How does Killing the Enemy Land You in Court on Murder Charges?

How does killing the enemy land you in court on Murder charges?


For doing what he was trained to do, 2nd Lt. ILario Pantano is about to be tried for killing the enemy!

How can this be?

An officer of the US Marines, in active combat with the enemy, shoots two of them and he is being tried for it? Come on! Somebody is pulling my leg… right? Not hardly!

Look, all of us who have had military training know that from the moment you set foot in the “basic training area” you are taught two things, One, to kill, and the other, to survive. Sometimes you must do number one in order to secure number two!

In a combat zone, there is a free fire zone. Anything that moves in that zone is a potential target and can be killed. That is as it should be. But, when a soldier is afraid to pull the trigger on an enemy combatant, he will hesitate. That hesitation may be the single second his enemy needs to drop him. That second’s hesitation is too much to ask of any soldier whether a Marine, or a “grunt” in the Army.

The Marines are wrong on this one. Lt. Pantano was doing his job. Don’t try him for it! Give him a medal! Heck, give him two medals!

This action against Lt. Pantano sounds entirely too much like a “barracks lawyer” got involved at some level and has blown the event completely out of proportion.

He only killed two Iraqi Insurgents. Forgive me, but isn’t that why we are over there… to clean the insurgents out of that place? Huh? Well, he was doing it, right? “More power to him”… as we say down South.

The US Military had better get it’s act together. When recruitment is down as it is, and potential recruits see that they are likely to wind up in a Court Martial for doing what the military trained them to do, does the Military really expect recruits to be lining up at the recruit depots? Hardly! Frankly, I can’t blame them.

We here at “Insight” wish Lt. Pantano the best in this Kabuki dance of military lawyers. We hope he is exonerated of all charges…. and given a medal! Then he can resign his commission and come home, to North Carolina, as a hero.

We have another expression down South: When tempted to hesitate, “it is better to have 12 men try you, than have six men carry you”. For the sake of our men still in harm’s way, we trust they will not hesitate.

Your Obedient Servant,

“Longstreet”