Yes, thousands of people are being killed in a war that is no longer making sense and the only thing that news people and their ignorant shock-seeking groupies can find to comment on is the irresponsible and (gasp!) “oh so terrible” act of one soldier. Next is the appalling lack of respect for life. Note the way the puppy had curled up his hind legs, this is instinctive behavior to being carried by the scruff of the neck by the mother dog. I was in Vietnam and I saw some things go on over there that would curl your hair.
In fact before he threw the puppy over the cliff he smiled and afterwards, he shrugged. It showed a complete lack of concern for any rules or regulations because throwing a puppy off a cliff is certainly against military rules barring some extraordinary, extenuating circumstance. David Motari was wrong. Also it shows a lack of discipline within the unit, I have to question whether the NCO had enough control over his men to even be able to effectively say anything.
What was wrong about it? Having served in the military myself, eight years as a Airborne Infantryman in the Army with the rank of Sergeant, I can find so many things that I am not sure where to begin. Frankly it was boneheaded all the way around. In fact if you want to see it follow to the reference after this article. Was it right? Of course it wasn’t, but, you can only put so much on a person and expect them to “act right”.
The puppy was cute and never did anything to any one. He was not at the Grand Canyon, he was in Iraq. What makes me sick to my stomach is that these so called “righteous people” act like this kid is standing at the Grand Canyon on vacation; went looking for a puppy and pitched him in. If David Motari has no more respect than this for this dog’s life, how much respect will he have for a human’s life? Even if, by chance, he does have some respect for human life, he has created the appearance that he does not.
Soldiers (and even Marines) are expected to operate under discipline. So far as I know, neither did any of the Marines with whom I served. Obviously they did not think this was a serious problem. In the video of L/Cpl David Motari, when he was holding the puppy up for the camera; prior to his throwing the puppy off the cliff, it is quite obvious that the puppy was then alive.
They served us well, in return for being fed and petted, they alerted us to suspicious activities after dark. Now let us get to the meat and potatoes of this incident. The fact that the Non-Commissioned Officer (Sgt. This act was entirely undisciplined.
Did my military training in any way stress prevention of cruelty to animals? No. Even so, I believed in protecting the men with whom I served. I spent 20 years in the military, 16 of them attached to the United States Marine Corps. What did stress prevention was the way I was raised, to have compassion and treat with kindness most creatures with which I came into contact.
Read the story about Charlie Company and how a village was destroyed however, these soldiers had just been caught in a mine field watching one after another of their own being blown to smithereens every time one of them took a step. The Marines with whom I served were honorable, disciplined, courageous and compassionate, as are most members of the Armed Services. If that meant taking the life of a human enemy, so be it. A 17-second YouTube video shows soon-to-be-former Marine Lance Cpl.
However, I have read a lot of garbage online about this event; about the names he has been called what should be done to him and the fact of the matter is the people calling for his neck are hypocrites and have their priorities screwed up. Regulations be damned, we often had dogs around and in our base camps. When this story and video first came out back in March of this year, I was dumbfounded, sickened and horrified that an E-3 Marine named David Motari had killed a live black-and-white puppy by throwing it off a cliff. David Motari threw a puppy over a cliff.
