It inevitably strikes many as contradictory when I say I struggle with the term “servant leadership.” It is, after all, one of our Corps’s four constants. But bear with me a moment. For starters, the term is not doctrinal. Perhaps it’s also the fact that the framework is credited to an academic in the early ’70s. That’s 1970s. Or maybe it is my discomfort that this is a label placed on something that current and past Soldiers have been doing since the 1770s!
News & Notes 2021 Issue 6
There’s so much human energy involved—so much courage, so much honor, so much blood—you could easily go a year here without questioning whether any of this needs to be happening in the first place. Nothing could convince this many people to work this hard at something that wasn’t necessary—right?
With the final withdrawal of U.S. forces from Kabul in August 2021, now is the time to examine the role played by judge advocates, legal administrators, and paralegals in the war in Afghanistan that began twenty years ago. Between 24 November 2001, when the first Army lawyer arrived in Bagram, to 30 August 2021, when the last judge advocate and paralegal specialist left Kabul, more than 500 members of the Corps served in Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and FREEDOM’S SENTINEL.
Besides being admonished by their leadership not to bother the wildlife and to ensure drip pans are correctly placed in the motor pool, most Soldiers do not concern themselves too much with the environment or the laws governing its protection. However, as the Army prepares for Multi-Domain Operations, environmental stewardship has become a matter of strategic importance.
The presidential pardon power has recently received both praise and scrutiny in the news for its use in pardoning individuals accused and convicted of war crimes. One need only conduct a brief internet search to find dozens of articles about former Service members pardoned for their role in committing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The amendments to the 2019 Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) not only broadened the crime of adultery to extramarital sexual conduct, but also added a second defense to the offense. In addition to the mistake-of-fact defense, legal separation is now an affirmative defense to extramarital sexual conduct. The legal separation must be “by order of a court of competent jurisdiction.” However, because legal separation is not recognized in every jurisdiction, not every Service member getting a divorce can claim the defense.
Editor’s Note: The Army reached a watershed moment in withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in August 2021. This issue of The Army Lawyer features short anecdotes and images from Judge Advocate Legal Services personnel who deployed to Afghanistan in support of operations from 2001 to 2021. The Army Lawyer seeks to honor those who have served in theater and capture some of the lessons our Corps learned through their experiences. Their anecdotes appear in chronological order.
Why submit an article about the challenges of defense article property disposition post-collapse of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) when one could write about more intriguing issues associated with all things Afghanistan? Fair question. Appropriations law and the National Defense Authorization Acts tend to be inflexible, black-letter law with no room for legal options.
Of the approximately 200-plus military occupational specialties (MOS) in the Army, the 27A MOS is the only one that requires a license to practice the law. Because of this specialized field of practice, judge advocates (JAs) are charged to deal with a wide range of issues in the Army, all of which involve communicating, negotiating, counseling, and advising.