Posted on 09/29/2015 7:20:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We recently learned that Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland had his appeal denied by the Army as he seeks to prevent his forced discharge from the service. The chain of events stems from his participation in the beating of a pedophile Afghan local police official who had chained a local boy to his bed and repeatedly raped him. (I’m skipping the “alleged” here since the official confessed to holding the boy captive.) Now, with the date of his discharge rapidly approaching, Martland has found an ally in one California congressman and is taking his side of the story public. (Fox News)
A Green Beret ordered discharged after he and his team leader body-slammed an alleged Afghan child rapist is speaking out against the Army’s effort to punish him, as he fights to stay in the service.
“Kicking me out of the Army is morally wrong and the entire country knows it,” Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland said, in his first public statement on his case.
The detailed written statement, requested by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., was shared by the congressman’s office with FoxNews.com. Hunter, who has advocated on Martland’s behalf, intends to submit the statement to the House Armed Services Committee…
“While I understand that a military lawyer can say that I was legally wrong, we felt a moral obligation to act,” he said.
The Army has found another commander who was in country at the time and is willing to speak out against Martland. He speaks of “vigilantism” and takes the position that both Martland and Capt. Daniel Quinn took things too far and “beat the crap” out of the rapist. Martland disputes the details, but that hardly seems to be the point as I see it. So what if he did beat the guy within an inch of his life? Considering what he admitted to doing he’s lucky to be alive, frankly. Bad things happen in war and he certainly deserved to have some of them happen to him.
Unfortunately this isn’t as black and white of a case as we might like and I acknowledge that part of the ongoing legal conflict. We need to take a very gentle hand when the civilian government begins stepping in to override the military’s system of discipline and order. As egregious as the actions of the rapist may have been, if Martland was found to be defying a direct order from his superiors he has to be held accountable for that aspect of his actions. Soldiers may receive any number of orders they don’t agree with during a time of war but they still have to follow them. Of course, in this case, if someone had ordered him not to interfere, the government needs to be aggressively investigating where that order came from, how high up the chain of command it went and who put the policy in place. Someone needs to be held accountable.
But by the same token, there is always room for a bit of reason under extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps with a bit of negotiation on the Armed Services Committee we could buy Martland a bit more time for the investigation to play out and come up with some sort of punishment short of terminating his career. (Again, assuming he actually violated an order.) The entire situation is a hot mess and at least on the surface I have to agree with the Sergeant that this seems to be in immoral punishment for a very moral act in the face of dealing with a monster.
Serving in Obama’s sick and perverted Armed Forces comes with a price for men of conscience and integrity.
We need a real Commander-in-Chief.
We need a General Patton.
Our nation is looking for a few no BS men to regain control of our armed forces.
This man has more to be proud of as a result of this discharge than can be grasped. IMO, he attempted to stop ongoing war crimes, and I hope that in the future his “superiors” get the tribunals they deserve.
he should have shot the POS, not beat him up. No one will know, nor would care about a missing raghead rapist.
there are such things as “unlawful” orders.
but not in this PC world
Obviously the Sargent is a religious bigot, everybody knows that Islam allows the raping of children, boys and girls. There is no room in the Armed Forces for such Religious Hate and Bigotry. /s
Barack Obama doesn’t see anything wrong with grown men forcibly sodomizing young boys.
The boys learn to live with it and some even learn to like it.
He did.
Not to mention, homophobia.
It’s not a soldier’s job to enforce the law in other countries. Few would be disputing this if it was a U.S. soldier stationed in Japan who beat up a Japanese man for whatever illegal act.
RE: It’s not a soldier’s job to enforce the law in other countries.
Therefore, what follows?
For Obama, sodomizing a child is no reason to put a beating on the perpetrator! Obama is a sodomy specialist , according to the back channel news network. Just ask Reggie Love.
(This is the wrong discharge. His weapon should have discharged into the sodomites brain case, and we would not be having the present connundrum.)
What else would one expect, with the faggotization of our armed forces? We now live in a country in which our military is ordered to cast a blind eye when “boy rape” is going on. Total fealty to the homosex agenda.
How in hell has the country sunk to such depths? If I ever need any proof that America has morally rotted to the very core, this is it.
In before the pedophile apologists insist rape isn’t that awful and the child would be better off if this guy hadn’t intervened.
You are 100% correct.
It seems to me that the demons of hell are being allowed free reign. I used to believe that the idea that Obama was an antichrist was evangelical hype. BUT anyone who allows and promotes the rape and sodomy of little boys and punishes those who try to save them from an evil act has to be a minion of Satan.
May God have mercy on us, and quickly.
I suspect I could, in a matter of minutes, show you in the Uniform Code of Military Justice where the soldier had the right, the duty and the obligation to stop the rape ON A US MILITARY INSTALLATION of this young boy.
So please. Do not try and spin this against the good Sergeant.
“While I understand that a military lawyer can say that I was legally wrong, we felt a moral obligation to act,” he said.
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This is essentially what the Nuremberg Trials were all about.Jackson proved Nazis issued illegal orders as they were morally objectionable.
Of course, that was back in the day when America was a morally straight God fearing nation.
Was SFC Martland discharged as the result of a general court martial conducted under UCMJ?
Did he receive a less than honorable discharge?
Was there undue command influence?
Has his discharge been reviewed by the Office of the Inspector General, HQDA?
Has he appealed to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records?
Lots of unanswered legal and administrative questions here. The Army just can’t say, “You’ve been a bad boy, sergeant. Out you go.”
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