Do you mean Lorance?
This is how LTC Alan West & the Army times described it
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Via his blog, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Allen West is asking his readers to sign the petition in support of someone he calls “a young warrior.” The petition reads:
Leading his second patrol through a minefield in Afghanistan in late July 2012, twenty-eight year old Clint Lorance ordered fire upon three men speeding toward his soldiers on a motorcycle, killing two and wounding a third. He is now serving twenty years for murder in Leavenworth prison for trying to protect his soldiers. The president has the chance to tell the military and our enemies that when we send our young sons and daughters into harm’s way we do not turn against them. The president has this chance to help the country begin to heal the wounds caused by this long war, just as President Lincoln used his powers to pardon soldiers in the Civil War, to try to heal the wounds.
According to Army Times, the controversial case has has stirred supporters as well as challengers. While many say he was protecting his troops, others who said they served in Lorance’s platoon called him “overly zealous” and criticized his actions that day.
From Army Times:
On July 2, 2012, Lorance, who had just taken over as a platoon leader, and his soldiers were on a foot patrol alongside Afghan soldiers when three men on a motorcycle approached the patrol, according to news reports and a website set up in Lorance’s defense.
Prosecutors said Lorance violated the military’s rules of engagement when he ordered his soldiers to shoot the men on the motorcycle. Two of the men were killed and the third ran away.
Lorance was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The jury found him not guilty of making a false official statement.
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Yes, that was the person I was referring to.
I think Allen West is great. If he is for this man, given what I know, I am too.
I had to go back and read it to refresh my memory, and I didn’t like the sound of it. It sounded like the Army prosecutors leaned on some of the enlisted until they cracked, and probably threatened the others who didn’t that they were going to go down too now that the others were going to testify.
In one account I read, they said he was too aggressive and rash...but the guy had not been in country for long. I know these kinds of things can be strange to people like me who have never experienced it, the dynamics of characterizing a guy like that who had only just arrived, but I understand it completely. I don’t know if he replaced a very popular or competent officer, or if he just got under their skin, or...if the legal arm of the Army pressured them to say that.
I have always hated the way the military conducts some of these things. They aren’t always as interested in finding the truth as they are in trying to get as much dirt off of the particular service as possible, and to hell with with the poor grunts who had to make the decisions.
Doesn’t mean all military prosecutions are bad. I just grit my teeth when I see things like this. I think it is damn hard enough for men to have to go into battle and do the things that we as citizens ask them to do, then be second guessed and vilified for trying to stay alive and do their jobs. I have never liked it, even though it seems to go with the territory with the media and judiciary we have now.