A War Hero Is Vindicated – Again
By Patriots Blog | Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
By Arnold Ahlert (Archive) · Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Seven long years after he allegedly committed “premeditated murder,” Iraq war veteran Ilario Pantano, who gave up a comfortable life on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to fight for his country following the September 11th attacks, has been thoroughly vindicated. Thus ends a saga highlighted by an unconscionable rush to judgement by the military, and the subsequent trashing of Mr. Pantano’s reputation by leftists who never miss an opportunity to denigrate American soldiers based on nothing more than unproven allegations.
By any reasonable measure, Mr. Pantano is an American patriot. A man born to poverty in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, Pantano managed to win a partial scholarship to Horace Mann, one of the top private schools in the nation. Students from Horace Mann routinely qualify to attend some of the best colleges in the nation and Pantano was no exception. Yet he made himself an exception, putting off college to join the Marines to fight in the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein.
After that tour of duty he returned home, finished college at nights, and ended up working for Goldman Sachs. Thus we have someone who had served his country, re-entered civilian life and made himself successful. For most men, a tour of duty in a combat zone followed by the procurement of a good job and a promising future would have been more than enough reason to let “someone else” fight for this nation following the 9/11 atrocity. Ilario Pantano is made of sterner stuff. At age 31 he persuaded the Marines to take him back so he could once again take the fight to Islamic terrorists. [Read more... ]
