Pentagon: Green Beret's discharge 'not disciplinary'
Army facing backlash for handling of Bronze Star officer
Published: 11 hours ago
WASHINGTON – A Pentagon spokesman insists the decorated Green Beret who claims the U.S. Army is in the process of discharging him for roughing up an Afghan commander he describes as a “brutal child rapist” is not being separated from the military for disciplinary reasons, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, director of press operations at the Defense Department, told G2 Bulletin the case of Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland is a private matter, but, amid public backlash, he offered further details.
“With regards to Martland, we understand from the Army that there is no pending disciplinary action against him,” Davis said.
“He was selected for separation through the Army’s Qualitative Management Program board, QMP. The QMP board decisions come after a review of the entire file and are not disciplinary in nature.”
However, the purpose of the QMP contradicts Davis’ insistence that the Army’s handling of Martland is “not disciplinary in nature.”
An Army directive is in effect to involuntarily remove personnel with black marks in their record under the QMP.
While the QMP isn’t supposed to be a draw-down tool, it is helping the Army shrink its ranks as required under sequestration.
QMP is regarded as a quality-control process resulting in involuntary separation or retirement of regular Army and active Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who don’t comply with Army standards for behavior or performance.
In 2011, Martland shoved to the ground an Afghan police commander who had confessed to tying a 12-year-old boy to a post in his house and repeatedly raping him over 10 days. When the boy’s mother reported the crime, the Afghan commander, Abdul Rahman, beat her.
Get the rest of this, and other reports, at Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Since the incident, Martland has received the highest scores in evaluations.
“Kicking me out of the Army is morally wrong, and the entire country knows it,” Martland said in a statement made available to G2 Bulletin.
“While I understand that a military lawyer can say that I was legally wrong, we felt a moral obligation to act,” he said.
Martland’s commanding officer, Capt. Dan Quinn, who since has voluntarily left the Army, also confronted the Afghan commander.
Martland said that he and Quinn physically tossed out the Afghan commander through the front gate of the camp.
Martland, who received two Bronze Stars for action against the Taliban, wrote in a letter to the Army this year that he and Quinn “felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our ALP (Afghan Local Police) to commit atrocities.”
Similarly, U.S. Marine Maj. Jason Brezler also is being involuntarily removed from the military.
In 2010, he had sent out an email warning new Marine officers at a base of the child-rape practice. The email prompted the killing of three Marines three weeks later by one of the child victims.
The murders occurred after a local Afghan commander, who previously had been arrested by Afghan authorities at the urging of U.S. Marines, surrounded himself with a “large entourage” of “tea boys,” according to the New York Times. It is believed that one of the “tea boys” later killed the U.S. Marines. Brezler was one of the Marines who sought the local commander’s arres
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http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/pentagon-green-berets-discharge-not-disciplinary/#6S62e1zfpr5lxodS.99
