Sep 30, 2015
WASHINGTON — One article says the two Green Berets who helped a young Afghan boy being sexually abused by a local police commander should receive medals; another calls them vigilantes. What worries the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is how the conflicting messaging is being interpreted by an Army that’s still at war.
“The Army made examples out of former Capt. Daniel Quinn and Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland,” said VFW National Commander John A. Biedrzycki Jr. “The hypocrisy of what happened is had the pedophile been Taliban or Al-Qaida, both would have been applauded for helping the Afghan people, but since it occurred inside the fence by a so-called friendly, the two soldiers were instead accused of overstepping their bounds and putting their team and mission in jeopardy, which essentially forced them both out of the service.”
Biedrzycki questions if America’s military leadership has become so politically correct that its first reaction is to punish people for doing what the military trains them to do.
“Captain Quinn and SFC Martland did the absolute right thing to confront a threat, and for the Army to show them the door so abruptly is no way to take care of the troops who have faithfully taken care of the mission for so long,” he said. “It hurts troop morale, which means everything to an Army at war, and quite possibly to those men and women the Army still needs to recruit and retain after the fighting is done. It’s all about faith in the system and their fellow comrades in arms, which these two soldiers had in aces, until the Army took it all away.”
The VFW is now backing the efforts of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress in calling for Defense Secretary Ash Carter to overturn the Army’s decisions.