Black, White, Shades of Gray

Original Post Date:
Monday, July 23, 2007

Today started out rough. The two airman on my patrol started arguing over really nothing. The bad part is it happened in front of night shift. I have a opinion you should never air out your dirty laundry in front of the other shift. I calmed the situation down and basically gave them an order to shut the fuck up. Stuff like this happens during an end of a deployment. People get anxious about getting home and take out their frustrations on fellow airman.

Later in the day we found five Iraqis cooling off by a waterhole . They were without their escort, who was down the road. They were part of the people that clean the roads of debris. I have actually noticed this crew. They do very good work and always been respectful during my encounters with them. I allowed one of my airman to decide if we should prosecute the escort violation. I thought this would help teach them officer discretion and that not all violations are black and white. You don't always have to hammer people and sometimes giving people a break will help you become a well rounded Security Force member. They did exactly what I would have done. We gave the escort a warning. I personally think this better serves the IZ and Iraq, by not getting them in trouble. I have noticed for five months this street sweeper crew is probably the hardest working and it wouldn't help anyone to get people fired for one violation.

The very end of the day we had a rocket attack. I was at US embassy and the impact sounded like it was right outside. My patrol rush out, got into our truck and starting sweeping the area. A couple patrols were already at the impact sight, so we sweep the surrounding area to look for others. One of the airman was driving and the other helped interpreting for the Triple Canopy guards. It was nice to see that even with the anxiety of wanted to leave and being at each other throats, they got past that and did their job with professionalism. They acted like seasoned members of Security Forces.