A motorcycle rally to support one imprisoned soldier has blossomed into a nationwide ”freedom ride” to support a group comprised mostly of Army soldiers who have become known as “The Leavenworth 10.“

On July 18, Scott and Vicki Behenna, parents of Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, informed me that plans were in the works to stage a motorcycle rally to bring attention to the plight of wrongfully-imprisoned soldiers such as her son, whose story has been highlighted in several posts at BigGovernment.com and is now serving a 15-year sentence for killing a known Al-Qaeda operative in self-defense.  Today, it appears those plans are coming to fruition.

“FREEDOM RIDE FOR THE LEAVENWORTH TEN” will originate in many states and culminate the morning of Sept. 4 in Leavenworth, Kan., according to the Behennas, and Army Lt. Col. Allen West, a congressional candidate from Florida, scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the event.

“The intent of the Freedom Ride is to bring awareness to how our soldiers are being imprisoned for killing the enemy during a time of war which one news commentator compared to ‘giving speeding tickets at a NASCAR race,’” the Behennas said in a recent e-mail. “These soldiers, serving multiple deployments, are provided complex and ever changing rules of engagement and then have to deal with untenable ‘catch and release’ policies against an enemy the U.S. military generals have yet to figure out how to defeat.”

Organizers are also looking for celebrity involvement in the ride to help increase the amount of attention paid to the plight of soldiers behind bars.

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By Bob McCarty and Carrie Fatigante

An e-mail Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell sent to Capts. Meghan Poirier, Jason Elbert and Erwin Roberts — Army prosecutors all — just after 4 o’clock in the afternoon Feb. 27, 2009, should have warranted their attention for several reasons, but they opted to treat the information it contained in exactly the same manner as they had treated it when delivered in person a day earlier.

Largely as a result of the prosecutors’ decisions, Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna is now serving a 20-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted by a seven-member court-martial panel of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative.

Why should the prosecutors have paid attention to what Dr. MacDonell had to share with them?

For starters, they should have paid attention, because Dr. MacDonell is the expert witness in blood stain forensics they had flown to Fort Campbell, Ky. to testify in the case. Now serving as director of the Laboratory for Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y., Dr. MacDonell’s expert forensics career spans five decades and includes such high-profile and complex cases as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the case against O.J. Simpson. In other words, he’s no slouch when it comes to investigations.

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In recent years, I’ve published too many posts about members of the Armed Forces facing undeserved charges:

• First, it was the so-called “Haditha Marines” who faced trumped-up charges, thanks largely to idiots like Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) declaring them guilty before a mainstream media eager to paint them in a bad light.

• Next, it was Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna who was wrongly convicted of executing an Iraqi detainee, Ali Mansur, on May 16, 2008, and is now serving a 25-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

• Now, I’m following the case of three Navy SEALs facing assault charges related to their capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed.  Who is Abed?  He’s the alleged planner of the March 2004 ambush, killing and mutilation of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq.  The SEALS gave this enemy combatant piece of dirt a fat lip while apprehending him.

As my first investigative reporting effort related to the SEALs’ case, I offer six important facts about the case you’re likely not to read about in the mainstream media supplied to me by a source whom I cannot name inside the Pentagon:

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