3-D Warriors (Updated)

Random thought about the Marine-shooting-the-terrorist controversy: Does anyone remember one of the subplots of the WWII movie Saving Private Ryan?

I do. If you recall, the task force sent to find Private Ryan captures a surrendering German soldier. Most of the group want to shoot him, but the translator says “no” and begs Captain Miller to let the German go, which he does. Later on, the same German soldier ends up rejoining the Wehrmacht and killing Captain Miller. (The translator kills the German this time, though he is, again, surrendering.)

Was this a depiction of a war crime? Probably. However, I remember everyone in the theater shouting, “Hell, yeah!” or thereabouts.

What’s changed? Here's what: it’s okay for folks to live vicariously through celluloid warriors, but when real ones make tough decisions—not totally out of revenge, as in the movie, but for practical and situational purposes—it’s a little too tough for the squeamish to take. By the way, if you *are* squeamish, you might not want to know what the real-life military man went through to get him to the point in which he found himself on that fateful day in the Fallujah “mosque.”

Note to MSM: the marine did not shoot a prisoner!

UPDATE: Holy Moly! A Corner- and an Instalanche! Welcome, but know that there is some dispute as to how the pertinent scenes in Saving Private Ryan occurred. After some personal fact-checking, there will be an update to the original post, one way or the other.

Additionally, according to some interpretations of the Geneva Convention, the "insurgents" in the room *were* prisoners because they were presumably unarmed. I think, however, that an injured enemy who has shown a willingness to blow himself up and take his foes with him does not fall into the unarmed category. This, of course, is where the real and the practical overrule the technical.

Comments

[TheAnchoress]

Baldi, that's a great post, and I sent it around to almost everyone I know. I hope it gets wide dissemination. Good job, I'd forgotten all about that scene in SPR. And yes, it would be good if the press would TRY to get their facts straight, but we know they won't. They're in the Vietnam playbook now.

[Ben]

Its bad enough that we have Islamic Nazis to deal with. We also have the MSM which has decided to side with those who do not even pretend to believe in free speech.

Look, if you are faking being dead, you are not surrendering. If you ain't surrendering, you are resisting. And if you resist, you get shot. It is really that simple. Give the Marine a medal and put him back on the line.

[Serenity]

I just don't have the energy to try to get it through these idiots heads...the idiots who are NOT out on the battlefield being shot at every fricken day...the idiots who seem to think that the "enemy" wears a sign around their neck, "Good Morning American Soldier, I am the enemy"...the idiots who have not spent a single day in the military at all...that their little arm chair general stunts are tired and boring and so uneducated.

Thankfully there are bloggers like you who also have military experience to hopefully help them open their eyes.

Keep going J...you are needed out here.

[Walter Wallis]

I told my grandson, a mud Marine in Fallujah, to trust his training, use his judgement and blip the reporters.

[salomeh]

Great Post! I voted for President Bush because he wants terrorists dead as fast and as completely as I do. This Marine should never have even been taken off the line, except for a congratulatory rest. As Ben said, if you're not surrendering, you should be dead. Someone have a link to contact the DOD, Rumsfeld, etc? Kill faster. Total war. Go Marines!

[Bucky Katt]

The particularly offensive part is that the MSM and human rights groups cry and moan about what happened to this terrorist, yet I have not seen a peep out of them about what happened to Mrs. Hassan! What the hell is wrong with these people!

BTW- LGF had a post on Mr. Sites, the guy who photographed the incident.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13621_Kevin_Sites-_Question_the_Dominant_Powers#comments

I'm sure Ernie Pyle is spinning in his grave about now.

[Laura M. Hagan]

Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for pointing out that the lying-doggo-playing-possum-pretending-to-be-out-of-commission Iraqi had not been taken prisoner! If he had, he'd have been searched and restrained, and under those circumstances killing him would have been inappropriate. But as it was? He was an unlawful enemy combatant refusing to surrender and completely fair game under the laws of war.

[CitadelGrad]

Good post, but it needs one correction. The German soldier who killed CPT Miller and the original surrendering soldier were not the same, though they bear a striking resemblance. Many viewers of SPR made the same mistake, prompting Spielberg to admit in an interview that he probably made a mistake in casting the two actors who so closely resembled each other. Just a bit of SPR trivia for you.

[baldilocks]

CitadelGrad: Sorry, but I don't believe that. If it were so, why does the German character call the translator by name before the translator shoots him?

[Velociman]

I believe Baldi is correct, here. "Steamboat Willie" shot the medic, later stabbed the GI in the chest (the most hoorible scene in the film to me: ssshhhh...), then later killed Captain Miller. Then was dispatched to Valhalla.

[Velociman]

And no, I can't spell. Lysdexia, you know.

[JSAllison]

I've only seen the last 10 minutes or so of SPR, including the stabbing seen, as well as about 2 minutes of the normandy invasion when the german trenches were being rolled up and shooting bunker crewman as they come out...Based on these two snippets I don't think I'll ever see the whole thing...it was disturbing. Usually don't have any problem with shootemups. Did walk out of Maximum Overdrive after the first 10 minutes though that was the only flick I've done that at.

[JAMBO]

Just know that we love you all, and every American I know at home here fully supports the Marine. (and also wants all of the embedded journalists out -simply to remove as many aggravants from the soldiers as possible, they are doing an impossible enough of a task for us).
The only reason there's any flap is because as usual a couple hundred idiots make it look like they represent millions of people, which they don't.

As far at we're concerned. If the guy was fighting from a mosque, he's already violated the rules of warfare and he's owed no deference or risk taking from our kids.

It stuns me why even the Iraqi's cry for these Sunni Baathists who have never done anything their whole lives except kill fellow Iraqi's -when Saddam was in power and now too. They should be reminding themselves that if he got out, he'd just run out and car bomb a bunch of Iraqi kids and women.

[CitadelGrad]

I've got your answer baldi. The prisoner that Upham (the translator) shot was the same guy who killed Melisch by slowly pushing a knife into his heart. The German heard Melisch calling Upham's name while they were fighting mano a mano. The German walked past a cowering Upham on the stairway just after he finished Melisch.

[cube]

The very fact that the Iraqi was inside the mosque from which shooting had erupted not once but twice, makes him eligible for a clean shoot.

It doesn't get any more clear than that.

cube
http://cube47.blogspot.com/

[baldilocks]

CitadelGrad: Fair enough. SPR is in the VCR right now, so if I see that, I'll post a correction.

[Confederate Yankee]

I covered the incident, and think Kevin Sites got the shaft as presented by the guys at LGF in the link above. A lot of Marine Mom's really like the guy Sites, and respect him.

We forget that NBC and the broadcast media in the States spun this; Sites provided the video, but first brought it to the Marines, and made sure to mention the guy had been wounded the day before to explain teh situation, and that a similar set of circumstances resulted in dead and wounded Marines when a booby-trapped body went off the day before.

Sites isn't a saint (he is indeed a liberal) but he isn't a villain either.

As long as we're talking movie references, this is close to Jennifer Grey's "Toni" in RED DAWN than it was anything in S.P.R. For those of you who don't remembe, "Toni" got hit, and as the enemy closed in, she pulled a pin and hid it under her body to take them with her.

[Sigivald]

Well, the ancient traditions of war state that someone who receives parole (which is what the surrendering German got, more or less) and returns to the war is subject to summary execution.

So, I woudln't call the SPR example a war crime at all. (Nor am I, on what limited evidence I have, willing to call the Fallujah incident one.)

[Dean B]

I particularly agree with the comment: surrender or die.

We can't start questioning how our soldiers react in combat to suspicious actions by illegal combatants... THIS IS WAR!

Proof is that moments later another one of the wounded illegal combantants surrendered, and the Marine shooter did NOT kill him.

I support our guys completely. Let them do their job.

'nuf said.

[llbillman]

Baldi, please keep posting. My dad,Marine-Iwo Jima & Guadacanal, always told us that the Marines were trained to "in an instant, react to any threating action against themselves or their fellow Marines WITH FORCE". This statement has protected my life at least once in a critical situation and is continuing to save to lives of countless others in combat!Semper Fi!!

[Joe]

A combatant, whether wounded or not, who fakes death is attempting to avoid capture or, in the extremes employed by this enemy, lure our personnel into a killing zone. He thus remains an active combatant. The responsible action under these circumstances is to ensure his own and his squadmates safety by eliminating the combatant threat.
Evidence? The Marine's statement that the "body" was actually alive--faking death. The fact that other wounded in the area--obviously wounded and not presenting threat--were left alone.

[James Stephenson]

The Scene that always gets me in SPR is when the Medic gets it.

He turns white and cold, and Giavanni does it so well that I always choke. Is it wimpy for this man to say that.

[Ed Hureau]

One of the reasons why we had to go back into Fallujah in the first place is because we didn't kill enough bad guys in the initial invasion, which in retrospect was fought with "kid gloves." We let the Republican Guards and Fedayeen Sadaam off the hook instead of destroying them, probably to mollify squeamish types on the left(including the MSM). Let the Marines do their job.

[Ed Hureau]

One of the reasons why we had to go back into Fallujah in the first place is because we didn't kill enough bad guys in the initial invasion, which in retrospect was fought with "kid gloves." We let the Republican Guards and Fedayeen Sadaam off the hook instead of destroying them, probably to mollify squeamish types on the left(including the MSM). Let the Marines do their job.

[Dave]

My best friend's son is in Iraq now. Before he left,we told him that it's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

The notorious SAVING PRIVATE RYAN priosoner probelm was something we used to talk over at Building 4 (US Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, to the uninitiated). Do you shoot the prisoner? Let him go? Tie him up? The popular solution was to tell the sergeant to, "Take care of it."

[Ted Pohrte]

The Geneva convention, while specific in how
you treat a "prisoner of war" is also specific
on what constitutes a prisoner of war. One of
the requirements is that the person in question is wearing the uniform of his country's military. The terrorists are not
part of any country's army nor do they wear
a uniform - they are dressed as and try to seem part of the civilian population. Under
the Geneva convention, therefore, they have no rights to any of the treatment the convention provides.

[section9]

One thing that should be pointed out. "Steamboat Willie" was an SS enlisted man. He was not in the Wehrmacht (or, more specifically, the Heer, or Army, a division of the Wehrmacht).

Normandy was a hideous battle. Between 6 June and 1 July, 1944, the U.S. alone lost 11 thousand men KIA.

That's 11 with three zeroes.

Most of the German Regular Army and Luftwaffe paratroopers fought by the book. The SS, on the other hand, especially the 12th SS Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend developed reputations for savagery that had been refined on the Eastern Front. The unwritten rule among American infantrymen was not to worry about SS prisoners-there wouldn't be any taken. However, it was understood by Gentlemens' agreement between Rommel, head of Army Group "B" and Montgomery, who commanded 21st Army Group, that as far as regular forces were concerned, Geneva would be observed.

Of course, today's jihadi don't even have the discipline of the SS, so there you have it.

[baldilocks]

Ted: Noted and thanks.

section 9: As this WWII incident demonstrates, uniforms can be and were changed.

Two major special operations were planned for the offensive; by October it was decided that Otto Skorzeny, the German commando who had rescued Benito Mussolini, was to lead a task force of English-speaking German soldiers in Operation Greif. These soldiers were to be dressed in American and British uniforms and wear dog-tags taken from corpses and POWs. Their job was to go behind American lines and change sign-posts, misdirect traffic, generally cause disruption and to seize bridges across the Meuse River between Liège and Namur. By late November another ambitious special operation was added, Colonel Friedrich August von der Heydte was to lead a Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) Kampfgruppe in Operation Stösser a nighttime paratroop droop behind the Allied lines aimed at capturing a vital road junction near Malmedy.

Re SPR: Perhaps the two looked *so much* alike that the casting director confused them and sent the wrong guy out to kill Miller. After seeing the movie again, however, I doubt it (see most recent SPR post).

CG: I don't know but I think that Mr. Speilberg needs to check out his own movie again.

[KarenT]

Your description of the influence of MOVIE IMAGES on people's reactions to killing in war tells us something important. We HEAR Kevin Sites' statement that a Marine was killed the day before by someone playing possum, but we SEE his video of the Marine shooting, and the Arab world sees it looped over and over again.

Via Instapundit: Why don't we SEE the Fallujah hostage slaughterhouses looped on TV, or even shown once with when a story is released? http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2004_11_14.html#003759

Does the Media undermine the war effort by TELLING us about enemy actions but SHOWING actions by our side? http://gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/index.php?p=469

[Ted Pohrte]

You are welcome, but you did not go far enough. When we caught some of those men,
despite that fact that both the US and Germany
were at war and both were signatories of the
Geneva Convention, we put them "up against
the wall and shot them on the spot". In their
own uniforms, this would have violated the Convention, in "Allied" uniforms, they gave
up their Convention protections.

[VRWC]

Plenty of people have been killed in war after being wounded or while attempting to surrender, particularly if there have been rumours of misconduct by the other side or if the victor is emotionally excited. Surrender in battle is extremely risky. No-one got excited about it before; no-one would be excited about it now but for the political background.

[Tully]

Enemy combatant NOT in uniform, NOT under restraint, hands NOT in plain sight, in a building from which fire HAS been received, equals NOT a prisoner or POW under the GC or any other rational standard. Still an enemy combatant until dead or taken prisoner. A wounded soldier does not automatically become a non-combatant.

The intent of the Marine and his squad are readily ascertained by the fact that another enemy combatant in the same room WITH his hands in plain sight offering his surrender was taken prisoner, not killed.

[Bruce]

"Well, the ancient traditions of war state that someone who receives parole (which is what the surrendering German got, more or less) and returns to the war is subject to summary execution."

Absolutely correct.

[dick]

Confederate Yankee,

Kevin Sites may be a good guy but he really screwed this one up. He works for NBC and NBC owns the tape. NBC is supposed to provide it to the pool. Al Jazeera has been kicked out of the pool. Sites or a rep of Sites furnished the tape to Al Jazeera and they are making huge propaganda of it at the expense of our Marines. That is the problem I have with Sites.

I think Sites, if he had a problem with the actions of the Marine, should have given a copy of the tape to the Marine leadership and waited for them to take action. If they did not take action, then turn it over to the pool. He did not do that. He not only turned it over to the pool before finding out if the leadership would take action, which would have given a fair balance to the story, but it was also turned over to the enemy media, which resulted in possibly costing more lives and extending the fighting. That is a real f*ckup and is not the action of a good reporter.

Sites should be taken out of the pool and banished until the case is decided and then his actions should be judged. In my opinion he deserves a penalty for what he did.

[Mike H.]

Mission first, then worry about the details.

Dave, I was given the same question and was told that I would be arrested if the prisoner were shot. I told them that they would arrest me after the mission was accomplished. (Staff NCO academy, Quantico, Va.)

[CJ]

To baldilocks and the poster "dick":

Didn't Sites's video go through a military censor? The BBC is always whining about how all their footage from Iraq has been subject to military censorship. Maybe that's where the ball was dropped on this one.

[MB]

In the unedited version of the Kevin Sites film (lgf link to Reuters TV), the other wounded terrorist clearly understands what he needs to do in order to avoid being shot. He lifts the coverings off his body to show that he is not hiding a weapon or booby trap on or near his body, and he raises his hands in the air.

One man pretended to be dead and did not put his hands in the air and he was shot. The other man put his hands in the air and demonstrated that he was unarmed and he lived.

When you see all of the events in context, it changes one's perception of what happened. Under the pressure of having to make a split-second decision, maybe the marine made a misjudgment, or maybe he didn't -- I can't say. But I do know for certain that this is nowhere near a war crime.

The wounded terrorist could have saved his life if he had chosen to put his hands in the air. It's obvious that he would not have been shot because the other terrorist was not shot.

Why did Kevin Sites edit the film in a way that takes the shooting out of context? It would have been a different story had he edited it differently. In my opinion, he should be taken out of the pool. He should not be covering this war. He is either hostile to the U.S. and the military or he is selfishly ambitious and wanted to get a "newsbreaking" story out onto the airways -- regardless of the harm it might do the marine or to the country.

[Larry]

Michael Ledeen over at NRO makes the point that if the British infantryman who had a chance to kill Hitler in the trenches during WW-I had done so, millions of lives would have been saved.

Put aside for the moment the other points raised here about whether this Iraqi should have been considered a combatant or not; assume he was injured and posed no threat (as was the case with Hitler in the trench). Does this historical event involving Hitler justify the shooting in Fallujah (as Ledeen says)?

[Bucky Katt]

Confederate Yankee-

While you may think Sites is a "good guy", I certainly question his motives. If Sites truly thought that a war crime had been committed, why didn't he turn his evidence over to the JAG? The military has it's methods of administering justice, but evidently Mr. Sites decided to be judge, jury and executioner in this case. It just goes to show what a conceited p*&^k Sites is.

It's pretty clear, Sites knew what he had and he went out of his way to get his MSM ticket punched and collect those $'s that go along with it.