An anonymous comment defending Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez

On July 28th, the following comment was left on my blog by an anonymous commenter:

"Your husband was murdered but not by his accuser. There was no lack of discipline in the 42nd ID. Maybe its (sic) your perspective but your husband was not some "amazing: (sic) leader maybe mediocre at that. His accuser was declared innocent by a jury of his piers (sic) and you should stop these post (sic) that defame his name."

It appears Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez has a champion, or perhaps Martinez himself has paid a visit to my blog and shared with us his thoughts. In any case, I will address the anonymous commenter's claims in the order presented.

• "Your husband was murdered but not by his accuser."

Tortured syntax aside, this sentence seems to assert that Staff Sergeant Martinez did not murder my late husband, Phillip, yet the commenter provides absolutely no evidence to justify such a claim beyond bare assertion. My answer: quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur—what is asserted without reason may be denied without reason.

• "There was no lack of discipline in the 42nd ID."

I find it stunning that veterans of the 42nd Infantry Division just bristle at my charge that members of their division were grossly unprofessional and that this lack of professionalism is a stain on the division as a whole. Here, my thoughts are straightforward: my husband lies dead because soldiers in his division failed to enforce standards of military discipline that would have checked a murderer long before his actions rose to murder. 

In fact, soldiers of the 42nd Infantry Division permitted Staff Sergeant Martinez many indulgences that only emboldened him in his rage against my late husband. Martinez told practically anyone who would listen that he hated my husband Phillip and that Phillip deserved violent harm. Granting Martinez mercy and forbearance for such statements was utterly unjustified—and my husband and his fellow victim, 1st Lieutenant Louis Allen, paid the ultimate price for it. An honorable veteran of the 42nd Infantry Division would recognize such a failure for the black mark it is and feel regret and shame for it, even if he or she wasn't directly responsible for the failure. An honorable veteran of the 42nd Infantry Division would say "yes, such an injustice was grossly wrong, and we were all lessened for it."

In contrast, a veteran without honor would whimper about being judged unfairly—even in the knowledge that my late husband Phillip and 1st Lieutenant Allen suffered a fate far, far worse then they will likely ever know. 

• "Maybe its (sic) your perspective but your husband was not some "amazing: (sic) leader maybe mediocre at that."

Again, quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. Yet for argument's sake, let us take the anonymous commenter at his word: my late husband was ostensibly a mediocre officer. Do mediocre officers deserve to die by Claymore mine, without any sort of hearing, and without any opportunity to defend themselves, all for their alleged mediocrity? The thought is patently absurd, yet Staff Sergeant Martinez's defense team implicitly argued as much as they tried to shift attention away from their client. How weak a defense though—to blame the victim for his own murder—how deeply shameful and pathetic.

• "His accuser was declared innocent by a jury of his piers (sic) and you should stop these post (sic) that defame his name."

If Staff Sergeant Martinez's defender thinks that Martinez was "declared innocent" of murdering my late husband Phillip and 1st Lieutenant Allen, he or she would do well to study a primer on the American criminal justice system. A court martial found Staff Sergeant Martinez "not guilty" of the charges brought against him. Taken in a light most charitable to Martinez, all this verdict means is that the government did not successfully prove its case against Martinez "beyond a reasonable doubt"—the legal standard required by our law. Such a verdict does not imply that Martinez was somehow "declared innocent" of the charges levied against him.

Of course, based upon the testimony and evidence that I observed at Alberto Martinez's pretrial hearings and at his court martial, there is no doubt in my mind that Martinez murdered my late husband and 1st Lieutenant Allen. I find the court martial's verdict acquitting Martinez utterly unjustified and morally indefensible. All the same, I respect that honest readers will have to form their own opinion based upon their thorough reading of the evidence in this case. This is my way, and it was my late husband Phillip's way as well. 

Nevertheless, there is one thing that the anonymous commenter and I agree fully upon: Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez was judged at court martial by a group of soldiers very much his peer; so much so that I think that they all deserve one another, each the others equal in virtue.

Justice is hard—it can take volumes of thought and work to give a person what they honestly deserve. The anonymous commenter probably thinks that they are defending Martinez and they are certainly not alone in attempting to give this wicked man comfort.

Yet as Dr. Martin Luther King once observed, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Try as they may, they cannot refine a murderer, and they shall not succeed in silencing me.