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04 May 2012

US Focusing on Troop Discipline

From the SecDef on down, they're getting the troops back in line.

From tasteless photos to urinating on dead insurgents, bad behavior by U.S. troops in Afghanistan has hampered America's war effort over the past year, triggering a broad new campaign by defense leaders to improve discipline in the ranks.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in his first personal appeal to troops on the issue, is expected Friday to remind U.S. forces that they are representing the American people and they must behave up to military standards.
Panetta will speak to soldiers at Fort Benning, Georgia, and he is expected to urge them to act as leaders and look after their comrades. His remarks are expected to reflect recent talks by the Army and Marine Corps chiefs telling their commanders to get their troops in line.

The Marines less flowery.

Marine Corps Commandant James Amos was blunter.
"We are allowing our standards to erode," he wrote his commanders. "A number of recent widely publicized incidents have brought discredit on the Marine Corps and reverberated at the strategic level. The undisciplined conduct represented in these incidents threatens to overshadow all our good work and sacrifice."
Senior leaders have warned for several years about a deterioration of discipline that may have contributed to increased substance abuse, suicides, domestic abuse and other problems.

By: Brant

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