Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

A Marine’s Afghan AAR (XI): On being ‘pinned down’

Here CWO2/Gunner Keith Marine says that being trapped by enemy fire is just something you think. "Pinned down." I have heard this term a few times out here. Being pinned down is a state of mind, nothing is holding you there. Get your base of fire going, firing only at targets and at the sustained ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images
LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images
LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images

Here CWO2/Gunner Keith Marine says that being trapped by enemy fire is just something you think.

Here CWO2/Gunner Keith Marine says that being trapped by enemy fire is just something you think.

"Pinned down." I have heard this term a few times out here. Being pinned down is a state of mind, nothing is holding you there. Get your base of fire going, firing only at targets and at the sustained rate.  Use the marksmanship fundamentals and you will rapidly reduce their numbers. Then assault.  In areas we have done this, we killed them and they didn’t come back to play. They go and play in other folks’ areas [where they] . . .  sit and wait for supporting arms.

I take his point, but also of course there are situations where there is an enemy machine gun staring at you and enemy mortars ready to plop on you. I guess he’d say that is all the more reason to get moving. 

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

Read More On Oil Production

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.