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Army won’t return medals to Green Beret Trump pardoned for killing suspected bomb maker
americanmilitarynews.com ^ | March 18, 2021 | RYAN MORGAN

Posted on 03/18/2021 3:42:11 PM PDT by PROCON

The U.S. Army rejected an appeal to reinstate military service decorations and a Special Forces Tab for retired Maj. Matthew Golsteyn. Golsteyn faced murder charges for killing a suspected Taliban bomb-maker in 2010 but President Donald Trump pardoned him of the charge before his case went to trial.

“The Army Board for Correction of Military Records, the service’s highest level of administrative review for personnel actions, has considered and denied Matthew Golsteyn’s application,” Army spokesman Lt. Col Gabriel J. Ramirez told American Military News on Thursday. “Privacy laws prevent the Army from disclosing specific information regarding the Board’s decision.”

Golsteyn’s decorations included the Silver Star, the third-highest U.S. military honor. Golsteyn earned the award for heroism during the Battle of Marjah in Afghanistan.

According to Task and Purpose, the Army had previously approved upgrading the Silver Star to the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military decoration behind only the Medal of Honor.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanmilitarynews.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: army; matthewgolsteyn; medals; pardon; trump; usrmy
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USA Today reported, based on Army documents it obtained, that the Army reached its decision not to reinstate Golsteyn’s Special Forces Tab and decorations in June, but held off on announcing the decision during Trump’s final months in office. According to the documents obtained by USA Today, the Army review board cited a letter from the Justice Department stating that Trump’s pardon did not wipe clean Golsteyn’s record.

So Trump's DOJ made the call? WTF?

1 posted on 03/18/2021 3:42:11 PM PDT by PROCON
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To: PROCON

They’ll get this guy any way they can.


2 posted on 03/18/2021 3:44:07 PM PDT by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL)
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To: PROCON

I’m absolutely convinced that the powers that be want a McVeigh v2.0.
They’re trying to make our side snap.


3 posted on 03/18/2021 3:44:55 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: PROCON

One of Trump’s biggest failures was an inability to weed out the weasels that were pernicious in DOJ Trump hated the swamp yet the swamp creatures found jobs in the administration.


4 posted on 03/18/2021 3:48:17 PM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: EEGator

And if that happens, will we cower and say, “oh my,” or will we rally?


5 posted on 03/18/2021 3:48:33 PM PDT by Mathews (It's all gravy, baby!)
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To: PROCON

This guy certainly didn’t help himself. Pick a d*mn story and stick with it. If it happens to be true, all the better.


6 posted on 03/18/2021 3:50:06 PM PDT by larrytown (i like pie)
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To: PROCON

Feels Up/Heels Up absolutely despises the US Armed Forces. And they make no effort to hide that hatred. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention.


7 posted on 03/18/2021 3:50:26 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Trump: "They're After You. I'm Just In The Way")
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To: PROCON

If he gets breast implants and starts calling himself Matilda, they will reconsider. That’s “Today’s Army”


8 posted on 03/18/2021 3:50:32 PM PDT by montag813 ("Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the Great")
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To: Mathews

9 posted on 03/18/2021 3:52:44 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: PROCON

“So Trump’s DOJ made the call? WTF?”

The vast majority of “civil servants” serve for their entire career. Having met some retired state department people, they were gay as hell, and liberal idiots. Not a logical bone in their body.

I was employed be several large companies in the military industrial complex. Those companies are a reflection of the military they serve. There is a corresponding employee for practically every military rank. I watched petty people undercut what the managers wanted to do by slow-walking or outright ignoring orders. Employees who had served in the military said it was similar there. If the lower ranks don’t want something to happen, it won’t. Even if what the management wants to do would save the jobs of lower level people, if those lower level people want to stymie the boss, they will even if it results in their layoff. The attitude is, “Well, we’ll just see about THAT!”

One problem, which we call The Swamp, is some of those civil servants see themselves as the real boss. We saw some of that with, I think his name was Lindeman. A colonel who was insulted Trump didn’t do what he wanted him to.


10 posted on 03/18/2021 3:54:46 PM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: PROCON; markomalley; DYngbld; TADSLOS; xsrdx; big'ol_freeper; Mark17; mikefive; JDoutrider; ...

Ping


11 posted on 03/18/2021 3:57:23 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar (Fascists never think they’re the fascists.)
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To: PROCON

The entire JAG staff has to be cleaned out; it is swamp in and of itself.


12 posted on 03/18/2021 4:00:33 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Gen.Blather

I think the guy you are referring to is COL Vindman ... he got promoted ...


13 posted on 03/18/2021 4:00:37 PM PDT by Ken522
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To: PROCON

The leadership of the United States Army has gone DeepState.


14 posted on 03/18/2021 4:00:45 PM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: T-Bird45

His other shortcoming is he simply didn’t have a clue how government worked nor did he have the innate micromanaging skills to follow up on what he expected to be done.

There are essentially two kinds of business leaders; those who are big-picture showman and those who labor over every single detail. Trump was the former, not the latter in any way. If you give these career bureaucrats an inch, they really will take a mile. And they did, for four years.


15 posted on 03/18/2021 4:01:21 PM PDT by ScubaDiver (Reddit refugee.)
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To: PROCON

bkmk


16 posted on 03/18/2021 4:10:54 PM PDT by sauropod (Chance favors the prepared mind.)
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To: PROCON

The Victoria Cross was forfeited eight times. King George V disagreed with that policy.

From Wikipedia:

King George V felt very strongly that the decoration should never be forfeited and in a letter from his Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham, on 26 July 1920, his views are forcefully expressed:

The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Cross#Forfeited_awards


17 posted on 03/18/2021 4:11:14 PM PDT by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: PROCON

Today’s Twisted, homo-loving US Army suck, My Dad, who passed at 95, a highly-decorated WWII Combat Engineer Vet of Patton’s 3rd Corps of France, Netherlands, Belgium and a 100 villages and cites, plus Bastogne, would get sick at what the US Army’s become these past 10-15yrs.

RIP, Dad.


18 posted on 03/18/2021 4:11:55 PM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: PROCON

Trump allowed the board to make the decision. That was the first mistake. He should have relieved them of that obligation and circumvented the process, as is his prerogative as Commander-in-Chief.

Many people don’t realize that pardon ≠ expungement. That’s well-settled US law and has been for a very long time. If pardoned for a crime, that crime remains on your record, you must still disclose the conviction on any application that asks and it (the pardon) doesn’t undo every ramification of the conviction. Instead, it only stops the punishment and reverses criminal penalties associated with the conviction, like the cessation of rights (like the R2KBA).

But, if you lose a medical license or law license...or military decoration, the pardon does nothing to re-issue those licenses. Things like that are left for the respective governing bodies to sort out as this review board did.

The uncomfortable reality is this review board was simply following the law, which is exactly why Trump should not have left it up to them. But, as a real estate developer with no military or political experience he had no idea how any of it works probably not unlike many reading this comment. Plus, he had very few people surrounding him who shared his goals. This all makes it tough to get things done you want to get done in government.


19 posted on 03/18/2021 4:13:11 PM PDT by ScubaDiver (Reddit refugee.)
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To: ScubaDiver

“...nor did he have the innate micromanaging skills to follow up on what he expected to be done.”

For sure. Trump was used to working with a first-class and loyal staff in his previous business life.


20 posted on 03/18/2021 4:15:49 PM PDT by ryderann
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