Army Specialist Kyle Griffin was killed in Iraq on May 30, 2003. On Thursday, his father Ron Griffin wrote of his thoughts on the continued detention of the detainees at Guantanamo and their disposition:
As an American citizen, a veteran and the father of a fallen soldier, I cannot agree with closing the doors on Guantánamo and allowing the detainees to become criminal defendants instead of enemy combatants. Announcing the closure of this center, without a plan for what to do with the detainees, just doesn’t make sense. If brought to the United States to be tried as common criminals, these men will be afforded all the rights that law-abiding citizens have in this country. These are rights that I fought for and that my son died defending.
All Gold Star families — those families who’ve lost a loved one serving in the armed forces — deserve to know their children did not die only to have the people they were fighting given the same freedoms they were trying to take away from Americans.
Although it causes me great concern to think of these detainees being housed in the United States, it frightens me more that they will go to countries where their incarceration cannot be guaranteed. Several of the detainees who had been released from Guantánamo Bay are now missing or have rejoined the fight against the United States.
From suicide bombers in Iraq to the current deputy leader of al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, the list of confirmed terrorist activities by former Guantánamo detainees seems to grow every day. We cannot quietly stand by and allow those who killed our brave men and women in uniform to be returned to the battlefield, where they will undoubtedly continue their campaign against American soldiers and innocent civilians.