Walking the Walk

"Ever served in a forward area?" Marine Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson).
"No, sir." JAG officer Lt.(jg) Daniel Kaffee.
A Few Good Men, (1992)

The verdict is in. The deserter "sergeant" gets credit, in essence, for time served (albeit primarily as a guest of the Taliban). He gets demoted from a position he didn't earn, and receives a dishonorable discharge. This for abandoning his squad in a combat zone. He did this, he says, to draw attention to things happening in his unit with which he disagreed. Compelled to search for him, six soldiers lost their lives, three horribly wounded, in the vain attempt to locate him.

The judge, during sentencing arguments, gave credit to the defense position that Candidate Trump's stump speeches critical of the Obama Administration's ransoming of this fellow made a fair trial difficult. Asked recently for a comment, President Trump merely said "You know how I feel." The judge gave this his own nefarious spin, rejecting prosecution rebuttal to the contrary. As of now, there is no evidence the President had dinner in Hawaii with him just before he passed sentence. Oh, wait...

The judge's remarks, that he entered this nothing sentence to uphold the legitimacy of military justice, could only come from a lawyer. Not a very imaginative one at that. "President Trump said..." has become the favorite go-to excuse for all kinds of judicial mischief. Here, there was no evidence offered - none - that the President tried to influence, inappropriately or otherwise, the proceedings. His position as Commander in Chief gives him a unique position regarding the disciplinary philosophy followed in the military. While the military is regulated by acts of Congress, some modification takes place by executive order. Nowhere but in the courts of fanciful pleadings (either military or civilian) are the comments of a candidate for president admissible evidence to offer either in mitigation or aggravation.

God rest the souls of the men who died trying to rescue him, and the men maimed in the attempt. May their sacrifice be the sole source of honor in this dishonorable incident.