Word: girard
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...uproar over the case of Army Specialist Third Class William S. Girard, and whether or not he should be tried by a Japanese court for the accidental shooting of a Japanese woman boils down to a heated argument over the much misunderstood status-of-forces agreements between the U.S. and 49 friendly countries. Just what do the agreements mean, and how well have they worked in the past? See NATIONAL AFFAIRS, The Girard Case and G.I.s in Foreign Courts...
Last Jan. 30 Army Specialist Third Class William S. Girard, 21, fired an empty cartridge case from a grenade launcher to scare off several Japanese who were scavenging for metal on a U.S. rifle range near Tokyo; he struck one woman in the back and killed her (TIME, May 27). The Army insisted that Girard fired while on duty (technically he was guarding a machine gun between target practice sessions) and was therefore subject to the primary jurisdiction of U.S. military courts under the status-of-forces agreement. The Japanese held that because Girard did not fire during official exercise...
...Remember Pearl Harbor!" "For the sake of good relations between Japan and America we shall conduct a fair trial," said the Japanese chief district justice slated to try Girard. But the voice of Tokyo was soon drowned out by the growing uproar in the U.S. "Sold down the river," cried the Veterans of Foreign Wars; TO THE WOLVES, SOLDIER, cried the New York Daily News. In Girard's home town, Ottawa, Ill. (he lived there in the family trailer one year before enlisting in 1953) relatives and friends got up a 182-ft. petition protesting "a clear violation...
Soon letters were pouring into newspapers, heavily backing an American trial for Girard. Congressmen, from left to right, were hammering at the Dulles-Wilson ruling; e.g., Ohio's Senator John Bricker accused the Government of "sacrificing an American soldier to appease Japanese public opinion." Girard's defense attorney, who was recommended for the job by the Hearst New York Journal-American, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington to have Girard brought back to the U.S., announced plans to subpoena Dulles, Wilson and Army Secretary Wilber Brucker. The counterblasts were soon rolling in from all over Asia...
Countermanding Admiral Hubbard's decision last week, Secretary Wilson quickly received support from U.S. veterans' groups, criticism from the Japanese for his "lawless, wayward attitude." At week's end Girard was still in U.S. hands, and the "Somagahara incident" was becoming a rallying point for a swelling anti-American movement in Japan...