Candi Franks
ENGL 1302
Rochelle Gregory
11/15/2013
Improvised Explosive Devices: Are They Changing Warfare?
A year ago I lost my husband, a U.S. Marine, to brain cancer that was directly caused by getting in the crossfire of an IED, Improvised Explosive Device. In 2006, Sgt. Joshua Lee Franks came home after being enlisted for four years, and serving three tours in Iraq, to find out he will face another battle, a brain tumor. Being at war in Iraq, he woke up every day to fight for our country and “to be part of something great” as he would say. One morning on his third tour, he woke up like any other morning, he and three other fellow soldiers load up in a Humvee to set out for a rondevu to another area to secure. They crossed many miles of terrain through the hot desert and then within an instant, he and his soldiers were no longer in the humvee, he is in the hospital bed being told he has a concussion and had a traumatic brain injury from an IED that was buried in the desert, something he never saw until it was triggered by his vehicle. The soldiers fighting these wars overseas are aware of the dangers of war but with warfare changing due to technology, the everlasting effects and health issues that they produce, they never predicted would be something they would have had to deal with. There needs to be some line drawn to have a level of certain degree of warfare that is not so inhumane and unjust. Although there are many arguments to the significant changes happening in modern warfare, in this paper I will be explaining the view that Improvised Explosive Devices are changing warfare and that they are not ethical on the battlefield.