Small Wars Journal

Army Retains Decorated Green Beret It Planned To Kick Out Over Confronting Afghan Child Rapist

Fri, 04/29/2016 - 6:02am

Army Retains Decorated Green Beret It Planned To Kick Out Over Confronting Afghan Child Rapist by Lucas Tomlinson, Fox News

In a stunning reversal, the U.S. Army decided late Thursday to retain a decorated Green Beret it had planned to kick out after he physically confronted a local Afghan commander accused of raping a boy over the course of many days. 

Sgt 1st Class Charles Martland, confirmed the Army's decision to retain him when reached by Fox News, who has been covering the story in depth for the past eight months and first broke the story of the Army's decision in August to kick out Martland over the incident, which occurred in northern Afghanistan in 2011. 

"I am real thankful for being able to continue to serve," said Martland when reached on the telephone by Fox News.  "I appreciate everything Congressman Duncan Hunter and his Chief of Staff, Joe Kasper did for me."

As first reported by Fox News, while deployed to Kunduz Province, Afghanistan, Martland and his team leader confronted a local police commander in 2011 accused of raping an Afghan boy and beating his mother. When the man laughed off the incident, they shoved him to the ground…

Read on.

Comments

I was under the impression that SF types are trained and prepared to deal with disgusting host-nation behavior.......doesn't Robin Sage cover some of that? Based on that, SFC Martland was due some sort of punishment. If any Soldier is expected to be prepared to deal with such people, it's the ones in SF.

That said, one can tolerate such troglodyte behavior for only so long before acting to correct it. Thankfully for that boy, SFC Martland and his team leader did that.

The most SFC Martland should receive is a summarized AR 15 and some time on staff (Group level or higher) before returning to a team.

crowsfly

Mon, 05/02/2016 - 11:39am

In reply to by J Harlan

<p>It's an emotional article by Fox News responding to an emotional action by a soldier to prevent an overly emotional response from the general public. It would be an impressive person that could stifle their response to what the Afghan did. It doesn't help that the Afghan guy was a police officer.</p>

J Harlan

Fri, 04/29/2016 - 9:28am

"after he physically confronted"

Isn't "beat up after the fact" a more accurate description of what happened? The article tries very hard to lead the reader to imagine the soldier intervening in an attack but that's not the case- which is why the army tried to kick him out.

Here's another version from UPI.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/04/29/Army-keeps-Green-Beret-discip…?

Notice how Fox neglected to mention another US soldier participated in the beating.

Many might think "the Afghan got what he deserved". Probably but would we accept a well thought of policeman beating suspects- knowingly against all rules and regulations if they thought the local courts wouldn't be harsh enough? Is disobedience of lawful commands or regulations not enough for dismissal from the army?