06 April, 2018

Stephon Clark Shooting: Cops More Aggressive Than Soldiers | National Review

Stephon Clark Shooting: Cops More Aggressive Than Soldiers | National Review:

I learned what it was like to see a car approaching and not know whether the occupant was a terrorist about to blow himself up or a civilian oblivious to the presence of American troops.



It was a tough deployment, one that ultimately earned my squadron the Valorous Unit Award. In the months we were in Diyala, our troopers faced constant attacks. IEDs claimed lives. Men died to ambushes. Indirect fire was a frequent threat to our combat outposts. Our troopers fought pitched battles in the streets, called in air strikes, fired thousands of artillery rounds, and killed, wounded, and captured dozens of terrorists. By the end of the deployment, they’d reclaimed thousands of square kilometers from al-Qaeda and left it a broken, spent force.



Do you know how many innocent civilians we killed in that entire deployment, which spanned hundreds of engagements with the enemy? Exactly two. One to small-arms fire and one to a wayward artillery shell.



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