JERRY DAVICH: Do you condemn or condone the Marines’ urinating incident?

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:10AM

I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve never been in military combat in a foreign land, or served in any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. And I’ve never been systematically instructed how to take someone else’s life or how to defend mine, all paid for and blessed by Uncle Sam, no less.

In other words, I have no idea what it feels like to be involved in a “kill or be killed” life or death situation, literally, during combat on enemy soil.

This was my immediate reaction to the now infamous YouTube video titled “Marines urinating on Taliban” that quickly went viral and then, almost as quickly, was universally condemned by most viewers.

But not by me. I was more curious than outraged.

If you haven’t yet seen it, or have chosen not to, the one-minute video shows four Marines peeing on the dead bodies of recently killed (and reportedly) Taliban soldiers.

Was it a stupid, irresponsible, and immoral act by a group of young-looking Marines?

You bet.

Was it even more stupid, irresponsible, and immoral to videotape the act and post it online?

Of course.

Worse yet, if you conduct a quick Google search starting with just the word “Marines,” the phrase “Marines urinating on Taliban” floods your search engine’s results. What a shame for the Marines, for the military, and for our country.

But this incident and its now-ubiquitous image has served as a lightning rod for much larger issues at hand — the laws of armed conflict — which have been breached, according to military experts. And also who we are as Americans.

“Defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach of the LOAC (laws of armed conflict), violate basic standards of human decency, and can cause serious damage to relations with the Afghan government,” wrote U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti to all military personnel serving in Afghanistan.

Scaparrotti, commander of the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, then ordered all commanders to remind their subordinates of their duty to comply.

And they surely will — for the time being.

What those Marines did has been called everything from “un-American” and “ungodly” by observers, but such acts by American soldiers have surely taken place in combat situations for decades, right? They simply were not caught on video that went viral within minutes.

Is that the underlying issue here? That the Marines’ actions were caught on film, or is it that they peed on their enemies’ bodies? It’s the difference, I say, between a lightning bug and lightning, respectively.

On Wednesday, hundreds of mourners attended the funeral for a 21-year-old local soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. Most likely, Indiana National Guard Sgt. Brian Leonhardt of Merrillville was killed by Taliban soldiers who set up the improvised explosive device that killed him and three other soldiers on Jan. 6.

I’m sure many of those mourners also will adamantly condemn what those Marines did during combat operations against the Taliban in that country.

But I guarantee that many other mourners will quietly ignore, if not condone, what the Marines did, though never publicly.

Personally, I don’t condone it. But nor do I condemn it.

Like I said, I’ve never been institutionally instructed to kill other people in combat.

I’ve never been trained to take another human’s life under the guise of warfare. I’ve never had to kill or be killed, period.

I don’t know how I would react to such a scenario, especially in my youth.

So I’ll leave such judgment to those who have been there, done that, and who have already reacted to such a primitive yet surreal circumstance. Maybe other casual observers should, too.