Free Republic

Priorities: A Marine Corps combat veteran remains in a Mexican jail after missing a freeway ramp and crossing the border with legally owned American firearms — without a single hash tag from the White House. It is a tough time for veterans these days, starting with those left to die — or even commit suicide — while on Veterans Administration waiting lists, seemingly abandoned by their commander-in-chief who early on promised to make things right and redress their grievances. Also seemingly abandoned is Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, a 25-year-old combat veteran, who was jailed in late March after he missed a...

Jon Hammar saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, but his most brutal foreign experience was in Mexico. Last August, the 27-year-old former Marine corporal was incarcerated by Mexican authorities in Matamoros for trying to register an antique shotgun with customs agents. Foolishly, Cpl. Hammar followed instructions given to him by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Brownsville, Texas. He registered the gun with them and brought the paperwork to the Mexicans to get their stamp of approval in order to carry the gun through the country. Hammar and a friend were driving a Winnebago, hoping to have a nice surfing vacation...

MEXICO CITY — As a U.S. Marine, Jon Hammar endured nightmarish tension patrolling the war-ravaged streets of Iraq’s Fallujah. When he came home, the brutality of war still pinging around his brain, mental peace proved elusive. Surfing provided the only respite. “The only time Hammar is not losing his mind is when he’s on the water,” said a fellow Marine veteran, Ian McDonough. snip--- But Mexican prosecutors who looked at the disassembled relic in the 1972 Winnebago motor home dismissed the U.S. registration papers Hammar had filled out. They charged him with a serious crime: possession of a weapon restricted...

Just watched O'Reilly interview the parents of Jon Hammar, the Marine, detained in Mexico for a bogus gun charge. O'Reilly says he's going to give Obama and the State Department 3 days to get this done. Otherwise he says there will be "hell to pay"

Foreign Relations: A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan is chained to a jail bed for months after trying to register a souvenir rifle with Mexican authorities, and the Obama administration does nothing to correct this injustice. Since August, Jon Hammar, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been held in a notorious Mexican prison effectively run by the Zetas drug cartel. His crime: declaring to Mexican authorities that he was transporting an antique shotgun after registering the gun with U.S. Customs agents on his way to a surfing trip with buddies in Costa Rica. We can understand...

Former United States Marine (once a Marine, always a Marine) and Iraq War Veteran Jon Hammar endured much in his tour in the streets of Fallujah, but now he spends most of his time chained to a bed in a Mexican jail on trumped up gun charges that could result in twelve years in jail. Not surprisingly his former commander-in-chief Barack Obama has been absolutely silent on the matter, even though he was arrested on August 13. Didn’t anyone tell you this? Hammar took to Mexico with a friend to surf, as it was the only thing that seemed to...