(Army Times) Backtalk: Living up to Army’s values

[unhappycamper]

Living up to Army’s values
By Maj. Nina Saeli

Each week, it seems, I read a new article on detainee abuse that has occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq or Guantanamo Bay, and I become more unsettled. I am not unsettled with what I am reading, but rather with what I am not reading.

What have I read?
I have read numerous statements from junior enlisted soldiers and junior noncommissioned officers giving details of the detainee abuse in which they participated or to which they were witness. I have read the occasional statements from junior officers that “they and their soldiers did not receive the appropriate training or get the proper classes” in order to be prepared to handle these situations. I have read the many statements from military legal officers that state the government failed to provide “approved tactics, techniques and procedures in detainee operations” and that there are “so many undefined rules and roles.”

What have I not read?
I have not read statements from senior commissioned and noncommissioned officers:

• Acknowledging that they failed to provide proper detainee operations training.

• Recognizing that they failed to seek explicit guidance when unclear guidance was given.


Rest of well written article at: http://www.armytimes.com/community/opinion/army_backtalk_value_090808/%2e