In two social media posts on Tuesday, the Pentagon's senior enlisted service member issued a warning to Islamic State fighters, telling them to either surrender and be offered due process or face death by less-than-mainstream means.
Army Command Sgt. Maj. John Wayne Troxell administered his warnings in Facebook and Twitter posts, flagged by the Washington Post, where he graphically described how Islamic State fighters would be punished should they refuse to surrender.
"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," Troxell wrote on Facebook.
Troxell added in his Facebook post that those militants who decided to surrender would be provided with a detainee cell, food, a cot, and legal due process.
https://www.facebook.com/SEAC.JCS/photos/a.287915924566034.76840.287872244570402/1808460025844942/?type=3&theater
In a paraphrased Twitter post made the same day, Troxell reiterated the two options: "surrender or die!"
"ISIS needs to understand their two options when facing us: surrender or die! Surrender & we will safeguard to due process. Otherwise we will kill with extreme prejudice, even if that means beating them to death with our entrenching tools! #SEAC3 #DefeatDaesh #ISIS_SurrenderOrDie," Troxell tweeted on Tuesday.
ISIS needs to understand their two options when facing us: surrender or die! Surrender & we will safeguard to due process. Otherwise we will kill with extreme prejudice, even if that means beating them to death with our entrenching tools!
#SEAC3 #DefeatDaesh #ISIS_SurrenderOrDie pic.twitter.com/unH7Mwk9t1— Archived: CSM John Troxell (@SEAC_Troxell) January 9, 2018
Both social media posts were accompanied by a picture of a soldier holding a collapsible shovel used by U.S. troops, known as an entrenching tool, with the hashtag "#ISIS_SurrenderOrDie."
Troxell, an Iowa native, currently serves as the 3rd senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. In that role, he provides a voice for enlisted service members at the Pentagon, and he frequently gives pep talks to U.S. troops to thank them for their work, the Post noted.
The senior enlisted leader has issued warnings along the same lines before, one time during a United Service Organization (USO) holiday tour in December where he said from the stage that ISIS would be "annihilated, period!"
"That may be through advising, assisting and enabling the host-nation partners," he said before going into specifics that mirror those from Tuesday’s posts. "It may be by dropping bombs on them. It may be by shooting them in the face. And it even might be beating them to death with your entrenching tool, but we are going to beat this enemy!"
Stars and Strips reporter Chad Garland shared a video of the event on Twitter.
Get your E-tools ready. pic.twitter.com/MuUCr4SIp0
— Chadbeard the Cranky (@chadgarland) December 24, 2017
In comments published by the Pentagon in October, Troxell said commanders of the U.S.-backed forces were warning ISIS members to surrender.
"There is no negotiating with these guys," Troxell said. "They are either going to surrender or they are going to get killed."