On this episode of Cigars and Sea Stories, Michael J. Penney and Bennett Tanton are sharing the trial that can be, living with rules of engagement.

Simply put, rules of engagement are intended to enable service members to act when a situation escalates. They typically follow a cast set of rules that apply to every situation with the ultimate caveat that situation dictates. By the way, that phrase, “situation dictates”. That phrase is golden in a combat zone. The situation dictates everything. So long as your intentions were pure rather than malicious, you should be all good. Guys get screwed when they are unsure of their actions. That’s when the investigations begin. Investigations to investigate people who don’t act according to the rules of engagement, yep that’s a thing. And the ones who intentionally act outside of the rules rarely, if ever, get caught. Nope, it’s usually some dumb private who thought, legitimately, that it was a good shoot and wound up killing a bunch of folks and getting locked up. Damn shame too.

Rules of engagement are always written with the best of intentions but they are more for commanders to cover their own ass’. When you have a professional military force playing by “big boy rules”, you don’t really need rules of engagement. They basically explain the scenario of what a good shoot is, so you can rehearse it for the courtroom.

Yet, another reason why it’s so important to have good Sergeants out in the field. The patrol leader that takes responsibility and trains their teams to ensure mission success, they don’t have to worry about rules of engagement. For those of us who’ve seen combat, there is only one rule for engaging, “be polite, be professional, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”

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