What I have thought right from the start of this sham balls up of a Court Martial, like most others, is that no real questions of importance or legal substance have yet been put forward in the defendant’s legal interest, and this surely would have been a key question; did the rag-head die of his injuries from which he had been wounded in the first place and was he in the process of dying when the marines found him, or did the single shot from the Sgt’s pistol cause his death.
The fact that he died after being shot by the Sgt was not fully, 100% proven as the sequence of events were reported to the public. All throughout this sordid trial no mention was made of exactly what wounds the deceased had previously received by the time our guys found him, nor did they have a fully qualified medic with them in order to make a ‘professional’ diagnosis or form a ‘professional’ opinion, regarding the state or seriousness of the wounds, and remember this fellas; only a ‘professional’ person may state his opinion in a court of law, and only a doctor may define actual death, whatever the cause.
It seems that our military higher ranks have arrogantly assumed powers unto themselves to which they are neither qualified or indeed entitled to even under military law, which itself has proven to become ‘elastic’ in order to suit those way above us in the lower ranks, including the public which in turn includes, and insults, the defendant’s relatives, every bit as much as the current civilian scandal over the Duggan shooting by so-called police ‘marksmen’, who seem to shoot predictably in the manner of the greenest squaddie out of pure fear as the most comforting thing to them at the time is the sound of their own gun going off. I have seen this situation on a number of dangerous occasions and still reckon N. Ireland’s Bloody Sunday, among others, was partly due to some of the guys being shit scared at that bizarre split second moment when the fleeting moment is actually so outside the average human ability to control themselves in the manner and application of a professional Special Forces soldier.
This particular mindset appears to be outside the cadres of those who presume to cast judgement upon those who put themselves forward and volunteer to undergo special courses of arduous multitasking courses to specialize and qualify in those highly demanding fields of expertise, often combined or associated with promotional advancements, and even these have before my own eyes and experience shown the systems and some glaringly obvious candidates to be far from suitable material, made even worse by discarding others who deserved beyond intelligent doubt to have been deservedly granted immediate promotion, yet due often to petty and immature judgement by cadre training staff were and probably still are discarded as allegedly not up to required standard, thus earning the contempt of the student’s contemporaries for the remaining years of service, now at a time when needed more than ever now that the insane suggestion that recruiting reservists shall provide the nation’s military needs!!!!!!
For what it is worth, and I fully realize my lowly and humble opinion is totally worthless, the military top brass should get their act together, do this once Great Britain a favor and release this valuable Royal Marine Sergeant from military custody, restore him to full rank, repay him all monies due to him and issue him with a full and unreserved written apology, broadcast worldwide and especially to all of our military staff whoever and wherever they be, and allocate him a suitable posting in order that he may cleanse his mind of all association with custodial and prisons filth and re-establish relationships with his family and, the real test of pre-trial friendships, re-discover who his real friends are now. The word; ‘woodwork’ comes to mind initially.
Personally, whilst I wish him luck and success in whatever course of action he takes, I think he will in time look back on this entire episode in his life as the largest and most thorough lesson in his life, and many of the factors he once held in high regard are probably now reduced to a more accurate vision and view, and his family more precious to him than ever.
One characteristic element throughout this unpleasant period must prove at least one thing; that we still have yet to see any prominent persons publicly supporting this man. As usual, most of the moral support has, and still is, coming from the ‘nobodies’, the guys who have served in the lower ranks and know, consequently, who’s who’s when the muck starts flying.
from “BC” (ex-Marine, PW3(S)
