By Florida Bill This is a new era and from all indications, we have a President with genuine concern for America's military and the men and women who wear its uniform.
This country has been engaged in a war against terror and the countries where it was spawned and now thrives for more than 15 years. The USA is defended by all volunteer forces which have fought for and advanced the cause of freedom in Afghanistan and in other remote areas of the middle east.
For the past eight years, the country was guided by Barack Obama who saw the military as annoying, but necessary. Other matters appeared to be of far more importance to the 44th President. Many congressmen and generals have accused Obama of having "eviscerated" the military forces, and of looking upon undocumented immigrants and Islamic followers with greater compassion than the soldiers who were and are defending the country. Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani has said that Obama does not love his country as other presidents and patriots have.
Hopefully, President Trump will bring a different heart and attitude for America to the White House. He has said that under him,"it will always be America first." That being the case, there is no way that he could ever turn away from the miscarriage of justice heaped upon a young army officer who acted to protect the men in his command during patrol in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.
On President Trump's desk is the petition for a pardon for army First Lt. Clint Lorance who is serving a 20-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, having been found guilty of the second degree murder of two Afghans who he believed to be suicide bombers. He has been stripped of his honor and ordered to live behind bars. He serves his time in a small cell in a compound alongside Major Nidal Hasan, the radicalized army major who slaughtered 13 fellow soldiers in an assembly hall in Fort Hood, Texas, and now awaits the execution he has asked for and for which he has been sentenced
Lt. Lorance, now 32, was the commander of a nine member platoon on a research mission in the Kandahar province, near Panzai in July of 2012. He had joined the army after high school; attended college and earned a commission as an officer and was making a career of the army, He was assigned to lead the platoon, replacing an officer who had been wounded in a Taliban attack by suicide bombers. It was actually Lorance's fourth day in command when the incident occurred which has divested him of his honor and made him into a war criminal.
The lieutenant and the nine soldiers in his command had been warned of suicide bombers eager to find and kill American soldiers. When three men on a motorcycle did not stop their movement toward the platoon, and despite repeated signals that they do so, Lt. Lorance directed his men to "engage" the enemy and they did so, fatally wounding two of the riders. The third man was captured as he endeavored to escape into the mountains.
The riders were found to have been unarmed, and within days Lt Lorance was accused of murder. Twelve months later, Lorance was tried by a military tribunal. He was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 20 years, then reduced to 19 years, in an army prison. Appeals failed to correct the injustice and a petition to President Obama supported by thousands, was completely ignored by the Commander-in-Chief who opted instead to grant clemency to nearly 2,000 drug pushers and users,(231 in a single day) and to commute the sentence of the traitorous Pvt. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning who served just 3 years of his 35-year penalty for his betrayal of America by publicizing highly classified data.
As the Lorance petition awaits action by the new president, attorneys and supporters of Lt. Lorance have found that the fatally wounded Afghans had "ties to terrorists." Former Congressman and retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West who supports and understands the actions of Lt. Lorance said that America's war on terror is not like any other war. America's enemies do not wear uniforms and they pass themselves off as innocent civilians while finding ways to kill Americans. Soldiers need to be alert at all times in fighting this enemy.
Lt. Lorance's mother, Anna, has said that she will never stop fighting for her son. She has been encouraged to seek a meeting with the President so as to inform him of the moral character and innate goodness of her son, who acted in accord with his training as an officer leading his platoon during this war on terror, and in the face of an enemy which seeks only to kill Americans.
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