Latest news with #Army
Leader Live
an hour ago
- General
- Leader Live
Flintshire Council raises flag to mark Armed Forces Day
The ceremony took place at Ty Dewi Sant in Ewloe, with council chairman Councillor Mel Buckley, Armed Forces Champion Councillor David Evans, Captain Wyn Evans from the Reserves, and Army Cadets all in attendance. They gathered to mark Armed Forces Day and to recognise the dedication of service personnel, past and present. Cllr Buckley said: "The UK Armed Forces defend the country and its interests. "Every day of the year they are busy working around the world, promoting peace, delivering aid, tackling drug smugglers, providing security and fighting terrorism. "Armed Forces Day is a chance to show our support for the people who make up the Armed Forces community: from currently serving troops to service families, veterans and cadets. "We are proud to fly the flag which symbolises our support for the Armed Forces and an opportunity to show thanks in recognition of the sacrifices made by members of our armed forces, whether past or presently serving." READ MORE: How much money Flintshire Council has been given to remove chewing gum from streets The council will reaffirm its support by re-signing the Armed Forces Covenant at its July meeting. This pledge aims to ensure that service members and their families are treated fairly and not disadvantaged because of their service. National Armed Forces Day Wales will be held on June 28 and hosted by Monmouthshire County Council.
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Army Captain rapist has "unduly lenient" prison term increased by two years
An Army captain who raped a woman he met through a dating app has had an extra two years added on to his sentence. An army officer who raped a woman he met on a popular dating app has had an extra two years added on to his prison sentence. Scotland's most senior prosecutor Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC had appealed the the four and-a-half years given to Calum MacGregor, 30, for attacking a woman in her own home claiming that the original sentence was too lenient. Now three court appeal judges Lord Beckett, Lord Doherty and Lord Armstrong increased the prison term to six years and six months. MacGregor, a member of the Royal Engineers, pounced on his 28 year old victim in December 2021 after meeting her on a dating app. He was convicted in January this year following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh and sentenced the following month. The army officer claimed during his three day trial that any sexual contact had been consensual. An impact statement provided by the victim said she continues to suffer flashbacks and to see a psychologist following the rape on December 14, 2021. She has also been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, become afraid of the dark, and was unable to work for six months. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. Laura Buchan, Deputy Crown Agent, said yesterday: 'Prosecutors have a responsibility to consider appeals based upon undue leniency in sentencing. Such appeals are rare. 'Today's decision to increase Calum MacGregor's sentence for rape provides public reassurance that the impact of sexual offences on victims will be acknowledged by those in the criminal justice system." MacGregor had contacted his victim on Hinge before meeting her in Edinburgh for dinner and then going to her address for a soft drink before the attack took place. He was found guilty of pushing the woman on to a bed, kissing her body, seizing her wrists, restraining her, repeatedly grabbing her breasts, removing her clothing and underwear, carrying out sex acts on her and raping her. The court heard that Calum McGregor was a first offender and had studied philosophy at St Andrews University where he was in the Officer Training Corps before joining the Army. He has served his country at home and abroad and had an exemplary record but would be thrown out as a result of his conviction. Before sentencing the trial judge Alison Stirling was provided with supporting references including one from a superior officer. His name was also been added to the sex offenders register indefinitely. The appeal against MacGregor's sentence was heard in Edinburgh earlier this month. The Lord Advocate then claimed that the trial judge had failed to recognise the true gravity of the offence and given undue weight to personal mitigation given on MacGregor's behalf. Yesterday in a written judgement Lord Beckett said:"In all the circumstances a sentence of imprisonment for four years and six months was unduly lenient. We impose a sentence of imprisonment for six years and six months."
Los Angeles Times
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. Army veteran with Purple Heart self-deports to South Korea under threat of deportation
An Army veteran who grew up in Van Nuys and was awarded a Purple Heart self-deported to South Korea this week as he was threatened with being detained and deported by federal immigration forces. On Monday, veteran Sae Joon Park, who legally immigrated from South Korea when he was seven years old, grew up in Koreatown and the San Fernando Valley and held a green card, flew back to his homeland under threat of deportation at the age of 55. He said he is being forced to leave because of drug convictions nearly two decades ago that he said were a response to the PTSD he suffered after being shot during military action in Panama. 'It's unbelievable. I'm still in disbelief that this has actually happened,' Park said in a phone interview from Incheon early Wednesday morning. 'I know I made my mistakes … but it's not like I was a violent criminal. It's not like I'm going around robbing people at gunpoint or hurting anyone. It was self-induced because of the problems I had.' Asked to comment on Park, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Park has an 'extensive criminal history' and has been given a final removal order, with the option to self-deport. Park said he suffered from PTSD and addiction in the aftermath of being wounded when he was part of the U.S. forces that invaded Panama in 1989 to depose the nation's de facto leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. But now Park, a legal immigrant, is targeted by federal authorities in President Trump's recent immigration raids that have prompted widespread protests in Los Angeles and across the nation. Federal authorities have arrested more than 1,600 immigrants for deportation in Southern California between June 6 and 22, according to DHS. A noncitizen is eligible for naturalization if they served honorably in the U.S. military for at least a year. Park served less than a year before he was wounded and honorably discharged. Since 2002, over 158,000 immigrant service members have become U.S. citizens. As of 2021, the Department of Veteran Affairs and DHS are responsible for tracking deported veterans to make sure they still have access to VA benefits. Park's parents divorced when he was a toddler, and his mother immigrated from South Korea to the United States. He followed her a year later. They first lived in Koreatown, moved to Panorama City and then Van Nuys. He graduated from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks in 1988. Struggling at first to learn English and acclimate with his classmates, he eventually became part of the Southern California skateboarding and surfing scene of the 1980s, which is when television editor Josh Belson met him. They have been close friends ever since. 'He's always got a smile, a very kind of vivacious energy about him,' said Belson, who attended a nearby high school when they met. 'He was the kind of person you wanted to be around.' After graduating, Park said he wasn't ready to attend college, so he joined the military. 'The Army provided not only turning me into a man, but also providing me with the GI Bill, so you can go to college later, and they'll pay for it. And the fact that I did believe in the country, the United States,' he said. 'So I felt like I was doing something honorable. I was very proud when I joined the military.' Park's platoon was deployed to Panama in late 1989, where he said they experienced a firefight the first night there. The following day, he said he was carrying an M-16 when they raided the house of one of the 'witches' Noriega allegedly followed. He said they saw a voodoo worship room with body parts and a cross painted in blood on the floor. While there, he heard gunfire from the backyard and returned fire. He was shot twice, in his spine and lower left back. The bullet to his spine was partially deflected by his dog tag, which Park believes is the reason he wasn't paralyzed. A military ambulance was delayed because of the firefight, but a Vietnam veteran who lived nearby rescued him, Park said. 'I just remember I'm just lying in my own pool of blood and just leaking out badly. So he actually went home, got his pickup truck, put me in the back of his pickup truck with two soldiers, and drove me to the hospital,' Park said. He was then evacuated to an Army hospital in San Antonio. A four-star general awarded him a Purple Heart at his bedside. Then-President George W. Bush visited wounded soldiers there. Park spent about two weeks there, and then went home for a month or so, until he could walk. His experience resulted in mental issues he didn't recognize, he said. 'My biggest issue at the time, more than my injuries, was — I didn't know what it was at the time, nobody did, because there was no such thing as PTSD at the time,' he said. Eventually, 'I realized I was suffering from PTSD badly, nightmares every night, severe. I couldn't hear loud noises, and at that time in L.A., you would hear gunshots every night you left the house, so I was paranoid at all times. And being a man and being a tough guy, I couldn't share this with anyone.' Park started self-medicating with marijuana, which he said helped him sleep. But he started doing harder drugs, eventually crack cocaine. He moved to Hawaii after his mother and stepfather's L.A. store burned during the 1992 riots, and married. After Park and his wife separated, he moved to New York City, where his addiction worsened. 'It got really bad. It just got out of control — every day, every night, all day — just smoking, everything,' Park said. One night, in the late 2000s, he was meeting his drug dealer at a Taco Bell in Queens when police surrounded his car, and the dealer fled while leaving a large quantity of crack in his glove compartment, Park said. A judge sent Park to rehab twice, but he said he was not ready to get sober. 'I just couldn't. I was an addict. It was so hard for me to stay clean. I'd be good for 30 days and relapse,' he said. 'I'd be good for 20 days and relapse. It was such a struggle. Finally, the judge told me, 'Mr. Park, the next time you come into my courtroom with the dirty urine, you're gonna go to prison.' So I got scared.' So Park didn't return to court, drove to Los Angeles and then returned to Hawaii, skipping bail, which is an aggravated felony. 'I did not know at the time jumping bail was an aggravated felony charge, and combined with my drug use, that's deportable for someone like me with my green card,' he said. U.S. Marshals were sent looking for Park, and he said once he heard about this, he turned himself in in August 2009, because he didn't want to be arrested in front of his two children. He served two years in prison and said immigration officials detained him for six months after he was released as he fought deportation orders. He was eventually released under 'deferred action,' an act of prosecutorial discretion by DHS to put off deportation. Every year since, Park was required to check in with federal officials and show that he was employed and sober. Meanwhile, he had sole custody of his two children, who are now 28 and 25. He was also caring for his 85-year-old mother, who is in the early stages of dementia. During his most recent check-in, Park was about to be handcuffed and detained, but immigration agents placed an ankle monitor on him and gave him three weeks to get his affairs in order and self-deport. He is not allowed to return to the United States for 10 years. He worries he will miss his mother's passing and his daughter's wedding. 'That's the biggest part. But … it could be a lot worse too. I look at it that way also,' Park said. 'So I'm grateful I made it out of the United States, I guess, without getting detained.' 'I always just assumed a green card, legal residency, is just like having citizenship,' he added. 'I just never felt like I had to go get citizenship. And that's just being honest. As a kid growing up in the United States, I've always just thought, hey, I'm a green card holder, a legal resident, I'm just like a citizen.' His condition has spiraled since then. 'Alright. I'm losing it. Can't stop crying. I think PTSD kicking in strong,' Park texted Belson on Thursday. 'Just want to get back to my family and take care of my mother ... I'm a mess.' Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Valor may not expire, but award recognition should have limits
On June 12, Rep. Darrel Issa, R-Calif., introduced the Valor Has No Expiration Act, which would waive time limitations for military decorations since January 1940 if underlying records were 'classified, withheld from the public record due to sensitivity, or redacted for national security purposes.' He claimed this expanded on a 1996 law which waived the statute of limitations for personnel carrying out intelligence duties from 1940-1990. According to Issa, his bill 'removes this arbitrary end date and expands the criteria.' The inspiration was retired Navy Capt. Royce Williams, whose Korean War dogfight was allegedly classified for decades, making him 'ineligible for the Medal of Honor.' When the Medal of Honor was authorized in the Civil War, there were no time restrictions or evidentiary requirements. This proved disastrous for the Army, the service that eventually proposed time limitations on the medal. Most Civil War Medals of Honor from the Army were recommended decades late, which the Army referred to as an 'embarrassing abuse' as hundreds of veterans petitioned for the medal 'without any sound documentation.' The Army referred the matter to the attorney general, who in 1892 ruled that medals should be based on 'official reports,' not 'unofficial evidence [after decades of] unexplained delay.' In 1897, Secretary of War Russell Alger published regulations limiting medal recommendations to within one year of qualifying actions. In 1901, Secretary of War Elihu Root proposed a three-year award limit, since Civil War medal recommendations were taking 'most of the time and attention of the Department.' Congress finally passed Root's statute of limitations in 1918 for the Army, and 1919 for the Navy, fixing the Army's awarding of the Medal of Honor and service crosses at three years, and the Navy's at five years. These were standardized a century later. Congress originally waived time limitations for most military awards via time-consuming private bills. In 1996, Congress required military departments to first review stale medal submissions. If endorsed by the military, Congress considered waivers for the defense bill. This was no rubber stamp; waivers applied to 'appropriate' cases deemed not to be 'an undue administrative burden.' Issa claims that his bill removes an 'arbitrary end date' for the 1996 waiver for 'intelligence activities,' and extends it to cases impacted by classification. This misunderstands the earlier law, which required submission of stale cases within 30 days of passage. Unlike the intelligence waiver, the Valor Has No Expiration Act has no future time limitation, meaning that it is a standing waiver. Further, Issa misquoted the 1996 law, and also confused the name of the Medal of Honor, which he referred to as the 'Congressional Medal of Honor.' Issa claims his bill is necessary to prevent denials like that of Capt. Williams, who he alleges was denied the Medal of Honor due to record classification. However, Williams' case is inapposite, since it appears his defect was not classified records, but rather that official records contained no mention of his dogfight. After all, the Navy reviewed Williams' case in 2022 and determined that his valor fell below the Medal of Honor, presumably after reviewing previously classified records. Issa and others have repeatedly introduced bills to authorize Williams the Medal of Honor since 2023. This suggests that the purpose of the Valor Has No Expiration Act is not to benefit other veterans, but rather to grant Williams another reconsideration. Repeated waiver submissions ignore that the Navy reviewed Williams for this action twice, resulting in a Navy Cross that Issa called 'an appropriate recognition' of Williams' heroism. Public law permits stale case reconsideration only once, not an unlimited number of times. The intent of this process is to pass a waiver if both the department and Congress agree on the merits, not for Congress to pass waivers to pressure the military. No evidence suggests a need for this waiver. The bill is also vague, applying to all cases where records 'were classified, withheld from the public record due to sensitivity, or redacted for national security purposes.' Since the waiver applies to all claimants since 1940, and since most modern military operations require some manner of redaction or classification, this would make tens of millions of veterans eligible for award reconsideration. This would overwhelm the military and simultaneously permit them to award stale medals with a mere report to Congress, significantly reducing oversight. The present administration has apparently awarded only one medal falling under this statute of limitations, a stale Distinguished Service Cross awarded to retired Sgt. Maj. Eric Geressy. The Army requested no waiver from Congress as required, which apparently makes the award unlawful. This seemingly justifies strengthening oversight of stale military awards, not relaxing it. If deserving veterans were truly denied valor awards as a result of classified records, then there should be a higher burden of proof to obtain a remedy. Further, any waiver of the time limitations should be discrete and tailored to cure the defect, as with earlier remedies from Congress. Dwight S. Mears is a retired Army major with a military background in aviation, military intelligence and strategic planning. He was commissioned from West Point as an aviation officer and flew and commanded in helicopter and airplane units, and subsequently was selected to return to West Point as a history professor. He earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School. He is the author of 'The Medal of Honor: The Evolution of America's Highest Military Decoration.'
Leaders
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Leaders
US, Pakistan Discuss ‘Durable Peace' between Israel, Iran
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio explored the ways of ensuring 'a durable peace between Israel and Iran,' with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a call on Thursday, according to Al Arabiya. 'The two leaders acknowledged the importance of working together to promote a durable peace between Israel and Iran,' the US State Department said in a statement. During the call, Rubio stressed that Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon. Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump unveiled a ceasefire between Israel and Iran to put an end to a war that began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran. Trump also held a meeting last week with Pakistan's Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House to discuss the latest tensions between Israel and Iran. Since Tehran does not have diplomatic relations with the US, a section of Pakistan's embassy in Washington represents Iran's interests in the US. Escalating Tensions On June 13, Israel launched a wave of airstrikes on Iran under the name of Operation Rising Lion. The military campaign targeted Iran's nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders and nuclear scientists. As a response, Iran launched a retaliatory wave of missiles against Israel and targeted Tel Aviv. Israel also killed several Iranian nuclear scientists in line with its goal to eliminate Iran's nuclear program. US Achieved No Gains In his first public statement since the announcement of the ceasefire, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared victory over Israel that targeted Iran's nuclear facilities on June 13, according to The Associated Press. The Supreme Leader also stated that Iran has 'delivered a hand slap to America's face' on Thursday by attacking the US base in Qatar. He revealed that the US intervention in the war was basically driven by its feeling 'that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.' However, the US had not achieved any gains from this war, he added. Related Topics: Erdogan Urges Permanent Iran-Israel Ceasefire, Calls for Gaza Truce US-Iran Talks to Take Place Next Week: Trump Israel Accuses Iran of Ceasefire Breach, Tehran Denies Short link : Post Views: 6
