The deaths of Phillip Esposito and Louis Allen occurred on June 7, 2005, at Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Iraq.

Military investigators determined that the mine was deliberately placed in the window and detonated to kill Esposito and Allen.

In 2006, two years before the trial, Martinez volunteered in a plea bargain to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a life sentence with parole; Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps and the convening authority, rejected the deal.

In April 2005, Sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar had been convicted on charges of premeditated murder and sentenced to death for the first incident, which took place in March 2003 in Kuwait.

Learning that Staff Sergeant Alberto B. Martinez, 37, had made numerous threats against Esposito, and based on their investigation, they arrested and charged him with two counts of premeditated murder.

[5] Martinez was later described in court "as a poorly disciplined and foul-mouthed guardsman who needed a special waiver to qualify for duty.

In addition, the Army arranged for transmission of an audio link of the two-day proceedings to West Point to allow other family members in the U.S. to follow them.

Colonel Patrick Reinert recommended a general court-martial for Martinez on murder charges based on the evidence presented.

On April 3, 2006, he volunteered to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a life sentence with the possibility of parole after ten years.

Lieutenant General John Vines, commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps and convening authority over the legal proceedings, rejected the plea agreement.

[8] The court-martial was held at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, beginning in October 2008, with Colonel Stephen Henley sitting as the trial judge.

During the trial, Sergeant Sandra Pelton, a 42nd Division cook, testified for the prosecution that Martinez twice mentioned fragging when he came through her dining facility a few days before the explosion.

[6] In 2009, a report in The New York Times revealed that Martinez had offered in 2006 to plead guilty to second-degree murder in an attempted plea bargain that was ultimately rejected by the government.

Another question focused on the alleged inflexibility of the military's punishment scheme, as the government had apparently rejected Martinez's 2006 plea on the grounds that Martinez would have been eligible for parole within ten years if sentenced to life, even after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the slaying of Esposito and Allen.

[14] As of January 2017, the Army has denied her request, citing the lack of a "nexus to enemy action" that would merit an awarding of the medal.