Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the Butcher of Fallujah -and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091)

by Robinson, Patrick

  Journalists besieged Matt’s parents, and Martin McCabe told them: “My son and his friends are the guys who preserve the American dream. You start prosecuting them, that American dream is going to go away, because everything will fall apart.” He added that there had been support for Matt, Jon, and Sam not just nationally but from all over the world.

  Matt’s mother said, “I’d just like to say I believed from the first day that Matthew was innocent. Because he would never lie to his SEAL commanders. That’s what we knew, and that kept us all going. It’s been very stressful, and we are very glad it’s finally over.”

  Almost two hundred miles north, in Washington, DC, Congressman Dan Burton, who had helped immensely in collecting thousands of signatures in support of dismissing the charges against the SEALs, moved immediately into his office.

  He had made it clear to McCabe’s lawyers that he had been perfectly prepared to attend the court-martial and testify to the full extent of public outrage and national opinion. He would confirm that a motion to this effect had been raised in Congress.

  As the media swept the airwaves with the breaking news of the verdict, Representative Burton released a statement that very night, offering “Heartfelt congratulations to Petty Officer McCabe and his family.”

  He added, “With all three Navy SEALs now cleared of all charges in this case, I believe this sends a very positive signal to the men and women in uniform who are fighting for America around the world today.

  “I join the many thousands of Americans who cheer for SEALs McCabe, Keefe and Gonzales tonight, and on behalf of the 35,000 who signed my own petition for these three heroes, I thank them for their honorable service and welcome them back to duty.”

  FoxNews, which had stood resolutely by the SEALs from the day the story broke, had Matt on the air, live from the Norfolk Base, interviewed by anchorman Bret Baier.

  “It’s been troubling at times,” said Matt. “Having your career and your life on the line is not an easy thing to handle. But everyone’s been pushing for us, and that’s made it a lot easier.”

  Bret ventured that people at home were “really upset you had to go through this ... people who said this should not have happened. ... What do you tell them today?”

  Matt answered right there on national television: “Tell them I thank them, but really, not to worry about it anymore. I mean, we’re all acquitted of these charges. And we’re all going to move on with our careers, put it behind us. It’s done, over with. I’ll try not to think about it ever again. Just move on and live a happy life.”

  “Thank you,” said Bret. “Thank you for your service to our country.” And that pretty much encapsulated what most people felt. Except for one man, the convener of the courts-martial, General Charles Cleveland, whose office announced he would be making a statement on the following day.

  Apparently the major general needed to sleep on this one, as well he might, as the man who could have stopped it months ago, when it became evident that Westinson was unreliable and that the mass murderer Al-Isawi was just about as unreliable as you can get.

  As it happened, the general released a rambling essay on his views, and it lacked even one single shred of humility for putting three exemplary, patriotic members of the Special Forces through hell, despite so much learned opinion to the contrary.

  Unsurprisingly his opening paragraph was about himself: “I take my responsibility as a commander and convening authority very seriously, and did not make the decision to refer these charges to courts-martial lightly.”

  The general then obliquely blamed the three SEALs for requesting court-martial even though he, Cleveland, “would have preferred to handle the incident administratively.” Apparently he did not realize that no incident had occurred for him to handle administratively—and that he was relying on the words of a murderous terrorist and a discredited sailor.

  He mentioned that the evidence presented reasonable grounds to believe that offenses had been committed and that the three petty officers had committed those offenses. He failed to mention that the evidence presented even more reasonable grounds to believe no offences had been committed at all. And the best legal minds in the country were telling him so.

  With pompous military bureaucracy, he concluded his opening section with these words: “In the interests of justice and to maintain good order and discipline, I chose to proceed with the courts-martial.”

  He then rambled on, thanking the jurists and the lawyers for pursuing the interests of justice, protecting the sailors’ rights. The general appreciated their examples of dedication to “protecting and defending our Constitution.”

  He added that in the face of some opposition, he allowed these charges to go forward because “I truly believe that the best process known for uncovering the truth, when the facts are contested, is that process which is found in our adversarial justice system.”

  In the general’s view, “There is no better way to discover the truth than by presenting evidence to an unbiased panel of members, having witnesses testify under oath, and having that testimony subject to vigorous cross-examination.”

  He concluded with a high-handed overview: “Incidents such as these carry strategic implications for US forces and US National Security, and ultimately cost the lives of Americans. I will continue to take allegations such as this seriously, investigating them whenever they are brought to my attention, and acting on them when the evidence so dictates.”

  He greatly looked forward to the SEALs returning to their Team “and continuing their duties in defending our great nation.”

  A lieutenant colonel for SOCCENT added, “General Cleveland is satisfied that the military justice process has been executed fairly, and that thorough due process was carried out during these trial proceedings.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” said one of the three SEALs (forbidding his name to be used on pain of death). “Thank God he didn’t take it lightly. Now he’s not only satisfied, but he maintained good order and discipline. Wow!”

  The general might have received more universal acclaim had he said what most people thought, something like, “Sorry I authorized the blow-out of over two million dollars of taxpayers’ money on these three trials. And I will never again accept the known lies of a rabid Iraqi terrorist against the words of my decorated US Navy SEALs. I accept my shuddering limitations in this instance.”

  That would have been acceptable. As it was, the US military was not applauded for its actions in court-martialing their own heroes; instead, it left many throughout the Navy and the general public with a very bad taste in their mouth, and it led many active personnel to resign from the Dark Blue branch of the armed forces.

  And the Butcher of Fallujah, Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi?

  The Iraqi authorities hanged him for murder.

  EPILOGUE

  For several months after the trials Matthew McCabe and Jonathan Keefe tried to pretend nothing had happened. They accepted new appointments to join Team 10 on deployment in Afghanistan. But in the twenty-first century, for the fighting man, this was a sinister place, where death lurked menacingly around every inch of the dirt-brown scrubland.

  Insurgents, Taliban, and al-Qaeda were often unrecognizable. Friendly tribesmen turned out to be bitter enemies. Men whom the Americans had trained suddenly turned their weapons on their instructors. Nothing was what it seemed. The danger was never-ending. And US Navy SEALs needed to be always at the top of their game because they, above all others, were most often ordered into harm’s way.

  Matt and Jon realized at more or less the same time they were not able to produce their usual peak performance. Both men held platoon positions of immense responsibility. But that old hair-trigger reaction was missing—the lightning-fast instinct for danger, the sure and deadly aim-and-fire, the quivering antennae for the presence of an enemy, the instant grasp and communication of combat alertness.

  The two SEALs shared a mortal fear that someone would get hurt or killed because of
them. And both men strived to find once more that edge of combat readiness that sets a SEAL Platoon leader apart from all others. It was not a matter of fitness, as they both were tuned to a peak of physical strength and excellence.

  In truth, neither of them knew precisely what it was. But something was gone. Those courts-martial had, somewhat insidiously, invaded their Special Forces psyche. No two men ever tried harder to regain whatever it was they had lost. But they were somehow fighting for a lesser god.

  And it was no use, because a flame deep within them had flickered. It had not died; after all, they were both supremely well trained and dedicated special operators. But it would never burn quite so brightly again.

  Matt’s determination to become a SEAL officer was missing. Jon’s devotion to the cause was diminished. Those terrible months when they felt the US military had turned against them for no reason whatsoever had taken a grim toll.

  Nothing was the same. Long before they embarked on the big Navy transporter to fly them home from Afghanistan, they both knew it was over. They were two young men in their midtwenties who needed to seek out a new beginning.

  And they both allowed their US Navy contracts to run out without ever indicating they wished to re-sign for the fighting force they both still loved but could no longer serve at the supreme level they had always attained.

  By the spring of 2013 they had left the Teams. And even in these testing economic times, new employment was not too difficult to find. Half the country remained appalled at what had happened to them, so many a helping hand was offered.

  Matt moved to another part of the United States to begin a career in finance, aided by a major businessman who had been outraged by the court-martial of the young SEAL.

  Like many SEALs, Jon considered a position with a security firm where his SEAL training was regarded as near priceless against an irritating and ruthless twenty-first-century enemy. But three months later he was still undecided.

  It would be impossible to assess how great an effect those military trials had on the ambitions of other young Americans hoping to serve in the US Armed Forces. But there was an effect, and many elite personnel already serving began to look elsewhere, perhaps to a less harsh and less politically correct form of employment.

  Others, who were directly involved in the long legal battle to prove the three SEALs’ innocence, also experienced this sorrowful dying of the light. Lieutenant Jason, who on that night had stood shoulder to shoulder with Jon, blocking the rim of Al-Isawi’s stronghold, was severely shaken by the Navy’s action against his teammates and left the service to go to law school.

  Carlton Milo Higbie IV, who some thought might end up as a SEAL commander, also quit to pursue a career as a political writer.

  The superb Lieutenant Paul Threatt left the US Navy to set up a private practice dedicated to serving military service members. What happened to Jonathan Keefe affected him for a very long time. Threatt remained active in the Naval Reserves.

  Lieutenant Guy Reschenthaler also resigned, returning to his native Pittsburgh to practice law and admitting, “I love the US Navy, and I cannot say anything against it. But I can also say that the court-martial of Sam Gonzales played a large part in my decision to leave the service.”

  Lieutenant Kevin Shea, who had worked hundreds of hours with Lieutenant Kristen Anastos, preparing Matt’s defense, also resigned from the Navy to become a New York police officer, working Westchester County north of the city and close to his picturesque hometown of Nyack on the Hudson River.

  For Petty Officer Sam Gonzales, there was no life beyond his Trident. And he slipped back into his Team as though he had never left, still the dedicated and meticulous senior enlisted man, still a Navy SEAL to his fingertips.

  Brian Westinson left the Navy and returned to California.

  In July 2012 US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that President Obama had nominated Major General Charles T. Cleveland to be promoted to a three-star Lieutenant General, Commanding US Army Special Operations, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

  George Washington was a lieutenant general. So were Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, and George Patton.