Sun military reporter David Wood blogs from Afghanistan, where he is embedded with a Marine unit

Thank You Longislandgirl for posting a portion of this post on your blog.

Rules of Engagement

When the Alpha Company’s position here in Garmsir came under RPG (rocket propelled grenade) and small arms fire, the effect was like thwacking a beehive with a baseball bat. Angry Marines boiled up in a swarm, weapons up, ready for revenge.

I mean, one Marine wondered, who’d be dumb enough to fire at a bunch of Marines … and MISS???

The attackers appeared to be two young men on a motor bike. A couple of Marines who’d been on watch, on the roof of a mud-walled farmer’s compound, had seen them a quarter mile away, riding back and forth, eyeing the Marines. One Marine said he thought one had something on his back that looked like an RPG but he couldn’t be sure.

Over the next few hours, the two men were seen several more times, but at no time could the Marines be certain these two men were the attackers.

The incident could be emblematic of this kind of war. There is likely to be very little of the video-game business of emptying an M-4 magazine into a bunch of sneering, evil terrorists. There is likely to be much of what Alpha and  Bravo Companies of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines are doing: patiently working through this Taliban stronghold, weeding out bad guys, making contract with neutral locals, ready to kill but being judicious about it.

There are two good reasons for this approach. One is that even under provocative attack, Marines are bound by the Rules of Engagement. The ROE differ by region, command and mission, but they all spring from the international laws of war. The ROE say when you can and when you cannot use deadly force.

The other reason is that the counterinsurgency campaign depends on winning the cooperation of local Afghans. Indiscriminate fire, the mistaken killing of civilians, set back this goal significantly.

So it was that Alpha did not return fire and the two young men – probably insurgents – got away.

And so it was that the only person picked up by a Marine medevac helicopter so far this week was a young Afghan boy of 10 or 11, who came into Bravo Company’s lines with a shrapnel wound in his neck. 

A relative said the boy was hit by an insurgents’ rocket. The story could not be confirmed, but the boy needed surgery, and he was flown to a medical surgical hospital at Camp Bastion. At last report he was recovering well.

That’s part of this war, too. Read the rest of this post plus others here.

David Wood (photo below) is the author of this great blog.

David Wood, national security correspondent for The Sun, has reported on war and conflict from around the world since 1977. He recently won the Headliner Award for his Iraq coverage.

In this space he reports on the military and its operations with a skeptical eye, noting what he finds interesting, illuminating or outrageous, tracking events and trends and seeking out sources and resources that can put it all in context.

He's currently on assignment, embedded with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit that is conducting operations in southern Afghanistan.