On thursday, I went to grab a quick lunch at the commissary. I sat down at a table next to an old veteran. We got to chatting since his wife was doing the shopping. He was a retired Sergeant Major who had served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. With that kind of background, I listened very closely. We got on the topic of Iraq and he asked me if I had any military training on the geneva convention. I told him the only knowledge I had of the Geneva convention was stuff I learned on my own. He was a bit surprised that I did not get any training on it. He said that every soldier in his day got an extensive class on the geneva convention with an 8 hour refresher course every year. Then he said some of the problems in Iraq with human rights violations may have been prevented thru proper training.

I seem to agree that educating soldiers on the Geneva Convention and the Laws of War would do some good. At the least, you wouldn't get dumb MP's who said they were never got training on such things. I believe the military command is responsible for the problems in Iraq. There were no orders to commit such violations, but there were no attemps to prevent those problems before they occured.

Oh yeah, I was late getting back from lunch. My section chief understood when I explained the situation. The SGT MAJ said to tell him I was having lunch with an "old soldier."8)

SGT Doody

Do you know when the military stopped giving classes on the Geneva Convention? That's kind of disappointing that they don't teach that.

I have no clue. There has been no Geneva Convention classes since I have been in the Army (1997).

Now I have had Rules of Engagement (ROE) classes that address some parts of the Laws of War. There are normally right before a deployment or major combat action, and that info is generally forgotten or ignored since there is a butt load of stuff already going on. The type of classes the SGT MAJ was talking about is sustainment training.

Isn't the ROE more of a briefing than training? From what I've heard it's a quick, ~10 minute, speech before they let you loose. Which is why most soldiers ignore it or forget it. I would too if that's the last thing they pumped into my head. They make it sound unimportant, so it must be.

yeah that's basically what it is.

Ours was more like an hour. The only thing I remember was that we were not able to shoot people in civilian cloths holding molotov cocktails if they were not with in throwing distance. I only remembered it because that part was quite amusing. Most of the soldiers at the brief paid little attention.

AND our training said that EPW's were to be held until the MP's get there.