{"id":37056,"date":"2013-08-12T09:40:28","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T13:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=37056"},"modified":"2013-08-12T09:40:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T13:40:28","slug":"will-lorance-verdict-have-a-chilling-effect-in-combat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=37056","title":{"rendered":"Will Lorance verdict have a “chilling” effect in combat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll admit that I didn’t pay too much attention to the trial of 1LT Clint Lorance who as a cherry 2LT with 5 days in command of a platoon ordered his men to shoot three Afghans on a motorcycle because it was one of those things that you had to be there to pass judgement on his decisions. I still don’t have an opinion whether he was guilty or not, that’s for the courts, the courts that apparently decided that he is guilty. The discussion in the Fayetteville Observer<\/a> yesterday was whether it will effect the troops in regards to their reaction time under similar circumstances. In regards to the circumstances in the Lorance case, the Observer reports;<\/p>\n

No weapons or equipment typically carried by insurgents were found on the bodies of the two men who were killed. The third man ran away.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old 82nd Airborne Division officer also was convicted of threatening to kill local villagers, ordering a soldier to shoot toward villagers to harass them, asking a soldier to file a false report saying that villagers shot at the outpost, and obstruction of justice for efforts to cover up the circumstances of the two deaths.<\/p>\n

Two members of his platoon testified that they had seen no reason for firing at the men but had done so because Lorance ordered it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m guessing the members of Lorance’s platoon had more than 5 days in the conflict and given the information in the article, it sounds like an anxious newbie Platoon Leader not listening to his NCOs, and you know that was probably the first time in history that ever happened (that was sarcasm, if you didn’t recognize it). One random soldier is quoted in the article;<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen guys not pull the trigger when they should have because they feared the repercussions to their career,” said the soldier, who declined to give his name.<\/p>\n

The soldier, who said he had been a forward observer during two deployments to Afghanistan, said some of those soldiers who hesitated were then shot themselves.<\/p>\n

“Everybody’s scared of repercussions, even if you know you’re right,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said the Lorance case will only increase that fear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the Lorance case was anything like it’s been described in the media, I don’t think it will have much effect on the troops, except anxious newbie 2LTs. According to members of the platoon, they didn’t see a need for any of the actions that the LT took, and I’d bank on their experience before cleaving to a decision of a 2LT. This is not to bash 2LTs…I’ve known some of the best 2LTs ever to serve in the Army, but you have to realize that some of them take their responsibility very seriously and would err on the side of caution, even they really don’t have to. But being in war isn’t like having a license to kill everyone. That’s why there’s a set of rules of engagement that the troops follow and it appears that Lorance disregarded his ROE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll admit that I didn’t pay too much attention to the trial of 1LT Clint Lorance … Will Lorance verdict have a “chilling” effect in combat?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}