Language

OOH-RAA! won't cut it

Submitted July 12, 2006 - 1:39 am by Bill Conroy
Marines will always fire back when fired upon. That's what they're trained to do, because they are trained to deal with combat situations.

Law enforcement, by contrast, is trained to react to such situations by first securing the perimeter, and then calling in reinforcements to overwhelm a suspect with sheer numbers in order to APPREHEND the individual.

You seem to prefer the military approach, or at least can't seem to think clear to the distinction in this particular exchange.

In the Hernandez case, you automatically fault the 18-year-old for having a gun, despite the fact that as a U.S. citizen he has a Second Amendment right to carry a gun. You also fail to account for the fact that he could not have intentionally fired on the Marines if he had no idea the Marines were there. And finally, you seem to have no realistic understanding of life on the border, particularly in South Texas, a place where many people (not just John Wayne) carry guns to deal with the harsh reality of desert life and the predators, including coyotes, that it supports.

The fact that there was a 20 minute gap between when Hernandez fired his gun and the Marines returned fire also tells you there was plenty of time for other options to be pursued besides the track-and-destroy option.

A warning, an effort to find safer ground to secure the area, and a little more time to allow for the arrival of sufficient backup could have very likely led to a bloodless outcome on all fronts. A risk to be sure, but that's the kind of risk good law enforcement takes every day in the streets of this country.

That is not the kind of risk soldiers are trained to endure, because they are being prepared for combat realities. That is precisely why putting the military on the border, amid peaceful communities like Redmond, Texas, is a bad idea.

In the final analysis, Hernandez was not a terrorist or a drug trafficker, he was just a kid herding his family's goats near his home. He did not deserve to die, no matter how you seek to rationalize his death.

But if you're of the mind that the whole border is a battlefield, and that its OK if communities along that border exist under a perpetual state of Marshal Law, with Marines patrolling the streets and ranches, then this exchange will continue to be pointless, and from here forward, I'll remain silent with Mark Twain's advice (above) in mind.

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