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2003-12-10 Home Front

Great news for Lt. Col. Allen B. West in assault case

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Posted by Dragon Fly 2003-12-10 6:55:56 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Found this description at the Army Security Agency.

I assume he'll lose a grade and some pay, but otherwise be able to continue serving?

Posted by Dar 2003-12-10 9:52:34 AM|| 2003-12-10 9:52:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 *applause*
This guy, as so many have noted here before, is exactly the kind of warrior we need, not REMF's. I don't find his threatening of a terrorist inappropriate or unethical, and it saved AMERICAN lives

Posted by Frank G 2003-12-10 10:09:46 AM|| 2003-12-10 10:09:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 I doubt he'd lose a pay grade. Probably 14 days extra duty - "LTC West, you'll supervise the officer of the day for the next 14 days." As battalion XO, in lots of units, he'd have done that anyway.

Article 15 records are dumped when the member changes units, by the way. Or at least they were in my day. It's a handy tool for a commander who wants to keep a good man from getting screwed - the military has double jeopardy protection, too.

The important thing is that his retirement's protected. He's invested 19+ years in getting that pension. He's spent a lot of time in the field, and worked a lot of late nights, with lots of time away from his family, and he's been shot at personally - he was on the local bad boyz' hit list - by turbans. If you make the investment, you desrve the return.

Posted by Fred 2003-12-10 11:05:07 AM|| 2003-12-10 11:05:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Excellent. If they had done anything worse than this I would be outraged.

Posted by Charles 2003-12-10 11:17:05 AM|| 2003-12-10 11:17:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 For an officer to accept an Article 15 essentially means his career is over. My understanding was that you accept the Article 15 and submit your resignation, theres no further punishment. I believe LTC West reached the 20 year point and had put in for retirement. If so, this would mean he gets out, but keeps his pay grade for retirement pay calculation. Probably the best he could hope for under the circumstances.

Posted by Dakotah 2003-12-10 12:21:20 PM|| 2003-12-10 12:21:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 No pre-retirement bump to full bird, though. Too bad.

Posted by mojo 2003-12-10 12:35:06 PM|| 2003-12-10 12:35:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I knew this would play out this way! The Army could ill afford to make LtCol West a villain or a martyr. I agree that he will probably get some kind of âextraâ duty and be allowed to leave the Army quietly. Too bad because I think he should stay in.

Posted by Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-12-10 12:35:58 PM|| 2003-12-10 12:35:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 I still have a problem with his superiors and the Jaggies who pushed this. It sucks that he's getting any form of reprimand, even an Art 15. Being burned, mildly or otherwise - it has to leave a scar, by his own probably means he'd probably not choose to continue - if given the choice. They were supposed to cover his six, not paint a target on it for hungry Jaghats who think war is a paper-shuffle game with timeouts for cocktails. This still sucks.

Posted by ,com 2003-12-10 12:48:41 PM|| 2003-12-10 12:48:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Okay, a minority opinion on this one.

West allowed his soldiers to beat the prisoner, then stuck his head into sand and shot right next to the head, into the sand.

I understand the frustration and the urgency he felt. I can cope with the shooting, if it had been out into the open.

However, the beatings *authorized and ordered* by him -- that is both prisoner abuse and suggests his leadership and character were questionable.

The Army cannot afford to have field-grade officers who order soldiers to cross moral lines and the rules they swear to abide by.

Posted by rkb 2003-12-10 3:18:53 PM|| 2003-12-10 3:18:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 rkb, I agree with the following reservation - the guy reported himself, so I don't believe the shooting was SOP for his command.

Bending the rules or walking out of the room so that your guys can beat up a prisoner is a bad practice. It eventually undercuts the discipline of the unit (probably won't hurt morale, though.) The problem isn't this incident as much as the incident that comes next and the one after that. Once an O-5 starts scaring the guys that he knows are jihadis, will the E-4's be brutalizing men who might be jihadis.

In this case the LCol was right about the prisoners, but what if he had been wrong and there had been no other planned attack? What if an E-4 thought it was OK to execute a jihadi to get the other one to talk (technically, this is a bad argument because a guy in civilian clothes shooting an AK-47 is an unlawful cmbatant and is afforded no Geneva Convention protection.) We go down hill from there. And how do we integrate the guys that are throwing suspects out of helicopters back into our society when this is over?

One of the qualities that has set our troops apart as a fighting force is thier ability to maintain their humanity. Our guys are over there demonstrating that the US cares about women, children, the elderly and families in general. Dehumanizing the Iraqis will not be an winning strategy for us in the end if we expect Iraq to join us as a free and equal country.

The choice that remains is to risk getting your own boys killed. I don't like that any better than anybody else does; and I certainly am not second guessing the LCol.

For a while I toyed with the idea of having four or so CIA hardguys deployed with each brigade. In the end, though, that is no better than walking out of the tend so that your E-6 can take care of business. Being an officer is about responsibility. You remain resposible with no excuses. The LCol held the gun himself; he took the path of integrity. The army can't afford to look the other way.

Maybe the Israeli's have a good anwer. If there is one I don't know what it is, but it's not condone what the LCol did. There is a difference between condoning and admiring. I admire what he did and will continue to admire him if he takes a path that doesn't dishonor his service and our country.

Don't mourn his fate. He is in a dark time, but soon every literary agent in the country will be ringing his phone off the hook. I'll certainly buy his book. He has been someplace I have never been and never will be and he acted with honor at every step. The rest of us can just wonder what we might have done in his place. There is no medal that they could possibly bestow on him that would outweigh the admiration of every American that has honorably served - and the rest of us schleps who bebopped around on the ocean where we were safe.

Sorry for the length. This one struck a nerve.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-12-10 5:50:47 PM|| 2003-12-10 5:50:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Thanks Super Hose - you said what I was thinking. [smile]

Posted by rkb 2003-12-10 9:58:51 PM|| 2003-12-10 9:58:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 In order to save our young people in uniform, Lt. Col. Allen B. West did what he had to do. So did the army and punished him. Now, it is time for us civilians to undo the financial punishment he received. The smart folks need to establish a fund for him and find ways to contact a large US population requesting each to send, at least, one dollar to Allen. He risked court marshal for himself, not the injury and death under his command. A slogan such as âFor Lt. Col. Allen B. West who terrorized the terrorist, send a dollar or twoâ may also help. It is understood, the army may attempt to block such financial reward to Allen.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-12-11 12:23:31 AM|| 2003-12-11 12:23:31 AM|| Front Page Top

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