How things are expected to work today

A soldier sees a terrorist firing at him and closing in :

1. Soldier would request Section Commander for permission to fire

2. Sec Cdr would ask Platoon Cdr who in turn would seek permission from Coy Cdr
who would then ask the Bn Cdr

3. Bn Cdr would seek instructions from Bde Cdr who would call up the Div Cdr who
in turn would ask his Col GS to give him a power point presentation

4. The Col GS would ask his staff to prepare a power point presentation to be shown
to the Div Cdr

5. The slide show would then be sent back for revisions and after 18 revisions a
yellow sticky note shall be put on it with the word ‘approved’

6. Now convinced, the Div Cdr would seek permission from the Corps Cdr to fire
who would in turn ask him to send him a print out of the slide show through fax
because he doesn’t have email

7. The GS Branch of the Div would send a fax to the Corps who would ask the GS
Branch to send it through courier since it got faxed to the wrong number

8. The Capt who sent out the fax would get a bad ACR because he should have
known that the fax number given to him by a Col at the Corp HQ was not correct

9. The Corps Cdr would confirm from the JAG Branch whether firing back would
constitute a human rights violation

10. After getting the legal advice, the Corps Cdr would inform the Army Cdr just to
be on the safer side

11. The Army Cdr would ask the Corp Cdr to send him whatever info he has on the
subject

12. The Army Cdr would never get the information

13. The Div is again notified that the info should be sent to the Corps with a copy to
the Div and to the Army HQ

14. The Army Cdr receives the info but says that he should also inform the Chief. On
the other hand the DGMO calls up the Div Cdr and asks him why some dumb
Capt had been faxing him 152 pages of slide print outs without any reason

15. The Capt sending out the fax who was expecting an AR tenure in staff gets posted
to RR

16. The Chief says that the Navy and Air Force should also be informed since they
should be an integral part of any decision that may be taken

17. The Navy and Air Force protest that they should be kept in the loop and atleast
two fighter aircraft and some MARCOS should back up the soldier who had
sought permission to fire, the Army agrees for the recommended jointsmanship

18. The elite Spl Forces backed by MARCOS and two jets of the Air Force are sent to
the location where they find a decomposed body of a soldier with the wireless
handset still held near his ear as if waiting for a response from someone for
whatever question he may have asked