The military’s top enlisted service member has a message for the Islamic State, one that’s making the rounds on Twitter and firing up crowds he speaks to: Surrender terrorists, or face the blunt end of an entrenching tool.
In a Facebook post hash-tagged “ISIS_SurrenderOrDie” Command Sergeant Major John Troxell, the senior enlisted adviser to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford, offered ISIS two options.
“If they surrender, we will safeguard them to their detainee facility cell, provide them chow, a cot and due process,” Troxell wrote. “However if they choose not to surrender, then we will kill them with extreme prejudice, whether that be through security force assistance, by dropping bombs on them, shooting them in the face, or beating them to death with our entrenching tools. Regardless, they cannot win, so they need to choose how it’s going to be.”
And, if not ... he offered a how-to on employing the “entrenching tool.”
“Hell yeah CSM Troxell, I’mm getting my Etool ready #getsome” wrote one reply to Command Sergeant Major John Troxell’s call to arms.
Troxell’s Jan. 9 Tweet repeated a theme he spoke about as he visited troops over the holidays.
Tara Copp is a Pentagon correspondent for the Associated Press. She was previously Pentagon bureau chief for Sightline Media Group.
