SC - 20 officers and enlisted Marines face discipline after recruit suicide

[bluesneakers]

USMC: Day before recruit Siddiqui died, platoon mates ordered to beat one another

The day before Marine Corps recruit Raheel Siddiqui’s death, members of his platoon were learning how to throw punches — and being ordered to abuse one another.

...
That day two individuals — recruits, it appears, one of whom was almost 40 pounds heavier — were paired together for a punching drill.

“The drill instructors told (a recruit, presumably — all names and ranks are blacked out) not to listen for the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program instructor’s commands,” the document reads, “but instead ‘just to keep punching.’”

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The portion of the investigation regarding MCMAP — found under the “Training Environment” section — alleges drill instructors ordered recruits to perform drills “different” from those ordered by martial arts instructors.

It details several recruit injuries, including one recruit who was dropped on the seventh day of training “due to a 5th and 6th fractured rib [sic] sustained from Marine Corps Martial Arts Program training.”

And it states that one recruit was ordered by drill instructors on March 21 to keep hitting a recruit who was “‘out of the fight’” during a pugil sticks event.

 

[bluesneakers]

Marine Corps Recruit Identified in 2nd Parris Island Death

The deaths of two Marine Corps recruits at Parris Island in South Carolina during the past eight months have renewed calls for congressional scrutiny into the service's tough training regimen.

"The loss of a second recruit raises serious questions," Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, said in a statement issued in Michigan. "I am committed to getting to the root of this issue."

On Tuesday, Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Gregory Carroll identified the second recruit to die as 18-year-old Zachary Boland of Madison, Alabama, who passed away Nov. 4.

Carroll said Boland was found unconscious in his barracks bed around 8 p.m.

Carroll said emergency responders were called to the scene and they transferred Boland to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 90 minutes later.

And...

Meanwhile, Carroll said another recruit remains in critical condition after falling from a building Oct. 28. The recruit has not been identified, according to his family's wishes, the spokesman said.

"The recruit arrived at Parris Island on Oct. 24 and was undergoing initial processing prior to beginning recruit training," Carrol said. He fell from the second story of the recruit training center, the spokesman said.

 

[bluesneakers]

All Marines Ordered to Pause Operations to Improve Safety

All 184,000 Marines across the Corps will take a 24-hour pause from normal work activities within the next month as the service cracks down on needless death and injury and incidents of misbehavior within the force.

In fiscal 2016, which ended Sept. 30, there were 80 on and off-duty Marine Corps fatalities, according to the Naval Safety Center.

These figures include on-duty work accidents and aviation mishaps as well as off-duty car, motorcycle, and recreational fatalities. They do not include combat deaths, suicides and other categories. Stars and Stripes, which first wrote about the operational pause, reported that there had been 152 Marine Corps deaths in total during the fiscal year, and 53 had been self-inflicted.

"We are losing too many Marines to avoidable death and injury," Neller said in a message to Marines Tuesday. "We have a culture of combat excellence, but we have to guard against complacency and a lack of focus at home station."

 

[bluesneakers]

He’s accused of abusing Muslims training to be Marines. A military jury must decide his fate.

A military jury will determine the fate of a former Marine Corps drill instructor accused of singling out Muslim recruits and subjecting them to verbal and physical abuse.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has investigated 20 Marine drill instructors, officers and staff members amid allegations of hazing, assault and discriminating against Muslim recruits dating to 2015. Thirteen Marines already have faced some form of discipline, said Capt. Joshua Pena, a Marine Corps spokesman.

Felix was “drunk on power, and sometimes Fireball whiskey,” Lt. Col. John Norman, a prosecutor, told the jury Wednesday. “He wasn’t making Marines — he was breaking Marines.”

The first two Muslim recruits allegedly victimized by Felix were Ameer Bourmeche and Rekan Hawez, prosecutors said. Both testified during his court-martial that Felix and Eldridge put them into an industrial clothes dryer.

A third Muslim recruit who prosecutors say faced abuse by Felix was Siddiqui, who prosecutors say was slapped repeatedly by Felix before he jumped 40 feet to his death in March 2016.

 

[ATasteOfHoney]

Terrible and tragic.
We can do much, much better.