Here is the story:  For two months this 23-year-old guy was allegedly having phone sex with a woman he had never seen before. The woman told the guy she was raped even though she was not. From her description, the guy thought that the rapist was someone who worked in the same company. So he reportedly kidnapped the other man and killed him.

Horrifying enough. Murder is always horrifying.

So why did I think that the crime was so much worse when I read that the 23-year-old accused murderer was a Navy petty officer? That the victim was a Marine returned from Iraq? That the telephone sex chick was the kind of woman who would wander around Oceana Naval Station collecting telephone numbers so she could randomly call military guys?

The addition of those uniforms suddenly made these events too disturbing for me. Because in my heart of hearts I think military people ought to be above all that.  They should be smart enough to know that no one should call you 50 times a day.  They should suspect that someone who is allegedly blonde, wealthy and willing to send topless pictures of herself is not on the up-and-up. Most of all they should understand in the core of their every cell that life is sacred, sacred, and that you lay down your life for another guy in uniform, not scheme to take his.

I don’t usually react to crimes like this in quite the same way. I try to be a realist. I accept that there is a criminal element acting in my world with malicious intent.  But I have trouble accepting criminal behavior from servicemen. I don’t know why.

It isn’t like the uniform is a leash or a collar. It doesn’t prevent people from being to vulnerable to the same jealousies, mental illnesses, addictions, bad upbringings and raging evils that slay the rest of the population. Servicemembers are not gods and heroes because of a couple of ribbons and a stripe down the side of their pants. Still, I expect more from them.

Maybe holding military folks to this higher standard is totally unfair.  My husband thinks it is demeaning when a criminal is identified as a military person, especially in a headline.

“Once they commit the crime they have stripped themselves of the right to be called a sailor,” he said when I showed him this story.  “Once you act against honor, courage, commitment you are no longer part of the uniform.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked him. “Do you really think that you can set aside the uniform just because they murder somebody?” 

“Yeah, I do,” he said. 

Well, I don’t. For him, the uniform is something that you have to earn and keep on earning. For me, it’s different. For me the uniform is something that your country bestows on you. It’s an honor. It’s a responsibility. You don that uniform and everything you do reflects back on it. You aren’t allowed to shed it just because you don’t believe it in anymore or because you never believed in it.

And I think that’s what adds one more thick layer of tragedy on any crime that a military member commits. The fact that once upon a time that person aspired to be a man or woman in uniform. They wanted to be a finer person. They wanted to be held to a higher standard. And they failed. In the worst way possible, they failed us all.