Supporting the Constitutional and Human Rights of America's Bereaved Military Families

Lou Allen was a respected teacher, a father to four sons, and a dedicated soldier.

Lou influenced many young people as a physics and earth science teacher in Tuxedo, where he also coached soccer and softball. His wife, Barbara, said several former students became teachers or entered the military because of Lou.

 

He ascended the Army ranks quickly and became the operations officer of his company when it began to have supply problems. Before that, he was a tank commander. He enlisted long before the attacks of Sept. 11, but was adamant about staying in the service.

 

Lou was killed June 7, 2005, when investigators said an Army comrade intentionally detonated a mine inside the office where he was playing a board game. The man was later found not guilty.

 

Still, his family remembers the guy who could fix anything, who tied a New York Rangers flag around his neck and ran through the crowd to excite his fellow hockey fans. In 2010, the post office in Chester was renamed in Lou's memory.

 

SOURCE: http://www.recordonline.com/article/20120101/NEWS/111239965

 

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FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- A soldier was acquitted of murder Thursday in the 2005 bombing deaths of two superiors in Iraq, triggering loud outbursts and gasps from the slain officers' families.

 

A military jury found National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez not guilty of two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of Capt. Phillip Esposito and 1st Lt. Louis Allen. Both officers were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in a window of their room at a U.S. military base in Iraq in June 2005.

 

"He slaughtered our husbands and that's it?" yelled Allen's widow, Barbara Allen, moments after the verdict was read. Someone else shouted out that Martinez was a "murdering son of a bitch" before the judge quickly ordered the courtroom cleared.

 

The 14-member jury spent two days deliberating following a six-week trial at Fort Bragg, during which Martinez chose not to testify. The New York National Guard soldier could have faced the death penalty if he had been convicted. Read more...

 

SOURCE: AP File