I'm not sure if he's panicking, been misdirected or just poor training. [video=youtube_share;rLHU-_OhT8g]http://youtu.be/rLHU-_OhT8g[/video]
It would seem fantastically incautious to me, to critically comment on anyone's actions or experience in that sort of situation from the safety of our office chairs. I'm not there (nor do I want to be). He is. QED - 'Panicking', 'misdirecting', 'poor training' seems peculiar commentary based on a few minutes of footage of some poor f**ker getting shot at. Vid description: Unless we have personally recently 'come out into the open to draw fire so a squad could get to safety', or had our grenade launcher shot through, I'm not sure it has anything to do with us? Good luck to him anyway. Bigger balls than I. ~A
With no disrespect to the soldier, I think the argument of 'you're not there you don't know what it's like' has its own limits. Every single thing he does in the video is absolutely ridiculous for any trained infantry man, no matter how chaotic it may be. It just seems to me that he is (and not the first example) one of many who are being thrown into combat without proper training. I've seen some poor performances on video, bad reactions, bad combat conduct, but at the end of the day not everything goes to the book on the field, and that's understandable. However, the poor bloke in this video looks like he didn't get out of basic. Even the justification for him being alone... why in the living hell would you put yourself into open fire running down a hill, what CO could possibly ever give that kind of order? I'm all up for giving soldiers slack, but this is on a whole other level.
That video makes no sense and his "interview" makes me even more suspicious of the video; but, like others "I wasn't there" and will reserve further opinion.
Being that the only thing you see is 3 minutes of what happened there is no way to form an opinion. "You're not there you don't know what it's like" has no limits. You weren't there. You don't know what it was like.
Not debating your overall point, but he does explain this. He didn't say he was ordered to do it by his CO. He said he exposed himself to draw fire so the rest of his squad, which was pinned down by MG fire, could escape.
I agree with reserving comment...(hate people coming into a conversation half way through and misinterpretting everythign thats said)...But why wasnt smoke used if pinned down, drawing fire is a medal winning grave-stone gathering thing to do...Did he have any comms?
Fair points. I was just point to what he said to explain what was going on. For discussion sake, smoke may have not been an option and one grave stone is better than several. It's not exactly an unprecedented thing in war. The fact is, we don't know the exact situation or the options available to him or the immediacy of the danger to his squad.
I'd be interested to here if some vets of Afghanistan thought this is a genuine video. There are a number of things that make me a bit suspicious.
Hey pretty neat video.. i feel like I should pick up a joystick. Reminds me of those shooting games on PS3 I do hope the soldier is okey. Wouldn't it be nice if the navy seals that Killed Bin Laden had one of those cams. I would love to see that video if it exists
My understanding is that they did or something like it. Probably won't be declassified anytime soon and if/when it is may be heavily edited.
