Fight to win or get out

This March 9, 2007, family photo provided by retired Marine 1st Sgt. John Bernard, right, shows him with his wife Sharon, left, and late son, Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, at Joshua's graduation from Marine boot camp, Parris Island, S.C. (Photo courtesy of John Bernard via The Associated Press)

Families outraged over engagement restrictions

By Dan Lamothe - Marine Corps Times Staff Writer
Posted : Monday Nov 2, 2009 9:38:12 EST

Enough is enough. Retired 1st Sgt. John Bernard has had it with the war in Afghanistan.

Enough of "shameful" and "suicidal" rules of engagement that leave U.S. troops vulnerable to ambushes. Enough of worrying more about harming Afghan civilians than American forces. Enough of politics.

Bernard was a scout sniper and platoon sergeant during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, so he's familiar with the warrior's creed. But as the father of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, he has reached his limit.

The younger Bernard was killed Aug. 14 by a rocket-propelled grenade, an attack that became a national story after The Associated Press distributed a photograph of Bernard’s son's last living moments in Dahaneh, Afghanistan. The father wrote his representatives in Congress several times during the weeks leading up to Joshua's death, each time expressing apprehension about the more-restrictive guidelines put in place by the new commander of U.S. forces there, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

It wasn't until he was thrust into the spotlight by the AP photo and the controversy that surrounded it that anyone paid him any mind.

After that, things changed.

Bernard, of New Portland, Maine, was mentioned by name Sept. 15 during the Senate confirmation hearing of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told Mullen that she had received a letter from Bernard before his son's death that "expressed serious concerns about the rules of engagement" in Afghanistan. Those rules were altered in July by McChrystal in response to mounting civilian casualties.

The new guidelines call on U.S. forces to limit the use of heavy fire power — close-air support and long-range artillery — when ordinary Afghans may be at risk. A week before Mullen's hearing, three Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed in an ambush after commanders allegedly refused their requests for fire support for fear it would kill women and children.

"I'm going to send you the letter so that you can read it," Collins told Mullen, according to a congressional transcript. "I promised Mr. Bernard at [his] son's funeral that I would do so. And I hope you and General McChrystal will look seriously at the concerns he raises ... about the rules of engagement."

It wasn't much, but it was a start, Bernard says now.

A fiery, blunt speaker, Bernard is just one among a growing group of vocal family members whose children were killed in fighting overseas. They support the cause and the troops still in harm's way, these family members say, but they also believe U.S. forces are handcuffed by rules and tactics and vulnerable as a result, leaving them with little help when such ambushes occur. Some also question whether the U.S. should have launched a counter-insurgency strategy so quickly, rather than employing search-and-destroy missions that proved successful in Afghanistan during the early part of the decade.

"The rules of engagement are so convoluted, so open-ended, that it puts the people on the ground at risk no matter what they do," said Bernard, who retired from the Corps in 2003. "It's insane. You don't let your guys languish there when these things happen. You err on the side of your guys, not the civilians."

These are not anti-war families. They want the military to succeed in Afghanistan. They're deeply proud of their fallen sons' sacrifices.

The Ganjgal ambush

Army, Marine and Afghan National Army troops experienced the effect of McChrystal's tighter rules directly Sept. 8, when their small outpost in Ganjgal, in Kunar province near the Pakistan border, was blindsided by insurgents.

Three Marines and a corpsman died that day, and a soldier, 41-year-old Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook, who was shot through the mouth and neck, died Oct. 7 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. An embedded reporter with McClatchy News Service, Jonathan Landay, reported that "U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village."

(To continue reading this article, please go to the link immediately below:)

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/11/marines_fire_support_110209w/

20,000 leagues under the sea; well, almost

"Let's toss a bumper down our throat
Before we pass to heaven,
And toast: 'The trim-set petticoat
We leave behind in Devon'."

Harry "Breaker" Morant
Some lines from his final poem

Diving was a single chapter for me

My voyage across the sea of blogs drifted over a diver the other day, which is to say, a "scuba diver," as in the underwater type. To make things more interesting, this diver was British but underwater in the Red Sea. Such an experience must have been a real treat for an aficionado of the "silent world."

I'm not certain how many people don scuba gear during their lifetime, but certainly it must be an ever-increasing number. I bought my first tank, used, and a minimum number of accessories, while still in high school. Working around rules comes easy for a teenager (at least, it did for me), so I did not take formal training until college. There, a physical education class provided me with the path to eventual certification. One-half the instruction was in a classroom, the rest in a pool. One dive was in a sort of muddy lake. I already was well practiced in muddy lakes, but never had worn a tank in a pool.

My experience expanded with a three-week class provided by the U.S. Navy. The Navy frequently feeds Marines and hauls them around, always doctors them and, sometimes, teaches them useful skills. That instruction included classroom, pool and the most-amazing Pacific Ocean. I could tell you a couple of stories, but ....

I never really got back into diving when civilian life rolled around until a friend of mine said he would like to try it. I broke out my old high school gear and bought my first wet suit. We both lived on Lake Superior at the time. (Well, not on, rather, next to.) Within a matter of a few weeks after his introduction to the underwater world, he was buying the gear and had signed up for instruction.

We did do a few fascinating dives, including some on shipwrecks off Isle Royale. My ears never did like depths much below 20 or 25 feet, and during this time I also starting having inner ear problems. Consequently, other than infrequent warm-water snorkeling and occasionally dumping a canoe, my under-the-water time pretty much ended.

I really did not miss the underwater experience after I left it. Like "they" say, I'm glad I tried it, but it was meant to be a single chapter in my life, not an entire book. To be honest, other than exploring old wrecks, I found diving in inland lakes sort of boring after a while, and I never seemed to be at the right place at the right time to try anything else.

My friend, who learned how to dive with my gear, continues to be an enthusiast. When he married, he convinced his wife to join him, and they have made a Caribbean trip to explore the underwater world there. He also joined a dive club, bought a dry suit and partakes in a few excursions below the ice of Lake Superior every winter. Diving, for him, became more than a single chapter.

Music Note: Listening to Boston ....
Specifically, "Don’t Look Back" ....
(My all-time favorite band)