Marine A - Right or wrong?

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Fish said:
This statement though say's otherwise, it gives the impression to those not knowing the roles of RAF personnel who were mainly in administration or training/computer roles that they played just as much an equal role and did as many tours in hot spots than those in other regiments like Marine A, which in simple terms is, utter garbage!

Now if you were in the RAF Regiment now that would be different, but I know you weren't just by looking at you and the opinions you give, I've met some of them and they were proper soldiers, akin to the Para's & Marine's.

A cook could come on here and make the same unqualified statement and attempt to back it up by stating they've done 22 years, that's no different to you IMO.

I'm not belittling anyone, but don't start turning into Walter Mitty!
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Anytime anyone in any service handles a weapon they must handle that weapon under the Rules of Engagement whether that be in exercise or on guard or on Ops

The make up of the military and their roles within Ops has changed dramatically since 2001 and many many people across the forces have spent many months in the Ops area either in the FOBs or the MOBs including Admins and Cooks because everyone became a solider first and trade person second

I havent suggested anything about any time I did or didn't do on Ops nor any "Walter Mitty" type suggestions

And suggesting that RAF are mainly admin/computer roles is widely false
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Anytime anyone in any service handles a weapon they must handle that weapon under the Rules of Engagement whether that be in exercise or on guard or on Ops

The make up of the military and their roles within Ops has changed dramatically since 2001 and many many people across the forces have spent many months in the Ops area either in the FOBs or the MOBs including Admins and Cooks because everyone became a solider first and trade person second

I havent suggested anything about any time I did or didn't do on Ops nor any "Walter Mitty" type suggestions

And suggesting that RAF are mainly admin/computer roles is widely false
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So please justify Sgt Blackman being a coward, is that not worse than walter?
Or feel free to ignore the posts that are too dificult to answer
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Anytime anyone in any service handles a weapon they must handle that weapon under the Rules of Engagement whether that be in exercise or on guard or on Ops

The make up of the military and their roles within Ops has changed dramatically since 2001 and many many people across the forces have spent many months in the Ops area either in the FOBs or the MOBs including Admins and Cooks because everyone became a solider first and trade person second

I havent suggested anything about any time I did or didn't do on Ops nor any "Walter Mitty" type suggestions

And suggesting that RAF are mainly admin/computer roles is widely false
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So have you been in a live battle situation and fired a weapon in anger?
 
drive4show said:
So have you been in a live battle situation and fired a weapon in anger?
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Not right asking this question. Nothing to do with you or me what Phil or anyone did or didn't do during their service.
 
pauldj42 said:
So please justify Sgt Blackman being a coward, is that not worse than walter?
Or feel free to ignore the posts that are too dificult to answer
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Because he shot an unarmed man who was injured and lying on the ground - he then stated "shuffle off this mortal coil you @@@@ , it's nothing you wouldn't do to us

Shooting an unarmed man on the ground is a cowardly action
 
pauldj42 said:
Not right asking this question. Nothing to do with you or me what Phil or anyone did or didn't do during their service.
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Fair enough, let's just have opinions from people who read textbooks rather than those with actual experience.
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Because he shot an unarmed man who was injured and lying on the ground - he then stated "shuffle off this mortal coil you @@@@ , it's nothing you wouldn't do to us

Shooting an unarmed man on the ground is a cowardly action
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Or a brave decision that took guts and put bravado on to cover himself while he put him out of his misery,
Come on Phil, the bloke was targetted by an Apache, he was going to die a slow death.
 
One Planer said:
Just for clarification.

A highly trained, battle hardened, marine made a decision to neutrilase a combatant he deemed a threat on the battlefield under live fire.

I'm struggling to see the issue.

Could the combatant have a concealed weapon?

Could the combatant have been wearing a suicide vest?

We don't know and at the time I'm sure Marine A didn't either. IMO he did what he thought was best to neutralise a battlefield threat.
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That's not quite true though is it? I'm sure I've seen a video of this, and immediately afterwards he makes a comment about the others not saying anything, as he's just broken the Geneva Convention - if it was as you'd outlined above, would he have said that?

As for the right/wrong question, I'm not sure. Sat here in my nice warm house, it's easy to say he was wrong, but I've never been in his shoes, so it's too complex for me to make a decision - I'm glad I don't have to.
 
pauldj42 said:
Or a brave decision that took guts and put bravado on to cover himself while he put him out of his misery,
Come on Phil, the bloke was targetted by an Apache, he was going to die a slow death.
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So why did the three of them move him out of sight from the surveillance balloon so that they couldn't be seen what they were doing to him

His actions in that incident weren't anywhere near brave
 
We don't and won't know the full facts. If the grounded soldier was seen as a threat, then thats fair by me. If however he was at that moment totallyneutralised then what was done was wrong. Sadly I feel whichever outcome is made, there will be those who cry foul.

I fail to see why there has to be those "my dad is bigger than your dad" arguements between members here either. None of us know all about anothers life path, so slating another here is just poor form. They may have an opinion we disagree with, but thats a forum for you and also free speach.
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Anytime anyone in any service handles a weapon they must handle that weapon under the Rules of Engagement whether that be in exercise or on guard or on Ops

The make up of the military and their roles within Ops has changed dramatically since 2001 and many many people across the forces have spent many months in the Ops area either in the FOBs or the MOBs including Admins and Cooks because everyone became a solider first and trade person second

I havent suggested anything about any time I did or didn't do on Ops nor any "Walter Mitty" type suggestions

And suggesting that RAF are mainly admin/computer roles is widely false
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All of that is just waffle, everyone who joins is a soldier first, even in key trade positions, REME, RE, RCT, Signals, Catering plus many more specific trades within the forces because their basic training enforces this, and yes, cooks and admin have to do a minimum amount of ground operations to gain their medal when on tour also, that's not new, I took cooks and admin out in bricks in NI and on UN tours but they do the bare minimal and they would be taken somewhere less active as we wouldn't know how they may react in an IA situation after being in the kitchens or behind a desk or under a lorry or in a training class the majority of the time against the huge amount of ground op hours that real soldiers like Marine A have endured and would react instinctively, so to a liken them all as similar and that they'll all act the same because of the 'rules', is laughable, this tells me that you've done very little real frontline activity, and that's not belittling you as everyone plays their part and is important throughout the machine, I want my pay on time, I want feeding on time, I don't judge them any different as I rely on them after a tough gig out on the ground, but you cannot compare them to Marine A or try and justify that 99% of military follow the rules of engagement because that's just laughable and anyone that has done much more than token gesture or minimal time on ops to gain their medals when posted on tour but mainly staying in camp would know, understand and accept that!
 
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Liverpoolphil said:
So why did the three of them move him out of sight from the surveillance balloon so that they couldn't be seen what they were doing to him

His actions in that incident weren't anywhere near brave
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Or maybe they were moving him to a place of safety to carry out first aid, he told them to stop, maybe with his knowledge and experience he knew they were wasting their time and the words were spoken to help the young toms cope. What was his mental state at that moment? Things happen in war, it wasn't some poor unfortunate civilian caught in the wrong place it was a fully armed Taliban fighter intent on taking lives.
 
As has been said, everything is not black and white and textbook in life. It's one thing to sit in a classroom and be instructed from the Manual of Air Force/Army/Navy Law on what the rules say and how you must carry them out, it's something else for you to be in a scenario where you are in a nasty battle in some inhospitable dirt hole where maybe some of your mates have just been shot or blow to smithereens by an IED and the bullets are wanging around your ears. Just try to imagine what that would feel like, just imagine what your state of mind may be in the situation this Marine Sargent found himself, no one is able to say what they may do if faced with the same conditions. Quoting the terms of engagement is a rather benign manner or suggesting rules are rules and 'that's that' is taking the complete polar view to the suggestion that this Royal Marine did what he thought was right at the time. The reality is probably somewhere in between but I would err in the favor of Marine A.
 
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SocketRocket said:
As has been said, everything is not black and white and textbook in life. It's one thing to sit in a classroom and be instructed from the Manual of Air Force/Army/Navy Law on what the rules say and how you must carry them out, it's something else for you to be in a scenario where you are in a nasty battle in some inhospitable dirt hole where maybe some of your mates have just been shot or blow to smithereens by an IED and the bullets are wanging around your ears. Just try to imagine what that would feel like, just imagine what your state of mind may be in the situation this Marine Sargent found himself, no one is able to say what they may do if faced with the same conditions. Quoting the terms of engagement is a rather benign manner or suggesting rules are rules and 'that's that' is taking the complete polar view to the suggestion that this Royal Marine shot this terrorist in cold blood. The reality is somewhere in between.
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my good friend was a sniper for 10 years. this guy is a very gentle, shy, unaggressive and passive. when he come home from afghan he said that he just wanted to shoot everything that moved. he said he couldn't help himself.
after being engaged in gun fire every day he just wanted to kill as many as them as possible and cause havoc. this was soooooo out of character for this lad it's untrue.

so if he was driven to that then anything is possible imo
 
It is clear that unless you have seen a lot of frontline action, you have absolutely no idea what pressures these guys were under,
They had just survived an attack, tensions were obviously very high and very probably the red mist descended.

The Geneva convention is there to protect the soldiers and prisoners in equal measure, the fact that the Taliban have never heard of it is neither here or there, Sgt Blackman himself admitted that he had broken the GC, and for that he should pay a price

However the PTSD angle is very real, we were told about it at the H4H day, it is also a very big mitigating factor.

Im not a Judge, but I think Time served is sufficient
 
I played golf at H4H with Jimmy Hill who was shot 7 times whilst on duty in Afghanistan.i can't begin to imagine what it was like for him, and what must have gone through, and in his shoes who knows what I'd have done to the first Taliban I came across
 
Absolutely no military experience so hard to answer. On the one hand, unless PTSD can be categorically proved which will be difficult, it seems a very clear cut case and he broke the Geneva Convention and cold bloodedly murdered an enemy soldier. What I don't know, certainly from the article, is what else was going on. Was the soldier still capable of firing and was there a weapon nearby. A lot of questions and a very tough and emotive subject
 
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