A US Army National Guardsman in Oregon was disciplined for posting a comment on Facebook fundraiser seeking to raise money to provide legal services to families separated at the border under US President Donald Trump's recently-reformed "zero tolerance" policy.
The guardsman said the families were "lucky we aren't executing them."
— Brandon Neely (@BrandonTXNeely) June 21, 2018
Maj. Stephen Bomar, a spokesman for the Oregon Military Department, told the Oregonian for a story published Friday that the "large outcry" the guardsman's comment generated brought it to the attention of his fellow guardsmen.
Since then, the individual has been punished, however Bomar did not specify what the punishment entailed. "This is a horrible thing that he posted, we all know that," he said. "It's unacceptable, horrific and doesn't reflect the values of our organization as a whole."
The national guard member, 21-year-old Gerod Martin, called himself a "young buck serving his country" on his now-scrubbed Facebook account. The young buck admitted to his superiors that he wrote the comment on Wednesday under a post about the viral fundraiser, which has $18.9 million from nearly 500,000 donors.
"Waste of money," Martin wrote. "They're lucky we aren't executing them."
If the past few years have taught us anything, it should be that social media is not a force one should reckon with. While the comment was also deleted, it was screenshotted and posted widely on the internet.
