By Major Van Harl USAF Ret
Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)- Have you ever watched someone die?
You are called to your grandmother’s bedside as she is ending her well-lived life. It is not pleasant, but she is 90 years old and her death, no matter how sad, is a natural progression in the order of life.
Have you ever watched someone whose time to die was not suppose to be happening, but through violence of nature or society, that person has an untimely and, most likely painful death?
I know I saw dead bodies on the side of the road after a car accident when I was a child. However, my parents would tell me they were just sleeping until help got there for them. I chose to believe that.
In my college years, I use to go to Lee County, Iowa on the weekends to visit relatives. In the course of one college semester, I was on the scene of five fatal car accidents. As a cop in the Air Force I was called out to a plane crash where the aircrew member was burned almost beyond recognition, but was still alive. Later to die in the emergency room as I tried to hold back his grieving family members from getting to the remains.
As a member of the Crime Scene Investigation unit (CSI) of a Texas police department, I truly cannot remember how many people I have witnessed dead at a crime scene or dying in an emergency room.
What I have never had to do is watch one person kill another person right in front of me.
I am a newly retired Colorado Ranger, and I never had to watch a person die before I hung up my badge and gun from that law enforcement experience. While in Texas, my police department would send me to Austin, to the Department of Public Safety (DPS) police academy to attend crime scene investigation courses.
New Texas Rangers come from the rank and file members of the DPS. Rangers all start out on the road as uniformed patrolling Troopers. When they are promoted to Ranger, they have to attend many of the same crime scene investigation classes that I did. Needless to say every course I attended had a couple Rangers in the class. And they had the “stories” to tell.
These men, while new to Ranger-ing, had years of plain-clothes law enforcement experience with the DPS, in other areas of investigation. One of the things I learned from these Rangers is when the State of Texas executes a prisoner, by law; two Texas Rangers have to be present. There are less than 110 Texas Rangers at any given time, which means as a Ranger you will have to attend and witness many State initiated deaths.
Ft. Hood, with the killing of thirteen and the violent wounding by handgun of scores more, was something hundreds of people had to witness, regardless of if they wanted to or were prepared to see such carnage. A sad outcome of this shooting on a military reservation is that the Army will try the case. I am sure the alleged murdering Muslim Major will be fairly tried and convicted, but I will be surprised if the Doctor of Death will ever be executed by the military.
The military has not put a prisoner to death since 1961.
Give the case to the State of Texas. They will try it fairly, and, yes, they will upon conviction assign two Texas Rangers to attend the execution. Every Ranger I worked with in Texas had their share of executions to attend. I would venture to say there would be no problem getting Rangers to attend the convicted murdering Major’s date with the needle.
With no insult meant or intended to Texas, if official witnesses should be hard to come by, I know one retired Colorado Ranger, who, at his own expense, would come out of retirement to volunteer to attend. But sadly it is only “work place violence” that is on trial, not terrorism.
Unfortunately it is in a military court not in a Texas court. The Muslim Major will never be executed by the Army. This will play out in the courts of appeal and the press for the next twenty years—and still the families and surviving victims will get no justice or peace.
In Texas you kill someone they kill you back, but not in our politically correct Department of Defense. This trial will be a circus and the terrorists of the world will be the ones laughing at America and its foolish justice system.
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
[email protected]
About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” [email protected]
I agree, give the Muslim SOB over to Texas. Peel his beard off, if he won’t shave it off himself. Hang the SOB in public, as they used to in days of law & order.!!
The first judge assigned to the case ordered that the prisoner be forcibly shaved… the judge was removed from the case! When I was in the Army, this was known as “lowering the standard.” It starts with the president muslim and rolls down hill. Sad and getting sadder.
Well said.
I still find it hard to believe that the Army has let this terrorist scumbag grow a beard. Technically, He’s still a Major in the Army and is supposed to dress and act as such. Hold the asshat down and shave him, preferably with a dull bayonet. Then let the circus begin.
I could not agree more, Tex!
I can’t believe that camel jockey is still sucking in air intended for humans.