"mac davis" wrote in message

Rob.. In my experience, that's a squad or platoon level decision...
The brass in the choppers make decisions based on the "big picture"
and the pressure on them from higher up brass...
The guys on the ground that are taking fire are the ones that have to
decide whether they're going to disobey the order from "above" to
avoid needless loss of their people..

You don't have to "disobey" orders in most cases, just be smart about it.

I was one of many NCO's that were busted for not letting my people do
stupid things that were ordered by people that were too new "in
country" to understand what was going on where the rubber meets the
road...

Good on you ... those with courage and sense did the same thing to protect
their men when the "rubber met the road". My hat's off to you.

As to your question about men going blindly forward when ordered,
that's why they drafted teenagers... they still think that they're
immortal..

Try getting a large group of middle age guys to charge that gun, and
you'll have a discussion like this one first.. lol

Those "middle aged guys" are at staff level and you don't often see them in
the thick of things, in any war. In yours and my war, they were famous for
flying around in the relative safety of a helicopter at 1500 feet, trying to
get time in for an Air Medal while playing general.

It was always easy to ignore them and do what you need to do to both
accomplish the mission and protect your own men ... funny how those
Prick25's suddenly wouldn't work for air to ground communications on
occasion, aint it?

As they say, the idea is not to die for your country/cause, but to make the
enemy die for his ... as you obviously know firsthand, you learn this real
early if you're smart, and you die if you don't.

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Last update: 11/06/04