In 2011, President Barack Obama sent U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces (among others) to central Africa to hunt down and destroy the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and capture its leader, warlord Joseph Kony.
As of March 2020, those troops are eligible to wear the Global War on Terror Service and Expeditionary Medals.
Kony and the LRA are no longer on the U.S. State Department's List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, but they were when Obama launched Operation Observant Compass.
For six years, American forces and African Union troops decimated the Lord's Resistance Army. Though they didn't capture Kony, the effort ended the LRA's more than 25-year campaign of theft, rape and murder in Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Uganda.
Read: Troops Involved in Hunt for African Warlord Eligible for War on Terror Medal
By the time U.S. special operators ended Observant Compass, the ranks of the LRA had dwindled from 2,000 to less than 100.
No viral YouTube video could do that. It required boots on the ground to end the LRA's reign of terror for millions of Africans. Here are four reasons why those troops deserve the medals:
1. Ending LRA Massacres of Civilians
Even today, no one is safe in an attack from the LRA. The group and its leader are infamous for not only killing civilians, but members of their own tribal and ethnic groups. Kony, an ethnic Acholi from Uganda, is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Acholi, and indirectly responsible for the forced migration of 1.8 million more in Uganda alone.
Despite Kony's self-proclaimed status as a religious leader, one of the most egregious attacks came on Dec. 24, 2008, when members of the LRA slaughtered a gathering of Christian worshippers who had congregated to celebrate Christmas. An estimated 600 to 800 civilians were killed with axes, swords and clubs in what has become known as the "Christmas Massacre."
By 2013, the LRA had murdered an estimated 100,000 civilians.
2. Ending Abductions of Children by the LRA
Perhaps one of the things the LRA is best known for is the use of child soldiers to fill its ranks. Those who aren't taken as soldiers are used either as slave labor or sex slaves. Abducted children are beaten into submission; those who refuse to submit are murdered.
Once indoctrinated into the LRA, children are used as soldiers, cooks and spies. If wounded in combat, children are most often left to die or are killed by their fellow LRA soldiers. Women and girls who escape the LRA and return to their homes often face the social stigma of having been raped and sometimes giving birth as a result.
The LRA abducted more than 25,000 children between 1987 and 2013; some say that number may be as high as 66,000.
3. Capturing Dominic Ongwen and Caesar Achellam
Though the American and African allies were not able to capture Kony himself, they were able to arrest two of his top commanders and kill two more, including the LRA's No. 2 commander.
Maj. Gen. Okot Odhiambo was supposedly killed by Kony himself after agreeing to defect to the Ugandan government. The location of his body was surrendered by the LRA soldier who buried him. Lt. Col. Binansio "Binany" Okumu, Kony's onetime bodyguard, was killed fighting Ugandan forces after intelligence revealed his whereabouts.
Two other top LRA members, Dominic Ongwen and Caesar Achellam, were captured during Operation Observant Compass. Ongwen is on trial at the International Criminal Court and has reportedly stated that there is no future for the LRA and that many of its soldiers have given up.
4. Protecting Displaced Civilians
Imagine being a refugee inside your own country, forced to flee homes and livelihoods because of internal strife, violence and other dangers. Though the LRA insurgency began in neighboring Uganda, Kony and his forces routinely crossed national borders and ended up fighting inside the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Lord's Resistance Army has contributed to the displacement of millions in the Congo, who face abduction, theft, rape, murder or other forms of violence as they flee for safety. It led to what became known as "night commuters," 40,000 young children who fled their rural villages at night to seek safety in towns, then return home in the morning.
-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com.
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