what the consequences of their action were. Now, however, they are planning something bigger and better.