UKC

I don’t think people realize the situation he was in as a none commissioned officer. He was in command of 20 young lads as a 30 year old and a sergeant he was a father figure to them, and the contact between the officers and the men, so a close bond is forged in the marines between all ranks that is second to none, You live eat and sleep together and watch each other’s back, (you know what I mean as climbers yourself.) Consequently the men he was responsible for are killed and body parts hung in trees, and he felt responsible for looking after the young lads, ( It had obviously become personal between the marines and the terrorists as they was going to show the elite unit what was what )He reads standing orders on the notice board every morning listing the atrocities in the area the anger and frustration is very real and near the end of his tour with nerves stretched and his farther just died so I can understand why he did it.
When your hands are tied behind your back while on active service, like we had to challenge 3 times by saying Halt Stomater-Dore even while on an ambush. On one ambush the 4 terrorists turned round and fired one shot while being challenged and an officer got it though the heart. And then you are reading standing orders about officer’s wife being shot in the back while shopping in Nicosia. the anger is there and you want to get at them. Yes the same thing went on in my time. It should never have come to light with the sergeant.
EX 45 Commando

In reply to Removed Usercerro:

I agree it should have stayed inside, I had a chat with an old oppo, and we thought there was more to the story than released but that side of it seems to be a closed shop.
Luckily for me my service was in more peaceful times 89-97
EX 59 Independent Commando Sqn RE

In reply to Removed Usercerro:

I Agree. There has been a lot of talk on the UKC forums on this topic, and it,s only now that i can think to muster a reply without busting in to an offensive expletive filled rant.

there have been a number of people that have taken the tone that "Murder is Murder" and that almost irrelevant of the situation, all mitigating circumstances are null and void. Given that no small part of the job of being a soldier and a combatant is to make a judgement call on whether Kill somebody or not to, the pressures of prolonged exposure to a war zone should and must be taken in to account. The armchair critics that are pompous enough to gob off about a situation that they have no idea or experience of need to take a step back and realise that these lads are under extreme circumstances. Anyway i'm not really even saying anything anymore, did end up having a bit of a rant (while preaching to the quire).

EX 45 CDO
Serving in Afghanistan 2008

This thread was started in the ROCKTALK forum and has now been moved.
Please could you try and post in the correct forum, it makes life easier for both users and moderators.

Off Belay
More Forum descriptions - http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/info/forums.html

In reply to james Campbell:

There's actually plenty of reasoned ex-commando's also saying he was wrong.. Have a read of the numerous facebook threads on the go at the moment..

It's pretty simple.. who judged him? A civilian court? Or a military court martial?

"the pressures of prolonged exposure to a war zone should and must be taken in to account. "

Why do you think they were not? What was his sentence.. compare that to a guy executed in a car park in britian.. the sentences are incomparable. I think it blatantly obvious sentencing took into account mitigating circumstances.