Escort Duty

One particular day we were doing an escort for some trucks, we were going to the, actually to the Olympic stadium in Sarajevo to deliver humanitarian aid. We used to drive underneath to the parking area and deliver all the food. This particular day I had the right flank of the vehicle and obviously, you know, always your weapon up at the ready, this particular weapon I had was a C7, and you’re looking out. You’re looking out at what’s happening and this young child, I can estimate his age at being 8 maybe 9 years old or something like that came out with a Russian type built rocket launcher; it wasn’t an RPG, it was the type that was disposable and opens like carvers and it’s an M718, but a different calibre if I’m not mistaken and he was aiming towards our vehicle and I couldn’t see in between this rocket launcher because if you see in between this rocket launcher, it’s empty, that means it’s not armed it doesn’t have a rocket in it but if you see that it’s solid and you don’t see a hole going through it that means it’s armed and somebody is aiming to kill you. This particular time I couldn’t see in between because the way that the child was positioned with the rocket launcher was waiting for us to go through so I caulked my weapon, put one on top, removed the safe leaver and had him in between my sights and I was, since he was a child I hesitated, because he’s a child, I think it’s an automatic reaction you have...and I froze. And I didn’t take the child’s life because I froze and he was a child but it appears to be when I went by it was empty