Worldwide News

From Michael:
30 April 2008

By now, the entire world is aware that we have commenced our operation in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan . I was fortunate to spend some of the operation in our Combat Operations Center (COC). The COC is the nerve center of Marine Corps combat operations. Everything that is happening on the battlefield is being broadcasted and relayed into the COC via real-time video feed, internet relay chat, and radio. The COC is basically a bunker full of desks with computers, wires, cables, telephones, and, of utmost importance, coffee mugs. I close my eyes and I can hear the constant coughing sound of all the various radios. Marines from all walks of life, various occupational specialties (I hear that there is even a lawyer in there), and assorted ranks staff the COC. Everything is done at a rapid, but not frantic, pace. Marines cheer whenever one of “our boys” who is out on the battlefield, doing the actual fighting, reports back that one of our jets has just dropped a 2000 lb bomb on an enemy target.

So what do I, the lawyer, do in the COC? Imagine Thanksgiving dinner, a big one with all the fixin’s. The kind where family that you only see once per year (sometimes for good reason) comes over and you have to get out the fold-up card table and folding chairs. The kids sit on the little card table somewhere off to the side so that they are free to do kid things and make a relative mess without being too distracting. Well, if the COC is Thanksgiving dinner, then I am sitting at that little fold-up card table for the kids. My job is very vague and ambiguous, just as any lawyer would want it to be, because that means I get to define my own job description. Generally speaking, I am here to provide instant analysis and advice on Rules of Engagement (ROE), Geneva Conventions, etc. Without going into details, assume that there is a enemy machine gun mounted on the back of a pickup truck. The barrel of the gun is aimed at our troops, but we don’t see any bad guys manning the weapon or driving the truck. They want to know if, in my expert legal opinion, we can destroy the truck and the gun. Then the scenario changes, and now there are bad guys near the gun but not manning it. The scenario can change dozens of times and my job is to quickly and clearly explain what we can and cannot do in terms of blowing stuff up.

It is hard to get a grasp on how big of a deal this mission is to the rest of the world. There are reporters everywhere. NBC’s the Today Show, Fox News, USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, the Associated Press, etc. are all here to report on what we are doing. It is kind of surreal to see things unfold in person, and then see them appear on all the news media outlets within hours.