Judge Advocates in Combat Army Lawyers in Military Operations from Vietnam to Haiti

As the U.S. Army has evolved in the past half-century, the Judge Advocate General's Corps has been an important part of its maturing ability to provide effective military force to meet a broad range of challenges. Since the opening days of American involvement in Vietnam, the U.S. Army has been working to meet national security objectives under close public scrutiny in complex, demanding situations. Those conditions call for commanders to make full use of all available staff input, and the special training of the Staff Judge Advocate has often made the lawyer one of the most important sources of insight. This volume recounts numerous instances when new challenges would not have been met so effectively had that specialized staff work not been available. At one level this is the chronicle of judge advocates at work in the theater of active operations. It provides valuable information on the organization, tasks, and performance of legal offices in a wide array of activities. The author uses the term "combat" to evoke the theater of active operations-justifiable shorthand, but calling too little attention to the operations other than war covered very ably in the last chapter. Throughout, the reader is introduced to Army lawyers who met unexpected requirements while working under tough, demanding conditions. At another level, this is the history of the evolution of "operational lawn-the concept that put those Army lawyers at the right hand of commanders during the deployments of the 1990s so that everything from Status of Forces Agreements to application of the principles of the Law of Land Warfare would be integrated into the planning and execution of operations such as JUST CAUSE and DESERT STORM as well as the many "peacekeeping" operations and deployments in support of civil authorities. This operational focus of judge advocate staff support in addition to traditional legal support-has enhanced mission success in the politically charged and militarily ambiguous operations that have become common in our era.