Category: Marine Corps

HMC Ret sends us a link to the Marine Corps Times which reports that Gunnery Sergeant Geann Pereira will be awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for what he did when a coalition Puma Mk 2 helicopter crashed near where he was working at Camp Resolute Support in Kabul on October 11, 2015;

The first person he pulled from the aircraft was dead. Using a bolt cutter, he freed two others, but they were unresponsive.

After the first five to 10 minutes, Pereira realized that the helicopter was leaking a lot of fuel and some of the wreckage was smoldering.

“There [were] some sparks around — I can’t really say it was fire, but there were definitely sparks and a lot of smoke,” Pereira said. “Staying in there, it was just hard to breathe with all the jet fuel and smoke all around you.”

Even though he was concerned the helicopter could explode at any moment, Pereira stayed inside for hours because he could hear one person who was still alive.

“I could hear him yelling for help, saying it was hard to breathe in there,” Pereira said. “I just kind of stayed there with him.”

You should read the rest of the story at the link. Also, I found an article about him and his sister who was also a Marine for eight years;

There are numerous reasons why a young man or woman would choose to join the military. For Vineyard siblings Genainna and Geann Pereira, natives of Brazil, the decision to enlist in the Marines arose out of a sense of gratitude for all that the United States, their adopted country, has provided to their family.

Gunnery Sergeant Geann Pereira, 33, Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School class of 2001, is currently stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan.

His sister, Genainna Pereira, served eight years in the Marine Corps prior to leaving the service in 2010.

Hondo sends us a link from McClatchy that reports the Marine Corps new standards for physical fitness for all Marines cause most women to be eliminated from the program to include them in combat arms jobs;

In the last five months, 6 out of 7 female recruits — and 40 out of about 1,500 male recruits — failed to pass the new regimen of pull-ups, ammunition-can lifts, a 3-mile run and combat maneuvers required to move on in training for combat jobs, according to the data.

[…]

The high failure rate for women, however, raises questions about how well integration can work, including in Marine infantry units where troops routinely slog for miles carrying packs weighed down with artillery shells and ammunition, and at any moment must be able to scale walls, dig in and fight in close combat.

Well, that’s the way it should be – if men can’t pass the test, that proves that it’s an effective measure.

Before the standards test existed, those 40 men would have moved on to combat jobs, where they would likely have been unproductive members of their units, a Marine Corps analysis said. So [Marine Commandant Gen. Robert] Neller said that as time goes on, the overall quality of the force will be better.

But it won’t make the social justice warriors happy.

If two women qualify, they will be placed in a combat unit together. But, if only one qualifies, she’ll be put in a unit with men she trained alongside in school. Those men, the Marine Corps said, will have seen her go through the training and know that she had done as well, or better, than they did.

The Marines will also put a female officer and a female senior enlisted leader in the combat units. Early on, those will likely be women doing a non-combat job — such as an intelligence or logistics officer. And they will be required to pass a physical fitness test to qualify to serve in that combat unit.

The Marine Corps seems to be doing the best they can do with what they’re given. I don’t expect it to continue, though, through no fault of the Marines’ leadership.

Our friends at We Are the Mighty tell the story of former Marine Imran Yousuf, reportedly a bouncer at the Pulse night club in Orlando. He’s being credited by Orlando police with saving 70 people from the gunman on Sunday morning;

“You could just tell it was a high caliber,” Yousuf told CBS. He saw the patrons were frozen in fear and that no one was moving to open a nearby door.

“There was only one choice — either we all stay there and we all die, or I could take the chance,” Yousuf said, “and I jumped over to open that latch and we got everyone that we can out of there.”

From the Marine Corps Times;

“There are a lot of people naming me a hero and as a former Marine and Afghan veteran I honestly believe I reacted by instinct,” he wrote on Monday. “I have lost a few of my friends that night which I am just finding out about right now and while it might seem that my actions are heroic I decided that the others around me needed to be saved as well and so I just reacted.”

While he appreciates the support he has received, Yousuf stressed that people should focus on the victims’ families, not him, he wrote.

From CBS News;

Yousuf, a 24-year-old Hindu, served as a U.S. Marine in Afghanistan. On Saturday night, the combat zone followed him to Orlando.

[…]

“I wish I could have saved more to be honest,” he said through tears. “There are a lot of people that are dead …there are a lot of people that are dead.”

Before the interview, Yousuf told CBS News he hadn’t really processed all the lives lost. But, once the combat vet started talking about it, the tears kept coming.

Thanks to Tom for the link.

Richard sends us a link to the Marine Corps Times about Retired Marine Master Sergeant Rodney Buentello who was enjoying the day at a picnic with his family near San ANtonio, Texas when a teen was illegally walking on a dam. She lost her footing and fell into the water. Another teen jumped in to save her. The rushing water swept both of them away, until Master Sergeant Buentello involved himself and he dived in to rescue them both. Unfortunately, Buentello was swept up in the current and it cost him his life.

Pascual Gonzales with the San Antonio-area school district said Buentello was hired as an instructional assistant at John Jay High School in San Antonio in 2013. He resigned from the school on good terms last month.

Gonzales said Buentello was also a former student at John Jay.

In addition to Beyond being a decorated Marine and educator, Buentello was described as a family man.

No greater love….

The Dallas Morning News says that he had multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and two Purple Hearts.

Bobo and Marine_7002 send us the link to the news that Colonel Paul D. Cucinotta the Recruit Training Regiment commander at Parris Island, SC was fired by his commander, Major General James W. Lukeman, commanding general of Training and Education Command at Quantico, Virginia. Lukeman says that he “lost confidence” in Cucinotta’s ability to command Marine Corps boot camp because of the death of Raheel Siddiqui, 20, a Pakistani-American Marine recruit.

Siddiqui arrived at the depot March 7, and fell 40 feet to his death after running out of a squad bay and jumping over a stairwell railing, family members have said. He had just been revived after fainting during a military drill. A lawyer representing the Siddiqui family, Nabih Ayad, told the Detroit Free Press that an instructor “smacked” Siddiqui to revive him. He had threatened to commit suicide early in recruit training, but was returned to training after committing to becoming a Marine, family members said.

The article says that the investigation is continuing, but I guess the Congressmen involved in the case needed a victim sooner rather than later and Cucinotta was available.

CWORet. sends us this story of four Marines who went through training and the Vietnam War together. Their lives diverged after their return and then they decided to get together and recreate the 50-year-old picture above. You should go read the story at the link.

I’m on my way to the clinic in Morgantown for today, so you probably won’t see much from me.

Chief Tango and Bobo send us links to the story that the 30th woman to attempt the Marine Infantry Officer Course dropped this week after she didn’t complete two hikes – one was nine miles. She has recycled to the Marines Awaiting Training (MAT) Platoon and she gets to start again in July along with the males who were dropped and chose to try again. The unnamed Woman Marine made it 11 days into the training out of 84 days – further than any of her predecessors.

Secretary Ray Mabus has said that he won’t lower the standards, well, unless he lowers the standards of the military training for anyone. From the Military Times;

“I will never lower standards,” Mabus said during an April 12 town hall at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. “Let me repeat that: Standards will not be lowered for any group! Standards may be changed as circumstances in the world change, but they’ll be changed for everybody.”

So, basically, the standards will change eventually. I wonder how they can justify all of this mental masturbation seein’s how half of the Marine Corps’ aircraft can’t get off the ground.

Mabus still hasn’t told us how this will help the USMC kill our enemies better.

Meanwhile, the Army announces that Captain Kristen Griest, one of the women who completed Ranger training last year will be it’s first female infantry officer when she graduates from the Maneuver Captain’s Career Course on Thursday and earns her blue cord.

The blue cord doesn’t piss me off. It’s knowing that some poor Captain who has been eating dirt and shit for the last five years as an infantry platoon leader, special platoon leader and as an infantry company XO is going to get bumped from his company command so the Pentagon can show the SJWs how diversity-minded they are.