Age of Accountability

After raiding a house in Iraq, CPT Dan Baringer faced a significant challenge finding the proponent for enemy activity in a local neighborhood. He suspected a young local national of the insurgent activity but lacked the necessary proof to know for sure. The boy looked fourteen or fifteen years old, but CPT Baringer's intuition told him that there was more to the boy's story than the information being shared with him from other local nationals. His unit's policy for detainees was that they could not hold or process a detainee under the age of sixteen. After calling back to his battalion TOC, CPT Baringer was told that he could bring this person back but, "there were going to be repercussions in the community and back at the unit.