The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School Hosts its First Mexican Judge Advocate Student

MAJ Osvaldo Beto Martinez. (Photo courtesy of MAJ Osvaldo Martinez)

The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School Hosts its First Mexican Judge Advocate Student

By Fred L. Borch III

Many nations have sent their military attorneys to The Judge Advocate General’s School and The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS) over the years.1 Military lawyers from more than twenty-five countries have studied alongside their American colleagues. To name a few: Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Now, for the first time in history, a Mexican Army legal services officer, Major Osvaldo Martinez, is at TJAGLCS as a 71st Graduate Course student. This certainly is a welcome development, given Mexico’s proximity to the United States and its importance not only in U.S. history but also in current foreign policy. Major Martinez is amazed by the wealth of knowledge that U.S. Army judge advocates (JAs) have on different areas of the law to accurately advise commanders during military operations.

Born in Mexico City, Major Martinez earned his law degree at the Universidad Anahuac in Mexico City. Today, he is one of about 400 uniformed lawyers in Mexico’s Army of some 250,000 active duty personnel.2 While they do not wear the crossed pen and sword familiar to U.S. Army JAs, Major Martinez’s branch insignia is similarly comprised of crossed swords over a fasces: a bundle of rods with a projecting axe blade.3 The fasces was a symbol of a magistrate’s power in ancient Rome and has remained a symbol of legal authority throughout modern times.4

After graduating from law school, Major Martinez decided to join the army as a uniformed attorney. He says that “60 percent of the reason I joined the Mexican Army was because my father was in the army.” Major Martinez’s father, Major Guillermo Martinez Ramos, served on the general staff in the National Defense Ministry, and his grandfather, Colonel Guillermo Martinez Angeles, fought in the Mexican Revolution. As for the other 40 percent? Major Martinez says that was “because I needed a job.”

Major Martinez served his first JA role as a prosecutor. He has spent most of his twenty-two-year career in the military justice field, including a stint as a special prosecutor in an organized crime investigation involving drug cartels. Major Martinez also served on the Mexican Army general staff as a legal advisor on military intelligence matters.

Major Martinez’s wife, Maria de Lourdes Ancheyta Palacios, is also a JA in the Mexican Army. She recently promoted to lieutenant colonel and specializes in administrative law. About 20 percent of the attorneys in the Mexican Army legal service are female.

The Martinezes have a fifteen-year-old daughter, Lourdes Regina, who has accompanied her father to Charlottesville for the year. She is attending the local public high school and perfecting her English.

As for the future? Officer promotions in the Mexican Army are tough; one must take a promotion exam and then be ranked high enough to be promoted. Soldiers in the Mexican Army are eligible to retire after twenty years of active duty, at which point they receive 60 percent of their pay. Those who elect to stay for twenty-five years receive 75 percent, and soldiers who serve thirty years on active duty receive 100 percent of their pay for the rest of their lives. Major Martinez, who has already crossed the twenty-year threshold, has no plans to retire anytime soon.

In addition to his many accomplishments throughout his service, Major Osvaldo Martinez has made history as the first Mexican JA to study at TJAGLCS, and, when he graduates in May, he also will be the first Mexican JA to be awarded an LL.M. in military law. TAL

Mr. Borch is the Regimental Historian, Archivist, and Professor of Legal History and Leadership at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Notes

1. When The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School opened at its present location in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1951, it was known as The Judge Advocate General’s School, U.S. Army or TJAGSA for short. Fred L. Borch III, Military Legal Education in Virginia: The Early Years of The Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville, Army Law., Aug. 2011, at 1, 12.

2. 2022 Mexico Military Strength, Global Firepower, https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=Mexico (last visited Dec. 13, 2022).

3. Fasces, Britannica (June 9, 2017), https://www.britannica.com/topic/fasces.

4. See id.