As congressmen and many in the public stew over the pending court martial of three Navy SEALs accused of abusing a detainee and making false official statements, a SEALs blog remembers one of them men murdered whose desecrated remains were hung from that infamous bridge in Fallujah:
Scott Helvenston was the youngest to ever complete Navy SEAL training, after being given special permission at 16 years old to join the Navy and completing Navy SEAL training at 17.
He spent 12 years in the Navy, from 1982 until 1994, during which time he was deployed four times. He spent four years as a Free Fall instructor…
In 2004, Scott Helvenston worked for then Blackwater USA, a company owned by former Navy SEALs like himself. He was part of the Blackwater guards assigned to provide security for clients engaged in the food industry. On March 30, 2004, Scott Helvenston and three other contractors: Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Michael Teague, were assigned to provide security to a convoy that was to travel from Baghdad to a military base to the west of Fallujah, Iraq. He was only 38 years old at that time.
They were trying to help deliver food.
I’m VERY OK with it being PERSONAL among SEALS. Maybe if more Americans took this war more personally we’d be done with it… Victoriously I might add… not simply done at any cost like our current admin seems to focus on.
Thanks for reminding us…
+1
As an addendum to John’s comment, I’m very OK with it being personal for ANYONE. I’m all for letting vengeance be the Lord’s to deal with. However, when any bastard goes for his sword against me or mine, it’s time to “fill your hands you son of a bitch, cause we’re gonna fight!”.
Ironically, I was in Tahiti in June of 2004, at the end of a 4 week bluewater sailing cruise. A gorgeous month in a gorgeous place. I’m sorry Scott couldn’t make it with his intended.
Not a SEAL, not from that service, but this is all so pathetically sad–and just demonstrates how distorted the values and outlook of large segments of all branches of the armed services have become by years of drip, drip, drip infusion of PC attitudes and concommitment erosion of the very values upon which this Republic was established. All too many are “suicidally naive” (to borrow the atheist author Sam Harris’ phrase) about the nature of the enemy we face and it is costing us dearly.
I would also make the logical point that if the laws of warfare permit (nay, demand if one reads the actual wording of the accords) summary execution of these people upon apprehension–what the hell is the problem with ANY kind of torture? If they can be shot on sight, what’s “illegal”/”unethical” about anything short of that? Even many forms of truly genuine torture may be eventually recovered from–as opposed to the terminal irreversible results of summary execution. “Lawfare” by the PC troops has gotten completely out of hand. It’s an ever-spreading malignant cancer in the bloodstream of the services and on the ability of this nation to defend itself that will doom us all unless reined in.
VX – the problem is JAGs have inserted themselves into the decision making process.
I kinda doubt Ike’s SJA had review/approval authority for TORCH, HUSKY, or OVERLORD.
Ah – +1 again.
Lincoln, when re-inforcing Ft. Sumter, tried to provoke us into, in his words, “firing on bread.” Our loony leaders took the bait.
These guys fired on bread (and those bearing and guarding it), without provocation. Git. A. Rope. (for the guy who got punched, not the SEALs, who should get free whisky and cigars for the rest of their lives)
Virgil,
We don’t want to hurt their feelings and ruin their Kumbaya Moment…
Virgil, as an attempted Christian, I prolly shouldn’t let my imagination run like this, but I betcha, with modern medical science, you could almost kill somebody, very painfully, several times, carefully nursing him back to health between almost-executions. Of course, no physician without a commission in the SS would participate in such activities.
I do understand the feeling though: “I’m so mad at you I wanna kill you twice!”
We really should (unlike them) content ourselves with acting like dispassionate grownups and just put them away quickly, without any consideration for how much that does or does not make them hurt.
Just make them disappear. It will instill more fear in their buddies.