Tuesday, March 30, 2004
A Sensk of Responskibility
Miami's own Charlie Company, 1-124th Infantry is being featured on 60 Minutes II for the second time, on Wednesday night, 8 pm Eastern, on CBS.
This time, the topic is SSG Camilo Mejia and his desertion from the battlefield in Iraq, and his bid to become a consciencious objector.
Highlights:
Mejia: "I have not deserted the military," says Mejia. "I have not been disloyal to the men and women of the military. I have not been disloyal to a country. I have only been loyal to my principles and I think that gives me the right to decide not to be a part of something that I consider criminal. I realize I have a duty to the military and I'm going to face that duty and I'm going to face my responsibility."
CPT Tad Warfel, his company commander:
"I don't know if I considered him personally a coward but I consider what he did as a cowardly act...[Mejia] told me he was coming back and he didn't, and that makes me mad and just that any soldier that abandons his fellow soldier in a time of war, and I can't think of anything worse...I just hope that the military justice system does right by me and by my soldiers and punishes him for what he did."
Now, I'm sympathetic to consciencious objectors. But soldiers are sworn to obey the lawful orders of the officers appointed over them. A military unit cannot deploy its conservative soldiers to Iraq and let its liberals stay home, nor can it deploy its liberals to Kosovo and Bosnia and let its conservative stay in the rear.
A unit must train as a team to fight as a team, and all come home together as a team. Soldiers cannot be free to select our nation's wars. That authority belongs jointly to Congress and the Commander in Chief.
In Leadership Secrets from Iraq I wrote of the need for leaders to consider their simultaneous and occasionally conflicting loyalties to their men, to their boss, to their mission, to their boss's mission, and to the principles which we are sworn to uphold.
By showing up safe and sound to Fort Stewart weeks after his unit finally returned from the battlefield, Mejia claims that he is upholding his responsibility to the Army.
But part of his responsibility to the Army involved his responsibilities to his battalion, his company, his company's mission, his platoon, and the men who's lives he was entrusted with, and who had the right to expect to look upon him, a professional NCO, as a leader and role model.
Having fled the battlefield, and having turned himself in only when his unit was safely back home so there was no chance he could be returned to duty where it counted most, there is no way his performance towards his self-described "responsibilities" could be characterized as anything other than a miserable failure.
Splash, out
This time, the topic is SSG Camilo Mejia and his desertion from the battlefield in Iraq, and his bid to become a consciencious objector.
Highlights:
Mejia: "I have not deserted the military," says Mejia. "I have not been disloyal to the men and women of the military. I have not been disloyal to a country. I have only been loyal to my principles and I think that gives me the right to decide not to be a part of something that I consider criminal. I realize I have a duty to the military and I'm going to face that duty and I'm going to face my responsibility."
CPT Tad Warfel, his company commander:
"I don't know if I considered him personally a coward but I consider what he did as a cowardly act...[Mejia] told me he was coming back and he didn't, and that makes me mad and just that any soldier that abandons his fellow soldier in a time of war, and I can't think of anything worse...I just hope that the military justice system does right by me and by my soldiers and punishes him for what he did."
Now, I'm sympathetic to consciencious objectors. But soldiers are sworn to obey the lawful orders of the officers appointed over them. A military unit cannot deploy its conservative soldiers to Iraq and let its liberals stay home, nor can it deploy its liberals to Kosovo and Bosnia and let its conservative stay in the rear.
A unit must train as a team to fight as a team, and all come home together as a team. Soldiers cannot be free to select our nation's wars. That authority belongs jointly to Congress and the Commander in Chief.
In Leadership Secrets from Iraq I wrote of the need for leaders to consider their simultaneous and occasionally conflicting loyalties to their men, to their boss, to their mission, to their boss's mission, and to the principles which we are sworn to uphold.
By showing up safe and sound to Fort Stewart weeks after his unit finally returned from the battlefield, Mejia claims that he is upholding his responsibility to the Army.
But part of his responsibility to the Army involved his responsibilities to his battalion, his company, his company's mission, his platoon, and the men who's lives he was entrusted with, and who had the right to expect to look upon him, a professional NCO, as a leader and role model.
Having fled the battlefield, and having turned himself in only when his unit was safely back home so there was no chance he could be returned to duty where it counted most, there is no way his performance towards his self-described "responsibilities" could be characterized as anything other than a miserable failure.
Splash, out
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