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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
Posted on 05/17/2015 4:12:41 PM PDT by mandaladon
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An Army officer stripped of a medal for heroism under fire and his right to call himself a Green Beret is fighting for his military career after accusations he tracked down and killed a suspected bomb-maker in Afghanistan.
Though a criminal investigation failed to find remains of his alleged victim and didn't result in charges against Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, he's been targeted for possible dismissal from the Army and the consequent loss of veteran's benefits with a less-than-honorable discharge.
A Fort Bragg hearing before three, higher-ranked Special Forces officers could meet later this month to weigh arguments from Golsteyn's attorney why he should remain on active duty.
"My hope is that Golsteyn will receive a fair and impartial hearing. Based on the Army's actions and decisions thus far, I regret to say this won't be the case," one of the soldier's defenders, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., wrote Wednesday to Army Secretary John McHugh. Army brass have kept Hunter updated on the case.
Others believe the Army is obligated to act because the Geneva Conventions governing warfare forbid arbitrary killings by troops, said Jeffrey K. Walker, a St. John's University criminal law professor.
"That's a minimum protection anybody gets at any time, no matter how you categorize them or how you categorize the conflict. That is the basic floor below which nobody can drop as far as protections go," said Walker, a retired Air Force officer and former military lawyer. "Arbitrary deprivation of life is at the top of the list of things you cannot do."
Golsteyn's roller-coaster military career from battlefield hero to whispers of a war crime is rooted in the deadly month of February 2010, when American-led allied forces seized the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Or Japanese, much tougher.
Yeah no kidding... We’re fighting an enemy that obeys no rules, and they see our following “rules” as a weakness that they have exploited.
Interesting you should say that. I recall a high school teacher who was an FO with the 92nd Division telling how the South Carolina Army national Guard artillery battalion that he was attached to organized an attack on a German company after the truce went into effect in Italy. These people were heavily cracker and tough as lighter knots, they routinely attacked and occasionally killed black soldiers in the division rear. They were just determined to get back at the Germans for an ambush in which a number of black soldiers were left hanging from the lower limbs of some trees. The Johnny Rebs picked up quite a few black soldiers on their way and both killed a fair number of Germans. Revenge is one of the most common motifs in combat. PC is going to kill us literally not figuratively
Myself, I have never been a hero. I’m probably too cynical for that but I have known some heros and some phonies. I am awed by the former, what they have essayed and what they have accomplished in those conditions is inconceivable to me.
Well he got the first two out of three S’s rule right....Shoot, Shovel and Shutup ....
Good work on making worm dirt out of the IED builder Captain....thank you.
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
It’s like handing out speeding tickets at the Indianapolis 500.
You've got that right. From Wikipedia's article on the Victoria Cross:
The King (George V) 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.
I’m sorry I cannot agree with anything you said. I understand the need to maintain discipline. But there is right and wrong and most of our civilian and military leadership is now wrong.
So regardless of the ‘rules’, I am still obligated to do right. Even if every human on the planet stands against me I am still obligated to do right.
A dismissal can only be assessed by a court-martial. This sounds more like a discharge board.
If someone brought it to them immediately after they opened their lying yaps, maybe the breed would learn some caution...
Yes, indeed, tho it depends on exactly how you define the word ‘arbitrary’. I guess they may think that war, being declared by the government, is not arbitrary, but part of “the system”. However, O’s drone assassinations are certainly arbitrary in the sense that they are using the word for a man who killed the enemy’s bomb-maker.
Unless you're an unborn child in modern America. Then it's peachy-keen.
In Dear Leader Obama’s Army, no good deed goes unpunished.
The Gaystopo is seeking to destroy the institution of marriage as I write this.
“He should be lucky he wasn’t charged with murder as that is what he apparently did. … I take offense to what he did and his obstruction. … this reflects so incredibly poor on our other soldiers”
The sum of discussion on this topic amounts to so much opinionated back-forth. Though your conclusion (booted/DD) is on the extreme side of such opinions, I find your rationale to be the more the well reasoned.
In regard to personal conduct & behavior, I recall a former commandant of The Basic School stating in an interview that an officer must always maintain themselves in such a manner that NO ONE WOULD EVER MAKE AN UNFOUNDED ACCUSATION AGAINST THEIR CHARACTER. Not because of truthfulness of the accusation but simply because it would lack weight to be considered and reflect more on the character of the accuser.
Instinctively rejecting the concept, “can’t prevent malicious accusations”, it took a great deal of personal reflection to accept that concept of “straight & narrow” conduct, not that I have measured up to such expectation.
Minimally, it appears that with “obstruction” Major Golsteyn did not properly maintain himself.
Hearsay.
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