Ethan McCord: “360 degree fire” was SOP
One of the two soldiers who have been the “go to” guys for the Wikileaks so-called “Collateral Murder” video, Ethan McCord charges that “360 Rotational Fire” was the standard operating procedure for reaction to an IED attack in Iraq in 2007. In an interview published in OpEd News, Steiber said;
…we had a pretty gung-ho commander, who decided that because we were getting hit by IEDs a lot, there would be a new battalion SOP [standard operating procedure].He goes, “If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherf*cker on the street.” Myself and Josh and a lot of other soldiers were just sitting there looking at each other like, “Are you kidding me? You want us to kill women and children on the street?” And you couldn’t just disobey orders to shoot, because they could just make your life hell in Iraq.
Throughout the interview, there’s no unit designation, no one names the company or battalion commander – it’s just a completely irrational charge against some unnamed commander in an unnamed unit vacant of any details.
Of the Wikileaks video, McCord says;
McCord says the scenes captured in the Wikileaks video are “an every-day occurrence in Iraq.”
Really?
McCord says that when he found the two children wounded in the van, another soldier began to vomit and ran off.
A soldier reacts by vomiting and fleeing to an “every day occurrence”?
I ran up to the Bradley and placed [the injured boy] inside. My platoon leader was standing there at the time, and he yelled at me for doing what I did. He told me to “stop worrying about these motherfucking kids and start worrying about pulling security.”
I would have told him the same thing. They were in an unsecured area in indian country and unsure of the situation. The first thing infantrymen do is secure the area. How much good would any of them been to the children if they were all dead? Typical private BS – they always think they know better than their leaders.
Both Ethan McCord and Josh Steiber were in Bravo Company, 2d Battalion 16th Infantry when the video was shot in 2007. Steiber is a member of IVAW, and McCord may be a member by now, although I can’t find evidence of it yet, so they have an agenda.
I have to think that there’s someone among my readers who was either a member of this company or knows someone who was there during this time who can verify or deny the accuracy of this order. My opinion, based on my decades-long experience as an infantryman, is that it’s bullshit, but I wasn’t there, so if you were, or if you know someone who was, speak up.
Thanks to Rob for the heads up.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military issues
Not to disparage the level of knowledge of a lower enlisted (I was one once), but his claims stink to high heaven in terms of being very barracks lawyery. “SOP” is the incorrect term, as the proper one is ROE… Rules of Engagement. The ROE cannot be made at the battalion level. It’s brigade at lowest. These comments may indeed be trivial, but as an officer with some experience in this, I immediately went to these facts.
I know that to fire a main gun round on my first deployment (2006) you needed Battalion commander approval. Seriously,
I’m not making that up.
Also on the same deployment we did the same thing, but we called it “Recon by Fire”. I was in Carnivore Company 1-67 Ar BN, 2nd BCT, 4th ID. Now, later in that deployment we where ordered to stop that. Not sure at what level that was made but our Battalion Commander was a pussy so it probably came from higher up. But when we where hit by IED’s we did shoot in a 360. When we were told to stop they said if no one gets hurt, just move on. Pretty much telling us to lay back and take it unless someone got hurt.
I was shelved about half-way through my 2nd deployment for my films so I was not out as much. I know, and have it on video, that they ordered a hellfire missile strike on a few guys with AK’s holding up in a house. A little overkill it would seem. Also, many Soldiers told me that they still shoot in 360, or Recon by Fire, on that deployment as well. The 2nd deployment was in the same place where that Wikileaks video was shot at. We took that over from them when we got there.
I don’t know these guys, and despise IVAW, but a lot of innocent people have been killed in Iraq.
We were never allowed an indiscriminate fire responses under any circumstances.
Sounds kind of like BS to me. When we were in Iraq for OIF 3, we had some gunners who got their asses chewed out for fire a “legal” warning shot at the road in front of some Head Up Ass Driver.
So the gunners started to use rocks to warn them. Then, we started getting more VBIEDs driving into convoys. I never met a soldier or Marine who would just randomly fire at anything or anybody. I rember getting shot at when we were walking back into Camp Gannon in July 05… the Marine Snipers who were our overwatch didn’t return fire because of innocent people in the area. I thought that was the right thing for them, even though I was pissed off for getting shot at.
For each incident where we were shot at or had to fire warning shots, we had to write an incidnet report with sworn statements. It was a big deal…and I know some soldiers who held fire just because they didn’t want to have to write paper when they got back.
No way the Battalion or Company Commander is going to issue a ROE like this. His JAG would advise against it. In fact, an ROE like this would be illegal on it’s face. Commanders get better advise than this. These guys are full of shit.
It absolutely is illegal and likely a violation of LOW. It makes a fitting story for the ignorant, but for OIF 4 I believe warning shots were even excluded from the ROE. I remember filling out paperwork for everything. This story is just that, a story designed for people who weren’t there or are biased.
Not to mention, in a MOUT environment as laden with IEDs as Baghdad was in 2007, shooting in a 360 every time one goes off is either a massive waste of ammo, a risk of blue on blue, or both. Having been in proximity to about 30 IED blasts, including several that caused casualties and/or disabled vehicles, I know at least in Anbar back in ’05, the standing order was “No shooting without positive ID of a hostile act” and ROE’s were getting stricter as the deployment progressed.
I wasn’t there either, Jonn, but this doesn’t pass the smell test.
Regarding Jonn’s comment, “A soldier reacts by vomiting and fleeing to an ‘every day occurrence’?” While I’m not qualified to comment on anything else (I have never been to Iraq), I do nonetheless have some experience with seeing soldiers reacting to traumatic looking stuff, including by vomiting, even under relatively controlled, expected circumstances that are “everyday occurrences” in the larger sense, but not to each and every individual whose job it is to deal with it. So while Jonn’s other points may be valid, I would throw that particular one out the window. I have seen highly trained, experienced criminal investigators vomiting at things such as dead bodies and autopsies that are really very expected occurences. It always rather surprised me, actually, whenever I saw reactions, as I never had such reactions to traumatic looking stuff myself. (No, I always dealt with such things in the immediate present with a calm, cool, rational head, saving it all up to be emotionally regurgitated years later in the privacy of my own home…heh.)
As the action in the video was of my sister BN, I had access to the video pretty quickly after it happened. Some damn fine shooting. With that being said, I am sure that with the three separate 15-6 investigations conducted in response to the FOIA request, evidence would have turned up any “360” statements made by any member of the chain of command.
As a standing policy before, during, and after the Wikileaks event, any time we fired any of the weapons (30mm, Hellfire, 2.75″ Rockets) from our Longbows, we were required to write sworn statements and turn in any and all video from said engagements. Regardless of weapons effect. Every time the trigger was pulled in anger. Every time.
Well all I can say is that’s what we did when I was there. I have nothing to gain by lying here.
Granted, it’s been long ago, but even during the invasion we were told to maintain fire discipline, and that was when ROE was pretty much nonexistent. I can’t vouch for other units, but my battalion and brigade prided itself on maintaining awareness of innocent locals even in the thick of things. I call bs on any commander openly advocating indiscriminate killing. IIRC, COL Steele received a reprimand for something similar after I left 3 BDE, and well before the incident in the video.
There’s a reason why METT-T was changed to METT-TC years ago. Civilians on the battlefield affect the way we operate, like it or not, and that’s what sets us apart from our enemies.
Casey, weren’t you in a support unit? were you guard? it seems the active infantry types had very strict rules, maybe that can explain the difference.
Damn, that’s some fake atrocity sh*t straight outta Winter Soldier or some wannabe “trip-wire” vet story about going on “mad minute” of shooting in all directions aroundthe perimeter just to see if you hit someone because the dumbass (and agreeably liberal) civilian reporter doesn’t know anything and’ll buy all kinds of stupid stuff. “Yeah, Top Secret black ops, my codename was Agent Orange!”
Yeah, Anon, that’s the part that got me.
Recon by fire with a Bradley doesn’t make much sense since they fire 300 rounds/minute and only have 90 rounds uploaded (if I remember correctly).
What numbnutted dismounted unarmored infantryman is going to fire back at a tank or Bradley that’s blasting away indiscriminately?
Makes absolutley no sense.
And there I was, in the Sargasso Sea, on Spec Ops with Mush Morton and Richard O’Kane, when lo and behold we ran across the Red October with none other than Sean Connery the commie with the Scotch accent himself commanding. Well, we weren’t about to take that, “One ping only, Vasily,” bullshit lying down, so we fired all our torpedoes in volleys out of both the forward and aft tubes until we were shooting the garbage at the red bastard as well.
Hey, it sounds about the same.
I’m not in the military, but I did take the time to track down and talk to Ethan McCord myself, and I found him to be entirely credible. Some observations:
My sense is that this was not an official order–as Anonymous said above, that would be illegal on its face. EM described this event to me as more like the CO dropping by the COP, gathering everyone around, and telling them that this was going to be the response to IED attacks from now on.
If you do a little research, you will find that the Lt. Col. of the 2-16 was well known for his abrasive, even abusive manner. Knowing what he said on national tv about the Pat Tillman incident, it is entirely plausible that he would say something so outrageous to his men. Especially during a time, the surge of 2007, when everything on the ground was so violent and out of control.
EM was a good deal older than most of the company, but you’re talking about a lot of 18 and 19 year olds here, and they are impressionable and to them, the commanding officers words are basically God.
Finally, not every company is run the same way, and despite the ROE and manuals and everything else, the personality of the guy at the top really can and does have active consequences on the field. I believe that this happened. I believe there are going to be other soldiers who will corrobarate it.
This war is not really going by the Pentagon’s official script, nor the mainstream media’s even more fantastical version of it. It was and is, quite simply, a mishmosh, a mess.
To be clear when we did recon by fire we fired .50 cal and down. No main gun rounds unless approved by the Battalion CO and the brads didn’t fire whatever they have, a 25mm I think.
Aw, man, it was hell, I tell you… we had to do PowerPoint and listen to Fox News! (If the libtard, former-71L “Iraq war vet” martyrs were honest.)
Casey, was that Recon by Fire an actual order from your upper command? What level did that come from?
BTW, Ethan did show me some footage of this 360 degree thing actually happening. The vehicle that got hit is pretty far up the convoy in the footage, so it’s a little blurry, but you can clearly hear the company’s response fire after the IED goes off. I suppose it could have been enemy fire, too, but I don’t know why he would make this up.
At what level I’m not sure. I always assumed that it cam from higher up than Battalion. But it SOP for the bulk of my first deployment (2006) and other Soldiers talked to me about doing it on our second, with a different unit, this time in 2008.
I can tell you that ever NCO and Soldier, and Officer felt fine with doing it in 2006 so they must have gotten the ok from somewhere.
Gentlemen? Gather around! You too, Mr Jimbo…The “Mad Minute” or “reconnaissance by fire” is the firing of individual weapons and machine guns. Nothing of larger caliber…on full automatic for approximately two minutes.
Primarily used for discovering an enemies hidden position(s) during a lull in fighting or immediately after an attack elsewhere along the front line where it is too quiet.
It will cause them launch the next attack too early and they pay the price for being stupid. Key here is anywhere along the front line.
The order is issued by the BTN C.O., at a precise time via battalion net radio and only if there is plenty of ammo on hand.
LT Gen Hal Moore (C.O. 1/7 Cav) used it to great effect in Ia Drang Valley. At LZ Xray, he ordered his troopers to shoot at termite mounds, ant hills, into the trees, high grass forward and above and was used as a clean-up tactic for out front of American positions.
What say you?
Oh yea! Updating, one of these two *twits* are in ummmm custody over the video leaked to wikileak. The big cat of wikileaks has surfaced in Belgium and says he wont come back to the USA.
Since I know the Pentagon reads us, Hey guys! Give me round trip tickets for two, a hundred grand ($100,000 I know, I know, its chump change to Obama) and I’ll be glad to fetch that *critter* for ya.
Besides, I could use the cash to buy Lilyea a steak dinner..
garryowen!
street–bit of a difference between fighting NVA in the bush and urban warfare.
Street- well you obviously havent been doing your research, because as you say Oh yea! Updating, one of these two *twits* are in ummmm custody over the video leaked to wikileak.
The person in custody is not one of these guys, nor was he in their battalion or even their division good try at discrediting them though!
roger that Sparky! My sincere apologies savedby, was thinking of the person currently being held in Kuwait and not trying to discredit anybody.
streetsweeper–thanks for the clarification. If that is the case, then Recon by Fire as described by Casey is a totally different animal than what EM is talking about. McCord said the exact same thing to me as he did in that article–that the order was to “kill every motherf**ker on the street.” No room to misinterpret those words, if indeed they are true.
This Ass Hole said he would have said the same thing and its just typical Private Bull Shit…Hes just a s guilty as the rest pof the murders of inocent kids and people in that Murder case of the inocents , ” Would have said thesame thing , Typical Pvt B/S…” what an ASS ..No Concense whatsoever…
Prehaps the Privates DO KNOW MORE than there Leaders with no idea what a War Crime is , Being in Charge is not a Ticket to acuse another of being an acesory to not folowing an Illegal order when its a Crime in the first place…So whoever the Jerk writing that they would have done the same thing in acuseing the Private of trying to help a Child and not being an acomplis to the criminal activity is The one should be repremanded and stand up and suck it up ..Privats Do Know more that there Ones in Charge its become obvious..usualy rear etchelon Generals dont know Squat for whats going on up front , Just give out there orders and expect the Kill Count to expand…Think it was Westmoraland in Viet Nam learnd that with the 60 min Law Suit ,,But he won a Pinney i think ,, Grand award for him he considerd it a victory for all his B/S
you know I didn’t comment on this for some reason. So here’s my $.02. I was in the same Company, B co 2-16. Here’s what I know, THAT’S COMPLETE AND UTTER HORSE SHIT
Also 3rd platoon never got hit by any IEDs. 1st and 2nd did. There were rumors 1-8 Cav did that shit, and almost lit up one of our convoys, but again I doubt that’s actually what happened (though I do know a Brad was actively engaging a target when one of our convoys went past an alley way they happened to be shooting at. They also ran into our sector with an Abrams, and almost ran over our trail vehicle so they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the basket)
This “make your life a living hell” is a load of crap. they can do corrective training, and yeah that tends to suck more when you can’t escape them, but until the 12 Jul indecent, he wasn’t considered to be a bad troop. He was sent home cuz his wife was going to leave him, and refused to come back. That’s when his former friends lost all respect for him. He got a little but hurt about it. Being sent to the WTB probably didn’t help (that place was a nightmare). Whatever the case, whatever the reason he turned his back on the company a long time ago. I know for a fact the former CO (Bushmaster 6), is pretty bitter about being stabbed in the back like that.
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