Outlaw Platoon, the book written by Sean Parnell to describe his platoon’s sixteen month deployment is one of gripping and harsh stories and descriptions of the time spent in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. Their mission was to seek out enemy positions and destroy them while surveying the border to access the people traveling across the border. Lt. Parnell demonstrates a sound understanding of mission command in most of his engagements and decision making throughout this book to ultimately forge a cohesive and unified platoon that believe in themselves and their leaders. Lt. Parnell uses disciplined initiative to instill the fire under his NCOs which enables them to make decisions that will positively affect the platoon and their overall…show more content… They were ambushed by enemy forces by not only heavy machine gun fire, but also heavy indirect fire in massive amounts. As the first rounds rained down, Parnell woke up from an unconscious state caused by an explosion but despite the injuries sustained, he instantly chose to gain his combat awareness and started to make decisions. After gaining his awareness, he noticed that his platoon members were going down at a rapid rate. He first noticed that his platoon sergeant had been hit by shrapnel shortly followed by his sergeant being shot in the arm with blood shooting out of an artery. The situation was quickly becoming grave as Parnell was helped into his truck while being suppressed by two support by fire positions from the enemy. He immediately called to his executive officer for reinforcements because he realized that in no time his platoon would completely destroyed. Displaying sound doctrine and understanding of his duties as a platoon leader, he knew that he needed to be wherever the battle was the thickest and he ran over to a position held by his men where the enemy was quickly approaching. While he was on the way there, once again he was hit by an RPG that detonated only feet from him which threw him to the side and rendered him unconscious again. Once he gained consciousness again, he began to access the battlefield and continued to render
