Recently I was reminded of our president's pardon of a Navy Seal that took pictures of himself and a dead combatant as a trophy and bragged about killing him with a hunting knife.
As a Marine who served in Vietnam, when we determined if we won the battle by body count, it was abhorrent to me because, as a Marine, I carried 20 feet of communication wire which we used to drag bodies out to be counted. Try to imagine being asked to do that over and over again. How much I resent making a trophy out of dead people.
The U.S. Military says his action is against the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and should be punished as such. If members of the military viewed combat like a deer hunt, we would have chaos and the loss of good order and discipline.
The president, having avoided serving in our Armed Forces himself, has no idea what it takes to maintain good order and discipline. I can understand that, but what I do not understand is why our president failed to take his own military's advice on such UCMJ matters. He seems to think he knows more about how to maintain military discipline than the military does.
The sad part is that this same Seal is selling T-shirts, glorifying what the president condoned. Ask yourself what does the rest of the world think about our military?
James P. Gann
U.S. Army Retired
Pineville
Editorial on 03/12/2020