A Florida congressman cheered the news that a Green Beret was fully reinstated in the Army after he was forced out of service after reporting an Afghan ally abusing a child. “What took so long?” Vern Buchanan asked on Friday, after a review board determined Sgt. Charles Martland could remain in the service.
Buchanan noted Martland turned in an Afghan ally for his sex crimes to his superiors and had been scheduled to be be retired last November but he appealed the decision. The Army moved its decision on his appeal back to January and, then again, to May before moving up the timetable to the end of April.
In the later half of last year, Buchanan called for an investigation of why the Pentagon covered up the sex crimes of American allies in Afghanistan. Pairing up with California Republican Duncan Hunter, Buchanan also pushed for the Army to reinstate Martland.
On Friday, Buchanan indicated the fight was over.
“While the Pentagon’s refusal to correct this injustice quickly was troubling, I’m glad that he will be able to continue serving our country in uniform,” Buchanan said. “Sgt. Martland’s actions to stop an Afghan rapist from abusing children in 2011 warranted appreciation, not punishment. We need to make sure this never happens again.”
A New York Times article from September described a chilling Pentagon policy that told American soldiers to look the other way when Afghan allies sexually abused young boys, sometimes on military bases.
Buchanan and Hunter brought out a proposal back in September reinstating Martland to the service. While their proposal is non-binding, they insisted it “would send a strong message to the Pentagon that its actions in the Martland matter are unacceptable.”
“The fact that Sgt. Martland was reprimanded by the Army for confronting a corrupt Afghan commander and child rapist shows a complete lack of morality among the Army’s risk-averse leadership,” Hunter said.
Earlier in September, Buchanan sent a letter to Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the matter. Buchanan called for the Pentagon to stop averting its eyes from the sexual abuse and stop pushing back against American service members who reported it.
“This is one of the most disgraceful policies I have ever heard of,” Buchanan wrote. “It is bad enough if we were ignoring this type of barbaric and savage behavior, it’s even worse if we are punishing American heroes who try to stop it.
“The only people who should be punished are the ones who created and condoned this immoral and savage code,” Buchanan continued. “Fighting in a foreign theater should not require our service members to turn a blind eye towards criminal perversion. Those who wear the uniform of the U.S. military should be commended, not punished, for upholding American values.”
Buchanan returned to the matter later that month, writing Arizona Sen. John McCain and Texas Congressman Mac Thornberry, the Republican chairmen of their chamber’s Armed Services Committee, demanding an investigation over who had initiated efforts to discipline service members who reported on Afghan allies’ sexual crimes
