Wife’s memoir recalls husband’s death, accused’s acquittal - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

Wife’s memoir recalls husband’s death, accused’s acquittal

“You murdered my husband, you piece of ----!”

The words shoot out of Barbara Allen’s mouth at Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez.

Minutes before, a military panel acquitted Martinez of two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of Allen’s husband, 1st Lt. Louis Allen, and his friend and commanding officer, Capt. Phillip Esposito.

The officers were mortally wounded June 7, 2005, in an explosion on Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Iraq. Martinez was the supply sergeant for Esposito’s company in the New York National Guard’s 42nd Infantry Division. He later was charged with the murders, accused of firing a Claymore mine through Esposito’s office window.

In a deeply personal new book titled “Front Toward Enemy,” Barbara Allen takes readers from the morning three solemn soldiers appear at her door, telling her four young sons that their father is gone, through the three years leading up to the acquittal.

She recalls the moment she learned her husband was dead: “If he is dead, I prayed, please let me die, too. ... As I look back now, I’m ashamed at how weak I was. Ashamed of being the kind of mom who would rather die than see her children through the devastation that awaited them.”

Allen teams with Esposito’s wife to see that their husbands’ accused killer is brought to justice.

They go to Kuwait to attend Martinez’s Article 32 proceedings.

“I was oddly nervous about seeing him. I wasn’t afraid of him, just terrified at what he meant. ... Here is the man who, fully aware of the effect a Claymore mine would have on those in its path, pushed the detonator,” she wrote.

Allen becomes frustrated as the legal machine drags on; she believes the judge, Col. Stephen Henley, is partial to the defense and that the jury selection is flawed; she says she learned after the acquittal that Army officials had rejected an offer by Martinez to plead guilty to the murders.

“This case raised important questions that demand answers: Is the military equipped to handle capital cases? ... Are there other Martinezes out there, serving alongside someone else’s husband, father, mother, daughter, or best friend?”

But the gems are the stories of piecing her life back together and opening a new door.

“And the boys and I are running through that door.”