“The question remains: What kind of government punishes men who step up to fight in the hellholes of the world where our leaders believe, at least until they don’t, that they see America’s “vital interests”? In the blink of a president’s eye, armies are redirected, men are redeployed, but our prisoners of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars remain behind bars. In the blink of an eye, these soldiers made the life-or-death determination that may have saved their lives, but also lost them their liberty.”
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2640/Free-the-Leavenworth-Ten-Plus.aspx
Does any American believe that Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance (above), 28, should remain in a military prison for the next 20 years for “murder” after giving a legitimate order to his soldiers to fire at three Afghan men on motorcycles, killing two in the process?
What circumstances in those few seconds of on-the-ground command decision-making – during Lorance’s second patrol in Afghanistan – could possibly compel the Army to rob Lorance of his freedom until he is 48 years old?
I have been reading up on Lorance’s case, and I find none. I am not a military prosecutor (thank goodness), but I see nothing in accounts of the incident to warrant a sentence of two decades – unless, that is, Lorance’s lawyer, retired Lt. Col. Guy Womack, is correct. Following Lorance’s sentencing at Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Aug. 1, Womack said: “The Army is using him as a scapegoat so they can tell the Afghan government the person who killed the civilians is being punished.”
Read it and weep – and get sick.
Then, I hope, get angry – and let your congressman know it.