His retirement follows the controversial court-martial of Special Warfare Operator Chief Eddie Gallagher. Green moved to withdraw Gallagher’s Trident pin, which signifies his membership in the Navy SEAL community.
Green in November ordered a peer evaluation of Gallagher, who had been demoted and charged with war crimes, including the murder of an ISIS prisoner of war and the shooting of two people in Iraq in 2017. Gallagher was acquitted of those counts but convicted of a lesser charge of posing for a picture with the dead ISIS fighter.
However, President Donald Trump intervened in the Navy’s judicial system to free Gallagher from pretrial detention and restore his rank after the conviction. Trump said that he was “sticking up for our armed forces” and that “there’s never been a president that’s going to stick up for them, and has, like I have.”
The apparent disagreement between Green and the White House fueled the controversy in the Gallagher case.
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