Ten military men are serving time in Leavenworth for killing or assaulting terrorists who killed men in their units, their friends, their comrades in arms. Three more are to be prosecuted for striking a terrorist who was responsible for American military deaths and their hanging on a bridge.

After-action policies have not changed much since WWI, WWII, and Korea. Once in combat, soldiers remain until they are relieved. This was based on need: fighting was constant and soldiers had little time to place the horrors of war into some context. It became a job. Soldiers saw their buddies killed and wounded. They could respond by exacting an outlet, revenge, anger, sorrow, and return violence upon a clearly defined enemy.

Today, the military is much smaller. Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors serve three to seven tours in the Persian Gulf wars witnessing the most horrible terrors one can imagine.  

In Iraq and Afghanistan, war is a collection of contradiction and irony. As one colonel once said to the editor, "There has never been a bullet made in Iraq or Afghanistan with a soldier's name on it. It is the 'To Whom it May Concerns" we have to watch out for."  The enemy is invisible: hidden among civilians, within religious sites, and without rules and uniforms. They murder civilians, military, and innocents without regard or responsibility. The enemy extracts revenge, anger, sorrow, and returns violence on a clearly defined enemy, the US military forces. In the Revolution, Civil War, WWI, WWII, and Korea, captured enemies out of uniform were summarily shot without trial, without Conventions, without rights. In this war, Americans are summarily executed without trial, without Conventions, without rights.

Like the Revolutionary War in reverse, US forces march (in vehicles) in straight lines (roads) in easily defined uniforms. The enemy attacks from behind obscurity and ambush. There is no resolution for our troops following the horrors of these attacks. There is no counter attack. There is no release. Our troops cannot fire unless fired upon in most cases, ven then, not if the fire comes from religious sites unless and until there are subsequent orders.

When our troops capture known terrorists, what do Americans and generals expect of the military in harm's way? They are not policemen on a beat in Miami, or Charleston. The enemy is at war without rules or restraints. The administration demands the impossible. Even in football, there is an occasional off sides or unnecessary roughness. Instead of a fifteen yard penalty, it is a fifteen year sentence.

If this war continues, generals need to pull IED survivors off the line and make sure they are emotionally ready to return. They should provide the oversight to avoid returning known terrorists to the victims of the attacks, like in the Behenna case. The military needs to come home or the numbers of our military needs to be increased. It was not designed to operate for decades in a foreign land with this number of troops. Kansas and other states are cutting National Guard spending. Obama and congress is cutting military budgets.  

Police officers are taken off the street following a shooting or traumatic event to ensure they are ready to return. There is a case for the similarity between the police and the military in this type of war.

"When you capture an enemy, you might as well kill him and all those around him because they are similar in purpose." (The Forgotten City of the Planet of the Apes, 1974). The terrorists know this. The Apes figured this out in the movies. Our military soldiers, Marines, SEALS, and sailors know this. How did the president "dithering" with policy and the generals forget?

Lt. Behenna and others had to be prosecuted and the evidence apparently manipulated to give the "hint" of probable cause in place of "reasonable doubt." The Army and president realize if the military ever does what it has been trained to do, the terrorists will be terrorized.

Army generals can win this war, but they won't. They will confuse Constitutional authority with presidential "dithering" and leave our troops to die and be maimed for another 8 years. They will not stand up like IKE, MacArthur, Patton, or Swamfox Francis Marion. They will wimp and moan and betray the trust of those who die and limp home.

It is time for the Army to stand up with Marion or run with Arnold. Win, or bring our troops home.