“I had my finger on a sawed off shotgun and they had broken through the basement of the embassy and they brought Iranian women in black shadoors and used them as shields. And I tell you what, I regret – thinking back thirty-three years ago – not ever pulling that trigger because my orders were don’t fire.” – Rocky Sickmann, former Marine guard at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Not having been in this position, I can only give my opinion as to what I might have done. Having served in Vietnam, with a mind set of NOT being taken alive, I believe I would have dropped the hammer. In Nam we saw where woman and children were used as shields. P.A. bad-guys, (PUNK A_ _) will always play upon the way in which we are raised. We are taught that woman and children are a valuable part of our society.
Not so in other countries. Woman and children are treated as commodities. Slavery is still rampant in the Middle East. Woman and children obey without question. They are killed for not doing so. They are mutilated, tortured, and live as animals, at the whim of an oppresive husband and father.
This is what the democratic party wants to bring to this country, with the IMPOSTER in CHARGE leading the way. We need to revisit what happened in Tehran, and learn from what was done. Carter was gutless, the imposter in charge, is diabolical.
Men are treated like commodities in America as in cannon fodder and as lifetime human ATMs following divorce. A NYC Fire Fighter, a hero of 911, committed suicide after the courts demanded he give so much of his pay in child support that he had only about $80 left monthly to live on. Abroad, men are the majority of those imprisoned, tortured, and executed as political prisoners.
My Gross salary working in IT is six figures. After child support, to my wife and three kids now living in Israel who I haven’t seen in years I actually qualify for food stamps! So yeah I feel his pain. A bit off subject, but I had to chime up.
“Woman and children are treated as commodities. Slavery is still rampant in the Middle East. Woman and children obey without question. They are killed for not doing so. They are mutilated, tortured, and live as animals, at the whim of an oppresive husband and father.”
I would argue that women, children and men have it like that here, at the hands of an omnipresent and oppressive government.
Daily – daily! – there are stories in various news outlets around the country of trigger/tazer/billy club happy cops letting someone have it for what amounts to little more than back-sass.
I sympathies with your regret. That being said, you might not have liked the consequences of blasting a mob of women with a sawed off shotgun, regardless of what they were wearing. You can never know how your mind would have handled that and what it might have cost you over the last thirty years. Sounds like you manned up and followed your lawful orders. I hope the hostage experience has not been detrimental to you life. Thanks for your service.
Manned up and followed orders? He was a fool (as I was once) to have voluntarily enlisted to support a morally corrupt empire. Men’s lives, safety, and welfare are no less valuable and no less deserving than women. If men man-up in America they’ll stop supporting the Democrat and Republican Parties which are essentially criminal gangs whose polices have lead to the deaths of millions. If men in the west also manned up they would stop tolerating the anti-male pro-feminist bs in our society.
Nobody is forcing you to support the Empire, Aharon. We need some Cassandra’s to make that small part of society that sees through the propaganda feel that they are relevant. It would seem you have a lot of anger about women, I know the feminists squeal a lot, but I doubt they have that much influence over anything. Besides, without the Empire, where would we get the conquered raw materials and manpower we need to maintain control over our indigenous population and support the rulers in the appropriate lifestyle.
My anger is not at women as there are too many that are too different. It is with feminism and how men are treated as disposable commodities by government, society, and entitled modern womyn as a group which is a different thing. BTW, criticizing feminism is not misogyny as the feminists love to label opponents. I’m not into using people in the military as sacrificial lambs — to oppress and kill and be maimed and killed in return — and I believe in improving our prosperity using bullion and not bullets. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me (or you) or others I care about so I’m not into sending out some 18 year old kid to play warrior.
PS I just thought of something: on the domestic front, the banksters are the different branches of the US military, their credit tools which becomes debt slavery are their weapons, and the American people are the enemy to conquer and oppress.
In the 60’s, corporations treated their employees as valuable resources, the military, quite the opposite. Things are reversed now, the military husbands their precious manpower, the corporations treat employees as disposable rental units. Personally, I dispise the HR pukes. About our government, we elected them, so what does that say.
P.S. Vietnam, 1967-1968, draftee.
I wouldn’t presume to say what I’d do in this situation since I haven’t been in such a situation and don’t imagine I ever will be. I imagine whether I would have been ok firing would have depended on whether the women were willingly participating or not. And since in the heat of the moment there was likely no way to know that, it’s a tough spot to be in.
He followed orders, simple as that. Hind sight is always 20/20. At the time the US had not gotten a real taste of guerrilla warfare tactics, and terrorist operations. Now that they have if this were to happen today it would be a completely different outcome I am sure.
Time change, and so do we. Thank you for your service, and you did your job as best you could.
+1
I am not trying to make an argument either way but – is this guy saying he would have shot one or more of these women? A sawed off shotgun is not known for being all that precise so is he saying he would have tried to hit some of the men and if a few projectiles hit a few females – oh well?
had he done that, i wonder how different the treatment of prisoners of the embassy would be and if less would be alive
Very possibly so.
they brought Iranian women in black shadoors and used them as shields.
In Nam we saw where woman and children were used as shields.
In the PTO, Japanese used civilians as shields.
Hard to do, but if I was told to hold a position, I would blast away.
More recently the Somalians were known to use human shields back in ’93.
Men on the roof should have selectively taken out the trash entering the compound rather than let them get into a close quarters area where human shields can be used. Let’s not relive the Iranian hostage debacle, that 444 day ordeal was the low point of foreign policy for some time to come.
Couple points:
1: Whatever officer gave the “no fire” order was a chickenshit of the depressingly, overwhelmingly common order. He should have been crucified, and no, I don’t mean in public opinion. Ordering one’s soldiers not to defend themselves and their charges in the service of any political goal makes one the filthiest, lowest sort of coward. Lily-livered, pissant,scum-sucking, ass-kissing bureaucratic fuckwad with no business so much as shining the shoes of a real soldier. Ask me how I really feel.
2: Anyone opining on whether or not they’d shoot unarmed women had better have some solid experience backing it up, because otherwise, you’re just blowing smoke about a situation which you have no possible concept of the difficulties involved. Don’t Monday-morning quarterback this sort of thing. The guys involved do that every day as it is.
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