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Vietnam-era justice versus Trump-era justice

In an interview at his home, local veteran Steve Pullen recalled two significant nights during his service, one in which he lost a significant portion of his hearing, and another when he found himself in a situation that could very well have resulted in his court martial and dishonorable discharge.

Last Friday, against the advice of the Pentagon, President Trump pardoned two American military men and reinstated the rank of one who’d been either convicted or were facing conviction for war crimes.

Pursuant to the pardons, former Army Lt. Clint Lorance was released from Leavenworth prison, where he’d been serving a 19-year sentence for murdering two Afghan civilians. Maj. Mathew Golsteyn was due to face trial for killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010, but he is now off the hook.

In the most high-profile case, Trump reversed the demotion of Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who’d been acquitted of murder but convicted of posing with the dead body of the teenage fighter he’d been accused of stabbing repeatedly in the neck. His own soldiers turned him in and testified against him. When SEALs complained about Gallagher’s stabbing of the unarmed captive, he reportedly said, “I thought everyone would be cool with it; next time, I’ll do it where you can’t see.”

In the latest twist, President Trump warned the SEALs not to exert authority over their own ranks, tweeting on Thursday, “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin.”

The final paragraph of the White House statement on Trump’s three pardons reads in part: “The President, as Commander-in-Chief, is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the law is enforced and when appropriate, that mercy is granted. For more than two hundred years, presidents have used their authority to offer second chances to deserving individuals, including those in uniform who have served our country. These actions are in keeping with this long history.”

Steve Pullen in Vietnam on top of a muddy hilltop, a former jungle, denuded by Agent Orange. Photo courtesy Steve Pullen

In the opinion of one local veteran, retired farmer Steve Pullen of Monterey, these actions are not at all in keeping with this long history.

In 1965 the Vietnam War was raging and Pullen, knowing he’d be drafted, enlisted in the Marines instead. He turned 19 on Parris Island, and on Jan. 19, 1967, was sent to Vietnam, where he served a 13-month tour partially with Lima Company, Second Platoon. He still has nightmares of being sent back to Vietnam, of being the 60-year-old surrounded by teenagers looking at him while he explains, “Well, they said they needed my skills.” In recent years he’s found men he served with, and together with about 25 of them, attended a reunion in Washington, D.C. They visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Marine Corps museum.

In an interview at his home, he recalled two significant nights during his service, one in which he lost a significant portion of his hearing, and another when he found himself in a situation that could very well have resulted in his court martial and dishonorable discharge.

Steve Pullen: I’ve seen enough combat to be grateful to survive it, to feel fortunate to get back home.

I wear my veterans’ hat identifying me because I love to meet other veterans.

Once, when I was the chief accountant at the University of Vermont Medical Center, we got audited by an IRS agent. This was in the early ‘80s, about 15 years after my service. He noticed my diploma on the wall and said, “I got my degree on the GI bill from the University of New Hampshire.” I said I’d gone to the University of Maryland.

What service were you in? I asked. Marines.

When were you there? Same time I was there.

Which outfit were you with? Lima Company, 26th Marines.

I said, What platoon? Second — [shakes his head, tears up]

We all slept in a hooch about the size of our living room! That was pretty strange.

*     *     *     *     *     *

My father learned refrigeration during World War II, so I hoped to pick up marketable skills. I spent five months learning Morse code and ended up as both an artillery radio operator and an artillery forward observer. Somebody had to be back talking to the guns and somebody had to be out looking at the targets. I’d write coordinates and broadcast them back to set up the guns for the targets I identified. I was both back and forward, in both jobs.

If we weren’t on radio watch, we were expected to help the guns. Someone had to carry shells while they were aiming and adjusting. One time I was next to a howitzer, carrying a shell. Usually they gave enough time get to get behind the piece. They didn’t. They just blew off when my head was very close to the muzzle. I lost my hearing for a few days. The VA [Veterans Administration] awarded me 10% disability for hearing loss.

Turns out the VA recognizes two occupations for almost certain hearing loss: radio operators and artillery men. I’m also 40% disabled through Agent Orange. We drank it. They sprayed it on the mountaintops and it just washed down. We got our water out of the streams. I have diabetes and heart issues, which are directly attributed. The people who served in Vietnam have a 50% greater incidence of diabetes compared to those that didn’t but were in the military at the same time.

Sheela Clary: What happened on the night of the incident you thought you’d be court martialed for?
SP: Well, let me say first of all, that in the military you’re not protected by the freedoms of the Constitution. You take an oath and then you are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ is rigorous, but fair. There are rules for military judicial proceedings.

Most of our training was about discipline, which is what separates the military from other organizations. The captain would say, “You need to go onto the point,” which was the most dangerous place on a patrol. I did it. I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to be there, especially as a radio man, which was always a primary target. That’s what discipline is. No matter how your heart and head are saying, “Oh my God, I can’t do it. Don’t do it.”

‘If you’re captured, this is what you can legally tell the enemy. Name, rank and serial number.’ –Steve Pullen. Photo: Sheela Clary

Not being disciplined is when you have rogue actors going off and killing civilians. One of the most important rules of engagement is you don’t fire unless you are ordered to fire. You don’t know who might be between you and a target.

The enemy controlled the night.

I’d just been promoted to lance corporal. It was my first team leadership experience. I was on guard duty late at night at a camp called Phu Bai, which had an air base. Behind me was an artillery battery. In front was barbed wire and fields. A mortar started firing at the air base right in front of me, 150 yards or so, which is damn close. It’s dark, you can see the flash, and there’s a lot of noise. There was me and two new guys. When the firing started, the guy manning the field telephone kicked off the wires, unknowingly, so no one could give us orders to fire. We were out of communication.

You have probably heard a rifle shot? When a rifle is shot at you, it’s really loud.

We held our fire. But I started hearing fire all around us. I could see the mortar tube flashing in front of us. I thought, someone must have given the order to fire, because I see gunfire all around me. So I said, let’s fire. But it turned out it was all coming from the enemy directed at us, because we were closest to the mortar. I didn’t know this at the time; it took me days to realize. I insisted the other posts had fired. There was just so much of it, and it was so loud.

The whole thing lasted about five minutes.

What happened is the barbed wire was filled with trip flares, so if the enemy tried to move through the wire, they’d go off. The flares were set off by all the firing. Behind us were these artillery pieces, the post is out of communication, the trip flares are going off, so the assumption is the enemy is coming through the wire. This is probably the closest I ever came to — [breaks off]

So all six howitzers were loaded and aimed at us, waiting for the command to fire, assuming we were overrun. Fighting among civilians is what made it difficult. The enemy was surrounded by innocents. Artillery is pretty indiscriminate. If six howitzers fire a pattern, they could have a kill zone of about an acre, the size of our property. Who knows what can happen. There are accurate ways of aiming an artillery piece, but if you think about that shell going 7 miles, if it’s off just a tiny bit, just 1 or 2 millimeters, after 7 miles, that could be 100, 200 yards.

Finally, it all ends. The flares die out and we all start screaming — low-tech communication.

“We’re OK! We’re OK!”

A short time later, the officer in charge came out to find out what the heck happened. I told him and he said, “You’ll have to see the captain tomorrow.”

So I went before the captain. That was the first step in a court martial, going before the captain. He believed me! He accepted my story, but he insisted that nobody else fired.

On the old wooden ships, if you did something wrong, you “went before the mast.” You stood there and knew you’d be whipped or thrown overboard. We didn’t call it that. We called it, “Office Hours.” I was being interviewed by the captain in “Office Hours,” where he’d determine if my infraction was enough to take away my newly earned stripe, or worse.

On the day I left Vietnam I was called to the battalion commander’s office, and there was my captain. He gave me the meritorious mast, which is the extreme opposite of going before the mast. It’s being recognized for service above and beyond. It’s a nice thing — [breaks off]

‘This is my very proud possession. A war criminal who has dishonored their oath is fundamentally not entitled to one of these.’ –Steve Pullen. Photo: Sheela Clary

I think every person in uniform comes close to that line of what’s legal and illegal according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We all knew the rules of when you use a weapon and when you don’t. If you use a weapon when you’re not supposed to, you could be court martialed. That is what the UCMJ is all about.

That’s why you’re drilled and drilled and drilled, so discipline is instilled in you. We expect 19-year-olds to make decisions like this. And they do. That’s the amazing thing, they do! How much training it takes for a 19-year-old with a loaded weapon NOT to shoot! It takes a lot more courage not to shoot.

SC: What do you think about the president’s pardons?
SP: To me, it’s the worst thing he could have done. It’s one thing to pardon people for embezzlement or some kind of paper crime, but murder? I mean, if there’s some question about whether they’re guilty, there could be some people who should never have been convicted. But to me, this seems like an open-and-shut case with witnesses. And the Pentagon, secretary of defense and generals said this should never have happened.

In combat everything goes to hell really fast, but believe it or not, murder is still a possibility. The better disciplined everybody is, the more likely everyone is to get through it safely.

Trump said, “We train our troops to be killing machines.”

That is such an affront to a veteran. We didn’t train to be killing machines. We were definitely taught the “lethal arts,” if you will, but it was tempered with discipline and order. That’s how the military is effective. Discipline is what distinguishes our military from an armed mob. Our president has no discipline.

The president is saying, “Go ahead boys, they’re not Americans, they’re free game.”

What’s beautiful about the Navy SEAL [who was pardoned] is his subordinates turned him in. They recognized murder when they saw it.

SC: Does your heart go out to the three guys because they were in tough situations?
SP: No. They were two officers and the other was senior enlisted. So it’s even worse. They should have known what they were doing was wrong.

You know, I hated officers. They were going to tell you to do something you could die from doing. But as I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate that they had to be instilled with the same discipline of following orders and the additional training of not thinking twice when it was time to order something to happen, where people were gonna die. I have the utmost respect for officers who have been in that position.

These three should have been punished. They should have gotten a dishonorable discharge. They don’t deserve to have an honorable discharge, which now they’re going to. That’s not honest and faithful service.

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