I commanded a field artillery firing battery in Vietnam in 1971. I got shot at. 

Upon my return, I went to the Field Artillery Officer Advanced Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  All of my classmates were captains who had just returned from Vietnam.  

One day, we were herded into an auditorium for a class on the rules of land warfare.   A JAG (Judge Advocate General, or military lawyer) officer who had not been to Vietnam was the instructor.   He showed us a film that presented different situations designed to highlight the rules, and there would be discussion after each scene.   In one scene, a patrol was working its way through the jungle in an area known to have enemy activity.  Suddenly, there was motion in the jungle ahead. The point man raised his rifle to engage when a soldier behind him pulled down the barrel and said he needed to be sure. Moments later, it was revealed that the motion had been caused by an unarmed child.   The JAG was initially smug but was stunned by universal scorn from his audience.   I was in the audience, and our take was that the point man had been too slow and the guy who pulled the barrel down should have crap beaten out of him.   The much-maligned free fire zone was actually a fire control measure.   It was free fire because there should be no civilians there.   Whenever we fired a mission, we got clearance to fire from a coordination center that gave us assurance that there were no friendly military or civilians in the area.   We got a set of initials tied to the clearance.   In the scene in the training film, the patrol was in the jungle in enemy territory.  If somehow a child managed to get into the jungle in the path of the patrol, that would be unfortunate — it would also be really unlikely.   What we knew from being there is that it is much better to err on the side of staying alive.   Unless you have actually been worried about getting shot, I would advise reserving judgment.   Admiral Frank M. Bradley, who is now being accused of war crimes over the recent 'double tap' boat strike incident against Tren de Aragua gang members transporting cocaine on the high seas in an unflagged vessel, has a superb reputation.  He had a long consultation with a JAG officer before the second strike.   Now, my experience was not at sea.  But his experience is. His mission was to destroy a boat carrying drugs. The drug trade always involves lethal weaponry.  I would advise reserving judgment about the second strike.  And those jumping to a negative conclusion are setting a very dangerous precedent.