Word: farmer
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Many cadets' first reflex, he says, is to hold a pistol to the farmer's head. McKinney challenges them: Well, are you willing to pull the trigger, then? And wouldn't that endanger the lives of some of your men if the farmer's tribe wanted revenge? If he still refuses and you don't pull the trigger now, will you have lost credibility with your team...
...they prepare for a battlefield where friend and enemy can be indistinguishable. He is a walking album of case studies: You're leading a platoon, he tells his cadets, and one of your men is lying wounded in the middle of a minefield. You go meet with a local farmer, who knows how to lead his herds safely through the field, so he could help rescue your comrade. But he won't talk; if he's seen collaborating with the Americans, he and his family could be killed. What...
Others suggest offering the farmer protection, an idea that McKinney rips apart even more quickly. Never promise these people anything you can't deliver, he says. They remember those things...
Finally, McKinney gives the answer to the case study: There is no answer. Not one single answer, anyhow. It's all just guesses, and McKinney's guess is that you should leverage the strong Iraqi aversion to having a death on one's conscience. Tell the farmer that the soldier lying out there is a human being and that his death would be on the farmer's head. In other words, use your judgment, considering everything you have learned about the place and the culture and human nature...
There exist more artistic wastes of time as well—www.createbands.com allows you to build an ensemble that would fit in perfectly well in the indy music scene here at Harvard, and the Farmer Shop Quartet (which I’ve conveniently linked at tinyurl.com/2d8m to make up for the fact it has a horribly long address) allows you to make one that would fit in at Cornell. At www.isketch.com, you can pit your drawing talents against those of your roommates (or those of complete strangers, if your roommates are more responsible than you are) in a game...