Command philosophy spiral

For many of you who may not have been playing close attention there is a bit of a media frenzy here on FT Lewis, now named Joint Base Lewis-McChord (office protocal, if someone says JBLM you must respond with JAABLAAAM!). The reason for this media presence is the current trial for several soldiers from 2nd SBCT, 2nd ID (they were 5-2 SBCT in Afghanistan and reflagged upon return) who allegedly murdered innocent civilians and took human body parts as war trophies while deployed.

I haven't followed the story very much because when the situation came to light my brigade was getting ready to redeploy back to JBLM and had other things on my mind, primarily my own fight in Iraq. I figured it was a case of poor leadership and a lack of discipline in the unit, much like what happened with soldiers from the 101st Airborne in the southern Baghdad belt in 2006.

There's also a certain amount of rivalry amongst the Stryker brigades, especially the brigades on FT Lewis. When people learned what had happened and that it was 5-2 the common response was an eye roll and "well that figures". 3-2 was the first Stryker brigade and is often seen as the model for how an SBCT should operate, deserved or not. 4-2 is typically just laughed at since their missions in Iraq are either to take over for areas 3-2 already pacified or areas that have little to no insurgent activity. 5-2 is rumored to have done so miserably at their mission rehearsal exercise that the Army actually thought about not sending them to Iraq...but that was just rumor.

The reason I bring this all up is this article in Wired.com that asks an interesting question. Apparently the brigade commander, COL Harry D. Tunnell IV, did no believe in counterinsurgency and felt his mission was to hunt down and destroy insurgents. That kind of thinking was what got the Army in trouble in Iraq from 2003-2006. Yes, destroying insurgents is good, but you can only do it by practicing good COIN procedures otherwise you just end up creating more insurgents.

Was COL Tunnell actively traveling the area of operations telling his soldiers to kill people and take trophies? No, at least I hope not. But command philosophy and attitude can and will trickle down to the lowest levels and affect the philosphies and attitudes of soldiers. COL Tunnell's aggressive views likely led to the actions of this "kill team."

Counterinsurgency is violent. However, units and commanders should do everything possible to keep violence to a minimum. Encouraging violence can quickly spiral into incidents such as killing innocent civilians.