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Armed with Law Degrees, U.S. Soldiers Advise Comrades on Fighting Codes, Domestic Tussles
Tuesday, April 2, 2002
(1:44 AM ET)
By Christopher Torchia
Associated Press Writer

About 20 soldiers approach the lawyers for help each day, and about half of the cases involve family issues, a testament to the hardship of living away from home on long deployments.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- AP
Like many lawyers, they help write wills and advise on divorce and financial paperwork. But they also carry guns and wear desert camouflage, and coach their clients in the rules of war.

This is the "Kandahar Bar Association," or so says the sign outside an office door at the city airport, which has been transformed by the U.S. military into a major base and staging ground for the war on terrorism.

Despite the whimsical label, the task of the office's three military lawyers is vital: to help soldiers maintain a code of conduct in battle, and assist them with personal tangles back home.

"I take the legal jargon and put it in a soldier's terms," said Capt. Harper Cook, a soft-spoken, bespectacled lawyer with an M-4 rifle laid across his lap. He smoked a cigar, sitting on a metal chair in an airport walkway as dust swirled outside.

Cook briefed U.S. soldiers on the "rules of engagement" before Operation Anaconda against al-Qaida fighters in early March. The operation was the largest U.S. ground assault on enemy holdouts in the five-month war in Afghanistan.

The combat rules say when it is appropriate to use force, and in what quantity. Self-defense guidelines are the highest priority because some soldiers may wait for the enemy to shoot before opening fire, said Cook, 31, of Owensboro, Ky.
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2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan