Memorial Day is a US federal holiday wherein the men and women who
died while serving in the United States Armed Forces are remembered. The
holiday, which is celebrated every year on the final Monday of May, was
formerly known as Decoration Day
and originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and
Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century, Memorial
Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the
military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season,
while Labor Day marks its end.
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The gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery are
decorated by U.S. flags on Memorial Day weekend.
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We, the
comrades of Unit 1012, will honor those who died serving in the U.S Armed
Forces but we will also honor and remember those soldiers who were murdered in
the country. We will start by writing a rebuttal essay to the ACLU attorney,
Denny LeBoeuf in her article, ‘Remembering Executed Veterans’,
before naming soldiers who were murdered (not those KIA).
Remembering Executed Veterans
05/28/2013
By Denny LeBoeuf,
Capital Punishment Project at 12:05pm
Memorial Day is over,
with its picnics, parades, and poignant remembrances of the veterans who gave
their lives in America's wars. But there is one group of vets few want to
remember: the ones who went to war, came back tragically changed, committed a
crime and were executed.
Vets like Wayne Felde,
who arrived in Vietnam on his 19th birthday by choice, not by the
draft; who saw heavy action and was wounded; who came back to the U.S. hounded
by his memories of death and crippled by what those memories did to him. Drunk,
unable to hold down a job or a marriage, in trouble with the law, he was
probably trying to kill himself when his gun went off while he was in the back
of a police car. The bullet ricocheted and killed an officer. He was sent to
death row, and in March of 1988, executed by the state of Louisiana.
Or a veteran like
Louis Jones, executed in all our names by the federal government on March 18,
2003. Jones served with great distinction in Grenada and the first Gulf War,
where he was exposed to chemical neurotoxins.
The effects of the nerve gas and the combat-induced PTSD -- often called
"Gulf War Syndrome" -- turned
a model soldier into a sick man, one whose remorse for the killing he
committed was deep, who confessed to his crime immediately. Two days after
President Bush denied clemency for Sgt. Jones, the invasion of Iraq began.
There are other
stories. Perhaps one Memorial Day soon, we'll have an exemption for veterans
who commit capital crimes in part because of what happened to them in our wars.
As Felde
said to his jury:
I am not a criminal but a troubled and wrecked man. Like many other vets I know what [war] did to me.... Critical wounds do not always pierce the skin, but enter the hearts and minds and dreams of those that are only begging for help so badly needed.
Better still, perhaps
the United States will abolish the death penalty for all.
But there is one group of vets few want to remember: the ones
who went to war, came back tragically changed, committed a crime and were
executed.
Vets like Wayne Felde, who arrived in Vietnam on his
19th birthday by choice, not by the draft; who saw heavy action and
was wounded; who came back to the U.S. hounded by his memories of death and
crippled by what those memories did to him. Drunk, unable to hold down a job or
a marriage, in trouble with the law, he was probably trying to kill himself
when his gun went off while he was in the back of a police car. The bullet
ricocheted and killed an officer. He was sent to death row, and in March of
1988, executed by the state of Louisiana.
REBUTTAL: There is no way, we, the
comrades of Unit 1012, will remember those vets who commit murder, Wayne Felde
is a cop killer and he deserved to die. Stop siding murderers and think of the
fallen soldiers and not killers! As the late Charley Reese said:
“When I think of all the sweet, innocent people who suffer extreme pain and who die every day in this country, then the outpouring of sympathy for cold-blooded killers enrages me. Where is your (expletive deleted) sympathy for the good, the kind and the innocent? This fixation on murderers is a sickness, a putrefaction of the soul. It's the equivalent of someone spending all day mooning and cooing over a handful of human feces. Sick and abnormal.”
Or a veteran like Louis Jones, executed in all our names by the
federal government on March 18, 2003. Jones served with great distinction in
Grenada and the first Gulf War, where he was exposed to chemical neurotoxins. The effects of the nerve gas
and the combat-induced PTSD -- often called "Gulf War Syndrome" -- turned a model soldier into a sick man,
one whose remorse for the killing he committed was deep, who confessed to his
crime immediately. Two days after President Bush denied clemency for Sgt.
Jones, the invasion of Iraq began.
REBUTTAL: Denny LeBoeuf, do not
change the facts of the case. We, the comrades of Unit 1012, know the facts of
the case of Louis Jones who murdered Tracie Joy McBride… What this innocent
young girl was forced to endure - before Jones beat her to death with a tire
iron - one can only imagine the horror. It was stated that Tracie was tortured
for more than 3 days - in every sexually deviant way imaginable. Jones never
gave police investigators a single detail of what he did to the young girl.
Police discovered lots of blood in Jones' closet, leading them to surmise that
that is where he stored Tracie after his sexual attacks. The tire iron used to
beat Tracie to death was also discovered in the same closet. Jones never
offered a single word, or even a glance, toward Tracie's parents when he was
strapped to the gurney in the death chamber. Jones acted out his sexual
fantasy. He knew what he was doing. He'd planned his abduction for some time.
He was only sorry he got caught.
There are other stories. Perhaps one Memorial Day soon, we'll
have an exemption for veterans who commit capital crimes in part because of
what happened to them in our wars. As Felde said to his jury:
I am not a criminal but a troubled and wrecked man. Like many other vets I know what [war] did to me.... Critical wounds do not always pierce the skin, but enter the hearts and minds and dreams of those that are only begging for help so badly needed.
Better still, perhaps the United States will abolish the death
penalty for all.
REBUTTAL: Wayne Felde is a cop killer
and he deserved to die, he had to face up to his own actions. As the late
President Ronald Reagan, said:
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Perhaps, the United States should
import all ACLU Demons out now!
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We
will name those soldiers who were murdered in order of the date they die.
26-year-old Army Veteran, Albert Lewis
Owen was murdered on this date, February 28, 1979. There was justice served as
the killer, Stanley Tookie Williams was executed by lethal injection in
California on December 13, 2005.
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Albert Lewis Owen
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On this date, February 18, 1995,
Private Tracie Joy McBride was murdered by Louis Jones, Jr. He was executed by
lethal injection in Texas on March 18, 2003. We, the comrades of Unit 1012,
will remember how Tracie live and not remember how she died. We encourage
people to donate money to the Tracie
Joy McBride Scholarship Fund.
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Private Tracie Joy
McBride
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Pietrzak was a Polish American who joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2003.
After a tour in Iraq as a helicopter mechanic, Pietrzak returned to the United
States, where he met and married Jenkins, an African-American. Together, they
owned and lived in a house in Winchester, a census-designated place in
Riverside County, California, located near the Marine Corps Air Station
Miramar, where Pietrzak worked.
On October 15, 2008, four black Marines entered the Pietrzak home,
sexually assaulted Jenkins-Pietrzak and tortured the couple before killing
them. Two of the four accused Marines worked under Pietrzak's command. Despite
efforts to convey the event as being racially motivated, Riverside County
authorities maintain the motivation was robbery, and the pending murder with
special circumstances and sexual assault charges do not include an assertion
that the crime was racially motivated. All four of the accused plead not guilty
to murdering Pietrzak and his wife.
After meeting with the families of the deceased, District Attorney Rod
Pacheco decided to seek the death penalty on January 22, 2009. The preliminary
trial hearings to determine whether the four assailants would stand trial
occurred on March 26, 2009, and April 3, 2009 in San Diego.
On 24 June 2013 a jury recommended the death penalty for two of the four
assailants and life in prison without parole for a third.
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Twenty-four-year-old Janek Pietrzak and his
26-year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak, were murdered in their French
Valley home. Credit: Maggie Avants (PHOTO
SOURCE: http://murrieta.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/former-marine-sentenced-to-life-for-murder-of-french-valley-couple)
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On this date, November 5, 2009, a mass murder occurred at Fort Hood,
Texas where 13 people were shot dead. The Comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP will
offer our most sincere condolences and heartfelt sympathy for the 12 fallen
soldiers and the 1 civilian killed in the mass murder. We honor you all like
fallen soldiers and treat you like martyrs in this terrorist attack.
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On the afternoon of 22 May 2013, a British Army soldier, Drummer
(Fusilier) Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was attacked
and killed by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich,
southeast London. Rigby was off duty and walking along Wellington Street when
he was attacked. Two men ran him down with a car, then used knives and a
cleaver to stab and hack him to death. The men dragged Rigby's body into the
road and remained at the scene until police arrived. They told passers-by that
they had killed a soldier to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British armed
forces. Unarmed police arrived at the scene nine minutes after an emergency
call was received and set up a cordon. Armed police officers arrived five
minutes later. The assailants, armed with a gun and cleaver, charged at the
police, who fired shots that wounded them both. They were apprehended and taken
to separate hospitals. Both are British of Nigerian descent, raised as
Christians, who converted to Islam.
On 19 December 2013, both of the attackers were found guilty of Rigby's
murder. On 26 February 2014, they were sentenced to life imprisonment, with
Adebolajo given a whole life order and Adebowale ordered to serve at least 45
years. The attack was condemned by political and Muslim leaders in the United
Kingdom and in the international press.
The soldier killed in the attack was
25-year-old Lee Rigby, a drummer and machine-gunner in the 2nd Battalion of the
Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Rigby,
from Middleton, Greater Manchester, had served in Cyprus, Germany, and
Afghanistan before becoming a recruiter and assisting with duties in the Tower
of London. He was attacked when he was returning to barracks from working at
the Tower. Rigby married in 2007 and had a two-year-old son, but had separated
from his wife. He was engaged to a new fiancee at the time of his death. A
post-mortem examination showed that Rigby died from "multiple incised
wounds".
Rigby supported British Armed Forces
charity, Help for Heroes and was wearing a hoodie supporting
the charity when he was attacked. In the five days after his death the charity
received more than £600,000 in donations. Rigby was given a military
funeral at Bury Parish Church on 12 July
2013. The service was attended by several thousand people, including present
and former soldiers, Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris
Johnson. A private burial service was then held at nearby Middleton Cemetery.
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Drummer Lee Rigby of the 2nd Battalion Royal
Fusiliers
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Unit 1012 will remember the murdered
veterans with this quote from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz:
They fought together as brothers in arms; they died together and now they sleep side by side...To them, we have a solemn obligation — the obligation to ensure that their sacrifice will help make this a better and safer world in which to live.[Of those who died in the war in the Pacific, after ceremonies in Tokyo Bay accepting the official surrender of Japan (2 September 1945).]
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Detail of a quote by
Chester W. Nimitz at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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