Rules of Engagement at Sea

Heroes Remember

Rules of Engagement at Sea

We operate in peacetime under a series of rules of engagement. So you are not allowed to draw your gun on somebody unless there’s a reason for it. When we were sailing there, we had set rules that said, you are, if you come across a ship that isn’t doing what you’re asking it to do, you are authorized to fire a shot across the bow of that ship without asking us again or without… Normally in peacetime right now the ship would say look I’ve come across something strange here and I really think I better get it to stop and I’m asking permission to fire across the bow and that had to go to the headquarters, has to go to the government and this happened before the Gulf War, it took two days to get the response back; well the ship’s gone, you know. We had to have some of those things pre-given to us and then all of the ships captains had to know what that was. And then when it was apparent that force was going to be used against Iraq and Iraq was declared the enemy of the allied forces, not just the enemy of Kuwait, the rules are quite specific that you shoot at anything Iraqi. You know you ask questions later basically and that’s the rules that you are under as soon as the missiles start going. So we all had to know these rules. We took a lawyer. I had a lawyer on the task group staff for all sorts of reasons. The boundaries of the maritime area in the Persian Gulf are still under dispute in some countries. Some you can’t sail into certain areas without the permission of the country itself. So we had to know what those were and we had to have a lawyer to ensure .......???? if we were going to do something or sail into a port without the permission of the country, what legal legs do we have to stand on here. And if we shoot somebody down and it happens to be wrong what’s the legalities of all that. Or if we shoot the enemy down and it’s valid then it better be, what do we have to document? What do we have to record? What do we have to make sure that in the aftermath when everybody is sitting back home saying, “Well, you shouldn’t have done that!” we have to say, “Yes, we should have,” because we asked the legal opinion, we recorded everything we did, we made all of these communications and then we fired, you know. So all of that has to known by each of the ships that are out there.

Vice Admiral Miller explains the significance of rules of engagement while at sea and the restrictions placed on the sailors should they be in harm’s way.

Duncan “Dusty” Miller

Born in the United Kingdom, Duncan “Dusty” Miller immigrated to Canada in 1954. At the age of 15 and having a strong desire to join the military, Mr. Miller went to the recruiting centre but could not be accepted until 16 years of age. He then attended Bishop’s University in Lennoxville. During his career, Mr. Miller rose to the rank of Vice Admiral where he became the Naval Task Commander aboard HMCS Athabaskan during the Persian Gulf War. Vice Admiral Miller later retired from the military and now resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia.