Lance Hering speaks with his Port Angeles lawyer, Karen Unger
.
Posted on 11/22/2008 2:24:06 PM PST by george76
A Marine escort picked up Lance Cpl. Lance Hering at the Clallam County jail ...to take the AWOL Marine to Camp Pendleton in San Diego...
Port Angeles police officers arrested Lance Cpl. Hering — who may face desertion charges after staging his disappearance in Colorado and spending 26 months in hiding — last Sunday at William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles.
Hering was reported missing in August 2006. A friend said Hering had wandered off after he was injured in a rock-climbing accident near Boulder.
After a massive search, authorities concluded the report was a hoax.
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
This has been big Colorado news.
Another folk hero in the making?
Lance Hering speaks with his Port Angeles lawyer, Karen Unger
.
Dishonorable. Cowardly. Vermin. Completely unworthy of the title of Marine or man.
Let him rot in jail.
Hering is nothing but a pondscum deserter and deserves a long sentence at Leavenworth.
He’ll probably get a haircut. He must have bee on the lam for a long time
His father is getting lots of heat, too.
And from Boulder
That’s good, he probably deserves it because I have a hard time believing he didn’t know the whereabouts of his son all that time.
Read the support this slimeball is getting in the paper’s article.
Thanks, george.
It’s probably pretty big news at Pendleton, too.
James Culp is his attorney.
Which one is Lance?
The one with the long hair :-)
Hopefully, he rots in jail for a long time.
His dad too.
Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, Hamdania.
That explains it, I thought he looked familiar.
Back in the fall of 2004, our unit had a guy go AWOL from Pendleton, just before they left. I kind of think that Karl might have been assigned to his particular unit because they were short a man, possibly because of this. That really makes one pause and consider...
I thought about adding a graphic, but after yours, why even try. :-)
BTW, what’s that smell?
Obama will probably offer him a cabinet position.
Indeed.
This Marine says he has info on Hamdania and fears for his life. Fears Marines. Marines say he wasn’t there.
He was slated to return when he went AWOL.
Nevermind. It's just a hair thing. ;-)
Marines don’t do AWOL. That’s a DOGGIE term. Marines go UA (Unauthorized Absence) or, in this case, desert. For which this scumsucker deserves to swing at the end of a rope (desertion in time of war is a death penalty offence.)
No one's been hung or shot for desertion in this war. But this case might be the first. There may be a lot more to this story than meets the eye.
Hate to be this guy spending time in a military jail.
I gotta believe he isn’t the favorite inmate.
It’s my considered opinion that a deserter in peace time needs a LONG stretch in prison to contemplate his misdeed, while the death penalty should be used during wartime or if a peacetime desertion results in the death of someone who would NOT have died had the deserter not taken off... I understand the pain of loss. I also understand that it would be even harder to cope with if I found out that the loss was unnecessary, that it was occasioned by the act of an outside party.
Pop, I can really understand how you feel about the topic of desertion, for the absolutely NEEDLESS pain it brought to your family. I truly hope and pray that the deserter in your case is (if he hasn’t yet been) caught quickly and convicted and sentenced to hang. No lethal injection, but PUBLIC hanging would be the only appropriate punishment. No, his dancing Danny Deever would NOT bring your son back, but it would most surely underscore the price one pays for cowardice... the ULTIMATE price, and not an easy or quick one for having caused the loss of someone who was NOT such a coward. Perhaps it would serve to keep any more families from having to pay their price for some coward’s actions...
It used to be that when someone committed such a heinous crime, he would be marched in front of the Regiment to the gallows in full dress uniform. Before mounting the Scaffold, the charges he was convicted on would be read, and he would be stripped of all decorations, all rank insignia, all unit insignia and even the buttons on his blouse. Then he would be taken up the scaffold, in utter disgrace, and blindfolded, the noose placed around his neck in front of those who he dishonored, while the band played a dirge and, with a drumroll, the lever was tripped. It was in many ways the ultimate in rejection of him by the Service he disgraced, and it’s a sad thing that we have lost that tradition. For me, being able to purge that sort of individual from our ranks in that manner would also be a warning to anyone else who was so-minded as to what their personal price would be... and for most who even THOUGHT about leaving without permission, the thought would die on the vine... Cowards not only bring disgrace on themselves, but they can bring untold misery to the families of other troops who, as your son was, might be called on to take their place and die in the doing.
(I’m kinda drifting, it seems to me, but I hope you take the meaning I intend. And my heart goes out to you especially for the loss of your son, a MARINE.)
Thanks for the thoughts. In this case, I’m not 100% sure if the deserter was destined for the platoon my son ended up with, as we had three platoons that scattered to different locations. I just found it odd that of the dozen or so Marines that went a little later, all but my son went to a different place. Besides, on the night of the ambush, our guys were filling in for a few guys from another other squad who were sick. It wasn’t their normal routine. So it goes...
Oh, they did catch the deserter, though beyond getting pounded (gave the arresting guys a hard time), I don’t know the final outcome.
For all the kids who, like your son (and I, once and long ago), choke down their fears and go and do the job requested of them, even if the check made out to their very lives is cashed, the ones who desert are anathema and we should once more have a mechanism to spew them out and remove them from us in the most complete way possible. It’s criminal, in my opinion, that we no longer do have such a mechanism as we once did... That when one of ours, in a manner of speaking, rejects us and proves himself the coward he is, we should be able to eject him from us so utterly and completely as to mark him for all time as the low-life coward he is. That the pain he caused both us and our families be cauterized by that rejection and that, after his dance of death, he be buried in an unmarked grave, never to have his name spoken again. Did we still have large stables for horses, it would be fitting, in my opinion, to bury the coward in the stables where the horses could daily shower him with the physical manifestation of his actual worth...
Wartime desertion is not to be taken lightly! Makes me think of the new Iraqi Army where many came and went at will, and ran home for a spell at the first sign of real action. Contrast that with some of our finest; read “We Were One” by Patrick O’Donnell. It’s about the 3/1 Marines in the worst days of Fallujah in November 2004. The 1/8 Marines also paid a very high price.
Frankly, I don’t understand those who join the military and then refuse to do what it is they are ultimately joining up to do. I understand that young people make mistakes and that they suddenly realize that they have moral disagreements with this or that. But there are ways to take care of some of that while they still serve their fellow soldiers and their country. Abandoning their obligations and following the wind makes them self-serving mercenaries of the worst sort.
Semper Fidelis.
You are so right, Pop. I recall reading about one case during Desert Storm where a Lance Corporal (reserve) refused to be called up, saying he’d joined for the benefits, not to fight or do his job for real. I don’t recall how that case was resolved, offhand...
The ones who do this seem to feel that whatever THEY want at the time should be OK, not bothering to realize that their contract can not only get them killed by an enemy, but by THEIR SIDE should they try to take the coward’s way out. Which is as it should be, since their cowardice can get GOOD men killed.
I know also of some who were Conscientious Objectors (COs) who were drafted, but refused to carry weapons and became medics or corpsmen... and gave their all on the battlefield tending the wounded. They were, in my book, MEN, men of conscience who stuck to their principles, yet served heroically anyway.
I have no problem with those whose conscience and moral principles mean more to them than their life. I think out country was jump started by a bunch of those radical types...
My son once wrote: “I didn’t join up to be part of some government conspiracy—I joined because I thought it was just one small way that I could contribute to the people of this country... although the discipline didn’t hurt much either.” In the same rant, he also said “I serve part time in the Marines, in a combat role no less, and if the $#!7 hits the fan, I’ll be one of the first on the line to die. I’m an E-2, so I don’t get paid jack-squat either. And technology? My issued M16A2 rifle was built by Colt and has a very low serial number, and Colt lost the contract to build M16’s for the US government to FN Manufacturing in 1988.... “
He was a bit idealistic but also had a practical bent. One big bitch during deployment was finding M-16 magazines that actually fit and functioned in his rifle. He was also concerned about the supply of Gummi Bears and Skittles in Iraq, though we took care of that :) I do take pride in the fact that he never got around to collecting any educational benefits. That wasn’t the point.
Pop, you’re a man after my own heart. You seem to have borne well the loss of your son. I know NO parent should have to bury their young, but when it happens like this, it takes a special breed to bear it without becoming another Cindy Shehan. I know time will at least make it more bearable, while not lessening the fact of his loss. My very best wishes go out to you and my thanks for being the man you so obviously are... which is likely why your son became the man HE was.
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