The Army plans to remove Sgt. Charles Martland for shoving an Afghan rapist attacking a young boy, but a Virginia delegate, who served in Martland’s battalion, urged his colleagues in an awe-inspiring speech Thursday to do everything in their power to defend him for standing up to evil.
The battle over Green Beret Martland’s future in the military has continued for nearly a year — he is currently on his second appeal. Time is running out, and the most recent news is that Army Human Resources Command has backed the Army’s decision to kick Martland out of the military for beating a local Afghan police officer in 2011. This officer tied a young boy to a post, brutally raped him for days and laughed in Martland’s face, meriting a strong response.
“Sgt. First Class Martland, upon seeing this reaction from the officer, proceeded to punish him for it,” Del. Nick Freitas said in his speech. “He beat him. And that in the eyes of the current powers that be within the United States military and the administration is reason for him to be drummed out of the military.”
“Sgt. First Class Martland confronted evil,” Freitas added. “He punished it. He demonstrated to evil and to that boy and his mother that someone was going to be willing to stand up for them. Someone was going to be willing to face the consequences that could have arisen from this and defend this boy when no one else would.”
For Freitas, the unrelenting campaign to kick Martland out of the military carries disastrous consequences. The most obvious is that forcing out servicemembers to preserve political correctness, sends a dangerous signal to the troops that the U.S. military won’t have their backs when they courageously confront evil.
“We should be very, very careful at the message we send to the men and women that we expect to go overseas and put their bodies, themselves in harm’s way, to stand in between the innocent and those who would exploit and destroy them,” Freitas said. “Because when you have signified to them that you will not have their back when it becomes politically inconvenient, that as soon as it may look bad in the press, you’re going to abandon them–don’t expect a military that is going to continue to go over there and put everything on the line, give up all of their tomorrows, miss anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases, Thanksgivings, away from their families, from their wives, from their children, from their husbands.”
If the military successfully discharges Sgt. Martland, it’s unclear how troops will confront evil in the future knowing that in addition to the confrontation, they have to constantly calculate whether standing up for what’s right will result in them being purged by their own superiors.
“Ladies and gentleman, I want to be defended by a military that when they are confronted with evil like that, their response is not fear, it’s not equivocation, it’s to confront it, with violence if necessary.”
“I would encourage you to please stand by this man. He has stood by us, and he has stood by the people of Afghanistan,” Freitas said, ending his speech to overwhelming applause.
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