Amos defies Sherman, refines war

Sherman understood war.  Amos? Not so much.

 

When I saw the Washington Times headline “Top Marine Gen. Amos is accused of interfering in sex assault, desecration cases,” I was certain that Amos tried to bring a bit of sanity to the case of the Marines peeing on the dead Taliban bodies by handling the case at unit Non-Judicial Punishment.  Boy was I ever disappointed.

 

Amos went in exactly the opposite direction.  Another general – LtGen Waldhauser - has indicated that General Amos ordered him to “crush” the defendants by “making sure some of them were court-martialed.”

 

Amos is the first aviator Commandant of the Marine Corps and has been pretty much a disaster for our beloved Corps.  As you might recall Amos demonstrated how fungible his principles were when he came out opposing the repeal of Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals serving in the military.  When our current president signed the repeal of Bill Clinton’s masterpiece, angels apparently appeared to Amos in a dream and he abruptly countermarched in lockstep with the president.  It was “a non-event”, Amos claimed.  What was a “non-event”, the repeal of DADT or your rather miraculous conversion on the issue?

 

A real Marine Corps general by the name of LeJeune once described the relation between enlisted men and their officers as that of a father and his son.  Question for wannbe Gen. Amos.  What father wants to see his son “crushed?”

 

No doubt the young Marines involved in the incident made a mistake and need some form of punishment, but for the Commandant of the Marine Corps to inject himself into this case in such a boneheaded way, is disgraceful.  Which is more embarrassing for the Corps some young men peeing on dead enemy bodies in the heat of battle or a four star general ILLEGALLY injecting himself into the case from the air conditioned comfort of the “green zone?”

 

Dare I say, Amos is proof positive that aviators as a rule of thumb should never be placed in charge of an infantry organization.  Today’s aviators see the battlefield from 25,000 feet.  They have no idea of what it is like having everyone on the battlefield shooting at them.  And when I say “everyone,” I mean everyone.  Friendly fire from other units, artillery, naval gunfire, aviation will kill you as dead as anything the enemy shoots at you.  The infantryman lives with the threat 24-7.

 

I’ve seen three or four of these Marines huddled passing their last cigarette among their buddies.  I once watched a fire team leader carefully divide a small piece of pound cake into four equal pieces while his team looked on with eager anticipation of their share.

 

I don’t think Amos has a clue what these Marines go through or their absolute devotion to each other.  If he did, the last thing he’d ever want to do to one of them is “crush” them for a bad decision made in the heat of battle - a decision that harmed no one who wasn’t already dead.

 

And consider this.  The Marines were not peeing on the bodies just to be disrespectful.  One Marine said they peed on the bodies as form psychological warfare as Muslims believe an unclean body could not enter heaven.  So right or wrong, the Marines thought they were waging psychological warfare on the enemy.

 

Now contrast that with real war crimes.  During the Philippine insurrection, there was a tit for tat in body desecration between US forces and Philippine rebels that would make a coroner cringe.  Stories of Viet Cong desecration of US bodies are legion – but apparently only after studying Thomas Jefferson. WWII saw horrible things done on both sides, particularly in the Pacific.

 

None of this is news to anyone – except perhaps Amos.  It is not meant as a justification for what the Marines did.  It is simply a reminder of Gen Sherman’s thought that “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.”

 

Amos is either trying to refine war or look like the toughest guy in the fight from the comfort of his paneled office in the E Ring of the Pentagon.  Either way, he should probably resign and make room for an infantryman who understands what it is like to “close with and destroy the enemy” up close and personal and all that accompanies that life-threatening activity.