Hannah and Archer lounging on the couch.

Hello all,

I apologize for the length of time that has passed between postings. First off, things are going well here in the mountains. I am progressing with the with the book,Don’t Ever Call Me A Hero . I am in a new phase of editing and I hope to broach completion within the next 8 months.

I am forever grateful to the wonderful group of veteran authors that I work with. They have been a constant support during this process and have urged me to wait to release the book until I am fully satisfied that it is honoring all of the men that I served with as well as  our time together in Iraq.

I addition to working on the novel, I have also starting working in the Bail Bonds Industry in Colorado as a bail recovery and bonds agent. I truly enjoy the job and find that it suits the skill set that I developed while in the Marine Corps. It also has been taking up time that I would be using to write so bear with me if it takes a little longer that I first thought it would.

Last but not least, following the loss of our beautiful puppy Frejya this past March, my wife and I were met with an amazing outpouring of support. I wanted to thank you and let you know that while we still miss our Frejya, we decided it was time to find a new friend for Hannah as well as a new companion for myself.

Archer is a 9 month old mutt we picked up from Charlie’s Place, an animal shelter in our neighborhood and he is one of the nicest dogs I have ever met. You can see his mugsy face in the picture above. I will keep you updated on how he fits into my life as a therapy dog. as well as update you regarding any new happenings with the book.

Semper Fi.

Mark

Go ahead. Put it on, faker.

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn has ruled the Stolen Valor Law unconstitutional. Wait, what? In an unprecedented display of “Freedom of Speech”, the Judge dismissed Rick Strandlof’s charges under the stolen valor law on July 17th. This is insulting.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the case, Mr. Strandlof was a US Marine. Annapolis graduate. Survivor of the September 11th attack on the Pentagon. Three tours in Iraq. Purple Heart. Silver Star. Or so he claimed…Standlof has led an interesting life (more here), but in 2007 he emerged as an outspoken leader in the community of Colorado Springs for homeless vets, backed a number of Democratic candidates for state senate and house seats, and was staunchly against the war — meeting with Iraq Veterans Against the War. But he never saw how terrible war is firsthand. He even campaigned with Hal Bidlack, a retired Air Force officer who ran for Congress. Mr. Bidlack was actually in the Pentagon on September 11. What nerve.

Fast forward to 2010.

The Stolen valor Act makes t a crime to impersonate a “war hero” or claim to have a service medal that one does not, punishable by up to a year in prison on each offense. Judge Blackburn claims that this is now unconstitutional. Specifically, under First Amendment rights.

Wait a second.

Slander is illegal. Defamation is illegal. The very definition of defamation is making false statements about someone else in the public domain, such as print or other publications. So… how is it not illegal to make false claims about oneself, especially something so highly regarded as war medals?

I’m biased. I admit that. I’ll tell you why, and no one except my family and fellow Marines knows this about me. On November 25th, 2006, I was shot by a sniper. The bullet grazed my carotid artery, scared the living shit out of me, haunts me in my sleep. Here’s a picture from later that day. I didn’t consider it serious enough to seek medical attention, so I stayed on patrol and finished the mission. I was frightened like you wouldn’t believe, but I owed it to my men to stay. It was my duty.

November 25, 2006

Due to an inconsistency with my PCR — Personnel Casualty Report — and the wording of the order that awards Purple Hearts to service members, I was denied a Purple Heart. Yep, that’s right. I was shot in Iraq and never received a Purple Heart. Whatever the wording is, there’s the picture, judge for yourself.

It is a crime for me to put on a Purple Heart. That’s right. Because I am still in the Marine Corps, technically, in the Individual Ready Reserve, it’s a crime for me to wear a Purple Heart without having been awarded one. Yet, here’s a Judge stating that it’s unconstitutional to do the same to a civilian?

What if Strandlof was claiming he was a U.S. District Judge? What if Strandlof claimed he was an Apple employee, strutting around in front of an Apple Store helping customers? What if he was impersonating a police officer? Are these instances of free speech as well?

As you may surmise, I am pissed. Seriously angry over here in Colorado. For three years I have tried unsuccessfully to get my Purple Heart, which I feel has been earned. Hell, one of my best friends gave me his second Purple Heart after he was awarded it in formation after our deployment to Iraq. He earned his first one in Afghanistan. Three years, two Presidents, four state Senators, and a handful of Marine officers I have pleaded to.

Judge Blackburn, and Mr. Strandlof, I hereby present to you an honorable one finger salute. You know the one. It’s insulting to me, to every Marine, to every service member what you’ve done here. To state that it’s “freedom of speech” to falsely wear a medal that we’ve all buried friends in… words are inefficient to express the outrage.

That is all.

Poppies in Afghanistan

Up to a third of Afghanistan’s poppy harvest this spring? Dead. Killed by a mysterious disease wreaking havoc on the country’s primary source of income. The Taliban’s public relations strategy will say that the U.S. has introduced this disease to destroy the farmer’s crops, even though US forces have significantly decreased efforts against the poppy harvest. The Taliban PR machine is fast and efficient, and while the US and NATO investigate the cause of the blight, Afghan farmers are quick to lay blame.

This doesn’t bode well for public image.United Nations officials state that the disease is a natural occurrence. One of the major causes of the disease spreading so fast is the same that caused the Irish Potato Famine to be so widespread. Monoculture farming. Of course, the Taliban may see the price of raw opium skyrocket due to the lack of production. According to the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, prices have already boosted nearly 60%. The disease is expected to wipeout nearly 2500 tons of opium primarily in Helmand, Kandahar, and Oruzgun provinces.

If the Taliban propaganda effort is successful, along with the boost in opium prices, President Obama’s counterinsurgency plan in Afghanistan may suffer severely. With poppy farmers already being placated by the US letting them continue to produce, even the thought of a secret, mysterious disease campaign may be disastrous. The major rule of counterinsurgency is to befriend the people. We should know, the Marine Corps wrote the book on counterinsurgency, The Small Wars Manual.

It remains to be seen how exactly this crop disease will affect the war, though officials are confident it will not return next year. That’s when President Obama has planned to begin the withdrawal of US troops in Afghanistan.

Peter Bollinger | Popular Science Magazine

Former Marine Colonel Roosevelt Lafontant first pushed the idea of a Marine space plane in 2002. Long a sci-fi fantasy, it’s becoming a reality, sooner than you think. With the Air Force launching a space plane this week, the Marine Corps has issued a ConOps, or Concept of Operations regarding a space-bound aerial drop platform for the Marine Corps.

It seems I got out of the Corps too early. That’s uber-badass.When the United States wants to go into a country, it needs permission from surrounding countries to use their airspace. Recently, with the turmoil in Kyrgyzstan, we see a problem. We had an airbase in Kyrgyzstan. Personally, I’ve spent about two weeks there when I headed in and out of Afghanistan in 2005. It’s a transient base, and a logistics center for troop movement.

Well, with a coup going on, that was disrupted.

Country’s airspace, per United Nations law, extends 50 miles above that country. Hence the reason spy satellites are able to fly all over the world. The US, therefore, needed strategic allies such as Turkey, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, and other nations, in order to get our troops there. Well, what if Marines could fly up in space and come down wherever they wanted?

Sign me up for that gig.

I learned something while I was deployed. When the command came out with a ConOps, that meant some serious shit was going down. All the logistics of the mission have been figured out, and it is execution time. Of course, I’ve only seen these at the company and battalion level, and it was serious business every time we got them. Large operations only.

Currently, the Marine Corps can land a BLT, or Battalion Landing Team, a Marine Expeditionary Unit, with tanks, artillery, a battalion of infantry, Amtracs, and all the supplies and logistics, anywhere in the world, in 96 hours. Anywhere.

The Pentagon’s goal with the new program is 2 hours.

(edit: probably not a battalion, however. Maybe a squad of 12 Marines at first!)

The Marine Corps is known as America’s 911 force. A Space Marine capability would be a complete paradigm shift in the way warfare is conducted. This is a game changer, for sure.

When I finish the manuscript, I am hiring a professional editor to go through everything and help me make this the best possible book it can be. It would be a disservice to everyone I served with if I were to rush it to printing.

I haven’t found an agent willing to sponsor me and get the book published by a large professional publishing house. So, I have started my own publishing-on-demand business called Cerberus Press. We are up and running, and I am going to publish my own book. I am also offering our services to other authors, so if you know anyone who wants to self-publish and doesn’t like the costs of large vanity presses, email me at Mark@Cerberus-Press.com for a custom quote. I offer low cost services, including graphic design for the cover and interior, at extremely low industry rates. My royalty rates for authors are high as well.

Anyways, it has been a long, hard road to get here.

I can’t wait to finally get it in print. I have been writing solid for about two years now on this project. Little did I know when I started my combat journal in September of 2006, that it would come this far. At the end of the deployment it turned out to about 300 pages worth of text, and I figured I already had a book. Boy, was I wrong! Like one of my veteran writer friend says, “There is no good writing, only good rewriting.”

Thanks everyone for your support so far, I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks about the book. I am confident in it.

What do you think about the cover?

Our goal with this project is to become a non-profit company, receive donations, and run veterans support and outreach programs from our home in Black Hawk, Colorado. We will have an open dialogue between veterans, discussing how we have changed and what we can do to not let some of the negative affectations of war take over our lives. We expect to begin groups this summer.

The stories we ask for now may be incorporated into a book that Sara and I are writing, that will hopefully help other veterans work in their relationships like we have learned to work in ours. It has been a long, arduous road, but one that is more than worth it.

So, if you are a veteran, a spouse of a veteran, active duty military, or a family member or significant other, we want to hear from you. How have you changed? How has your life changed? How has your relationship changed? What have you had to change to incorporate what has happened during war into your daily life? How has it affected you, for better or for worse?

Please visit The Unconscious Warrior Project to read more, or email us: Sara Perna or Mark Perna

Hannah (left) and Freyja, our beautiful girls

Monday night, our two dogs were on the deck playing. Hannah pawed the door to come in, and she came running. Freyja did not. I turned the light on to see her laying there, still, not responding to my voice. I ran out into the snow in my bare feet, wearing nothing more than a t-shirt. I knelt by her, and I knew she was in trouble. There was something stuck in her mouth, I thought she might be choking, so I grabbed it. It was cold. It was her tongue. I looked into her eyes and I knew she was already dead. The sound of anguish I made drove Sara to my side. I was horrified. I was perplexed. She was a year and a half, had no health problems, but there she was, just lying there, and she was gone.

We carried her limp body inside, then Sara and I held her. I held her head limp in my arms, and scratched her ears, rubbed her belly. We held her the way she used to lay, on her back with her paws in the air. We must have been there for two or three hours, holding her body as the warmth slowly left it. We couldn’t let her go. I still can’t believe she’s gone.

Let me tell you a little bit about Freyja (pronounced “Fraya” – a Norse goddess) first, and why she was so important to me. Back when Sara was working at Alameda East Veterinary Hospital as a purchasing coordinator, a man brought in an Australian Shepherd husky mix that had been hit by a car. He couldn’t afford the surgery, and the hospital was going to put her down (personally, I think that they should call it killing, because that’s what it is and we shouldn’t make nice terms for these people to be able to sleep better at night). A gentleman who was in there with his much older dog — who was dying from cancer — asked about her. He was in such grief about his best friend that he donated $1000 towards her surgery. With an additional $3000 from the Colorado Helping Hands Foundation, she underwent surgery to fix her broken leg.

Freyja was recovering in the hospital when I first saw her. Sara oftentimes wouold bring in the animals up for adoption and let them play in the back office with her. She called me, excited, three days in a row before I went down to meet her. Even though our wedding was a week or so away, and we were crazy with planning, fittings, and getting everything together, I couldn’t help but take her home that day. She was about three weeks out form her surgery, had a bald leg, but she was gorgeous.

Freyja, we learned by her behavior, had been a homeless dog on the streets. She could and would eat anything, had fairly severe separation anxiety, and needed a lot of love. We gave it to her. I felt so good about adopting her, giving her a good life after all the hardship that she went through. That was a good thing for me to do, especially considering my wartime experiences. I need to do some good in this life, after all that pain and suffering.

Freyja shortly after we brought her home, her left rear leg still lacking much hair from the surgery

Freyja was my therapy dog.

Sure, we had adopted Hannah, a dingo/shepherd mix six or seven months earlier, and she means a great deal to me, but she is very independent, and physiological problems with her vulva made her leak urine unintentionally. It was a bit of a strain, though I love her no less than I loved Freyja.

Freyja taught me a lot about myself. Sara and I lived in a third floor apartment, she worked full time, and I was going to school, collecting GI Bill money, disability, and writing my book. From time to time, all the raw emotions, anger, and intensity of the war would come back to me. Sure, I left Iraq and Afghanistan, but those places never left me. I was prone to fits of rage, extreme sadness, despondency, and various other emotional outbursts. It was taking a toll on our relationship, my sanity, and it would make Hannah piss herself. That only served to upset me more.

Freyja never responded to me with anything but love and submission. When I was full of anger, of rage, she would wag her tail wildly, come up to me, and flop right on her back, begging for me to pet her. She answered my rage with pure love. Other times, when I would break down with extreme sadness, she would cuddle up to me, lick my tears with Hannah, and answer that with pure love. It seemed like love was the only emotion she knew.

Moreso than comforting me, she became my best friend. It’s sometimes hard for me to relate with my long time friends, as they haven’t the depth of experience that I have. That doesn’t invalidate their lives by any means, but they just haven’t been through what I’ve been through, nor undergone the changes that I have. Freyja knew suffering, she knew death, and she knew toughness. We were kindred souls.

Freyja giving me the crazy eye the morning of her untimely death

Emotions get repressed during wartime. Friends die, and emotion must be repressed for survival’s sake, for the mission’s sake. The Marine Corps has no techniques, tactics, or procedures to deal with these emotions when they arise again. And they will show up again, when you least expect it. A lot of veterans, especially those who are hurt or wounded, are helped with therapy dogs. They are trained to give affection to these warriors.

Freyja wasn’t trained, she innately knew.

I loved her intensely. Her life, her companionship meant more to me than a lot of things in my life. I came back from the war hardened, emotionally wounded, and unable to relate with other people. The fact that I found and opened up to my wife Sara is still astounding to me. I found it much easier to relate to animals.

I loved so many things about Frey. I was slightly annoyed but loved how she would jump on the bed in the mornings, her rough toe pads — hardened on the streets, I imagine — pawing at me to wake me and show her love. The way she would fixate her attention on a tennis ball, ignoring all other dogs at the dog park, so fucking excited to play with me, and she would run so fast, so incredibly fast, after that ball, bring it back to me, and go wild with energy until I would throw it again. The way she would nose under my hand while we were eating, not begging, but eliciting my love for her, just to get a spicy Cheezit, a piece of meat, or asparagus, for some reason. Man, she really loved asparagus. When I would put Hannah and Frey outside, they would tear ass around our land, Freyja chasing after the ball once and then playing keep away from Hannah. When I brought her back inside, especially after I had been at school half the day, she would run up to the door, and be so excited she would spin in a circle to burn off energy.

Freyja certainly didn’t have a lack of energy. She would do what I called the “low-rider”, where she would lower down on all fours after I got her excited, preparing to take off in one direction or another. She would run like that, kinda low to the ground, but faster than Hannah. Well, faster in the snow, at least. Those big Husky paws worked very well in the snow.

Sometimes she would jump and put her front paws on me, and then stretch out like a dog does on the ground with their butt in the air, and she would remain in this position while I hugged her, licking my chin. Freyja would oftentimes have a quizzical look on her face, punctuated by her crystal blue right eye, and her light brown left eye. She would squint her right eye in the sun because of the difference in pigmentation. I would often wonder what she was thinking. She was so smart, so obedient, yet she had a wild streak, just as I do. She would have that look on her face, and we would lock eyes. I still wonder what she was thinking at those times. Other times though, I knew that look was love, trust, and confidence that we were never going to leave her. She relaxed in the comfort that we would always be there for her. I am so very happy that we gave her a good life, short as it may have been. She was barely 1 1/2 years old.

When she was outside, she would run down by a group of Conifer trees, and often lose her ball in the drifts of snow there. Now, that’s where I lost her, forever. Yesterday I used a pickaxe to break through the frozen soil, to break the large rocks, and shoveled the dirt out. I cried the entire time. After a couple of hours when I decided that it was deep enough, Sara and I retrieved Freyja’s body. We had wrapped her in one of our favorite blankets, and she spent the night in the garage on our leather couch.

With tears streaming down my face, uncontrollable sobbing, I gently picked up her lifeless body.

“I’ve got you, Frey Frey Dobson,” I said, using one of my nicknames for her.

Hannah was with us. I wanted her to be there. She sniffed Freyja, and she gently, so, so gently, licked her nose. Hannah’s ears were flat against her head, her tail tucked.

I knelt by the side of her grave, and one more time, one more time, I rubbed Freyja’s belly in her favorite spot. I scratched her ear the way momma did, I rubbed the top of her head, and I kissed her cheek. I kissed the top of her head, her paws, then I buried my face in her belly fur. She was so soft, and she smelled so good. I don’t want to ever forget how she smelled. The look on her face was so peaceful, it was hard to believe she was dead.

We wrapped in her in gold chiffon silk from our wedding. We made a bedding of some more material from our wedding, the week after we brought Frey home. I put her body on top of the bedding as gently as I could. I gathered some material together for a pillow. She faces East, towards Mount Thorodin, towards the sunrise, towards her new life. Beside her we put a bone, a smoked hickory rawhide, and her newest ball, made of rubber and with motion activated lights inside. She absolutely loved that ball. I had Sara remove her dog tag, I wanted it — no, I needed it — and we put a couple of gemstones on her body to pay her way into the next life. I put her paw on top of her bone so she could sense it, wherever she has gone too.

We covered her body with soil, by hand, gently.

“I’ll be careful, Frey. I’ll be real gentle, okay?” I said, choking out the words.

After she was covered with soft dirt, I lost it. I shoveled the rest over the top of her, covering the chiffon, covering the memory of the happy times we had together. It was no more. We gathered stones and encircled her grave, then with smaller stones we arranged them in a sacred spiral. At the center we placed a piece of rose quartz. Very carefully we placed flowers in a concentric pattern in the stones, with a rose and other beautiful flowers at her head.

This morning I took Hannah outside to play, and I brought a tennis ball. Now, Hannah chased after it the way Freyja did. But she didn’t bring it back to me. She went around to the back of the house, crept up to Freyja’s grave, and put it right next to her. She didn’t go back for it. When I came inside, I saw Freyja’s tag sitting there on the table. I lost it. I can’t bear the grief. As I sat in the kitchen, sobbing, yelling, horrified, perplexed…

Hannah was the only one to lick my tears this time.

Frey Frey Dobson, I will always remember what you meant to me, and how you helped me. I loved you more than I can possibly express.

Soldiers inside a cave complex captured by a Pakistani offensive

After a long offensive in the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan, Paki forces declared that they had seized a large network of caves in the Bajaur tribal area—a final militant holdout. This network of caves is just four miles from Asadabad, where I was stationed in 2005. While there are strongholds remaining along the border, at a press conference Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan stressed the tactical importance of this victory.

Around 75 militants were killed. These included Egyptians, Uzbeks, Chechens, and Afghans. Personally, I heard rumors of intelligence reports in 2005 that stated the Chechens were responsible for accurate sniper fire. Let me go ahead and conjecture that Chechens are also responsible for the accurate sniper fire in Marjah as well. The Taliban are a multi-national terrorist group, merely based in Afghanistan.

Nearly 450 militants surrendered near the 150 caves used in the complex in Damadola. They were stocked with supplies, blankets, pillows, and food. However, the bulk of Taliban fighters is believed to have fled the area in the weeks prior to the offensive—including most of the Taliban leaders.

A Pakistani spokesman stated that higher echelon Taliban leaders are hiding in Orakzai tribal agency and the Tirah Valley, where the Pakistani Army has some presence. Expect an offensive there within the coming months. Seizing Damadola was key because it is believed to have been a nerve center for Taliban operations, and if so, will siginifcantly obstruct the Taliban’s command and control facilities, as well as their ability to make war, at least until they are reorganized.

I have to wonder how this complex was used five years ago when I was deployed to Asadabad. We took incoming rocket fire every other day from Pakistan, from the very direction these caves were in. We responded with artillery fire, but it kept coming. We knew they were using caves, but hoping to catch some of the militants out in the open.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Taliban were able to summon massive forces outnumbering us three and four to one—sometimes even more than that, though support was close—whenever we would attempt to find their leaders. In a definitive fight during Operation Whalers, a company sized force of Taliban ambushed my platoon of just 38 Marines. The militia commander, Ahmad Shah, who is now dead, was responsible for the attack against the Navy SEAL team including Marcus Luttrell, who wrote his book Lone Survivor based on those events.

During the battle, Shah was seriously wounded and flew—yes, in a helicopter—to Pakistan. His son was killed in the battle. I wonder if he was perhaps flown to these caves?

If you’re interested in that battle, there is a book out by Ed Darack entitled Victory Point, in which I make a small cameo or two. It’s a fascinating read on the history of the area, command and control issues with coalition forces, and the striking outcome of the six day battle.

I for one am proud to have my part in the history of the area, and am very happy to see that the Taliban have been routed form this area. The trick now is to maintain that ground, and capitalize on the momentum ganed form this operation.

Let’s start with the portrayal of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal tech, Sergeant James. He’s a cavalier, reckless, careless, adrenaline junkie. He disregards all safety, tactics, techniques, and procedures, to just walk up on IEDs, brazenly clear buildings, and save the day. Bullshit.EOD technicians are carefully selected. The job has the highest requirement for ASVAB scores to get in, plus technical scores and testing. Besides that, EOD techs are put through a rigorous process to receive a TSCI clearance. That means Top Secret Compartmentalized Information. What that basically means is that you have a clearance above Top Secret. The information you know is compartmentalized in your department, so that even people that have a TS clearance aren’t cleared to know it. For example, how to disarm nuclear weapons.

During this process there is a background check and a character check. You see a clinical psychologist, and your family, friends, neighbors, teachers, etc—are all interviewed about your character, your history, your performances.

An idiot like this character would not make it through. Not even close.

Let’s move on past character flaws. Let’s talk tactics. In the beginning of the film, while using the robot—which looked like the MKII Talon?—the tactics were solid. Risk the robot, not the soldier. They only moved on the IED when the robot failed. Of course, I would have just put the wheel back on the trailer with C4 on it, so I wouldn’t have to walk up on the IED. That’s just me.

During that scene one of the characters states, “four blocks of C4—about 20 pounds worth of explosives”. What? Don’t they even have Wikipedia in Hollywood? A basic search would find that each block of C4 is only 1.25 pounds of explosive.

The IED factory. First, on their way out of the base, there’s no escort. It’s a court martial offense to leave the wire with less than six men on a patrol. What would happen if their Humvee broke down? Of course, a nice MRAP drives by in this scene, which, in 2004 where only driven by EOD techs.

Okay, so the grunts have called EOD to remove ordnance from a factory. Yet when they get there, the grunts tell them that no one has entered the building. What? How do you know there’s explosives inside? Then the three techs enter and clear the building. No way. EOD does not clear buildings. They’re not trained for it. That’s what the grunts do. Besides, the size of that building necessitates a squad sized element to clear it.

Of course, once the building is clear and they see the dead kid, the “body bomb”, they leave James inside. Alone. GTFO. There’s no way you would EVER leave a man on his own in Iraq. Or in any war zone for that matter. That’s a death sentence. So after EOD heads out of the building and he disarmed the kid bomb, the mental health officer gets killed. No, not killed, vaporized. As it turns out, in real life, people don’t vaporize. You find body parts. Everywhere. You get covered in them. It’s horrific and I prefer not to go into the details.

Next up, there’s a complex daisy chained IED that James finds. He pulls up all six or seven shells by pulling on the detcord connecting them all. Well, each 155mm round weighs about 100 pounds or more. It’s a little hard to believe that skinny ole Sergeant James can pull up 600-700 pounds while wearing his bomb suit.

Next up, the drinking. I don’t know what unit doesn’t find it odd that there’s screaming, fighting, and carrying drunk soldiers back to their bunks. Someone doesn’t find it odd that there’s screaming and yelling? It’s a war zone. I’m going to start wondering what the hell’s going on.

So James is mad about this kid, so he jumps into the guy’s truck, heads outside the base, alone, and goes renegade on us. Now I’m screaming at the TV, the producers, the filmmakers, and everyone involved. Nothing like that would ever happen. Do you know how much his head is worth? He would have been snatched up, delivered to the insurgents, and his beheading would have been shown on Al-Jazeera. End of story. Then, when he comes back, the soldiers don’t report him? Some idiot heads outside the wire on his own, I would have reported him because his stupidity puts everyone else at risk. Not that he hadn’t been putting everyone in danger beforehand.

After all of these errors, they make an almost fatal tactical error when there’s the large tanker IED near the end of the film. The three of them head away from support, split up, and start wandering through the city. Alone. All three of them. What happened to their jobs? Isn’t anyone wondering why EOD isn’t doing a post blast?

Let’s wrap this up, though I could go on and on, with one good point. The portrayal of the soldier who didn’t fire when his team leader was killed, who later gets shot by James (who suffers no prosecution for it?) was a fairly accurate character as far as the emotional and mental breakdown that men go through in combat. Of course, we don’t delve into this character too much, he is hurt and sent home so we can get back to the bravado. I for one related to this guy. The film disappointed me when it portrayed him as weak, as fearful. I think his mindset is the most common amongst combat troops. Yet, we fall back into the formulaic portrayal of the hotshot.

Sending James back to Iraq without addressing why he is the way he is, because of all the things he has been through, really does the film a disservice. It ends abruptly, when there was the chance to expand greatly on what REALLY happens to a man put through the trials of war. Perhaps a little more of the budget could have been spent fact checking, and highlighting the emotional states of the characters, letting us get to know and care about them, rather than just showing the bravado good ‘ol boy stuff.

Starkey / AP

Marines are now encountering stiff resistance in the northern part of Marjah, reports say. Three more coalition troops have lost their lives in the battle, bringing the tally to 11. While more casualties are mounting than previously, it’s still significantly less than what coalition officers had prepared for. The Taliban have also deployed new tactics. Snipers.

Taliban gunfire has always been sporadic, not highly accurate, but concentrated on the target. Now they are utilizing, for the first time in a serious capacity, snipers. Harassing sniper fire is coming very close to coalition forces, slowing them down as they advance through the north and eastern parts of Marjah. Combined with stricter rules of engagement, this makes the infantryman’s job much slower and harder.

Though the resistance in Marjah is stronger in those parts of the city, it is widely held that Taliban leaders have fled the area, leaving only ground forces behind. Officials are worried that activity in the area will pick up significantly when spring rolls around and the weather warms up.