A COIN vignette from Afghanistan

Great vignette from C.J. Chivers' excellent blog at the NYT.  Reminds me of a missed opportunity my platoon had in Iraq.  We were heading north on a main route that handrails the dry riverbed that cuts Kirkuk in half.  It was probably mid-day, and traffic was heavy in the area we were in.  We were stopped at a red light (yes, we followed the rules of the road...a topic of discussion that warrants its own post later on) and we noticed a LN (local national) had a broken-down vehicle.

Lead truck called it out over the platoon internal net.  One of my squad leaders recommended we stop to help the guy push his car out of the road.  Some of the guys in my truck immediately reacted with a "Fuck no!"  But I took a few seconds to chew on it.  Would it increase risk to us?  Of course -- every time you stop and dismount, you incur risk.  But what about the benefit/gain?  I'm talking beyond the immediate effect that would be experienced by the LN (in the form of a helping hand).  But every other civilian and pedestrian in the area would see a platoon of American soldiers stopping to help out one of their own.

Would the IO (information operations) gain be likely limited?  Yeah, probably.  But who knows -- that could've been a dozen, maybe two or three dozen people that could have seen American soldiers doing something positive.  A couple dozen people that could have talked about it later that evening when they sat down for dinner with their families.

In the end, other Iraqis came to the aid of the LN before we could properly establish security and dismount.  Whenever I look back on that missed opportunity, I always wish I had been able to make the call sooner.  COIN discussions invariably talk about "the strategic corporal", the idea being that junior leaders are making tactical decisions that can have strategic effects, both positive and negative.  So although my platoon missed a chance on that summer day in Kirkuk, it's good to see that the Marines that Mr. Chivers is embedded with not only recognized an opportunity, but acted on it.