Posted on 07/22/2007 7:22:16 PM PDT by darrylsharratt
Haditha Marine Dad speaks to John Murtha
Throughout this Haditha investigation our family has believed in the innocence of our son L/Cpl Justin Sharratt- we knew he was innocent. There are things I do not understand and I would like to find the answers. We do not seek revenge, but we would like to see justice. In a conversation with Congressman John Murtha, my questions still remain unanswered. With the help of the American people, I hope to find justice.
On Wednesday morning, July 17th I spoke with Congressman John Murtha via telephone from his Washington, DC office. We had a courteous conversation. I knew what to expect from a career politician and Congressman Murtha did not disappoint. Mr. Murtha avoided answering the hard questions and I was unable to press him for the answers. I wanted the conversation to remain amicable and decided to let him speak and avoid a heated confrontation.
At no time during the dialogue would Mr. Murtha acknowledge the impending exoneration of my son. I pressed him to use the word exoneration but the best I could get was “things seem to have gone well in your son’s Article 32. The General is a fair man and I believe he will do the right thing.” I replied, “ Lt. Col Paul Ware presented a strong recommendation for exoneration and we are anticipating Lt. Gen James Mattis following this recommendation.”
Mr. Murtha asked me if I had served in the military. He recalled his visits with injured Marines, soldiers and sailors. He said he supports our troops and it is the war he does not condone. Mr Murtha believes combat operations in Iraq have put an enormous strain on our Armed Forces. The stress of combat situations has led our troops to kill innocent civilians. I pointed out to Mr. Murtha, “ Our Haditha Marines are innocent until proven guilty.” It seems he is again denying our Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Mr. Murtha replied that we have a Marine(Mendoza) testifying that innocent women and children were killed in Haditha. I retorted that he is again believing the reports of the media and Mendoza was granted immunity for his lies. Mendoza has changed his testimony at least two times. NCIS may have threatened him with deportation and denial of US citizenship. This time I scolded him, “ I witnessed their(NCIS) conduct first hand in my son’s Article 32.”
I questioned Congressman Murtha as to his statements of 17 May 2006. On national television, in front of millions of Americans, he stated “ Marines killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” I asked him why he denied these Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Again the Congressman used his experience to side step the answer. Mr. Murtha stated his intentions were to point out the stress our military was under in Iraq. He replied we would not win the hearts of the Iraqi people by killing women and children. I again snapped, “ Our Haditha Marines have not been convicted of killing innocents and are innocent until proven guilty.”
I believe this conversation was the first step in obtaining justice for Our Haditha Marines. I did not expect Mr. Murtha to admit to or apologize for any wrongdoing in his role to railroad my son and his Marine comrades. The American people now know that his unfounded and untruthful allegations were used to further his political agenda. It is my intention to ask the Congress of the United States to censure Representative John Murtha and hold hearings to explain his conduct in respect to the Haditha incident. I will ask the American people to question his blatant disregard for the Constitutional rights of Our Haditha Marines. I will campaign to the voters of Pa Congressional District 12 to oust Representative Murtha from his elected office. The American people deserve better, we must demand better representation from our elected officials.
Darryl Sharratt
Proud American, Proud father of L/Cpl Justin L. Sharratt
Great job, Darryl. Congratulations on keeping your cool while making your points. Murtha owes your family and all the Haditha Marine families more than a simple apology. But at least he is aware the tide is turning. He must be following these cases if he’s aware of Mendoza’s testimony from Tatum’s hearing. Maybe he’s sweating just a little about his future political career after getting a few phone calls to his office in the last week or two.
Millions of Patriots are in full support of your son, and of you and our hopes and prayers are always with you both.
A world where Murtha had no future would be a wonderful world indeed.
To the Sharratt family and the families of all those charged in this incident, my best wishes and the hope that Murtha will be censured for his outrageous behavior.
And the Time magazine which played such a noxious role in spreading these lies also is focred to pay for this.
I see Diana Irey is up for reelection as Washington Co. commissioner this Nov....not sure about a rematch in ‘08, though...
I once served under General Mattis and am confident he will do the right thing.
Murtha is as detestable as John F’n Kerry (who said regarding routine weapons searches: “ ... our troops are terrorizing women and children”). These two black-hearted bastards *want to believe* our troops are as evil as the Islamists.
Semper Fi
He needs a tin cup taped to his A** just to handle the overflow...
Dear Mr. Sharratt,
I believe the Lord guided you into wisdom when you decided not to be confrontive. Had you been confrontive, then perhaps he wouldn’t have continued the conversation at all.
Because you acted so wisely, we have this wonderful record of Murtha’s repeated off-the-top-of-his-head presumptions of our Marines’ blood guilt.
Kudos also for your excellent after action report.
Let us pray for all our falsely charged Marines and soldiers anywhere.
BTTT - Keep up the heat. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.
I hope the Haditha Marines do get an apology, but they have something Murtha does not. They have their dignity.
“I wonder if there can be “journalistic malpractice” ...whereby those damaged by the active perversion of factual content(negligence of the truth) by a reporter or news organization may have a claim...”
There is a legal remedy. The tort is called “libel” if the untruth is in written form, and “slander” if the untruth is spoken. I do not believe journalists are immune from prosecution, if they willingly repeat a known or provable falsehood. The issue typically depends on whether a defendant “could have reasonably known,” or “should have known” that the libelous or slanderous accusation was a falsehood. A jury need only find a preponderance of the evidence in favor of the claimant—to wit: 51 percent. The only defense is if the allegation can be proven true.
I would very much like to see the day when journalists are hauled to court and sued. The damage they inflict on an individual’s or other entity’s reputations is never repaired, even when they issue their so-called “retraction.”
Murtha is a very sad old man. He is typical of the “sewer” that is our government. Murtha is a horrible piece of human debris and will some day face the irresponsible things he has said. But don’t blame just him. Think of the people in his district that elect him year-after-year. What the hell can they be thinking?
ping
ping
Indeed we do!!!
God Bless you and your family!
Yeah sure, Murtha. You really liked that Time magazine story, didn't you? It fit your agenda, and you ran with it. This was never about your concern for "the stress our military was under", which is ridiculous on it's face. Of course our military is under stress, it's what they do, so we don't have too, you twit.
REGARDING HADITHA and the U.S. MARINES:
"It [Haditha, Marines] is as bad as Abu Ghraib, if not worse." (Murtha, May 2006)
"They [the Marines/Military] knew the day after this happened that it was not as they portrayed it. They knew that they (Marines) went into the rooms, they killed the people in the taxi. There was no firing at all. And this comes from the highest authority in the Marine Corps, so there's no question in my mind," (Murtha, May 2006)
"... they [Marine] killed innocent civilians in cold blood." (Murtha, May 17, 2006 at news conference)
"They actually went into the houses and killed women and children. And there was about twice as many as originally reported by Times." (Murtha, Reuters, May 19, 2006)
"It's [Haditha, Marines] much worse than reported in Time magazine." (Murtha, News.comAU, May 18, 2006)
BLITZER: The marines say they're still investigating. They don't know what happened yet. The pentagon says the same thing. How do you know what happened?
MURTHA: Wolf, you read the "Time" magazine articles. There are pictures, there are photos. You don't have to talk to the military about the proof. (Murtha, on CNN/Wolf Blitzer, May 19, 2006... transcript)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.