I pray Chief Gallagher is fully exonerated with a not guilty verdict.
“It was a series of missteps, errors built upon mistakes, until the case was just untriable,” said Lt. Col. Gary D. Solis, a retired Marine Corps judge who now teaches military law at Georgetown University.
An Iraqi Massacre, a Light Sentence and a Question of Military Justice
I don’t think there are going to be any winners in this trial.
Then there would not be such an arrogant attitude towards the men who actually have to live in the situations and own them.
Top tier warriors indeed do tend to think themselves above the rest in every aspect. Starting with the basic airborne infantryman to SF, SEALs and Rangers/Force Recon in between, the elite spirit & esprit de corps is a must have.
However, the laws of our nation and overall sense of right & wrong has to included and lived by else we all are just well equipped thugs.
As a guy who spent much of my adult life within these ranks, I can tell you even the best of the best have turds. Regarding Chief Gallagher, I can’t say, but I hope the outcome both brings honor to the SEALs/Spec Ops community and sees justice done, regardless of whom she righteously falls upon.
Major USA, retired
InfAbnRangerSapper
If you think of yourself any other way on the battlefield you are begging to die.
As I heard it Gallagher was trained as a medic at some point and “stabbed” the guy in the throat or more succinctly cut a hole in his throat to perform a tracheotomy - the other guy (also a medic) put his hand over the tube in the hole because the guy was suffering and was going to die anyway or as the Romans used to put it: administered quietus.
SOB Gary Solis needs to meet up with one of these brave men in a dark alley.
Ditto that.
G-d fearing Mr. Solis, not god-like.
Have you been in a firefight? Gary?
5.56mm
I remember seeing an interview of a Navy Seal who was in the blackhawk down battle. If I remember right, he was a sniper. I think his name was Wasdin or something similar.
He said when he first got shot in the knee, his first reaction was something like, hey, I am a Seal this isn’t supposed to be happening to me. I think he then got shot again in the same leg to where it was basically just hanging.
He said an Air Force Para rescue patched him up and he kept on fighting until they eventually fought their way out.
My prediction, based solely on my cynicism, is that Chief Gallagher will be convicted of something, even if he is acquitted on the serious charges. The military never loses, even if they have to convict on a charge of wearing day old undershirts. Little has changed with military justice since the days Capt. Charles McVay of the USS Indianapolis was railroaded to cover up failures further up the chain.
This is what happens when you use warriors as foreign cops.