Quote:
Originally Posted by cmac2012
Back to Mogadishu, I always wondered about the guy who missed the rope while swinging out of the chopper. I assume Bowden's account was correct about his falling and how his injury sorta began the snowball of events to some degree.
That would be hard to live with, I'm guessing. I beat myself up over far more minor mistakes.
(can you believe I haven't seen the movie yet? I've wanted to for years, I'll have to get it at the library)  |
Soldiering is a brutal line of work. A mistake by a noncom in action can mean death to scores of people. A mistake by a general officer can mean hundreds or thousands dead. A mistake by a civilian leader can be far, far worse. But so can failure to act result in even more death, destruction, loss and misery. The American military trains it's people to take risk and responsibility at the lowest level of decision. This results in a very dynamic, responsive force. It can also result in awful mistakes. Placing decision-making power into the hands of 20-somethings is a huge risk, especially given the available ordnance. It's a tough balance.
Compare the American military's philosophy with a top-down military, say the USSR. There is no question that the USSR destroyed the German army in WWII (the Wermacht at that time was also strictly top-down). The Soviet army was victorious but at a staggering cost of life and limb. The WWII Wermacht was probably the finest army of it's kind ever to be seen on the planet. In comparison, the allied forces were quite stingy in their attitudes toward soldier's lives and living conditions. The Germans (and Soviets and Imperial Japanese) command interpreted that as weakness and even cowardice in the face of war. And so does Bin Laden.
B