Metro Weekly

General Sheehan apologizes for “inaccurate recollection,” but not for disliking gay troops

”I am sorry that my recent public recollection of those discussion of 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues in the military. It is also regrettable that I allowed you to be pulled into a public debate. As a fellow Marine, I have the depest respect for you personally and professionally. NATO and the Netherlands were well served by your leadership. To be clear, the failure on the ground in Srebrenica was in no way the fault of the individual soldiers….”

Part of a letter from John Sheehan, retired Marine Corp General. It is addressed to Henk van den Breemen of the Royal Dutch Marine Corps. A week and a half ago, Sheehan outraged many in the Netherlands and in the US by testifying before Congress that Dutch leaders (including van den Breemen) had told him thousands of Muslims were massacred in Srebrenica due, in part, to the inclusion of gay soldiers in the Netherlands’ armed forces. Sheehan is steadfastly opposed to allowing gays to be included in the US armed forces, and his letter makes no apology to gay soldiers in the Netherlands for his harmful insult. (Dutch News)(Original letter)

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