Obama the Chicken in Charge!!

There seems to me that there is more than a bit of “Looking for a Tet ‘68″ going on in the more recent Afghanistan coverage. I would like to insert a bit of perspective based on my own personal infantry experiences.

Just as there are two basic plays in basketball, drive to the basket or jump shoot, there are two basic plays in the infantry. The first is the classic “Find ‘em, fix ‘em and finish ‘em” scenario. The second is its corollary, “Let ‘em find you, fix ‘em and finish ‘em”. Effective infantrymen have to develop skills to deal with and execute both. Some days, you’re the cat looking for a mouse, and some days, you’re the cheese in the mousetrap.

The “Find ‘em” scenario is often referred to as a reconnaissance in force, if the target is yet to be located, or an assault, if their location has been determined. One of the difficulties with this approach in a guerilla war is that the enemy can chose fight or flight.

The “Let ‘em” scenario involves finding and occupying a location that may or has significant import to the enemy. The underlying logic is to draw the enemy into a battle, so inserting too large a force would probably be counterproductive.

It seems to me, based on the very limited information available at this point, that the two recent, costly battles were of this latter type. While our casualties are certainly both tragic and unwanted, this is how infantry work sometimes needs to be done. It would be a disservice to our fallen to turn these engagements into reasons to abandon their mission and their sacrifice.