A Pilgrim’s Digression

From page 2 of a NY Times story, Continued Air Assaults on City Follow Attempt to Kill Hussein:

An Associated Press reporter, Ellen Knickmeyer, traveling with the marines, said civilians approaching their positions were given two, sometimes three or four warning shots. But in one instance, she said an old man with a cane approaching Marine gunners appeared disoriented, and when he continued forward, he was killed.

“They shouldn’t be out; they got the memo,” she quoted a Marine rifleman as saying, apparently referring to warnings to Iraqi civilians.

They got the memo? What does this soldier think this is, an inter-office volleyball competition?