Must-Read Article About Military Sexual Assault Published by National Defense University

Posted on April 8, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Almost 18 months ago, my book, Three Days In August, went on sale, carrying the true story of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart and his unsuccessful battle with the military justice system. More recently, I’ve written eight posts as part of my series, DoD’s War on Men. Today, I point you to a well-written piece, Fostering Constructive Dialogue on Military Sexual Assault by Lindsay L. Rodman. Published in Joint Force Quarterly 69 by National Defense University Press, this piece (see abstract below) is a must-read for anyone interested in this topic:

Click to read full article.

Unrealistically high estimates by DOD officials of sexual assaults in the military, along with hazy definitions and methodologies, have fueled the public discourse on this emotional issue, making it unnecessarily hysterical and obscuring the military’s search for solutions. While the military is expected to maintain a higher standard than society at large, the experience of colleges and universities, whose demographic is roughly the same age as the military’s, should be drawn on. Moreover, an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of criminal law will help draw the debate about the military sexual assault problem away from blaming commanders because they are not always obtaining convictions. The educational and military communities should combine their efforts to find a more holistic solution.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), you should read this and then step down from your agenda-fueled soapbox.

Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. It chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart. His second book, THE CLAPPER MEMO, is coming soon.

Flag Officers Back Supreme Court Brief Filed on Behalf of Lieutenant Michael Behenna

Posted on March 26, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Thirty-seven retired high-ranking military officers, including a former Chief of Naval Operations, signed an Amicus Brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court Feb. 27 in support of Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna. An Edmond, Okla., native, Lieutenant Behenna is serving 15-years behind bars at the U.S. Military Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for killing a known Al-Qaeda operative in Iraq.

Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna SCOTUS Amicus Brief

Click image to download document (pdf)

Early on, the 31-page brief raises an important question — that is, whether a servicemember in a combat zone categorically forfeits the right to self-defense as a matter of law by pointing a firearm without authorization at a suspected enemy. In the case of Lieutenant Behenna, he admitted during his court-martial that he shot Ali Mansur in self-defense. And therein lies the rub.

The brief’s conclusion section (below) makes a clear argument, stating that Lieutenant Behenna deserves some punishment, but not what he received, and, more importantly, a new trial:

Lieutenant Behenna’s unauthorized actions in a combat zone were a serious breach of military discipline and for that reason he should be subject to appropriate disciplinary action under the (Uniform Code of Military Justice). But in so acting without authorization, he did not forfeit his right to self-defense. This Court should grant the petition for certiorari, reverse the (Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces), and remand to allow a new court-martial panel to consider Lieutenant Behennas’s claim that he acted in self-defense, including evidence unlawfully withheld by the prosecution corroborating that claim.

At the same time as I’m pleased with this document, I remain disappointed that its authors made no mention of the colossal failure of leadership among officers in Lieutenant Behenna’s chain of command. That failure, a subject I tackled in a post Aug. 20, 2012, allowed him to be put in a position from which nothing good could result.

To read any of the more than 60 posts I’ve written about the lieutenant’s case since June 4, 2009, click here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Lieutenant Behenna and Army Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart, the man whose life story is chronicled in my book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, became good friends behind bars at Fort Leavenworth.

Comparing Messages Sent by Accusers — DoD War on Men

Posted on March 15, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Today, as part of my continuing series about the Department of Defense War on Men, I compare the handling of evidence in military court-martial cases to the handling of similar evidence during the prosecution of a civilian sexual assault case making news in Ohio ~~West Virginia~~.

ABC News broadcast a story today about the case of two Steubenville, Ohio ~~W.Va.~~, high school football players who stand accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl while she was drunk at an “alcohol-fueled party” the night of Aug. 11, 2012. If the report is reliable, then it appears prosecutors will rely heavily upon text messages and mobile phone photos exchanged by party attendees — and, perhaps, others — as they pursue guilty verdicts against the 16- and 17-year-old boys who stand accused.

Kelly Stewart returns from a mission in Iraq.

Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart, the man whose life story and wrongful conviction are chronicled in my book, Three Days In August, probably would have benefited from having members of his court-martial panel made aware of some text messages sent by his accuser. But it didn’t happen. Instead, the highly-decorated combat veteran was convicted of a handful of sexual assault-related crimes and sentenced to eight years confinement at the U.S. Military Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Several months later, however, Sergeant Stewart’s defense team had the rare opportunity to present new testimony during a post-trial hearing in Germany. During that hearing, many people testified, essentially calling out the 28-year-old German woman who had accused the Solider of raping and kidnapping her in his Stuttgart hotel room as a liar.

Did it get him a new trial? No.

Not even the testimony of Tamara Buehler, a woman who had known the accuser for more than 10 years as a friend, housemate and employer, earned him a new trial. She reported receiving a text message from the accuser within 24 hours of the night she spent with Sergeant Stewart.

In the text message, Buehler said, the accuser described a lecherous night during which she “found my master.” Of course, she took this to mean that there was sex of the sadomasochist type and noted that there was no talk of something happening that the accuser did not like. And that wasn’t all! Buehler also stated that the accuser had claimed her encounter with Sergeant Stewart was “great SEX.”

Incredibly, the military judge ignored the testimony of Buehler and several others who combined to paint a portrait of the accuser as a woman who had had sex with at least two more men between the day she met Sergeant Stewart and the start of the court-martial proceedings. Her testimony takes on additional weight when one realizes the accuser had testified during the trial that she could no longer be around men after her night with the Soldier. More details here.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, the deputy commanding general of support with the 82nd Airborne Division and Regional Command-South, speaks with Afghan media outside of a school near Forward Operating Base Howz-e-Madad in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Nov. 16, 2011. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Amanda Hils/Released)

Now to a more recent case — that of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair; if he receives the same treatment as Sergeant Stewart, he’s likely to receive an even longer prison sentence.

In what appears to be a smart move, however, General Sinclair’s defense team has gone on the offensive, launching a website, Sinclair Innocence, where one can read important details about the case which, for the most part, seems to be going unreported by mainstream news media outlets.

Under the tab, The Truth Behind the Case, several questions appear along with answers that tilt in favor of the accused general. Two paragraphs from the bottom of the page, links to journal entries and text messages — described as having been sent by the accuser to General Sinclair — appear to reveal much about the consensual nature of their relationship. If genuine, the documents also seem to shed much light on the mental state of the general’s accuser.

While it will be interesting to see how the case of the high school football players turns out, I will be more interested in General Sinclair’s case, hoping to see evidence of fairness and truth in the midst of DoD’s War on Men.

Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. His second book, THE CLAPPER MEMO, is coming soon.

Army Investigation Report: Afghan Vetting Process Flawed

Posted on March 14, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Nine months ago, I used a headline to ask the question, Who Am I To Complain About Waiting 90 Days for Info? What followed the headline was a piece in which I offered a glimpse of what it’s like to obtain unclassified information from Department of Defense agencies not eager to give it up. Today, I share even more details in the form of an excerpt from my soon-to-be-published second nonfiction book, THE CLAPPER MEMO. Slightly modified for publication, it offers a detailed look at a document which took Dante and Carolyn Acosta more than nine months to obtain. The text of the excerpt appears below in blue.

Spc. Ramiro Bojorquez, a combat medic with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, watches a brightly decorated “jingle truck” pass along Afghanistan’s Highway 1 in Ghazni province while he and follow paratroopers patrol the area April 20, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod).

Even those who pay scant attention to the daily news have likely heard about the “Green-on-Blue” attacks taking place in Afghanistan.

Insidious by nature, each attack involves at least one Afghan who, while serving in an official capacity as a uniform-wearing member of an Afghan government organization (i.e., military, police or security), turns against the very foreigners alongside whom he works and/or trains.

Often, the attacks involve the use of small arms fire. On occasion, however, they take the form of suicide attacks or involve the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and/or other deadly measures.

Though the people behind the attacks target Americans more often than any other nationalities, they remain willing to kill others — even Afghans — with whom they disagree. “Equal opportunity killers” seems an apt description.

When it comes to the colorful label initially applied to the attacks, “Green” refers to supposedly-friendly members of the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) and Afghan Security Group (ASG), and “Blue” the color associated with members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) members (a.k.a., “the good guys”).

For some six years now, reports about Green-on-Blue attacks in Afghanistan have surfaced in the news on a regular basis — sometimes daily — in the United States. One of those attacks took place March 19, 2011.

At approximately 8 a.m., members of 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment (4/2 SCR TAC) were cleaning their weapons while gathered around their Stryker armored fighting vehicles outside the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Frontenac, located about 20 minutes north of Kandahar by helicopter.

It wasn’t their usual place for cleaning weapons, but the Soldiers had been told they had additional time to prepare for a mission that would take them outside the confines of the ISAF outpost in the Arghandab River valley north of Kandahar. So they cleaned. Out in the open. Ramps down. Inside the entry-controlled environment of the FOB.

At about the same time, a convoy of large and colorful “jingle trucks” arrived at the FOB.

Commonly used by contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan and known for the jingle sound made by chains hanging from their bumpers, the customized vehicles were received at the entry control point and escorted to a container area next to the TOC.

Those doing the escorting that day were employees of Tundra Security Group, a private security company based in Canada, who had been hired to provide both base defense security and a Quick Reaction Force at the FOB.

Soon after the jingle trucks arrived, 4/2 members found themselves under attack.
At 19 minutes after the hour, according to the 14-page Army Regulation 15-6 Investigation Report produced April 14, 2011, an armed Afghan employee of Tundra moved toward the Soldiers, drew his weapon and began shooting at the American Soldiers.

Facing what was described as “well-aimed automatic fire,” the majority of Soldiers immediately dropped to the ground and began seeking cover toward the front ends of their vehicles. With their weapons disassembled for cleaning, most had no immediate means to defend themselves.

Two soldiers — a specialist and a captain — took actions that would be highlighted in the report.

Upon realizing he and his fellow Soldiers were under attack, the specialist — who had his weapon assembled, but not loaded — immediately moved between the Strykers and some nearby T-Walls (a.k.a., “Bremer walls”). Once behind a section of the 12-foot-high, portable, steel-reinforced walls, he began loading his weapon.

At the same time, the Afghan continued firing, expending all of his rounds as he moved deliberately around the vehicles toward where the remaining Soldiers had sought cover. Then he reloaded and continued his approach toward those Soldiers.

Before the Afghan could fire another shot, however, he came into the field of view of the specialist who, with gun now assembled and loaded, fired a well-aimed shot.

Though the Afghan assailant’s body armor kept that shot from doing damage, it didn’t stop the shots that followed — into his hip, shoulder and head — and dropped the man to the ground.

And it didn’t stop the final shot, fired by the captain when he saw the Afghan still moving, still posing a threat.

Despite the heroic actions of the American Soldiers described above, two of the unit’s men — Corporal Donald Mickler, 29, a native of Dayton, Ohio, and Private First Class Rudy Acosta, 19, of Santa Clarita Valley, California — died from injuries they suffered during the attack. Four others were injured.

Also killed that day was the Afghan assailant, a Tundra employee, Shia Ahmed.

Ahmed’s coworkers later described him as having been a reserved, quiet individual who had revealed no clear indications prior to the attack that he was about to do anything, according to the report.

During the weeks following the attack, the investigating officer — an Army major whose name, like the other Soldiers who survived the attack, was redacted from the copy of the investigation report I obtained — learned Ahmed had a history of animosity toward American Soldiers. A history that included using aliases.

“Most significant,” the major wrote on page one of his report, “Shia Ahmed had expressed intentions to target US Soldiers.”

Deeper into his report, the investigating officer pointed out several flaws in the process via which Afghans like Ahmed were vetted (i.e., screened) prior to working alongside American and other coalition forces (CF) personnel.

In addition, he described some of the policies defining duties and responsibilities for vetting as “vague and confusing.”

In the final section of his report, the investigating officer used a half-dozen paragraphs to recommend “a larger comprehensive investigation be initiated to examine the vetting and screening procedures across Afghanistan.”

To learn more about the flawed vetting process and up-to-date details about the flawed decision-making behind it, be sure to order a copy of THE CLAPPER MEMO when it goes on sale this spring.

To receive the latest updates about THE CLAPPER MEMO, subscribe to the book’s website feed by clicking here. The book should hit booksellers everywhere this spring.

Meanwhile, be sure to order a copy of my first nonfiction book, Three Days In August, which chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart. More details about it are available at ThreeDaysInAugust.com.

THE CLAPPER MEMO Endorsed by Retired U.S. Navy SEAL Officer

Posted on March 11, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Over the weekend, I received the first pre-release review of my second nonfiction book, THE CLAPPER MEMO. Below I share that review:

Any American with a sense of fair play and a desire to see that our intelligence and vetting personnel have the best information possible should read THE CLAPPER MEMO.

I am not a techie. Nor am I a government contract specialist. What I AM is a reasonably objective retired Navy SEAL who understands the importance of getting accurate information from individuals both inside and outside one’s own professional world.

In this case, “professional world” denotes the U.S. military, where accurate and timely information has life-or-death consequences. That information can come in the form of either raw intelligence or personnel “vetting” and is of crucial importance in the War on Terror, especially given the numbers of Americans and International Security Assistance Force personnel who have died or been injured in “Green-on-Blue” incidents.

“Green-on-Blue” is jargon describing the killing and maiming of friendly personnel by individuals who are supposedly their allies. Scores of incidents have occurred in Afghanistan when putative Afghan military men, wholly trusted by their allied advisors, turned their guns on those advisors. These events set the tenor of Bob McCarty’s expose of what is clearly an unconscionable cover-up of a capability of the U.S. military and intelligence community to vet incoming Afghan (or any other) military personnel.

THE CLAPPER MEMO is that expose, and McCarty pulls no punches as he walks the reader through a multi-year maze of bureaucratic ineptitude and turf-defense as they relate to the relative merits of the polygraph and the more-recent Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA). Talk about vested interests! The polygraph community has trade-union-like adherents, and, trade-union-like, that community seems to stop at nothing in attempting to discredit the CVSA. The irony here is that the end-user of both devices clearly prefers the CVSA, and the bureaucracy tasked to support that end-user, the U.S. military, has not only abdicated its responsibility to support our military forces but has consciously advocated the suppression of a better means of obtaining truthful responses from targeted individuals, whether those individuals are detainees, truck drivers, interpreters, co-combatants, or politicians. I came away from McCarty’s treatise firmly convinced that the CVSA is a far better tool in conducting field interrogations and administrative verifications alike.

And I emphasize (as does McCarty) the word “tool.” No polygraph operator, as vested as he/she may be, would claim that his/her device is a be-all, end-all game-changer, nor would a CVSA operator make a similar claim about his/her machine. However, it is clear that, on-balance, the CVSA is a much more useful tool in obtaining information. The Department of Defense bureaucracy, though, has come down decidedly on the side of the polygraph. McCarty has clearly been convinced through dint of exhaustive research that the CVSA is better, and his highly footnoted book has convinced me that American interrogators, especially those in the field (such as Navy SEALs or Army Special Forces) should have access to the latest CVSA devices. The CVSA is as close to a field-expedient truth determinant as exists today, and it is to be hoped that McCarty’s book will result in a reassessment of the efficacy of the CVSA as a means of obtaining actionable short-order intelligence.

Our troops deserve nothing less.

Capt. Larry Bailey, U.S. Navy SEAL (Ret.)
Co-founder, Special Operations Speaks, a veterans group dedicated, among other things, to restoring trust and confidence in government.

In short, Captain Bailey believes, like I do, that our nation’s warfighters deserve access to the best tools available — especially when it comes to tools that can be used to elicit intelligence information from our enemies and uncover their true intentions. If you share this belief and want to learn about those who appear to hold opposite views, you’ll want to read THE CLAPPER MEMO.

To receive the latest updates about THE CLAPPER MEMO, subscribe to the book’s website feed by clicking here. The book should hit booksellers everywhere soon. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: After publishing this piece, the book received another big endorsement!

Senator McCaskill Wants General Fired for Doing Right Thing

Posted on March 7, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Earlier today, I shared news about what appears to be a war being waged against men who wear the uniforms of the Armed Forces of the United States. In this post, I reveal more details about Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of three liberal United States senators on the wrong side of the battlefield.

Click image to read the stories of the men shown above.

Below is the full text of the scathing letter Senator McCaskill sent March 5 to Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley and Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Chief of Staff of the Air Force after Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, commander of Third Air Force and the convening authority for the case of alleged sexual assault involving Lt. Col. James H. Wilkerson III:

Dear Secretary Donley and General Welsh:

As a former prosecutor who tried many challenging rape and sexual assault cases, I was appalled to learn of Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin’s decision to dismiss the charges in the Air Force case United States vs. Wilkerson, charges that had resulted in a conviction. As you are no doubt aware, the defendant in the case had been convicted and sentenced by a duly-appointed military jury, and had begun to serve his sentence. It has now been reported that Lt. Gen. Franklin, as the Convening Authority in the court martial, subsequently decided to dismiss the charges against the defendant, doing so, according to reports, contrary to the advice of his legal team. As a result of Lt. Gen. Franklin’s action, the defendant was reinstated to the Air Force and made eligible for promotion. This stunning decision demonstrates a total disregard for the survivors of sexual assault and for the findings of the military justice system at a time when holding sexual predators accountable is critical to our military.

As the Air Force and other military organizations are redoubling efforts to erase a culture that has often turned a blind eye on sexual assault, Lt. Gen. Franklin’s conduct undermines this important shift. His decision shows ignorance, at best, and malfeasance, at worst. I strongly urge you to undertake an immediate review of his conduct and consider removing him from his leadership position.

As the commander of the 3rd Air Force, Lt. Gen. Franklin has the responsibility to set an example for the men and women under his command. His actions contribute to a command culture. In this instance, Lt. Gen. Franklin’s actions send the unacceptable message that the United States Air Force specifically, and the U.S. Armed Forces as a whole, do not take seriously holding accountable perpetrators of sexual assault.

I have held the hands of survivors of sexual assault. I have comforted them about their fears in testifying against those who attacked them. I know how difficult it is for a survivor to come forward under the best of circumstances. When they see a dismissal like that carried out by Lt. Gen. Franklin in this case, the message to a survivor of sexual assault is clear: do not bother coming forward. I know you join me in finding this message unacceptable. Survivors must be encouraged to report the assaults against them, justice must be pursued and survivors must receive the care they need.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice empowers commanders like Lt. Gen. Franklin with extensive authorities, but if they are not executed with sound judgment it becomes our responsibility, as Congress, to rein them in. As the leaders of the Air Force, it is likewise up to you to take the appropriate actions to restore confidence to the airmen under your authority. In light of this case, I will be reviewing whether formal legislative actions need to be taken to limit the authorities of military commanders to undo the work of military courts martial.

I expect to be fully informed of any actions you take, as well as any investigation and findings you make in this case. I expect your review will be immediate and the actions you take will be swift. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Claire McCaskill
United States Senator

Senator McCaskill is apparently ignorant of what’s really going on in the military justice system and has not kept up with my coverage of this issue, so I’ll revisit some of the important areas:

• My article published Sept. 13, revealed a prominent military defense attorney’s contention that 90 percent of military sexual assault cases would be thrown out of civilian courts due to lack of evidence;

• My article published April 17, exposed DoD’s crackdown on sexual assault as being more of a witch hunt than a law-based effort to combat a serious problem; and

• My book, Three Days In August, chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart on sexual assault-related charges and shows in exacting detail how the military justice system, lacking any evidence upon which to base a conviction, can ruin a man’s life and career.

Apparently, ignorance is bliss in Senator McCaskill’s world. And that’s bad news for everyone.

UPDATE 3/12/2013 at 7:39 p.m. Central: The insanity continues.

Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. His second book, THE CLAPPER MEMO, is coming soon.

Is DoD Waging War on Warriors?

Posted on March 7, 2013 by BobMcCarty

Almost six months ago, news surfaced about Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, then 50, facing possible court-martial on sexual misconduct and other charges, and I promised to keep my eye on that case and others like it. Today, I share details about the general’s case and several others brought to my attention by readers of my first nonfiction book, Three Days In August, which chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart on sexual assault-related charges. Combined, these cases make me wonder if Department of Defense officials are waging a war on men in uniform (a.k.a., “warriors”), often under the banner of stopping sexual assaults.

GENERAL SINCLAIR

Though the case involving General Sinclair has yet to go to trial, one reader contacted me recently to ask if I had heard anything about the case. When I told him I had heard little beyond the fact that it was still in the pretrial stage, he suggested I visit the website, Sinclair Innocence. I took his advice and found information about the case that seems, for the most part, to be going unreported by mainstream news media outlets.

Under the tab, The Truth Behind the Case, several questions appear along with answers that tilt in favor of the accused general. Two paragraphs from the bottom of the page, links to journal entries and text messages — described as having been sent by the accuser to General Sinclair — seem to reveal much about the consensual nature of their relationship. If genuine, the documents seem to shed much light on the accuser’s mental state.

Under the tab, Who is the Army Prosecutor?, information appears about Lt. Col. Will Helixon, the Army’s lead prosecutor in the case. Not surprisingly, the information paints the prosecutor in a less than favorable light and includes, among other things, a link to a partial transcript of General Sinclair’s Article 32 Hearing in which the prosecution admits to illegal and unethical conduct. I recommend you check it out.

COLONEL WILKERSON

Then-Lt. Col. James Wilkerson. USAF photo.

New on my radar screen is the case involving Lt. Col. James H. Wilkerson III, an Air Force fighter pilot and former 80th Fighter Squadron commander who, at 44, was charged and convicted in November 2012 of aggravated sexual assault.

On Feb. 26, his conviction was overturned by Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, commander of Third Air Force and the convening authority for his case. In turn, the well-respected colonel-select who had been serving as the 31st Fighter Wing inspector general at Aviano Air Base, Italy, was released from the brig where he had been sent to serve a one-year sentence.

When news surfaced about Colonel Wilkerson’s conviction being overturned, three liberal U.S. senators — Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — issued a joint news release March 4, calling for General Franklin’s head on a platter.

In addition, Senator McCaskill wrote a scathing letter addressed to Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley and Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Dated March 5, the letter includes the senator’s demand that they “take the appropriate actions to restore confidence to the airmen under your authority.” It ended with the senator promising to review “whether formal legislative actions need to be taken to limit the authorities of military commanders to undo the work of military courts martial.”

In their minds, apparently, a military man is always guilty in a sexual assault case and, facts be damned, a female accuser is always innocent. Who cares if the man’s wife says he’s innocent; the sexual assault agenda must move forward!

Thankfully, according to individuals close to the case, General Franklin received approximately 100 letters of support — none of which came from the aforementioned U.S. senators — written on behalf of Colonel Wilkerson. Though I’m not at liberty to share specific details of the letters at this point, I can say that they came from two types of people — those who knew the colonel and those who knew the accuser — who sided with the accused officer.

Stay tuned as I hope to share more details of the case in the near future.

OTHER CASES

Though everyone who contacts me to tell me a loved one (i.e., husband, brother, son, uncle or friend) is innocent, I’ve refrained from sharing specifics details of most cases until verdicts are handed down and/or until appeals processes have run their course. Below, however, are tidbits from some of the cases about which I have yet to report specifics:

Sgt. Todd Knight. Family photo.

• Sergeant Todd Knight — While stationed in Germany, Army Sergeant Todd Knight befriended a young German woman while out with friends the night of Jan. 27, 2012. At some point during the evening, he and three other Soldiers — one of whom he considered a friend — accompanied the woman and one of her friends to the home where the sister of one of the women — but not the accuser — lived.

What actually happened at the home, however, remains a matter of much debate as conflicting stories were given to German authorities. Two things, however, stand without dispute: Sergeant Knight was arrested by German authorities the next day, accused of rape, and those same German authorities eventually decided not to pursue the case.

U.S. military officials, on the other hand, decided to move forward with charges of their own despite the fact that the alleged victim testified during the Article 32 hearing that she couldn’t remember what had happened that night and despite the aforementioned conflicting statements.

On Dec. 18, 2012, Sergeant Knight was found guilty of sexual assault, sentenced to one year behind bars and busted to E-1, the lowest enlisted rank and a rank he would hold until the end of his sentence when he would be dishonorably discharged from the Army.

Three months after Sergeant Knight’s conviction, people continued to show interest in proving the 25-year-old Soldier’s innocence. One who showed interest was the German woman at whose home the alleged rape occurred.

In a “To Whom It May Concern” letter dated February 28, she wrote that she has known Sergeant Knight for more than two years, and then she drops a bombshell, explaining that the sergeant’s unemployed accuser “told me SGT Knight did not rape her, and that she only said that because she didn’t want her boyfriend at that time to find out she was cheating on him.”

PFC David W. Lawrence. Army photo.

• Private First Class David W. Lawrence — Army PFC David W. Lawrence is an American Soldier from Indiana who, according to a Denver Post report May 25, 2011, pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Mullah Muhebullah, an Afghan detainee, seven months earlier. Despite the guilty plea, there are several problems with the case.

For instance, PFC Lawrence had been prescribed Zoloft and Trazadone, two powerful anti-depressant medications that have been linked to depression and suicide. In addition, members of the Army’s Sanity Board reported to the court that the Soldier had both Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and schizophrenia and “was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the alleged criminal misconduct.” Looked at together, one’s left wondering what PFC Lawrence’s superiors were thinking when they put the 20-year-old Soldier in charge of the Afghan detainee.

More gut-wrenching details about the case can be found on the Facebook page, In Support of David Lawrence.

Private Taylor Crawford. Family photo.

• Private Taylor J. Crawford — Anyone who says Army Private Taylor Crawford didn’t exercise the kind of thinking required of an American Soldier would be correct. Then again, the 19-year-old security policeman wasn’t at war; instead, he was out on the town drinking with a group of people he thought were his “friends” in Germany. Bad things followed and, before long, he had been accused, tried, convicted and sentenced to five years behind bars for his alleged involvement in the beating of a German man on a city sidewalk and the theft of the man’s wallet.

There is, however, one problem with the sequence of events as spelled out by Army prosecutors: Private Crawford’s blood-alcohol level was, according to two doctors consulted by members of Crawford’s family after the trial, so high that he would not have been able to perform the actions necessary to inflict the grievous injuries suffered by the German man.

Army prosecutors apparently did not consider the Soldier’s blood-alcohol level. Instead, they pressured two of the other Soldiers involved to testify against Private Crawford and, in exchange for lenient sentencing, say he was the main culprit in the beating. Incredibly, one of the Soldiers said he couldn’t remember exactly what had happened but did recall a “vision” he had and was convinced it was based upon what happened the night of the incident.

More information about the case is available on the Facebook page, Free Taylor Crawford.

Of course, there are plenty of other cases, and more will surely follow if this “war on men in uniform” is allowed to fester within DoD. Stay tuned for updates!

CORRECTION: In the original version of this story, I noted that Lt. Col. Wilkerson had pinned on the rank of colonel (i.e., O-6). According to this report today, that was in error.

UPDATE 3/12/2013 at 7:40 p.m. Central: The insanity continues.

Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. His second book, THE CLAPPER MEMO, is coming soon.

BobMcCarty.com

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Category Archives: Army

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