I saw that, too. As I recall, troops in Afghanistan were not allowed to chamber a round until after they were shot at.
And there have been plenty of stories describing delays in air support, or even refusal of air support, when troops were out on a limb and caught in a firefight against larger numbers—because air support might result in the deaths of civilians.
In Korea, our pilots could not pursue a MiG across the Yalu River and into Manchuria. Likewise we could not attack the bridges across the Yalu by attacking following the bridge from North Korea towards Manchuria — Manchuria was forbidden so our planes had to attack following the river and the Chinese AAA batteries set up on the Manchurian side to shoot at our guys.
In Vietnam there were tons of ROE stupidities. Don't fire until fired on was but one. Don't fire on the “friendly village” even though all the enemy fire came from there.
At the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon (1983), Marines were forbidden to have rounds chambered or belts loaded in machine guns. The same thing happened at the USS COLE bombing in Yemen (2000).
Most of the stupid ROE are written by the State Department or Defense Department (or senior officers afraid for their careers).