Here’s what the Times says regarding the 24th MEU:

“It was their first major combat operation since landing in March, and it stood in stark contrast to the events of a year earlier, when a Marine unit was removed in disgrace within weeks of arriving because its members shot and killed 19 civilians after a suicide bombing attack.�

What the Times fails to explain in this piece (but to its credit, did mention in a Saturday piece), is that the Marines in 2007 – WHO WERE NOT REMOVED IN DISGRACE by the way – have since been exonerated. And there never was any proof — forensic or otherwise — that 19 civilians were killed.

This is the kind of thing that shames me as a journalist (Far too many in our profession are too quick to publicly condemn – thus convict in the court of public opinion – and then fail to adequately retract the inaccuracies which have the potential of ruining peoples’ lives.) and boils my blood as a former Marine.

In a statement released Friday, Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Helland, commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, determined that the officers – including Maj. Fred C. Galvin, commander of Fox Company, Second Marine Special Operations Battalion; and Capt. Vincent J. Noble, special ops platoon commander — and the troops in the Marine convoy “acted appropriately and in accordance with the rules of engagement and tactics, techniques and procedures in place at the time in response to a complex attack.â€�

Galvin’s Marines were ordered out of Afghanistan – far too hastily in my professional opinion – pending an investigation that dragged on far too long, and in which too much political correctness and perhaps (based on my own personal musing) a bit of inter-service rivalry were infused: Not to mention the fact that the word of the locals, and a human rights group that was not there at the time, was considered more believable than that of the Marines. The locals, whose stories often conflicted with one anothers,’ never could come up with a firm casualty count (though U.S. Army officers reportedly made cash payments to Afghans who said they were survivors or members of survivors’ families).

Fact is, there is no proof – much less evidence – that any civilians were killed: No bodies or forensic evidence, except for that of the suicide bomber, were recovered.

“No civilians were killed,� says Galvin’s mother, Toni Galvin, who along with her family and an entire network of Marine Moms, have been fighting to get their sons vindicated in the public eye. “Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney took the word of the area locals. Yet many of our guys withstood nearly a year of interrogation by the NCIS [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] trying to get them to break.�

But truth can’t be broken.

Maj. Galvin, Capt. Noble, and the other brave Marines who have had to endure this shabby treatment after serving our country honorably in one of the world’s most dangerous places, are the true victims: These young men deserve medals and promotions. Why aren’t those Americans who say they support the troops demanding that? Instead, most Americans reading the Times on Saturday would have simply picked up the paper, read about a Marine unit being “removed in disgrace,� shaken their heads (wrongly assuming the report to be true), had another sip of coffee, and gone on with their lives. Meanwhile, Galvin, Noble, the other Marines wrongly accused of “overreacting� in a firefight, were hung out to dry.

Yes, the Marines were exonerated – as they should have been – which means they will not be sent to prison. But what about their careers? Their reputations? The one-plus year of hell they’ve had to endure? And what about the third-largest newspaper in the nation still reporting that they were “removed in disgrace?�

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.