An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service determined that the Marine acted in self-defense, within military law and the law of armed conflict.
Finally, our military leadership gets one right.
When your life is in danger, and the tactics of your enemy include acting dead and waiting to blow you up when you check on him to render medical assistance, then this sort of incident is going to happen. The Marine had a split second choice to make, and I’m glad that his investigators had the common sense to take the context into account.
When you have been in an environment surrounded by enemies that hide amongst people you are supposed to be helping and they all look the same, it’s not hard to make a choice like the one this Marine made.
If he thought his life was in danger, then he was completely justified. Thank the terrorists, insurgents or animals we are fighting for ensuring by their tactics that we sometimes shoot their wounded because sometimes, their wounded are just waiting to blow us up.
Bad things happen in war. People do things they regret. Human beings die. This is the nature of the struggle. Punishing our servicepeople for being human and wanting to survive would serve no good purpose.