I’ve been reading Nathaniel Fick’s One Bullet Away (reviews | pricing), an engaging memoir tracing the life of a Marine Force Recon officer from the recruiting station through tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Buried deep in the combat narrative is a short passage worth highlighting in a time when the only headlines from the frontlines seem to reflect a search for collateral damage:

On a hazy Sunday afternoon in early March, the commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, Lieutenant General James Conway, visited Matilda to speak with his officers… Conway looked like a general should: tall, tanned, and white haired, with a deep voice that was both soothing and authoritative. Whenever he spoke, I thought of the radio announcer Paul Harvey. General Conway commanded instinctive respect.

The general stood on top of an amtrac, backed by the U.S. and Marine Corps flags. His voice boomed through a microphone to the hundred or so men standing beneath him. The theme was rules of engagement, and he wanted to make four points very clear. First, commanders had an inherent obligation–not merely a right, but a legal and ethical obligation–to defend their Marines. Second, when the enemy used human shields or put legitimate targets next to mosques and hospitals, he, not we, endangered those innocents. Third, a commander would be held responsible not for the facts as they emerged from an investigation, but for the facts as they appeared to him in good faith at the time–at night, in a sandstorm, with bullets in the air. His fourth and final point distilled the rules of engagement to their essence. He called it Wilhelm’s Law, a tribute to General Charles Wilhelm: if the enemy started the shooting, our concern should be proportionality–responding with adequate, but not excessive, force. If we started the shooting, the concern should be collateral damage.
I took notes as he spoke, thinking this guidance was pure gold to be passed on to my troops.
(Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away, pp. 181-182)