Addendums ...

To my post the other day:

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You know what it feels like to be in the middle of it? Well, combat is the Great Equalizer. It is a time where abstract thought takes its leave, when the words "moral" and "compassion" meaningless until it's over. You are in touch with your basic instincts, kill or be killed, fight or flight, and nothing much else matters. You are as wild as the rest of God's creatures, humanity be damned. All that matters is what all of your senses, heightened to the sharpness of a razor thanks to the adrenaline rush, are telling you and what animal instinct and the training you've received are causing you to act. And you can't turn it on and off like flipping a switch.

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Our friend Comrade Misfit relates "The Story of the Green Flare":

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The Navy conducts exercises at sea from time to time, operations that civilians refer to as "war games." The goal is to train the ships' crews to deal with the operational tempo, lack of sleep and some of the stresses of being in fluid and uncertain situations at sea.

I was one of the OODs of one of the ships in the exercise. My ship had a modest AAW defensive capability. That was simulated by the firing of a green flare from a Very pistol. For the duration of the exercise, the OODs wore a holster with the Very pistol and several flares.

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Fortunately, nobody took .50 caliber that night but it reinforces my point that when the pucker factor is high, constantly, your frame of mind changes. You see what you want to see, be it reporters, jihadis, or unfriendly helicopters. Misfit captures this well in her post, and her CO understood what goes on when it's tense. It's the situation, and we have to be careful what situations we put our troops in. It's time to hang the assholes who decided this misbegotten war would be a good thing.