Bullets Flyin’, Soldiers Lyin’
.By John WatersMay 28, 2022
Fred Galvin enlisted in the Marine Corps as a 17-year-old and quickly deployed to combat in the Persian Gulf. A few years later, he commissioned as a Marine officer and served with elite infantry, reconnaissance, and force reconnaissance units. In early 2007, Major Galvin deployed to eastern Afghanistan to lead the first Marine Special Operations (MARSOC) task force in combat.
On March 4, 2007, Galvin and 29 of his Marines were ambushed by a suicide bomber and other insurgents while conducting a mounted reconnaissance patrol along Highway 1 in Bati Kot District. Rocked by the blast but mostly unharmed, the Marines defended themselves and aggressively counterattacked before aborting the mission and returning to base. By that point in his career, Galvin had deployed to combat numerous times, and so he “wasn’t excited or freaking out about the tactical situation” he’d just survived. The actual combat was fairly routine. Galvin and his Marines performed just as they had been trained.
But within 30 minutes of returning to Jalalabad airfield, international media reports alleged the Marines had killed and wounded dozens of Afghans by firing indiscriminately into a crowd of civilians. The allegations were false and later disproven, but not before the Marines were condemned as criminals by the media, public, and top military brass. It took a lengthy inquiry and years of conflict between Galvin and the military bureaucracy to correct the record. And yet, “not once did any uniformed person get up and use a legal term such as “innocent” or “not guilty” to describe us,” Galvin said. “The damage was already done.”
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/05/28/bullets_flyin_soldiers_lyin_834747.html
