Free Republic

Russell Bentley, 64, who fought alongside pro-Putin rebels in eastern Ukraine, was tortured and murdered by Russian servicemen, Kremlin investigators said on Friday. Bentley, a self-described communist from Dallas, Texas, went missing in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in April and was later found dead. Nicknamed “Texas”, he regularly appeared on pro-Kremlin social media channels, backing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive.

My first experience of combat as a Marine was in Mogadishu, Somalia in the '90s and then subsequently I was in the first Marine division during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. I have completed tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, been involved in the evacuation of civilians from Libya in 2011 and commanded a special operations task force against the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2016...I have a greater respect for the ethical behavior of the Islamic State than I do for the Russians. That is no exaggeration.