When the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans, Policy, and Operations, Vice Admiral Ace Lyons, conceived and created the Navy's first Red Cell unit to test the ability of Navy installations to withstand a terrorist attack, he made sure that the unit's structure included a JAG officer. Ace did so because he knew that his Red Cell commander, a maverick SEAL, liked to skirt the edge of the operational envelope. And the admiral wanted to make sure that no matter how unconventional Red Cell may have appeared, it was still operating within the Navy's overall rules.

But Ace also stipulated that it would be Red Cell's CO, not its JAG, who'd make the ultimate go/no go calls. Ace made it crystal clear that the JAG was there in support of Red Cell. Not as an umpire calling balls, strikes, and outs, or the yea or naysayer vetting missions. In face, Ace saw the JAG as his way of demonstrating loyalty down the chain of command. It was the JAG's assignment to protect Red Cell's personnel while ensuring that the mission was completed successfully.

But that was then, and this is now. Today, there is very little evidence of loyalty down the chain of command, and JAGs seem to be calling more balls, strikes, and outs than ever before.

It was an Army JAG officer, so the story goes, who during the opening days of the Afghanistan campaign told the folks at CENTCOM that launching a Hellfire missile at Mullah Omar was illegal because somebody might get hurt.

Today, it appears that battlefield commanders are allowing JAG officers to become involved in prosecuting targets and determining battlefield priorities. That's wrong -- and it's got to stop. Because lives are at stake.

About a month ago, more than a million rounds of USG-issued 7.62 X 51 M118LR sniper ammunition was denied to Army snipers in Iraq because a civilian contractor and a misguided staff sergeant believed the ammo was illegal. The civilian became convinced that pallet loads of Lake City M118LR rounds were hollowpoint. The civilian complained to an ammunition staff sergeant named Mosley, who took him at his word.

But of course M118LR isn't hollowpoint. It is open-tip ammunition, a distinction that evaded both the civilian and the noncom who should have known better, AHA (Ammo Holding Area) Staff Sergeant Mosely.

There's a huge difference. Hollowpoint is illegal. Full stop. End of story. M118LR is legal. It is Government-approved and issued flat-trajectory, match-grade, one shot one kill ammo that is used in the Army's M-24 SWS (Sniper Weapons System) rifle. This ammunition saves lives. It allows snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan to kill the enemy at extended range -- before the enemy can kill American soldiers.

Now here's the loyalty part. After being told that the ammo he was using was illegal, a young Army sniper sergeant named Arthur J. Hushen managed to obtain documentation explaining the difference between hollowpoint ammo and open-tip ammo, and gave it to his unit's JAG, a major. She got upset at Hushen, not the civilian who'd caused the problem in the first place.

“MAJ Card informed me that I was not a lawyer & she did not work for me ” is how Hushen described their encounter in a memo he wrote to the file in mid-January, shortly before the was removed from his sniper platoon and assigned to guard the gym.

Major Card, I have news for you. You DO work for Sergeant Hushen. In fact, it is your job to ensure that the sergeant and every other sniper in his unit gets all the support they need so that they can kill the terrorists who'd like nothing more than to smoke you when you least expect it.

Major Card, when the nation is at war, one is either Tooth or one is Tail. Tooth's mission is to hunt the enemy, engage, kill, and prevail. Tail's mission is to support Tooth. It is Tail's entire raison d'ętre to support Tooth. Nothing is more critical, more elemental, more fundamental to ultimate victory.

Major Card: let me be clear. Your job is important. Tooth cannot exist without Tail. Facile, risk-taking, audacious Tail officers, noncoms, and Soldiers are the ones who make it possible for Tooth to fight and to win.

That's why it is so critical that Tail always support Tooth. Not obstruct Tooth. Tail personnel, be they logistics, supply, public-affairs, or JAGs are not in Iraq to call balls, strikes, and outs. They are not in theater to find inventive ways in which to bury Tooth under a blizzard of paperwork. Or to create bureaucratic obstacles for Tooth that prevent Tooth from executing Tooth's God-given mission to kill as many of the enemy in the most efficient way Tooth can.

That kind of bureaucratic, obstructionist behavior routinely festers in a peacetime military because the peacetime military routinely becomes a military of fiefdoms, baronies, and ‘thou-shalt-nots,' run by cautious careerists more interested in their next promotion than making sure that Tooth's teeth are the sharpest most lethal teeth in the world.

This peacetime modus operandi is typified in a scene in the movie “From Here to Eternity.” It is the morning of December 7, 1941, and the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor. Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) sends his men to the ammo locker.

The noncom in charge blocks the door. “I don't care,” he shouts at the guys with empty guns, “I can't issue any live ammunition without a signed order from an officer.”

When Sergeant Warden shows up, he demands to know what the hell is going on.

The ammo locker noncom whines, “I'm sorry but I got my orders. Army regulations say I can't--” at which point a Japanese fighter strafes the Soldiers and everybody dives for cover.

But even then, the noncom is peace-time bureaucratically resolute. He blocks the ammo locker door with his body. “I got my orders--”

“I'll see you get a medal,” growls Warden, pushing him aside. “Bust it down, boys.”

Warden typifies the ideal wartime Soldier: his loyalty extends down the chain of command as well as up it. He leads from the front. He puts the welfare of his men first. He typifies the Warrior thinking of my old friend and mentor, First SEAL Roy Boehm, whose credo, whether he was operating in the Tooth role or the Tail role (and he did plenty of both), was “Never, ever forget that War is an acronym. It stands for We Are Ready.”