Category: Marine Corps

AW1Ed and Andy sent us a Washington Times link to an article about the Marine Corps backtracking on charges against Capt. James V. Clement for his part in the case related to Marines who urinated on Taliban corpses;

Defense attorneys for Capt. James V. Clement had won a judge’s order, over objections from Marine prosecutors, for two staff attorneys to testify in open court about how senior commanders had interfered in the case to get a guilty verdict.

The lawyers also were seeking to question Gen. James Amos, the commandant, and wanted access to his private emails.

But the criminal case ended Friday when Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck, who heads Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and was overseeing the prosecution, filed a brief court paper withdrawing the charges.

You might remember that Clement’s defense hinged on General Amos’ command influence preceding the charges being brought and so they wanted to see Amos’ email traffic between him and his staff in regards to the case.

“That email traffic would have revealed that [the commandant] and his lawyers had engaged in a secret, corrupt effort to rig and control the investigations and dispositions of the so-called desecration cases until Capt. Clement refused to submit to a corrupt process [of being] charged with crimes he did not commit,” he said.

Yeah, well, now we’ll never know, will we? Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck also ordered that Captain Clements undergo an administrative board of inquiry to determine if he is at all responsible for the incident. So it ain’t over yet.

The Washington Times reports that Sergeant Chesty XIII, the official mascot of the Marine Corps, is scheduled to retire today after his six years of service (that’s 42 dog years of service).

He once caused consternation among Marine wives, however, for snarling and barking at then-Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s golden retriever, Bravo, during an event honoring the Pentagon chief.

“Chesty was actually promoted after that event. He wasn’t promoted because of it. It was just a coincidence,” said Staff Sgt. Brian Buckwalter, a Marine Corps spokesman.

However, the incident, which showed his pluck, raised his stature among his fellow “Devil Dogs,” as Marines are known as.

Retired Gen. James N. Mattis once called Sgt. Chesty XIII a “kindred soul.”

His replacement, Private First Class Chesty XIV, has been in training since birth for his position and according to the Times, he just completed boot camp and will be promoted after he assumes his new duties to Lance Corporal.

The ceremony;

About twenty of you sent this link last night from the Marine Corps Times which reports that the Corps is opening up infantry training for female Marines, despite the fact that the only female candidates for the Officer School have failed the course;

“Female Marines will have the opportunity to go through the same infantry training course as their male counterparts,” the document states. However, as with the research involving female officers, “female enlisted Marines who successfully complete infantry training as part of this research process will not be assigned infantry as a military occupational specialty and will not be assigned to infantry units.”

It’s unclear whether any enlisted women have volunteered yet. Marine Corps officials were not immediately available to discuss the plan.

Only four female Marines have volunteered to participate in the Officer Course and I would thing that not many will volunteer for the enlisted course, and I believe that the enlisted side will probably graduate more females than the officer’s course can.

Women can get all “Hoorah” about it, but I wonder how much celebrating they’ll be doing when, eventually, the social scientists mandate their participation in the course and mandate their assignment to infantry units just to get the social point across.

The Washington Post reports that 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Cody S. Schoenfelder fatally shot himself while on guard at the Marine Barracks in Washington, DC Friday night. It looks like an accidental shooting as the result of some game called “Trust”;

Two D.C. police officials said Schoenfelder was shot inside a guard shack and there was a second Marine with him at the time. Investigators are exploring the possibility that a gun accidentally discharged as the Marines were playing the game “Trust,” in which one points a weapon at the other, according to those two officials and a third person in law enforcement, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

[…]

As part of the game, one Marine pretends to load a magazine into a weapon, points it at another’s head and says, “Do you trust me?” according to accounts in the Marine Corps Times. After getting an answer, the Marine holding the gun either pulls the trigger or lowers the weapon. Either way, there should not be any bullets fired.

The Times paper has reported on service members convicted of manslaughter and court-
martialed after accidental shootings. If Schoenfelder was killed while playing “Trust,” police say, something went terribly awry for him to have shot himself.

When a loaded weapon is involved, I never have any trust.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of the Marines who were court martialed for urinating on the corpses of their enemies. I’m petty sure that most of us were upset that the incident wasn’t dealt with as Non-judicial Punishment (NJP). Well, it turns out that was the recommendation of the original convening authority, Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, according to Business Insider;

Over the course of his investigation as convening authority, Waldhauser determined that the most suitable punishment for the Marines involved was nonjudicial punishment, which is less serious than court-martial.

But a recent statement by Waldhauser to the Department of Defense inspector general obtained by CNN details how Amos tried to influence Waldhauser’s ruling during a meeting in February 2012.

“I do not necessarily remember the exact words or sequence of what was said, but the [Commandant] did make a comment to the effect that the Marines involved needed to be ‘crushed,’” Waldhauser said, according to the statement. “The CMC went on to say that he wanted these Marines to be discharged from the Marine Corps when this was all over.”

After Waldhauser pushed back against the Commandant, he was removed as convening authority by the Commandant. So the conversation has become the basis for an appeal;

Capt. James Clement, has filed a motion for dismissal in the case, contending that Amos violated Article 37 and improperly influenced the case.

What’s more, Amos and his legal team allegedly sought to have documents classified that would have revealed his attempted unlawful influence over Waldhauser.

The Pentagon’s inspector general’s office is investigating so there might end up being some justice in this story after all. It was clearly an over-reaction to faux outrage in the media and the commandant complying with the misbegotten wishes of his political masters.

Thanks to Doug for the link.