Know when not to pick a fight.

On the morning of April 3, 2003, the 101st stood outside the holiest Shia mosque in all Iraq, watching hundreds of Iraqis suddenly turn on U.S. troops. Lt. Col. Chris Hughes had led them into the city to liberate it, but agitators had spread the lie that the Americans were going to seize the mosque and arrest the cleric.

Hughes could have muscled his way in, but he took another approach.

"Everybody smile!" he ordered his troops, as CBS News cameras rolled. "Don't point your weapons at them. Take a knee, relax!"

For his tense soldiers, "taking a knee" first meant taking a deep breath. They did, and the crowd's mood eased. Hughes then ordered his men to withdraw.

His informed directives saved lives. In the Arab culture, a blank face indicates hostility while a smiling face conveys friendship. The Soldiers' turning their backs on the crowd showed trust.

Because of their commander's knowledge of Arab culture, the Soldiers were able to defuse this dangerous situation.

He avoided a massacre that minutes before seemed a gunshot away. But to Hughes, the strategic victory was preserving the mosque.

"In terms of scale of significance, that is the mosque that would have probably not just have caused every Shia in that country to rise up against the coalition," Hughes said. "It probably would have at least brought in the Syrians, if not the Iranians."

As he proved outside the mosque in Najaf, Chris Hughes knows when not to pick a fight.
Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, who won a big battle by never firing a shot.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/15/eveningnews/main1409061.shtml