Lt. Clint Lorance: A Hero Not Criminal

Our soldiers are the defenders of our freedom, they protect us from enemies foreign and domestic, and without them there would be no America. So why does it seem that our very own government are turning their backs on these hero’s?

In the news recently, was a story about one of our soldiers, a former Army lieutenant sentenced to 20 years in Leavenworth for ordering his men to shoot three civilians in Afghanistan. Lt. Clint Lorance, 29, was convicted of murder in the 2012 incident, in which he ordered his platoon to shoot the men approaching a checkpoint on a motorcycle when they refused to stop. Two died, and military prosecutors at Lorance’s court martial said he acted recklessly in violation of the military’s rules of engagement, which requires soldiers to hold fire absent evidence of hostile action or hostile intent.

Hostile action or intent? There is a war in Afghanistan, suicide bombers are an every day thing. Maybe my thinking is a little screwed-up, but if you are running a check point in a war zone and unknown men are approaching on a motorcycle and refuse an order to stop, there is a good possibility that they might be unfriendly people, shooting them seems like the logical thing to do.

Did the government railroad this hero?  “The Army has in its possession evidence linking Afghan military-aged males involved in this general court-martial to improvised explosive devices as well as IED attacks and terror networks in Afghanistan,” reads a memo from Lorance’s attorneys. “The government failed to disclose this information to the chain-of-command, counsel for the defense, and the court-martial. These significant failures strike at the very heart of American due process and show that the government violated its discovery and disclosure obligations.”

Let’s add this to the list of how the government mistreats our soldiers, along with the VA scandal, where soldiers were left dying waiting for treatment in the hands of managers who were only interested in getting bigger bonuses instead of treating our hero’s. Let’s not forget the Fort Hood shootings, where the Obama administration refused to call it a terrorist attack and denied those soldiers due compensation.

Lt. Clint Lorance is a hero, not a criminal; he saw what he perceived to be the enemy when he ordered his men to shoot and rightly so. The old saying that war is hell is true; things don’t always go the way they are supposed too. Imprisoning a soldier for doing what he thought he had to do to save his men, is a great miscarriage of justice, if it were me, I’d pin a medal on his chest.

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This is one man’s opinion.