Former U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna has won parole and will be released from Fort Leavenworth on March 14, his mother, Vicki Behenna, said Wednesday.
Behenna, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone, learned early Wednesday morning and called his parents in Oklahoma City.
“We go between tears and laughing,” Vicki Behenna, of Edmond, told The Oklahoman. “I’m just so thankful. I’m just so very very thankful. It’s wonderful.”
Behenna, 30, has served five years of a 15-year sentence. He was convicted in 2009 of killing an Iraqi man connected to al-Qaida while questioning him.
This was his first year of eligibility for parole.
His parents, Vicki and Scott, and brother Brett appeared last month before the U.S. Army Clemency and Parole Board outside Washington and presented the members with a 400-page report that included a letter from Michael, letters of support from Gov. Mary Fallin and members of the congressional delegation and law enforcement officials.
The family told the board that Michael would work on a western Oklahoma cattle ranch and take classes at Oklahoma State University in ranch operations.
“They came and got him about 7:30 this morning and gave him a letter to read,” Vicki Behenna said. “The letter said his request for clemency (a reduction in sentence) had been denied but that his request for parole had been granted.”
He should have never been tried in the first fucking place. The slug he shot, Ali Mansur, was a known Al-Qaeda operative. Lt. Behenna has been betrayed by the Army and the country he faithfully served.
I was an Intelligence Analyst for the better part of my Army career. I served in Desert Storm and the initial phase of major combat in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I grew increasingly frustrated with the PC influence on decision-making, especially at the Defense Intelligence Agency, where I was stationed for two years before I retired. A touchy-feely approach to the enemy has no place on the battlefield.
I’d love to know what would possess the chain of command to free muslim terrorist thugs so they can pick up where they left off; killing U.S. Soldiers. Maybe they can explain that to the next of kin.
The conviction of 1st Lt. Behenna isn’t the only travesty.
Army 1SG John Hatley and two other Soldiers were convicted for killing the muslim terrorist cocksuckers who fired at them in an attempted ambush. The 1SG and his Soldiers chased them down and found their weapons cache, but that wasn’t sufficient evidence. They were told to let them go. They didn’t. Instead, they took out the trash.
The Army tried unsuccessfully to courts-martial LTC Allen West (now Congressman Allen West (R-FL), whose unwavering courage saved the lives of his Soldiers.
In another example of the military screwing its own, a SEAL team member was charged with assaulting Ahmed Hashim Abed, one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq, the mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. Evidently, the muzzie thug got a little boo boo during transport to captivity. He told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it. Who the hell cares if the little hadji got a bloody lip. I’d have probably made him eat the butt of my weapon until he crapped pieces of it.
This whole idea of prosecuting Soldiers for killing the enemy is just plain batshit crazy. What kind of war are we supposed to fight when our own troops are restricted by ROE that benefits the enemy and gets us killed?
Related article: