Manning was a mentally troubled individual, who abused their access to sensitive documents and jeopardized national security, and repeatly attempted suicide. That's not a hero.
It's not my opinion, but I have several mil and ex-mil acquiantances and they were quite literally appalled when the sentence was commuted. Most of them are of the 'throw away the key' disposition, feeling that Ms Manning violated all her oaths and put lives at risk.
What would concern me far more is that although a lot of highly illegal activity was exposed by other leaks, Snowden et al not a single person to date has actually had any form of legal sanction to my knowledge. They may as well have not bothered.
Maybe the lesson is if youre choose to take such a big risk for a moral cause you need to take every possible effort to not cause collatoral damage along the way.
Yes, yes he did.
> All he did was violate his oath and the law, and for what?
Public service. It's pretty much the best justification for doing what you mentioned.