732. LU

It is a tragedy that a small innocent girl has died, but let me set the scene for you.

You are driving through the Panjwaii. One of the most dangerous regions in Kandahar province, some event has stopped your convoy, and forced you to dismount. In the Panjwaii, the incident is very likely, IED seen, or IED suspected.

Could I take my vehicle packet around, most likely, increasing the chance an innocent local will drive over the bomb, which will kill the innocent un-armoured civilian, but I don’t, because I would have to live with myself after I find out a jingle truck exploded at that site, taking a family with it.

First my dismounts inspect the suspect location, and establish there has been a disturbance that could be a bomb.

Now I need further expertise to deal with this potentially life ending site, so I establish a cordon with my limited number of dismounted soldiers, in one of the most dangerous districts in the south, to protect afghan civilians, from home grown and imported insurgents. Now we wait for the ambush that could occur because I have am no longer mobile

Now you have my young soldier on the cordon (security perimeter) around the site, he knows he could be ambushed and may have a vehicle born suicide bomber come at him, at any second, and he is scared, because he is human.

Now let’s not forget, since I blocked traffic on the road, cars are piling up on both sides of my cordon. The unfriendly civilian population (this is the Panjwaii), is coming out of there mud huts and are gathering in to watch.

A motorcycle speeds at me, I raise my rifle, because this is a classic attack scenario, I waive him off with large arm sweeps, in case he couldn’t see the LAV behind me. He doesn’t stop, so I stop waiving and take a sight picture at the centre of his chest, but I realize he is too far away to kill him, but still closing fast, maybe this retard just isn’t paying attention, so I drop my point of aim and fire a warning shot into the dusty road shoulder in front of him, he’ll hear the shot and see the dust explosion.

Then I quickly centre my point of aim on his chest again, because the next shot is going into him. But he turns away and drives as fast as possible, that probably makes him an insurgent, but he is running away and is no longer a threat so I have to let him go, because we are still performing a cordon.

This entire incident, took 10 seconds to play out. A choice was made, a small child was killed, but my friends are going home tonight so I can live with that right now, besides I will have a life time to rethink what just happened, and a nightmare every night to look her in the eye, and say I’m sorry.