The Army Lawyer November/December Issue 2018

Court is Assembled: Readiness, Technology, and the Law

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 16:21:00 GMT

Owen’s and McCollum’s dark, poetic memories of World War I (WWI) captured the horror of new weapons that drove treaty law in the years that followed. But not all new technologies that found their way onto WWI’s battlefields required new laws. On today’s battlefields, the continuous, relentless development of new technologies and weapons, and their employment to impose one’s political will on adversaries, remains the same. Today’s judge advocates face new intellectual challenges in addressing threats in a new domain—cyberspace.

News & Notes: The Most Important Classroom

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 16:12:00 GMT

On 8 August 2018, Lieutenant General Charles N. Pede delivered the following remarks at Somme American Cemetery near Bony, France, during a remembrance ceremony which was part of the World War I Centennial Commemorations:

Thinking Hard, Recommitting, and Reconnecting—the 2018 World Wide CLE

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 16:07:39 GMT

It happens every year—staff judge advocates (SJAs), regional defense counsel, and senior JAG Corps leaders across components gather at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School for a week of professional discourse and knowledge sharing.

Lore of the Corps: Judge Advocates in the Great War

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 15:21:44 GMT

When the Congress declared war on Germany and the other Central Powers on 6 April 1917, America’s Army was ill-prepared to fight what would later be called the “Great War.” After all, the entire Army consisted of 125,000 Regular Army Soldiers and 67,000 National Guardsmen along the Mexican border. Moreover, the Army was built around regiments; larger units such as divisions, corps, and armies existed only on paper. But, by the time what we now call World War I ended, on 11 November 1918—just nineteen months later—the Army had grown to 3.7 million, with two million men serving in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France.

Aubrey Daniel Honored with Distinguished Member Status

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 15:07:00 GMT

On 16 August 2018, The Judge Advocate General of the Army (TJAG)—Lieutenant General (LTG) Charles N. Pede—honored Mr. Aubrey Daniel with Distinguished Member status in our Regiment. Daniel, who served as a judge advocate captain in the late 1960s and early 1970s, is best known as the lead trial counsel in United States v. Calley. This court-martial, tried at Fort Benning in 1971, was the only successful criminal prosecution arising out of war crimes committed by Soldiers at the village of My Lai in Vietnam on 16 March 1968.

Up Close: On Target

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:49:00 GMT

Paralegal PV2 Emily Stith began shooting seriously when she was thirteen years old. In the six years since, she has medaled in five international competitions. She now has the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in her sights. We interviewed Stith recently about her interest in shooting and the challenges of training for the Olympics while serving in the JAG Corps.

Practice Notes: View from the Bench

Thu, 23 May 2024 20:39:08 GMT

We tend to analyze people and events by using assumptions to fill in the gaps. This tendency is exactly why Military Rule of Evidence (M.R.E. or Rule) 4042 and related rules exist. We so often judge others by context or past behavior that a logical check is needed to ensure that we move beyond assumptions, and consider the actual evidence at hand. Hence, M.R.E. 404 normally prohibits use of a person’s character or character trait to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character or trait.3

Contracting in a Deployed Environment: Notes from the 408th Contracting Support Brigade

Thu, 23 May 2024 20:33:40 GMT

In June 2014, Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a global caliphate from its ruins. Behind an international coalition of 60 nations, led by the United States, and a fighting force numbering more than one hundred thousand, the Government of Iraq liberated Mosul approximately three years later in July 2017. The Battle of Mosul marked the effective end of ISIS’s caliphate and heralded the movement’s eventual defeat in Iraq.

Rear Provisional Commanders Can Have NJP Authority

Thu, 23 May 2024 20:25:16 GMT

Buried deep in Army Regulation (AR) 27-10, Military Justice, Table 3-1, footnote 4, is this sentence: “Only if imposed by a field grade commander of a unit authorized a commander in the grade of O-5 or higher.”1 This sentence refers specifically to a field grade commander’s ability to punish noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in the grades of E-5 and E-6 by reducing them one grade through nonjudicial punishment (NJP) proceedings.

Initial Client Meetings: Creating the Roadmap for Successful Family Law Counsel

Thu, 23 May 2024 20:15:43 GMT

In fiscal year 2017, Army legal assistance offices saw approximately 116,000 cases. Of that large number, over 31,000 related to family law.1 That is 31,000 instances where an attorney meets a family law client for the first time. That is the equivalent of almost two divisions’ worth of complicated and emotional files. In some eighteen years of practice, both civilian and military, encompassing active and National Guard duty, I have seen initial client meetings take numerous forms. Further, in a former life within the corporate world, I was often a “client” as the litigation manager.

Book Review: African Kaiser

Thu, 23 May 2024 19:42:46 GMT

In African Kaiser, Robert Gaudi vividly details the masterful guerrilla campaign of General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, the only undefeated German commander in World War I.3 Von Lettow commanded the Schutztruppe, a racially integrated unit led by both German officers and African noncommissioned officers (NCOs).

No. 1: Cyber Warfare for JAs

Tue, 21 May 2024 19:52:30 GMT

In October of 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported Russia opened a new battlefront with NATO by exploiting a point of vulnerability for almost all allied soldiers: personal smartphones.1 The campaign targeted the contingent of some 4,000 NATO troops deployed to Poland and the Baltic States and involved sophisticated drones equipped with surveillance electronics.2

No. 2: General Pershing and his JAG

Tue, 21 May 2024 15:35:07 GMT

Thirty-five miles separate the northwestern Missouri towns of Edinburg and Laclede.3 Although never particularly populous, and located over 4,500 miles from the Western Front in France,4 this small geographic area retains distinction for the 1859 and 1860 birthplaces of Major General (MG) Enoch H. Crowder and General of the Armies (GEN) John J. Pershing.5

No. 3: Ops and Interoperability

Tue, 21 May 2024 15:02:01 GMT

From 28–30 May 2018, LTG Charles N. Pede, The Judge Advocate General (TJAG), U.S. Army, hosted nearly fifty multinational senior military lawyers at the 4th Major General John L. Fugh Symposium on Law and Military Operations (Fugh Symposium) and the Multinational Judge Advocate General Interoperability Symposium (MJIS). The biennial symposia convened at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia. The events invited the most senior military legal officials and law of war experts from around the world to exchange views on current and emerging legal issues in the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).

No. 4: Developing Regionally-Focused Leaders

Tue, 21 May 2024 14:34:07 GMT

Never has the U.S. military been more reliant upon strategic partners for mission success. Operations and readiness requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Eastern Europe, and across the contingency spectrum all rely upon the Army’s ability to cultivate and leverage interoperability with others. In this multilateral world, Army leaders are empowered and most effective when they are able to think and act with a regional focus in concert with allies, and when they learn to link military education and experience with partners—both long-standing and evolving—in new and different ways.

Closing Argument: Demolishing the Foundation of Five

Tue, 21 May 2024 13:57:00 GMT

The Army JAG Corps should abandon the Foundation of Five as a leadership model because it has no basis in Army doctrine, confuses the chain-of-command and noncommissioned officer (NCO) support channels, and de-emphasizes members of the organization. This unique leadership model describes a group of people at JAG Corps offices that serve in certain roles.