Lt. Clint Lorance could be any one of us - Opinion - Stripes"...The hardest lesson I learned was that in a combat situation, sheer uncertainty stalks you constantly.
Amid that uncertainty, you’re forced to make instantaneous decisions with incomplete information, surrounded by chaos and under unimaginable stress.
A wrong call can result in tragedy.
To grasp the price of that uncertainty, consider the case of Clint Lorance — a 29-year-old U.S. Army lieutenant sentenced to military prison for ordering his men to fire upon Afghan nationals he believed were a threat.
The facts suggest the punishment rendered to Lorance is a stark injustice — and is a chilling example to all who have had to make tough decisions in complex combat situations.
Here’s what we know:
In July 2012, Lorance was a new platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division on patrol in Kandahar province with his platoon.
Three Afghan men approached the platoon on a motorcycle.
Believing the men to be a threat, Lorance ordered his troops to open fire, killing two of the men (the third escaped).
In a war zone, such stories are common.
What’s unusual is what happened next....."
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