New York Post reports that:
If she can’t have justice for her slain soldier husband, she’d at least like a Purple Heart.
New York widow Barbara Allen is battling the National Guard for withholding the military honor from her husband, who was killed in 2005 while serving in Iraq.
Here at truthout is a different perspective on the rapper case.
According to Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, an Oakland-based organization dedicated to supporting military objectors like Hall, he was not jailed for the song, but was instead jailed "in retaliation for his formal complaint of inadequate mental health services available to him at Fort Stewart. The Army used an angry song that Spc. Hall, a combat veteran of the Iraq War suffering from post-traumatic stress, had produced criticizing the stop-loss policy as the pretext."
What put the 34-year-old New York City native in the brig were, according to Paterson, Hall’s persistent assertions of inadequate mental health care that culminated in a December 7 complaint to the Army Investigator General. Just five days after that, Hall was charged with violating "good order and discipline" at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and was shipped out of the country for a court martial in Kuwait.
Petty Officer Keefe’s trial is scheduled to commence in Iraq on 17 April 2010.
Here is an excellent review, by Dwight “ML” Sullivan at CAAFLog on the political posturing, pseudo-lawyering, and plain gaffs about these cases.
eNews Park Forest reports.
Last August, Travis Bishop refused to serve in Afghanistan. Having filed for Conscientious Objector (CO) status, Bishop, based at Fort Hood, Texas, in the US Army’s 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion, was court-martialed and sentenced to 12 months in a military brig. He was released from the brig today.
Bishop served his time in Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Lewis, Washington. This military brig is notorious for being a particularly difficult jail to serve time.
Three Republicans are vying for the nomination to run for the seat and all three are military vets — but only one has the kind of star power that comes with a personal story that extends from Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan to the fast-money world of Wall Street, and includes film-making, a best-selling book, an appearance on "The Daily Show" and charges of murdering two Iraqi civilians.
But before the GOP gets too excited about seeing former Marine 1st Lt. Ilario Pantano take a seat in Congress, it had better face up to the fact that the former infantry officer isn’t your typical Red stater. . . .
April 2004 found him leading a platoon in Mahmudiya, Iraq, where he had in custody two Iraqis he suspected were involved in anti-coalition activities. According to various accounts, Marines had already searched the men’s car and found no weapons. But when weapons were found in a nearby house, Pantano wanted the car stripped down for another search.
A military court in Kuwait has convicted a third soldier in connection with the August suicide of 19-year-old Keiffer Wilhelm. Staff Sgt. Enoch Chatman of West Covina, Calif., received three months’ confinement and a written reprimand from the commanding general and was reduced two pay levels to a specialist. Chatman was among four soldiers charged with a variety of crimes after Wilhelm’s self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Aug. 4.
Mansfield News Journal reports.
A war resister who fled the U.S. for Canada, but was deported to face a court-martial, has been released from confinement. Cliff Cornell spent less than a year in a military prison at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and was released this morning [15 January 2010]. Cornell, who fled the U.S. for Canada in 2005 to avoid having to fight in Iraq, wants to return to Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada.
You’ll have seen various reports about the pending prosecution of CPT Bjork for allegedly ordering some Iraqi officers to shoot two Iraqi civilians (I have few here, and here). There is a report in The US Report.
[T]he accusers are 3 former Iraqi police and a former Iraqi intel officer who are currently detainees in Iraq.
Reports have also surfaced that the detainees were allowed to speak with each other about their claims.
The United States military has decided to refer charges against an Army captain from Evergreen who is accused of ordering Iraqi officers to kill two Iraqi civilians.
Army Times reports.
The trial for the Navy SEAL accused of punching an alleged al-Qaida terrorist while in U.S. custody in Iraq has been postponed until May 3, but the trial will remain in Norfolk.
Capt. Moira Modzelewski granted government prosecutors the continuance on the grounds that most of the evidence in the case is still undergoing a classification review and has yet to be seen by either the prosecution or the defense.
Navy Times reports.
The Army’s attempt to stem a rising tide of suicides made it impossible for a Fort Bliss soldier convicted of cruelty toward subordinates to get a fair trial, the soldier’s parents say.
"I still maintain that this was a miscarriage of justice," said John Taylor, father of Pvt. Jarrett Taylor. "They needed a conviction and they got it. É This is a sham."
Taylor said his son, a sergeant at the time, was trying to help soldiers on their first deployment in Iraq survive in a combat zone.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog