by
John Stevenson
Chelsea
(nee Bradley) Manning freely enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as an
intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning, who was openly gay, was bullied
earlier in life and this continued in the Army.
He
has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
This means, as I understand it, that he thinks he is or should be a
woman. Notice that I use the biologically
correct but politically incorrect masculine pronoun. This is because Manning is and forever will be
genetically male even if he receives “gender reassignment surgery,” which he
has not yet. So with that digression, back to the point.
Manning’s military job gave him access to a
wealth of classified material which he found troubling. This included material known as the Iraq War
Logs and the Afghanistan War Logs, secret U.S. State Department communications,
assessments of Guantanamo detainees, and a video showing unarmed civilians
being shot and killed.
Manning
turned over this trove of damaging information to WikiLeaks. Of course the demonstration of America’s
inability to keep secrets is damaging to our relationships with other
governments and to our ability to secure the cooperation of civilians in enemy
terrain.
Manning’s
crimes were discovered, and he was arrested and tried by a court martial. He was found guilty of espionage and other
charges and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Immediately after his sentencing, Manning announced, “As I transition
into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way I feel, and have felt since
childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.”
Manning’s
espionage earned him support among anti-war activists, who saw him as a
“whistleblower” rather than a criminal.
His announcement as “transgendered” gained him support from LGBTQ
activists. A double helping of sympathy
from the Left. On Jan. 17, 2017,
President Obama commuted Manning’s prison sentence.
Eddie
Slovik had an extensive criminal record, which caused him to be classified 4F,
unfit for military service. But in 1944
Uncle Sam needed warm bodies, so Slovik was re-classified 1A and drafted into
the U.S. Army. In August 1944, Slovik
found himself in the infantry in France.
When
Slovik arrived at his assigned rifle company, he promptly informed his company
commander that he was not cut out for combat and requested to be reassigned to
a support unit behind the front lines. His
request was denied and he deserted the following day.
Slovik
worked his way to the rear, where he found a non-combat unit and turned himself
in. Officers there urged him to return
to his infantry unit but he steadfastly refused, preferring a court martial for
desertion rather than a combat assignment.
Slovik
was tried by a court martial, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He had thought he would only have received a
dishonorable discharge and prison time.
He wrote a letter to Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower,
begging for clemency.
In
the hard winter of 1944-1945, Eisenhower was concerned with low morale and a
rising desertion rate. Ike confirmed the
sentence, and Slovik was shot dead by a firing squad in January of 1945.
Poor Slovik---he should
have been born seven decades later and claimed to be female.
